FWIW: my least favorite spanking theme

One reason I enjoy spanking stories is that authors here at Kilahara are very creative in terms of themes and plots that involve spanking. One theme, however, rubs me the wrong way. For lack of a better term, I'll call it, The Woman as a Silly Goose. She goes out on a rainy day without an umbrella; she goes hiking in her sandals; tries to work when she has the flu. Her male companion, of course, knows better than she what is good for her. To make the point, he administers a sound spanking.

I dunno. To me, having the female protagonist behave as a Silly Goose shows enormous disrespect for women in general. It perpetuates the myth that men are naturally superior; that women, even when grown, are still childlike. They cannot function without a strong wise male to show them what to do and not do. I'd like to think that one can enjoy spanking stories without having this conceit toward women.

None of us is perfect; we have many, many human faults that authors of spanking stories can explore. If the spankee knowingly misbehaved; told lies; was arrogant or disrespectful, I'll say yes, she/he deserved a good whacking. But if the female character is made a Silly Goose, I cannot dislike her merely because she forgot to wear her overcoat. I may even sympathize with her. I will not take satisfaction in reading how she was then paddled for it by her authoritarian male companion.

Similarly, another plot that leaves me cold is where the lady is sick/sickly and seems somehow too irresponsible to properly take care of herself, so her all-knowing male partner somehow improves her medical situation by spanking her. It never seems to be a sick guy with an all-knowing disciplinarian lady.

That said, some folks must like that stuff, because it gets written and read. Further, it's nearly impossible to write that story without injecting a healthy element if love and caring. So who the hell am I so say it's bad?


Hopefully most of us here can draw a sharp (or at least useful) distinction between fantasy and reality. I think you will find that the folks here are more socially liberal that the general population, and thus are less likely to believe that males are inherently morally and intellectually superior to females. Yet the simple fact is that we spank far more females in our stories than males. Why? Because that's apparently our favorite fantasy! But our fantasies and our belief systems are two very different things.

Guy

Back in the days before the internet, even before personal computers, when we had to chip out our spanking fantasies with a hammer and chisel, I haunted libraries looking for spanking references. I still remember that Dewey 136.7 is child raising, and of course, one of the more fruitful although not very, hunting grounds for spanking references.
Once on such an expedition, I found a book by an MD. In the middle of his discussion of child discipline, he told the story of an elderly woman patient of his who refused to eat. He told her if she didn't, he would lift her nightgown and spank her bare bottom. She didn't, he did, then she did. From which he drew a moral about discipline for children. Even as a desperate young spanko, I had trouble believing this story and even more trouble believing that he had put it into a book on child raising. But I have always cherished it, even if I have forgotten the name of the book or the author.

I hate stories that try to justify children being spanked in the name of Christian values. It is very unchristian.

Coming up with an original premis for a spanking story and trying to figure out what to make for dinner are two very preplexing activities.

I don't care for spanking stories where it is obvious the author doesn't like women very much, nor do I care for frozen vegetables. Hang on a sec, I will tie the two together.

I was about twelve. I went to bed as usual. Sometime during the night I had an amazing dream. I have not been the same since. The next morning I LOVED girls and fresh broccoli.

Go figure.

If you read enough F/M spanking literature, you'll come across stories in which rather undisciplined and immature adult males are spanked by their much more mature and self-disciplined wives, girlfriends, other female relatives and/or woman friends in order to discourage unhealthy or high-risk behaviors--being overweight/failing to exercise, smoking, excessive drinking, reckless driving, workaholic behavior, etc.

It's very challenging to write a story featuring a fully consensual adult disciplinary spanking in which the spanker isn't shown as at least temporarily superior to the spanker in self-control, judgement, maturity, etc.--and if it's stated or implied that the corporally punitive relationship is both one-way and permanent, then IMHO it's generally difficult not to portray the disciplinarian as some way being on a higher level than his/her somewhat willing (yet often protesting) victim.

This inherent inequality issue occurs in F/M stories as well as M/F ones (and of course in F/F and M/M ones as well), so arguably there is some degree of built-in sexism and chauvinism in a narrative featuring fully consensual opposite-gender adult disciplinary spanking. There's more of the 'male superiority' to notice because there are more overall M/F stories of that type (and in general), but the principle works both ways.

(It's a tricky situation to describe a marital/romantic relationship or even opposite-gender friendship in which the partners are "otherwise equal in spite for their (one-sided) disciplinary arrangement," AFAIC it requires that the punishment administrator be incredibly mature, altruistic and self-disciplined--in fact almost a saint.)

A woman recently posted a message on a Yahoo! group that I read, one that's F/M-oriented in spanking gender orientation, postulating that any disagreements in discussions there involving opposite-gender participants should result in the female being automatically considered correct and the male apologizing to her. While a couple men submissively agreed to this, I considered that concept sexist and female chauvinist and posted back to that effect.

