Plausibility in Spanking Fiction - And Some Exciting News! (I think)

Many apologies that you have not heard from me for a while again.  So, what have I been up to in the meantime?  Well, I’ve been hard at work... And on a plethora of exciting projects, an ever-lengthening list which is almost becoming too long to recount. 

I have two part-written books on the go, of which an extract of one of them I am presently grooming to present to the ‘Erotic Mind Control Story Archive’ (link listed under Useful Resources in the right-hand sidebar).  I am gradually building up and adding to the frames intended to go in the comic / graphic novel style publication I have been working on together with my artistic collaborator, Angela Fox.  I am doing a bit of proof reading for the aforementioned lady (link in the right-hand sidebar) who has a new book coming out soon (despite being dyslexic I am quite good at spotting other peoples mistakes and typos, even if I can’t always spot my own!).  I have been adding to and extending the ‘Beyond the Barred Window’ website, which now boasts many new pages and sections.  And I have even, more recently, been doing a little image manipulation work for Roger Benson, whose 1950’s influenced domestic and institutional discipline and spanking orientated artwork I have talked of enthusiastically before in these pages and some of which has influenced both my written stuff in the past and one or two of Angela Fox’s artistic output, notably Roger Benson’s ‘Reformatory’ series.  And in the background (should that be foreground?) I have been beavering away at a commissioned piece – I’m always open to accepting commissions by the way, especially if the subject matter is imaginative / ‘different’!

Talking of the ‘Beyond the Barred Window’ website and Roger Benson’s artwork:  One new and exciting development is the possibility of hosting a section on the site entirely devoted to Roger’s work including such features as occasional polls and perhaps one or two illustrated written pieces, above and beyond showcasing his imaginative artwork.  I’ll let you know more, as and when!

Now, in addition to uploading pictorial content from my extensive collection of eclectic stuff, I have finally started adding a bit of explanatory text and commentary to the site as well as one or two written articles – such as the commentary presented below, a piece I originally wrote for the ‘Well Red Weekly’ ezine some time back.  Other pieces I am also busily preparing will be specific to the website and at some later date I may well include snippets, fragments and odds and sods from various unfinished (and unlikely to be finished) stories etc which I will invite visitors to complete or add their ideas to.  Who knows?  One or two new collaborations may well be formed in the fullness of time – I certainly hope so; I need the inspiration to keep the writing fresh, and myself motivated! 

The website is presently receiving 800 plus unique hits per day, so if YOU have any suitable written work or artwork you would like to showcase, I can promise you a wide and varied audience.  Contributions always welcome!

Oh!  The classic American diner waitress?  Just a spurious image I plucked off a website somewhere: I've had a thing about girl's in those vintage style dresses and aprons ever since 'Twin Peaks' back in the 80's... Go figure!  But needless to say there will be an extensive collection hosted on the website in due course.  I you have any captured from the web or, better still, scaned from magazines, catalogues etc you may own, please contribute.  I can always be contacted on Facebook, Twitter or email (which I prefer - I'm old fashioned like that!).  Links (like so much) can be found in the right-hand sidbar.   

Plausibility in Spanking Fiction

It has been said that the skill of the successful fiction writer lies in enabling the reader to suspend his or her disbelief.  This is rarely more self-evidently true than in the genre of spanking fiction.  After all, in contemporary culture (in The West at least) corporal punishment under just about any circumstance one may care to cite would constitute common assault at the very least and be condemned as both mental and physical abuse.  And right from the outset - since we are all agreed we are dealing with FICTION here - 'abuse' is a term I feel should never be visited (despite its justifiably outraged utterance, when confronted by some 'real world' case presented in the press). 

For some reason a term such as 'exploitation' or similar seems ok - as in ' the exploitation of vulnerable and perhaps naive young women' (a phrase used more than once, in one form or another, in the 'Reader's Letter's' pages of Janus Magazine in the past) – but never, ever 'abuse'.  In that way, when it comes to spanking and corporal punishment-based literature the author is often asking his or her readership not just to suspend disbelief but also to temporarily suspend ethical and moral judgement, not to mention their sense of 'fair play'.  But then, for many it is that upturning of what constitutes 'fair play' and the countering of any moral justification behind the punishment metered out to the hapless heroine (or hero, if one is that way inclined) that is at the root of much of the excitement; hence the undeniable frisson when some blameless young thing is bent over to receive the rod across her tender behind purely for the delight of her guardian or perhaps to extract a signature from her on an open cheque or documentation selling off her inheritance from under her. 

And the more credible a tale becomes, the more one has to be careful – speaking as an author - to leave clear some sort of self-justifiable (perhaps some would say, self-deluding) leeway for the reader to be able to put aside for the moment any notion of real-world moralistic judgement; or at least temper that judgement with the knowledge that in fiction it is ok to be horrified just for the thrill of it.  And make no mistake, even in the absence of gratuitously vivid descriptions of heartlessly vicious and sadistic beatings (and this author for one cannot abide such things – even in the cause of realism!)  there is often an aspect of the horror novel present in well-written corporal punishment-orientated literature, albeit even if only present as a sort of psychological undercurrent of dread.  Perhaps this feeling or sense of dread may be of the form; 'what if it were me?' or it might manifest as 'what must it be like for her? or even 'how terrible the long-term consequences'; but I would argue it is present in one form or another nonetheless. 

