By Tom Berwick
What is sex? How do you know when you’re having it? If you put a notch in the bedpost every time you have sex, exactly what activities qualify you to get out your penknife?
If you’re a gay man, the problem is particularly acute, because dictionary definitions of sex all tend to start by looking at the “differences between male and female, and instinctive behaviour towards procreation driven by these differences”. Whilst my sexual behaviour may well be instinctive, it certainly isn’t directed towards procreation, nor does the gender difference between myself and my partners drive me, because there isn’t one. I once met a lesbian who accused me of being driven entirely by my cock: she even accused my musical tastes of being “cock rock”, which struck me as an odd way of describing disco, but perhaps she saw something in my collection of magnificent 12-inchers that I didn’t. What was odd was that she thought she was disparaging me by saying this. I didn’t bother to point out that she was (presumably) similarly driven by pussy, but perhaps I should have done. What I think of as “sex” she thought of as a rather disgusting piece of all-male wrestling, while what she thought of as “sex” struck me as a rather unappealing piece of rhythmic gymnastics – the sort of thing you’d see as a minor Olympic sport, but not something you’d ever consider doing yourself. Her “sex” was not my “sex”.
“AS SOON AS HE CLOSED THE DOOR OF OUR LITTLE ROOM, HE HANDED ME THE PADDLE, AND GOT OVER MY KNEES AGAIN.”
A few months ago I was in a sauna. I’d played around with a few guys already when I caught the attention of a blond guy, slightly shorter and stockier than me, and with an air of what Joe Orton used to call “rough trade” about him. Sure enough, he had a nice east-London accent, and the kind of cheeky smile that I always fall for. It didn’t take long before we were in a little room together, doing what horny boys do. I stroked him, he stroked me. I sucked him, he sucked me. I played with his ass, he… put himself over my knees…
“Oh yeah,” he said, “spank me.”
I gave him a half-hearted slap on the buttocks. He squirmed, and
“Oooh yes, harder,” he moaned.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yessss,” he begged, so, being a basically polite person, I did as he requested.
“Slap! Slap! Slapppp!!!” The sounds echoed slightly in the cubicle, and my partner ground his body against me. He was clearly enjoying it. I wasn’t prepared for what he said next, though.
“I’ve got a paddle in my locker. Do you want me to go and get it?”
There was so much enthusiasm in his voice that it would have been churlish to refuse, so I rather weakly said “sure”, then waited in bemusement as he scurried off to get it.
When he came back, he did indeed have a paddle with him. It was about 18 inches long, made of plywood, with rubber facings on both sides. It reminded me slightly of a table-tennis bat, only larger and rather more angular. My blond friend was clearly rather fond of it. As soon as he closed the door of our little room, he handed me the paddle, and got over my knees again (I was sitting on a bench against one wall). He was trembling with anticipation, and I could feel his cock, rock-hard against my legs.
As you may have worked out, spanking wasn’t something I’d had much experience of – it had never really appealed to me, though of course I knew that some people loved it – but when I was presented with a paddle and an upturned pair of white quivering buttocks I managed to work out what to do. It isn’t exactly rocket science.
Once I’d discovered that my spankee was quite happy to be paddled rather harder than I would have expected – he actually seemed to enjoy the harder strokes the most – I set about my task as best I could. My initial thought was that I’d only have to take a few strokes, then we’d go back to the (to me) more serious business of sucking and fucking. How wrong I was: the more I paddled my partner, the more excited he got, and the more obvious it became that for him the spanking wasn’t just incidental to the sex, it actually was the sex. He was moaning and groaning like the proverbial two-bit whore, and his hard cock was leaking precum onto my knees. There was no way he was going to want to suck me now; he was too far gone into a world where sex was defined not by a tingling of the genitals, but by the sharp crack of rubbery plywood on a rapidly reddening cheek.
I suppose there are books written by spanking fans that eloquently describe all the pleasures of spanking and being spanked. I don’t know – I haven’t read any. But what I can tell you is that, if you’re not into spanking, paddling someone else’s behind can get pretty tedious. After the first few strokes I was thinking “is this all there is to it?” to myself. I must have been doing something right, because cockney spanky-boy was draped over my lap mumbling happily to himself, but I was bored. I found myself making up little games, like “spank him in time to the hardcore house music playing over the speakers in the corridor” and “write out the letters of the alphabet in little spanks on his buttocks”, not to mention my personal favourite: “when you’re extra-specially bored, spank him extra-specially hard”. I played that last one a lot, until finally, after an extended period of exceptional tedium, I hit him several times so hard that he shuddered, howled out loud, and shot a huge load of cum directly onto my thighs.
We stayed in position for several minutes after he came, with him still moaning, and me rubbing his cheeks gently. Even in the dim light I could see that his bum was glowing cherry-red, but he seemed to be quite content. Eventually he stirred himself, and I saw him realise that I hadn’t cum. He hesitated for a couple of seconds, then made what was for him, I suppose, his horniest offer:
“Do you want me to do you, too?”
“No thanks,” I said, “I’m good.”
“Cool. Thanks for the hot sex.” And he was gone.
He was a sweet guy, and I’m glad I met him. We were totally sexually incompatible, of course, but that’s not the point. I’m glad I met him because, like my lesbian friend, he showed me that sex is a different thing for each of us. For me, the spanking wasn’t actually sex, but for him it most definitely was.
It would be nice to report that my encounter with that blond east-ender opened my eyes to a new sexual horizon, but I’m sorry to say that it didn’t. I didn’t mind it, and I’m glad he had a good time, but spanking didn’t do it for me. What meeting him did do, though, was help me work out at least a provisional answer to the question “what counts as sex?” It’s pretty clear to me that though blondie was having sex as the paddle hit his rear, I wasn’t. I was doing something, certainly, but it felt more like good manners than a hot sweaty fuck. “What counts as sex?” It has to be something that turns you on. For me, you’re both having sex only if you’re both turned on. Otherwise it’s just one person doing a favour to another, some sort of assisted masturbation. “Sex with someone else” has to be something that makes you both feel good. Well, that’s how it seems to me, anyway.