The Spanking Writers

So, we’re chatting late one night with friends, bemoaning the state of the educational system. Seems, for example, that some very bright young things aren’t able to locate certain major countries on a map of the world. Disgraceful!

Yet we proceeded to confess, we older types, that we ourselves might struggle to pinpoint some states that accurately. Where exactly is Guatemala, for example? Guinea? Bhutan or Brunei?

Or Paraguay?

Actually, I asked, does Paraguay even exist? Who’d been there on holiday? Who amongst us owned a CD or book by a Paraguayan artist? Who’d been to a Paraguayan restaurant? Who had Paraguayan friends? If a Paraguayan fell over in a forest, would anyone notice? Anyone shagged a Paraguayan? Spanked (or been spanked by) one?

This final point was deemed to be conclusive by the rather seasoned spanko company present. So I’d like to make the official announcement: Paraguay does not actually exist!

PS I’d love it if someone could post and say hello from a Paraguayan IP address, disproving our theory and telling all about the no-doubt thriving spanking scene there!

In my vanilla life (I do have one!), I was interviewed recently for a business magazine. They asked me to complete a short questionnaire for inclusion in a sidebar next to the article. And somehow I rather struggled, as I couldn’t quite respond truthfully. Here’s what I wanted to say:

Nickname(s): “Unstable Abel”

Avocation: Spanking

Favorite Place (and Why): Does The Spanking Writers count as a ‘place’? It certainly feels like a ‘community’, so I hope so. Why? Because I’ve met so many wonderful people there. If not: Scotland Street school museum, Glasgow – because it’s the kinkiest place in the world!

Favorite Hobby/Hobbies: Writing and roleplaying.

Favorite Word: Spanking.

Favorite Smell: Freshly-cut birch.

Favorite Sound: The swish of a cane, just before it makes contact with a girl’s behind.

Favorite Time in History: The early 1800s. (Dear friends invite us to the most wonderful weekend once a year, in which we spend three days dressed in early nineteenth century costumes eating wonderful food and playing Regency-era games!)

Favorite Quote: “Young lady, bend over and touch your toes!”

Future Ambition(s)/Goal(s): To stay close to the wonderful friends I have in the scene, and to make new ones; to continue to write spanking erotica that people love; to start our “spankingcasts” (podcasts) and through them reach out to new folks who may not yet be enjoying, or comfortable with, their kink.

Now, one of the above answers did actually end up in my response. (You’ll have to guess which one). I have no idea whether they’ll use it, but it’s worth a try!

PS ‘avocation’ is such a lovely word: as Wikipedia puts it, “an activity that a person does as a hobby outside their main occupation. There are many examples of people whose profession was the way they made a living, but whose activities outside their workplace were their true passion in life.” Yep, I think that’s me.

Haron writes:

In my online spanking life, there are things that have always been there. There’s always been Laura’s Spanking Corner; there’s always been soc.sexuality.spanking newsgroup with its many wars and stories, and on the newsgroup there’s always been Alex. He was there with his spanking fiction, sizzling hot and clever, and with his political opinions; and his debates. When the world drifted to the blogosphere, he started A Taste of the Birch: one of the first I’ve ever read. We argued and disagreed about many things, but he taught me many more.

The world wakes today without Alex in it.

I don’t know how it can be true, because his virtual presence is everywhere. It seems wrong that I can’t reach out and talk to him any more, like we always have. It’s a strange world, and sad.

Rest in peace, my mentor and friend.

Abel writes:

I’m incredibly sad this morning. I heard the news of Alex’s passing last night, just before going to bed, in an email that a friend of his kindly sent to me sharing the bad news. I’ve just been reading Mija’s wonderful, moving post on the soc.sexuality.spanking newsgroup and the various replies and tributes there. Have no doubt: the online spanking community has lost one of its foremost figures.

I’d known Alex for a long, long time: almost a decade, I’d guess. We’d swapped so many notes. His tastes in spanking erotica and mine seemed to coincide almost precisely. He was one of the first people to comment on my stories – generous in his feedback, constructive in his suggestions. I owe a lot to him as a writer, for giving me confidence and for helping me to refine and improve. Praise on a story from Alex was praise indeed!

And then there was his own writing – so many excellent stories – as well as his blog and the various forums he ran and contributed to. His “Corporal Punishment in History” series, featured in one of our annual collections of ‘The Best of the Kinky Rest’, remains one of my very favourite series of posts on any spanking blog.  He put so much into our spanking community, and in doing so must have brought so many people such pleasure.

