The Spanking Writers

Last night I couldn’t sleep until quite late. I imagined I was the only girl awake in a long dormitory with many beds along each wall.

Thoroughly bored, I try the trusted trick of reading under the covers with a fancy book light I was given for Christmas. I hope that even the duty master is asleep by now, so I don’t take particular pains to hide.

No such luck, of course. Just as I’m getting to the really exciting part of the book, my covers are yanked back. In the traitorous beam of my book-light I see the duty master standing over me, looking furious. He presses his finger to his lips, reminding me not to disturb my house-mates, and gestures for me to follow him.

When we’re out of the dormitory, he still doesn’t speak, shushing me when I offer a timid “I’m sorry!” He takes me to the common room at the end of the corridor, and only there does he say the first words:

“Do you know what time it is, young lady?”

“Really late, sir? I’m sorry, I couldn’t sleep.”

“That’s not good enough. When you can’t sleep, you lie quietly, counting sheep. Reading under the covers only makes sure that you are not asleep. Now, let’s deal with this quickly, so that you can go straight back to bed.”

He gestures at the arm of the sofa with the cane he’s carrying.

“Please,” I say with numb lips.

“Go on, girl. And try to stay quiet, we don’t want to wake up the entire house.”

I bend over the sofa and find a corner of a cushion with my teeth. The cane is going to be a quiet implement, that’s for sure, but can I contain my yelps?

Sharp, cutting strokes fall onto my pyjama-clad bottom: one, two, three. I hiss through the mouthful of cushion, clenching my fists and waving them about. My eyes water with pain. The fourth stroke elicits a grunt of pain.

“Hush,” the master reminds me. “The other girls are sleeping.”

Tears leak from my eyes. Another two stokes fall, each one a searing line across my rear. I’m sobbing, but quietly, secretly.

“Up you get,” the master says. “And off to bed with you. See if this won’t help you sleep.”

Unlikely, I think grimly as I trudge back along the corridor, tentatively pressing my palms to my hot bottom. This hurts too much, I’ll never sleep now.

And yet, exhausted by the sudden flood of emotions and sensation, I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

Talking about “the rule of thumb” in my last post sent me on a link-following trail through the internet, at the end of which I came upon an article that discredits the wife-beating origins of the phrase. As I paged though, my gaze kept sticking on the wording of some legal cases quoted in the document.

State v. Oliver, Oliver had been found guilty of assault and battery and fined $10 for having given five licks to his wife with “two switches, which were about four feet long, with the branches on them, about half way, and some leaves. One of the switches was about half as large as a man’s little finger, the other not so large.”

and

In Fulgham v. State (1871): “Since then, however, learning, with its humanizing influences, has made great progress, and morals and religion have made some progress with it. Therefore, a rod which may be drawn through the wedding ring is not now deemed necessary to teach the wife her duty and subjection to the husband.”

and then,

Emperor Justinian I … gave a husband freedom to “beat his wife with a whip or rod” for divorcable offenses: withholding information from him about a plot against the government, adultery, plotting against his life, remaining away from his house without his consent, attending banquets or bathing with strangers against his wishes, or attending circuses, theaters, or other public exhibitions without his knowledge or against his wishes.

Plotting against the government… going to the theatre… definitely spankable offences, both of them.

I can’t get rid of a squirming worm of guilt for extracting pleasure out of reading these passages, but it doesn’t mean that I’m about to either stop reading them, or stop looking for more of the same kind.

But yeah – the rule of thum? Complete nonsense.

As I mentioned in my recent post about back-whipping, I watched some rather intriguing spanking porn recently.

Pain4Fem are a well-established European producer, known for traditional spanking movies at the more severe end of the genre – not always to my taste, it must be said.

Amongst their more recent movies – albeit still a few years old – they’ve demonstrated both originality and remarkable technical skill in creating the ‘Spanking Machine’ series. I won’t post pictures here – this being a site that always aims to be relatively safe for work, in style if not in substance – but they’ve built a rather clever little device.

The cane, strap or lash is fixed to a robotic device, and positioned carefully behind a tied girl. At the push of a button, the machine swings into life, whipping the implement fast across the backside or back of the victim. The program obviously ensures that the height of the stripes varies ever-so-slightly, to avoid each blow landing in precisely the same place – and ensuring a perfect, even set of parallel weals.

