The Spanking Writers

This morning is bright, but cold. A schoolgirl sneaking outside for a smoke would have to dress properly: blazer, coat, scarf, hat. That was, if she’s confronted, it won’t look like she’s actually nipping out for five minutes; she will claim that she’s going for a walk.

Unless she gets caught in the act, possibly by the school gardener who is raking the leaves in the usually safe smoking spot. Despite all her pleading, he will take her back into the main building of the school, straight to the Housemistress’s office.

There, the process of getting ready for the cane will be even longer than usual, because of all the items of clothing the girl must take off. Hat, scarf, coat, blazer. Skirt. Knickers. One by one, anticipation welling up inside her like a cloud of smoke.

The Housemistress will wait impassively, tapping the cane on the palm of her hand. She is in no hurry at all.

Time travel is a wonderful experience… We spent the past weekend back in 1810, as guests at Lord Fawcett’s annual house party – perhaps the most splendid roleplaying event around.

The concept is staggering in its ambition: fourteen guests looked after by a cook (creating feasts quite literally worthy of a Michelin star) and three staff. Living in a Regency-era country house from Friday evening to Sunday tea. Entertained by diverse activities – games, gambling, gossip, even a costume ball. Thrashings galore, needless to say. And all staying in character for the duration.

His Lordship started proceedings by noting that this was the fifth such annual event, and remembering highlights of years gone by. As he did so – memorable naval battles, notorious wardrobe malfunctions – I noted various personal milestones, too, of a somewhat ruder variety (first threesome, first moresome).

Haron and I would just like to thank his Lordship and the Arch-Duchess (the party’s hostess) for an incredible few days. That they work so tirelessly to arrange such an amazing event for their circle (for, I might add, no personal profit whatsoever) is truly remarkable, and greatly appreciated. We are indeed blessed to have such remarkable friends.

A quick search reveals that some 540 posts here on The Spanking Writers are, in one way or another, school-related – so it surprises me when I conjure up an entirely new scenario set in that particular environment. My dream the other night was set in a mixed school (surprisingly), but it was – of course – a girl who was in trouble.

Goodness knows what she’d done, but it appeared that at the end of every lesson during the school day, she had to wait until the other pupils had left the classroom before being made to touch her toes and take six strokes of the cane across her skirt from the master or mistress who’d just taught her. They’d sign a form; she’d then head off to join her classmates for the next lesson – knowing that another caning would follow forty minutes or so later.

My mind darted back to the start of the day, for a protocol like this must have some starting point. And there she was in her housemaster’s study, the process being explained, and a dozen hard strokes being administered to set her on her way.

Fast forward, then, to mid-afternoon. A lesson with her favourite master. Left alone at the end, he’d give her a comforting hug – and then administer quite the hardest caning yet.

On to the end of the day, reporting to the Headmaster’s office. Her form would be checked, a discussion about her conduct would ensue – before a final twelve strokes were administered on the bare.

So, what had she done? This, apparently, was a punishment for poor academic performance. She was a bright, clever girl – and when her latest report card had showed Cs and Ds rather than her usual As, it had been deemed essential that she received what was known as an “Academic Correction”, to focus her back onto her studies. I felt rather sorry for her, to be honest; my sleepy imagination’s rather cruel, sometimes!

Sometimes, a spanking is slow. Heavy swats fall onto my upturned bottom; the pain from each one has time to peak and wane, and I have plenty of time to anticipate the next, and to wonder if I can take it.

Sometimes, it’s fast. The pain builds in a constant crescendo, but I know it will be over sooner, and don’t have to worry about anything but hanging on.

I really don’t know which I prefer. A few times, when Abel was giving me a substantial number of cane strokes, and saw me struggle through the middle of the punishment, he sped up and delivered a few strokes in succession. The pain was overwhelming, but the ordeal was over in seconds, and I was pathetically grateful. At other times, not having any time between the strokes to draw a breath, I have really struggled, and ended up crying (which I don’t enjoy).

So I really can’t say whether I prefer a slow spanking or a fast one.

How about you?

Something of a find, methinks: an article that appeared in The Mercury, a newspaper in Hobart, Tasmania, on Saturday 3 January 1885. I uncovered it in the wonderful online archive of old Australian newspapers, and have done my best to correct the site’s rather quirky transcription of the text. It’s rather long, but that in itself is part of its attraction:

A NEW ORDER OF FLAGELLANTS.

The following letter has appeared in a Sunday journal called The People, published in London, under date October 20 last. If the writer may be believed, she has been most brutally and shamefully ill-treated. There is a circumstantiality about the letter which goes some way to prove its truth.

Sir, –

Excuse the liberty I take in writing to you, but I thought I would let you know how some poor girls are treated who cannot help themselves. Though I am a full-grown  girl, 19 years old, for only taking in your paper, which my step-mother had told me not to do, I was stripped naked, tied up, and severely slapped and beat with a birch rod by a gentleman and friend of my stop-mother, and who goes to the same chapel as she does.

The custom of whipping girls and women, I believe, is quite general, and no wonder, when we find newspapers advising the use of the rod. I know several cases besides my own of women being  whipped.

