BDSM Spanking Guide: Tips, Techniques, and Positions for Erotic Spanking

Learn the best techniques and positions for delivering an unforgettable spanking experience for your submissive.

Spanking is one of the most widely shared erotic and kinky activities. Despite that, I also think it’s one of the most underrated when overshadowed by some of the edgier activities in BDSM. 

Spanking can be used in a variety of dynamics for different intentions including as mere erotic sensation, close intimacy, demonstrations of D/s power exchange, punishment, or even enjoyed as kink in and of itself.

It’s also easy to learn and doesn’t require any special equipment, making a great entry into BDSM without overcomplicating things.

Why do people enjoy spanking?

Like any erotic act, the reasons that people enjoy spanking contain multitudes and it’s worth exploring your own erotic mind to find out what it is about spanking that turns you on so much.

Some common reasons include:

• Feeling the dance between pain and pleasure: When your body receives damage or physical trauma, it uses pain as a signal to alert you that something is wrong, like a check engine light on a car. However, the body can interpret the same stimulation as pain or pleasure, depending on the subjective experience of the stimulation. So if you really want the spanking, it can feel quite pleasurable. Of course, you can also experience the dichotomy of pain and pleasure of mixing spanking with erotic touch.
• Psychological games: As people we long for intense physical and emotional experiences that transcend, differ, and break the norms of our everyday experience. A spanking experience may feel naughty, humiliating, erotic, cathartic, empowering, and many other feelings depending on the person. 
• Expression of Dominance and submission: Spanking may be included in power play and used for play or punishment, allowing the Dom to have power over the submissive and further reinforcing the dynamic.
• Spanking is a true fetish: For some, spanking is not just part of their play in their sex life, it is their life, where they are thinking about it all day, every day.
• Reaching subspace: Spanking, and other forms of impact play, are one of the most common ways that kinksters successfully reach subspace due to the cocktail of hormones that can be delivered from the brain during long spanking sessions. 

As with other kinks in BDSM, correlation does not create causation, meaning if someone was spanked as a child or experienced trauma it doesn’t mean they’ll be more likely than others to enjoy spanking in their sex life as adults.

How to give a spanking

Where to spank

Spanking is a fairly low risk activity in terms of physical injury, however it’s not entirely risk free if you’re aiming for the wrong spots. 

General guideline: aim for the softest, fleshiest areas of the butt and avoid striking near the bones. If you hit a bone, it’s only going to hurt your hand and their body, potentially causing injury to both. Additionally, the thighs and areas under the butt cheek can be tender and more vulnerable to skin damage, so hitting here should be done sparingly. 

Avoid hitting:

• The sacrum, the flat triangular bone at the base of the spine. 
• The spine
• The sides of the lower back, avoiding kidneys and other organs

Do hit:

• 70% of the time: the center, fleshiest part of the butt cheeks
• 20% of the time: right below the butt cheek where it meets the thigh
• 10% of the time: thighs above the back of the knees
• The sweet spot: the bottom inner quadrant where the curve of the butt cheek begins. Hitting this spot sends a vibration wave straight to the genitals, creating a very arousing sensation with each spank.

Note on marks: It’s worth mentioning coloration and bruising from spanking. It’s likely for the submissive’s skin to turn pink, red, purple, or other hues. However, just because the skin changes color doesn’t mean the submissive wants the spanking to end or that it will cause long term bruising. It’s quite difficult to tell beforehand how easily the sub might bruise. If unintended bruising occurs, you can apply an ice pack immediately after the bruises form, which reduces blood flow to the area and can diminish the size of the bruises. There’s also some evidence that arnica gel helps reduce bruises.

Best spanking positions

Spanking can be done in a variety of positions, each with its own feeling physically and psychologically. In general, the more tense a muscle is, the more it will hurt to receive impact. Keep this in mind while exploring spanking positions – go for one where the bottom can relax most fully into the experience (unless the goal is to induce more pain). 

Over the knee

The most traditional position, the Dom sits on a low stool or chair, and the bottom arranges themselves face-down across the top’s lap, with their butt centrally located. Most of the weight of the bottom should be over the sub’s thighs, not actually the knees. Keep in mind, depending on how far bent over the submissive is, the more taught the skin will be, and the stingier the impact will be. The position may induce a feeling of humiliation or helplessness, like a naughty little kid being disciplined. For the Dom, they are given full range of motion with their dominant hand and can use their non-dominant hand to caress the back, neck and head.

Modified over the knee

Similar to OTK, except the Dom sits on a bed or on the floor so the submissive can lay flat across the Dom’s lap. This position also keeps the buttocks round and relaxed, allowing them to receive more impact with less pain.It also allows for genital grinding of the bottom on the Dom’s legs.

