We have discussed many things in our study so far, and now understand the basic nature of spanking, the division of spankos into Natural and Learned, and the way in which a Transformative Event (TE) explains the creation of the Natural Spanko orientations of female sub, male top, male switch, and male sub. We are left with what was always going to be the most difficult orientation of all to understand, the Natural female Top. Note that the Learned female Top is quite different: we actually covered it, without much fanfare, back in Chapter 1 (see Case 2, X/M "For Fun" Spankings). In fact, it might be a good idea to remind ourselves that the TE theory is used to explain only the Natural spankos.
From all that has gone before in the presentation of the TE theory, we know at the outset that some sort of TE must be responsible - but what kind? A little girl may be spanked by mother or father, but neither of those experiences could be responsible for creating a Natural female Top. That is perhaps most obvious with a F/F interaction (mom spanking) even though we have said very little about such a scenario up to this point. We established that a male Top could be created by an experienced opposite-sex spanking (woman spanks boy), but we also mentioned (see Chapter 4) that the reverse could not occur because the young female isn't dominant enough to resent being spanked by a father-figure - someone she must accept as having superior power and authority, and to whom she must submit. A girl could get spanked one hundred times by her father, and either be unaffected or become a Submissive, but she could never become a dominant that way. Indeed, even with TE theory we will shortly find ourselves in difficulties trying to explain how females, who are naturally submissive, could become dominant Tops.
The Witnessed F/M Spanking Combined with Resentment of the Spankee
Recall from Chapter 4 that there were two ways that a male Top could be created: (1) An experienced F/M spanking (mentioned above), or (2) A witnessed M/F spanking in which the boy natually identified with the male (e.g. father) giving the spanking. By a process of elimination, we are led to conclude that only a witnessed F/M spanking in which the girl identifies with the adult female spanker could possibly result in the girl's becoming a Natural Top. And yet even though this turns out to be correct, I realized from the moment I first thought of it that this explanation was not quite sufficient by itself, for girls are simply not dominant enough to guarantee identification with the adult female spanker. Two forces were in opposition: it would be natural for the girl to identify with a woman rather than a man, but the boy spankee was still a problem because girls do not in general dominate boys. It seemed to me that such conditions could only rarely produce a female Top, probably more rarely than could account even for the small number of such Tops. What was needed was some "x-factor" in the TE that would provide an extra push to make the girl want to picture herself dominating (or perhaps merely humiliating) the boy. And so I conducted interviews with any female Natural Tops I could find to see if there was any other common factor, and of course to confirm my hypothesis about the witnessed F/M spanking as the TE.
First, I was able to confirm that each Top had indeed witnessed a boy being spanked by a woman when she (the Top) was a girl. Digging deeper, I found that the spanked boy had tormented each girl in some way. This was exactly the extra factor I had been looking for! The resentment naturally felt against the boy-tormentor by the girl serves the same function as the resentment a spanked boy feels toward a female spanker (naturally generated in his case by the male's resistance to being dominated): a conscious or sub-conscious desire to dominate. Therefore, the Natural Female Top is created by a TE of this form: a witnessed F/M spanking in which the girl harbors feelings of resentment against the boy-spankee and identifies with his spanker.
The interviews I conducted are by themselves substantial proof this theory is basically correct, but note also the theory neatly explains the relative rarity of the Natural Female Top, because the special kind of TE required is particularly rare. It is far more common for a girl to be spanked by a father-figure than it is for a girl to witness the spanking by a woman of some boy she happens to have reason to want to see punished, and this helps to explain why Natural Female Submissives vastly outnumber Natural Female Tops.