I would also argue that many - if not all - the above considerations are present (as an unacknowledged, unpleasant and hurriedly circumnavigated or bridged-over shadowy undertow) even in a consensual spanking context or relationship.  After all, ask yourself this question: what is that lurks behind the chosen roles of the protagonists?  The debatable purely physiological stimulating effect of a light spanking on the area surrounding the genitalia aside, what is it that provides the driving force?  In one way or another, isn't the answer to that question simply this; control?  What is going through the mind of the erstwhile 'school master', what is it that is being acted out in private fantasy?  Something well-removed from the stage setting of the loving, caring relationship it purports to be being acted out upon, one might conjecture.  Externally, in the 'real world'  the act might well be consensual – but internally, in that all-important 'mind-space', it is easily to envisage the exact opposite being true, at least insofar as the case of the 'disciplinarian.

What is at issue here is not so much the events leading up to the subject receiving a spanking or other form of corporal punishment - in terms of what the subject has done to deserve (or indeed, not deserve) the correction metered out - as under what set of circumstances would a régime based around corporal punishment be likely to be encountered in the real world.  In answering the latter part of that conundrum we must first decide whether we are considering a consensual or non-consensual context for our tale (we have already determined that we are talking about a fictional situation in either case). 

If the former – corporal punishment given and received between mutually agreeable consenting adults – the problem of plausibility largely evaporates, other than as pertains to excessive severity or perhaps blatant public exposure and humiliation.   But even then, in the real world the authorities might have something to say; witness the so-called ‘Spanner Case’ in which the trial judge ruled that consent was not a valid defence to actual bodily harm (Regina v. Brown et al. 1993 Appeal Judgement).  On the other hand if we are considering the non-consensual context, in which corporal punishment is applied as a genuine form of behavioural correction, then the legitimate settings available for story development within the present timeframe with its judgmental atmosphere of supervisory oversight, scrutiny – both public and otherwise – and judicial control, become vanishingly sparse.

Within the above arguments we also have to consider whether the imposition of corporal punishment really is a genuine means to an end – some form of behavioural modification targeted at reinforcing a regime of strict discipline – or an end in itself.  After all, there are other far subtler methods of bringing about behavioural change, which may in itself include the eventual acceptance of corporal punishment.  We also have to decide whether the setting would best fit the domestic or institutional environment.  From everything said above alluding to accountability and public and government-appointed-body scrutiny, the latter would seem even more barren in terms of nurturing a tale of reddened late-teen bottoms if set in modern times.  But as we shall see later, if we are prepared to stretch our timeframe a little the institutional setting can actually provide some of the most plausibly fertile ground within which to nurture a climate of strict discipline and petty rules, all backed up by good, solid over-the-knee spanking and ankle-gripping caning.     

Now speaking personally, and with my reader’s hat on, I prefer not to have to suspend my disbelief too far – my gullibility is not a never-ending unbreakable strand of elastic.  I know it is just fantasy – and we should never lose sight of that fact, nor fail to reiterate it often enough – but I for one would like to think that the situation I am reading about really could come about.    With my writer’s headgear well and truly wedged in place, I am not at all sure I could persuade my readership to accept a modern girl or young woman in her teens or early twenties in the hands of some harsh cane-wielding step-parent not rushing for the door and running to the relevant authorities.  Yes I know the wicked stepmother is about as tired  an old cliché or stereotype as it is possible to evoke, but - with my reader’s cap back on again – it is just that little bit more believable than if a blood relative were to be involved (and far less ‘uncomfortable’ in my view).  If we were to delve back far enough in to the past then the above step-parent (or read ‘legal guardian’ into that if too uncomfortable with it) scenario – especially where some sort of inheritance is at stake – becomes far more plausible.  Less plausible, I think – whatever the timeframe – are situations in which the party under the rod begins to enjoy it in some manner or ‘the tables are turned’. 

To make such a scenario plausible in the contemporary setting requires, in the first instance (assuming we decide to ignore the illegality aspect) that the disciplinarian is able to exert some form of pressure or has a hold over our subject that is sufficient to coerce her to accept corporal punishment while simultaneously either rendering her unable to go to the authorities or likely to be disbelieved – or even made to suffer further in some manner – if she does.  The pressure or ‘hold’ the authoritarian figure might exert in such a scenario I would envisage as psychological as much – or more so – than physical.  There is no need for handcuffs nor bars on the windows in such a scenario; and such accoutrements might even undermine the believability of the tale.  Rather the authority figure relies on the power of his or her personality and sheer charisma to overpower the other’s will, subtly wearing down and undermining her self-confidence to the point at which she becomes increasing psychologically dependent on her guardian or whoever. 

Little requests couched in language suggesting an order gradually make way for actual orders that become more and more authoritative tone: “I really much prefer you in that skirt you had on the other day rather than jeans, Andrea – so much more attractive!”  gradually becomes “please put on your grey skirt today, Andrea” then “I want you in that new dress I bought you yesterday” to “I only want you in that gingham school dress I bought you from now on” and “I don’t want you wandering around the grounds without either myself or the housekeeper to accompany you – you know how you can get if you have one of your panic attacks outdoors” and finally “You know you’re not allowed out of your room unsupervised – get over my knee at once, girl!”.

