Educational discipline in history

i recently found in a charity shop "Centuries of Childhood" by Philippe Aries, which i vaguely remember reading as a student. In the light of all that we have read since, its few spanking-related remarks are pretty tame, but I was struck by one phrase:

Starting from Mediaeval discipline being everywhere pretty barbarous (and the French were giving up corporal punishment even before the Revolution), and comparing English and French educational discipline in the Napoleonic period and after, he says of England: "If the birch was retained, it was no longer simply as a punishment but above all as an instrument of education, an opportunity for the boy being flogged to exercise self-control, the first duty of an English gentleman ".

It struck me that this is especially significant, because in the ideal (to me, anyway) spanking story or film it is important that the recipient, regardless of sex, regardless of age, regardless of how hard it objectively is, regardless of willingness or otherwise to suffer the punishment, should at any rate attempt to receive it without complaint or without admission of discomfort (and, of course, regardless of eventual success in this!) If they are from the beginning shouting and crying, the story will lose all its challenge and most of its point! Do others agree? And does this really show differences in attitudes to spanking fiction in those from either side of the Channel, matching, as Aries seems to think, their attitudes in real-life education?

Ernest

For me, it depends on the story and how the person being punished is portrayed. If it's a spoiled 18 year old girl who's being taken to task for the first time in her life, some crying and wailing from the get go is probably in line with the personality of the girl. It could be the same for a spoiled 18 year old boy being punished for the first time and he could go into all manner of histrionics.

By the same token, a high school girl being accused and punished for something she knows she didn't do. (shameless plug here, my series "She Didn't Do It" has this exact same premise. She, or maybe he, could take the punishment in a stoic manner so as not to give the person punishing them on false pretenses the satisfaction of seeing a reaction.

So, again, it depends on the story, the main characters and how they are portrayed as to how they shoud react to being punished.

I agree with both Ernest and stevenr's points; some spankees will be crying and pleading even before the spanking begins, others trying to take their punishment with dignity, and some will be outright defiant, depending on their personality and the circumstances. My preference is for those who at least try for some self-control at the beginning, however much they may howl and beg as the punishment continues.

I think it's because, by breaking down the spankee's resistance, one gets the feeling that a change in their attitude has been brought about, while in the case of those spankees who put up no resistance, and weep and wail from the start, there is no noticeable difference in their behaviour before and after punishment, and so no indication that it's had any effect!

It very much depends on the situation as described above, but I must confess that I do not find a story about a boy or girl crying like a baby as a result of a spanking even remotely interesting. We all have some dignity, or should have, and that needs to come into play when on the wrong end of a spanking.

Personally, I like strong characters, and especially girls, who take their punishment as best they can. Tears are allowed to be trickling down their cheeks on the way back, but no histrionics please. Most of us gripped the far edge or the legs of the desk at the front of the class until our knuckles were white and did the very best we could to take it, and avoid complete humiliation.

Floggings in boys' English public schools were meant to be character building. You can perhaps judge that by the characters they turned out.

It's all about character. The world of a story may have an expectation on how a punishment should be taken, but the story is really about how the character exists within that dynamic. A stiff upper lip, a total crybaby, embarrassing histrionics or stoic internalization can all be exciting or boring depending on how it relates to character.