What I mean by this is this; my step-mother wrote to a popular weekly paper complaining of my conduct and asking for advice, and this is the answer they sent, which I saw myself in answers to correspondents, which she had marked out with pen and ink:-

“To One in Trouble.- What we should advise would be the use of the birch rod. Your daughter-in-law being 19, we cannot see that should make any difference ; if she is not too old to be wicked she is not too old to be whipped.

If you are not strong enough to whip her yourself, get some friend to do it for you. Got a birch broom, take about twenty long stiff bushy switches, tie the end with thick string to form a handle. It should be about as thick as your wrist, it will break no bones.”

Now, Sir, is it right to punish any  girl in such a manner? I was brought up with my grandmother at Maidstone till I was 19; she dying, my step-mother brought me with her to London. My father has been dead some years. She is a little stern spirity woman, and very religious, going to chapel every night and three times of a Sunday. She was very strict with me, and seemed from the first to take dislike to me..

She was very plain in her dress, and did not like me to look smart. A white feather I wore in my hat she took out and put into the fire. I wore fringe over my forehead and she made me alter my hair I had been in the habit of taking in Tit Bits, Ally Sloper and your paper. This she told me not to do, as it was not fit reading for a young woman like me, and if I wanted to read there was plenty of good books, which was true, but they were all dry religious books, which I did not care to read.

Well, one day she came in my room, and I was leading your paper, and she asked me what I was reading of, and told me to give it her at once This I refused to do, but put it into my pocket. I must admit I was rather impudent. Well, she flew into a violent rage with me, and though I was about as big again as her I was quite frightened by her.

She told me she would humble me, with my good looks and my hat and feather. She said she would have me whipped  like a child.   She would bring me down, and ordered me to bed. I did not resist,   but began to un-dress. She said she had been advised to have me  whipped, and she should try what, a birch rod would do. She then locked me in.

In about an hour she came into the room with a large birch rod in her hand, followed by a gentleman looking like a minister. He was about 35. She then said to him, “This is my daughter-in-law, and I wish you to whip her most severely.” He then said, ” Miss ——, I am very sorry to come on such-unpleasant business, but I am sure the whipping I am going to give you will be for your good, and you must submit: you must be made to obey your mother-in-law ; if you are not corrected it is quite certain you will go to ruin,” and other words to the same effect.

I was then rolled tight up in the bedclothes, laying on my face. I was then stripped to my waist, and putting his left arm around me, he gave me a good many slaps as hard as he could. I was then stripped quite naked, my hands were tied together, and he tied me up to the wall till my feet were almost off the floor.

He then gave me a severe birching ; the pain was so dreadful on my already smarting skin that I screamed so loudly that she tied my head up in a shawl to stifle my cries. I was then let down and locked in my room for the night. I could not sleep all night for the smarts ; from mv waist to my knees was crimson and covered with weals and bleeding.

Well, after this I was very careful not to offend her if I could help it. But I got whipped several times after-wards, but not so severely. She used to send him a note to come and whip me when I offended her ; I was only tied up once since the first time.

Strange as it might seem to you, when I have spoken to her and appealed to her as a religious woman not to have me so exposed, and so shamefully  whipped, she makes out she is doing right. She says nothing is indecent if not done for the sake [of] indecency, and it was quite necessary I must be whipped, and she could not do it. and he was the only friend she knew that would do it, and as to the »tripping that was part of the whipping, and would take sorne of the pride out of me   It was no more than calling in a doctor to attend to a delicate case.

But in spite of her fine talk, I know it is not right for any  girl  to be so indecently  whipped. Please excuse the paper as I have no money to buy any.

Yours etc.,

E. A.

I have no doubt that the letter in question did appear at the time – indeed, there’s a copy of the very article on the site:

I do, however, wonder whether E.A.’s story is genuine. It wasn’t at all uncommon at the time for spanking enthusiasts to submit fictional pieces to the press, masquerading as real-life accounts – appearing in publications such as the Englishwomen’s Domestic Magazine. Whatever the truth of the matter, the article’s a rather delightful discovery. And should any budding E.A.s out there want to meet the clergyman, my dog-collared shirt is ironed and ready!

I’m guessing that many people who enjoy school role-play have fantasy schools they go to.

I was wondering: what’s your favourite way to name your fantasy school? Is it a school, academy, college, collegium? “School for girls/boys”, “high school” maybe? Does it have the name of a saint, or a title with some other meaning – an abbey, a manor, a tower?

My favourite fantasy playground these days is St Hild’s School for Girls, with its brother boys’ school across the lake, St Hild’s Abbey. The boys’ school came first, obviously. It was founded in a manor house bequeathed by a childless benefactor, and that in turn was occupying a dissolved monastery, hence the connection to the saint and the name.

How about your school?

The build-up to a spanking can be almost as troubling for a girl as the blows themselves. Whenever I think of judicial punishments, for example, the procedure is always designed to emphasise the girl’s loss of control – that her destiny is now firmly out of her hands – and to build up her sense of dread anticipation.

