Site FAQ
CP/SM links
My profile
My thoughts
Please consider
a donation to
my homepage
a donation to
my homepage
(If you are not using an up-to-date browser then click here !)
It's J.S. Bach "Aus tiefer Not schrei' ich dir" BWV 686 (in a midi piano reduction by Gary Bricault) or "I Call to You Out of Deep Distress", which somehow seemed very appropriate !
To extend this thesis by analogy to a human drive or need to maintain social order by accepting corporal punishment from an authority figure would probably be very unwise, but it is a primal, deep-rooted emotion in many of us who seek out and enjoy discipline as adults, whether after positive or negative childhood experiences or even none at all in our family or educational upbringing. The variety and inconsistency of this experience all leading to fetish is astonishing, as is the range of reasons that this activity is sought out in adulthood: it may be for the purely sexual response to restraint or the intense physical sensations of discipline or even just to the mental state of submission to a dominant authority figure (possibly in combination), whether with or without overt roleplaying or explicit props or uniforms to recreate a real or imagined incident or fantasy scenario. It may also sometimes be a desire to submit to a strictly ordered and physically disciplined framework maintained at home or at work by a dominant and trusted partner, perhaps as a retreat to the simpler joys of a remembered childhood with the safety and reassurance of rules and boundaries but without adult responsibilities.
The wish of someone to simply experience the physical sensations of discipline without the need for an external fantasy or scenario should not be underestimated - it is a fact that physical punishment by itself can lead to sexual arousal. Blows to the buttocks can lead to the shockwaves passing through the body tissues directly into the groin area, and in a long session it is often possible for a "sweet spot" to be found by the one giving punishment where the resulting stimulation for their partner is focussed so precisely in the genitals that each stroke there simply adds massively to the pleasure rather than pain being felt. The role of the body's own chemical response to pain and stress, beyond the relatively well-understood adrenaline and endorphin production that is known to give a "high" to one receiving punishment, is also being researched more fully. Many people who have experienced both say that the response to a good dose of CP can be very similar to an athlete's or runner's "high", and the following highly interesting article appeared recently in the UK - one could easily extrapolate from all these facts the perhaps controversial theory that CP is in fact "good" for you !
"The 'runner's high' has long baffled researchers. Now a team at Nottingham Trent University has identified a substance called phenylethylamine, which could be responsible for the antidepressant effect of physical exertion. The substance is a close relative of amphetamine, or 'speed'. The study found that a breakdown product of phenylethylamine was present in significant quantities in the urine of young men after heavy exercise." (Sunday Times newspaper 21/10/2001)
It is however a fact that there is little sympathy for the physical discipline of children, whether by the family or the state and however moderated, almost everywhere in Western society now. Certainly the activities of STOPP in the UK and similar groups against corporal punishment in schools and at home, with the entirely laudable goal of preventing child abuse by adults, has led to legal and social changes that make unbiased discussion of these issues almost impossible now. There are other forums for this topic (for instance this BBC discussion page on smacking and also this BBC discussion page on school CP) and those interested can study a fine and comprehensive historical media archive at Colin Farrell's World Corporal Punishment Research Website which has many invaluable external links worth following up. For the record, I do not believe that the very small amount of discipline in my childhood mentioned below made a significant difference to my own generally moral and socially responsible disposition as a child, teen and now adult. That was much more likely to be due to a fortunately comfortable social background, a mildly religious upbringing (that I rejected for atheism quite early on as a teen) and extremely loving, stable and supportive parenting that set good examples of behaviour.
I do however understand the powerful arguments of those older than me who lived through the first half of the last century into the 1960s, when moderate, proportionate family and school chastisement was accepted by most children and teenagers (however ruefully ! although no doubt partly because it was condoned and even glorified by considerable peer pressure and the fiction - film, books and comics - of the day), and this certainly seemed to encourage a healthy attitude to authority that was of benefit to society in general. Their positive experiences as children and often parents in their own turn lead them to cite the lack of that discipline from modern parents and the gradual eradication of corporal punishment in the education system as one of the major factors, compounded now in a second and third generation, of the perceived lawlessness of some modern communities and a general breakdown of social responsibility. Others will argue, equally compellingly, that the widespread physical and mental abuse of children often covered by that status quo was not a price worth paying for order and stability.
