I laughed 
That’s a key phrase right there.
It never occurred to me that I’d like being spanked until I was with my current SO. Turns out, I do. Really can’t articulate why, but I do know I find the idea more and more appealing the drunker I am. Inhibitions and all that, I suppose.
I don’t see any appeal at all.
I vaguely remember someone posting a study on this board in the last few months that indicated that as women grow closer to orgasm, their bodies tend to read pain as pleasure (something about chemicals being released changing how things feel). That made sense to me, because if a guy were to just smack me on the ass as we were making out, I’d probably punch him— right in the middle of banging, though? Go for it. Feels great.
I don’t enjoy it. I adore mixing pleasure and pain, but spanking just seems really cheesy to me. It feels too overdone to be sexy… I like roleplaying, but putting my hair in pigtails and wearing a schoolgirl outfit would just make me feel too cliche. Same with spanking.
Not a woman either, but I have taught, shall we say, a seminar or two on the topic.
The easiest metaphor for this type of thing is spicy/hot food. Those fire off the ol’ pain receptors, too. To some poor bastards, discomfort is all they get out of it. To others, the burn mixes with other sensations to form a rich, complex, pleasant experience. And to a few people, being double-teamed by wasabi and habanero in and of itself makes them feel alive.
For some people the dominance thing is a big part of it, others not. Some enjoy the fact that they’re not ‘supposed’ to enjoy what they are, in fact, enjoying. Some like the role playing aspect. (Note amusing overlap with other role-playing demographics) Some just like the mix of sensations. Or the side affects, which as others have mentioned, include more sensitivity and awareness of the affected area. Which, apart from being an erogenous zone in it’s own right, is rather near some other interesting areas.
It’s also so “popular” because the one word covers a lot of specifics. The bad girl roleplayers, the rough sex smacks, the slave girl trainer, (not the human-trafficking kind, of course) and the geek teasing his partner into incoherence with alternating sequences of smacks and caresses may all be ‘spanking,’ but they aren’t really playing the same game.
Did I mention the alternating sequence of smacks and caresses? Because that’s a surprisingly effective technique that a lot of people seem to have somehow missed. I’m just sayin’.
Of course, “why do you like X” is a pretty hard question to honestly answer. In some ways it’s like asking ‘why do you like Junior Mints.” (I am assuming for the sake of argument there is not a porn star who goes by that name) You can go with the straight biological answer “They’re full of fat and sugar! And caffeine!” (Not unlike myself) You can go with a culture argument, or upbringing, or psychology, or evolutionary biology. Or to define it as itself.
That’s for something as harmless as candy. Sex, especially the more interesting types of it, have a lot of cultural baggage on top of that, so it’s not easy to get an honest answer past the subconscious. If everyone involved is having a good time, and maybe even loves each other, does it really matter why you enjoy it, as long as you do?
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I consider myself an artist. The buttocks are my canvas.
I’m wondering why the OP addresses only women. Do you think being spanked feels different for men?
Uh, I’ve never liked it. The only time I’ve thought I wanted a spanking is when I thought the guy had a total weenus.
But that’s just me. 
Easy.
IT’S CHOCOLATE!
IT’S PEPPERMINT!
IT’S DELICIOUS!
And that’s how some people described being spanked.
According to AskMen:
Spanking comes in line with biting, but is more pronounced and does hurt; however, it is a scientifically proven fact that buttock spanking while aroused tricks the body into translating the smack as pleasure and provides a rush of blood to the area. Slightly cup your hand, but keep it loose and give the area of the buttock furthest away from the anus a good thwack. You want to get that good slap sound and a good palm-butt connection. Don’t overdo it, porn star.
Amazing what you can find in your browser history for the last 24 hours.
Wish it worked like this for me. Pain is pain, and pain in the middle of pleasure (it’s always been an accidental thing, but it happens) pushes the restart button.