On all fours

The sub gets on their hands knees while the Dom stands to one side, allowing for a more comfortable swing and making impact on the best parts of the butt. The sub can modify this position by dropping to their forearms or stretching their arms forward, putting their ass further in the air, and making the skin more taught. It’s the best position for creating easy access to the sub’s genitals, which can make the sub feel very exposed. 

Standing

Find a good solid wall to lean against and rest the submissive’s hands or forearms against the wall. Have the bottom tilt their pelvis towards you and push their butt way out, almost creating a shelf with their upper butt. The Dom can stand alongside and spank with one or both hands. 

Bent over furniture

Standing can be hard to maintain balance as the submissive is being striked, so instead you can have the sub bend over a piece of furniture, such as a table, stool, ottoman, or a couch, which provides some stability. 

Lying prone

Have the submissive lay face-down on the bed or floor, while the Dom sits to the side or staddles the sub’s thighs. You can use a pillow underneath the sub in order to prop up and round the butt for better impact. This position allows the bottom to easily relax while giving the top the ability to use two hands in a more drumming fashion. 

During intercourse

Reverse cowgirl is the easiest position for spanking during intercourse, followed by doggystyle. 

Best spanking techniques

Spanking is not overly complicated. It’s basically your hand or some tool hitting their butt cheeks. With anything in BDSM, I’m always an advocate of learning to use your hands first because you always have them with you (or I at least hope you do…)

Before we discuss a few techniques, here’s a few things to consider:

• Thuddy vs Stingy: Thuddy sensation is a deeper, more penetrating, blunter sensation. Stingy is more on the surface of the skin, and generates more heat and burning sensations. To create thuddier spanks, keep your hand in contact with their butt after you land your blow. To create stingier spanks, bounce your hand up quickly after impact.
• Protecting your hand: For the majority of spanks, keep your hand relaxed, fingers pressed together to support one another. Do not spank with your fingers splayed open as you have greater risk of spraining a finger (trust me, I’ve done it.)
• Louder spanks: Part of the thrill from spanking can come from the auditory experience of it. To increase how loud a spank is, curve your hand to maximize surface area and hit with more speed.

Gravity Spank

Keep your hand relaxed and fluid through the wrist, almost as if it were limp. Rather than putting a lot of strength and force behind your swing, use minimal force and let your hand fall on their butt from the force of gravity. It will be a light strike, allowing your hand to pivot on the wrist and fall into the flesh. You can gradually increase the intensity by how high/far away you let your hand strike from. 

Cupped Hand 

Press your fingers together and cup your hand as if you were going to drink water out of it. When you strike it will feel less intense and create less of a stinging sensation, making it a more gentle spanking. It can be more loud though.

Spank & Grab

Spank as you normally would, but after making contact with the bottom’s butt, grab the flesh in cupping or pinching fashion. If you're spanking with your fingers towards the sweet spot or the crevice of where the butt cheek and thigh meet, you can make an upward lifting motion as your grab.

Relaxed Fist

Make your hand into a fist with your thumb resting on the side of your index finger, not with your thumb under your fingers. Do not punch your bottom’s butt, instead use the same spanking motion with your fist rather than an open hand. This will create a more thuddy sensation.

Forearm 

Swing and hit your forearm across both butt cheeks at one time. The sensation will be more thuddy and feel like being hit with a heavy brute force..

Stiff Hand

Make your hand flat, more rigid and lock the wrist as you swing, creating a sharper and more intense sensation as you impact. The more force you put behind your swing, the more intense the sensation will be. It is not as good for the Top’s wrists and hands, so don’t use this technique for more than a few blows in a row.

Tools

A variety of objects can be used to deliver a spanking such as paddles, belts, hairbrushes, and wooden spoons. The harder the materials and the smaller the surface area, the more it will hurt. The benefit of using a tool is that it can save your hand from repeated trauma during long spanking sessions.

Tips for having a spanking session

Remember your goal

Before you start spanking, remember what your goal is for the scene and what intention you have behind spanking. Is the goal of the scene to punish, in which case you might have more painful spanks? Or is the scene for pleasure, which means you might have your submissive in more relaxed positions with pleasurable sensations? Knowing these things will help you decide the positions, techniques, and intensity of your spanking. Additionally, spanking can be used as part of sex or a standalone activity.

Warm up

Getting the sub’s butt ready for impact is essential. First, it allows your submissive to start sinking into the sensations of the body and prepare their mind for what is to come. Second, it promotes blood flow to the area, helping to mitigate the mild trauma you’ll be causing the tissue there while also creating more sensation for the erogenous areas. 

