Fairness, Severity and Morality

That's an excellent point, SNM. However, as someone who has touted "SS&C" most of my life, I am also aware that of the three criteria, only 'consent' is objective. In my cartoons I have even poked fun at the 'safe' and 'sane' aspects, since there is true irony built into how these two play out.

For example, when you are dealing with pain-play or sex-play......what is "safe"? Everyone here I believe draws their own criteria. And I believe this category is where a "safe-word" comes in handy, because my comfort zone may be vastly different than someone else's. (I am a competent handyman, but I have issues with heights and balance. I have seen friends scamper across rooftops like squirrels, when I want nothing more than to tether myself to something and crawl about on hands and knees. In my mind those people seem crazy. Don't they know they can easily slip and fall? But for them, it's no biggie. There's risk in anything. And, to be fair there's also foolhardiness and outright stupidity. [remember the case of the hospitalized woman whose partner attached a sextoy to a reciprocating saw?.....with the blade still in it?]

As for 'sane'? I made fun of this one as well in a cartoon I did called "I'm weird, but you're weirder". It is a phenomenon I have seen play out countless times. You have the typical demand for acceptance from one brand of kinkster, followed by that kinkster's condemnation of what someone else is doing.

I think this is why I personally gravitate towards weighing "consent" over all else. If you have a competent person saying, "I'm OK with that.....and if it turns out I don't like it, I have my 'safe-word' at the ready," you pretty much cover all else. If you are into alternate practices, there's an inherent component of risk. The thing is: be aware of what they are, weigh them out, and act accordingly......which might mean accepting or not accepting them.

Or, in other words, be safe and sane about them.

It is a very murky definition to be sure. But the alternative - letting consent be the one and only arbiter of what's okay - is much too dangerous for my liking. Battered housewife syndrome and so forth.

However, these stories are not real life, but fetishistic fantasy. In real life any of these spankings would be unfair: all those caned school girls, spanked children and wives would be widely condemned (I make no judgement of spanking discipline by parents in true life, as that's too big a topic here).
As for severity - I like it. It is fantasy, and I can't see much interest in smack-and-giggle punishments, unless there is complex psychology and personality development involved.

I am with Blackbirch. I find the aspect of unfairness, severity and ritualistic humiliation in fiction to be a turn on. In real life I would want many of the parents depicted in my stories to be removed from their children. But in fantasy no one gets hurt.

I just read a comment from an LSF-er on someone else's story that made me think of this thread. In one breath it condemned an aspect of the story the reader found objectionable, but in the next breath the reader reversed position a bit and accepted the disturbing aspect due to the fact that the story was 'fantasy'. So, given this oft-repeated mantra of "it's OK because it's fantasy" I'd like to know just how forgivable 'fantasy' makes things? It seems excessive punishment, lack of consent, and gross unfairness are all protected under the 'fantasy' label, but what else? Sexual misconduct with a minor? I mean....it is fantasy.

Another point is the flavor of the story itself. Stories present themselves in various shades of intended believability. Some stories start right out with implausible 'life-in-Spankoworld' scenarios, others are intended as almost sci-fi fairy-tale pieces. ( Hell, I have a story with talking pigs.) But others seem to be written to be believable.....fictional? yes, but believable fiction.

If a story is written as believable fiction, is the 'fantasy-forgiveness clause' null and void? I have seen comments on stories (not even my own, though it has happened to me) that were fairly realistic, where a reader jumped on some minor implausibility, and yet I've read comments of high praise to stories that were steeped in a fantasy world of utterly unbelievable conditions and actions.

There's also a line between implausible and impossible. A story about convincing your neighbor to spank you might seem implausible, but I'll bet it has actually happened. A story about being spanked by the HR Manager for shoddy work? Um....I'm going for 'impossible' on this one....with a caveat of 'maybe, but it's a real long-shot loaded with lawsuit'.

My personal feeling is that the intent of the piece DOES make a difference. And if the intention of the piece is to be realistic, then 'fantasy-forgiveness' is going to be in short supply. That said, that doesn't mean i think a person looking to write a realistic piece with harsh punishment shouldn't do so. On the contrary, every author should be true to the muse inspiring them. But an author needs to realize going in that what they write, if presented realistically, is going to prompt opinionated subjective reactions.

I've also made the point about 'likelihood' vs. 'implausibilty' myself in other discussions.

For example, in a community including 1,000 families who sometimes employ mid-teenage babysitters for their preteen children, how many of those family units are likely to allow the 'sitters to give their kids sound bare-bottom, over-the-knee paddlings for misconduct? If the answer is perhaps only five, which is a mere one-half of one percent, an author can claim that his/her f/bg babysitter spanking story involves one of those very few families. "In any given family such a situation is highly improbable, but statistically there is almost certainly at least one in which it does occur--my account deals with that particular rarity."

In other words, an 'unlikely' set of circumstances isn't necessarily an 'implausible' one.

If the background situation is established convincingly, I believe that even a rather realistic story can feature quite harsh punishments, depending on the severity of corporal correction which the recipient of it is physically capable of, plus emotionally accustomed to, undergoing. If the author describes a strong, healthy middle-aged person, one who's regularly been very soundly chastised for much of his/her adult life, being emphatically and extensively disciplined with a variety of highly effective implements, that seems somewhat 'plausible' to me. (In fact, administering a moderate spanking to such a character would strike me as less than believable if the intention were to be serious behavior modification.)

On the other hand, describing a ten-year-old child being punished anywhere near that harshly would be portraying an abusive condition. However, depending on the circumstances I could realistically envision such a character receiving a severe chastisement, relative to his/her age, size and experience being corporally corrected, for a major disciplinary offense.

