The Spanking Writers

A reader of The Chattanoogan has fond memories of her upbringing:

I remember growing up. Everybody was your parent. When you were in church, at school or outdoors, you had to be the best-behaved child. Any adult that saw you doing anything out of the way sure would give you a spanking and, before you got home, your grandma or mother knew.

So, hands up if you think that being grabbed and spanked by random adults in the street would have helped you grow up a better person than you are.

What, nobody?

That said, in my virtual folder of fantasies is one where I’m a child growing up in a small community where every adult takes part in bringing up every child. Lots of spanking happens, naturally. However, in my fantasy, none of these adults are evil, morally suspect or even less than very wise, which makes it work this much better for me.

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Readers may well be familiar with the concept of “Lorem Ipsum” – the opening words of a stock Latin phrase that printers and graphic designers use when laying out documents.

A fascinating website reveals that the text – used since the 1500s – is drawn from a passage of Cicero. In translation, this reads:

“No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure.”

Pain procuring pleasure? Do designers realise that every time they use this standard text, they’re promoting the cause of kinkiness?

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Tourist information departments are most inventive these days. Wandering round a city centre before a meeting last week, I spied a high-tech multimedia booth.

Behold, an electronic, touch-screen map of our attractions! Marvel at the email ability: just touch the picture of the establishment you want to visit, and you can send them a note! Look shocked at the two schoolgirls typing what, from their giggles, was clearly a rude message…

Had I designed the system, it would have had an additional feature…

Picture said girls standing before their Headmaster…

See him pass the grainy photograph across the desk: not the highest quality, but recognisably the two girls in front of him…

Hear him comment on how prescient the tourist board had been to fit the booths with in-build cameras…

Watch him walk over to his cupboard to extract a cane…

Wince as the girls take their turn touching their toes for their salutory lesson…

Only, I doubt it quite transpired like that this morning, cameras and canes being absent from the equation.

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From Neal Stephenson’s “Quicksilver”, p. 201:

Oldenburg turned the lute over across his knees like a naughty boy for spanking.

Wow, what a thing to think about a musical instrument!

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Having not been spanked for more than two weeks, I have returned to the England and my husband.

I do believe I’m in for it. Oh dear.

Isn’t it a shame we’re due to go to a play party on Sunday, so he can’t make me too sore in the meantime?

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Picture the scene. A clear blue sky; a warm breeze. Historic school buildings. Girls in immaculate school uniform, studying hard, whilst one of their number waits nervously outside the Headmaster’s office to be punished.

Feels like the setting for one of my stories. Actually, it’s Warwick Academy in Bermuda which provides boys and girls up to the age of 19 with: “an education of a predominantly academic character following traditional lines… The school has an excellent reputation for its high academic standards, firm discipline, fine musical tradition and its comprehensive and compulsory extra-curricular programme.”

As the school handbook explains:

Warwick Academy is committed to the belief that discipline is essential to learning and growth… We also believe that positive reinforcement is better than punitive measures, but students who do not abide by the school rules will be disciplined. It is only through firm, fair, and consistent enforcement of our rules that we will create the appropriate atmosphere in the school. This must also include the provision for dealing with students on an individual and fair basis when the need arises.

A complex list of demerits is defined, and “Corporal punishment may be given by the Headmaster or a Deputy Head of School to a student guilty of fighting, smoking or speaking obscenities or other serious misdemeanours.

Or, as it’s put more succinctly elsewhere: “Students may be strapped for failure to adhere to the school’s Rules of Conduct at the discretion of the Headmaster.”

The record book captures “the date, the pupil’s name, the name of the person administering the punishment, the purpose and number of strokes, and the name of the teacher witnessing the punishment.” Meanwhile parents “will be informed by letter from the Headmaster of the reason for the punishment and the number of strokes given”

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Philadelphia in 1734 took a robust approach to correcting its female miscreants. Take the following extracts from the “Weekly Mercury”, describing sentences passed down at the Court of Record on 1st January:

Abigail Taylor, was indicted and convicted of Stealing Fifteen Pound and a half of Tallow from Richard Clymer, and Sentanced to receive on her bare Back, at the common Whipping-Post of this City, Five Lashes.

