Dude. Just ask her and not the world!

Steve, London, United Kingdom

What would make all of these responses, and the original article, more illuminating, would be to quote some sources. So I will start the ball rolling by mentioning Havelock Ellis's Love and Pain - which (though old) tends to suggest that women are more sexually submissive and masochistic.

Guan, Norwich, UK

Wonder where the experts were chosen from. Ordinarily physicians don't offer psychiatric opinions or marriage guidance. The ideas about normal and abnormal human sexuality are a bit dated, to say the least. What's a paraphilia? Something your shrink doesn't enjoy.

Sandra, Vancouver, CA

Spanking is a great method to stimulate sexual excitement but it doesn't always mean the persons involved also are into BDSM. BDSM is more of a lifestyle where many different activities stimulate us not just sexually but emotionally and intellectually. I love to spank but only with consent.

Robert, New Orleans, USA

Reading all these responses has been torture....ggnnnnnahhhh !!!

thank you

pete, wirral,

My late wife was into being spanked and caned, I was apprehensive about it at first, as she really needed a considerable amount of pain. She had a female schoolfriend who also enjoyed it. They relate their desires to being caned at school in the early sixties. The resulting sex was mindblowing.

Dave, St Petersburg, Russia

I have a spanking/domination fetish (I like to be the spankee), and I don't have low self-esteem. If anything, I find that it's far more common for masochists (or "bottoms") to have higher self-esteem and be more secure in themselves. People would not willingly submit if they were insecure.

Morgan, Penrith,

To these male "experts" who ascribe being spanked as desiring to be dominated, that has been researched (I can't reference it immediately) : that is not the case. The desire to be spanked is not the same as the desire to be dominated sexually. "Women are submissive" is just not true.

Jen, Gold Coast, Australia

My woman enoys spanking, and I enjoy giving it. MOST of the women I dated orior to marriage enjoyed spaning. Despite all the pysco babble, the reason women like it is simple. Because it heightens the level of dominance/submission of the sex.
I prefer to make her bring me a ruler. The hand is heaqvy

john, maryland, USA

As a female masochist with a high pain threshold and deeply submissive bedroom tendancies, I take great umbridge with the assertion that I suffer from 'low self esteem and self worth'. This is utterly untrue. I know exactly who I am and am happy with myself; I'm a successful professional with a large group of supportive friends and a healthy attitude towards personal relationships. True, all too often I meet partners through specialist internet dating sites, but that's only to ensure we are sexually aligned before the off. In every other aspect S&M (or D/s) relationships are just the same as any other.

My worry is that articles taking this tone perpetuate an already strong instinct in humans... that of damning or judging something they don't know about or truly understand.

EG, LONDON,

A friend who 'spanked' my wife's bum would have little chance of survival, and if he did survive, my wife would make sure I regreted it.

We ahve a fulfilling sex life with lots of fantasy and mystery but that is becasue we are open about our desires.

Leave out a third person, that is only appropriate if and when you are at a lap dancing club

asif raza, london, south east

Re: "(Being spanked and being ravished continue to be two of the top erotic fantasies for women, despite all the politically correct feminist attempts to convince us that the sexes are no different psychologically.)"
The fact that, according to your statistics, more women fantasise about being spanked and being dominated is not conclusive proof that women are innately born different psychologically to men, as you imply - rather, it could just be a result of social conditioning, in which women are encouraged to be submissive. Or perhaps they may have been more likely to be physically punished as a child by their father and it's a complex reenactment of that power dynamic. You're always on dodgy ground when you start arguing that 'women secretly want to be ravished' - I believe feminists call it the rape-myth. I'm a woman and I find it dangerous and insulting.

R. Henry, Stoke, Staffordshire

What's most questionable here is the assertion, with no evidence or references, that 95% of masochists are men, and only 5% are women. That seems completely backwards.

Poll after poll of sexual inclinations has shown that most heterosexual men tend to be sexually dominant, while most heterosexual women tend to be sexually submissive. (Being spanked and being ravished continue to be two of the top erotic fantasies for women, despite all the politically correct feminist attempts to convince us that the sexes are no different psychologically.)

The usual correlation is that masochism goes with a more submissive sexual orientation, and sadism goes with a more dominant sexual orientation; so the numbers here seem backwards.

Not that all submissive women are masochists, probably most are not. But I would guess that more women tend towards mild masochism, and more men tend towards mild sadism. Maybe for extreme S/M it's reversed, if males have a higher tolerance for severe pain.