Sadly, despite our lengthy correspondence, we never did manage to meet in person. We’d been planning to do so, despite his illness, but my last note to him with that list of dates for our long-awaited coffee will sadly never receive a reply. But online friends really are friends, just as much as those we know in person. I’ll miss you, Alex. Greatly.

I’ve been rather a fan of Times columnist Matthew Syed – the current Sports Journalist of the Year – since his brave, bold support for Max Mosley back in early 2008 – see, for example, this particularly eloquent article. In a column last week, he discussed the furore about the first woman to referee a league soccer match – opponents having claimed that no female referee could be fit enough to keep up with the pace of the men playing the game:

“We would do better – as a matter of practicality – to test… by, say, getting them to run 150-metre sprints rather than checking to see whether they have a penis or not. Because if you adopt the penis test, you might end up with a fat man who is very slow rather than a little woman that is very fast…

The problem with stereotypes is that they make sensible people do and say very silly things. They allow arbitrary differences to become subconscious inevitabilities and they cause us to make snap decisions on the basis of group membership (whether of a race, gender or whatever) rather than individual merit…

Please don’t get hung up on breasts and penises per se. In a world that is just beginning to recognise the extraordinary diversity that exists within groups, between groups and beyond groups, isn’t it just a trifle passe, as well as a little silly?”

This rang such bells for me. First, since I’m a ‘member’ of a ‘group’ of people – the spanking community – that have to hide our preferences and actions from so many in the vanilla world, for fear of misunderstanding, mockery or hostility.  Second, since our community is such a broad church, with so many individual preferences and play styles – and tolerating diversity is so very important.

I have no idea whether Syed is ‘one of us’ – LOL although as a former international table tennis champion, he’d doubtless be most effective cane in hand. But whatever his preferences – vanilla, kinky (it matters not and is none of our business) – I think he’s something of a hero.

It’s not uncommon for spankos, particularly bottoms / subs, to complain about the emails they receive from potential play partners. (“Hola! You’re very pretty! God, I realy luv to hit beautiful sexy hot cuties like u!”). An amusing study at dating site “OK Cupid” has analysed the language used by their members when first making contact with someone new, and found that certain phrases have a marked impact on the reply rates. The sentence in brackets above (“Hola…”) breaks about ten of their rules; the site would suggest something like the following (with 24 of their recommended phrases in bold):

How’s it going?

Your profile is really fascinating. I noticed that you mention pretty much all of the things I enjoy in the spanking scene. That’s awesome! It’s nice that you love kinky literature and movies; LOL I’m curious what your favourites might be, although I’m guessing that you have good taste.

PS I’d like to apologise for the fact I’m a bit of an awkward atheist. Sorry! But I am a vegetarian, and I did get some tattoos when I was in a metal band whilst studying physics at grad school, ha ha!

OK, maybe not… But it’s an interesting article nonetheless!

Lately, I’ve not had as much time as I’d have liked to read other blogs out there: seeing kinky friends in real life has rather taken priority over my online explorations. I’ve just about kept up-to-date with my “Spanking – Friends” category in Google Reader (that is, blogs written by people we’ve actually met, or know so well online that they class as friends even though we’ve yet to met in person).

But when I glanced at my “Spanking – General” feeds the other evening, I found a ridiculously high number of unread posts. At the same time, I noticed that a surprisingly large proportion of the blogs to which I subscribe weren’t showing any new posts at all. So I started pruning: if a blog on the list didn’t show any new activity – and had thus been dormant for the eight weeks or so since my last catch-up – then I deleted by subscription. Of course, I may have been a tad premature with some – we’re unusual in posting every day, and some may be happy posting every few months when they have something of particular interest to say. But it’s a fair guess that two months of no activity suggests the site in question isn’t exactly that active!

And guess what proportion of the 201 spanking blogs on my lists appeared to be defunct? No fewer than 97 – very nearly half – including many that had previously been pretty active.

Why is this, I wondered? Boredom or a lack of time on the writer’s behalf  - or simply running out of things to say: a sense that they’d come online to explore the ideas that had been percolating in their minds for so long, had explored them, and found nothing left to share? Perhaps their blogs have achieved their objectives (introduce myself, meet a partner, disappear happily back into the shadows)? Perhaps they just didn’t enjoy writing in this format as much as they’d thought they would.