The machine in question appears to be controlled by an operator, the whip cracking at the touch of a laptop button. But the concept, taken to its extreme, with no human intervention whatsoever, really is quite… well, either disturbing or fascinating.

Picture the girl, tied in place to be flogged. With a person administering the punishment, there’s an element of variability – not every stroke precisely the same strength, different gaps between whacks. And there has to be something to be said for the degree of human interaction: the knowledge (assumption? hope?) that the disciplinarian will adjust the severity, the frequency, even the number of strokes if the girl starts to struggle.

But with a machine – after the officers who’d bound the girl to the whipping frame presumably pressing some button, then leaving the room? Just the girl, totally alone, facing a whipping that would be administered truly without mercy? No-one to respond to her cries, moderate or vary the strokes – just the inevitability that the flogging would take its full course.

Scarier for the girl being punished than the human touch? Easier than knowing another person was responsible for your pain? Or simply *different*? I wonder…

A few days ago Abel showed weakness in the face of an antique walking stick gorgeously capped with silver. It’s crook-handled and cane-shaped – being, you know, a cane – but it’s also extremely thick and dense, and I wouldn’t say it’s particularly suitable for corporal punishment. Unless you like being beaten with a stick.

And yet, Abel was completely charmed by the thing, and frankly, so was I. Give us anything cane-related, and we just can’t keep our dirty mitts off it.

This stick just goes to prove what a load of rubbish the apocryphal “rule of thumb” is – the one that goes that a man can beat his wife with anything that isn’t thicker than his thumb. The new stick? Is terrifyingly thick. If you were to play with it, you could really no more than gently tap, for the sake of bone safety. As a new top, I’m too wary of even attempting to use it.

And yet, it’s thinner than a thumb. Abel’s, or even mine. So in theory, if the rule were true, it could legitimately be used for the correction of wives. Hmm, I really don’t think so.

I do like the terrible, unusable, dangerous thing, though.

My kinky dreams are back, which can only mean I’m finally getting better.

Last night I was a kitchen maid in a country house, and I had a massive crush on the daughter of the house. I had no reason to ever see her, because all of my work was in the kitchen, and I had no time to sneak around the house, sighing after my beloved. Moreover, if I did happen to be in the corridor when any member of the family or guests were passing by, I was required to stand aside and lower my eyes, so I couldn’t even be caught looking at her.

It was incredibly frustrating.

The most thrilling part of my dream was when I was sent on some errand down to the gatehouse, and had to run across the grounds to get there. Suddenly I saw a small group of young ladies walking towards me. I saw my beloved among them. I politely stood to the side and looked down, my heart pounding hard. I wondered if her gaze would slide over me, if she’d ever notice me.

Suddenly, I smelled a waft of perfume, and a cool hand stroked my cheek. “Mmm, good girl,” said a young voice. I could see only the bottom of her skirt, and I longed to look up, but kept my eyes submissively down as she played with my hair and pinched my ear. Finally, she said, “Run along now!” I curtseyed and hurried on, my insides melting at having been paid so much attention.

There was a definite promise of more, but I woke up at this stage. I wish I knew what happened to me next, but I hope the mistress, having noticed my responsiveness, decided to take advantage of it at some stage.

I was innocently listening to the radio, when a song jolted me with the following lyrics:

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me
“Son fear is the heart of love”
So I never went back

It’s “I will follow you into the dark” by “Death Cab for Cutie”. The song is OK, I guess, but the lyrics pleased me a lot. I’m not sure about fear being the heart of love – I’m sorry, just no! – but hand-smacking nuns in my song lyrics are always a good thing.

If my previous extract from a 1916 article on “Punitive Pain and Humiliation” gave rise to suspicion that the author was rather more interested in his topic than pure academia would have required, his next anecdote (from the mid-1800s) could certainly support a theory that Mr Marquis Eaton was indeed “one of us”:

There has been published a letter recently written by an English lady—a member of a distinguished family. At the age of 80 she has dictated for the benefit of her great-granddaughter an account of her own boarding-school days. She had attended Regent House, one of the most exclusive of the girls’ schools; one to which only young women of quality gained admission. She describes as follows the type of punishment which prevailed:

“I remember well the public flogging of one of the young ladies, only a few weeks before she left school to be married. Miss Pomeroy, our principal, said:

‘Young ladies you will dress half an hour earlier than usual today, and be in the class room at half past four.’

