The Library of Spanking Fiction: Wellred Weekly
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Articles
Items of interest regarding all things spanking
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Institutionalised (cont.)  But I digress: there were occasions when the contents of some shady journal or other would at least come close to the promise embodied in the suggestive images splashed across its front cover. Yet, that said, even then the stories and articles found within somehow never ever quite lived up to the thousands of words, the intricately painted and played out scenarios that would conjure themselves - evolving and refining themselves as if having taken on a life of their own - throughout that delicious anticipatory period stretching between having first set eyes on a particular title or edition and finally having made the purchase and rushed it home in its obligatory plain brown paper bag to be savoured at leisure. (Rather embarrassingly my local newsagent used to plonk my body-building / weight training magazines in the same sort of plain brown paper wrapping - Sellotape and all. I don't think he ever really understood what it was all about as he used to place them up high alongside the more dubious publications, which only made it worse; God only knows what he thought!). My point is this; there always seemed to be something missing; often something I could not quite put my finger on on those rare occasions that satisfaction seemed within reach. But that was when some modicum of imagination had been put to work. The lesser tales, from my point of view, were those in which the author would at the drop of a hat, by invoking the flimsiest of mechanisms, attempt to explain how some nubile young thing's bottom might come to be introduced to the cane or firm palm, with nary a thought to how a real-life late-teen would react if told to bare her behind for the attention of a supple length of rattan or birch. It seemed any plot device would do - however well-worn and corny - just so long as it could through some far-fetched unlikely premise excuse the dolling out of a good, long, hard spanking or caning - and go some way to explain the spankee's mysteriously docile acceptance. From '...she was caught smoking behind the cycle shed' to the equally exhausted '...out late with the boyfriend', the dismally uninventive 'bad school report' or the only marginally more imaginative '...spanked for wearing non-regulation knickers' (an even more far-fetched variant being 'spanked for wearing no knickers' - in addition to being incorrect, if popular, grammar), I must have come across them all in my time, repeated ad tedium and with very little variation to ring the changes either. But then there were those other articles, stories, items of reader's correspondence, novels and books that so nearly hit the 'sweet spot' and yet shaved past by a whisker. I could list many, but am restricted by space to one or two examples and would encourage the reader to consult their favourite search engine to read more. The author who probably came closest to my ideal at the time I had discovered writing for Janus variously under the names, Richard Manton or R.T Mason in Janus magazine. There were two-part works such as 'Behind High Walls' and 'The Man With The Golden Rod' and stand-alone stories such as 'Noreen: A Travelling-Man's Confession', 'Edwardian Episode' and 'Whips Incorporated'. The later tale purported to be a factual expose of a scandalous, commercially-run 19ty century flagellation service aimed at those requiring (and willing to pay handsomely for) the curbing and taming of fractious or petulant young ladies, and plucked for the large part straight from the Victorian press (which it may well have been - I personally have come across contemporary news cuttings reporting the existence of a 'house of correction' such as he describes in Clifton, Bristol during my researches, published on a main-stream web site about the history of the area). The Janus tale 'Edwardian Episode' too, visited this infamous establishment - or an establishment clearly based upon it. Now, at the time (though less so now) an important factor was that the drama should play out in the contemporary arena - and even at that time (fairly early in my spankophile development) I had realised I wanted to read of other fetishistic influences involved. Thus when Mr Manton (or Mason) talks about the woman running the above establishment and her helpers being dressed in "pseudo medical or clinical uniforms" (in one variation of the storyline - he wrote several, with various embellishments under various titles; some as novels in addition to the Janus articles such as 'Elaine Cox - A Well Reared Tomboy') my interest was well and truly roused, despite the historical context. But then that line is not followed through - other than to say that the uniforms added an air of legitimacy to the establishment. Disappointedly there are no descriptions provided of these presumably nurse or governess-like staff uniforms which might have aided the reader in grasping how the augmented gravitas provided by the authoritative styling, for example, might have aided the wearer in overcoming, cowering and quelling her charges. In short, there is little made of the psychological aspects at play enabling one human being to dominate another - albeit generally of more junior status (you'll note I don't necessarily say younger) - to the extent that the subservient character may be made to submit to physical punishment and all manner of restrictions, controls, stipulations and humiliations. The two-part Janus