Like many of us, I was a child of the 60's - And going to school in Canada in the 60's, corporal punishment was still very much the norm in elementary schools. Generally, it was 2-5 HARD swats with the strap on the hands, in the principal's office. Of course, being a ridiculously good kid, I never received that treatment myself...but I remember the universal fascination that went around the school if someone else did. I remember two particularly delinquent girls in grade 7 or 8 (they would have been 13 or 14, maybe) returning from a trip to the office with their makeup a bit smeared, and semi-proudly showing their shockingly red palms to others in the class. The mystique around all this no doubt explains my love for the occasional story here that features the strap (as opposed to the more common hand, hairbrush, slipper, cane, or paddle).
In the classroom, individual teachers would occasionally spank a particularly serious offender by hand, over their lap, at the front of the class. These were almost always boys, and pants almost always stayed entirely up...but again, I remember whole classrooms watching in silence, transfixed with fascination. One teacher that I had from grade 2 through grade 5 was almost certainly a spanko. She was a wonderful teacher, and cared deeply for her pupils, but in hindsight, she was a young woman who I'm almost certain had a bit of a thing for spanking. She had a birthday ritual...If it was your birthday, at the beginning of the day, you were asked to come up to the front of the class. The class would sing "Happy Birthday" to you, and then...you would go over the teacher's lap for a (relatively light) birthday spanking. Every kid in the class, boy or girl alike, received this treatment. I know for a fact that I was already pretty fascinated with being spanked, even at the tender age of seven or eight, and I remember making sure that this teacher knew that my birthday was coming up a few days ahead of the date. These were the only spankings that I ever got at school, but I remember the occasion as though it was yesterday. She offered us all the choice between her hand or the yardstick...I chose the yardstick, but near the end she added one extra hard slap with her hand...I think she sensed that I was a young spankophile already, and wanted to make the experience worth my while! It was actually a fond memory from my childhood; it wasn't actually particularly shameful or humiliating, since every kid got their turn at it on their birthday...it was all just in fun, and seemed to brighten everyone's morning!
Of course today, any teacher who did that would probably be buried alive under the school immediately...but what amazes me, was that at the time, it was all considered great harmless fun. All the kids got a giggle from it, and nobody regarded it as anything out of the normal course of events. To this day I still don't know if my adult fascination and sexualization of all things spanking was caused or facilitated by those early experiences at such an impressionable age, and if it was...I also haven't figured out whether that's a good or bad thing, in the overall scheme of things! But I have no doubt that the psychology professionals would have a field day with this sort of history. I could tell other stories from that time as well...that really happened. How times change...just over the course of a few decades! |