What's a spanking party like?

With Florida Moonshine coming up in about two weeks, I've been thinking about writing here about the parties, what happens there and why we spend the money to go. Coincidentally, a dom who's never been to a party wrote me today on FetLife, asking what these events were like. I responded in detail, and I figured I'd recap that here.

The two big parties that Rad and I go to are Shadow Lane and Florida Moonshine. We also attended the debut of the Boardwalk Badness weekend this year in Atlantic City. I've heard that Crimson Moon in Chicago was great and I've also heard good things about the Texas All-State party but we haven't been able to make it to those. Then there was another new one in San Francisco this year, the SF-CP party. I didn't get to that one, either, but it did sound like fun. Ms. Margaret of the Spanking Club of New York (SCONY) has been hosting semi-annual spanking parties for many years in the Poconos.

I'm sure there are others, and if you do know of more, please write and let me know. Those are just the ones I'm familiar with, and this blog is mostly going to explain FMS and SL. I guess you could call them conventions of spankos (or spanking fetishists, as one friend calls it who hates the word "spanko"). Shadow Lane draws between 200 to 300 people.

Florida Moonshine, which is holding its last party this year (sigh), gets I think about 200 people. The hotel tend to be a little more expensive than the Vegas one, but it's a nice hotel right on the beach.

My husband and I go to these parties because we think the people are really great and there are some we only get to see once or twice a year. I tend to have some pretty hot scenes at these parties, too, that I might not be able to experience in NYC.

What officially happens is both events open with a vendor's fair (with an array of finger foods) on Friday night, and both have a banquet where people dress up on Saturday night. SL tends to have some kind of theme for the banquet, like "the 70s" or "Back to School," and a certain percentage of people dress according to the theme. The rest tend to just dress up nicely. Some guys wear tuxes, even -- most just wear suits or slacks and a nice shirt. This is the same at FMS.

After these events conclude for the evening, around 10 p.m., some of the people who've booked suites host parties there. A few of these are by invitation only, but most of them are open to anyone. Naturally, of course, there is private play going on in rooms all over the place, too.

For the rest of the weekend, FMS tends to have more organized events, such as the schoolgirl academy, the Governesses Gala, or the Trivia Contest. FMS also has a hospitality suite that's open for most of the party.

At SL, people are free to do whatever they want. Usually, someone who's attending will organize a smaller, themed party, like what used to be called the Brat's Breakfast but I think morphed into the "Saturday Morning Sisterhood." This is where a lot of the girls get together and have breakfast in their PJs. At some point a "Mystery Spanker" appears and then spankings commence. I'll probably go to a Female tops/male bottoms party at some point at both weekends.

Some people arrive earlier in the week and stay over until Monday. It's relaxing, but the time goes quickly. Will all best intentions, you can't always fit in playing with everyone you want to.

Meeting people is up to each person. I'd suggest newbies go onto FetLife or on the events' message boards or group chats -- if they exist -- and try to learn who's who.

There are mostly spankos at the parties, but some are more into dominance and some spankees are more into submission. Lots of stuff goes on behind closed doors. I love the fact that you can have the privacy to experiment, with the safety of the party around you.

What's also happened to us, over the last few years, is that we're meeting great couples to hang out with. We often arrange to have dinner with two or three other couples and then sometimes we'll do a scene with one other couple. The other husband will spank me and Rad will spank his wife. It's like swinging without the sex, kind of.

I'll update this if I can think of anything else, but that's pretty much it.