The New Year is here, the old year has gone – and it’s time to reflect on the twelve months just past and express our appreciation of those aspects of the kinky community that delighted and entertained us.

Welcome to our Third Annual Awards! (You can look back here to see the results for 2006 and 2007.)

Best Spanking Blog – Chross Guide to the Spanking Internet: a treasure-trove of information and a source of many thrilling links.

Best New Spanking Blog – This category has joint winners this year. New To Spanking by Eliane and Freshly Spanked by Irelynn and Smudge are both excellent chronicles of what it’s like to be newcomers on the scene.

Best Spanking Event – We don’t claim to have attended every single one (though invitations are certainly welcome!), but our favourite last year has been the boarding school weekend we attended back in March. A magic, memorable weekend of lessons, uniforms and punishments with a group of dear friends.

Best Vanilla Exhibition With Decidely Kinky Undertones – the ‘British Orientalist’ exhibition at the Tate. Other people may have gone there for the camels, bazaars and architecture, but we know it was actually put on for those of us who wanted to see the slave girls and harem scenes. Source of much kinky inspiration – and several instances of girls being ‘sold’ on the streets of London since!

Best Vanilla Book With Whippings – “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss. (Also a winner of Haron’s Book of the Year). A quasi-medieval fantasy university has corporal punishment for students; a must-read!

Best M/M BDSM novel – “Dark Heart” by Thom Lane. An impressionable slave boy meets a powerful magician. Mmmm. (Abel didn’t read it, needless to say, but Haron’s read it, oh, at least four times already).

Spanking Book of the Year – It’s been disappointing, to be honest: we’ve found lots of old volumes in dusty second-hand bookstores, but there’s been nothing to match (say) “Over The Knee”. So we’re going to be cheeky and give this award to ourselves, for our anthology of the best of the first two years posts here at Spanking Writers.

Best Writing of the Year – Mr Justice Eady’s excellent judgement in the Max Mosley vs. News of the World case (conveniently summarised by Abel). The judgement contains serious passages of great relevance and importance for those of us who live a kinky lifestyle, like “It has now to be recognised that sexual conduct is a significant aspect of human life in respect of which people should be free to choose.” And it’s full of entertaining observations, too: “I naturally could not check from the DVD, as it was not his face that was on display.”

And finally, and most importantly:

Person of the Year – Max Mosley, for representing the spanking community in the vanilla world with courage and dignity, and his outstanding, single-minded pursuit of the right to enjoy kinky activity in peace.