Wednesday 6 May 2009
A New and Intriguing Story to Check Out
Sunday 3 May 2009
A New Art Link (Bondage) by Coco & a Little Bit of Stranger than Fiction Inspiration
Meanwhile; I have just been sent a new link (for which, much gratitude) to the excelent bondage art of Coco (click on artwork above or on the title highlighted in blue to link - or check out the sidebar resource list over on the right). And on the subject of 'truth stranger than fiction' (and something that should come as a source of inspiration for 'Judith's Aunt' - a contributor from a while ago now and from whom we have heard little of late...hint, hint... as regards the disciplining of her niece) no sooner did I add a little descriptive work to a section of volume 2 dealing with a form of shame-dress discipline (you will see what I mean if and when you read it) then I came across the following text...And I thought I was being so imaginative!
"We sometimes wore itchy woollen combinations, which were really uncomfortable, with sleeves down to the wrist, and our Liberty bodices were fastened with buttons to our knickers, so that meant unfastening them every time we went to the lavatory! On top of the petticoats we wore cotton frocks in summer, or kilts in winter, and sometimes these long shapeless jersey dresses. I had a navy coloured reefer coat and we had to wear laced ankle boots because my mother believed they helped to strengthen the ankle. But my older sister made such a fuss about them, we stopped wearing them in the end. I had a straw hat for summer and a velour winter hat." "Many young teenage girls were still [kept in] corsets [then]: "[That] was before roll-ons and corselets became popular, and [teenage girls had corsets that hooked up at the side. We wore two pairs of knickers, with navy blue bloomers on the outside and a white cotton 'liner' on the inside and at school we wore a black alpaca tabard pinafore over our uniform dress. We had house shoes for indoors, and lace-up shoes outdoors and on Sunday we wore patent leather house shoes. {A tabard seems an interesting idea - lots of possibilities there! But I'm not sure about alpaca, though - Garth}
"At home we wore these ghastly knitted dresses, they were absolute horrors with a belt threaded through round the hips, just where we were fattest, at a time when we were at our least shapely anyway. These dresses were knitted for us by somebody, and they had absolutely no shape whatsoever, and we hated them." Quoted and adapted from http://www.aohg.org.uk/twww/clothes1.html).
Thursday 30 April 2009
Dietary Discipline & Harassment Therapy: A Reader's Account (Part 4) - Of Nappies, Leg Braces and Psychological Bondage
“In the average small hospital ward (and I imagine the ward you were confined to would have been quite compact) there are usually only one or two (if that) toilet cubicles. A weird subject I know but one with many disciplinary connotations, particularly under the circumstances you describe, as once in a cubicle the patient could be out of sight for example and might choose to regurgitate an unpleasant meal. And bearing in mind the regimentation of the dietary procedures you describe one can't help wondering whether such toilet visits were regimented in any way (I make mention in volumes 1 and two of my book of bedpan use, both for convenience and for ' medical ' reasons - to allow for easy monitoring of waste output, shall we say (humiliating for the patient, I know, but perhaps necessary).”
It only took an increase in liquid intake and the withholding of potty privileges once or twice and a girl was bound to be found standing in a puddle of her own making in the dayroom or she would wake up with a wet bed.
Such events, whether deliberately induced, entirely accidental, or just written up on paper, were the usual precursor to the loss of potty privileges (called toilet privileges) altogether. That meant having to wear nappies - at least during the day and maybe at night too. If you were one of the retarded girls they might be regular nappies, but those of us who were deemed to 'know better', or be aware of our 'actions', were often made to wear punishment nappies... (the pictures, I think, evoke quite nicely the sort of thing that would be considered suitable garb for such a patient once ensconced in the experimental psychology department, deep within the secure wing of the institution I depict - Garth).
It was on one of the occasions when I was consigned to punishment nappies that I was taken down to the brace shop to have a crotch plate made. The design is a little hard to explain. Firstly my body brace was modified and the waist was reduced even further - making me look more like a wasp than a girl. Then a narrow and most uncomfortable strap was attached to the back of my body brace and passed between my legs and tightly buckled to the front of my body brace. Then a wide rigid plate was made, rubber covered steel I think, and that was similarly attached, by multiple straps, to the back and front of my body brace. By the time all the straps were pulled as tight as the nurses could manage (the narrow understrap could still be tightened after the crotch plate was attached because the crotch plate did not cover the buckle) I was barely able to walk, for the crotch place was about 5 inches wide at its narrowest, and unless I moved very gingerly it would leave me with wheals where it rubbed against my thighs - even through the rubber bloomers, 'panty-girdle', and layers of nappy. Believe me - the panty girdles were very unpleasant, the way they held the sodden nappies in constant contact with your crotch, but the crotch plate was many times worse. Not that I escaped that - I still had to wear a panty girdle, both under and over the rubber bloomers. If you were unlucky enough to be moved to the 'dirty dormitory' then your nappies were usually only changed at bedtime each day. Your dirty nappy and liner were removed and replaced with a 'clean', but still urine soaked, nappy and liner. The dirty nappy was [sometimes] not placed in the nappy bucket until the next morning.
