Bibliography and further reading: spanking in fiction
Other people's fiction about this, from a stage comedy of 1682 to a British film of 2025. Every title was checked before it went on the list, and each entry says honestly where the work is good on consent and where it is not, because most of these are better company than they are instruction.
Consenting adults only. Everything on this page is about adults over 18 who have freely agreed to it.
In short
- Every work listed was checked against the rule this whole site keeps: every character a consenting adult over 18, throughout.
- The two films to start with are Secretary (2002) and The Duke of Burgundy (2014).
- Most fiction shows negotiation badly or not at all. Each entry says how the work handles consent, and which ones are sexually explicit.
- Links go to the publisher, the author or Wikipedia. Nothing here is sponsored, and no link earns this site anything.
This is a list of fiction by other people: novels, plays, one graphic novel and some films in which spanking, or a wider exchange of power between adults, is part of the point. Like everything on this site, it concerns consenting adults over 18. My own stories are in the fiction section. These are the ones written by other people.
I have not tried to be complete. A complete list would be mostly pornography and would teach nobody anything. This one is short, and each entry says what the work is, how it treats consent, and anything you might want to know before you start it. Several are sexually explicit, which this site is not, and I say which.
Some very famous titles are missing. A number of them fail the rule this site keeps without exception, that every character is a consenting adult over 18 with nothing in the story that says otherwise. Others are about abuse with the word consent painted on. Before listing anything I went through plot summaries and reviews, and the author's own account where there was one. I would rather leave a gap than send you to the wrong book. The book that started a lot of people thinking about this is not on the list either, and I have set out why I am not a fan on its own page.
Novels and novellas
Spanking the Maid, by Robert Coover
Every morning a maid arrives at her master's bedroom hoping to get the day's work perfect. Every morning she gets something wrong, and he punishes her, following a manual he consults and only half understands. It is barely more than a hundred pages long, very odd and quite funny, and The New York Times called it "nearly flawless". It is an allegory about a ritual, not an account of one, and nobody negotiates anything. Grove Atlantic
Permission, by Saskia Vogel
Echo, an actress in Los Angeles whose father has just died, is drawn into the household next door, where a professional dominatrix called Orly lives with a submissive man who keeps house for her. It is a book about grief and about permission in both senses, being allowed to want something and asking for it. The power exchange is written as tender and agreed, which is rarer in fiction than it should be. Bereavement runs all the way through. Hachette UK
Exhibit, by R. O. Kwon
Jin, a photographer, meets Lidija, a ballerina, at a party near San Francisco, and over the course of the book lets herself admit that she wants to submit. It is literary and slow, more about desire and art than about technique. What happens between the two women is agreed between them and hidden from Jin's husband, so it is also a book about secrecy, and it does not make that look easy. Read it alongside women who play with women. Wikipedia
Unbound, by Cara McKenna
Merry, walking alone across the Scottish Highlands after a hard year, is hurt and takes shelter with Rob, who has cut himself off from everyone and is ashamed of what he wants, which is to be tied up. She is the one who takes charge. It is one of the few mainstream romances where the woman leads, and it is kind about the shame. The negotiation is thin, and one reviewer felt she pushes him harder than she should, so read it as a love story rather than a method. There is more on that dynamic in when she spanks him. Penguin Random House
The Fit series, by Rebekah Weatherspoon
Linked romances among a group of friends in Los Angeles, each built around a dominant and submissive relationship. In the first, Fit, a reality television producer and the gym owner who wants to be her dominant work it out properly, and the author's own description has her "consensually, and very enthusiastically" bound to him, which tells you the priorities. Sated has a switch in it. Of all the books here, these show negotiation and checking in most clearly. Fit won the RT Book Reviews Reviewers' Choice Award for an erotic romance novella in 2014. It deals with weight loss and body image, which some readers will want to know first. The author's site
A graphic novel
Yes, Roya, by C. Spike Trotman and E. A. Denich
California, 1963. Wylie, an artist looking for work, gets in to see the cartoonist he idolises, and finds that the real artist in the house, and the one in charge, is the cartoonist's partner, Roya. It becomes a relationship between the three of them with a woman at the top of it. Before anything happens, Roya tells Wylie what submitting to her would mean and that he is free to leave, which is more than most dominants in fiction ever say. The racism and antisemitism of the period are on the page. Queer Comics Database
A play
The Lover, by Harold Pinter
A married couple in the suburbs who, every afternoon, become other people: he plays her lover, and she plays a woman he pays. There is no spanking in it. I include it because it is about what role play does inside a long marriage, and about what happens when one of you wants to stop and the other does not. Both leads won BAFTAs for the television production. The page on roleplay and dress covers the practical side. Wikipedia
Films
Secretary (2002)
Lee Holloway comes home after a stay in a psychiatric hospital, learns to type, and takes a job with a lawyer, E. Edward Grey, whose irritation at her typing errors turns into something else. It is the film most people mean when they say a spanking film, and it earns that, because it is about two adults discovering that what they want fits together, and it treats that as good news. Be clear about the start, though: he is her employer and nothing is discussed first, which in a real office would be a disciplinary matter for him. Self-harm is shown near the beginning. Wikipedia
