The Original Institute Site Gets a New Look - Well, sort of! I've not had that long to work on it - and not all the links are installed or working properly - but I've made a start at putting together a new navigation scheme for the site, which as you will recall also houses the remains of my Weebly 'Beyond the Barred Window' site and the site I created for Roger Benson's artwork, based on drop-down and fly-out menus located along a bar at the top of the page. At present this facility only exists within the index page itself (and within those pages that originated from my Weebly sit of course), where it will be bolstered by a secondary pictorial menu system, but once I get to grips with the code I plan to roll out the system across all of the site's pages while keeping the existing 'look' and extend it so that it encompasses all of the site's sub-pages and sections in the manner that it does for the Toyntanen section... I'm sure you understand! Please take a look and let me know what you think - ta! Just click the image, left. to go straight to the index page and play around. Meanwhile: I'm going 'pubing' today - I'm taking my laptop and I hope to get the new book organised and finished so that I can get back to the comic book project - I can also get my emails etc on my phone, so don't be shy! I'll be in The Tollgate to begin with, the Turnpike Lane Wetherspoons, but I'll keep you updated by Facebook and / or Twitter in case anyone fancies joining me for a pint... see Ya!
Wednesday 25 September 2013
Friday 20 September 2013
Behold! Thus Did the Phoenix Ever Rise - And: Old Enough to Marry, so what a SHAME about the Outfit!
And if that introduction leads you to think I grew up with my head enveloped in the Mighty Marvel Universe... You're SO right! Yeah, that sort of thing was typical of those good ol' Marvel Comics titles, wasn't it. A smidgen over a week ago I was in despair - now not so much.
You may remember I was asking around in regard to obtaining advice, hints and tips as to where to house my Weebly-demolished 'BEYOND THE BARRED WINDOW' website and its recently conceived little sibling, devoted to the spanking, discipline and humiliation orientated 1950s - influenced art of Roger Benson. Well - as I have said in reply to a comment recently - one of the folk I approached was the owner of 'THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTE', a venerable institution of a site which has been around in one form or another since circa 1996. It so turns out that the owner of that site had recently tired of the task of running it and had shut up shop... So... SOooo... He has asked me if I would like to host my site using his domain / website host!!! Well... Obviously I accepted... I mean... I was gobsmacked!
For my part, I was - I am - loath to see such a venerable site finally sink beneath the waves. So having thought it over (not for VERY long it must be said) I have decided to resurrect 'THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTE' in its entirety, with the aim of continuing to host all of its features, while having under my hat the idea of eventually revamping its overall look, perhaps updating the navigation - once I grasp a little better the concept of how the HTML / CSS coding works (I once read a book on HTML - one of those 'For Idiots' guides - back in 1999 I think it was; I gave it to my eldest daughter... I think it is the reason for her taking up bar work... no she's not a QC!). So I'll admit it - I was spoon fed at Weebly; all that drag-and-drop stuff makes you lazy. Now in order to integrate my Weebly-wizard-created website within the mighty echoing halls of 'THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTE' I am having to get under the bonnet (hood - you US of A types) and get my hands greasy! So my concept - for the time being at least - is to create a site within a site, well two sites in a way, since an entire section is to be devoted to housing the work of Roger Benson. The question then becomes how to get the site / sites recognized by the various search engines.
As regards Roger Benson: Among my vairious projects I have on the go - including finishing of a book (perhaps two) and the comic book project I have going in colaboration with Angela Fox (who has just published a new title herself on Amazon incidently - FAIRY TALE LODGE; sorry I've misplaced the bloody cover art) I am also working with Roger Benson in helping revamp some of his art, with the aim of puting together THE definitive collection of his work all in the one location. And that location shall be within ''THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTE', eventualy with intros, explanations and vairious other embelishments provided by the artist himself! It's ALL exciting stuff!
The content from my own website I have uploaded thus far most of you will have seen before; in that way I am still very much playing 'catch-up'. But a new section I have up my sleave will revolve around 'shame clothing' / 'punishment dress'. Yeah, there is loads available from the cannon of TV / peticoat punishment literature, but so very little devoted to the disciplining of the female of the species, especialy in the FF and Ff arenas. And so, among other things, I am currently colating material on that subject matter, especialy that pertaining to the world of the 1950s - 1960s (I feel there was so much more scope way back then!), thus today's offering: I just love the way she seems to be rubbing her bottom! Clearly there is a thouroughly blazing pair of plump bum cheeks under that skirt, and the girl old enough to marry, too! No wonder her cheeks look as if they are as aflame as her bottom!
