The Spanking Writers

I’ve had the sweetest spanking dream last night.

Are you familiar with Chalet School books by Elinor Brent-Dyer? It’s a classic series of girls’ school novels, and there are tons of them. (One of them, “Chalet School and Richenda”, even has a mentions of spanking in some of it editions, although on the whole they are very innocent.)

Well, I dreamt I was holding a very rare book, which had practically disappeared from bookshops and libraries, and it was called – yes, really – “Chalet School and Spanking”.

Next thing I knew I got sucked into this book, and, because even in the dream I was aware of being _into_ spanking, I volunteered to take the punishment the very next time a fellow schoolgirl got into trouble.

My memory of the events is rather blurry in a dreamy sort of way, but I distinctly remember being spanked with a wooden spoon in a legs-up position, and also being taken over an (otherwise) nice female teacher’s lap in class.

When I woke up, I was sure that I had actually held that book in my hands, and that if I looked around the bedroom, I would find it. Except, I didn’t. *sigh*

P.S. If you want to know more about the Chalet School cycle, you should read the research over on the Virtual World of Girls.

It’s good to hear that the law students at the University of Wales campus in Aberystwyth have been settling down this term to some interesting modules. The one that caught my eye is entitled “A History of Crime and Punishment”:

From corporal punishment to the modern prison, from sanctions administered by neighbours to those handed down by the state, the subject matter of this course concerns societal reaction to wrongdoing. Students have the opportunity to investigate historical evidence and learn of the philosophies and practicalities of responses to crime from the middle ages to the twentieth century.

Actually, the academics seem to have missed out a phrase in the final sentence. I’m sure it’s meant to start: “Students have the opportunity to carry out extensive practical research, as well as to investigate….”

I’d like to be a fly on the wall overhearing some of the students’ conversations after certain of the discussions. I recall one very mundane maths lecture when I was at college that led to a cute Scottish friend discussing her one school encounter with the tawse. Goodness knows what revelations might have resulted from a whole hour on corporal punishment.

A little while ago I wrote about the Caning Crusader Eric Wildman, who went to lecture in a public school, and got flogged by the boys, with the Headmaster’s approval. (Apparently, everybody but me knew this story already, but hey, it was news to me.)

Anyway, I’d never heard of the Horsley Hall school, and, being a keen researcher of the history of British public school education, I wanted to find out more about it. There weren’t any surface references on the Web; I figured that the school didn’t exist any more – and, having dug a little deeper, there’s really no wonder it’s no longer with us.

According to an article in the Time magazine from 18 April, 1949, Horsley Hall was a small, but progressive educational establishment. For one thing, it was co-ed (in the 40s!). Secondly, its Headmaster Robert Copping rather loudly disapproved of corporal punishment, being rather far ahead of the times in this regard. That is all very well, but it ended in tears when a former maintenance worker took the school to court:

“There is nothing,” declared the prosecuting attorney, “to prevent boys and girls at any hour from visiting each other in their bedrooms, and it is done.” The court was told by the prosecutor that once, when one teen-aged boy dared another to seduce the school’s middle-aged housekeeper, Assistant Headmaster Edward Reynolds had cracked, “I’ll bet you a pound to a penny that you don’t.” Another witness said that the children were forever talking about sex in “short Anglo-Saxon words.”

This didn’t sit well with the Great British judiciary, and the school was closed, with all 24 of its pupils “removed to the place of safety”.

According to the article, Headmaster Copping had promised to appeal, but I don’t feel too inspired to find out whether he ever had.

I’ve long had a fantasy about a rural, religious village, in which it was traditional for the God-fearing, church-going folk to spank their daughters for the past week’s misdemeanours immediately upon returning home from the Sunday service. I picture rows of nervous girls glancing at one another, wondering which of their friends might shortly experience a most uncomfortable home-coming.

A recent post on Jujebee’s blog explored real-life experiences that reveal my idle imagings to be not too far removed from the truth. In a comment, Jennifer then noted that:

I’ve never known anyone to have such similar experiences or at least speak in detail of them. I can so relate to your posts… on more then one occasion one of my sisters or myself or all of us a few times, were “escorted” out of a church service…and for us that meant only one thing…”a spank’in”. It meant, what we called a “church spank’in” now and when we got home a “REAL” spank’in or whuppin.

A man could get religion. Almost.

P.S. If you wanted to make a real girl tremble, you could head over to Master Fitz and His Brat and vote for an implement to be used on Brat this week. The number of strokes is decided by the number of votes, so go and make your mark, so to speak.

I’m in trouble. Not in the sense that I’m about to get a spanking, but in the sense that over the next few weeks I’m going to work very hard not to get a spanking. Because Abel has just invented a very twisted little exercise, called “Torture by Etiquette Guide”.

A few weeks ago we heard that Debrett’s, the publisher of such useful books as a guide to the British aristocracy, a book of forms of address, and – yes – a guide for etiquette and manners, had brought out a new publication called “Debrett’s Etiquette for Girls.”* It’s thoroughly modern, and includes such complex topics as how to eat sushi politely, the solution to the intricacies of staying the night at your boyfriend’s, and how to gracefully stagger home after an evening of boozing.