We deviants had our own dormitory, and normally we would never be moved to another - they didn't want any chance of our corrupting the other girls - but the 'dirty dormitory' was an exception - we could be transferred there, and often were.
But punishment nappies were not usually the first disciplinary measure, of that type, a new girl would encounter. They would usually work up to it. My own first experience was when I came back from the bathroom, shivering from a long cold bath. On this occasion I was not wearing a jacket - though often we would wear our jackets in the bath - and as I stood next to 'my' bed the nurse pulled down the cover, and the rubber sheet below it, to reveal the bed made up with urine soaked, sheets and pillowcases - obviously sopping wet, not just damp. It was a very unpleasant experience indeed, though it became even more unpleasant when I was instructed to remove my nightgown and take the gown from beneath the pillow and put it on. Besides being wet and very cold, it too, was saturated in urine. Getting into it was no easy task because the material would keep sticking to itself and the nurse had to help me, much to her annoyance. When told to get into the bed I soon found that the indentation I made rapidly filled with cold urine. It was only an introduction, but that night, and the following nights pent in that bed were very unpleasant”.
The only times I ever left my ward, where I ate, slept, performed my ablutions, and recreated, was to visit my therapist, the therapy room, or the brace shop - and on all such occasions I was securely fastened into a wheelchair that had a top similar to a pram that could be pulled up, and in my case, pulled down, so that I could see nothing of my surroundings as I was moved between locations.
But I could usually still hear what was going on and it was clear that the nurses from my ward were not able to open many of the doors themselves - they were dependent upon getting assistance from others who would only do so if they recognized 'my' nurse. In fact when there was a new nurse on my ward she would have to leave the ward with one of the old-time nurses in order to be introduced to and later recognized by these 'gatekeeper' nurses.
So stealing keys would not have taken me very far. Besides, escape attempts were punished. One girl was already in a full bodycast for attempting to leave the ward when I arrived and she spent another 2 or 3 months in it before she was released. After that she wore heavy leg callipers (click to view pic on Eric Kroll's site) and only moved around with great difficulty. I don't know if the callipers were necessary because she had lost muscle strength or whether they were just an additional punishment or precaution against any future escape attempt. If it was punishment, she wouldn't have been the only girl punished in that way - there were several girls wearing leg braces and other orthopaedic devices that were made for them in the brace shop as punishment for some infraction or other.
I suppose I could have tried asking if I could go out for a walk, but I knew the answer would be no. And the nurses on the ward did not encourage questions (my oft gagged state bore silent witness to that) and we soon learnt that asking questions would lead to punishment. Equally my therapist did not welcome questions, and even in my sessions I was usually gagged. She would say that she had no interest in my opinions, or my lies, only in the measurable results of my treatment. She said that nodding yes or no when she asked a question was quite sufficient. Of course as you might imagine, not being able to ask questions, or even try to clarify what she meant by a statement or question, and not be able to give a more complex answer than yes or no was incredibly frustrating, and I would often leave those sessions screaming to myself from frustration and the feeling that I had been manipulated into nodding yes or no to something I didn't really agree to. For instance I might have to answer yes or no to a general question and then she would assume that I had said yes or no to a much more specific question - one that I would have answered differently had the more specific question been asked.
For the girls on regular diets, being restrained somewhere for the day meant that you would miss a meal or two - meals that were sorely missed judging by their reactions. But for anybody on a 'special' diet, their meals would be saved for them and they would have to eat any missed meals the next day. After a two-day fast, or longer, the 'extra' food might take a couple of days to consume.