Or maybe it’s resulted from ennui amongst their readers, leading to too few site visits or comments for writing to be worthwhile? Or (I pray not) a mass migration to Twitter? Or even a defection from blogging to the boards of the kinky social networking sites – such as Fetlife or SpankoLife (my personal favourite); I’m listed as ‘Abel’ on each, if you ever fancy saying hi!

It does make me wonder about trends in the spankosphere. I’m guessing that, a few years down the line, we’ll still see a still-smaller number of blogs – the best and most popular of those here today complemented by some new arrivals (as new folks discover the scene, pluck  up the courage to post, or reach the age at which they’re legally or practically able to set up a site). The percentage of blogs with purely commercial content (as a means to attract customers for paid sites) might increase in comparison to those of us who simply have a passion for writing about kink.

And technology will inevitably evolve: I’d love it if that involved an easy and elegant way to consolidate our blog with our stories with our tweets with our podcasts (watch this space: ’spankingcasts’ on the way soon!) – and to collaborate more on writing, ideas and conversations with others who share our enthusiasms.

Nearly four years in, we’re still buzzing with ideas, for sure. But I’m really interested to learn what others think…

There’s been much debate lately about the case of Mood Pictures, the Hungarian spanking producers whose premises were raided by police during a film shoot in January. A post with 60+ comments on Adele’s blog was followed by a thoughtful entry on Ludwig’s site yesterday, summarising the current case as follows:

As many of you will know already, the studio of Mood Pictures, the Hungarian CP film producer about whom I have written a fair bit already on this blog, was raided by the police on the weekend of January 23rd / 24th. Fourteen people were arrested at the scene, three of them now face charges. The accusation is that, at a movie shoot in early January, they ignored a model who was repeatedly safewording, asking them to stop a scene, and continued to beat her. Mood Pictures deny these charges. There will now very probably be a court case against them.

Being friends with a fair few spanking models – and having watched my share of kinky movies over the years – I’m following the case and the debate with some interest. I was going to respond directly on Ludwig’s blog, but when I’d written down my thoughts they were far too long to go in a comment, so I’m putting them in an extra post here instead. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, it’s finally here… Pauses for fanfare…

My lords (assuming at least some of the nobility must be kinky), ladies and gentlemen, I am very proud to present:

To quote from the book’s blurb:

Since 1999, “Abel’s Spanking Stories” has been one of the web’s most popular sites for fictional accounts of young women receiving traditional-style corporal punishment.

This collection features ten exclusive, brand-new stories alongside newly-updated versions of eight of Abel’s best-known tales. Perfect for fans of the cane and the birch, schoolgirls in trouble and judicial floggings, this is English discipline at its very best!

…

“Abel’s stories were my first introduction to spanking erotica, and I have never tired of reading his work. I’m sure this book will become a must-have for any spanking enthusiast.” – Eliane Chevalier, author of New(ish) to Spanking.

“Abel’s stories have long entertained and inspired the online community. I’m delighted that some of his best loved stories are now available in print. A worthy addition to any collection of spanking literature!” – Emma Jane Woodhouse, author of A Painful Awakening.

The book’s available online here from today for £9.95 or the local equivalent (currently around $16 / €11). If you prefer to order from Amazon, it’ll be there next month – we’ll post the links in due course.

I have to say that I’m particularly pleased with the new stories, which appear only in the book and have never been published online. And I did have great fun going back through 70+ older pieces of writing to pick out (and then re-edit) my all-time favourites.

Huge thanks to those who’ve helped with the book: Haron for the technical stuff; Catherine for painting the quite wonderful cover picture; Martha for the laborious task of proofreading (and Alison for helping on that front too).

Treat yourself, treat friends (perfect for Valentine’s Day?!), enjoy – and I’d love your feedback, as always.

As we’re on the subject of writing spanking fiction, I’d like to return to my favourite topic: making sure that the spanking scene doesn’t dwarf all the other dramatic elements of your story, and conversely, that you don’t get so excited by writing the drama that you forget about the erotica.

This problem comes up more often in spanking novels and serial stories than in short fiction: a short story can get away with being about the spanking alone, while a series or a novel really does need character development and a thread of plot. I faced this issue most recently when I was writing for Lowewood: every week something needed to happen to my character to carry their arc ahead, and also, somebody had to get spanked or have sex, in 1500 words or fewer. Some weeks combining the two felt like an insurmountable task, so you got long epic entries, or entries with all plot and no hotness.

