This gives my age away, but anyway... A long time ago little me arrived in London from the country and discovered all sorts of strange things.
Certainly, the strangest - and most wonderful - was that I wasn't alone. It seemed that other people were getting a sexual frisson from corporal punishment, giving and/or receiving. Or a bit of both.
I have to say that it made me feel a lot less uncomfortable about some of the thoughts that crossed my mind. I decided that getting all hot and bothered about getting my bottom all hot and bothered made no sense and I vowed to stop giving myself a hard time about it.
How old was I when this revelatory moment happened? Well, I was somewhere between 22 and 23, would you believe.
But I'm taking you back to a pre-internet age. Today, a young person with even a hint of spanko spirit can Google and discover all there is to know about TTWD, but in 1989 the red-bottomed facts of life were far harder to discover.
What my hometown didn't have were the sort of newspaper shops that sold porn magazines. In London, the top shelf in my ordinary street's newsagent was full of naughty mags and in among them were copies of Janus, Roue, and the like.
I didn't do more than look out of the corner of my eye at that self (which I couldn't have reached even if I'd been brave enough to try). But it was pretty clear from the slightly ambiguous cover images that some of the magazines there were about spanking.
Janus covers were the ones that really caught my eye. I'm sure that the guy who owned the shop noticed my blushes when I was taking a peep at Janus (or a furtive look at a copy of Blushes) and had me sussed.
Dana Kane touched on the idea of a spanko good old days recently and questioned when that might have been - pre-interent, or post-internet. Personally, I say it's defintiely now. It was only after the internet that the content of that top shelf became available to me because I never had the confidence to buy one of those magazines.
The other London discovery that took me by surprise was that all of the city's phone boxes were full of cards selling sexual services - and it was pretty clear from the pictures that red bottoms were a significant part of the exchange. Ever the social historian, Richard Windsor had the good sense to collect some and save at least a few for posterity.
The phone people would turn up and rip down the cards and almost straight away someone would arrive and new cards would go up to replace them. As a cub reporter I had to use public phones just about every day and found those cards very distracting.
What a treat, an undiscovered Benson. Or undiscovered for me anyway, because you may have seen it before - I hadn't.
And that's a bit of a surprise as I'm a bit of a Benson obsessive. I really thought I'd seen everything there was to see of his work that's published on the Net.
So, it's nice to have come across it on a new-to-me photoblog. Though I have to say that, unfortunately, it's not going to make it onto my personal Roger Benson all-time Top 10 for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, there's the fact that her hands are tied. For me bondage and spanking don't mix, the spankee should accept her (or his) need for punishment. I need to be there by my own choice, however reluctantly.
And then there's the teddy. By the looks of things something pretty unpleasant is about to happen with that switch and I don't think that's something a Teddy should have to see.
Anymore than teddy bears should have to be on stage with a twerking Miley Cyrus. It's a messy old world and I think we have a duty to see that Teddy bears don't get to know that.
Whack! The noise was so unexpected that I nearly jumped out of my skin, but a quick glance in the direction that it had come from suggested that the damage was minimal.
The road had been narrow and I'd been intimidated by a man in a van coming the other way, but impact was definitely my fault. But it look like I'd got away with it - the passenger door mirror was upside down, not off.
A few miles down the road I stopped and went round to straighten the mirror out and was horrified to discover that the plastic housing was gone, shattered to smithereens. Bad, but what made it worse is that this was my first solo outing in our lovely new (to us) VW Camper.
SO had waved me away the day before with the words "now don't bring my van back crunched..." I have to say I felt terrible and spent the rest of the journey home trying to work out how and when to break the news.
What happens next? In the wonderful world of spanko imagination I'd be driving home to a woodshed whipping that I'd never forget, wouldn't I? Of course, that didn't happen.
It turned out that SO was very understanding - accidents do happen. But I have had to pay. As it happens the day I messed up that mirror was the last day of the long school holidays and the next morning was the first time in more than a month that the house was kid-free.
By mutual agreement yours truly was heading for a long overdue attitude adjustment that I just couldn't wait to collect. Lots of little black marks had been noted over the weeks and the time had come to straighten things out.
When I heard the school bus heading off down the hill I went back to bed to talk things over. I feel awful about the van, I said, and SO said I should.
I feel like a deserve a REAL punishment. "Yes, you do." Something that I won't forget... And that's what I got.
I never understand how DD couples untangle TTWD from the stick and carrot stuff. In our house I pay my dues to society by NOT being spanked. SO got breakfast in bed and I've resolved to drive much more carefully in the future.
Certainly not the perfect picture I know, but I was in a bit of a hurry. Anyway, away on a work trip, SO emails to say I have a gift coming my way. There's some hints and some guessing and, to cut a long story short, I work out that it's a hairbrush.
A nice wooden hairbrush, just what I've been looking for. Perhaps even something from a little antique shop, I thought, and my imagination began to run away with me. Maybe this will be THE one...
So you can imagine how ticked off I was when my gift turned out to be "just a little joke". That is, both little and a joke - a hairbrush no longer than my index finger.
Now you know how important hairbrushes are to us, you understand their centrality in the spanko-iconography. The estimable Pandora Blake touched on the subject recently on her blog, saying: "Wooden hairbrushes are a huge part of my kink, and I fantasise about them all the time, quite possibly because
they are so evil and difficult to take in reality. Being my own worst
sadist, this is more than enough reason for me write myself lots of
wooden hairbrush spankings."
Exactly, and after all these years SO still doesn't get that. Is that depressing, or what?
...wallop. Is it just me, or is noise a vital part of the spanking experience? Quiet corporal punishment is like orchestral performance without the percussion section.
If you've spent time on this blog you'll know that volume is an issue in our house. SO is so terrified about being unmasked as a semi-willing participant in TTWD that a sound spanking for me often lacks sound.