The Duke of Burgundy (2014)
Two women who share a house and a passion for butterflies act out the same scene every day. Evelyn arrives as the maid, fails at her chores, and Cynthia punishes her. The turn is that Evelyn writes the scripts, and Cynthia, who does not much enjoy any of it, plays her part out of love and is wearing thin. It is a film about the person doing the dominating, which almost no fiction bothers with. A safe word is ignored in one scene, and what follows is the turning point. Pair it with top drop and safe words. Wikipedia
Love and Leashes (2022)
A romantic comedy. A parcel meant for Ji-hoo goes to Ji-woo, a manager in the same office, by mistake; she finds a collar inside, and after some excruciating scenes he asks her to be his dominant. She reads up on it overnight, and they sign a written agreement for three months. It is light and sometimes silly, and much better on consent than a romantic comedy needs to be: a contract, a safe word, a dominant who is shown learning, and a violent man held up as the wrong way to do it. The page on rules and agreements is the real-world version. Wikipedia
The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (2023)
A deadpan comedy about Ann, in her thirties, in a long casual arrangement with a dominant who is not very interested in her, and then with another who is interested in the wrong things. It is unusual in treating aftercare as an ordinary need, and a partner's dislike of giving it as a good reason to move on. Short dry scenes, and very funny if the humour suits you. Wikipedia
Pillion (2025)
Colin, a shy man who hands out parking tickets in Bromley, is picked up by Ray, a biker, and enters a strict arrangement at Ray's house: he cooks, cleans, sleeps on the floor at the foot of the bed and does as he is told. It won the screenplay prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes and Best British Independent Film, and it is warm and funny about the bikers around them. I list it with a warning. Nobody in it ever has the conversation this site keeps telling you to have, and the film is honest about what that costs Colin. Grief and a moment of self-harm are part of it. Watch it with red flags and men who play with men in mind. Wikipedia
Older works, read with care
Two from the long history of the idea. Neither is consensual in the sense this site means, and both are worth knowing about because they show how long it has been around, and how it was laughed at.
Venice Preserv'd, by Thomas Otway
A Restoration tragedy with a comic subplot in which a corrupt senator, Antonio, pays the courtesan Aquilina for her company, and grovels at her feet pretending to be a bull and a dog while she treats him with contempt. Critics have long read him as a jab at the Earl of Shaftesbury. It is an early English stage portrait of a powerful man paying to be humiliated, more than two centuries before anyone had a clinical word for it. The main plot includes an attempted assault and a suicide. Wikipedia
Kiss Me Kate (1953)
A divorced pair of actors starring in a musical Taming of the Shrew carry their real quarrel onto the stage, and as the curtain comes down he spanks her in front of the audience. It is played entirely for laughs and nobody asks her. I include it because it is still the picture a lot of people have in mind when the subject comes up, and that picture is the one this whole site exists to replace. Wikipedia
Why fiction is a poor manual
Fiction runs on tension, and the moments that make a story work are often the ones that would make a real evening go wrong. The scene with no conversation first. The partner who keeps going. The dominant who simply knows. The safe word nobody ever needs. Read it for recognition, and for the relief of finding that somebody else wrote it down. Learn the practice from negotiation and the pages around it.
And if a story stays with you in a way you did not expect, or the thing you have imagined for years turns out differently in the room, when the fantasy and reality do not match is written for exactly that.
If any of this touches something real
Several of these deal with self-harm, grief or relationships that go wrong. Samaritans are on 116 123, free, at any hour, and Mind is at mind.org.uk. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline is 0808 2000 247 and the Men's Advice Line is 0808 8010 327. The full list is on the support page.
Common questions
What is the best film about consensual spanking?
Secretary (2002), with Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader, is the one most people mean: two adults discovering that what they want fits together, treated as good news rather than a tragedy. The Duke of Burgundy (2014) is the better film about what a long arrangement costs the person doing the dominating. Both are for adults, and Secretary shows self-harm near the start.
Are there any good novels about spanking?
Not many take it seriously. Robert Coover's Spanking the Maid (1982) is the literary one, a short and strange novella about a ritual repeated every morning. For contemporary novels about a woman finding out what she wants, Saskia Vogel's Permission (2019) and R. O. Kwon's Exhibit (2024) are both well reviewed and written with care.
Which books show a woman spanking or dominating a man?
Cara McKenna's Unbound (2013) is a romance in which the woman takes charge, and the graphic novel Yes, Roya (2016) is built around a woman at the top of a relationship between three people. On screen, the South Korean film Love and Leashes (2022) has a written agreement with the woman as the dominant partner.
Is fiction a good way to learn how to do this?
No. Fiction is built for tension, so the moments that make a story work are often the ones that would make a real evening go wrong: a scene with no conversation first, a partner who keeps going. Read it for recognition and for company, and learn the practice from people who do it.