Oh - I almost forgot: The best way in is probably to go to http://www.theoriginalinstitute.com, scroll down to the bottom and click on the cell door to go to the 'What's New' page and then scroll down again untill you see one of Roger Bensons drawings (from his famous reformatory set). Click on that and you'll be rushed to his section. Then if you click on either of the links that mention yours truly you'll find yourself in a section of my old main website populated along the top by fly-out menus leading to all manner of delights... If you think the navigation is a bit clunky, well it is at the moment: I mean to say: I only uploaded the majority of the files last night (just over 500 MB by FTP - I left the computer running all night so, no, I don't know how long it took!)
Wednesday 11 September 2013
The Death of a Website - But the Dream Lives On!!!
It is with no little sadness that it becomes my duty to report the sad demise of my Weebly-hosted website, 'Beyond The Barred Window', in fact I am thoroughly miserable about it! That website had come to mean the world to me - and it had been all going so well! Then a couple of days ago I started up another secondary or annex site specifically to house the artwork and writings of Roger Benson (of whom regular readers of this blog will have heard much before) linked to the main website in various ways. And when I finally went to bed, having been up half the night lovingly working away on the new site and uploading all manner of Roger Benson goodies, everything was working wonderfully well - I tucked myself up with a smile on my face and feeling rather smug. But that smile wasn't destined to last long!
I woke up the next morning
(yesterday) to find not only had the new site vanished - all links to it reporting 'error 404, (basically 'page doesn't exist) - but the main 'Beyond The Barred Window' website had also vanished, some 50-odd pages, sections and sub sections. In short both my lovingly crafted websites had ceased to exist, as totally as if they'd never been. As if to rub salt in the wounds, I can't log in to the Weebly website creation and tool box site either - I'm
locked out, my password not recognised!!!
Having
dedicated several months of my life to the site, I felt - I feel - utterly powerless. Of course I have emailed Weebly technical support, but I am not holding my breath; this has happened to other folk, it turns out, and the response from Weebly tends to be a figerative virtual shrugging of the shoulders. In fact from what I have read on the Internet while searching for a solution / explanation the consensus
seems to be that the best way of making contact with the Weebly technical support team is in through Facebook - and so I have tried that route too, so how true that consensus is remains to be seen.
If I have infringed Weebly's terms and
conditions or created some (presumably new) particularly offensive content - and
had I simply been informed / warned of it by email or whatever - of course I would have removed the offending
sections / content and left the remainder as is, publishing the offending material elsewhere. But I have a feeling no human was involved in this...in this...wanton destruction. I fear that what has happened is that I have
fallen victim to some sort of automatic anti-spamming software (as I have come across
others discussing on a forum). And this does seem the most likely explanation considering the way in which my website's disappearance so neatly coincides with my having created that second, annex, site and
then set up those links between the two sites, through which I intended to provide a seamless experience to the browsing visitor (just a matter of hours
previously).
By for now - I'm off down the pub; check out Twitter or Facebook to find out where, if you are in central London and fancy joining me for a pint or ten. Then, later, I'll be at The Avenue Gallery in St James's Street at an exhibition of Sam Toff's oft-humorous work (by invitation only - sorry!) Champagne and other goodies I dare say! But tomorrow! Ah, tomorrow!
Tomorrow I start work on building a brand new website - but very much NOT hosted by Weebly!!! And hopefully, even as we speak Roger Benson is sending me more of his work for inclusion - my plan is for both he and my collaborator, Angela Fox, to have their own dedicated sections, with 'keys to the door' to allow each to edit and add to their own sections independent of me, if that is possible. The latter aspect is why I set up a whole new site specifically for Roger Benson's work - which seems to have been what caused all the trouble... Oh well... Cheers!
Tuesday 3 September 2013
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).
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!
Wednesday 21 August 2013
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.
Monday 5 August 2013
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…
Tuesday 16 July 2013
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!
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