The Library of Spanking Fiction: Wellred Weekly
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Articles
Items of interest regarding all things spanking
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The Psychology of Spankings - Part 1 (cont) The Social Psychology Of Spankings In terms of social structure, a spanking is a social event involving a dyad that consists of a spanker and a spankee. Whether consensual or not, the spanker enacts the sadomasochistic role of a dominant while the spankee enacts the role of submissive. In Sadomasochistic Role-Playing as Live-Action Role-Playing: A Trait-Descriptive Analysis, Finnish scholar J. Tuomas Harviainen of the University of Tampere argues that all sadomasochistic activities have elements of role-playing. A spanking is a type of "game" where players enact certain roles in a semi-ritualized manner. Among consenting adults, sadomasochistic role-playing is constructed to enhance the pleasure of both participants. When a child is spanked, he or she is not exactly consenting in the same way that an adult submissive consents to a sadomasochistic activity. Because spankings are often given in the heat of the moment, the child knows instinctively that a certain amount of cooperation may reduce the severity of the punishment. So out of self-interest (a less-severe spanking), a desire to please a loved one who is doing the spanking, compliance with social norms of the family or school, or some combination of all three, the child plays the role of a submissive in the ritualized game of corporal punishment. Thus, the spanking adult and spanked child form a dyad where sadomasochistic role-playing is a predominant theme. The child may be asked to fetch a spanking implement. The spanker may shame the child by forcing the spankee to stand or sit in a corner, either before or after the spanking. Sometimes, corner time involves the child standing or sitting with the buttocks exposed. A special room of the house may be reserved for the spanking ritual. The parent may require the child to request his or her own spanking, as a way of clarifying the submissiveness of the child's role.  Indeed, how-to parenting books such as Roy Lessin's Spanking: Why When How? reads very much like soft-core pornography for those with the spanking fetish. In Lessin's sadomasochistic theater (the home), Christian children are expected to submit graciously to spankings. If they don't submit graciously, such willful children must be spanked and spanked again. Lessin's own daughter needed several such additional spankings before she learned her proper role in the father/daughter sadomasochistic ritual. After multiple spankings for lack of submissiveness, Lessin speaks glowingly of the daughter he finally dominated in the precise sense of the word. "Instead of fighting and resisting, [his daughter] took a posture that revealed an inward attitude of willingness to receive correction." Her willingness to submit to spankings "was responsible for bringing a special sweetness and happiness into her entire disposition."A child is supposed to be spanked hard enough to break down the child's resistance: "Wait for the proper cry." Lessin even provides a "spank-o-meter," with a needle that swings from a "cry of protest or anger" to a "cry of repentance." Parents are admonished to make that needle swing into the high zone, till a cry of repentance is beaten out of the child. A too-soft spanking leaves the spanked child "only angered." The parent must dominate the child; the will of the child must be crushed. Lessin's how-to guide for spanking children is targeted at fundamentalist Christians, who may or may not be consciously sadomasochists. But the sadomasochistic subtext in parenting guides such as Lessin's book is blatant. In one of the numerous spanking scenes that Lessin describes, his wife had just given their son a "quick" spanking on the seat of his pants for some unspecified misdeed. "Mommy, could you spank me again?" the boy asks his mother after her initial enactment of the sadomasochistic ritual. "Only this time let me pull down my jeans. It didn't hurt enough." The Sociology & Ideology Of Spankings In 2011, 23-year-old Hillary Adams posted a video of a 7-minute whipping she received from her father, William Adams. She recorded the video in 2004, when she was 16. Her crime? Illegal file sharing on the Internet. At the time of the whipping, her father was a judge in Texas who adjudicates child abuse cases. Before reading the rest of this piece, please view this video on YouTube. Useful search terms are "Hillary Adams." Unlike Roy Lessin's daughter, 16-year-old Hillary Adams does not lie down submissively on her bed so she can be whipped properly with a belt. Indeed, her lack of submissiveness seems to drive Judge Adams into a whipping frenzy. At 1:21 minutes into the video clip, the angry father demands that Hillary "bend over the fucking bed." When she still refuses to assume the role of the submissive in her father's sadomasochistic ritual, he threatens to