Christian Spankings

I have just concluded reading Guy Spencer's thirteen part serial On Courting a Christian Girl. I found it both enjoyable and interesting and the comments from other readers suggested that others felt the same. It does however raise certain questions for me.
In essence it deals with the courtship and eventual marriage of a young couple from a fundamentalist Christian community somewhere in the US and, naturally, with spankings; those that they receive from the young woman's mother and give one another. The underlying theme however is the supervision of their relationship and their developing sexual engagement, provided by the mother who, whilst ostensibly allowing them increasing sexual freedom as preparation for marriage but seeking to prevent them from consummating their relationship before marriage, would seem in reality to be taking advantage of them and their credulity to indulge her own sexual (and specifically spanking) proclivities. In so doing she also manages to "turn on" their own until then unrecognised spanko leanings.
In case the reader was in any doubt as to the mother's underlying motivation she tells the young couple that she and the girl's father enjoy spanking as sex play as well as using it for mutual disciplinary purposes.
The freedom that the young couple are given to experiment sexually, whilst stopping short of actual intercourse, has echoes of the historic practice of "bundling" or "bolstering" where young courting couples, before the days of clubs, bars and cinemas, would in some societies be permitted the privacy of the girl's parents' marital bed, fully clothed and with a largely symbolic bolster between them, for their courting activities whilst the parents sat next door in the living room but theoretically could enter the room at any time. It is said that the bolster was so symbolic that in fact the practice was used to ensure that the couple were able to procreate before committing to matrimony—bolstering would continue until either the couple decided they were not compatible or she became pregnant.
What I find so interesting about Guy's story however is its setting in a fundamentalist Christian community, a common theme in spanking literature and one exemplified by the stories of LSF author Pastor.
Christianity has always had an ambivalent attitude to sexuality. It is approved of in matrimony and for the purpose of procreation and as the 1662 version of the marriage ceremony from the Church of England Book of Common Prayer puts it: one of the reasons for which matrimony is ordained is for the prevention of fornication (ie sex outside of marriage). Whilst I am not Christian myself and certainly no expert on fundamentalist belief, it seems to me that most Christian traditions believe that sexual congress between a man and a woman, within matrimony, and for pleasure rather than purely for procreation is a good thing and approved of by God, for the reason, if none other, that it holds the marriage together. Where Christian societies appear not to believe this, it seems to me that, as in Victorian England, the belief, generally, that women should not enjoy sex but engage in it for procreation or to satisfy their husbands' base urges is societal rather than religious.
However well followed by Christians one of, if not the, basic tenets of Christianity is the "love thy neighbour as thyself" or "do as you would be done by". In other words don't do anything to anyone else that you would not wish done to you.
Now, unless everyone is expected to enjoy having physical chastisement visited upon their own persons, particularly in circumstances of sexual display (buttocks displayed, legs parted, often in front of an audience) how could a good Christian reconcile their faith with the use of corporal punishment to discipline children and young adults? If the recipients of such punishment are expected to enjoy it, then how could such treatment be regarded as punishment?
The common theme in these tales of corporal punishment in fundamentalist Christian communities seems to be that the adults providing or observing the chastisement find it a pleasurable activity (impliedly if not expressly in a sexual way) so they are doing good whilst having fun; and the recipients, generally teenagers and young adults, do not enjoy it so it is improving to them but they do not resent it and probably look forward to the day when they will be able to have fun themselves by stripping, displaying and beating their own children.
This of course is fine in the context of fiction in such a morally ambiguous area as spanking—we might like to fantasise about non-consensual, disciplinary CP but we wouldn't actually do it--but in reality?
As I say, I do not move in fundamentalist Christian circles but this is such a common theme (and one of the commenters on Guy's works mentions the use of "ritualistic chastisement" in such communities) that I have to ask whether there is any actual behaviour of this nature going on, and approved of, within the congregations of some fundamentalist churches?
If there is, how does that square, with the general and now almost universal (in the developed world) abhorrence of the sexual exploitation of minors and why are we not seeing prosecutions of otherwise worthy parents for what would surely in society in general be seen as sexual abuse?

Geoffrey Stirling.

To my knowledge there are several Christian organizations that agree with and support spanking a child under legal age. Of the ones I know, there are none like the example Guy used in his story, and if there were I would wonder how long that church would exist in the world today. Not saying there are not individual families like in the story, but that is another matter.

Many Christian households may use spankings for discipline, but the reason one does not hear about them in 97% of the cases is that the spankings are reasonable, given with the child understanding they are loved and are never seen as sexual by the parent or the child.

