The Spanking Writers

A girl being caned must surely, after a few strokes, recognise a pattern in the disciplinarian’s approach to beating her. The subtle shift in his position, as he steadies himself to apply the next stroke; the sense that he’s lifting his arm high. The measuring of the cane across its intended target; a gentle tap, tap, tap marking the spot. It’s as if we tops wish to remove any element of surprise, to forewarn the girl and allow her to prepare mentally and brace herself for the impact.

On the one hand, that – from a top’s perspective – is a good thing, anticipation being part of the punishment. But what if the caning was administered more out of the blue – the bound girl blindfolded so she couldn’t see, deprived of her hearing (ear plugs, noise-cancelling headphones? – not terribly elegant or sexy, but effective!). The strokes could be inflicted at more random intervals, so no discernible pattern emerged, and the first she’d know of each was when the rattan cut home. Mmmm, I’m interested to experiment; I’m half thinking that a soft silk gag might, whilst not adding to the element of uncertainty, also add a certain something to the proceedings.

Ideas for blog entries occur to me at any hour of the day, in sometimes the least appropriate places. Needless to say, I can’t always then write the post in full at the time – so I note the thought down onto my phone, ready to be written up in full when I get a suitable opportunity.

Tidying up my BlackBerry at the weekend, I came across a list of ideas from the past couple of months. Some I remembered clearly; others were merely intriguing phrases giving no clue as to what the more detailed post idea had been. Rather than merely delete them, I thought I might as well share them with you. Here goes!

Neighbourhood watch

Manx spanking

Girl in pub

Prison – favours

Football, snow, insolence, M&S

Whipping bench

I can probably guess what sort of favours a girl in prison might have been expected to offer in return for (relative) leniency. Manx spanking vaguely rings bells about some phrase that made me ponder what punishments the residents of the Isle of Man might doled out for less serious offences not meriting the birch. But who was the girl? What went on in M&S? And what kinky thoughts were the other phrases supposed to bring back to mind?

Blearly-eyed one morning recently, I glanced at the notice in the hotel lift as it took me down to check out. It advertised their ‘social hour’ – a neat idea, for lonely travellers far from home who wanted to connect with other guests.

Join us in the lobby to compare world-renowned wines and other premium porn.

Premium pours, it turned out. I’m not sure there’s any such noun, so I think my misreading was entirely justifiable.

But what would constitute ‘premium’ porn? In the UK spanking world, that would surely have to be anything by Northern Spanking, who’ve long led the way with high-quality, often witty movies – whilst at the same time setting the standard that other producers dream of attaining when it comes to the ethical treatment of all those involved. Hugely recommended, if you don’t know their stuff.

I’ve been giggling for the past few days, since a Google search unearthed the following site for me: Somerset Willow Growers Ltd - ”growing quality willow in the Somerset levels”.

Not just willow, it seems, if you have a few moments to browse, although their bundles of green willow do have potential. Peeled rattan of varying degrees of thickness: twenty or so canes for £40. Thin unpeeled rattan poles look especially cruel. And there’s a whole selection of mean kooboo cane which is:

Ideal for a variety of uses including basket making, basketry cane, outdoor articles, uprights, sticks and cane furniture.

‘Sticks’. Right. Slightly euphemistic, I feel – a 4mm kooboo being entirely impractical as a walking stick. But perhaps saying ‘implements’ would get them into trouble. Still, I do wonder what proportion of  their sales are to folks like us with naughty purposes in mind!

Regular readers here will know that I loved Sophie Morgan‘s “Diary of a Submissive” when it appeared last year; was delighted when it reached the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list; and think her newspaper article about being kinky is perhaps the best and bravest thing I’ve ever read on the subject. So I was quite frustrated last week when “No Ordinary Love Story”, the sequel to her “Diary”, appeared at a time when I had no chance of getting to a bookshop for a few days.

We fixed that yesterday afternoon, and in the evening I devoured the book. Dear reader, I loved it – far more so, actually, than the original. It traces the course of her relationship with her partner, and is full of wonderful lines. Here are just a few – so as not to spoil the joy of reading it when you buy it (note: when, not if!) and so as not to encourage her lawyers to sue me for copyright infringement (!):

“I think it’s fair to say I’m not an especially innocent person”. (Right, Sophie. After two books like this, that made me laugh aloud)

“I’ve been fascinated by [stocks] since I first time I learned of their existence, in mediaeval history lessons in primary school. By the time I was studying history at A-Level, I would lie in bed at night thinking of elaborate sexual fantasies whereby I’d be locked in a pillory, humiliated and fucked by any number of people who felt the urge to do so.”