So, yesterday we were blessed with one of those surprise no-kids days. Our girls decided to go shopping together, which is unusual. It's been a while since the opportunity has come along and I've been very bratty, so the normally reluctant SO was nearly itching to get switching.
And today's marks on my bot are testament to the fact that I got what I had coming. That whippy, green stick used was especially punishing when it found the tops of my legs, so no short shorts for a day or two.
The switch was chosen with noise-reduction in mind. It's so hot here at the moment that everyone has their windows open and that convinced SO that someone would hear us (even though our window was tightly shut).
Now to moan about the detail of what was a very satisfying afternoon encounter would appear to be ungrateful, I know. The sort of gracelessness that calls for a bit of old-fashioned correction, in fact.
But hey, SO doesn't come here so who cares. That switch stung like a dozen hornets, but it wasn't as all-round satisfying from a spanko pov as something really noisy would have been - a nice percussive paddle, hairbrush or rubber-soled sandal.
The blog Learning DD is a good source on the practicalities of everyday spanko life and has things to say about implements and noise here. Clint at Learning DD says "As a general rule, the less surface area of the buttocks the implement impacts, the quieter the spanking will be."
Btw, reading the post's comments I was green with envy with one from Jack's Jill who said: "We’re lucky that the kids have moved and my HoH can use whatever pleases
him without worrying about children in the house or others hearing. This gives him a great sense of freedom and me too. He can discipline me anywhere he pleases in the house and with what ever implement he wants." Sounds heavenly.
Anyway, for me the surface area thing is the seat of the issue (if you'll pardon the pun). I have lots of butt surface area and I want lots of it to get attention with each and every spank.
And the noise that the implement makes, and that I make as it does its work, is very much part of the exercise too. The thwick, thwick, thwick of a switch, a can, a Loopy Johnny or a tilt wand (?) isn't nearly as satisfying as the gunshot whack of slipper or paddle.
Personally, I'd prefer it if we look out the paddle and then threw open the windows and let the neighbourhood hear what a truly punishing spanking sounds like. But I think SO would die on the spot, so I suppose I'll just have to be happy with the quiet life.
Or brand spanking new? You get so used to a phrase that you don't question it, but then today I did. My first search engine question was to ask is it only us Brits that say it?
But it certainly seems to have currency beyond the UK otherwise why would this South African marketing company have decided that it's brand would benefit from being a little bit spanky?
But what's it all about? I heard someone say the phrase today and when I gave it some thought the best explanation I could come up with was that it had something to do with the old tradition of the midwife slapping a newborn baby to get it to breathe.
But a bit of Googling suggests that that's way off the mark.This definition makes a connection between the s-word, strutting Scandinavians and horses.
While here there's a link made between the sort of branding that cowboys do to cows. Off topic, personally, I don't really understand the whole fiction niche that sees big, rough cowboy heroes spanking the living daylights out of bratty girls in gingham; maybe you have to be American to get it.
But anyway, so far 'brand new' makes some sort of sense. But why the spanking? Apparently it's about our favourite word having two meanings.
Yes, there's the noun and verb one that involves the reddening of naughty bottoms, but there's more. Meaning number two is adj. 'exceptionally large or fine'.
Interesting. It turns out then that we've forgotten what it means, but we still like to use it. Personally, I think that just may be about the fact that all adult human beings have at least a little bit of spanko hidden deep inside and just like to have an excuse to say the word.
And then there's all the people like you and me who don't hide TTWD too deeply and just love any opportunity to say 'spanking' in vanilla situations. Anyway, from now on I intend to make full use of both of my favourite word's two definitions.
I'm planning to let SO know that from today I want my spankings to be spanking - that is 'exceptionally large or fine'. Or preferably, exceptionally large and fine...
You really do learn something everyday, don't you? And today's step towards enlightenment provides a scientific explanation for why a good hairbrush punches above its weight in the disciplinary sphere.
Physics was a real problem for me at school. Or put it another way, I was a real problem for my physics teacher (sorry Mr Hindmarch).
But since I discovered The Big Bang Theory I have been trying to understand what makes the universe tick, so today's insight was especially pleasurable. I stumbled across it while wasting a little work time in Tumblr-land at a blog called Who's Sorry Now, where Spanked2Tears appears to be mostly concerned with the interface between male bottoms and hairbrushes (in female hands) - but I guess the physics is much the same.
A blog visitor asks: "Why a hairbrush, does it
have anything to do with it just being available? Doesn't look like its
going to hurt actually."
And Spanked2Tears answers: "My personal take on it, is that the bristles act as
delayed mass. In other words they continue to decelerate after the wood
has stopped."
I was a bit puzzled at this point. Delayed mass? If only Mr Hindmarch had held my attention (or been more persuasive in demanding it). But S2T goes on to add: "Extending the duration of the impact. If you have ever seen
a shot hammer it’s the same theory. The hollow head of the hammer
contains small, loose lead balls. They land a moment after the head of
the hammer does and cause the blow to generate far more energy than a
regular hammer of the same weight..."
So, it's as simple as that - bristles extend duration of impact. I feel I now need to buy two identical hairbrushes, take the bristles off one and then get SO involved in some citizen science.
How would it work? A dozen with one brush on one butt cheek and a dozen on the other with the other brush, then rate redness?
Spanked2Tears does end on a point that's more about psychology than physics, saying: "I think that the allure of the
hairbrush is that it is such a common domestic item." And all that delaying of mass aside, that for me is what makes a good old-fashioned hairbrush THE number one implement for TTWD.
It's an object that is so fearfully stingy, but at the same time is so sweetly innocent. It can sit around the house, or the handbag, and mean nothing to the majority, but everything to those of us in the know.