Three Paths to the Creation of the Natural Female Switch
From previous discussions, we know that a M/F TE cannot explain a Natural Female Switch, only a Natural Female Sub, and since girls don't easily identify with boys, a witnessed F/M spanking cannot explain the "Sub" part of a female switch, only the Top part. Therefore, the female switch must be explained by one of three psychological combinations:
- Natural Top combined with Learned Sub (known to exist but thought to be uncommon)
- Learned Top combined with Natural Sub (thought to be the most common type)
- Learned Top combined with Learned Sub (? - no information available, but seems possible and even likely)
The first type is at least known to exist. There is a fairly well-known New York dominatrix who is a natural Top, and when she started out she specialized in administering corporal punishment. Yet after a number of years, she realized she had submissive desires and permitted some of her more select male clients to spank her. What had happened was simply her natural female submissiveness sought expression through what we may suppose was mild (sensual) spanking, just as might happen with a woman who is not a natural Top. I also met (and spanked) another woman like this who provided me with a lot of valuable biographical information confirming most of the female switch hypothesis introduced above.
As for the third type, none of the women I have interviewed fall into this class. Still, it seems possible that a woman could both learn to be a Top and at the same time learn to accept at least a mild (sensual) spanking. It would simply require the right boyfriend (or two different boyfriends at different times) to introduce her to both aspects of spanking.
Is Female Domanance Really Dominance?
In Chapter 4 we theorized that male "submission" was not true submission at all. A similar argument can be made that female dominance is not truly dominance at all. However, one factor, the Transformation of Sadism or (TS), which plays a role in male "submission" is not applicable to the female, for the Female Sub is in no way created by channeling dominant desires, nor is there a corresponding Transformation of Masochism by which the female's submissive desires may be transformed into dominant ones. Nonetheless, we still have the fact that female dominant behavior runs contrary to nature in that if it were truly to be the sole mode of sexual expression it would make the female incompatible with the (dominant) male, when compatibility with most members of the opposite sex is a natural requirement (in any species) of successful sexual reproduction. Another piece of evidence is that when interviewed, female Tops admit to desiring a dominant lover, that is, dominant in the ordinary sexual sense and not in the spanking sense, for these women often have no wish be spanked by a lover even though they genuinely enjoy spanking other men themselves. (As mentioned above, some of them learn to enjoy receiving mild to moderate spankings and become Switches).
This puts us into a bit of difficulty: if female dominance is not true dominance, why do these women enjoy Topping? Recall from Chapter 1 that the essence of spanking is a perceived violation that is experienced emotionally as humiliation, and that how this humiliation is interpreted varies from individual to individual. I would suggest that female "dominance" is more about inflicting humiliation (and pain, to some extent) that it is about true dominance, which as it may be remembered from earlier chapters is one of the possible effects of the humiliation. I do not believe the element of true sadism (that is, deriving pleasure from the administration of pain without considering the humiliation effect) is large, but of course, much depends on the persons involved and I have identified one female in the scene (who must remain nameless here) as a probable true sadist. Note also that this interpretation is entirely consistent with the TE theory, since during the TE the young girl fantasizes about taking the place of the woman who is spanking her boy tormentor. Thus it is she who (in her imagination) inflicts pain and humiliation upon the boy in retribution for whatever he did to her, but note that this is not by itself "dominance" in the sexual sense.
At the same time, we cannot deny the sexual nature of the Female Top's desire to spank. What I shall suggest is that just as the Natural Male Top develops an alternate path to sexual dominance, the Natural Female Top develops an alternate path but in the opposite direction, towards a sexual pseudo-dominance in which the real objective is twofold: subconscious retribution against the boy (and possibly upon other males) and a re-creation not simply of the F/M orientation of the TE but also the sexual aspect of its proto-sexual nature, for we must never forget that all TE's are are part of the child's proto-sexual development.
Figure 5.01 - 5.02 - the origin of the Natural Female Top and the existence of opposite-direction (submissive) desires within her, leading to one of the three possible routes by which a Female Switch is created (Type 1 above; Types 2 and 3 not diagrammed).
Conflicts in the Female Switch
Obviously there is the potential for internal conflict in female Tops/Switches just as there is for male Subs/Switches. For example, a female Top meets a man she finds attractive - does she want to Top him or does she want to be submissive sexually with him? We will go into these questions a little more deeply in Chapter 7, where we consider some practical consequences of the Theory as we have laid it out in prior chapters.