“One of the major misconceptions about being submissive is that it means being passive, waiting for someone to do something to you, rather than taking the initiative.”

“When Adam first mentioned us watching porn together I rolled my eyes. I just wasn’t interested. I’d rather have had sex watching the Test Match Special”. (BTW, Sophie. test Match Special is a radio programme, not on TV. I think you should be spanked…)

“I had found a partner who was evil and lovely in equal measure.”

“The first time I’d dressed up for him, I’d created a little makeshift schoolgirl uniform out of a knee-length grey skirt, white blouse, long socks and an old tie I’d bought in a charity shop for about 50p… [When] I got to see how much he adored looking at me in what I considered fancy dress, I became a bit of a convert.”

“I love you, you moron. You’re my person. When I wake up in the morning and see your head resting on the pillow next to me, everything feels right with the world.”

There’s a discussion of that moment when you realise that a friendship originating in play has evolved into a relationship. Lots about the challenges of finding the balance between real-life and kink, which struck a real chord and gave me pause for reflection. A sentence about getting a place together and putting together Ikea furniture, which made me giggle. (Next weekend!)

And I love the idea of making a girl count down the number of strokes – from fifty to one, in the scenario Sophie describes. Now, why have I never done that in years of administering spankings? Love it!

Whilst Sophie and Adam’s relationship is perhaps more BDSM or D/S than cp or spanking, and so it may not be entirely aligned to the taste of everyone reading here, I can’t recommend the book highly enough. Think “Fifty Shades” but real, genuine, true, hot, with a plot, with sexy and kinky action – and well-written.  I rather think Sophie has another bestseller on her hands. At least, I sincerely hope she does.

Long-standing readers of this blog will know that, for many years, I described myself as ‘poly’. Married (then) to Haron; each enjoying close, caring, loving relationships with others as well as with one another. It was a wonderful time.

My current status and mindset is very different: hugely in love with one person, extremely happy, and with no desire whatsoever for romance with anyone else. Playing with others is still part of what makes me tick – in a cp sense as well as (occasionally) sexually – but in an ‘open’ sense, without the deep emotional and day-to-day real-life vanilla-world attachment that I always associate with ‘poly’.

EJ too has other play partners, including (as readers of her blog will appreciate) one especially deep friendship – but we’re both very clear indeed that ours is not a poly relationship. (Which, in a way, might strike some as strange, I guess – given that’s where we started out).

And that’s made me stop and think. Because I think I’ll always be kinky: I think that’s part of my DNA – something deep within me, essential for my happiness and fulfilment, even if it’s relatively inconsequential in the overall context of my real-world hopes and dreams. On the other hand, being poly for me was more of a choice than something intrinsic: something that worked (wonderfully) at a given time and with certain fabulous people, which came somewhat out of the blue and was fabulous, but which isn’t a necessary pre-requisite for my happiness.

It yet again strikes me that – for me, at least – as Indy argued so powerfully a while back on her blog, kink truly is an orientation. But we’re all different: I’d love to hear others’ views.

There was news last week of a fascinating – but concerning – court case, in which Steven Lock, a 43-year-old Ipswich man, was cleared of causing actual bodily harm to his partner in a BDSM scene that didn’t work out. It raises some interesting issues, and so I wanted to explore it here.

According to reports, the couple had met through a dating website, and begun a relationship. They had an “adventurous” sex life, involving “threesomes and bondage sessions and filming themselves having sex”. She’d “had a tattoo in an intimate place saying ‘This is the property of Steven Lock’”.

Apparently inspired by ‘Fifty Shades’, they then agreed to master / slave play. She sent him a letter agreeing to allow him “to use me and my body as a slave… I am willing to do anything my master sees fit for me to do. This may include pain if my tasks are not completed to his satisfaction.”

The following day, he tied her to the bedroom floor, and gave her fourteen strokes of a looped and knotted rope – “one for each occasion on which she had ‘failed as a slave’”. The strokes were excruciating and left bruises, but it “all happened so fast, she didn’t even think of using” their agreed safeword.

He said he’d “pushed boundaries”. She said: “I knew there would be pain involved and I knew I wasn’t going to like it but I’d agreed to it and had to follow it through.”

They then had sex; he left her chained in the bedroom; she texted a friend in a state of distress asking them to call the police saying: “He has got me chained up like a dog… He is whipping the s*** out of me. I need your help bad.”

The police arrived and found her outside his home in a ‘distressed’ state. He’d released her “after she refused to share his bed”, giving her the key to the padlock. She’d fled “fled to the bus-stop, while he sent her an angry text message”. Charges were then brought.

