The Spanking Writers

I haven’t tried this myself, but apparently, if you have an iPhone, you can buy an app that pretends to spank whatever/whoever you take a picture of.

From a Wired review:

You snap a photo of a person, then it displays a bubble above him or her that says “Spank.” Then when you shake the iPhone you hear the sound of a spank, followed by a man yelping.

The app costs $1… There’s a similar one in the App Store called Spank the Monkey, which does the same thing, only it costs $5 and you’re spanking cartoon monkeys rather than humans.

I must admit, even if I had an iPhone, I wouldn’t stumble over my feet in a rush to download these. They sound quite silly. And yet, even the silliest little programme can be improved by willing persons, so maybe one day we’ll see a great spanking app.

Two websites have made me laugh aloud in the past couple of days. The first was a newish spanking blog – the wonderfully-named “Getting It”, by Caroline Grey. In one lovely post, she described how as she grew up, her didn’t-know-it-was-kinky-at-the-time imagination was inspired by reading adventure stories: 

One morning my mother caught me all tied up in bed. She was bemused, but I was a strange child and I don’t think she was really all that shocked. I explained that I was playing “Kidnapped” and she shook her head at me. She scolded me about the safety of such a thing. What if there was a fire and I couldn’t get away?

…A fire and I couldn’t get away! It was a whole new scenario to imagine!

I just loved that! (By the way, on the subject of new spanking blogs, if you’ve not found your way yet to the delightful Kami Robertson’s equally delightful “On the way of exploration”, I’d highly recommend it).

Later, Google News emailed me a clipping from the Fort Wayne Daily News. In it, a columnist ponders:

Question: Why is spanking and other forms of physical punishment called “corporal” punishment? Why not captain punishment or sergeant punishment.

Answer: Good question. I thought the answer would be easy to determine but after doing a bunch of checking on the Internet, I could not come up with a suitable explanation for the origin of that term. I will keep working on this and invite any help.

I mean, they actually employ people like that as journalists? Someone quickly posted the correct and obvious answer – but I think we should have a competition with a prize for the most innovative answer posted on the newspaper’s page. I’ve started the ball rolling, posting a comment that:

Beatkid’s theory is widely held to be true, but the origins of the word ‘corporal’ in this sense are actually rather older. In Roman days, when whippings were common, it was deemed inappropriate to flog girls with leather whips. So they used a lighter implement, made from the skins of hamsters – or, to give them their Latin name, Mesocricetus auratus corporalus.

My reply’s apparently in a moderation queue, so I don’t know whether it’ll eversee the light of day! But do go and join in the fun!

On Saturday we went to see the RSC production of Othello. If you disregard the multiple deaths, it was one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen on the stage.

Patrice Naiambana, who played Othello, had the most wonderful air of power about him, with his voice deep and low, his speech measured. As a general, a figure of authority, he was making my insides melt.

In Act II Scene III his officers had a drunken fight, and Othello walked in to find out what they were up to. (He just happened to be carrying a thin bamboo stick, as well.) His mere presence struck terror into his men, and when he growled “What is the matter, masters?” and “Speak, who began this?”, they were quivering like schoolgirls. And so was I, except I wanted to jump up and cry “It was me, sir, I’m so sorry!” He was smoking hot.

When jealousy made him lose his composure and fall into frightening rages, Othello was jumping about the stage with a bull whip, cracking it at Iago, and generally showing he knew how to use it. (He actually used it to strangle Desdemona in the end, but never mind that.) Shame about the jealousy and the whole plot thing, because I was really enjoying the calm, dominant Othello.

That Shakespeare is so kinky, I’m surprised he hasn’t been banned.

I was browsing a debate on corporal punishment the other day, on some vanilla forum or other, when I happened to glance at the “Ads by Google” at the top of the page.

Yes, folks, there are apparently hundreds of retailers still providing school canes. (I’m sure there are thousands more who stock includes a Girls School Cane).

Sadly, the link showed that none had any stock.

Computers. Wonderful things.

I was working on something last night, while in the background the television was on. Through the haze of work I heard snatches of dialogue:

“Yeah, we did have some break-ins. Stole some tools, midless vandalism, that sort of thing, but…”

The mind completes that sentence without skipping a beat: “But the girls concerned were all apprehended and soundly whipped.”

Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what went on.

Sometimes, story plots work themselves out perfectly; sometimes, no matter how much I think about them, the ideas never quite gel. Take a scenario which sprung into my mind early one recent morning, as I walked through Green Park in central London, en route to work.

The Headmaster was clearly annoyed: a group of girls had been caned for some serious breach of a school rule. What made it worse was that their crime was a quite calculated gesture: they’d broken a rule widely agreed by the girls in the school to be unfair, and their act had been committed in the full knowledge that it would provoke and annoy the school authorities.

He’d called them in, one by one; each had received a lecture; each had been caned soundly across her skirt and sent on her way.

The grapevine quickly spread word of their punishment around the school, and the girls concerned – far from being ashamed of their punishment – seemed to revel in the attention. That, in their eyes, their canings had been as unfair as the rule they had broken, merely added to their sense of camaraderie, and before long they had styled themselves “The Martyrs’ Club.” 

