I enjoyed reading about the history of these photographs and how things were done in days gone past. Very informative, thank you.

Very informative and interesting. Thank you!

Bravo, Jameslovebirch. Your article on the history of Spanking Photography, is most profound. Yes, we 'spanko's', must thank our pioneer forerunners, to bring us to where we are now., For in our case, There must always have been a beginning, to a woman's or man's 'bottom,' so to speak END. BARE END. SPANKING BARE END.

Interesting to read the history, I never realized that things went back as far as they did. I knew things were in use after 1945 but had no knowledge of how extensive things were previous to that. Of course the internet has changed the world in many ways and spanking sites are a sure sign of that. Photographs I am afraid might be on the way out with all the videos etc on line, but one never knows. Well done article and well written, thanks for the history lesson.

An interesting article documenting the post-war industry.
I'm sure that fetish photography occurred much earlier than the 40's, ( possibly from the dawn of photography, what better subject to point one's lens at after all?)

I wonder if there was a hiatus in spanking photography during the early part of the 20th century?

Thanks for such an interesting and informative article. Over the years I've collected 'vintage' spanking and CP images, mostly from the first half of the C19th. It's interesting to note how important costume was to support the story being conveyed my the image and, as you indicate, that story is often 'tongue-in-cheek' or satirical. They have an appeal, perhaps it's a sense of a lost era, that modern and more graphic photographs cannot match - plus the fact that none have tattoos on show! I have often wondered if there were also English spanko photographers who produced and sold to a very exclusive, affluent market!

I have seen many drawings that depicted flagellation/CP/spanking sometimes involving wives or young women but quite often nuns. These belonged to an era before photography. Clearly there was a great market just waiting for modern media to exploit. A fascinating article.

I really enjoyed the history in this article. As a young man I was thrilled with looking at spanking photographs no matter who was getting spanked. I have to agree that Bettie Page was one of the early best at it. I also bought a few videos, but I was completely turned off by the horrible acting, and a bit too much talk. Overall, this was very informative, James. Thanks for the input.

Thanks for the knowledgeable overview. Vintage photos - especially pre-1950's - have a painting like stillness to them that makes me appreciate every inch.

Just a note---Ed Lee, founder of Nu-West has just announced his retirement. Nu-West produced the best still photography for TTWD that I've ever seen.

Thanks Rollin and a very great thanks to Ed Lee.What a fighter and what a spanker! He pushed back the boundaries!

How I enjoy viewing spanking and bondage photos from the 1800s. The medium was new and exciting and there were no limits. Women's bodies reminded me of art from the classic Roman/Greek style, romantic and lyrical. The posed figures were only the natural bodies without an airbrushed sheen. Internet BSDM images leave nothing to the imagination. They are objects to be consumed, not to inspire.

Your article is well researched and contained a number of clues regarding how spanking photography was influenced by world events. The development of the art now makes more sense to me. I appreciate the broad view you offer.

Some twenty years ago a French brandy was advertised in London by a series of big posters on the Underground. I'm convinced they were deliberately evoking these classic spanking photos. The picture was in old-fashioned sepia and showed two shapely young women in tight riding-britches and with old-fashioned hairdos walking with a horse towards a gate. One of the women was holding a switch so that it angled just under her buttocks. The horse's hindquarters neatly set off the women's.

Of course if challenged the company could have denied that the poster had any sexual content at all...

I am a big fan of erudite studies such as James Birch's work here. Kudos to him for doing the research, and for Wellred Weekly for providing a forum for such thorough and thoughtful analysis.

Interesting looking at whats been available in previous decades and what is now available from the internet. Great article.

The best of the online spanking galleries are in a league of their own when it comes to quality photos. As much as I loved the writing in magazines like Janus and Kane, the photographic images were rarely anything special. Often, just showing a bare bottom at some stage in the punishment process was thought to be good enough.

Websites like Spanking Online and Punished Brats have generated probably thousands of creatively conceived and carefully crafted photos showing naughty girls having their bottoms warmed in vivid detail. They've shown me many of the finest spanking images I've ever seen in some 45 years of looking.

In all of that time, I've also seen virtually nothing memorable (I'm being polite) in the way of F/m spanking photos, be it in magazines or online galleries. Why the spanking of naughty boys has never been given anything like the same artistically serious attention as girls, I honestly don't know. It's partly why I finally started photographing my own bare/spanked bottom. If the spanking trade couldn't be bothered to give naughty boys their visual due, I'd make my own pictures.

Reply to opb: All spanking photography is fetishistic so, not sure what you mean. Pseudo-literary bondage scenarios with historical trappings (mostly copying Andromeda & Greek/Roman slave paintings) crept in around the 1880s. There was a steady increase in quantity and daring over the years (no sign of a lull). By the '20s we start to see fancy leather and rubber fetish wear in Paris-based photos. The '30s saw overt BDSM dungeon & dominatrix images with no literary context -- besides the growing underground CP novel industry. After the disruption of WWII (1940-45), The thread was picked up, mostly in the less war-weary U.S., in the 40s and 50s. By the '60s it was pretty much fetish-a-go-go all over the world, especially Denmark, Sweden, Germany, etc.