The Spanking Writers

A note popped into my work inbox the other morning from a client in Australia:

I am having issues with my company Outlook and can’t seem to send emails to external email addresses. I am using my Hotmail account for the time being.

It just struck me that that *really* wouldn’t be an option for me if my work account ever went down! Seeing my ‘abel1234@’ address would no doubt lead them to run a search on it out of curiosity – and my daytime cover as a sweet, innocent businessman would be blown. Still, I suspect it would ensure that they settled their bills on time…

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PS my phone’s auto-correct helpfully changed the title of this post to read: “The misuse of Hitachi”. Surely no girls out there would ever use a Magic Wand for naughty purposes?! But funny how BlackBerry would jump to that conclusion – and program it into their software…

Two apparently-innocuous vanilla sentences have made me smile recently. The first was on the tube – an ad for a dating agency, that read:

“He texted me before the date and my tummy got the good sort of butterflies.”

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the journey thinking about a girl with the wrong sort of butterflies – called out of class because “the headmaster wants to see you in his study”; walking nervously along the empty corridors, realising she’d been caught; waiting outside his office, dreading the inevitable punishment; the door swinging open as he told her to come inside…

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On Saturday, my vanilla email account received an email:

“Exclusive Offer To See The Governess For Just £15″

It’s a play, apparently. But I can’t help but hope that some young ladies on the theatre’s distribution list might have squirmed nicely at the prospect of being called to see a strict governess, and of the sound over-the-knee hairbrush spanking that might have resulted…

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 rather enjoying a book called ‘Invisible Romans’, a guide to the life of the ordinary citizens of ancient Rome. Needless to say, there were a few naughty snippets that appealed, with plenty of potential for reveries or play…

First, sex: perhaps not always a consensual act between equals in those days. “To have intercourse with one’s willing and submissive wife – one not reluctant regarding sex – this is a good thing for both…” according to one ancient text, adding that it is entirely possible she “might only yield ‘with some resistance’”. Certain sexual acts that might be more prevalent in modern times were also deemed ‘unnatural’.

Next, slavery. Domestic slaves “were flogged for trifling mistakes, ignorance, delinquent work, ‘insolent’ behaviour…” , and the lady of the house “was able to discipline female slaves as she thought fit”.

With slaves: “The practical goal of the physical and psychological abuse was submissiveness training. The ideal was to get the slave to obey without question.” There was a “Casual, deeply ‘normal’ assumption… that slaves were available as sexual objects” which meant that “female slaves are forced to service their most shameless masters… The reality of rape must have been very much on… girls’ minds.”

There were foremen amidst the slaves in a household:

“Especially if they were unsupervised by the master, they had no restrictions on the punishments they could inflict, their assignment of slaves for their personal benefit, and their sexual depredations.”

“Routine floggings … took place at the hands of fellow slaves under the master’s direct authority, it was common practice to outsource more serious physical punishment… There were, therefore, professionals who specialised in dealing with slaves that masters considered exceptionally recalcitrant.” I want that job!

As for soldiers : “one’s own female slave was available willy-nilly at any time, and many soldiers had slave girls while on active duty… A soldier might [also] take up a liaison with a [local] girl who would set up house for him and provide him with sexual gratification as well as other household duties; these were called focariae (‘hearth girls’).

Amidst a lengthy chapter on prostitution – noting that it was common to buy then resell slaves at profit for such purposes – comes a tale by Apuleius. “A standard motif in the romances is a girl who is kidnapped by bandits or pirates and sold into slavery. In ‘The Golden Ass’ Charite, a girl from an elite provincial family, faces such a prospect:

“We should take her to a nearby town and sell her. For such a sweet young thing will bring a pretty price, for sure… There she must display herself in a brothel and won’t be able to escape like she almost did just now. Seeing her service men in a whorehouse will be sweet revenge for you.”

Oh, so many scene ideas – enough for weeks of fun. I think I need a villa – and a Roman wife and a few slaves. Volunteers?!

On the tube a while back, The Hunter and I giggled at an oh-so-serious notice next to the emergency handle:

There is a penalty for deliberate misuse

We wondered, of course, what penalty might apply to girls guilty of such wanton misconduct. But then he and I were distracted by the final two words on their own. An evening during which a girl is subjected to ‘deliberate misuse’ by a gentleman (or, possibly, by more than one gentleman)? Yes, that sounds appealing. In fact, one might argue that Transport for London should be prosecuted for incitement…

A couple of days later, I was in a client’s office, and spied another notice that made me giggle:

Unauthorised entry may result in disciplinary action

What sort of disciplinary action, I wondered, thinking of the cute (and very flirtatious) young lady in the team I was working with? And, actually, in certain ruder scenes, might ‘unauthorised entry’ not constitute a very valid form of ‘disciplinary action’ in its own right?

