The Spanking Writers

During an amusing DM conversation on Twitter the other morning with the wonderful @SarahLRH, she confessed that she should in fact be tidying her bedroom rather than chatting to me online. That led, as these things do with fellow perverts, to speculation about girls being punished for similar matters – and she readily agreed that I could let my mind wander as the basis for a blog entry.

My favourite concept of those that came to mind in the following days was boarding school-based (much as the idea of a girl staying with her uncle getting the belt ran it a close second). A girl would have failed a room inspection, and would have been punished as a result: I think the housemaster would carry a well-worn plimsoll with him for precisely such purposes. He’d then give her an hour to tidy it, promising to return. When he did, it would be in precisely the same state, and she would be nowhere to be found.

Back in his study, he’d hand-write a note, and would give it to one of the house prefects to push under her door. “I am most disappointed that, after punishing you earlier, you chose to ignore our subsequent discussion. Kindly report to my study ten minutes before breakfast tomorrow morning, so that we may discuss the matter.”

A caning, if you were wondering. No fixed number of strokes in advance; just until she cried, and he was sure she’d learnt her lesson.

The lass to whom I chatted on my latest intercontinental flight really was rather a delight: 30-something, strawberry-blonde hair, the clearest blue eyes, softly- and well-spoken. We fell into easy conversation after I’d moved seats to take possession of the unoccupied row of seats opposite hers. It was the random passing natter of itinerant travellers who will never see one another again, but for whom a friendly discussion en route can change a journey from wearily boring to actually-not-unpleasant.

Kink wasn’t on the agenda, of course. But you know how my mind works…

Post-breakfast (please BA – your ‘Spanish’ omelette was an insult to an entire nation), she reached for her phone and started typing. Now, ‘flight safe mode’ is a wonderful thing – allowing a batch of emails to fire off from one’s mobile immediately on arrival at a destination airport. Yet in this case, I decided, the young lady was actually texting her friends en route – sharing news of her holiday, catching up on their gossip, planning drinks later in the week.

At Heathrow, there’d be a delay after so she handed over her passport at immigration, before a team of uniformed officers swooped. The Telecommunications Aviation World Safety Enforcement squad would handcuff the protesting young woman, and lead her away.

The computer printout would refute her protestations of innocence, showing as it did the list of texts sent and times – all whilst the plane had been in the air.

“Wilfully ignoring safety instructions issued by an airline pilot.” “Endangering the lives of fellow passengers.” “Breaching international telecommunications law.” As they’d explain it, she’d begin to realise the gravity of her behaviour. Yet, as the plane had taken off from a country with somewhat traditional values, she’d be offered a choice: the three months imprisonment that English law would demand, or the twenty strokes of the cane that would apply under the other applicable jurisdiction….

An interesting thread on Twitter the other evening debated the extent to which one should link to kinky friends using social media. My rules are pretty clear…

Twitter is for kink. I won’t use my real name there, or disclose certain details about my real life – in the same way that I’m protective of certain aspects of my life here on the blog. I’ll write stuff there that I wouldn’t want vanilla acquaintances to read. Although my account’s locked, I’ll accept follower requests from anyone whose account shows that they post about interesting (aka kinky) stuff from time-to-time, aren’t promoting commercial offerings too blatantly, and/or follow or are followed by a fair number of others in the scene.

Tweeting, for me, is a little like blogging. With SW, the more folks who read my random jottings, the better. Ditto Twitter. Aside from providing a forum for lovely, open discussion with spanko friends, I enjoy sharing my kinky thoughts with anyone who’ll read them – and if they bring an occasional smile to people’s faces, so much the better. I’m just a tad cautious – editing some details to preserve my anonymity, and declining some follower requests – given the risk of folks out there whose intentions towards the scene might not be entirely supportive (aka journalists in disguise) or of people wanting to link to me to help them make money.

I only joined Facebook a few weeks back. For me, that’s entirely vanilla, and I use my real name. I link to kinky folks – given I don’t actually have a wide friendship group outside the scene – but I’ll only make friends even with folks I’ve met through our shared interest in spanking if their accounts make no reference to kink, either in their choice of name or in what they post. To be honest, I even hesitated to link to Haron, given she doesn’t use her real name there – the saving grace being that she doesn’t use a scene identity. And on FB, I only befriend people I know in real-life, or (in one or two rare cases) online where I’ve chatted to them enough to trust them absolutely.

I wonder how others reconcile the desire to chat openly, and to engage fully with both scene and vanilla friends, on scene and vanilla topics. I’d be interested in any views. And if you want to follow me on Twitter, you can find me here (and feel free to email too if it’s not obvious from your own Twitter account that you’re “one of us”); on Facebook, an email or DM would be great from any friends to whom I’m not yet linked.