Many of us women like to be spanked even without sex. Spanking by itself can give a powerful orgasm…no other touching necessary.
As for why…I don’t question the whys so much anymore because I can find no explanation in my childhood development (never really spanked, a family so normal it’s abnormal these days) and I’m a well-adjusted, successful and independent woman.
For me it’s about giving up control. I don’t enjoy the moments of a spanking when it is only painful, before the pleasure kicks in. Dominance plays a big role. But so does trust. It’s incredibly hot that I can trust a man, tell him to “punish” me any way he sees fit and know that he would never push beyond my limits.
During sex, I love to be reminded who is “in charge” at that moment, even if he isn’t the typically dominant person in the relationship. A smack on the ass and some hair-pulling feel so animalistic. Rawr.
Masochist: Whip me, beat me, make me squirm in pain!
Sadist: No.
It took me four pages of Google results, but. . .
I read (somewhere) that pain can actually be pleasure, an example is scratching an itch. I’m not so sure about that since I’ve never considered an itch to be painful; merely a nuisance. Or maybe it’s the scratching that supposed to be painful, but the pleasure is alleviating the itch. Still, if I scratch too hard, it’s not pleasurable at all.
But I agree with you. I don’t understand the association of pain with sexual pleasure. Me, when I feel pain, I’m vicious. Revenge and retribution are the only things going on in my psyche. Physically, there’s just a limp, dangling appendage retracting as far as it can in preparation for combat. But then, 6.7 billion people on Planet Earth are not exactly like me. Some people do associate certain kinds of pain with sexual stimulation and, like the OP, I wonder if someone could provide insight about it, other than “Hey, it’s good for me.” Hell, some guys are turned on by getting kicked in the balls, although I’m damned if I can figure THAT one out…
I do know that many people, women in particular it seems, find (light, usually) physical discomfort or pain, and/or being physically dominated, and even being made physically powerless or emotionally humiliated, a turn-on. It’s a totally normal thing. Not something I share in the least, though. Even thinking about being hurt, held down, or talked down to in a sexual context makes me feel panicky and ill. I’ve never had a fantasy involving anyone ‘taking control’ of me, much less doing anything to me ‘against my will’. Gross. Apparently plenty of women have sexual fantasies of being raped, though! It’s something you only understand if you have that kink, I guess.
Whatever floats other people’s boats, as long as it’s consensual and enjoyable for both parties.
(And thank jesus my BF is as vanilla as I am).
Truthfully, I’ve watched a ton of spanking porn, and I don’t think anything could possibly be less sexual than British spanking porn. I’ve seen plenty of just plain bad spanking porn, but the typical British stuff I’ve seen goes beyond bad into “let’s strip this of any semblance of sensuality”. I think it’s because it’s almost always “school caning” scenarios, and they appear to be trying to make it as realistic and true-to-life as they can. And a big part of the problem is that part of that realism is that the canings are almost always just 6 or 12 strokes of the cane, so in order to get any kind of length to the video the caning has to be preceded by a 20-minute lecture in which the teacher or headmaster uses the word “insolent” repeatedly (seriously, you could play a drinking game: drink every time you hear the word “insolent” or “insolence”). And then once the actual caning starts, the “victim’s” reactions are usually puzzling because they either have almost no reaction at all beyond a mumbled “One Sir”, “Two Sir”, or else they scream bloody murder, and the two extremes of the reactions bear no apparent correlation to the actual severity of the cane strokes.
Maybe you simply need to be British to see the appeal.
I don’t think itching feels like pain, but it does seem to be light stimulation of the pain nerves. And scratching causes slightly stronger stimulation. Think about it: anything that is good to scratch with has a slightly sharp edge and can be used to damage the skin.
It’s just all sub-threshold pain. That’s why, when you scratch too hard, it hurts. Oh, and the pain threshold goes up near orgasm, at least in women.
There’s some Peanuts joke in there about Franklin and Ms. Patty, but I’m not going to suss it out.