A Nostalgic Trip Back To Those Old Institutionalised Days

 You lucky people: Two postings in one day!!!

Web Problems and Admission Procedures

I am just Sooo knackered this evening. I have been slaving away decorating my aged mother's bathroom - sanding the ceiling - and a huge chunk of yesterday was whittled away dealing with an Internet access problem that had had me up half the previous night. Basically what had happened was that, although I could access the 'net and use Google to perform searches, I could not read my email nor could I access my own blog. Obviously I though that the broadband connection was OK as I could use Google (and other search engines) - it was only procedures requiring the entry of user name and password that were affected. And as the fault had occurred virtually immediately following a computer crash, my first assumption was that it was due to some sort of file corruption. Then I suspected a virus and then - having used another computer to link via my router and encountered the same problem - I started to suspect the router firewall. Having failed to find any problem with the settings of said device, I decided to reset it to its factory preset conditions and then reconfigure to suit my ISP's (Internet Service Provider's) connection conditions...Disaster!!!! Now I had no broadband at all!!! Having been up half the night pulling my hair out (human hair wig, anyone? Also makes good pillow stuffing! ) on liaising with my ISP it turned out I had entered part of my user ID incorrectly but all else was OK (it is what comes of being dyslexic --- loud scream!!! Now I had Internet, but still the initial problem persisted. I had observed during my diagnosis that my download speed was some 60% up on what I would ordinarily expect and to cut a long story short; this speed hike turned out to be a mistake on behalf of my ISP and upon my suggestion that they try returning the speed to the usual data rate, normal service was resumed. They could not explain why the download speed had been increased (not that I would normally complain) but more importantly; they had no idea as to how it could have caused the observed fault (bumping up the speed again, just out of interest, caused the problem to return) so go figure!!!

Now to turn to the business of the day. Having been 'IT-crippled' for a while I had been getting on with a bit of scanning (I have also been doing a little writing as well, so don't despair - I even got a few hundred words fitted in today, while relaxing with a coffee). And working through a good o'l copy of Janus, I came across a letter on a favorite subject gracing that periodical's letter pages through the 1980s, admission procedures - one of many that I can still recall to some degree and that influenced the direction of my writing. And what better illustration to go with any discussion bordering on the institutional scenario than this little classic from the golden age of the Blushes magazine stable (another newly-rediscovered treasure-trove item from my collection) - see right... Probably one of the most influential images of all time, in terms of my developing my viewpoint and the atmosphere I try to portray in my writing. See Y'all Monday! (By which time I hope to have, at last, made some significant progress in writing the new volume - its all been 'dribs and drabs' of late)...Though I might just get the chance to post something on Saturday - so don't write me off just yet!

A Really Flattering Comment and a Few Distractions

As you probably know, very few folks actually leave comments on this blog even though I do enjoy quite a thriving email correspondence, some of which I share in one form or another here. On those rare occasions that someone does leave a comment it had been my habit to reiterate it in one of my posts because for some reason or other (that I don't really understand) comments do not automatically directly appear.

It is particularly gratifying therefore to have received the following comment from
Polly-jo

"Hi Garth, just read the first volume of your Institution book and thought it was just great. I loved the delicious detail and could just imagine what it would be like to be caught up in such a situation! Please keep going with the second volume. I can't wait to read more."

As much as I encourage negative criticism where it is due (it is always very helpful) right at this moment something like this makes all the difference - struggling as I am with a particularly complex bit of narrative (a part absolutely essential to the completion of volume 2, unfortunately) and forever sidetracked by my growing obsession with the induced-stuttering thing that has so caught my imagination in recent months (and that right at this moment I'd far rather be writing about) I have become rather discouraged of late. A comment like this means the world to me!!!

Changing the subject: The pic at the top someone sent me: I just thought it particularly evocative of the whole 'admissions procedures thing' that those old Janus correspondents used to wax lyrical about. Quite stimulating of the old grey cells don't you think? You can make up your own story around it I'm sure - but if you do, why not share it with a few friends? Nudge, nudge, wink. wink.

Admission Procedures

As I think I've mentioned a couple of times recently, I have been looking through some old copies of Janus and particularly the letters pages in the ideas that various people put forth regarding what they termed as admission procedures. Some of the letters were quite ingenious and demonstrated quite deep psychological knowledge and understanding on behalf of the writer. This sort of thing very much inspired my writing of INSTITUTIONALISED volume 1 and continues to inspire me as I approached the completion of volume 2 and begin to trundle through the pages of volume 3. I thought I'd sketch out some of my thoughts on the subject. Obviously this whole field pertains to institutional discipline but say in that certain aspects, such as intimate shaving, could be just as applicable to a girl being placed for the first time into the hands of a strict governess; she might well institute such a procedure, with advantage, as an introduction to her authority and regime... which is good enough reason to drop in a nice little illustration I came across recently (see left).