There’s admission to the prison or the punishment centre, with forms to be filled in about (never by) the offender. She’ll be made to change into some form of uniform – in front of the guard or guards – and she’s then likely to be made to shower. There’ll be a wait – often long – in some sort of holding area, to add to her nerves.

Her name will eventually be called, and she’ll be led (handcuffed, maybe) to sit outside the punishment room itself. Other girls may be taken into the punishment room before her, emerging tearfully. (Indeed, the sounds of their whippings and howls may be all-to-painfully audible).

Finally, she’ll be called in, and the flogging itself will involve a fair amount of ritual: the reading of the charges, the confirmation of her sentence, the removal of clothing, the tying in position. And all that before the first excruciating stroke.

But, it struck me the other day, a truly mean judicial system could doubtless do still more to increase the tension. Our poor heroine, once sentenced, would be taken to the punishment centre at the end of the afternoon – along with the other girls condemned by the magistrates that afternoon to be thrashed. After their admission, each convict would be shown to a twin-bedded cell for the night – the other bed already occupied by a girl who’d been punished that very afternoon. Her anguish would be clear, as would her marks – our newly-admitted girl thus spending the evening contemplating the impending state of her own backside.

The following day, the punishment room would be set up with not one, but two whipping frames.   An offender would already be tied in position on the first of them by the time our girl was led in and secured to the second. There she’d wait, whilst the other girl received her birching before being led away – our young lady thus witnessing the punishment she was about to receive at close quarters. Another girl would be led in to be tied to the newly-vacated frame, before the officers moved behind our girl and the sentence was read…

Oh, how I like building the torment. As with so many scenes, the whacking itself – whilst an incredible intense, important part of proceedings – is so improved upon if the build-up is right…

In a somewhat confused, but very hot dream last night I couldn’t decide whether I was in prison or at school. It seemed like a prison, with cells and bars and things, but all the women wore traditional school uniforms, and went to lessons. It was an odd mix, but it worked for me.

I was mostly an observer in this dream, but I was aware that the main character was my good friend, so I was mentally cheering for her when she staged something of a riot over cold water in the showers. First, a lone matron tried to calm the rioting girls, claiming that cold water was great for our skin, but then it was necessary for the guards for come running in.

I watched from the sidelines as my friend was thrown to the ground and restrained by two large women, one of whom sat on her shoulders, and another on her feet, and proceeded to sweep her school skirt out of the way and crack a paddle down onto her writhing bottom.

I was both horrified by this, and wishing it was me.

The kinky dreams are coming in thick and fast at the moment. The other night’s was based on a dynamic that’s a common fantasy for many in the scene, but that’s rare for me – that of a daddy / daughter spanking.

He and she had just eaten dinner together at home. They’d discussed their respective days; being a diligent girl, she’d gone and made his coffee as usual after dessert.

When she returned from the kitchen, he had a letter in his hands, which he passed across the table. “Would you like to explain this?”

It was from her school, notifying him of some misconduct on her part. Even as she blushed, tears starting to well up, he was standing and unbuckling his belt.

“This is the second time I’ve had to punish you this month,” he noted, in sadness more than anger. “I think I need to teach you more of a lesson this time.” And with that, he took her over his knee, a position in which he’d not punished her for the longest time, lifted her school skirt and proceeded to spank her over her knickers.

He talked as he administered correction – about how he knew she was a good girl, but how she needed to buck up her ideas. She cried openly, promising to try harder, but to no avail, for the hand spanking was followed by the order to stand and touch her toes, and a dozen sharp whacks with the belt.

Yesterday at lunch my friend Martha regaled me with a tale of culinary horror: at one of the well-known, fairly luxury chain restaurants she was served a banoffie pie where sugar had been replaced with salt.

My goodness, if that isn’t an excuse for some kitchen discipline, I don’t know what else would ever qualify. I’m sure the pastry chef was distraught at her mistake, and keenly embarrassed, but she would have to pay for it nonetheless.

I think, this would happen after the restaurant closed for the night. The head chef would order all the others to proceed into the main restaurant, where the front-of-house staff would also be gathered. The offending young lady would be sent to pick a birch twig from the supposedly decorative floor vase in the corner, and hand it to the head chef.

He would nod at the largest table in the restaurant, and she would understand without a word what she had to do, because she’d have witnessed such punishments before. She would push the trousers of her uniform whites down to just below her bottom, and lean forward over the table.

“Would you like somebody to hold your hands?” the head chef would ask gruffly.

“Yes, please,” the young woman would answer with her voice broken with anxiety.

One of her friends, a waitress, would step up to clutch her hands and keep them out of the way. The chef would raise the switch, and swing it down in a long arch.

A short whistle and a snick at the end as wood makes contact with skin, and the young woman would gasp at the surprising pain. She would never have had a taste of this punishment, because she’d never have transgressed as badly as she had today. On the second stroke, tears would spring to her eyes, and thereafter she wouldn’t be able to keep from yelping and crying, for all the embarrassment of being seen like this by her colleagues.

In the end she would be allowed to pull up her trousers, but before she can leave, she would have to apologise to the entire staff for bringing the fine restaurant into disrepute.

I don’t believe she would ever make the same mistake again.