If you’ve ever wondered what tops get out of punishing people (that is, other than the pleasure of smacking their bottoms), you could do worse than read a post about it by Pablo, who is one of the most insightful people who write about kink:

It’s a very cold universe out there, and to be needed by someone whom nature has made attractive to us is about as powerful an emotion as we’ll ever experience. When what they need from us is consistent with a kink that’s also fundamental to who we are, the pieces just fit. We’re not so far from cavemen that we – even the diffident and introverted of us – don’t get pleasure from being the strong protector.

Rather than considering that people of kink get close to each other so that they can express kink, it makes far more sense to consider that they express kink so that they can get close to each other. Kink isn’t an end in itself. The warm body beside us is the end. The happy, contented, safe, warm body beside us carrying marks that we’ve put on its skin, is a kind of belonging, a kind of home.

On behalf of warm bodies with warmer marks, I hope that’s true for everybody over whose lap I’ll ever happen to tumble.