Of course, in outright fantasies within settings in which harsh corporal punishment is an accepted part of life, realism isn't necessarily expected. However, I do wonder if there's a meaningful difference between stating merely that "It's fiction" as opposed to "It's fantasy," in terms of what some readers may find to be objectionable. Is a fictional account of a fifteen-year-old girl being given a maternal caning of four dozen blistering-hard strokes across her bare derriere in a current suburban household more 'off-putting' than one wherein a same-aged female is disciplined in that same exact way on an oligarchically-ruled human colony planet in the 24th century, presuming that in both cases she's been brought up under such a strict corrective regimen?

They both describe events which didn't really occur involving people who don't actually exist, yet does the first situation's realistic, modern-day setting make the girl's harsh punishment less acceptable to potential readers because it may seem more 'plausible'...?? --C.K.

My perspective on the issue i guess is summed up in the name of this wonderful forum Library of Spanking FICTION, as the Oxford dictionary states Fiction is 'Literature in the form of prose, especially novels, that describes imaginary events and people.'

Look at the fiction section of any book shop and you will find a wealth of fiction types and content from comedy to extreme horror, extreme sexual to innocence and many more. thus meeting the breadth of reading interests of all.

The same goes for spanking fiction there are, the sweet pitty pats, cuddles and sweet love scenes and varying of extremes up to frankly scary, each to their own i would say. I most definitely would not leave a comment saying that a story was too luvvy dovey or alternatively that it was too extreme. The authors in both levels of story have spent time writing the story, and as long as the content and authorship meets the LSF rules/guidelines, then i say bravo to both extremes, and thank you for your efforts, even if some stories are not on my reading list, as it is likely they will be on many others list.

I personally like stories that have a level of realism, though that most definitely does not mean it would necessarily ever realistically happen. Reading a story for example where a person is subjected to extremely heavy and prolonged cp, and they are not exhibiting the likely effects on their body/mind/demeanour, is frankly not realistic, and for me stops me reading it, that is not due to extreme nature of the scene, just lack of realism regarding the effect it has on the recipient.

What a lot of interesting perspectives!
The plausibility/reality issue is a real one. To use an example from above, if a fifteen year old girl is caned with dozens of hard strokes in a suburban house, that's implausible and must hardly ever happen. However, in real life the most shocking abuse of children in homes does occur, which goes way beyond spanking. Most of us would nor write or read a story about that, but it makes it hard to say the girl's caning is impossible. What is unlikely is that in such scenes, the mother/family is a nice, responsible middle-class one, rather than a junked-up, dusted-out deadbeat feral.
Fiction handles all sorts of things we do not approve, yet read, because a lot of it (not all of course) is realistic, or at least plausible. Think of detective fiction full of cruel murders. I don't quite know what I'm saying, but a story is a story, and we may not like or approve of what happens, but it still may be a good story worthy of our attention.

A story is a story. We may not enjoy or approve of what happens, we may say its impossible or implausible, fantasy or realistic, but it can still be enjoyed.
A human child raised up by a tribe of apes in the jungle, and growing up to be a great hero who discovers he is really an English lord may be totally beyond the realm of reality, but I love Tarzan books.
Likewise a story where Britney Spears gets spanked (or Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton or whatever celeb you fantasize about having a sore bottom) is obviously fantasy but its still a delight for some folks to read and enjoy.

This may be where the issue lies, splits or whatever..."where the rubber meets the road" perhaps? That last line is the problem. This library, as pointed out, houses "spanking fiction". Admittedly some, or even most, may fall under 'fetishistic fantasy'..............but not all. There are plenty of spanking stories here that have been inspired by actual events and others that describe events that could very well play out quite easily and believably. What about those stories? Do they get the benefit of the "fantasy-forgiveness clause" I mentioned in my other post? Should they?

Not in my opinion. Even 'fantasy' establishes its own reality. Take the Tarzan example: is the premise far-fetched? Yes. But, how would a Tarzan fan feel if he was raised by talking apes? I don't mean communicating, I mean real, eloquent, English-speaking apes? What if one day he found that because he was bitten by a jungle spider, he no longer needed the vines because he could now shoot webs from his wrists? OK, one could say, "hey it's Tarzan, not Jungle Book or Spiderman!" And they'd be right, but I think there's more to it. Tarzan still resided in a reality where bullets killed, people did not levitate, and a fall from a high place could kill you. The reader was only really asked to suspend their disbelief with regard to his origins.

The same is true for spanking fiction. if you are going to write about fairy wood sprites who like to smack bottoms, I'm going to take some occurrences with a grain or two of salt. If you are writing about people....who live in an obviously unrealistic "Spanko-world" environment, I'll do the same. But if you write about what appear to be real people engaging in some spanking related activity, and most things are written to seem real................I'm sorry, but I'm not going to accept the "fantasy-forgiveness clause" when it comes to an unrealistic situation or punishment.....or even some unfortunate lapse in plot line. I'm going to expect more than titillation at any cost.

Perhaps "fetishistic spanking stories" should begin: "As Clyde lay against his pillows stroking himself, his mind wandered......................." so we know not to take anything too seriously? I want to be able to take the somewhat realistic stories I read seriously. And 'no' that's not all I want to read or enjoy reading, but within that category, I do have expectations..............and I believe they are fair.

When it comes to spanking outside of a consensual relationship, we are dealing with fantasy. That is, world building and the suspension of disbelief.

One of the great tricks of world building in fantasy fiction to make things internally consistent. For example, if chapter 1 says that elven magic can only affect trees, then don't have elves using magic to mould stones in chapter 10.

It doesn't take that much effort to show that you're "world building" in a story. A simple sentence like "And in those backwoods, it was like time had stood still, with social mores and attitudes that had ignored modern times" creates an imaginary world where non-consensual spanking exists. If the reader accepts that line, then the rest of the story flows from there.