The Spanking Writers

Now: the post below comes with a warning. I wrote it early on Monday morning and – conscious that it touches on issues of abusive parental behaviour that may upset some readers – tweeted about my dilemma about whether or not to post it.

Persuaded by the anti-censorship (or just plain curious) majority, I’m going ahead with it. But please don’t click and read on if you feel that the subject matter might cause you upset. I’m exploring edgy issues here, and I don’t want to hurt anyone…

Read the rest of this entry »

After we posted the picture of canes in the market the other day, RoyT got in touch to send us this photo of a wooden spoon stall in the Krakow market:

I’m accepting your guesses as to what this shopper is thinking. Is she wondering how much it would hurt to be smacked with each one? Or is she picking out the best spoon to use?

Shortly after moving into the lovely new place that she now shares with Cath, Emma Jane expressed an interest in learning to play the piano that stands in the corner of their living room.

My enthusiasm for the scheme was immediate – less from the thought of hearing beautiful music than from the kinky potential. See, a few years back, Haron and I captured a rather lovely item on eBay – a music teacher’s satchel, marked with their initials, and containing a small tawse (also initialled):

So, the prospect of a piano-learning girl being made to play her scales or the piece she’d been learning rather appeals. Mistakes would be punished, of course, and the lesson would become harder and harder for the girl as she tried to play with sore, strapped hands – perhaps through a veil of tears, and doubtless with her frustration at her own errors growing by the minute.

More serious would be were the teacher to conclude that, rather than just not playing well that evening, a girl had failed to practice during the previous week. He’d surely place her over his knee – but would he use his hand, or a hairbrush? And then there’s the girl’s guardian, told by her instructor that she’d been slacking. Once the teacher had left, she’d be sent upstairs to wait; he’d follow a few moments later, and after a lecture, she’d find herself bent over the side of her bed as he unbuckled his belt.

I love the idea. And yet… see, if Emma Jane did really want to learn, my instincts would be entirely contrary to the above. I’d want to support, encourage, praise my lovely girl – especially early on, when mastering the techniques might be difficult. Mistakes? They’re bound to happen; my natural tendency would be to want to gloss over them, to help to build her confidence. I’d find myself in something of a quandary – yet the thought of her standing, looking at me, palms upturned waiting for the strap, really is so amazingly appealing.

What is it about governesses? Whenever I’m feeling sad or in need of comfort, the maternal figure that appears in my dreams is not a female relative, but a calm, stern governess.

Right now, she is disappointed with my behaviour. “If you cannot behave like a young lady of sixteen, for the next three days I will treat you as though you are six,” she announces firmly. She proceeds with this sentence with a frightening efficiency.

I’m denied the privilege of choosing my own clothes, and instead she lays out my plainest frocks for me. Instead of my schoolroom routine of solitary reading and subsequent discussion, I’m forced to sit in lessons with her, where I must learn by rote. Meals with my family are denied me: children must eat in the nursery with their governess.

As for punishments… not in a million years had I imagined I would ever be spanked over her knee again, but spank me she does, like she used to many years ago: skirts up, drawers open, her hand peppering my bottom with crisp swats. She spanks me every time I rebel against this new routine, and in the first day I rebel a lot. And then I’m sentenced to a spanking at every bedtime, so up goes my nightdress, and down comes her hairbrush on my already sore and sorry behind.

And oddly, by the end of the three days, my temper is calmed, my rebellion quashed, and I’m more than ready to return to being a good girl again.

My governess is very wise. I should know better than to cross her.

Many of us in the UK spent hours in recent weeks pouring over the schedules for the 2012 London Olympic Games, for which ticket applications closed last week. We’re hoping to see all sorts of things, from athletics to gymnastics, rowing to tennis, swimming to (ahem) women’s beach volleyball.

Unfortunately, one of the key events appeared to be missing from the published schedule – for, a week prior to the official Opening Ceremony, Haron and I plan to host the 2012  SpankOympics.

We’re somewhat in the dark, still, about the precise format for the contest, and would welcome suggestions. Ideas so far include:

• relay races: run your distance, spank your teammate with an implement and hand it to them, they run on to do the same to the next team member
• synchronised spanking: teams of four, with two tops having to land strokes on their respective partners in perfect unison
• artistic spanknastics (nooo – that’s just wrong!): teams representing different nations, wearing relevant costume, acting out a spanking scene with some link to their designated country’s culture; marks (!) awarded by the judges for artistic impression and technical merit
• copious amounts of bubbly.