The problem is that the 3% of the population who are one might say a little perverted in their thinking, gain all the headlines and press leading to a very misleading view on part of most people. In what I would describe as a 'normal' family ( and please excuse me here because exactly what is 'normal' may be up to question) the parents take no joy in spanking. It is just something that happens and then it is over. I know adults who are spanked, but it is not sexual at all, it is discipline. Why cannot a family have the same state of thoughts?

Christianity has a lot of faults, and has done and is doing things that makes one wonder how it can even exist today, but one cannot assume just because one is a member of any organization that the one supports every aspect of it. For example there are many Catholic's who use birth control but their church does not support it.

IMHO, Christianity has a lot of guilt, but sometimes and in some incidents, certain things may not be as bad as the press and others have made it out to be. We do not want people judging us as spanko's on this site, so we should be very careful about judging how others make their own choice to raise their children.

I got spanked by a Christian a few years ago. It was a great experience.

Religious people (not only Christians) tend to rationalize their own quirks, prejudices, and outright hatreds through some selective or even misinterpreted aspect of their dogmas. Spanking is no different than anything else. as a submissive male who has been in discussion with submissive females who rationalize their kink through the bible, I have been privileged to experience their self-justification for their own kink coupled with their frowning disapproval of what Rosa and I do.......since in the bible the woman is supposed to be the submissive. So, according to their god, Rosa and I are just doing this all wrong. (It's a good thing Rosa & I are atheists, I guess.)

Don't look to make any sense from what they do. People....not just Christians....can rationalize many worse things than spanking a misbehaving child.

No matter what religion a husband and wife believes. In my humble opinion, if a wife is naughty she should be corporally punished, on her knickers down bare bottom. Be it with a husband's hand, paddle, hairbrush, birch rod, cane, or whip.

Ah, so....I guess, regardless of religion, in your opinion Rosa and I are still doing this incorrectly?
Good thing we don't base what we do on other people's opinions....... religious or secular.

Is this just a tease? Do we get details?

The problem about talking about Christians is that they are too broad a group to easily pigeonhole.

There are some Southern Baptists who do not considered Roman Catholics to be Christians, and I'm sure there are Roman Catholics who don't considered those Baptists to be Christian. Throw in Eastern Christianity (where men shouldn't shave their faces - because that's a sin) and breakaway groups, and you have a really broad group.
I mean, what do Snake Handlers have to with the average Coptic? Practically nothing.

Then there are those who call themselves Christian when the rest of the Christian world says "Them? They aren't with us". For example, Mormons believe that Christ came to North America to preach to the Lost Tribes of Israel (aka the native American Indians) and left them a secret message that involves church elders marrying as many Sweet Young Things as they want. Other Christians say that Mormons shouldn't be call Christians, but Mormons claim that label.

To get back on topic, there are many kinds of Christian spankings. You have the Protestant "you must summit", those who take the bible literally who follow that verse about sparing the rod, monastery style flagellants, Magdalene asylums, weirdos who seek to punish "sinners", and countless other types. There are almost as many types of Christian spankers as there are types of non-Christian spankers.

Alas, I find the question of Christian spanking very confusing. For example even in the area of paddles there are questions that need to be answered.

If a paddle is momentarily fully dumped under water and held for a few seconds before it is risen above the water, is the paddle now baptized for use on anyone, or can it only be used on a Christian?

If a paddle made from the sole of a shoe, and only used on one soul (like the song 'Old King Cole was a merry old soul'), considered a christian paddle if the one soul it is regularly used on behaves themselves?

What about a paddle that is never used on the seventh day of the week? Is it considered a Christian paddle as it never works on a Sabbath?

I would assume any decent Christian would only use a Christian paddle and therefore should know the answers to these questions. For me, whom I have always considered myself a Christian, I have not got a clue as to the answer to any of the three questions.

There's really not much of a story behind it.

She was a Singaporean immigrant from a fundamentalist Protestant background. I was her first love, and I got her into spanking. She did it just to please me at first, but quickly came to enjoy it and started initiating it on her own (the turning point was one evening when I got up from the bed to get her some water and she suddenly said "You know...you DO have a really nice ass"). She used her hand, and a thick wooden brush. I didn't ask to spank her, as she didn't seem at all interested in receiving. We dated for about...three months? Before I left the country for a volunteer program and she eventually moved away; we had agreed from the start that it would have to be temporary, due to our irreconcilable religious differences.

We stayed in touch after we stopped dating, but about two months down the road she abruptly stopped wanting to have anything to do with me. I think she resents me for taking her virginity and damaging her perception of herself as a good Christian girl. Ah well.

In my serial "Overlord," the character of Julia Wong is based somewhat on her. Both in appearance and in personality, and definitely in accent.