The Spanking Writers

Now that Florida Moonshine is over, and some of my excitement has died down, I feel it’s time to stop and look back on it.

This being my first big spanking party, it could have been very daunting indeed to walk into a community of strangers, many of whom knew each other. Luckily, FMS has a friendly, active Fetlife group, so Abel and I could make some connections before we went. That could be a lesson for anyone: if you’re going to a spanking event, make sure you participate in its online community before you go. That way, when you arrive, you’ll have people to talk to, and perhaps even scenes you have pre-arranged.

Speaking of scenes. A lot of play is spontaneous, and it’s lovely to be able to walk up to somebody and ask them to play (though chatting beforehand is a must). But actually, making play appointments is a much better strategy: then you don’t depend on randomly bumping into people you want to play with, but you can actualy lure them into your room, or go to theirs. I missed out on playing with a couple of people I liked, because I hadn’t thought to make play-dates with them, so let this be a lesson for everyone.

Also, it appears you can’t do everything. At a big party there’s play stuff going on all the time, and it really is OK to take breaks. Unless you have a play date, nobody will get offended if you retreat to your room for a while and recharge your kinky batteries. This took me a little while to work out, but in the end cycling play and rest worked really well.

In conclusion, I would like to thank Tony and his team for the really exciting and memorable event!

Occasionally, I read things that make my blood boil – such as this report, a must-read for those of us who value the freedom of those of us in the scene to enjoy consensual play:

A couple who decided to engage in kinky BDSM sex now face prosecution after police decided to file charges of aggravated assault against the man, despite both parties consenting.  The couple, a 32-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl (the age of consent in Sweden is 15), met on a Swedish sex website and struck up a steamy BDSM-based relationship.

The girl, apparently the masochist of the pair, wrote in a letter that she wanted to be “used, abused and thoroughly humiliated,” and her sadistic partner was only too happy to oblige, locking her into a cage and applying nipple clamps, amongst other acts.  However, a relative of the girl noticed bruises left over from their play, and police soon stuck their nose in with a view to arresting the man.

The public prosecutor is outraged at the consenting couple’s dungeon antics, conceding that whilst she cannot charge the man with rape due to the consenting nature of their sex, she can still charge him with aggravated assault whether both parties consented or not:  ”What I want to establish is that even if they say they are in agreement over this then you not allowed to seriously assault someone.  It is on this issue that the district court has to issue a ruling, is this aggravated assault and was she able to agree to it?”

Sweden apparently allows consenting parties to beat each other’s brains out if they do so in the ring, as with boxing or similar, but it may very well not be permissible to engage in rough sex or BDSM play, consent or no.

The defendant is said to be calling an expert in sadomasochism to testify on his behalf, in a case which could soon be giving police in less radical nations ideas about how to finally get rid of their unwanted perverts without falling foul of tedious arguments over civil liberties – simply accuse them of violence against women.

20-odd years on from the UK’s Spanner case, it horrifies me to see a member of the kink community being prosecuted in an EU country. Following the link trail back takes us to this local newspaper site, but there’s not much in the way of discussion there.

Surely the weight of reasoned opinion from those of us in the scene across Europe and beyond must be able to be brought to bear somehow to help the defendant’s case?  I wonder if there’s a Swedish BDSM community which is up in arms about this, rallying to support those involved – for the young woman concerned must be almost as traumatised at seeing her play partner being prosecuted as he is to be heading to court. (Who knows, too, whether he needs help with legal costs to get the best possible representation).

The prosecutor is one Ulrika Rogland, and she’s been merrily offering TV interviews about the case, but I can’t find any way to contact her to express my views – although I am going to drop a line to the academic mentioned in the original article.

Anyone got any other bright ideas as to how we could offer our support?  At the very least, adding your comments here would be a start…

BBC news carried an interesting little item on Monday morning, entitled “Troubled teens ‘sent to Siberia’”. It explained that:

Young offenders from Germany are being sent to Siberia in an attempt to steer them away from further trouble.  The extreme climate was once considered punishment, with frozen winters and suffocating humidity in summer.  But the teenagers are expected to work hard while there.