If that lady ever had me pants-down over her knee in RL, I'd be all "Yes, ma'am" and "Whatever you say, ma'am" while she was paddling my behind, and I'd happily kiss her hand and thank her for "disciplining me as I deserved" immediately afterward--but that's a fantasy scenario, and outside of that I believe in full gender equality.

So I agree, there's enjoyable fantasy and then there's reality... --C.K.

The themes that don't work for me are the blackmail ones. The ones where someone undergoes spankings (or worse) to keep a secret long buried from coming out.

I'm sorry. Maybe it's just me, but if the secret getting out won't mean I go to jail over it then I can't see agreeing to basically becoming someone's slave just to protect a reputation. People make bad decisions then they pick themselves up and get over it. Yes, I can understand the fantasy of "I have to do it - I have no choice" but I can't get into it.

The worse story along those lines was one I saw many years ago. It involved a housewife being spanked by a teenager who was friends with the housewife's teenage daughter - and the housewife had to submit because friend had stumbled over some porn the housewife had been involved in before she was married (I can't recall if it was a movie or a magazine shoot). It was a long series and not really doing it for me so I skipped to the end. The series ended with the housewife having her bottom tattooed - with "Spank" on one cheek and "Me" on the other. She basically living as the blackmailer's slave (not much B&D, but the submissiveness was there) and signing over her paycheque every week - getting spanked daily and doing degrading things - all because she was being blackmail. I didn't read enough of it to guess at whether the writer wanted to be a blackmailed housewife or to blackmail a housewife, and I can see where others might enjoy that fantasy, but I just can't picture it.

Maybe it's because, unlike other fantasy settings, I can picture blackmail happening in real life. I'll never live in a mock 50's style "men are always right and women get spanked" setting or any other place where spankings happen at the drop of a hat, but blackmail is real. I honestly don't know what I would do if I was somehow transported to a Victorian setting where I was lord of the manor and able to cane and smack the maids' bottoms at will (the fantasy is nice, but in real life there would be issues of consent and lack thereof), but I'm pretty sure I know how far I'd go if blackmailed. If the blackmailer wanted much more than a favour (say help moving) then I'd find myself going to my family and friends and saying "Um, I hate to have to tell you this, but since you're going to hear soon I'd rather you heard it from me...".

Um, this post is getting a bit long, but basically that's the type of story that I don't like.

Goodgulf

Goodgulf, I agree. The old blackmail plot is sort of loathsome. The protagonist is creepy and the victim is pitiful but unsympathetic. But I bet you can cococt a blackmail plot that could work that is different from the one that seems to have been overused in this genre. I'm thinking out loud here. Suppose she is being blackmailed by someone unknown and not for anything she did but because of a fact in her past that now has dire consequences for her present situation. Every month or so she must present herself to some stranger who punishes her--or else. But he is not the blackmailer. Suppose she enlists a private eye to find out who is blackmailing her and why. In the course of his investigation he discovers that there is a reason for the punisment incidents and maybe he metes out a few himself. It all has to do with who the blackmailers are and their motive. I sense a story here. You could make this tongue-in-cheek humorous, e.g., 40's private eye spoof or serious.

I agree with Cal's comments about the Silly Goose and I would add that any plot featuring an overly paternalistic and controlling protagonist and a child-like heroine leaves me cold. If I come to a point in the story where he calls her "little one" I not only stop reading but I will probably close the browser. I also don't warm up to stories in which the characters are all spankos from the start. It sucks out all the dramatic tension.

There are many hackneyed plots, most of which involve a headmaster and a caning for some school offense---smoking, etc. Then there is the wife who overspends, the teenager out after curfew and the shoplifter. Here is a suggestion: if you use one of these plots inject something different into it. Better yet have an external plot so that the schoolgirl caning is incidental to the plot, not the plot itself. By an external plot I mean something that has nothing to do with spanking or CP. It could be boy meets girl, or an adventure or a mystery. Doing this can breathe new life into these old chestnuts. Try it.

I did write a story with at least one of those plots. Called "A Day at the Mall" it has most of the elements of the "shoplifter caught" but included a mall cop whose main worry was job security. That, and a few twists that expanded the story and (I hope) set it apart from the average "shoplifter" story.

Goodgulf

In some of my favorite spanking stories, the "crime" itself isn't important. If fact, it's perfectly possible to write a great spanking story in which the actual "misdeed" is never specified. It can be enough to know that there has been a misdeed and now there must be a punishment.

As rollin says, an external plot can be a great device to "breath life" into an overused situation, but also important are the emotions behind the situation, the thoughts of the characters, the way you "paint" the scene; everything that goes into putting the spanker and the spankee into the same scene.

I could go on, but this is drifting a bit off topic.

Getting back to the topic, another subgenre I avoid is workplace spankings, though historical workplace situations may work for me. I guess that there's something about having been in a no-nonsense, politically correct workplace for so many decades that just makes a workplace spanking seem impossible to me.

Guy