The one thing to avoid, it strikes us, in this sort of event is any form of contest requiring tops or bottoms to compete as to who can administer / receive the hardest whacking. That’d move beyond fun and frivolous into darker and (knowing some of our harder-playing and more competitive friends) slightly scary!

Saturday, 21 July 2012. Our place. Keep a note in your diaries! And any suggestions for events would be very welcome… (Hey, it’s been a good few weeks since our last big party, so we’re allowed to start planning the next one, right?)

We found this charming photo on Flickr – a colourful display of canes in the market in Kuwait.

What particularly made me smile was this exchange in the comments for the photo between a viewer and e photographer:

“This is certainly a large mix of styles and colors. Don’t often see any display of canes these days. Are these made for actual use, or are they directed more for interior decorative elements?”
—
“I’m guessing they are made for use more so than for decoration. Some of the more colorful ones may be used for dancing perhaps although canes aren’t used in any Kuwaiti dances but perhaps like Egyptian dances.”

Not the answer the viewer had been hoping for, I’m sure.

Whilst searching for information relating to the 1810 whipping post scene re-enacted recently in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, I unearthed an account of an earlier punishment in that town, on a family history site.

In May 1665, one Peter Tallman filed for divorce from his wife, accusing her of adultery; she confessed:

In the Puritan colonies, adultery was a capital offense, though seldom punished to the full degree of the law. In Rhode Island, as well, adultery was a serious offense, but it was not punishable by death… The court sentenced her to a fine of ten pounds and ordered that she be whipped. She was to receive fifteen lashes in Portsmouth, and the following week, fifteen lashes in Newport…

Ann Tallman was sent to jail to await the carrying out of her sentence, but she escaped and fled to her brother in Virginia. In 1667, she returned to the colony and a warrant was issued for her arrest. Rather than being punished for her escape, she was rewarded. Her fine was forgiven and her sentence was cut in half. Instead of fifteen lashes in Portsmouth and Newport, she would only be whipped in Newport.

This must have reduced her humiliation. The people of Portsmouth had been her friends and neighbors for the seven years before her divorce. Although she had lived in Newport for eight years, time had passed. It had to be better to receive her punishment in front of relative strangers.

What struck me in this is the discussion of the humiliation of a flogging being seen as such an integral part of the punishment. Never mind the lashes – it’s having them inflicted in front of friends and neighbours that really hurts. I’ve never come across an account of historical whippings that discusses this aspect; I thought it was rather fascinating.

Yesterday I had to catch a train just at the time when lessons started in a nearby school. Pupils walked by the station to get to the school, and I watched them speed up as they neared the level crossing that was about to be closed.

When my train set off – just minutes before 9, which was presumably the time lessons started – we went past the barred crossing, where a sizeable group of six-formers were waiting in frustration to be let across, towards the school. Of course, nothing drastic was going to happen to them if they were late, but my mind wandered to a different time, in a different school. There, the duty mistress waits with a clip-board at the door, and starts taking names on the stroke of 9.

A group of six-former friends, all living in the same street, usually time their arrival at the school perfectly, but this time one of them had to dash back home for a forgotten book, and the other girls waited for her. It took only a minute – but this minute was enough for the barrier to come down at the level crossing, two minutes before the girls were supposed to be at school. They waited, squirming, with a few other unfortunates, as the little local train crawled lazily past. As soon as the barrier opened, they were sprinting – but even as they ran they heard the bell going off at the school.

The duty mistress didn’t even spare them a lecture as she quickly took down the name and form of every late-comer. “Go to your lesson,” she said curtly. “Come and see me at the start of the lunch break.” The girls trudged off in misery, each already feeling the three quick licks on the hand they were going to take at the end of this morning.

“I’m really sorry, everyone,” said the girl who’d had to return for her book.

“Could have happened to any of us,” another girl said bravely. “Never mind, it only hurts for a little while.”

For a little while, yes… but they knew it would hurt. Oh yes, it would.

Perhaps not surprisingly after such a remarkable roleplaying scene, my mind’s drifted back frequently over the last week or so to the Yorkshire Schools that formed the basis for our Easter roleplaying fun. And oh, the dreams have been such fun- conjuring up other similar schools; other schoolmasters; other girls to be educated, disciplined and punished!

First up, a master encountered a lass who’d misbehaved again seriously after a trip to the dreaded Punishment Room. How to deal with her?