To warm your submissive up for spanking:

• Get her used to touch by running your hands along her body and curves. You can incorporate other touches such as using your nails to lightly scratch, or giving kisses and light nibbles.
• Massage the butt and thighs, promoting blood flow and raising the temperature of the skin in this area. If you’re feeling generous, you can let your fingers grasp near the sweet spot, giving the anticipation of genital stimulation.
• Even for scenes where spanking is to be used as punishment, the Dom can begin spanking over padded clothing (like jeans) to give the illusion of a more severe punishment. Then, by the time the sub’s clothes are off, they’ve actually already been warmed up and the top can keep going at that intensity level or higher.

Start at the appropriate intensity level

As you transition from warm up to delivering spankings, you want your first spanking to be intentional and set the tone for the rest of the scene. 

If you’re using spanking for pleasure, then start light and low, using a more gentle technique such as a low height gravity spank or cupped hand and begin a rhythm of small taps before building intensity. 

If you’re using the scene for pain or punishment, then give one spanking with a medium intensity for your first blow before backing off to a lower intensity. The first blow will make them gasp and shock them a bit, but will not cause too much pain. The subsequent spanking at lower intensity will help warm them up so they can take more later.

Regardless, the general rule of thumb is to start at lower levels of intensity and move to higher ones over time as more blood engorges the area, in addition to their pain threshold rising due to adrenaline, cortisol, and endorphins entering the bloodstream.

If it’s the first time spanking this submissive, you can gauge their pain tolerance by delivering a spanking and asking them how much it hurts on a scale of 5, 1 being like nothing, and 5 being the top of her pain threshold.

Find a Rhythm

When you’re spanking, you want to create repeating patterns and pattern interrupts in your spanking rhythm. For example a repeating pattern would be 9 light spanks with 1 medium spank on one cheek, then doing the same on the other cheek. What this does is allow your submissive to get used to the sensation and slightly hypnotize them like a metronome would, but then break that pattern to keep them from getting too used to the sensation and have it become boring. You can experiment with the timing, intensity, location and technique of the spanking to create patterns. Then switch to a different timing, intensity, location or technique to create a pattern interrupt. 

Communication during spanking

If you’re using spanking for pleasure, there is an art to spanking so that it’s right on the threshold of having enough sensation to be arousing, but not so much that it’s just plain painful. As you continue spanking, your partner’s pain threshold and tolerance is going to change, so you need to keep gauging during the session what their current threshold is.

Of course you can simply ask your partner where they are on a scale of 1-5, or if they would like it harder or softer. A dominant way to test your submissive’s faculties during a session is to have them count off the spankings and ask for another. Eventually though, you want to be able to allow your partner to relax and not have to verbally communicate, giving them the opportunity to sink into the trance-like state of subspace. 

Instead you want to watch your submissive’s body language for signs of how they are receiving your touch. 

Signs that the intensity feels good:

• Low moaning or growling
• Deep breathing
• Body tenses but immediately relaxes
• Body moving in steady rhythm
• She pushes her butt towards you inviting more touch

Signs that intensity may be getting too much:

• Gasping or sharp intake of breath
• Noises or moaning stops suddenly
• Body stiffens and does not relax before the next strike
• Sharp cry of pain
• Butt or body tenses just before a blow is expected
• Pulling body or butt away from impact

Using sensual & erotic touch in between

Spanking is an act that can increase either the pain or pressure during a scene. To create breaks with pleasure or pacification, you can include sensual and erotic touch mixed into the rhythm of your spankings.

For example:

• Sensual touch: occasionally run your hands along your partner's body, massage their butt, run your hands through their hair or pull on it, scratch their back, kiss, nibble, or bite. One of my favorites is to do a stingy spank and then lightly breathe on the area I just spanked.
• Erotic touch: the spanking, especially if done a few times to the sweet spot, will send pulsations to your submissive’s groin. This in combination with the erotic feelings associated with spanking has most likely made them very aroused. I’ll periodically rub my sub’s vulva in between spankings, often commenting on how wet they are getting from being spanked.

Tips for the submissive being spanked

Being a good submissive takes skills too and there are things she can do to make the experience more enjoyable.

Tips for the submissive:

• Surrender to the experience: stay as relaxed as possible throughout the spanking by periodically assessing where your body is holding tension and consciously making an effort to release it. Your only job is to relax and receive.
• Focus on your breathing: take long, relaxed, deep breaths and allow the sensation of each spank to wash through you.
• Communicate and express yourself: if the spanking feels good, say how good it feels, simply moan, or wiggle your butt and body towards them
• Create a relationship with pain: normally people are adverse to pain, however if you can start creating a relationship with it, seeing it as just really intense sensation or energy, rather than something harmful, you’ll be able to tolerate more.

Go forth and spank

If you want more spanking techniques, try the erotic spanking course or spanking for beginners course on Beducated. Now that you’ve learned how to spank, create a scene or incorporate it as part of your sexual Dominance. If you want to intensify a spanking scene, learn to incorporate dirty talk as a Dom or submissive.