I was reminded of this issue when I listened to one of my favourite podcasts, “Writing Excuses”. Episode 3:27 focussed on  “mixing humour with drama and horror” – the problem of blending the funny and the dramatic. It occurred to me that if you swapped “humour” for “erotica”, you get the same problem: you’re writing in a sexy way, then you try to mix in some drama, and all the sexiness goes away. So I thought that the tips and tricks mentioned in the podcast could be useful for a spanking writer as well.

So here’s what we can do:

1. Even though you are writing for the turn-on (and I’m including the spanking thrill in this), when you’re planning out the story, focus first on what inherently dramatic elements you need to include. Character points, plot points, and so on. Then layer the turn-ons on top of that. Moving from spanking to spanking can get stale and boring. When a reader puts down the virtual book, it’s the characters she’s going to take away with her and want to return to, not at what angle the cane swung.

2. It’s OK to let the turn-ons back away for a while when you need to entertain, but make sure it comes back before you get tangled in all the plot. If you have beta-readers, ask them to mark places where they stopped being turned on, and then the places where they got turned on again.

3. Stay true to the character: don’t let your erotica undermine it, no matter how sexy the result may seem. Your teenage prefect had better not be lecturing with flair of an Oxford don. Your kindly friend/mentor really shouldn’t become a demon of strictness as soon as a girl is over his knee, unless there were previous hints that he has a particularly stern streak. Neither should you let your baddie mellow and grow lovey-dovey just because you think a girl must have some aftercare. (Bring in somebody else to comfort her, if you must.)

4. There are lots of ways to be sexy/thrilling: make it appropriate for your characters and plot.

5. My own tip: If your plot is going to contain moments of unhappiness, you’d better write like an angel, because misery isn’t sexy. If you must hurt them, lay on the comfort, but make the transition subtle enough that it’s still believable. I often face this myself, because I like to make characters suffer before they can be happy. If you want an example of my brain gymnastics in this regard, I refer you to the “fight club” storyline on the Lowewood blog. The lowest point for Ned comes when he is bullied into fighting his best friend. Then Lydia arrives to comfort him. In order for a reader to be able to make a switch over from the misery to the sex without being jolted out of the narrative, the bullying part has to have a subtle sexy undertone, which would prepare you to get turned on when the love interest appears on the scene.

Hope some of these tips improve the spanking lives for you and your characters! (Also, if you have more writing tips, I’d love to hear them.)

So, as widely reported, the porn industry has finally cottoned on to the potential of 3D: first up – a remake of the ‘infamous’ 1979 Penthouse movie, Caligula. And what fun’s in store, if they stick to the original storyline: take this, for example, after the Roman emperor had decided that “an imperial brothel is the most logical way to balance the state’s budget” (advice that one hopes Alistair Darling doesn’t take to heart as we grovel our way out of recession):

As you can see ladies and gentlemen we have gone through great expense to bring you the finest flesh in our empire. Five gold pieces! Only 5 gold pieces for each and every 20 minutes and that’s a bargain.” Woman are seen having sex, on swings, giving oral and getting whipped…

“We also have a few very severe ladies today, punish them or be punished.” Women are whipped…

I take most of the credit for this technological innovation, of course, having proposed the idea of a 3D spanking movie in a post back in March 2007. I’m therefore very much looking forward to receiving 10% of the total worldwide box office takings as my commission. I do have reservations, though: how frustrating it’ll be to witness the whippings as if at first-hand, whilst being deprived of the subsequent pleasure of rubbing in moisturiser as the freshly-flogged girl squirms over your lap.

But I’m blushing, slightly, too. Are you sitting comfortably? (And if so, why?). Then let me tell you a little story…

Once upon a time, back in the early 80s, a family moved house. Their teenage son wasn’t altogether keen on the move, as it made his walk to school through the dangerous streets (hey, it was Liverpool!) far, far longer. So the parents decided to bribe him with a gift – a wonderful snooker table. Sadly (do I hear violins?), there wasn’t quite enough room at the inn (OK: in the spare bedroom), so said table was surrounded for a year or more by unpacked crates from the move. And thus the young lad was able to helpfully explore his family’s precious things, discovering a hidden gem nestled away in the depths of one of said boxes…

Yes, dear readers, it seems that Caligula now seems destined to break new ground for me for a second time – adding the new accolade of being my first-ever kinky 3D movie to it’s much-cherished status of having been my first-ever porn magazine. I wonder if my parents still have that old copy of their “Penthouse Magazine Caligula special edition” that so inspired me some thirty-odd years ago? Maybe I won’t ask…