tale, 'Behind High Walls', on the other hand was set within a fictional private establishment or institution for errant wives and mistresses and within the contemporary period (1980s). Yet it too swerves off course in my eyes at the point at which the author talks about an inmate's incarceration as being for a 'short, sharp shock', and mentions an errant wife being released, to be returned at a later date while he (the husband) vacations - a little like leaving a pet at the kennels or cattery (which is nice, at a certain level). But what I had wanted to read of was some sort of open-ended residency, whereby release would only come about once some sort of requirement or stipulation had been met or a certain standard of behaviour modification had been brought about (if at all - but that is a whole different story... One of mine!). And then in 'Elaine Cox - A Well Reared Tomboy', set in a wonderful nineteenth century reformatory and so nearly perfect in places, we read of the eponymous heroine's "short pleated school skirt" - another annoyingly anachronistic detail. A shame really, because he details wonderfully how the reformatory master goes about ensuring Elaine's initially short sentence for some minor offence of perhaps a few months grows into a stay of five years or more! Few other writers even come close, though. But my favourite form of requirement or stipulation had always involved the signing away of an inheritance, money and / or property - nothing quite 'did it' like the haughty upturned-nosed heiress made a pauper and placed in service! It was an obsession which had sprung from an episode of the weekly children's TV drama, 'The Adventures of Black Beauty', loosely based on the famous Anna Sewell novel, of all places (no, really!). There was an episode involving a browbeaten young heiress being made to write a letter saying how well she was being treated and how nice she found her new home and mention of getting in a governess and how (referring to the girl's reaction to the governess) "... a few years of [the governess's} discipline and the silly little fool will sign anything put in front of her." Even at 14 or 15 years old the words 'Oh My God!' came to mind. Now the first real spanking novel I ever purchased - by post, arriving under the obligatory 'plain brown wrapper, - was a book simply titled 'Mandy'. On the surface it had everything, the heiress, the domineering older woman, uniforms and humiliation - even a schoolroom set up in the home. Then, just as it starts getting interesting, the author has the girl rescued, her nemesis goes off to jail, young Mandy is reunited with her boyfriend, and everyone lives happy ever after... A real limp thingy moment! But at least the writer doesn't kill her off or has her shipped out to some oil sheik! I quickly began to realise that what I really enjoyed about spanking or corporal punishment orientated literature required some sort of institutional aspect - so much can happen behind the walls of some suitably dark sinister institution that couldn't possibly go on in the home. And I realised that all the related aspects and details surrounding the imposition of strict discipline were as important, if not more so, than the spanking or caning itself. What I didn't want to read of were never-ending graphic accounts of inhuman beatings. What I did want to read were well fleshed-out accounts of the effects of all this on the girl's themselves, the imaginative integration of all manner of other interests, ideas and fetishes that might be grouped together neatly under the banner of discipline and control, psychological domination as much as physical restraint and the battle of wills between a teenage ward and her court appointed legal guardian or overly strict, overbearing governess, say, as her spirit is slowly and lovingly, curbed and then quenched.... The end point doesn't matter - perhaps it is best never to arrive - it is the journey that matters, the, scenery, the waypoints passed along the way. So, from the outset, when for the first time I set out to write my own stuff - initially for my own entertainment - a major aim of the project was always to go beyond the traditional world of corporal punishment as exemplified by the writing of some of my favourite authors, people such as Victor Bruno, Richard Manton et al, as much as I admired (and still admire) their work. I wanted to try to incorporate and explore a psychological aspect within the plot, both in terms of probing the mindsets of the protagonists - both from the point of view of the disciplinarian, and her charge - and in terms of the approach taken by the disciplinarian in imposing on her charge a strict disciplinary régime, itself based around behavioural correction by means of corporal punishment. Instead of the generally overdone rounds of over-the-knee hand spankings, over-the-desk canings and strappings and all those bare-bottomed birchings and beatings while fastened across the whipping block I had encountered in literature in the past - the sort of brutality "necessitating the application of smelling salts" - I desired to put greater emphasis on other, more imaginative forms of correction. Impositions such as the writing of lines, rote learning, strictly-decreed postural requirements such as having to sit for long periods with back straight and hands flat on the school desk or corner-standing with hands on head; all these torments and more I saw as having their part to play in curbing a spirited young lady - and I wanted to make more of that side of things. continued...
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