In the above you can see the little seeds of doubt being planted “those panic attacks you keep having” or “you know how jittery you can get outdoors on your own”.  You see the bars are there, but they are psychological bars and chains, not physical.  And these fetters extend far outside the home.  Imagine if you will, the collusion of a psychologist, a diagnosis written to order and the patient manipulated to fit the mould:  “…And just who is going to take any notice of anything you say?  Why, I’ve a good mind to take you to the authorities myself; you know of course they’d have you committed virtually immediately, no questions asked?  And you know what goes on in those places! …What’s that you say?  You’re normal?  Well, that’s debatable”  She laughs “I know you’re normal, you know you’re normal – but that’s not what it says on your doctor’s report…  Yes, who do you think they’re going to believe?... That’s better!  Now, pass me the cane, knickers down, skirt up – grasp your ankles like a good girl!”         .      .

In the past I’ve included all kinds of elements in stories in order to come up with a scenario of that type, which while perhaps not that much realistic than some others at least seems possible, although not without raising certain ethical and moral issues that I know may bother some readers.  For example one of my latest revolving around the domestic arena involves the exploitation of the heroine’s benzodiazepine dependence (a prescription tranquilizer) – engineered by a tame psychiatrist – in order to impose a regime of strict discipline backed up by spanking and the cane.

And if you think the collusion of a health professional, psychiatrist, psychologist or nurse is far fetched…  Well, that brings me to the wonderful world of institutional discipline and spanking.  You’ll notice I don’t mention the term, ‘scholastic’, in the same breath as the word ‘institutional’ at any point – and there is good reason, I believe, for this.  As was mentioned earlier, in any contemporary scholastic setting one might envisage existing in the western world any form of corporal punishment will have been outlawed by legislation, and all parties concerned will know this. 

Even if one were to delve into the fairly recent past – at a point when spanking and the cane were still accepted forms of correction – it is difficult to see past such done-to-death stereotypical scenarios as the spanking dealt out for smoking behind the bike shed or the caning earned for 'playing truant' and so on.  Besides, it seems to me that for any spanking-related tale to be imaginative, suitably punitive and yet plausible (in that the disciplinarian should remain vouchsafed from busybody officialdom and do-gooder interference) some form of institutional residency becomes an essential part of the equation.  But even the strictest residential educational institution one might realistically envisage would have woven into its routine various breaks and vacation periods – time and opportunity aplenty for any untoward or over-zealous disciplinary procedures to become public knowledge. 

Even if a writer should invoke some other form of institution in which various disciplinary measures might be expected to be in place to maintain order, whether judicial, such as a reformatory or prison, or even a psychiatric hospital or care home, the contemporary setting is difficult to work with – so many safeguards and guidelines in place you see; or so perhaps one might thin.  And yet of the above examples it is in the world of psychiatric institutions and of ecclesiastical charitable care homes that we find the most fertile ground for plausible and believable tales of strict discipline, petty rules and restrictions, over-the-knee spankings a liberal doses of the cane.  After all: what could be more plausible than that which has actually taken place?  For what has occurred in the past, history tells us, can happen again – and so often has!

Right up into the 1970s we have had the so-called ‘Magdalene laundries’ – surely fertile ground in which to plant a tale of unrelenting exploitation, spanking and caning (as has indeed been done – for example, the film: The Magdalene Sisters, 2002 directed by Peter Mullan - but not yet to the point that the seam has become mined-out).  We are a long removed from the days of the poor law system, when a particularly fractious and refractory girl might be committed to the loving arms of the nuns of The Sisters of Mercy with the stated aim of making her 'more amenable to religious discipline' simply for having been seen flirting with one too many of the village lads - or perhaps having ill-advisedly refused the advances of some local dignitary.  Nevertheless who is to say – assuming the reported longevity of the Magdalene laundries is not in question – what remnant of that system might still survive to this day behind high inscrutable stone walls somewhere?

Then we have the world of the semi-legitimised experimental psychology investigation – witness the so-called 'Stanford Experiment' in which an approximation of a prison establishment was set up in a basement area of the prestigious Stanford University in the USA.  The latter involved an all male protocol and was shut down after a few days having very quickly run out of control, those selected as prison guards exhibiting ever greater tendency towards sadistic behaviour and the 'prisoners' becoming ever more resigned, even submissive.  But what if it had not been shut down so promptly?  What if the 'prisoners' were female (because I prefer that)?  What if instead of student volunteers, members of less traceable sectors of society were to be recruited, the runaways, the type that those church-run 'laundries' and 'industrial schools' would once have branded as 'incorrigibles, at moral risk'? 

