And speaking of the Spice Girls: Melanie B has a passage in her autobiography in which the actual spanking seems a lesser punishment than the long-drawn-out anticipation:
If I did something wrong in front of my mum, she would explode and often smack me there and then. With my dad there was never a spontaneous reaction, it would be next Wednesday after school at 6 p.m. ‘Remember what you’ve just done because you’re going to get punished for it next week!’ he’d threaten.
The anticipation was worse than the punishment. I knew exactly what was coming. I’d walk into a silent room, bend over, get smacked (by his hand or a belt), then stand up and walk out of the room without saying a word. Sometimes he used to count the smacks out loud because if I was naughty twice in a week I’d get a double dose. It was so cruel, yet strangely matter-of-fact.
Amid the frantic whirlwind of life and work I still sometimes wake up in a sweat, thinking, What am I supposed to be doing today? It’s that same feeling of anxiety that I experienced in the lead-up to getting smacked. I used to open my eyes with a sinking heart, thinking, I’ve got four/three/two more days to go. I dreaded it. Sometimes, though, I think I was naughty on purpose, just to get dad’s full attention for a few minutes.
Two Spice Girl autobiographies on holiday? There’s really no excuse, you know!
Guys… you know they have other kinds of books that aren’t written by members of the spice girls?
This is so sad (for the writer). The effects of her father’s rigid timing and what sounds like his emotional detachment obviously linger decades after the end of her childhood.
Don’t listen to Eliane and Scarlett. I, for one, am expecting you to report back on all the remaining Spice Girls.
How many Spice Girls are there?
Rightly be they called SPICE girls…
and I do think the last sentence is very revealing. There may lie the origins of spanking fetish for some of us at least.
spice girls =)
This reminds me of my childhood…
There were five Spice Girls, Indy: Sporty, Scary, Baby, Ginger and Posh. I was always Ginger when we played Spice girls in the playground because she was quite clearly the most awesome.
OK, so who else round here besides me went to see the Spice Girls’ reunion tour a couple of years back? *Such* a good night!
Um… Abel, I think you’re on your own there!
And good because you really, really love the Spice Girls, or because you were surrounded by spankable women?
OK, Catherine, do the maths…
O2 arena. 18,000 in the crowd.
By rough calculation… 17,990 of these were women, all of the age to have “been there” when the Spice Girls were first around – that is, in their 20s and 30s.
Leaving 10 guys. And the other 9 of those were gay.
Yes, it was fun.
Of course, that doesn’t tell us how many of those 17,990 girls were spankable in your eyes…
Oh whoops, silly me, probably ALL of them 😉
Um… Abel I went to the Spice Girls tour, there were a *LOT* of children in that audience so I think your maths might be wishful thinking…
Yes, Scarlett, but how many of those underage girls were secretly reading spanking blogs? As I’m sure at least one of those strangely named Spice-people would have done had TSW been around in her youth…