Posters appeared on noticeboards; slogans scrawled on blackboards; T-shirts were printed and worn under school colours during hockey matches. Their names were whispered by others as a gesture of solidarity and shared defiance: “I support The Martyrs’ Club…”

The Headmaster had no choice but to act. His lecture at the morning assembly was stern: “I will not stand by and watch a group of girls seek to undermine my authority. Whilst I see no particular need to justify myself to the school, I feel I should point out why the rule in question exists, and why I felt it necessary to administer corporal punishment to the girls in question.” His explanation appeared more than reasonable; the tide of schoolgirl opinion started to turn; he made it clear that their ongoing disobedience could not be tolerated, and would be dealt with severely: “Miss Smith, Miss Matthews, Miss Harris, Miss Fry and Miss King will report to my office immediately following this assembly to be caned.”

He saw the five girls together this time; called them forward in turn, each to receive six of the very best stripes on the bare. And no more was heard of the Martyrs.

Only, that’s where I start to struggle – because I cannot, for the life of me, work out the nature of their original offence. What rule could they have broken, that would seem so manifestly unfair – yet be to eminently reasonable once the rationale for its existence was understood. Any ideas would be most welcome: I’d so love to write the story once that final, key part of the jigsaw falls into place.

Yesterday’s Daily Mail has an article about a mutiny on HMS Hermione, and all the cruelties that led to it in the first place:

Pigot was the cruellest captain in the Royal Navy. On the Success he had ordered 85 floggings — nearly half his crew — in the space of nine months.

Regulations stipulated that a dozen lashes was the maximum any man should receive, but Pigot frequently ignored this, ordering three or four times that number. Two men died from the effects of repeated floggings.

Two incidents tipped the ship’s company from misery into mutiny. Five weeks into the voyage, Pigot ordered midshipman David Casey to be flogged because he had dared to remonstrate with Pigot over his abusive language. It fuelled the men’s loathing for their captain.

On the evening of September 20, a few days after Casey’s flogging, the men were working frantically to reef the sails as a tricky squall sent the tall masts gyrating wildly.

Below, Pigot watched the men on the mizzentop mast with mounting impatience and fury. Through his speaking trumpet he hurled up a chilling threat: ‘I’ll flog the last man down.’

In their panic and haste, three young sailors, one a lad of 16, lost their grip on the yardarm and fell screaming onto the deck 50ft below, one landing on Edward Southcott, the master.

I’m talking to Haron in bed about a particular friend, who we’ve not seen for a while.

“I’ve never spanked her in private. You know, just me and her.”

“Yeah, but you’ve had sex with her.”

“But that wasn’t in private, either.”

We pause, both contemplating the incident in question.

Eventually I break the silence:

“Does it make it more or less pervy that there were four of us in bed at the time?”

On the morning news a few days ago they talked about the 25th anniversary of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean’s Olympic performance of “Bolero”.

It occured to me, when they played the music, that “Bolero” isn’t just perfect to skate to: its steady rhythm would be great to measure out a spanking.

Just imagine the sentence: “Young lady, you will be spanked for as long as it takes to play “Bolero” twice”.

A judicial scene played out in my dreams last night, no doubt occasioned by having watched a spanking movie on my laptop in the hotel before falling asleep.

Two girls, newly admitted to the reformatory, stood side-by-side in a cold, whitewashed room – still in the clothes they’d been wearing when sentenced in court. The Govenor stood in front of them; another guard watched from the back of the room.

The senior officer gestured towards a large wooden whipping frame in the centre of the room. “You will be aware that all new prisoners receive eight strokes of the cane on admission.”

They were.

“Then let’s get it over with, shall we? Take off your clothes; the last of you to be naked will receive two extra stripes.”

One girl stripped immediately; the other stood with arms folded, not reacting.

He waited until the first girl was naked, then turned to the second: “Did you understand my order, young lady?”

A pause, then a murmured, “Yes.”

“Yes, *sir*.”

She remained silent.

The govenor stepped forward. “Well, if you won’t remove your clothes, then we’ll have to it for you.” He and his colleague moved towards her; one took her wrists, whilst the other stripped her, roughly, as she squirmed to avoid their attentions.

“It seems we have a defiant one here,” the senior officer commented to his colleague.

“Indeed, sir.”

The govenor walked over to the first, more compliant girl. He placed a finger under her chin, and lifted her eyes to his. “It’s your lucky day, Miss Hobbs. See, Miss Spencer here clearly needs to be taught a lesson. So I’ll be giving her your strokes, as well as her own. Go and stand at the back of the room, facing the wall.”

The dream ended there, sadly, before the eighteen strokes (eight for each girl, plus the two for being the last to get undressed) were administered. But later in the night, I slipped back in my dreams to the same reformatory to hear that the girl had just been “put on Section D.” This, it seemed, was shorthand for being sent to the punishment wing for repeated disobedience; whippings would be par for the course. Quite what sections A, B or C wasn’t explained, and my dreams moved on before I could find out more.