Martha Cash, was convicted of Stealing Six Yards of kersey from John Goodwin, Sentenced to receive forty lashes.

Margaret Mason, was convicted of Stealing Six Moidors, Ten English Guineas and two half Guineas from Robert Abbot, Sentanced to receive Twenty one Lashes.

Elizabeth Cosgrove, Elizabeth Gower, and Elinor Doyle, were convicted of Stealing Thenty eight Drest Dear-Skins from Isaac Bolton, Sentanced to receive, Elizabeth Cosgrove and Elinor Doyle, Twenty one Lashes each, and Elizabeth Gower Fifteen Lashes.

Jane McClain, was convicted of Picking the Pocket of James Morris, and Stealing one Pocket-Book and Five Pound Sixteen Shillings in Paper Money, Sentanced to receive Twenty one Lashes.

Why twenty-one lashes? Seems a strange number. I wonder why Elizabeth received fewer than her friends? And were they inflicted as each individual left the courtroom – or were the convicts kept together to be whipped en masse at the end of the day’s proceedings?

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Over the weekend I sat at a lecture by a well-respected Russian writer of fantasy. He said many useful and wonderful things about writing: nothing I didn’t know, exactly, but plenty I could do with hearing again. About fantasy and SF he said that if it’s good, it needs to be constantly surprising. Bad fantasy is based on recognition (ooh look, another elf!), good fantasy keeps you amazed.

Many people may disagree, but if he’s right, I may have just figured out why it’s so bloody hard to write good spanking fiction (or any erotica) set in a fantasy world.

I’m convinced that a good spanking story, if it is to appeal to your id, mustn’t be surprising. We have our kinky buttons. We like them pushed in a particular way, just so. There’s only so much room for maneuvre before a piece of erotica becomes too surprising, too creative, too vaguely connected with your particular brand of kink.

This isn’t to say spanking stories have to be boring: just that there shouldn’t be so much extraneous stuff that you get distracted from having a finger jabbed at your buttons.

Where good fantasy fiction must surprise and amaze, erotica must provide enough familiarity to still get you off.

When you try to mix them in together, well… Chances are, one side will suffer: either the fantasy element will be weak and cliche, or you’ll get so excited by the magicky gadgets that the spanking side of the story will limp along, as though it was put there as an afterthought.

One or the other will sound jarring. One or the other will seem extraneous. “Why did you put all this spanking into a good space opera, huh?” “Why did you mix in all this complicated geekery and spoil my spanking story?” Well, see, I really tried to make it work, but…

I’m still convinced you can do fantasy erotica well. I am, in fact, convinced that some of my own fantasy erotica is pretty good, you know? But it’s hard work. I’ve noticed before how hard it was to keep the balance. I guess, now I know why.

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Amusing conversation the other morning, as I staggered into the office carrying a large, long bag.

Woman at the next desk: “How long are you away for?”

Me: “Two nights.”

WATND: “Wow. That bag makes it look like you’re on the road for a week…”

Me: “I know. But the bag I usually use for quick trips is too short for my cane.”

Actually, I didn’t say that: one of those moments where the truth might be just a tad inappropriate! And I’d have had to explain away the XH tawse and the well-worn plimsoll as well…

It all reminded me of a recent news report about British Airways’ new excess baggage charges: you can only take one bag without paying a surcharge, but are also allowed to check in a free golf bag. The journalist commented:

“Of course, they don’t say whether it has to contain golf clubs,”

Frankly, none of our friends who check in golf bags on a regular basis would ever use them for anything so mundane as golfing equipment. I wonder if the airline’s employee who designed such a kink-friendly baggage policy is a fellow spanko?

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Oh my God. While I’ve been gone, one of Kiev’s universities has introduced uniforms for its students. These would be girls and lads from 17 to 22 years old, plus any mature students that care to attend.

The girls wear straight navy skirts, white shirts and navy ties, with a pin in the shape of the college’s sigil.

I took them for students of one of our military schools at first, but my friend mentioned in a casual conversation: “University A. is thinking of introducing uniforms, now that University B’s done it and it’s been such a success.”

The city is full of grown women in schoolgirl gear.

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