whip her face with the belt. Instead, he whips her legs and arms, leaving bruises the next day. When Hillary told her father the next day that it hurt to walk, he replied, "Good." Hallie Adams, the girl's mother, intercedes in the ritual. Hallie Adams demands that her daughter roll over on her stomach for a single solid lash with the strap. At 2:15 minutes, Hallie shouts, "Turn over like a 16-year-old and take it! Like a grown woman!" One is left to speculate on the role of the judge's belt in Mrs. Adams' sexual relationship with her husband (now divorced). When Hillary rolls over on her bed, her mother takes the strap back over her shoulder and lashes her daughter's buttocks. "Thank you!" says the mother as her daughter cries. The father returns in a few minutes to whip the teenager some more.  The judge was not indicted for any state or federal crimes. If the judge had assaulted anyone other than his child, there would be no question that Judge Adams committed criminal assault. Whipping people with a belt to punish is not allowed in the military, in prisons, in mental institutions, or in other settings known for sadomasochistic rituals enacted in the guise of discipline. The Adams family case study is a perfect microcosm of the sociology and authoritarian ideology of spankings. Authoritarian societies are those organized around the core concept of submission to authority. Authoritarian societies are fundamentally anti-democratic in that the equality implicit in the right of every one of us to vote for the laws that govern us is the antithesis of the authoritarian social order. In psychology, the authoritarian personality was developed to identify people with personality traits in synch with authoritarian social orders, such as Nazi Germany. While that original conceptualization is largely rejected by most psychologists today, American researchers have conducted studies that use the Right Wing Authoritarian concept as a way of describing survey measures of submission to authority, aggression toward minorities, and adherence to the values espoused by those they consider legitimate authority. Fantasy sadomasochistic role-playing often takes on the trappings of authoritarian social settings, such as prisons, Catholic schools or convents, or slave quarters. The Hillary Adams incident happened in Texas. Noteworthy, Texas has one of the worst human rights records on the planet, when the infliction of capital punishment is used as an indicator. In 2007, China executed 470 people, Iran executed 317 people, Saudi Arabia executed 143 people, Pakistan executed 135 people, the Democratic Republic of the Congo executed 100 people, Egypt executed 48 people, and the United States of America executed 42 people. Of the 42 American executions, Texas executed 26 people, well over half. Even though the United States generates lists of offending nations around the world for human rights violations, the United States of America ranks seventh on the planet with regard to this fundamental violation of human rights. In the USA, Texas is the worst offender. Texas also leads the nation with the most children paddled at school. Of the 223,190 U.S. school paddlings in 2008, teachers and principals in Texas paddled 49,197 children or 22%. In Texas, parents can request that school personnel not hit their children, but Texas state law permits paddlings of children even over parental objections. Texas is a slave state. Slavery is a key issue, because it demystifies much about spanking, spousal abuse, Christian "family values," and the authoritarian social order. The paddle was invented as a way to punish slaves. Whipping slaves with a bullwhip broke the skin and reduced the value of the merchandise. Paddlings bruised the buttocks and excruciating pain could be inflicted. However, the retail value of the "product" was not damaged in the process. Hallie Adams' demand that her daughter take her whipping "like a woman" reflects -- in three words -- the social order in authoritarian systems rooted in Christian fundamentalism. Slave-state Christians are not the only authoritarian folks around, but they provide the saturated case for a social order that places the authoritarian family structure as the fundamental unit of a society based on authoritarianism. This authoritarianism reflects the way God has ordered the universe. In the fundamentalist Christian home, the wife is subordinate to the husband. The children are subordinate to the father and to the mother in her subordinate role as the helper of the father. Prior to 1863, slaves on a plantation were subordinate as well to the master and father, just as all good Christians are subordinate to the master and father in heaven. Beating of slaves was but one way to maintain the authoritarian social order. Castrations and hangings could impose the social order on non-submissive slaves, just as Judge Adams' belt imposed the authoritarian family social order on uncooperative 16-year-old Hillary Adams. 35 comments
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