Upon arrival any luggage carried should be sequestered as should mobile phones, MP3 players and the like. The type of institution I envisage, being run on very professional clinical grounds and presenting the aspect, externally at least, of a private hospital, all smiling and efficient smartly uniformed nurse's, would provide for a very disarming atmosphere for a young lady to be delivered into. Most people are quite used to being asked to turn off mobile phones and other electronic equipment when in a medical environment and with not even private medical establishments being totally guaranteed free of crime these days, an offer to keep safe these items while she undergoes a preliminary medical examination and completes any documentation etc that she might need to sign would almost certainly be accepted. She can be told that luggage will be stored for safekeeping or under different circumstances the ploy might be that it will be brought later to her room for her. Either way the tactic is to separate her as rapidly as possible from anything pertaining to her old life. The girl's first impressions of the establishment are important here in getting the ball rolling; she should be greeted by staff having a friendly smiling aspect but having also an air of efficient institutional professionalism. The staff uniforms or important here; from the outset she should not perceive them as other women but rather as nurses, staff nurses, hospital sisters and of course the matron - this brings into play the notion of socially conditioned compliance, the way that all of society learns to relate to representation of authority. Similarly her processing should appear well oiled and efficient; once started she should feel as if moving along an unstoppable conveyor belt -there should be no time for reconsideration, reappraisal or objection but rather she should be led rapidly deeper and deeper into the system.

Clothing should be relinquished as soon as possible - the provision of a standard hospital examination gown is perfectly adequate at this point. A side room off the main vestibule would provide the perfect situation for a changing room but should offer no other facilities than the minimum, perhaps a small bench on which to sit to remove shoes, a coat hook, a hanger for her blouse or T-shirt or whatever and, of course, a disposable paper examination gown.


A tray should be laid on the side to receive jewellery, her watch, hair clips and pins if worn and similar items; the pretext of taking a shower will usually be enough to ensure compliance at this stage so avoiding an overly premature adoption of an authoritative stance - it is preferable at this point that staff retain that friendly, reassuring tone, persuasive rather than forceful, yet at the same time are assertive enough to just maintain the momentum.

The shower itself should be sited elsewhere in the hospital and well away from the vestibule and other public areas. In this way there is a finality to her separation from her belongings and clothing, psychologically she has unknowingly stepped over an invisible line separating her old life from her new.

Once in some remote part of the building dressed only in a disposable paper gown and surrounded by smartly uniformed staff she would be at a truly massive psychological disadvantage.

The showering would be followed by her drying herself of course; a small towel, little more than a face towel, should be provided for this and this will be the ideal moment for the reappearance of the nurse that has accompanied her. She would then redress in an examination gown but not the one she had initially been wearing, that will have been already disposed of. Once again a disposable paper gown is perfectly adequate but it should differ in some way from the one she had initially been given; it doesn't matter really how it differs so much as that she should notice - perhaps it will be printed with the hospitals badge or coat of arms or whatever - the point is that it is yet another message received that she is now well separated from the world outside (I quite like the idea of the use of the words, psychiatric wing or psychiatric ward in this context - perhaps even secure psychiatric wing, just for the additional impact of that lovely word... secure.

Then it would be off to the examination room: the first few procedures would go ahead with her wearing the gown then would come a time when it would have to come off, perhaps for a breast exam or even a full-blown mammogram. She would undoubtedly place it to one side, expecting to replace it later, but would they see the nurse seemingly absentmindedly screwing it up and disposing of it in a rubbish chute. This would now be the perfect point to address the problem of body piercings, should she have any, and also to move on to such aspects as addressing her hygienic intimate shave - and this should be careful, detailed and include both the anal and vaginal areas. Now not only has she lost all those external personal trimmings that had defined her personality in the outside world but also she is being changed physically to suit her new life. This should be the first time that the staff begin to adopt an authoritative tone with her; at first couched almost as requests but gradually and quite subtly taking on more and more the aspect of orders (indeed this change can be very gradual, perhaps occurring in over a timescale of days). The momentum should be kept up here; perhaps a vaginal douche followed by a highly detailed intimate exam then an enema and/or suppositories - other procedures continuing to keep her occupied while waiting for their effect (perhaps this is a good time for her institutional haircut - see left) – before her first experience of the anal speculum. All in all it should be a deeply humbling and traumatic experience; by the very end some sort of uniform will have been delivered for her (the type of thing can be left to the imagination but as I see it would depend on the nature and operation of the institution in which she is to be detained) and without pause she should be hurried into it and then out into the corridor and off to her cell.