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Clearly, I don’t know the details beyond what was reported in the press – and hope I’ve pieced together what happened accurately and impartially from various fragmented and incomplete newspaper reports. But the case seems to highlight the risks that we all face when playing in the scene.

The woman concerned seems to have had a ghastly experience, with a flogging that was far harder than she anticipated from her partner; she was left feeling assaulted, abused.

The man in question ended facing criminal charges after what had been set up as a consensual scene with an existing play partner, with written agreements and a safeword in place.

There will inevitably be occasions when scenes don’t work out – when what happens in practice doesn’t meet expectations, or proves more challenging than anticipated for one or both parties despite what had reasonably appeared to be informed consent.

I guess some sensible tests might include:

- Was the play entirely voluntary and consensual – without any degree of practical or emotional coercion?

- Had the parties done enough to discuss the scene openly, in as much detail as they each wanted to know – covering (for example) what might happen and what wouldn’t, and the likely style / tone / severity of play?

- Were any limits discussed, openly and honestly, without any sense of duress – in so far as either party wanted to define them?

- Was there a safeword, to be invoked without reservation or fear of retribution where needed, leading to the immediate cessation of play, if either party wanted one?

- Were expectations – and the above discussions – suitably well-informed? Or was either party perhaps naïve about how things might be in practice – and, if so, should the other party reasonably have known or checked this?

- Were all of the above agreements honoured in practice?

- Did both parties make reasonable attempts to adjust what was happening if it was clearly evident during the play that things were not working to plan or were causing real distress to the other person?

Were any of the above to be breached, I’d have cause for concern. From reports, it doesn’t sound as if they were – and so in this case it appears that justice was done. That’s a relief. But I feel desperately sorry for the woman concerned too, worried that it came to court, and uneasy that there may be more similar cases as novices start to experiment in this Fifty Shades-inspired era.

Of all the places I’d expect to find a defence of “Fifty Shades”, the editorial page of the Sunday Times wasn’t one. Yet that was what it featured this past weekend, in a thought-provoking article entitled: “Under the swish of Grey’s cane is comfort reading posing as porn.’

It starts with the amusing revelation that of the 21,800 books left in Travelodge hotel rooms last year, some 7,000 were Fifty Shades. And it’s clear on the book’s limitations: “widely mocked as appalling written”. Author Minette Marrin explained: “Only the angry protests that it was a betrayal of feminism had aroused my interest.”

Its conclusions are interesting; “This is hardly a celebration of violence against women or female subordination, as some have claimed… [T]he book indulges (up to a safe and hygienic point) the feelings of women who don’t accept feminist strictures about female sexuality – who are intrigued by submission or who do not always want to wear the feminist trousers.’

I’m not sure I agree with the logic, mind. There’s a suggestion underlying that argument that being feminist and being submissive are somehow incompatible: that to explore the latter is somehow to betray the former. And that strikes me as fundamentally wrong. For a woman to take control of her own sexuality and explore it is an entirely feminist thing to do, surely?

Interesting stuff, anyway, on my train into London. And wonderful to see these issues being debated with tolerance so prominently.

PS a later article in the same issue interviewed the screenwriter who’s bringing Fifty Shades to the big screen. My favourite quote: “some of the sex scenes have had to be edited out in order to get some plot in”!!!

Medieval punishments, anyone? I’ve posted a few times previously about whipping posts and stocks, but news of a tourist attraction in Bermuda takes things a step further. Yes, in King’s Square, St Georges, there’s a ducking stool in which:

Volunteers from the audience face an example of 18th century justice.

A little further research (try YouTube if you’re interested) reveals that female visitors genuinely are tied into the stool and ducked in the water, emerging rather delightfully soaked to the skin.

There’s also apparently a 17th century sailing ship (girls tied to the mast to be lashed?), and another site mentions that there are:

Stocks, Pillory, Whipping Post and Ducking Stool — replicas of those used to punish criminals over 400 years ago

I wonder if the whipping post is used for demonstrations, in the same way as the ducking stool? I really feel the need for a holiday in Bermuda to find out…!

Whilst discussing the fall-off in blogging on many of the sites I read in a post the other day, I asked for recommendations for other newer blogs that may have emerged since I last updated my blogroll. There were some fascinating responses – Dan’s in particular being really worth a read.

Now, no new blog commendations were forthcoming, but I have stumbled across a few I like in the past few days, and thought I’d share them in case you’re similarly stumped for inspiration:

• The Spanking Diary (NSFW)
• 1001 Spanking Fantasies (NSFW)
• Dom with Pen (a relatively rare example of a male dom/top writing a good literary blog!)

More recommendations of newer blogs out there very welcome!