She could be taken back, of course: tied to the bench, flogged still more severely than she had been the previous time. She’d quickly discover that he could be far crueller, far harsher, with just the two of them alone in the room than he had been when punishing her in front of a fellow master and other pupils.

Or all of the girls in the school could be called together to watch her receive an exemplary public punishment. The miscreant would be brought out in front of them; made to strip naked; stretched forward over a table where all could see. Her ankles would be tied to the table legs; two other girls would be called forward to hold her wrists tight, under threat of a whipping themselves should they let go. The first schoolmaster would birch her until she sobbed; the second would ensure that she was broken.

My second dream revolved around what happens to the girls when they leave the school. I imagined one schoolmaster taking something of a shine to one of the young ladies and, as she neared her twenty first birthday (the date on which she would be required to leave the establishment), writing to her father to ask for her hand in marriage. The parents, delighted to be rid of her, wrote back with their consent. The girl knew nothing of the plot – but would, it turned out, be delighted.

A few days before her expected leaving date, still oblivious to the planned course of events, she found herself in the Punishment Room. The lecture he gave her about good conduct and having disappointed him was especially heartfelt. And then, to avoid allegations of favouritism once the news emerged of their betrothal, the whipping he administered was especially severe.

Fast forward to a few weeks after they were wed. Late one night, his new bride was discovered with a few of her erstwhile friends, standing outside the school gossiping long after the girls should have been in bed. The pupils were sent upstairs and dealt with first: nightdresses lifted, bent over the end of their dorm-room beds, striped with the cane, before the candles in the room were extinguished for the night.

Then the master returned to his shame-faced new wife; explained how she’d caused her friends to be whipped; admonished her for not behaving in the way a lady of the house should; reminded her that her behaviour now needed to be better than ever before.

He made her change into her nightdress. He punished her twice as hard as any pupil, the crack of the strokes and her pleas and cries echoing through the otherwise-silent school building for all to hear. And then he took her to bed and dealt with her in other ways entirely, before holding her tightly in his arms to sleep.

Perhaps we’ve had an email from you recently, or maybe you are only just summoning up the courage to write. Maybe you’ve struck up some conversation on spanking blogs and forums, or maybe you’ve been reading avidly, not yet ready to speak to the people who, you now know, are just like you: people who are into spanking. I know this much about you: you’ve recently put a name to your long-held, deep-seated cravings, and now, after the initial excitement, you’ve starting to feel pangs of bitter guilt.

The guilt is a many-toothed thing, and it continues to batter you with its varied weapons.

• Why must you be obsessed with something sexual? What sort of hobby is it for a healthy human – why couldn’t it be a sport, a craft or an art? Maybe you’re not healthy, but inherently corrupt and wrong.
• Why does it need to be spanking, that is, an act of causing pain? If you’re a top, you may be wondering if you’re a violent people-hater. If you’re a bottom, you suspect you have deep hidden issues with self-hatred.
• Whatever your individual, additional kinks, the guilt knows just the buttons to jab with its gnarly finger. Age-play? You’re either infantile or a paedo. Domestic discipline? You must be an abusive spouse or a pathetic co-dependent. Submissive female? A bad feminist. Submissive male? A weakling. Dominant? A dangerous maniac in the making.
• If you dare confront the guilt and sweep it out of the way like a hurtful pest it is, it will tell you that you’re so corrupt that you’re capable only of making apologies for your appaling behaviour instead of correcting it.

I’d love to give you a hug. You’re not alone. Not only in kink are you surrounded by people just like you, but also in your guilt. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to confront the guilt; although it may seem tempting to you just to shove your interest in spanking in a dark place in your mind and try to never think of it again, escaping won’t work. You’re kinky: this is how you’re wired. Denying this part of yourself will go about as well as trying to date people from the opposite gender to your preference.

The guilt is a rational response to the irrational feeling that your kink is not ok, but I promise you: it is. It’s not hurting anyone, just the contrary: it has the potential to be immensely fulfilling. And it really is OK to look for fulfilment in your kink, though just like any other interest you should perhaps be wary of it taking over your life completely. There are many wonderful rewards to be found as you explore your kink.

Your guilt won’t like this. But you can fight it, because you can gradually come to believe that your kink is OK – and so is everybody else’s.

P.S. Abel and I have just noticed that yesterday’s post was our two thousandth. I suppose, once you’ve been blogging for five years, anniversaries come thick and fast.