The 1930s right through to the 1970s (with the 50s seemingly the heyday) seems the most fertile period for invoking the spectre of unethical psychology experiments – including, but not limited to, deliberately inducing stuttering in test subjects.  But who is to say what is going on behind closed doors to this day – such scandals seem to have the knack of remaining buried until decades after the event.  There is tremendous scope here: for example, take the above mentioned stuttering experiment; the protocol was based on utilizing psychological pressure to induce a verbal stumble or other speech defect and then capitalizing on it to create further pressure by drawing the subject's attention to the supposed speech defect.  Would it be so difficult to imagine a residential cohort recruited from among late-teen runaways during perhaps the coldest winter in decades and legal waivers duly signed and dated.  And what better way to apply psychological pressure than a wickedly pliant length of rattan hovering over an outstretched palm – and the warning given not to 'stammer over the reading of the passage this time through, girl'? 

Then we come to certain more contentious forms of  'treatment' reportedly prevalent in the contemporary world of psychiatric care.  I am talking here of so-called 'harassment therapy'.  Although it is true I have yet to come across a reliable, explicit report of corporal punishment being in use, the utilization of various forms of physical enforcement has been implied within contemporary accounts of young women being forced to clean out shower cubicles - and even toilets - on their hands and knees with toothbrushes and so on.  Given such a regime, is it so far fetched to imagine a pretty inmate draped over a nurse's knee for a hand or hairbrush spanking, her hospital examination gown peeled back either side of a delectable pair of bare drum-tight buttocks?  Remember too, the ease with which it was once possible for a young wife to find herself committed on little more than the say-so of her spouse and a few pieces of silver having changed hands, perhaps to make way for an even younger, even more delectable morsel, perhaps to grant her spouse greater control over her estate...  Oh the possibilities inherent in the granting of an enduring power of attorney!

And then we come to the possibilities opening up through today’s obsession with television ‘reality’ shows, many of which seem increasingly to be evolving towards the sadistic end of the spectrum in the trials and tribulations they put their contestants through.  But then again, perhaps we shouldn’t overlook reality itself, not when taking in to consideration the ever-worsening economic situation in the west, the increasing gap between rich and poor and the dearth of employment opportunities.  In such an economic climate with an excess workforce chasing fewer and fewer unskilled positions - coupled with a growing housing crisis - might we not be facing a situation wherein once again the price of labour becomes cheap enough for live-in domestic service to become a more common form of employment for a young school-leaver to find herself in.  With the very roof over her head directly tied to her continued employment, wages amounting to little more than ‘room and board’ (the minimum legal wage is easily dealt with by offsetting against room rental coupled with inventively-levied financial penalties for poor performance) and no hope of further employment without glowing references, it would not be that difficult to imagine a few strokes of the cane or a few minutes spent over the lap of the mistress of the house being preferable to severance.

Having dealt with the setting and the impetus for the imposition of a regime incorporating corporal punishment, we come to the ending of the tale.  I do sometimes feel I should apologise for not providing ay form of ‘happy ending’.  But happy endings are hard to come by in story telling where the action by definition would lead to the prosecution of the protagonists should the story leak out.  That in itself, for some, would constitute a happy ending – the victim set free, her tormentors left behind bars.  But is that what non-consensual story telling is all about?  Given the high stakes, surely the perpetrators would go to great lengths to cover their tracks and ensure the secret of their actions remains safe.  But for all time?  How?  I for one would not like to go down the fatal route taken by certain other writers of the genre.  And for sake of plausibility, given a contemporary or near-contemporary Western world setting, the ‘she was sold into slavery to an oil-rich sheikh and was never seen or heard from again’ is out of the question. 

And yet many of those that disappeared into the depths of the Church-run ‘industrial school’ system were never seen or heard from again, outside of the convent walls – and one does not have to go too far back in history to invoke the existence of such an institution.  Some say the last didn’t perish until the early 1970s!  Who’s to say what might still survive of that system in some remote location.  Then there are the welcoming arms of the mental health system – it was easier to be embraced within their tenacious protection in the 1960s (and easier still to arrange in even earlier times).

Personally, I’d rather come across the hanging, open ending – a glimmer of hope for our hapless, browbeaten and put-upon heroine hanging somewhere out in the distance, but for now, the prospect of perhaps being placed into service under the stiletto heel of her domineering guardian, or cane-wielding, gold-digging young step mother, made a servant in her own home.  Or if ensconced in some institution, perhaps she is about to face some sort of review panel, visiting board of governors or government authority inspector with the prospect of putting her case and turning the tables, of bringing the full might of the law into her corner – but all the time, behind the scenes… Well, you get the idea!

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed..., A Progression of Imagery

With my kids away at their granny’s for the school holidays, just outside Clacton on the Essex coast over on the eastern side of the UK the ‘coast’ has been clear to do a little graphics work way on into the evenings.  So for the time being I have ditched everything else to go back to working on the comic book project (everything, that is, except the website, which I’ll be extending over the next week or so, including putting in some opening pages of explanation and perhaps some unfinished story fragments for others to finish off or whatever).  So I have been revisiting my collection of stuff sent from Angela Fox. 

Now you may remember Angela suffered a horrendous computer crash some time back and so can’t at present supply any more basic images nor enhance or modify existing roughly sketched out ones.  In addition Angela is presently finishing off a writing project of her own, which she is keen to get on with before tackling any more graphic work (except for the images she intends to use in her own book and cover) and which I will tell you about and provide links to when the time comes.  Meanwhile my eye was attracted to a small collection of images Angela knocked out for me a while back, albeit in a basic prelim form. 

