Musings on Outlander

The premiere of season 2 of the Starz original bodice-ripper attracted about 1.2 million viewers - making it a mega hit in premium channel statistics.   And, according to those who claim to know such things, 62% of that audience were women, making it the biggest hit ever for Starz for that particular dynamic.

Unless you have been living in a biosphere as part of your conditioning for some future Martian space voyage, you will have already heard that the episode contained (shock horror spoiler alert) the spanking of the heroine by her husband.   A non-consensual knock-down rough and tumble, until the punishment required by Scottish lore of the 17th Century was carried out --within earshot of the menfolk of the clan.

And that gives us insight into one of the more interesting quirks of our quirk - the spanking was not really, really non-consensual because it was given to an actress who was only pretending to put up a fight.    She was, if you will, a willing victim:  and we spankos do love our willing victims.   The most watched and re-watched spanking videos are those in which the recipient acts as though she is really not enjoying one second of her ordeal - but because we know that she is, it is ok for her to pretend not to, and her pretense notches up our enjoyment a tad or two.

If you have followed the comments section of various articles published covering the stars of Outlander discussing the spanking scene, you would have gained a distinct impression that lady viewers were putting up with it for literary and historical accuracy - and with emphatic distancing from 50 Shades.  And yet the viewing figures tend to hint that the scene was eagerly absorbed with the same rapture as any other bodice ripping hereto before.

The actress pointed out that it was not a real leather belt - but whatever it was made of, it was firm enough to cause impacts - and without being quite as viscous as a leather strap, will have certainly imparted a noticeable sting.   And as she said, despite all prior planned choreography, once the camera started to roll, it quickly got very physical.   I take it that it was planned we should get to see her bare bottom, otherwise those clips would have been edited out.

So, all in all:  more realistic than Keira's pathetic attempt to portray a genuine spanko, less erotic than Maggie being a secretary, and far less painful than Maureen getting her rump soundly bruised by a small coal shovel.   On par, say, with Donovan's Reef (a real spanking in the name of art) or Blue Hawaii (ditto).

Which, by my way of thinking, makes it very acceptable.    Even if it did have to take place within earshot of the menfolk of the clan.

But what's the alternative?

Like about 75% of my fellow spankos, I have long held that smacking children as a form of discipline should never be part of modern life.   We know the horrors of non-consensual corporal punishment, and largely agree that it simply is just not on.   Period.

Except.   There is always an "except".   Have you seen what modern adults get up to when they are told that they may never smack a child?   I swear these are true:

     Children are made sit behind screens during lunch hour so they cannot see or be seen by their
     class mates while eating their food.   Observers say many boys and girls cry openly and being 
     humiliated in this manner.

     The screaming room is for those who get too rowdy in the class room.   It is padded and measures
     up to four feet by four feet.   It may take two or three hours for a child to come to its senses and
     stop yelling.

     A boy got a three day suspension for pointing his finger at a girl and saying "bang bang".

     Sending a child "to Coventry" is a metaphor for imposing a "no-talking-to" ban on the child's    
     classmates, who are forbidden to converse with the culprit from 10 minutes to a whole week.   Its
     close neighbor is called "a time out", and is equally effective in singling out a non-conformist to
     sit in isolation for a while.  Sometimes a long while.

And of course, there's the old stand-by of yelling in rage.   Admittedly, teachers are not supposed to yell in rage (they put the kids in their charge in the screaming room if they do that) but there is much anecdotal evidence to suggest that not all teachers keep their tempers in check.   And it is quite clearly the first weapon of choice of the modern parent.

So - unless we come up with a fairer method of achieving the old style: punish-forgive-foget for both authority figure and miscreant, I am going to go out on a limb and say a mild whack might be much better than the current range of options facing our kids.

The curious logic for me, and I suspect for most of you, was that spankings rarely happened - and the abusive ones always seemed to attract the attention of the relevant authorities.    It was not that they happened, it was that they could happen.   And the possibility made it fairly simple to choose between following some rule or other, or risking your butt.    That sort of overhanging threat does not seem to have any real effect when it comes to time-outs and suspensions.   It will take a far keener mind that mine to resolve that apparent conundrum.

We need to take our kink back

Most of the modern acceptance of all things spanking is probably rooted in it being a more widely enjoyed kink than first thought, and, in the main, between consenting adults, it is both harmless and fun.