Could childhoods in which initiative and curiosity were often rewarded with brutal and unjust punishment, not just misbehaviour, have added to the unwillingness of some less privileged parts of that society (combined with the lack of information and relative difficulty of access at the time) to question the actions and motives of the authorities ? How much of the social revolution in the 1960s might be attributed to a rejection of this type of systematic oppression of the young ? (viz. elements of the notorious "Oz" magazine trial and later Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and the film "If . . ." etc.)
An interesting aspect of this antipathy to corporal punishment, not to mention the widely misconceived idea that an interest equates to a desire to physically abuse children, is the reluctance that many of those with a discipline fetish have to "come out" and declare or discuss it openly, for gay men even with those close friends who may be aware and accepting of their homosexuality. This is not helped by occurrences such as the infamous Spanner trial in the UK, when the legal status of consenting sadomasochistic sex was called into question for the first time here after participants in an SM orgy were prosecuted not merely for having had gay sex with more than one partner in private (illegal at the time) but for assault, having inflicted consensual but serious injury on each other.
This makes discipline a rather "underground" fetish still and does, from anecdote and even some of my own experiences mentioned below, lead to difficulties for many in establishing and maintaining stable relationships, both straight and gay. Rather than adding my own comments on this important issue, I have reproduced here an excellent essay I discovered in the advice archives at www.alt.com, the fetish personals site. Despite the focus on male/female activities I completely agree with the anonymous (female) author's argument and sentiments: It's a Spanko Thing . . .
I do know that my own interest developed very early, as I remember dreams when I was very young of being a teacher or headmaster - that was definitely what I wanted to be because they got to punish naughty boys, pulling down their trousers and underpants and caning their bare bottoms according to a fixed scale of different penalties I devised for various misdemeanours. I remember these specific details, which is amazing because I never normally remember my dreams ! I was definitely attracted to other boys at primary school rather than girls, one (another Ian !) I still remember in particular, so my being gay must have already been fixed by then. I remember seeing the elderly headmistress at my primary school spank another boy in class, but not bare, and there was an incident (maybe related, unbelievably bold in hindsight) where I got a boy to spank me across his lap in the open cloakroom !! How I persuaded him or how we avoided getting caught has sadly faded from my memory now.
Although I can trace my interest and pre-sexual fantasies going way back to these early schooldays, one aspect I am sure comes from home. I definitely have a thing about leather, not in the usual SM way but specifically belts and straps (including traditional Scottish tawses and the American razor strop that I have yet to meet !). My Dad occasionally threatened my brother and I with the long leather belt that he kept hanging up in the cupboard under our stairs, but I really don't remember him ever using it on either of us - it was very thin and wouldn't have been terribly effective. Ever since then I have had a fascination with the real or imagined effect of a good leather strapping on my own, or another's, naked bottom ! As a teenager of maybe 14/15, beyond parental spankings, I even tried once or twice to get my younger brother to whip me with my own belt as I bent over a chairback in our bedroom when our parents were out at church. He didn't enjoy it much though and I couldn't properly explain to him why I wanted this - we didn't have any other sexual or discipline contact.
Of course, the childrens' comics and literature of the time had a lot of home and school punishment references (the "Beano" of the time was legendary !), even down to pre-school - Noddy was always getting spanked by Big-Ears, wasn't he ? Childrens' TV often reflected that, especially in drama serials from abroad, whether implied or shown explicitly on screen. I recall the switching scene in the Canadian version of "Huck Finn and Friends" and many Aussie and Kiwi series proved well worth watching . . . The most memorable experience though, from when I must have been very young, perhaps seven if I saw the first transmission, was seeing the caning scene enacted in the BBC's 1970's production of "Tom Brown's Schooldays", something I recently enjoyed the opportunity of watching again ! This has now been released by the BBC on DVD at last, so it is possible for more people to see just how powerful this image was. I can scarcely imagine what it might have been like to an impressionable seven year-old !
I grew up devouring all the ubiquitous public school fiction that I could find, with its rose-tinted view of prefects, fagging, birching and caning by tyrannical headmasters, although somehow I never came across "Boy" by Roald Dahl at the time. My mother had quite a lot of abridged/easy-read books in the house when she was working actively with the Adult Literacy programme, and some of those were great reading ! There was a super Chaplin auto-biography which described his experiences with his brother in the workhouse when he was a child (many very strict public beatings) and one called "Old Mali and the Boy" where in the first few pages the Boy and his friends get caned for scrumping, naked in their dormitory, by the headmaster in an old Indian Colonial school. Back then in deepest puberty it was all fuel to the fire, although actually that Old Mali one was a full Molotov Cocktail !!