Now ordinarily, if I like an idea or scene, Angela would then go on to put in the necessary detail and smooth off the rough edges; that cannot happen in this case, since the original 3D renderings no longer exist, nor do the figures, props or costumes etc.  For example, in the original (see top left) the girl hasn't even got nipples, let alone any ‘equipment’ mounted 'downstairs'.  Nevertheless, I thought I’d see what I could still get from them.  

So in the next stage, I've put in the girl’s ‘bits and pieces (how coy!) and added in an improved (I think) enema bag or bottle, the nipples coming from a scanned photograph.  I have also added padlocks (I SO love padlocks in this type of context – dunno why) to her restraints and added a couple of uniformed figures taken from another of, Angela Fox's creations from the same set - but still retaining the all-grey background (easier to work with, you see).

In the third pictures I've now added in a background - again taken and adapted from one of Angela’s other creations – and added in various shadows and stuff to help make it look more 'solid'. 

Image four and sooner or later it comes time to add in the annotation and / or speech bubbles – a task which can prove surprisingly time-consuming. In fact I decided to do without speech bubbles with this one, in favour of allowing more of the imagery to shine through and tell the story in its own way. In addition to the annotation I have also added in some more shadowing and shading here and there; for instance, Matron’s clipboard now casts a shadow on our heroine.. I have since completed another two frames from the same set since, but for now you'll have to be satisfied with this one; I am saving the major part of our young late-teen heroine’s anguish for the book!

Please let me know what you think.  Your opinion is important!  I know I’m behind in answering your comments and emails etc, but I’m striving to catch up having suffered a small bout of post-holiday (vacation) blues.  In the meantime keep an eye open on ‘The Mind Control Story Archive’ (link in the right hand sidebar listed some place under ‘Useful Resources’) as I’m writing a piece – on and off – which I hope to get published there!  For now though, the major problem I have is in supporting myself long enough to get all this stuff done.  Now, whether I can raise a small amount of funding through so-called ‘crowd funding’ through something like the crowdfunding site ‘Kickstarter’ remains to be seen.  

I'm Back - Full of New Ideas; A New New Book, A New Direction

Following on from the last posting I made before going off to sun myself on the Greek island of Rhodes a visitor signing himself ‘Vlad’ has pointed out that the pics I pasted are of Czech origin rather than Russian, as I stated. (Hi Vlad! And thanks for your input - much appreciated!).  

 Because in preparing my response I found I had gone off on a tangent (I’d had a few beers), leading to my using it as an excuse to introduce some of the ideas behind the new book I have been working on, I decided to post the whole response here rather than as a comment.

Yeah, those scenes are indeed taken from one of the 'Stalin' films as ‘Vlad’ suggests - 'Stalin 3', I think (see today's pic for another couple of scenes from the film I've managed to unearth!).  But no, I didn't realise Lupus Movies (Lupus Films is something different entirely) and RGE are actually Czech companies; one learns something new every day!  I just always assumed they were Russian companies based on the story lines / costumes / settings. One thing's for certain; their films and plots are some of the most imaginative I have come across on the internet.  For example the plot of the aforementioned 'Stalin 3' incorporates a psychologist / psychiatrist (a woman, too, I am given to understand - now, where have you come across that before?).  It is a pity that the psychologist / psychiatrist is not directly involved in the scenario itself, her involvement being restricted to providing an analysis of the situation as evidence at a later date. 

Now, a caning or three is all well and good, but when a psychologist is involved - someone who can really get in to a young woman's head - it introduces a whole different dimension.  I mean: for years I have been fascinated by the psychological impact of the imposition of strict discipline, petty rules and restrictions, humiliating and belittling uniforms and all the rest on the female psyche, ever since I read a 'reader's letter' in the pages of Janus magazine in fact.  That missive strummed my imagination, made me wonder:: What if a regime were to be tailor-made to maximise that effect, tailored to really get to the individual girl, really get in to her head?  And Lupus Movies / RGE seem to have grasped that principle in handfuls – I only wish, as I’ve said before, I hosted them as an affiliates here and on my website, BEYOND THE BARRED WNDOW.

Now; ‘Vlad’ asked whether I planned to ever follow up on the hint he says I left at the end of ‘Alice’ volume one regarding putting the girl’s aunt in diapers as well as the girl herself..  Someone else has mentioned this too.  But do you know?  I had not really been aware I had made such a hint – I shall have to re-read it and see.  How embarrassing?  It was certainly not my intention at the time to go down that route; indeed, the ‘turning of the tables’ type of storyline is perhaps my personal least favourite.  But having said that: my latest, as yet unpublished, work does indeed incorporate a certain aspect of that sort of topsy-turvy ‘table-turning’ plotline.  And it is topsy-turvy in more ways than one!