Killing time in a charity shop in London the other morning, whilst those with me browsed, I found myself looking along the bookshelves. Whilst none of the volumes were spanking-related, I just had to share a few of the titles, as they made me laugh aloud.

First up: “Men at Work” by the delightfully-named Nina Bangs – adjacent to a volume called “Sticky Fingers” by Alison Tyler.

Next, Piers Anthony’s masterpiece (?): “The Colour of Her Panties”. (White or black, please?)

And then my favourite, called “The Second Husband” – but more for the explanatory line beneath the title:

“There are some things a mother and daughter should never share.”

Especially, it would seem, given that the daughter in question seemed to be 17…

I am sometimes tempted to deposit one of my books on the racks in places like this, to see if it’s still there after a few weeks. But I have a feeling that “The Punishment List” or the Spanking Writers’ anthologies would be a little tame in comparison to some of the reading matter that they already stock…

Wandering past a London shop the other day, I spied a sign in the window which took me rather aback:

“For inspirational, corrective and educational practice.”

Apparently they were after models who’d let trainee hairdressers loose on their hair – but you can see why I jumped to other conclusions. Actually, as a summary of rationales for good spankings, it’s really rather neat!

Translated into Latin, it’d be the ideal motto for the sort of establishment that Mr Jenkins might run in some future scene. “For inspiration, correction and education”:

Enim inspiratione, correctio et educationem

Anyone out there with a degree in the Classics? It’d be nice not to have to rely entirely on Google Translate.

A crest of a cane crossed with a birch, surmounted with a tawse, would set it off nicely. Oh, how I wish I was good at graphic design…

An interesting turn to a work conversation yesterday morning. We were discussing an area where some subtlety is called for in decision-making; one audience member commented that: “There are so many shades of grey.”

“Not fifty?” I replied.

“Ooo, I do hope so,” another participant – quite the cutest of those in the room – replied. She’s a lass I’ve worked with a fair amount in recent months, and get on with particularly well. I don’t mix business and pleasure, but my curiosity was certainly piqued.

OK, now this is a little surreal, from a Scottish community music project:

“Banned The Belt : How The Lochgelly Tawse Changed the World” is a brand new part of The Band project.

The Lochgelly Tawse is the town’s most famous (and feared!) export, having been used in 70% of schools, and made in Lochgelly for over 100 years. ‘Banned – the Belt’ will be an installation piece with promenade audience, using film/digital image, installation design, stage and music teams working with groups across Central Fife. This project is with and for everyone aged 16+, and will involve practitioners as teaching artists as well as creators – we will be taking the ideas of those involved and creating with them.

You can help! In order to make ‘Banned – the Belt’ as locally-relevant and insightful as possible we need your stories!

Do you have painful memories of being belted at school? Maybe you were a teacher who used (or chose not to use) the belt on your pupils? A mother or father whose child was beaten? Or maybe you know something about the manufacture and distribution of the Lochgelly Tawse around the country?

Any stories you can share, whether you are able to participate in the production or not, would be appreciated and will really benefit our project.  Please share your experiences via our Banned – The Belt Facebook page or email them to Banned.theBelt@gmail.com

Here’s the flyer for the project:

I’m told that the main event is taking place in the Lochgelly Centre (what a name!) at the end of November. There’s even going to be a ‘mock workshop’ by Margaret Dick, daughter of the late John J. Dick (renowned supplier of straps to the educational establishment for many years), demonstrating how the tawse was made. Anyone local able to find out more details? Sounds like an outing to Scotland really might be in order, with a nice hotel and a private post-theatre re-enactment of key elements of the evening’s performance before bed…!

Any of you watch Doctor Who? I used to be an avid fan in the Eccleston / Tennant days (and of Jon Pertwee when I was a young kid), but have never liked the Matt Smith incarnation. Yet the first two episodes of the new season have been rather surprisingly good. Indeed, the first was to my mind the best – and most genuinely scary – since the brilliance of “Blink”.

I won’t post anything that might be deemed as a plot spoiler about Saturday’s second episode, but two quotes just cry out to be blogged. Don’t read on if you’re planning on watching it and don’t want to hear the lines…

Still with me? Good! First up: “I should put you across my knee and spank you”. And then, a rather evil chap pinning a rather lovely lady to the wall, commenting:

“I like my possessions to have spirit. It means I can have fun breaking them. And I shall break you in with immense pleasure.”

Not quite as much fun on screen as in my imagination, but…