And then along came 50 Shades.

A book of the "wringing wet panties" purple prose written by a writer who has no idea whatsoever what makes us tick, with cardboard characters who do not act in the way we do.   But if that was where it ended, that would not be such a big problem for us today.

It is that it spawned a hugely successful movie which managed to magnify the faults in the original work and not bring one iota of sense and sensibility back into the topic.   And to top it all, the lead actress made in plain that she had to use a stand-in for the spanking scene on the grounds that she is thoroughly appalled by the idea that having her bottom smacked would be anything other than an outrage to her dignity and her womanhood.   (At least Maggie Gyllenhaal did proper research and performed will in the slightly less damaged "Secretary").

If you read the book and/or view the film with no prior knowledge of the spanking kink, you would learn that male spankers acquire the fetish through being sexually abused as adolescents, have no interest in what their partners need or want, and simply whale away as the only means they have of obtaining an erection.   That is, the spanker is a psychologically-troubled hedonistic chauvinist who uses his partner in place of Viagra.

Safewords?   A useful thing to ignore to show your partner that your needs out-trump hers.   Safe and consensual?   She came back for more, didn't she?  Someone that out of her mind does not need any safety.

We need to let the world know that we are not criminally insane psychopaths whose only interest is getting horny by abusing those who, for reasons beyond all comprehension, love us and allow us to mistreat them in such a brutal manner.

Most spankos almost universally agree that the first duty of a spanker is to serve the needs of the spankee.   There is almost invariably a "limits and boundaries" chat before any action starts - to make it clear what the recipient would like, and that the deliverer is able and willing to work within and as far as those likes.   In reality, it is the spankee who controls the scene, and if the spanker forgets it, the door is quickly shown and slammed shut shortly thereafter.   And more than one top has withdrawn from a relationship when the partner wanted to go beyond the top's own comfort zone.

It will not be easy for us.  Surverys show that over 70% believe that non-spankers think that we are indeed psychologically abnormal - despite other surveys revealing that the vanilla community think no such thing of us.

It is our kink.   It is under attack from propaganda generated by people who have no idea what we actually do, served to people who just want to be titillated by the false images thus conjured.   We really ought to find some way of setting the record straight.
 

Spoiler alert - You might want to give R100 a miss

The cover of a DVD going on release this week has a by-line that might pique your curiosity - "Scenes of whipping, punching, slapping, choking, kicking and beating".    Something for everyone, one might think.

Alas, no.   R100 is not quite like that.

All the action is centered on a Japanese business man, whose wife is in a death coma, who pays for a one year subscription to "The Dungeon Club" - one rule of which there are no early cancellations.   So, from time to time, he is leaped up at random by female dominatrices, who, in the main, kick the hell out of him, kung fu style.   One crushes his sushi to an inedible mush - but she is an exception.

So unless you relish watching a Japanese guy being publicly  humiliated to the limits of his tolerance, you are not likely to get many jollies from this extraordinary piece of art.    And, for a mere spanko fan, it gets worse.

The SM scenes are filmed in colors so washed out that they are almost in black an white:  to heighten the unreality of all that is going on.

And - according to some in depth reviewers - those scenes never really happen.   They are there merely to depict the way in which stronger recreational drugs can cause havoc to one's life.   A theory with some merit, for as the film goes on, the episodes get wilder and wilder in content - pretty much the same way a brain can get addled on too much of the good stuff.   And a theory that explains why the plot persistently falls apart in ways that seem quite random, at first sight.

So - unless David Lynch's works were far too mellow for you, and the sight of a high kicking dominatrix hits one of your major buttons - you might want to give this one a miss.    The makers did put on the warning label - "No one under 100 will be admitted": which accounts for the R100 rating.

You couldn't make this one up

As a writer of spanking fiction, I have imagined more than one rather odd set up in my time.   But sometimes life has a way of coming up with an event almost beyond belief.   The following is copied as printed in the Washingon Post:

A Florida father looking to punish his daughter without committing a crime had a deputy come supervise him spanking her, police said.

The father’s 12-year-old daughter had gotten into a heated argument with her sister, and the father wanted a deputy to come supervise him disciplining her, according to the Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office.

A deputy supervised the spanking, determined no crime had been committed, and left, police said.