The video clip featured a young man, but I’m more interested in the establishment for German girls that’s (presumably) going to be established just down the road. Corporal punishment will, of course, be a feature – OTK hand spankings for most offences; the belt for more serious misdemeanours. For the gravest transgressions, the miscreant would be tied to a bench, and thrashed with freshly-cut switches.

But setting up such a place and signing up the first girls may take some time. So here’s another spin in which CP (more realistically) doesn’t form part of the punishment regime. A local girl strikes up a friendship with one of the German youths, despite having been told not to consort with such bad boys. She’s caught, half-undressed, in his room one night. She’s  taken home… a stern lecture… she’s made to bend over the kitchen table, soundly whipped then sent to bed.

Prior to attending the Florida Moonshine spanking party over this past weekend, I’d spent a week in the same state at a vanilla convention – an event that I’ve been attending annually for the past ten years.

Every year, one of our fellow sponsors – a lovely chap – has brought along one of this two young daughters to help with his exhibition stand. Both girls have always been a delight: well brought-up, polite, running around helping daddy, even demonstrating his product to potential clients. (I know software companies often say that their offerings are so easy that a child could use them – but I’ve never been convinced that getting a child to demonstrate them is necessarily the soundest approach to selling. But still…)

This year, I bumped into said gentleman at a drinks reception, to which he’d been accompanied by a very delightful young woman. She’s just finished her freshman year reading psychology at University, and was bright, fun, sassy. And my kinkdar, spankdar – that sense that someone you’ve just met in the vanilla world is “one of us”, is kinky as can be? Well, she well-and-truly registered. And her naughty giggle and blush when I headed to the bar, commenting that I’d have to get her a soft drink  as she was under 21 and so obviously wouldn’t have tried alcohol at Uni, would have given me just cause to put her over my knee.

Only, of course, she wasn’t some new recruit to the exhibitor’s company: she was the same elder daughter who’s been coming to the conference for all of these years. Had I met her at FMS, I know where this would have gone. But at the vanilla event? Not a good idea, for so many reasons:

• her father was standing next to us
• I was surrounded by customers and potential clients
• there was no conceivable way to subtly introduce spanking into the conversation
• my spankdar might, of course, have been wrong
• work back: she’s 18 now. I first met her in 2002. When she must have been 10.

Even if I’d been feeling bold with regard to the first few of these, the final one just felt so wrong. (But if she happens to be reading this and does plan on coming to next year’s event in Denver, she’s very welcome indeed to drop me a line…!)

It struck me as we’ve tweeted merrily away from the FMS party this weekend that we’ve never mentioned our Twitter accounts here. In case anyone’s interested, Abel can be found as @AbelJenkins and Haron’s user name is  @AdeleHaze. Catch us there!

I crept in from the Florida Moonshine upstairs party just after midnight. Abel was fast asleep, having reached the limit of his usefulness three hour earlier. I tried hard not to disturb him, because I’m nice and thoughtful, but I couldn’t help but get flashes of a teenage girl returning home in the middle of the night.

She’d had permission to go out to the cinema with her two best friends, but what her parents didn’t realise was that some boys would be coming along as well, and that one of the boys would invite the whole band to his house, as his parents were away.

Thus it would be that the girl, whose curfew is 11 o’clock, tiptoed home at half-past-twelve, expecting to go straight to her room – but finding that her father was dozing on the chair in the living-room.

When he heard the front door, he woke up at once, and strode towards her with determination.

“Do you have an explanation?” he asked quietly.

The girl mumbled something about forgetting the time, and how sorry she was to be late.

“I see, young lady. Well, we don’t want to wake the entire family, but you will set your alarm for 8 am, and wait for me in your room. We have something to discuss, don’t we?”

And thus the tearful girl, who’d up until that point been having a wonderful evening, had a very uncomfortable night’s sleep, waiting for a very painful appointment the following morning.

I’m so glad I’m not her!

Ladies: I need your opinion.