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Those that have read INSTITUTIONALISED volume 1 will know the sort of thing that I envisage here but I've recently had sent to me a lovely pic (I am uncertain as to its origin and will remove it immediately if it infringes anyone's copyright) that is very nearly perfect other than I would consider it a little over-furnished. The tables or desks or whatever they are on the left would have to go, the girl is going to have no use for those; I wouldn't envisage books, magazines or writing materials being allowed anywhere near the area in which she is being detained, let alone in her room. In addition, if it was left to me I would go for a simpler colour scheme. although I understand the artist's use of the green to delineate the floor and other features, and the door would be plain and unadorned - indeed it would be difficult to discern against the white of the walls, once closed.

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If all has been carried out correctly it will be only now, as the heavy and securely locked door closes behind her, that the girl will really begin to take stock of what has just happened to her, of her new situation and of her new life. Only now, sitting on the side of a hospital bed surrounded by four blank white walls in a claustrophobically small room with bars across its window, both inside and out, and perhaps dressed in something approximating to a prison uniform will she begin to grasp implications of some of the terms in the documentation she has just signed. Perhaps the period was somewhat limited, perhaps the legal extent of their control over her during that period is also limited to some degree… but then again perhaps there will be other documentation to sign, at a later date, documentation that might extend the period of her stay and tighten their control over her, documentation perhaps requiring the persuasion of the cane or of the leather tawse to receive her signature... and then?

Another Little Bit of Inspiration, Some Plans...and Some Excuses

Hi folks
More apologies are due for the sparsity of posts but I'm still been plagued by intermittent computer problems, my scanner/printer is down (I bought a new one about six weeks ago but have yet to connect it up) and I have been lumbered throughout most of the past weekend with helping the ‘other half’ with some desk research for an article on bridal wear. In between, what little time as has been left has pretty much been used up grinding away at a sticking point in volume 2, a particularly crucial but difficult to write chapter with several twists and turns and that in all honesty is all that stands between me and the completion of the work. The trouble is I keep coming across things while researching the part that I am supposed to be finishing that inspire new ideas and of course I try to get these down on paper while the enthusiasm is burning. Consequently volume 3 is coming along apace even as volume 2 stagnates somewhat. Meanwhile I'm back in the gym after various layoffs due to my surgical improvements, fighting to regain my aerobic fitness even though my strength seems to have been unimpaired and in fact has actually increased somewhat - probably due to the fact that one or two niggling injuries have had time to heal. Drinking is down to an all-time low due to the aforementioned surgical restrictions but then again so is creativity - I'll have to do something about that… and Wetherspoon's have a beer festival on at the moment…Hmm, say no more!

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Talking of inspirations I've just come across a few more scans of pages from a long ago sold spanking magazine. I can't remember at all what magazine it is from and from the looks of things the first page or so is missing but I do remember that it was one of those pieces that was partly responsible for encouraging the inclusion both of the institutional setting in my writings and also of some of the medical fetish interest that I later included. So, for those of you who are interested, here they are in order; the first three are arranged down the left-hand side of this post from top to bottom - the last page is on the right. As always; click to enlarge and read.

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For my next post I will be turning to a subject that was once so popular at one point in time in the letters pages of magazines such as Janus, Whispers, Blushes, New Uniform Girls et al and that plays a large part of setting the scene and building the atmosphere in the institutional settings I attempt to evoke in the INSTITUTIONALISED series: admission procedures. So, if any of you out there have any ideas of how you would prepare your lucky young ladies upon admission now is the time to post them up - imagine, if you will, that you are in charge of your own private and secure little institution with carte blanche over half a dozen young fillies and today is the day that a fresh faced pert blond young thing is delivered to your door… what next?… Dig out your old dog-eared copies of Janus and look through those well thumbed letters pages… any ideas? Incidentally if you are a fan of the above magazines and Roue as well (or even if you are not) you really must visit the yahoo group: Blushing Paddled Cuties (just click). I just did ... I nearly went blind! And I thought I was by now impervious to such things! Seriously though; there are some rare things there...download 'em, or post more up if you have some suitable stuff, before yahoo wipes them out - as they have so many fine groups in the past.