“You are entitled to paddle your child, whether you use your hands, use a belt, or use a paddle — as long as you’re paddling the buttocks,” Undersheriff Noel Stephen stated.

Police said the seemingly bizarre request is nothing new. Officer Stephen said he personally has supervised a dozen spankings.

“It happens,” he told the station. “It’s definitely not something we advertise to do, and even though law enforcement has been willing to help out in this situation, watching a parent discipline their child is something that’s done only when a deputy has no other calls to handle.”

There are a number of reasons I could not have come up with this in a tale:  for starters, I never write about young kids getting spanked.   And like most spankos. I have a natural aversion to any form of corporal punishment being administered to youngsters.    But even if I had been writing about, say, a sixteen yea old, I would never have dreamed of adding a supervising police officer to the tale.

Reality seems to go out of its way, at times, to trump fiction.   And the laws of our land do often assist in coming up with some rather strange motives to ensure our acts remain strictly legal.

What the Heck! Where was Sue's spanking?

The sitcom "The Middle" is a fairly successful sit com, running on ABC.   It revolves around the mis-adventures of the Heck family, each member having their own peculiar quirk to give rise to chuckles in various comedic set-ups.

Sue Heck is the middle daughter of the family and is invariably insanely cheerful no matter what mishap.

Until last night's episode.   The plot had her allow a large gang of rowdy teens hold an impromptu rave in the quarry that her father supervises.   (Not a well-paying job, for they seem to spend their lives in abject poverty to a degree that social services really ought to take a look at them...)

The reason the gaggle got access was that Sue let them misuse the keys temporarily in her possession.  She had not planned such a party, but was instrumental in it taking place.  Sue's cheerful nature completely deserted her, and in one scene writhed on the floor in tearful, wailing shame of what she had done.

Her dad was right royally furious.   Machinery could have been turned on - with all sorts of bad consequences.   The terrain was so fractious that a serious accident could have taken place.  He could have lost his job.   When discussing the matter with her mother, he opined that a six-month grounding was in order.

During the night, Sue continued to push letters of abject apology under her parent's bedroom door - and her sentence slowly reduced to a six week grounding.   On appeal, Sue had it increased back to eight weeks, on the grounds that six was too lenient.   The narrator revealed that after four weeks, everyone forgot about it and things drifted back to normal.

So - it is not my script and I have no jurisdiction in such matters - but, what the hell - where was the spanking?

It had been stated in passing in a prior episode that the Heck parents had never spanked their kids - but if ever an exception was screaming to be excepted, this was it.   A mid teen girl wracked with guilt needing a punishment that would bring instant forgiveness and closure - a perfect set up for the "there is going to be a spanking" segment of a narrative.

And think of the fun that could be had with the negotiating over the actual details of the chastisement.   Number, implement, position, place, and so on and so on.    Even, say, that as a matter of compromise, it was finally agreed that half he spanks were to be delivered on a pair of clothed buttocks and the rest on a bare bottom.    (Not that any of the actual beating would be on screen, mind you - this is a PG sitcom, not a Mood Pictures video).

But our gallant writers, not realizing that spanking has gone mainstream, missed a glorious chance to add another amusing tid-bit to the arsenal of modern tv spankings.

Ah well.   Perhaps next time.

Galavant-ing

Between 8 and 9 million Americans watched the first episode of the new multipart extravaganca "Galavant" but only about half of them returned to watch episode two.   Set in medieval Englnd, knights and royalty have a royal skit and song romp over all the cliches that might be seen in more somber movies.   So we have a show that has British eccentricity AND corny musical numbers that is failing to hold its own?   How can that be?

Well, there are two main styles of TV comedy: the humor that can be harvested when one or more silly people are placed in serious settings, and when one or more serious people are placed in silly settings.   Dad's Army had a squad of eccentrics facing up to Hitler's war machine - and Black Adder had Rowan Atkinson as a deadly realistic aristocrat in attendance at an insane version of Elizabeth I's court.   Both were full of British eccentricity, and each were received by wild acclaim.

So why the big difference?   In a word - gravitas.   It is almost an unwritten law in British comedy that the comedians do not indicate in any way that they know that they are in a comedy.   Basil Fawlty - certifiably insane in real life - was played by a grim faced John Cleese who acted as if he was being perfectly natural in all the crazy things he did.   And he pulled it off.   (In a Harry Potter cameo, as a ghost, he smirked knowingly at his own presence on the set, and thus came over as a self parody.)