"Well, for me it proved impossible until the program was ended - and even then it was difficult. As for people being admitted as a matter of convenience, you might almost consider me one. Of course there is almost always an excuse - or at least a veneer of an excuse - but when you scratch it you often find there is nothing really there. There is no doubt that people were committed for the most trivial reasons - you only have to read the newspapers from the years when the hospitals were being closed to find long lists of people that had been committed for 'being at risk' (aka too pretty) or difficult (didn't get on with new stepmother). The lists went on and on. And it's probably only because the hospitals have closed down that people are no longer being committed for trivial reasons and as a matter of convenience. Of course there are other avenues available nowadays. There are plenty of 'schools' and 'programs' available for 'troubled' teens in far-flung corners of the world, where the authorities cannot intervene. And some of them sound little better than my program. Well, ok, they do sound a bit better than that. "
Tuesday 28 April 2009
A Site to Vistit and Some (Adult) School Uniform Musings
But even if suspended over her knickers - an approach that of course requires her to have two unfasten and refasten her suspenders at each toilet visit and thus reinforces that all-important sense of being under control -it should still be possible to roll down the waistband of her knickers far enough at least to give access to her behind. If those old-fashioned back-opening 'draws', or a modern equivalent, were to be worn then it would be a simple enough task acquire intimate access to her person - whether it be to take pleasure from the plump ripe peach of her backside or more conventionally. She can simply be required to unfasten the back of those school 'draws', and bend over the back of her chair with her hands on its seat - the cane left casually lying before her eyes should she hesitate or get thought to disobedience. Once 'used' in that manner she can be sharply told to pull up and refasten tightly her knickers and retake her place at her desk - any unsightly stains arising can be washed out by hand by the girl herself later, a delightfully galling task. The incorporation of a rubber knicker liner, of course, would take care of such considerations - but then consideration must be given to any unpleasantness arising should it be required to 'use' her subsequently throughout the day. A couple of hours or so of her sitting stickily in a combination of her sweat and result of his pent-up pleasure at her cramped desk on a hot summer's afternoon in old-fashioned full school uniform and in a stuffy little attic room made up as classroom could make for some modicum of unpleasantness the next time she is bent across the master's desk. Imagining such a uniform filled out with the burgeoning plump curves of late teenage and enforced with the threat of the cane or strap - both frequently applied in any case - one can easily imagine the effect in curbing a young lady's spirit.
Similar considerations might even apply if under female supervision. She might easily be required to stand alongside her governess's chair, with legs spread, hands on head with fingertips touching and elbows smartly out to the sides, or remain bent across her nurse's lap after the hairbrush has been liberally applied to her bare chubby buttocks while skilled and knowledgeable fingers idly toy and take intimate liberties, drawing soft sighs between heartbroken sobs, before being sent back, unfulfilled hot eyed and damp, to her little desk or to stand rubbery-legged with nose pressed to the wall, in the corner. A suitable pair of school knickers fitted with a plastic lining and absorbent pad or towel can be seen to the right - an ideal solution for both scenarios, moping up sweat and all manner of secret unspeakable messes while the humid airtight plastic environment ensures everything remains just damp enough still act as a constant humiliating reminder of her helpless exploitation.
Either way, I have no doubt that stockings would be best. Old-fashioned opera-length lyle stockings, over-warm and scratchy, in black or better still a suitable school colour such as bottle green or navy blue. And held up all round by broad elastic suspenders, short and taut and pressing into the thighs and having uncomfortable metal clips that dig into the flesh where her weight spreads across the tiny, hard, child-sized wooden school chair that she is obliged to sit upon for the majority of her day - when not corner standing, performing punishment P.E. in her skintight leotard or being drilled, marching on the spot or up and down the staircase with a heavily weighted backpack.
Getting back to my book, just for a moment: it has burgeoned to an incredible 260-odd pages. The trouble with that is; LULU, the self-publishing site that I use, charges more as the page number increases and if I am not careful the thing will end up costing too much to actually sell any copies at all. I'm not sure how many people have found the glossary helpful or even looked at it in INSTITUTIONALISED volume 1 so I am considering taking that out of volumes 2 and 3 - any opinions? I'm all so seriously considering splitting into two books - it'll take a little extra work but perhaps a week or so no more. Once again, anyone out there have any opinions? Please let me know. The next blog entry will likely be the forth and last instalment of the contributor's experiences of aversion and harassment therapy that I have been serialising...any thoughts?
Friday 24 April 2009
Dietary Discipline, Harassment Therapy & Sexual Reorientation – A Reader’s Account Revisited (Part 3 – Walking Down the Aisle…Again & Again & Again
Also, while your still there: If you enjoy (as I do, quite unashamedly) reading accounts of strict discipline - hands on heads with legs spread - Spartan regimes, late teen girls put back into juvenile uniforms and privileged young ladies brought down to the level of servants and made to wait on table then I can’t recommend enough a story I have just come across on The Spanked Girls Weblog::::: Gymslips & Dormitories (click title to read story or site name to go there – although, as always, it has been added to the sidebar blog list). Also take a look at Spanking Bethie Blog (click) why don't you?...and the yahoo group - Bound Brides (brides in bondage - needless to say...its where I got the bride pic).