Hairstyle Discipline

As any who have read this blog in the past will know, I tend to do much of my writing in various houses of public refreshment. Yesterday's temporary office was the historic Spaniards Inn, in London's Hampstead Heath. The 'other half' had gone shopping in Hampstead proper and was then planning to tour Kenwood house, a nearby historic country house, leaving me free to indulge my passion for real ale. The pew-like seating and dark wood panelling are conducive enough to writing, far more so than my usual venue, but somehow I just seemed to lack that drive. I guess in my mind's eye I had had the idea of a pleasant afternoon sat in a sunny pub garden - the reality was somewhat different, my dream scuppered by freezing temperatures and the idiotic choice of a cap-sleeved top and shorts (I should really know better by now what the word summer actually means here in Britain). Having dragged myself back inside a settled myself down to drag him away for a passport renewal form and reading and out of date copy of New Scientist (something or other about the Large Hadron Collider).

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Anyway, enough rambling, let's get down to business and some more thoughts that occurred to me (after a good few beers) concerning the wonderful subject of forced haircutting - a subject that I would much rather refer to as hairstyle discipline, from the point of view of its context so far within the pages of volume 1 of INSTITUTIONALISED and the plans I have for its inclusion within the pages of the subsequent volumes. Out of the blue (and the beer glass) it came to me that there are at least three distinct categories of writing on the subject to be seen on sites such as the haircutting story archive et al.

1. Consensual (not my thing at all)
   


2. Punishment haircutting / shaving
   


3. Procedural haircutting / styling.

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The latter I would include under that heading so beloved by those letter writers once published within the pages of Janus, that of admission procedures. Psychologically of course the point of such admission procedures, as proposed by those more imaginative 1980s correspondents, is to delineate the change in status from free woman to one constrained by institutional rule and regulation - as if to further clarify that retrograde step from woman to 'girl'.

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Few initiations can have so great an impact as the imposition of some standardised, regulation hairstyle - and in that requirement to conform, perhaps in colour as well as in actual styling, one has succeeded in disrupting part of the very framework of her personality. Put her in the uniform of your choice, one suitably diminishing of status, and the effect is completed - a thorough demolition job carried out on both her self-esteem and confidence. Such a definition, that of procedural hair styling, I would say could be most aptly applied to the scenes depicted within the pages of INSTITUTIONALISED volume 1 but nevertheless I imagine a more diverse approach evolving as the series progresses, and to punishment generally. And as I have in volume 1, I intend to reach further afield than the mere physical in terms of curbing those hapless wenches unfortunate enough to have found themselves incarcerated within the unit. I also have ideas to extend this approach into the more domestic scene and as in volume 1 not all the action is going to be restricted to institutionalised environment of the research centre. Various sources have informed this approach, not least of which the aforementioned haircutting story sites, but in going beyond the usual head cropping, buzz-cut and head shaving scenario (or not as far, depending on your viewpoint) once again those wonderful spanking magazines of the 1970s and 1980s have had their part to play.

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The couple of pictures presented here I found particularly stiring to the imagination, although I'm not sure from which publication I have scanned them from (I'm guessing you can see a pattern appearing here in my disorganised life). I'm sure I have others scattered around somewhere, possibly from scans and hidden away in various files, and as I come across them I will post them up. The point here, as far as I'm concerned, is that there is no actual haircutting depicted but nevertheless the atmosphere of domination is palpable, the discipline implied, obvious. Thereis an outside chance that these particular pics originated from within the pages of Justice magazine (a 1970s spanking magazine, anyone remember it?) But the chances are that in actuality the source was one of the Blushes, Whispers, New supplement et al stable.

More from my collection of scanned classic articles and letters

Early inspiration was often to be found lurking in the letters pages of magazines such Janus and Blushes. (Click on images to enlarge)

Throughout the early to mid-1980s there was a long-running correspondence in the letters pages of the former being the most enthusiastically with the subject of so-called 'admission procedures'. This example is not complete, admittedly, but it is enough to get a flavour of the writer's insight, particularly as to the psychological impact on the hapless subject (image left).

Similarly, correspondents writing to Blushes magazine, a little later in that decade and into the early 90s, were sparing very little effort in racking their imaginations in the cause of cruel and unusual suffering. A psychological thread ran through their writings with humiliation more and more often taking centre stage and over shadowing the traditional, and frankly tedious at times, corporal punishment discussions that had been the conventional fare for so long. Here ( image right) the writer is putting forth a series of ideas for scenarios:

Again, this is only part of the letter, the rest has been lost overtime But perhaps some one else has the rest or others from the period that I have not yet seen (hint, hint). If so feel free to post.