Usually I find old etiquette manuals very useful for story research: it’s important to know what an Edwardian schoolgirl would have been spanked for, you see. I was going to go through the new book if I had a chance, but I wasn’t particularly excited about owning it.

Except last weekend we noticed it in a shop, and my perverted husband has decided that it could be put to a better use.

Over the next few weeks – starting this coming Thursday night – he will test me on one chapter of the book. There will be ten question, with a stroke of an implement of Abel’s choice being the punishment for each wrong answer. Each chapter is about twenty pages long, I’ll have you know; that’s twenty pages more studying for a test than I’ve had to endure since finishing my first degree.

[thinks]

OMG, help-help-help!

[thinks]

OK, I feel better now.

You might wonder why I’m all worked up, given that I’m supposed to be _into_ playing school-related scenes, and being spanked, and things like that.

That I might be, but I’m really not into failing tests. I got perfect score on every test I’ve taken since about the age of 14, and I’ve certainly never had to answer for failing one. This is a matter of honour – or maybe a matter of arrogance – to come away from the tests unscathed. But there are ten chapters in the book – that’s a hundred questions, if Abel doesn’t get bored earlier. I think I’m justified in panicking here.

I’m sure you’ll hear more on this soon.

———————–
* By which they mean “young women” rather than “female children”.

Obviously, the idea that physical contact between schoolmasters and the poor innocent girls in their charge is a BAD THING is absolutely correct, and quite rightly enshrined in law these days.

That in itself creates entirely different opportunities for perverted thought. Several of my stories revolve around a teacher having to punish his favourite girl (bright, sassy, attractive, a prefect, destined for one of the great universities, requiring private tuition, and so on). The feelings are mutual – the girl respecting, adoring her wise mentor.

But, of course, in a story set in a boarding school of 2006, there could be no corporal punishment. And the relationship would be purely platonic: their deep feelings left unspoken.

Until (if you were having kinky dreams, as I did last night) the final day of the final term of the girl’s school career. It’s after final assembly. Our young lady heads for her favourite teacher’s study to express her heartfelt thanks and say her goodbyes before heading to the railway station.

They stand opposite each other, electricity crackling in the air between them, so many unspoken words leaping through their minds. He tells her to stand up straight: “Just because you’re no longer a pupil here doesn’t mean you can slouch.”

“No, sir.”

He walks around her, inspecting her, and then stands close before her. “As you’ve left the school. you shouldn’t be wearing your uniform.”

I’ll leave the rest to your perverted imaginations…

Clare of Positive Submission had to endure a job interview. Poor Clare, I feel for her.

Let me tell you, she had some entertaining answers to the questions she was asked. Such as:

Are you open to the idea of training?
I’m very open to the idea of training, in fact I’m undergoing BDSM training right now

What training tools are you familiar with?
*blushes* cane, crop and a lovely rubber flogger

No she didn’t actually say all that. But we wish, we wish…

There are more of her questions and answers here; I was laughing my bum off when Abel sent me the link.

I have to class George Orwell’s wartime journalism as the most unusual source of a spanking startle that I’ve ever come across. Writing in Tribune in 1945, he discussed

…the Fairchild Family, which was written in 1813 and was for fifty years or more a standard book for children.

Here is Mrs Fairchild, telling the children how when she herself was a child she disobeyed orders by picking cherries in company with the servant girl:

“Nanny was given up to her mother to be flogged; and I was shut up in the dark room, where I was to be kept several days upon bread and water.”

Now, I wonder what happened to the servant girl?

Many people come to our blog every day, and hardly any of them (any of YOU) ever leave a comment.

We understand, honestly. After all, we also read lots of blogs, but we don’t always leave comments. Because delurking – that is, commenting for the first time – is _hard_. And scary.

What do you say? Do you introduce yourself? Or do you jump straight into the conversation? What if you really like the post, but you don’t think you have anything clever to add?

Luckily for all the lurkers of the spanking blogosphere, Bonnie of “My Bottom Smarts” has announced the Spanking Blog Delurk Day. That’s today. Participating blogs (and that includes us, the Spanking Writers) have decided to make the first step towards their lurkers.

Instead of you saying the first ‘hello’, we are saying it to _you_.

Hi! How are you? Do you often read spanking blogs, or have you just been passing by? What scratches your kinky itch?

We don’t bite.

(OK, Abel canes people, but not unless they want him to.)

We’ve just had our oven professionally cleaned by a nice man with lots of clever chemicals. Honestly, we needed it. It was seriously, seriously icky, and now the cat uses the oven to play with the funny-looking kitty reflected in its shiny door.

Anyway, as I chatted away to the cleaner guy, I imagined a service provided by a professional implement-maintenance service. They will polish your paddles, soak your old canes back to suppleness, and re-tie your birch rods as you wait.

I’m rather glad they don’t exist, actually. I’d rather all those toys went unmaintained.