If you spend much time on spanko discussion boards, you’ll find a lot of women describing variations on this problem, as described to the Love Bites online advice column:
I am a girl who really likes to be spanked. My last boyfriend was really into it and I would get off with him spanking me all the time, but my new fella is not this way inclined at all. I asked him about it and he was like, “No way, I’m not going to hit you, that’s just weird.” I like this guy but I really need to be spanked. How can I convince him this is fun and hot and not weird?
Although Sasha at Love Bites doesn’t have a better solution to this difficult problem than anybody else does, I thought her speculation on one of the reasons a man might feel this way was rather elegant:
S/M is very intricate, and requires a person to look beyond an ethical awareness of violence (and in his case, what human rights activists identify as the most widespread — towards women). Your boyfriend’s aversion to hitting you probably comes from a place of real concern, and may be rooted in a former S/M relationship gone awry, or family violence. Any conscientious man who’s seen his father strike his mother is going to struggle with this.
Of course, it’s also possible the guy is just a tight-assed narrow-minded prick. What sort of mannerless shmendrick tells the new girlfriend her sexual proposal is weird? There have got to be better ways of saying no. Besides, whatever happened to the old “Don’t say no to anything until you’ve tasted a bite of it” principle? I mean, did this man not have a mother to teach him basic manners?