The History of Spanking
This article is based on
Chastisement by John Barry, published in 1966 by Brandon
House Books of California. We suspect that it is out of
print.
Spanking has a long
history, probably as long as the Oldest
Profession. Documented incidents even
date back to Ancient Greece. Then it was
customary for childless women to visit the
temple of Juno in Athens, to be cured of
sterility by the priests of Pan. The
women had to lie face down on the temple
floor, and be whipped with a lash made of
goat's hide. The priests clearly were
aware of the erotic powers of the whip, but
history does not tell us whether or not the
resultant children were sired by the
whip-wielding priests.
The Roman
story-teller, Virgil, in about 50 BC,
describes the feast of Lupercalia, where naked
men danced in the streets beating every woman
they came across. The romaqns also had a
fascinating tradition for ensuring the
fertility of brides to be. The girl was
placed across the knees of the 'sponsor', then
the girl's bottom was bared and strapped to
the accompaniment of clashing cymbals.
The theory that
whipping would make barren women fertile
lasted until the sixteenth century. Then
the wife of the heir to the throne of France
was childless. It was decided that a
spanking would be administered daily to the
princess. After a long period, she gave
birth; causality not proven!
Erotic whipping became
common in the French court of that period.
Ladies bottoms were frequently whipped in
public! The church even defined
different types of whipping; superior
was whipping on the back, while inferior
referred to the naked buttocks. In due
course, only the latter was recommended as it
was less likely to result in permanent injury.
Priests used whipping
as a means of explating sins. It was
common for women, after confession, to retire
to a priest's room and have her bare bottom
birched while resting on a specially designed
kneeler. Scandal inevitably resulted.
A fifty year old Jesuit, Father Giraud, wound
up in court for his whipping the very pretty
twenty five year old Catherine Cardiere.
To facilitate his pleasure, he even put her in
a nunnery for unlimited access.
The most famous
whipper of the pretty bottoms of female
penitants was Father Cornelius Adiason.
The punishment came to be known as the
Cornelian Discipline, such was his fame for
flogging female bottoms. Following many
a scandal, Pope Adrian the First finally ended
such practices.
Aristocrats enjoyed
the sound of hand on rump as much as the
clergy. For instance, Catherine de
Medici was notorious for her delight in seeing
female bottoms being smacked. At a
banquet in 1577, she made the most beautiful
and noble ladies of the court serve half
naked. She personally spanked them on
the buttocks with the palm of her hand, with
great blows and fairly rough handling.
In America in 1936,
Mrs. Dorothy Spencer published her famous
Spencer Spanking Plan. This was meant to
result in marital bliss. It clearly
defined when a man could spank his wife, and
when a woman could whip her husband.
Very detailed, it required that the rules and
regulations bee observed to the letter.
In particular, women were to be spanked, never
whipped. One leather goods store sold
297 whips in one day just after it was
published. Someone must have believed in
it!
Devotees of the plan
pointed out that th US divorce rate fell 37%
in the three years that it was the rage.
The plan gained a phenomenal amount of
publicity, and clubs were even formed to
discuss and promote it. The advertising
pitch stated that spanking is never given in
anger, rather in love. Amen to that!
As late as the 1950's, whips and paddles were
a section in the New York Yellow Pages.
Britain, of course,
remained true to the cause even at the most
ludicrous times. In early 1940, with
Hitler trying to pound the British into lonely
submission, a major row broke out as a Dr
Kitching denounced the caning of teenage
girls, causing a major storm. The
teaching profession defended the practice with
enthusiasm, even for girls up to eighteen.
In England in the
fifties, Eric Wildman set up a magazine,
Corpun , to sell his wares, and founded the
National Society for the Retention of Corporal
Punishment. He widely advertised his
malacca canes and assured parents that his
leather tawses were ideal for naughty
teenagers.
At the same time in
America, spanking was the rage, as a proxy for
erotica. Shapely female bottoms could be
described during spanking while in any other
context would have been taboo. And
remember all those figure-hugging skirts,
especially at the office; bottoms were in!
Thrilling Confessions carried a section of
spanking letters from it first issue.
Both the New York Daily news and the New York
Enquirer ran substantial number of letters on
spanking, but banned them when they twigged to
their erotic content.
The leading romantic
magazine, Your Romance, also published a large
volume purporting to come from ladies, but
minimal scrutiny reveals that most of them are
male fantasies.
Interest in the press
has never diminished. In the sixties,
when a male dance at the Folies Bergere
spanked a dancer Lydia de Lipski, it made
world headlines. He claimed that she
insulted him beyond description, and as a
result spanked her bottom in a most sound
fashion. She told tht court that she
cold not work for eight days because of the
makrs. He was fined $112 at the
prevailing exchange rates or about $200 at
current prices.
In 1974, the spanking
colonel, John Brooks made headlines sued the
Sunday People for libel when they reported his
spanking the delicious 21 year old Sue Carr.
The case ran for six days and knocked all
other news off the headlines. In court
the colonel stated, "I think that spanking a
girl's bottom - if she is willing and likes it
and enjoys it - is simply part of fun.
Provided it is with her consent, it is nothing
more notorious than the Italian habit of
bottom-pinching." What she seemed to
object to most was tht he poured whisky over
her bottom before he spanked it. (Hope
it wasn't a good mal; ed) He won his case and
was awarded one penny damages; Oh dear.
By the end of the
1970s, films were being made about spanking.
In 1977, Shangrila Productions in France made
La Fessee ou Les Memoires de M. Leon, Maitre-Fesseur.
A bank manager has an evening job as a spanker
of females. A brilliant film which is a
must for spanking enthusiasts.
This can only be a
short summary of the thousands of erotic
spanking practices, yet is surely proof that
we all practice a noble art, central to the
erotic pleasures of millions of people over a
very long period.
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