The cast of Galavant smirk, wink and giving knowing nods to the camera to make it quite clear that nothing is to be taken seriously, particularly their presence in the episode.   And I am willing to bet that that lack of gravitas will be the unwinding of what could easily have been a great production.

So - dear would-be spanking author - what has this got to do with you in your career to become the richest spanking author of all time?

Well, I would advise that your stories - even those wild over-the-top laugh-aloud frolics - should be written with dead-pan seriousness when dealing with character action and dialogue.  

For instance, if you watch spanking videos, you will have learned that those studios who present spankings as realistically as possible tend to thrive, while those whose scripts are full of unrealistic touches tend to fall by the wayside.  

The reason for the spanking can be quite ludricous - Flight Officer Fennington got a right royal caning in video where the beating was part of her training to be a British spy.   The silliness of the set up was forgiven though the acting - and the realism of the actual spanking.

Those studios that work with well crafted scripts have a huge advantage over those where the performers are expected to ad-lib though their performances.   It is easy to act to a script in an earnest manner, but almost impossible to wing it.   Which means, I would opine, even a poorly written script is better than no script at all.

So - back to the chase - if you want to write spanking fiction that is more likely to resonate with your readers than turn them off - the more serious your characters are, the more likely your tale will be received with acclaim.

You might get away in Chapter One of your spanking epic with a recipient of a hearty spank reacting with a knowing smirk:  but be aware that the numbers arriving to read Chapter Two might have significantly dwindled.   Even Megan - in one of my charming comedy series (advt.) - always acts as if she is being perfectly rational:  which tends to add to the humor, not weaken it.

The producers and directors of Galavant knew precisely what they were doing by having such a large amount of "look at me - aren't I being silly" reaction shots in their comedy.   The mistake they made was that they thought that such devices would enhance the experience, not be such a turn off to the average viewer.

Bye-Bye, Professor Chapman

Being Yuletide and all, it seemed only right I should let you have another Free Story.   We meet Megan and her professor at a time when he was no longer able to impose a proper method of chastisement should his unruly student ran amok over one or more of his beloved theories ...

Some of you will be aware of Megan's early adventures with Mister Brown, and how they continued when she was given a place on the Agnostics Studies program at the Downtown University. 

Those tales are recounted in the book "Beloved Infidel" which contains three exhilarating novellas (advt) - but this later episode stands as a single story in its own right.

And fear not, gentle reader - no academics were harmed in the making of this episode.

Stella Performance

In the spirit of the holiday season, I give you a new free short story  that has a vaguely Xmas link to it.

Stella Sheridan gets her comeuppance good and proper.   And like all good holiday tales it has a happy ending.

Enjoy.

blackish

Most spankos in my acquaintance treat M/m, F/m, M/f and F/f spankings as being purely in the realm of discipline.   We admit some of our fellow spankos get a kick out watching and reading about such activity - but those fold do seem to be in a tiny minority.

A recent episode of the sitcom "blackish" revolved around whether the son of the lead couple should get spanked for some misdemeanor.    Spoiler alert - in the event, he did not.

But on the way, various stereotypical characters we able to make various stereotypical comments about the goods and evils of  the corporal punishment of juveniles.   An added canned laugh track made it all seem fresh, original and humorous.

Perhaps it is the series, or the topic, but I found nothing to smile about while watching this episode.   But as a matter of full disclosure, that is true of all the episodes that I have watched so far.   Perhaps I am the wrong demographic.

But since two thirds or all spankos are anti-juvenile corporal punishment of any kind, it may be just that most spankos are hard wired not to find gratuitous humor to be found within the topic of beating kids - no matter how abstract the discussion is.   It is not impossible to divvy up a smile-worthy gag about spankings, just that the task seems to be too high a hurdle for most script writers to clear.

I think it might be some sort of move in the right direction.   That beating kids can be a suitable sitcom topic shows some sort of loosening of the ties over all things spanking:  it is just that on this occasion, it was one that I would not have minded having been left in place.    By all means have serious discussions whether spanking of kids is an acceptable method of discipline:  but perhaps it is not a good thing to try to make you think the subject is quite hilarious.