“Something else [I came across while researching the basis of my treatment] that I found very interesting was something called 'shame aversion therapy'. Apparently it is/was very closely related to chemical and electrical aversion therapy. I had always assumed that my aversion therapy only related to those physical aversives that took place in the treatment room where I was shown the slides, and that the constant ridicule, humiliation and harassment heaped upon me (and the others) while on the ward, was simple meanness and ignorance combined with a desire to control us and keep a 'tight ship'. But now I wonder if these techniques may have been used in concert with the physical therapies such as chemical and electrical. Certainly something for me to ponder and research further.
Oddly, some years later I saw The Clockwork Orange and didn't associate the aversion therapy with my own. Talk about repressing unpleasant memories. But now it occurs to me that in The Clockwork Orange they took care to make sure that Alex could not avert his gaze from the images on the screen - they used those funny little gadgets to hold his eyes open. Although they took care to make sure that my head was locked into position consistent with looking at the slideshow they didn't use any similar devices to keep my eyes open or make sure I wasn't averting my gaze. Of course I probably wasn't particularly resistant to looking at the slideshow - it's not as if I was trying to protect my supposed deviancy. I do remember being told to 'look at the screen' from time to time - and not looking may have been part of my therapist's complaint that I was uncooperative, but I don't really know.”
Although they initially used the same aversives that would later be used in my therapy for lesbianism, they did not bother using any kind of imagery or measurement - so to that extent it was entirely different. They would just tell me that they would continue the sessions until I could 'eat like a normal person'. In that respect it was entirely punitive and did not incorporate any of the 'scientific' ideas used in aversion therapy - which I assume was meant to be based on the same idea as Pavlov's dogs.”
“Nobody wore any clothes from home. The hospital seemed o have a plentiful supply of clothing that was made on the premises and they strove for a certain degree of uniformity - but you have to bear in mind that for most of the time we 'sexual deviants' were part of a larger teenage ward that had all types of patients - whether mentally retarded, catatonic, psychotic etc. and it would have been difficult to have us all look uniform.
They didn't trust the sexual deviants - they expected us to molest anybody we could get out hands on - whether it was each other, the 'normal' patients, or even ourselves. So we weren't allowed to socialize in the dayroom or move about without some form of restraint - usually what they called jackets, but weren't much like some of straitjackets I have seen elsewhere. There were a lot of variations because they were made for each person in the hospital's brace shop and the nurses could ask for whatever design variations they thought would be helpful. But mostly the arms were laced to our sides unlike the Houdini style jackets that have the arms in front. Many of the other patients were allowed to move about and use their arms so long as they didn't cause any problems. So you would have a number of patients with full use of their arms and then others, apparently armless, moving around the dayroom, looking quite un-uniform. But they did make some attempt to have us properly and modestly attired - perhaps with an added emphasis on modesty given the presence of potential molesters in their midst. Those unrestrained generally wore a mid-calf mid-grey cotton dress, belted at the waist and with slightly puffed sleeves at the shoulder, a white detachable peter-pan collar, white detachable cuffs, and a plain white pinafore. It was neat enough, being tailored to fit each patient, but looked a little incongruous on some of the obviously retarded patients. I take that back - it looked a little incongruous on everybody - but like anything else you get used to it and before long it begins to look normal.
Those of us who were wearing jackets wore 'slips' over them - sleeveless tubes made from the same mid-grey cotton as the dresses. They had the same peter-pan collars and the pinafores were replaced with tabards. There were no belts since we essentially had no waists to speak of.
And then there were a lot of variations. For instance I saw some girls wearing the 'arms crossed in front' style of jacket who were wearing their normal dresses over them - the jacket arms inside the arms of the dress. The jackets were a lot tighter than I have seen elsewhere - presumably because they were custom fitted in the brace shop - either from scratch or modified from an old, often greasy, one. This tightness, especially in the sleeves when they were the 'arms-in-front' kind allowed them to be worn under our dresses instead of over them. So, as you can see, uniformity, if it was a goal, was only partially achieved.
I think I mentioned that I managed to bite one of the nurses when I was being admitted and that turned out to be a big mistake, because throughout my stay the nurse continued to make sure that I 'paid-for-it'. And I 'paid-for-it' in any number of ways. One of them was having to wear a hessian slip under all my clothes and restraints. It was as itchy as any hairshirt must have been and they were always looking for. proof that I must be finding ways to masturbate - and that was in spite of the considerable measures that they always took to ensure that we didn't masturbate. That meant a trip to the brace shop for a very elaborate (and uncomfortable) orthopaedic brace to better ensure my future good behaviour.