We looked at one another and Miss Darwin colored a little but made no other sign that she knew anything about the matter, and we went to our rooms. Upstairs we found out what it meant, for the maid who dressed my hair had tied up new rods expressly for the coming ceremony.

At the appointed time we were all in the class-room and Miss Pomeroy took her place. Miss Darwin was ordered to stand in the middle of the room and then our governess proceeded to tell us what her offense was, and what she was going to suffer. She was a very handsome girl; quite a woman in appearance and size, and she was richly dressed, but she stood there to take her whipping as a matter of course.

Miss Pomeroy rang for an attendant. ‘Prepare her,’ was the mandate. The attendant courtesied and requested permission to remove Miss Darwin’s gloves. Miss Darwin bowed (that was the formula) and the process of disrobing went on. Then the punishment blouse was put on, and then the young lady, taking the rod, presented it kneeling to Miss Pomeroy.

The governess took it, and came down from the dais, while Miss Darwin, between two teachers was led to a desk, and made to stoop over it, her hands being firmly held by attendants, and her feet being fastened in stocks on the floor. Then the governess with right good will whipped her until red weals arose in all directions on her white flesh. The castigation over, Miss Darwin, trembling in every limb and with blazing cheeks and sparkling eyes returned the rod to the governess kneeling, and retired to make her toilet, a servant bearing her clothes in a basket.”

I want a movie version. NOW!

My searches often turn up weird and wonderful spanking stuff, and here’s a cartoon that’s made me both giggle and groan:

What do you think this is?

It’s the Chinese government spanking a property developer. Who doesn’t seem to mind at all, but instead is looking at his watch.

I might try the watch-glancing technique some time, when my pain tolerance is back to normal, or I’m feeling particularly brave.

(via)

I feel extremely cranky, in a very 8-year-old way – complete with mental foot-stomping – because for the first time since the start of the holidays my house is empty of kinky guests. All my lovely friends have packed up and gone away all at once. I don’t like this, and I feel like throwing a royal tantrum.

The tantrum would be much improved if I was wearing an embroidered dress over a crisply starched petticoat, and ribbons in my hair. And if the whole thing was witnessed by my frowning governess.

She would be completely unimpressed, and would tell me either to calm down at once, or feel the back of her hairbrush. I would feel a twinge of common sense, but would be enjoying my tantrum too much to stop. The governess would grab me firmly by the ear, sit on a straight-backed chair, and haul me over her knee, petticoats swept out of the way in an explosion of froth. I would scream and protest, and the first swat of the brush would make me wail even louder, but soon I would realise that only remorse and good behaviour would make the terrible pain stop.

Feeling contrary, I would hold out for as long as I could, but soon the burn of the brush would turn me into a very compliant little girl, quietly sobbing out my apologies.

After which I would be sent to bed with no books or toys. Yes.

So, how about this for a dark, dark dream?

The setting: Euston station, in the early hours of a cold morning. A plain, unmarked police car pulls up, and officers emerge. They walk over to a young homeless lass, order her to her feet, handcuff her and drive off.

Minutes later, they arrive at a plain-looking office complex. They take her in through the side door, and lead her down into a basement. She struggles to break free as she’s shown into the brightly-lit room – at its centre, a whipping frame; to the side, a bucket of birches.

They inform her what’s to happen. That a clampdown is underway. That the authorities have realised that the Vagrancy Act of 1786 has never been repealed. That the age-old punishment of birching has been revived; that she will receive twenty strokes.

After the flogging, they’d take her back to the station. Their warnings would be clear, unequivocal: she was to take a train home the following morning, for if she was found there again, the second flogging would comprise fifty strokes.

So far, so kinky (albeit it’s not the most politically correct approach to homelessness, and made me guiltily wonder when I’d last donated money to Shelter). Indeed, I could – just – imagine it as the basis for an intense scene with a trusted play partner. Only – and here’s the part that squicked me when I woke up and remembered the dream – it turned out when the girl got home and investigated that there was no such thing as the Vagrancy Act of 1786 and that, therefore, the gentlemen concerned therefore couldn’t possibly, as they had claimed to be, have been police officers.