The Spanking Writers

We’re going to a wedding on Saturday. The friends concerned are decidely vanilla. His parents are certainly not. Let me explain.

Said parents were away when we first visited their house. Son sits us down, disappears to fetch drinks. And our eyes simultaneously come to rest on the huge plant pot in the corner of the living room.

We wandered over, as if in shock: yes, it was stashed with the most impressive collection of crook-handled school canes that I have ever seen: junior, senior, in every conceivable degree of whippiness.

Our friend came back in. “Camel whips,” he explained. “Dad collected them when he lived in the Middle East.”

We – just – managed to surpress our giggles. Later research confirmed that camel whips don’t come with crook handles. Not that either of us are likely to mistake the traditional school rattan, in any case.

I’m just looking forward to the speeches at the wedding reception at the weekend: “We’d like to thank my parents for their kind gift of a camel whip from their priceless collection.” I promise not to laugh out loud.

We have surfed upon this beautiful entry over on Tea and Oranges

I heat the iron and test it.and my mind wanders to last night – on my hands and knees… trying to calm the giddy longing rising in me… giggling and fidgeting… twisting for a glimpse of you behind me

I shake out your shirt and lay it across the board.

“stay still” you say in your serious voice, and I do… I close my eyes and hear the sound of your watch unclicking from your wrist, the clack of it when you place it on the table and then… the sharp flick of a first light slap of leather across the back of my thighs

I flatten one sleeve and stroke the fabric down along the board with my palm.

And so she continues, making the most ordinary household job sound deliciously sensual.

I found myself nodding as I read the entry, because I too always daydream my way through domestic chores. I don’t think I’ve ever made it through five minutes of washing-up without getting two spankings and a good talking-to.

Abel irons his own shirts, though. I bet he doesn’t think about getting thrashed at the time.

I’ve just found that Google has a “Scholar” site that searches academic papers. A search on “corporal punishment” serves up more than 10,000 papers.

Whilst I suspect that the majority of these aren’t in the least bit kinky, the ideal of turning up in the office in the morning and researching spanking has a certain appeal. (NOT that these days I ever go into my office in the morning and research spanking rather than doing the work I’m supposed to be doing. Honestly).

I do so love unearthing learned reports on the web that explore historical corporal punishment. This, for example, was published on a Canadian government site:

“Punishments were meted out frequently for simple disciplinary offences, often of the most innocuous kind, and whippings were administered before an assembly of the inmates…. In the prison’s female quarters young girls experienced similar treatment. The records show that one 14 year-old was whipped seven times in four months.”

Haron, c’m here. Role play ahead…

Our friend Molly B sent us this picture, under the above heading. She found it on the BBC News website.

These youngsters are celebrating their last day at school, apparently.

Something tells me that if we were playing a scene, and if I showed up with my uniform graffitied like this, I’d be leaving school in a very sore state. Even if it was supposed to be my last day at school.

This sounds like a good idea for a story. (NOT for a scene! My shirts are too nice to mutilate like that, though maybe I could steal one of Abel’s?)

Joyous celebrations after watching Liverpool’s famous FA Cup final win. You know the sort of thing: I mean, I can’t be the only fan to have tied his wife up in bed with his Liverpool scarf last night.

Can I?

I’ve been meaning to write about a startle in a TV show a couple of weeks back, hosted by comedian Sean Locke. I scribbled his comment down, as it deserved a wider audience amongst perverts like us. Making a smacking gesture, he observed:

“I’d like to see a programme called ‘Tough Nuts’, in which you take kids with behavioural problems and fly them away to a country where you’re still allowed to give them a good clout,”

That led to a most vivid dream later that night, of a distinguished public school in some faraway outpost. Girls in blazers and straw boaters wandered across immaculately manicured lawns in blazing sunshine, whilst the continuing threat (and regular use) of the cane kept them strictly in order.

I googled the subject, as one would. Hansard column 857W, 1 February 2005, is the place to turn to satisfy your academic curiosity. ‘Mr. Dawson had asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether corporal punishment of children has been prohibited by legislation in schools in each of the UK overseas territories’. (Why on earth did he want to know?) (Hi, Mr. Dawson!).

The minister, Mr. Alexander, listed six such territories where traditional British remedies still hold sway. In Anguilla, “under the Education Act, corporal punishment is allowed in schools under controlled conditions.” In Bermuda, “there is no prohibition on corporal punishment in schools”, whilst in the British Virgin Islands, “corporal punishment can be carried out by the principal, deputy principal or by one senior teacher appointed in writing.”

The Turks and Caicos Islands permit corporal punishment in schools “provided that it is not administered in a manner which is degrading or injurious”. The Falkland Islands bans corporal punishment in public sector schools, but not in the private sector; fortunately for abolishionists, there are no private sector schools!

The Cayman Islands, though, caught my eye:

Corporal punishment is allowed by law in all public and private schools in the Cayman Islands, only where no other punishment is considered suitable or effective by the principal, and may only be administered by the principal or any teacher appointed in writing by the principal for that purpose. An entry must be made in a punishment book kept in each school.

I’m genuinely not a member of the “bring back the birch brigade”, and would happily see the relevant laws in each country changed tomorrow. I can clearly differentiate between fantasy and reality, between consent and its unacceptable absence. But this stuff is wonderful as a basis for future scenes and stories!

Bangkok has never been one of my favourite cities. I might have to reconsider after reading an article titled “Skin-tight & sexy” from yesterday’s The Nation newspaper:

Every year they’re warned and every year they disregard the warning. Students just want their uniforms. Flashy, skin-tight uniforms are the latest rage for female university students… But as both sexes prepare for the beginning of the new semester next month, university administrators are updating their dress codes and reminding students they will also be graded on their attire.