Imagine are to be spanked on the bare. Which works best for you: having your knickers taken down by the top who’s about to deal with you – or being told to remove them yourself? And why?

Does it vary according to the implement to be used, or the position you’re adopting for the whacking? Does it change according to the nature of the spanking – playful, roleplaying (in whatever character), disciplinary, punishment, erotic? Does timing have an issue (removal before being made to adopt the requisite position, or once you are bent over)?

I’m curious. It’s such an important part of the spanking ceremony – yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen it discussed in any depth…

Today is the day we’re finally going to Florida Moonshine, our first big spanking party.

Apparently, Abel is very concerned that I’ll get over-excited, and disgrace the reputation of our family with my wild ways. (People who know my personality are now laughing their arses off.)

He summoned me with a stern “Come here”, and said:

“We are meeting a lot of new people today. I hope you’ll be on your best behaviour. Do you know what will happen if you misbehave?”

I looked at the cane in his hand. It seemed to twitch ominously. “I will be spanked, sir?”

“That’s right.”

“But won’t I be spanked even if I behave really well?” Seeing how we’ll be at a spanking party, and everything.

He ignored this. “I’m going to give you two strokes of the cane, to make sure you understand.”

I sighed, and bent over the back of the sofa, and took the two searing licks, and took the lesson to heart.

Sorta.

See? I’m already behaving.

I wouldn’t usually post such a long extract from someone else’s writing, but this 1914 story by Floyd Dell – published on Marxists.org – is long out of copyright and rather fascinating. The author was doubtless campaigning against corporal punishment – but their powerful piece of fiction also inadvertently ended up as one of the more remarkable spanking stories I’ve ever read:

A sixteen year old girl sat on the bed undressing. It was in one of the two upstairs dormitories in the Training School for Girls, otherwise the Girls’ Reform School. The room held a double row of hastily made beds. Across the wooden headboard of each bed was stretched a piece of clothesline, on which hung a towel and a nightgown. Beside each bed was a white-painted washstand. On the whitewashed wall at one end of the room, hanging from a nail, was a little framed motto: “God Is Love.”…

Minnie was getting ready to be whipped. She was undressing slowly, because she knew she had about half an hour. They had not yet whipped Jeanette, and Jeanette had been the first over the high picket fence in the break for liberty the night before. Minnie had followed, and so she would be whipped afterward. Minnie, who understood little of the ways of Miss Hampton and Miss Carter, and those other people who “ran” the Reform School, could understand that. She would have resented being whipped first. Besides, she wanted to hear how Jeanette would take her beating… Minnie would be able to hear it all-and perhaps even see, for there was that window in the partition right above her bed.

The first day Jeanette had been there, a girl named Anna had been beaten in the other dormitory, and she and Jeanette had hidden here to listen. Jeanette had seen this window, and climbed up on the headboard of the bed to get to it. She had “gone up there like a cat,” and caught hold of the bars of the window, and looked through. Minnie was not so tall as Jeanette, but she might see too if she was careful.

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I’m horrendously jet-lagged right now, and have sat staring at the screen for at least half an hour. I’d had the topic of my blog entry worked out just a few hours ago, but when I actually sat down to write it, my thoughts kept drifting in a fog.

I confided in Abel, who quickly found a solution. He took our travel cane out of the hotel wardrobe.

“Trousers down and bend over,” he said. “I’ll give you inspiration.”

Although I was very tired, this struck me as a very sensible idea: maybe hanging upside down over the back of the sofa would shake coherent thought back into my head? The cane would also help.

Unfortunately, it also hurt. I yelped and protested.

“I’ll keep caning you until you feel inspired,” Abel said, delivering the second stroke. I was about to assure him that I was now quite inspired, but decided to take another one, just to make sure.

Yep, I was sure.

Except, when I announced that I didn’t need any more inspiration, Abel decided that a final hard stroke would be particularly useful. That nearly sent me through the ceiling, and he looked pretty pleased with himself.

So, yes. Getting caned is very inspiring. Though next time I should probably stop earlier.