Without giving too much away, I can tell you this:  Given that an individual’s sexuality is not set in stone – a ternate which was fondly adhered to within certain psychotherapy circles in the 1950s – 1960s (the era within which the tale is set) – what happens when a young lad - experiencing certain ‘relationship issues’ with his naïve sheltered young squeeze – falls in to the clutches of a darkly misguided therapist, a naturally overbearing woman possessed of the professional opinion that the seat of all his trials and tribulations is what she sees as his ‘unacknowledged latent homosexuality’?  What happens, then, when she decides the way forward with her patient is to ‘encourage’ the reluctant, sheltered, lad to face up to his sexual demons (whether all within her mind or part of his self-denied reality is left up to the reader)?

Anybody who has ever read any of my stuff will know that plausibility is my watchword, is important to me.  And that is particularly the case when it comes down to the thorny question of how one might get the average confrontational teenager the bend for the cane.  And yet in this tale the cane is never far from the young lad’s toned bottom (an immature young chap, in his late teens or early twenties; his age is deliberately left ambiguous).   Now, I personally have had an argumentative girl in her late teens bend, grasping her ankles, for the cane; so I know it can be done; but it requires what I would call ‘leverage’. And ‘leverage’ is what your average ‘spanked for smoking behind the bike shed’ type of tale rarely (or perhaps just barely) has. Basically it comes down to this: Any threat (or consequence) is only as potent as some other, even more dreaded consequence or set of consequences lurking behind it.  The alcoholic or the drug addict is thus easily controlled once one has gained control over the source of their dependency.

In terms of mine and my ex-wife’s young charge, Penny, way back in the 1980s, a naïve and sheltered late teen I first encountered in her first employment as a children’s nanny, in the stead of substance addiction one could read dependency on those she saw as ‘in loco parentis’.  Put another way, the leverage was the girl’s own insecurity; she could buckle under the disciplinary regime of the household, or she could leave.  The choice was always hers… or so she thought!  Even when she left us – breaking away, I guess she would have seen it as – it was under our (or rather, my wife’s) terms:  My darling wife (oh, what a handful!) had engineered a meeting with a hard-handed middle-aged Suffolk farmer - to whom (in so far as I am aware) the girl is still, to this day, espoused, despite their ever-widening age gap – whose interest in the corporal punishment and discipline of young women of Penny’s age was at the time quite well known… And the rest is history as they say.

Going back to the (entirely fictional) situation involving of the young chap of my tale, one must also remember the historical context.  The story is deliberately set in the early 60s, way before the parliamentary act which was to make homosexual acts between consenting adults legal in the United Kingdom (in 1967 I believe).  At the time in which the story is set homosexuality could lead to public disgrace, ruin and imprisonment (as it famously had for Oscar Wilde) and so evidence gained of such activity was a common tool of the blackmailer.

The reader is also asked to recall that there were those at the time (as there still are, apparently) – health professionals among them – who were of the opinion that homosexuality was a pathological aberration which therefor could be tackled as might any other form of pathology; i.e. a ‘cure’ might be sought.  And so a hotchpotch of ethically dubious clinical trials and studies were flung together with the aim of exploring the various pathways to a ‘cure’, these generally revolving around attempts to modulate or change the subject’s sexuality through some variation or other of Pavlovian classical conditioning.   

Now our unfortunate young wretch is most definitely NOT what in the 1960s might have been referred to as a ‘bum boy’ or ‘queer’ or – more delicately – a ‘Mary-Anne’ or ‘Daphne’, quite the contrary in fact.  He is decidedly sexually active - and in a very heterosexual manner - albeit generally as a solitary pursuit.  He has never so much as entertained even a glimmer of a homoerotic notion in his life; or if he has, he hasn’t recognised it as such at any conscious level.  Yes, he has a girlfriend – but he has also had something of a sheltered upbringing; and it is around the girlfriend all his troubles revolve; he can’t ‘make it’ with her, to her satisfaction; if anything he gets TOO excited, basically it all ends too prematurely for his beau.  And so he has sought the help of a therapist.  But that therapist, a woman who turns out to be a sort of cross between a psychotherapist and a professional dominatrix  – Miss Swanley – has certain agenda of her own, agenda which centre on her interest in the driving forces behind the development and evolution of an individual’s sexuality and gender identity.

True, the unfortunate chap may never have considered anything of a homoerotic nature, but that is not to say that evidence to the contrary can’t be dredged up.  A diary or confession will do; and the cane can be a potent persuader in the right hands.  And once Miss Swanley has sufficient written proof… and taken a few photographs as a bit of extra coercive insurance…  

His only crime (If one might call it that) is to be smallish in stature – and perhaps a tendency towards being a little effeminate in appearance (a ‘pretty boy’ if you like).  His punishment is to have his very being, his sexuality, his gender identity, twisted and distorted according to some plan his therapist-mistress has concocted…  And then a young girl is brought on the scene, a young woman in her late teens who has no more choice in the matter than himself.  And before the cane can fall half a dozen more times across his arse he finds himself ensconced in a relationship out of his control, a coercive tryst following guidelines engineered by Miss Swanley herself – a strange gender-twisting relationship potentially decidedly psychologically damaging to both protagonists. 