According to Surachai Charudej, director of Kasetsart University’s Student Affairs Department, offenders will be banned from lecture halls and will lose marks.

So far students are ignoring the warnings.

I so like the idea of uniform inspections impacting University students’ grades…

Apparently, street vendors across Bangkok are benefiting from the trend:

As they pore over clothing racks, they are grabbing sexier, attention-grabbing attire, vendors say. Skirts are even more daring this year than last year, noted a vendor at Bang Kapi’s Tawanna market. “Some are as tiny as 30cm from waistline to hem, and there are short skirts with front, rear or side slits, depending on your preference,” he said.

“The SSS size was the smallest shirt size last year, but this year our smallest is the SSSSS,” he said.

OK: major-league giggles. I know the abbreviation SSS. I’m hugely fond of the soc.sexuality.spanking newsgroup (which is where I met Haron), but I didn’t know it had branched out into the uniform trade. And what’s with the new SSSSS? Is that to SSS like DKNY is to Donna Karan?

The last word has to go to another University administrator, Dr Chanvipa Diloksamphan, director of the Student Affairs Department at Rajabat Institute:

“While we are trying to campaign for proper dress, many shops near the university offer improper uniforms.”

She said the university had always had a strict dress code. Students who violated it by wearing see-through shirts or short skirts would lose marks and be reported to their parents…. “It is difficult to control students”, she said.

Haron, can we go to Thailand on holiday?

Poor Haron.

You see, she’s not very good at watering house plants. Even cacti and Joshua Trees – survivors in the most arid desert conditions – perish at her hands if I head off on a long business trip.

Now, I’m too generous to whack her for failing to water plants that she probably dislikes in the first place. That would be cruel. And I’m not a cruel man.

But when she was away recently, I decided it was time for a selection of our more recently-expired plants to find their way to the great garden centre in the sky. I happened to notice that one particular orchid (or, perhaps, ‘ex-orchid’) has been propped up by a rather nice cane. Thin, not hugely flexible.

Said orchid disappeared to the wastebin; said cane was hidden away for future application.

So, Haron finds herself at 11pm last night with a good few hours of work still ahead of her to finish off an important paper. She wanders upstairs, and I happen to notice the by-now-forgotten length of bamboo. I whacked her with it across her jeans, as one would. “Doesn’t hurt,” she grinned, with a trademark ‘I want to be smacked’ wiggle.

A girl under-estimates a cane at her peril. Apparently it did hurt, a lot, when it was applied more forcefully, the young lady positioned face down on the bed, backside in the air, jeans and panties removed. Hurt enough that a firm hand was needed on her back to hold her down for the whacking.

And then she went off to complete her work. She always seems to study more diligently when her backside is striped; I have a theory that it reminds her of the impact of slacking. See, I was only helping.

Gentlemen spankers invariably head towards rattan for their cane collections; I’m beginning to think that the qualities of bamboo needs further research.

One of the my favourite blogs out there is “The Adventures of Spanko Girl“. I’ve often seen bloggers quote lists of search engine terms that have been used to find their sites, but adored the latest entry here which used the search phrases as the basis for a short story. It kicked off as follows:

She stood waiting outside the Headmaster’s office, nervously playing with the hem of her skirt. People filed past and looked knowingly that this girl was in trouble…

The Fairchild Young Women’s Academy makes extensive use of corporal punishment. Our girls are spanked hard on their bare bottoms regularly…

He brought the cane down over and over again, leaving thin white lines of burning fire on her naughty bottom. She leaned hard over the chair, gasping for air, ..

She looked at the welts on her bottom left by the strap in a mirror, and watched him trace the outline of each fading mark with his fingertips.

Cool idea, really well executed. If you don’t know about the site, it’s worth a look!

Sitting in a pub with a decidedly vanilla friend on Monday night. She disappears to powder her nose, and I pick up the Evening Standard, abandoned by a previous drinker.

I glimpse my friend returning from the far side of the bar, and fold away the paper. Fold the paper, in all innocence, in such a way that the headline on the top of the page reads: “Taking the danger out of a spot of good honest spanking”.

I nearly choked, and only just composed myself before said young lady reappeared at my side. Yes, dear readers, the Standard did it again. Said paper accidentally found its way into my briefcase for the journey back to my hotel.

“One of the more peculiar experiences I had recently was attending a two-hour ‘spanking skills’ seminar in Soho House in order to write it up for a glossy magazine”. (I’m not into it myself, see? Let’s just make sure that the denial gets into paragraph one. I was only doing it for the money. Really. After all, my friends might read this).

“I will spare you a blow-by-blow account” (groan) “and only reveal that the thing that really struck me – so to speak” (as if we hadn’t noticed your first cliched comment earlier in the sentence) “was the fact that the best part of the first hour was given over to an earnest lecture from the seminar’s two young and energetic tutors on health and safety issues.”

“Where to spank?” (People paid money to be enlightened on this? I am missing a business opportunity).

“How to spank? And with what? And so on. Honestly, as the long minutes ticked by I – who have no previous form or interest in this or, sadly, any other form of deviancy” (no, really, I’m not in the least bit curious; and these folks are all deviants; I don’t condone them for a moment) “- was checking my watch and almost champing to get on with it.”

And then the rest of the article lacked a single reference to spanking, other than a snide remark about “mild transgressive behaviour”. Quite bizarre.

People get paid to write this stuff? Still, thank you, Rachel “I’m not into spanking honestly” Johnson for at least writing an eye-catching headline. Although I’m guessing that a sub-editor probably did that for you.