Kirsten Ellison’s Yahoo 360 page, “Curtseygirl”, offers some delightful writing. Her opening strapline (and I’d never pondered the juxtaposition of ‘strap’ and ‘line’ until writing that!) advises:

Make friends with Australian girls: their ancestors were British convicts so they enjoy being flogged.

One particular post that caught my eye was “A Rose in Bloom”. It’s an interesting writing experiment – as Kirsten says, “I thought that since I see myself within 360 as a writer rather than a spanko I’d try out a few other ways of writing than simple narrative”.

The introduction is in a conventional enough style:

Kirsten was somewhere between pleased and frightened. Why she had been invited to speak at the Sixteenth International Biennial Convocation on Discipline in Schools at Wrest Point Casino was beyond her understanding, but that she had been asked to speak on the subject “Christian Scriptural Understandings upon the Use of Physical Means of Sanction” had left her stunned.

She allowed herself a brief scan of the platform: sitting two seats down from her was a Catholic Monsignor from Rome: surely he’d have been a better option on the topic, since whilst Kirsten was most certainly Christian, and of the Biblical mindset, she did not believe that flogging was the answer to very much at all.

This, after all, was the twenty-first century; the age of Samuel Marsden, “The Flogging Parson”, had passed, even in Van Dieman’s Land. Sitting between her and his grace was Sir Stephen Aldwych, former Secretary of State for Education in HM (British) Government, and former head master of Kirsten’s own girlhood school. Indeed it was Sir Stephen who had served Kirsten with her only experience of corporal punishment whilst she had been a pupil.

The neat thing in the writing is the way she presents the speech. I’ll share just the opening – click over to Kirsten’s blog is you’re curious to see the rest:

“Good morning your Excellency, Madam Premier, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your welcome: it is indeed a great privilege to be home, and to be speaking to you on a topic so close to my heart. I must admit to a bout of nerves at this point, speaking not only in the presence of both the Governor of Tasmania and the Premier, but also of Sir Stephen, my former head-master. When last we shared a desk in the same room I was bent across it…

Laughter

“…I trust the same shall not be required of me today.”

-------

Now you can buy spanking-related gifts with our original designs.