            

Oh, Those Russians! Or: The Charm of Baggy, Institutional Pyjamas

Do you remember last time, when I mentioned a film I recalled coming across within the Lupus Movies / Rigid East catalogue involving girls being humiliated and punished dressed in baggy pyjamas and straightjackets in some kind of asylum / mental home / psychiatric institution or hospital? (It was actually, last Tuesday: I intended to post this article towards the end of last week but I was away from home and although I took the content out with me on a memory stick I couldn’t get WiFi access where I was for some reason.)  Well, while looking for something else entirely on my hard drives (always the way!) I came across these two ‘stills’ from the film I was talking about.  Even now I find something exciting about these.  I mean; if not for the male character in the military style peaked cap in the background (and the fact that the pyjamas I describe in INSTITUTIONALISED BOOK 3 were green striped) these could have been taken straight out of one of my scenes.  Ok the storyline is entirely different, but whoever has arranged these shots has certainly captured that grubby, dishevelled look of hopeless demoralised despair I was trying to evoke in my third novel. In some shots it even looks as if the girls are obliged to constantly employ a hand in order to hoist up their pyjama bottoms as I describe in INSTITUTIONALISED 3. 

There is even a female psychiatrist on hand – and by the looks on the girl’s faces, she is really getting into their heads.

If there is one little detail that lets the pictured scenario down as far as I am concerned (other than the presence of the peaked caped guy – it really should be a woman in some kind of medical carer’s uniform, white coat or prison wardress’s dress) it is that if you look carefully at one of the shots it can be seen that one of the girls is wearing a pair of slippers or pumps with her pyjamas, whereas I can envisage nothing more ‘levelling’ than permanent bare feet along with pyjamas worn 24 / 7.     

So what is it about pyjamas, you’re asking?  And who would blame you?  Why shouldn’t you ask?  After all, I myself would be hard pressed to say what might be so erotic about such a baggy shapeless, masculine garment, especially if additionally endowed with thick, chunky rubbery buttons down the front, broad green and white vertical stripes.  But there is just something about a girl being kept in pyjamas, all day, every day.  And imagine the additional shame felt by the wearer if the breast pocket were to be emblazoned with an embroidered hospital shield, logo or badge and perhaps a descriptor along the top stating something like ‘dementia’, ‘delusional’ or ‘psychosis’. 

In fact I’ve never liked girls in ‘manly’ pyjamas.  But perhaps that’s the point, that ugliness, that basic, blank, institutional plainness?  Perhaps outside the glass-topped walls of this institution she had been a vanity-obsessed designer victim.  Now she shuffles around in a pyjama jacket with sleeves dangling way past her fingers and trousers which trail around her feet threatening to trip her at each step.  And those trousers possess a waistband devoid of either elastic, pull-cord or ties and so loose as to require constant attention from one or other of her hands to clutch at rolls of scrunched fabric to keep them up around her waist - and imagine if you will how demoralising that might become after a while, how tedious and rushing to the spirit.  And yet that is exactly the mood conjured up by these ‘stills’ (taken from the Lupus Movies production ‘Stalin 3’).  And no, I don’t get any payback from this company - I don’t have Lupus Movies as one of my affiliates.  I just like what they do, the attention they pay to getting their costumes and stuff right. What else can I say?  But what do YOU think?

Now, you probably wont hear from me for a couple of weeks as I am off on holiday, flying out tomorrow lunchtime from London, Gatwick to the Greek island, Rhodes.  I’ll be out there for ten days, so if you happen to be on Rhodes, look out for me – I’m always up for a pint and a chat!

Talking of a sociable pint or so:  If you are in or around Brighton on the UK south coast in about three weeks time I shall be cycling down there for a few days after I get back from Rhodes.  I guess that means the first week in August or thereabouts. I can usually be found in ‘The Hand-in-Hand’ pub in Kemptown or one of the two Wetherspoons pubs in Brighton, but I’ll let you know by Facebook and Twitter.

Lastly: Is there anyone out there who has a copy of  Daz Studio 3D, version 4.5?  It has to be version 4.5, not the latest version and it is for my collaborator, Angela Fox, who lost her copy during a computer crash and can’t make her existing stuff and other software work with the latest updated version – thanks!

Oh!… yes… there IS one more last thing… IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But I can’t have a pint, coz I’m flying out tomorrow!

Girls Caned and Strapped by a Strict Uniformed Matron Behind Bars

Just one of the delights to be found in the extensive new set of photo galleries I have just added to my website:  BEYOND THE BARRED WINDOW.  Yup, I've always loved those stills from the BARS AND STRIPES videos, especially those featuring the prison matron in her nurse-style uniform.  

And other than certain tales within the Rigid East cannon (who currently host a storyline involving girls in both baggy pyjamas AND straightjackets:  Now, where have you come across THAT mix before?) some of the BARS AND STRIPES scenarios are the closest I've come to finding the sort of thing I have often conjured in my own imagination and have attempted to reproduce in the INSTITUTIONALISED trilogy.  They currently even have a storyline involving an unofficial indefinite detention - and I so like that word: INDEFINITE!  So I have just this minuet completed setting up a whole string of FREE galleries (ok so there is a commercial link at the end of each set - but I have to earn a crust somehow! So if you want to buy one of their films I get a chunk of the proceeds; you know how it works!).  I'll be adding more over time, and some film clips too.  But for now, other than perhaps adding a decent-looking start page to the website (the site currently opens on its index and links page) I'll be going back to the comic book project, with another little writing project on the side involving an element of femdom and so a new departure for me.  If you want to check out the new galleries, click on the pic situated at the very top of this posting which will whisk you straight to the BARS AND STRIPES sub-index page of my website.  