I could never really understand why we wore pinafores and tabards. I suppose it was a hold-over from a prior era when such things were more fashionable - maybe when the building first opened - but by the early sixties they were something of an anachronism for anybody but a little girl - an age we teenagers were trying to dissociate ourselves from. They must have been a nightmare for the laundry and we were always getting in trouble for smudging them. But they also served the purpose of identifying us. Every girl on the ward had her number printed in large numerals on both the front and the rear of her pinafore or tabard and the deviants also had 'DEVIANT' printed in large capital letters beneath the numbers, letting everybody know to give them a wide berth - just in case they missed our stubbly heads.”
“I'm not sure how long the average stay might have been. I was there for three years - when the program was phased out - and I don't think that I was unusual. I was lucky to be released rather than remaining a patient in one form or another. The problem was that the results of the program and my own treatment were considered inconclusive and the hospital was reluctant to discharge me, still a possible danger to society, only a teenager and with nowhere particular to go.
Dietary Control and Enforced Weight Gain?
“Still on the subject of diets: was there any attempt to weight control? Perhaps weight loss or even enforced weight gain (something that occurs in volume 2 of my book)?”
“I should apologize for not having read your book yet and for not having read very much of your blog. It is very high on my list of things I must do, but things have been very hectic ever since I found your blog - and writing this letter hasn't helped! As for weight control, I'm not quite sure. I do remember overhearing a conversation between two nurses that were discussing what to do about a particular patient. She was extraordinarily beautiful and I think she had been admitted because it was feared she would become promiscuous because she had a number of older boys pestering her. Anyway, the nurses were talking about what might be done and the question of fattening her up or making her too skinny to still be attractive was discussed - but I'm not quite sure what the outcome was. Somehow I think she may have been moved off our ward.
“I'm not sure if this counts, but I do remember that we were often made to wear the braces, and other devices that were made for us in the brace shop, long after they were comfortable. At our age many of us periodically grew quite rapidly. I don't think it was a cost saving measure because most of the people that worked in the brace shop, and certainly almost everybody who worked in attached sewing shop, were patients, and I assume they had to work for nothing. Besides, they showed absolutely no reluctance to take us down anytime they wanted to get us a more 'difficult' brace or jacket or make a modification to our existing brace. So I'm inclined to think that our wearing of braces that we had outgrown was just one more little way in which they needled us. Incidentally I was the recipient of an elaborate brace within a few days of admittance - ostensibly to cure my stooping. Nobody had mentioned it before and I suspect that the nurse I bit was behind it. Of course after a week or so it didn't seem so bad - but it made moving and bending much more difficult - and in that respect I was always conscious of it.”...to be continued...
Tuesday 21 April 2009
An Essential Blog and a Teaser
Well I'm afraid, for the answer to that one you are going to have to wait for the next posting - if institutional humiliation is your thing, you wont be disappointed! But then again, this charming little offering on the right lower down (from little brides) may give a clue of the potential.
Now for the latest Blog I've come across: I had to do a little research today - just to check one or two things that I have incorporated into INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2 (that's what proof reading is all about - yes, I'm at that stage now). As so often proves the case, I got a little side-tracked (but only briefly; I'm being kind of strict on myself at present). Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have just added a new blog to the blog list (see side bar) - very much corporal punishment / discipline orientated. There's a hell of a lot to explore and it makes a good jumping-off point for those wishing to venture further afield - it holds what is perhaps the most comprehensive collection of links I have, to date, come across. Actually this is all a little embarrassing, that I managed to overlook it for so long - not only has it been around since 2006 (at least) the owner had featured my book, INSTITUIONALISED vol 1, along with a kindly flattering comment , way back last December. Quite a showcase he gave it too - featuring both the front and back covers as well as the blurb that goes with it. (Click here to view the page) (click here to go to the home page) - it is called Paolo in Dublin, by the way.
You might also like to explore the bondage art of Ciro Coco (An artist I was recently tipped off about by a correspondent, just click to go to his work hosted on a commercial site - let me know if you find other sources of his work, because I would like to see more).
Monday 20 April 2009
Commentaries, Comments, Opinions & Proof Reading
On the subject of commentaries and comments; another anonymous contributor has left a new and fascinating comment on the previous post "Dietary Discipline, Harassment Therapy & Sexual Reorientation – A Reader’s Account Revisited (Part 2) (Click here to read the comment) or go to the bottom of the article and click on link - it really is worth reading: There is a part about a hapless young woman being placed under legal guardianship and thus placed quite legally under the authority of another, that, being directly related to one of the events occurring in the upcoming INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2, very much belongs under the heading of 'truth stranger than fiction'!