Dee, LA, USA

What's most questionable here is the assertion, with no evidence or references, that 95% of masochists are men, and only 5% are women. That seems completely backwards.

Poll after poll of sexual inclinations has shown that most heterosexual men tend to be sexually dominant, while most heterosexual women tend to be sexually submissive. (Being spanked and being ravished continue to be two of the top erotic fantasies for women, despite all the politically correct feminist attempts to convince us that the sexes are no different psychologically.)

The usual correlation is that masochism goes with a more submissive sexual orientation, and sadism goes with a more dominant sexual orientation; so the numbers here seem backwards.

Not that all submissive women are masochists, probably most are not. But I would guess that more women tend towards mild masochism, and more men tend towards mild sadism. Maybe for extreme S/M it's reversed, if males have a higher tolerance for severe pain.

Dee, LA, USA

The "experts" in this column are uninformed about this topic and show a serious lack of education beyond very old psych. books. The folks responding are much wiser. If the "experts" read anything on power exchange, they would know that such fantasies and practices are commonplace and not a sign of any psychopathology. Those that are troubled by this in themselves or a partner may bring this up in therapy or "help" columns, so perhaps this is why these "experts" see it as psychopathology. The few freaks who commit hideous crimes and are truly sadistic also bring bad press, but this has nothing to do with BDSM in healthy people; would a killer minister means all clergy are homicidal?
The research shows most folks who have kinky tendencies are no different than anyone else in terms of their psych. adjustment, and perhaps if people were more aware of their sexuality and hooked up with partners who shared their sex map, more than a minority of marriages might survive.

John S, Exeter, US

I am truly a bit confused here. I do not understand why the subject of this question was turned around from a man asking a question about arousal in general....to the backgrounds of kinky people...

Instead of aiding him with his situation...it seems a lot was said about how people who participate in BDSM are abused and have low self esteem.

I do not have a doctorate, but it does not take one to see the flaw in this logic.

There has never ever been any study done to suggest that people who engage in BDSM activities were any more or any less traumatized as a child...either by being abused, bullied etc....

We really do not know where fetishes, kinks--and that includes sado-masochism as a consensual BDSM activity--come from.

I think the situation in this question should be his enjoyment. I don't think he should feel obligated to spank his wife if he does not like it. And, yet....he seems turned on by the idea of it. (will continue in another post)

k, knoxville,

Typical tabloid article.

Did we learn anything aside from the respondents’ sexual insecurities?

Sadly no.

steve, Derby, UK

Research has shown that 95 per cent of sexual masochists are men and that only 5 per cent of women derive sexual pleasure through pain. Even this minority isn't always entirely masochistic; one in three of them is occasionally sadistic" This is an interesting statistic because (assuming that the "occasionally sadistic" women are not masochists) it suggests that 3.3% of women, and 63.3% of men are masochists, together accounting for a third of the total adult population...

Ben Pritchett, Oxford,

I usually have a great deal of respect for Dr. Stuttaford, but I do wonder about his 'research' in this case. A pretty high percentage of the sado-masochists I have met, myself included, have had perfectly normal upbringings and happy childhoods - this is just something that has always been with us. Personally I tend to the view that traumatic childhoods make people more inclined to manifest their interests in a public way, so it is not a high percentage of sado-masochists that have unhappy childhoods, but a high percentage of those who are visible rather than happily getting on with it in private.

I also find that a much higher proportion of women are masochsists than that that he suggests. I think he would find a quick bit of research on some of the better internet sites would reveal plenty of happy, well adjusted people of both sexes enjoying sado masochistic play with no problems at all. Quite a lot of them are even Times readers.

Withheld, for obvious reasons, Kent, UK

In speaking of masochists, DR THOMAS STUTTAFORD, says:-

"These people have often had a difficult childhood, lack self-esteem and feel unworthy."

While there can be many reasons for masochistic tendendies, to claim they are "often" the result of a difficult childhood, lack self-esteem or feeling unworthy is grossly simplistic at best, downright wrong at worst - and distinctly insulting to many of the genuine, intelligent, imaginative and admirable erotic masochists that I have had the pleasure and honour of meeting over the last 20 years or so.

I would politely suggest this gentleman resists the temptation to make such all-encompassing and inaccurate statements without first taking the trouble to learn that the hell he's talking about.

John Chew, Horley, Surrey