A Woman Disciplinarian Ponders

There is little to say about this one, except: having recently come across Pinterest - and having been fiddling around today setting up an account - I blundered across this perfectly innocent image and... Well, the result gives an idea of the sort of thing which on occasion even the most innocuous imagery can conjure up in my mind.

Obviously the cane is an introduction, but also so is the nurses' fob watch - I'm quite proud of that, actually, for a few minutes work; it kind of looks like it belongs there.  

And no, before anyone asks; I don't have a 'thing' about young women in pyjamas, in fact I think they can look quite ugly if shapeless, masculine-styled, stripy institutional things; but I guess that is the point!  Ok, all this may not be your particular ‘thing’; but I bet it gets you thinking though!

I've also appended a comment today to my last posting highlighting an old problem which seems to have resurrected itself, namely comments posted by contributors which fail to appear on the blog even though they get forwarded to me by email from Blogger as if they have been.  I have absolutely no idea how this occurs, so all I can do for the time being is manually post them up myself, as I have done today.  Obviously this may entail delays at times, so please accept my apologies in advance; and more importantly, don’t let it put you off posting your ideas, criticisms etc.  

As With My Internet Connection: Nun's The Word!

Hi folks!  Today’s posting is I admit going to be boring.  But the next one, later this week should be better: I going to restart uploading scans of some of those old spanking magazine Reader’s Letters pages that have influenced me so much over the years, both here and on the website.  I’ve also been doing a bit of writing, exploring a different direction and including some femdom themes, some of which I’ll be sharing with you over the coming weeks. 

I bet you’ve been wondering where I’ve been?  Well, ponder no more, coz I’m back.  In truth I hadn’t intended to post anything more for a week or two following my last offering, but I hadn’t intended to leave it five weeks or how ever long it’s been!  And fear not for my mental health:  My prolonged absence this time has had nothing to do with me having gone down with a fit of the old ‘black dog’ (although I have been depressed at times because of the hassle).  In actual fact I have been as fired up as I have been since I started the website and the joint graphics project with Angela Fox earlier in the year. 

No; it was not my mental health at fault, rather the mental health of some individual or group of individuals (surely not a team – and yet surely no single person acting independently could cause such a rumpus) working at Supanet (my internet provider – or non-provider, as I’d started to refer to them as).  They phoned me up, out of the blue, one sunny day in May and asked me how I found their broadband service.  So I told them: At £19.99 per month for 8 Mbs (I actually receive closer to 5 Mbs), bloody expensive.  So they offered me an optical fibre system (for slightly less outlay per month!).  And like the idiot I am - seduced by the dizzying speeds they were quoting - I signed up for it!!

First they sent an engineer out without agreeing an appointment with me first (I was going out that day, leaving as he arrived).  Then the sent two more engineers on different days (apparently – I was at home on one of those days and neither heard nor saw anyone), again without contacting me to make an appointment beforehand… And then the broadband connection went dead!!!!!!  Assuming that at least one of those engineers had gained access and installed the all-important cable modem at my end, some idiot (clearly without checking the new all-singing-all-dancing optical fibre system was up and running) pulled the plug on my ADSL Internet connection, presumably at the local telephone exchange.  And without home Internet, updating the blog and the website become no-go areas:  There are just too many judgemental pairs of eyes keenly looking over one’s shoulder nowadays if using public WiFi connections – and a surprisingly large number of WiFI points here in London block access to adult sites too.

Then it took eons to get them on the phone – and when I DID get their (not so) technical support team on the blower, they went around and around and around chasing non-existent line faults:  “…Yes mate… it’s yer phone line mate, yer line’s down.”  “Err… I’m talking to you on it?….” says I, tagging a fashionable Aussie-style upward inflection on to the end of my sentence to underline the irony of it all.   

You see, for once my often crackly phone line – the cause of a many a day’s snail-paced Internet connection, and part of the impetuous propelling me into going for optical in the first place – was as clear as the proverbial bell; I could hear the boogies rattling up the guy’s nose. 

On a different tack:  I wonder if anyone remembers this title (right) from the late 70s / early 80s?  It was the first magazine of its kind I remember beginning the use of the term 'college uniform', which was pretty meaningless here in the UK at the time.  And of course, typically, in searching that pic out I just came across this one (top left) which could have come straight from a scene in the last book I completed, earlier this year (ALICE UNDER DISCIPLINE BOOK 2).  God only knows where I've downloaded it from, but if I'd stumbled over it towards the end of last year it would have gone a long way in influencing that particular book - it certainly does a good job in illustrating the spirit of the book, that sort of pseudo-legitimised feeling, I was trying to put across.  Yeah I know the placing and ordering of today's pics is a little counter-intuitive, but the picture with the nun in it looks more exciting - and I have always loved those rear-fastening hospital examination gowns which tie with bows up the back, which is what those two pentitants' punishment or chastisement smocks remind me of!