Somewhere in those hormone-laden years I somehow developed fantasies of bondage with punishment, generally the more restrictive and exposing the better, e.g. arms and legs tied to four corners of a bed stretched over a couple of nice plump pillows. My ultimate bondage goal, however, would be to own an authentic old school vaulting horse, nicely equipped with wrist and ankle restraints. See Can you help me ? if you think you could assist me to find one . . .
Unfortunately I didn't go to a public school. I was such a swot anyway at school that even if corporal punishment had still been around at the time it's unlikely that I would have been on the receiving end myself. I DID get to witness punishment at my comprehensive school, however ! Our metalwork teacher kept an old metal ruler called Sting especially for boys who forgot their overalls - "Are you a man or a mouse" he'd ask, giving you a choice as he was really supposed only to hand out a demerit point. One boy (he was actually the son of one of the teachers) with a really prominent bottom always seemed to forget his and three or four times he ended up bent right over a stool feeling that stiff ruler stinging across his really tight trousers. It wasn't the only stiff thing in that room, for sure ! ! It was a fantastic sight, and I was always lucky enough to be on the right side of the class to get a bum-side view ! I've always believed that he wasn't just stupid or forgetful, but wanted it - I'll probably never know. Unlike some young gay men I was too shy to try anything on with him or any of the other guys at school, especially the one I was really in love with . . .
Ah, young lust ! In between my obsessions with spanking and bondage (generally with me as victim) my 5th and 6th Form years at school were dominated by fantasies of Lance . . . He was the year's most eligible boy, in all the school sports teams (stereotype !) with an amazing slim muscled body that he insisted on showing off by wearing the most skin-tight trousers and the skimpiest swimming trunks. I couldn't take my eyes off him - I dream about those legs and that beautiful ass even now !! I even took up cross-country running (which I hated !) in order to go on runs with him - yes, just the two of us !! Although he was a year older, more mature, more developed, we were in the same A level classes, often sitting together. I once even heard him joke in passing that he might be homosexual, so he might have been open to an offer ! I was just too shy and nerdy to hope for success, so I missed the opportunity as I was too scared of the consequences if I was wrong. What more can I say ? I was "coming out" back then to just one or two of my closest friends, secretly, and it was all a great teenage angst drama for me ! I'd still like to get in touch with him after all these years and tell him about it - maybe . . .
Oddly enough I started to explore CP even before I dared to start exploring gay sex, as it must have seemed at the time the more powerful sexual drive. It really started when I subscribed to a magazine (an A5 dot-matrix printed, badly edited and badly photocopied rag actually) called "SIR" from a small ad in a gay paper. Despite the poor quality they made fascinating reading that hit my erogenous zone spot-on ! Most of the stories and the very good cartoons from it will eventually be archived here on this site - keep checking The SIR archive for current progress. If anyone reading this still has old copies of similar magazines from the 1980s such as "REPORT" or "Corporal Contacts" then I'd be extremely interested to hear from you as I'd eventually like to collate the contents for this website - see Can you help me ?
I was amazed that there were people with my interest out there, but I was very frightened to make any contact, then only 18 and at the time still under-age for gay sex. One of the ads in it was from a mature guy offering spankings and the reassuring way it was phrased (and the fact somehow that it was a half-page box ad rather than a line ad) caught my eye. I finally got up the courage to phone him and meet him in the East End of London - he was about 60, living in one room of a tiny two-roomed council flat, the other made into an SM playroom which I never saw inside. He was a fascinating man with an incredible history, a Samaritans volunteer who knew just how to put me at my ease and helped me put my thoughts and feelings into words for the very first time. To cut a long story short, we talked for hours about what I wanted but I chickened out of actually doing anything there and then. I returned however a week or so later when I knew I just had to go through with it, and he gave me the most perfect, the gentlest yet finally wonderfully stinging introduction to erotic adult CP you could hope for.
It was all about warm-up, gauging the reactions to perfection so that he stopped the split second just before you asked him to, building up wave after wave of sensation so that you surfed gradually further out on each wave feeling safe and supported, until before you knew it you were in that DEEP water you were always frightened of but you couldn't believe you had got there already, being properly whipped. It was exhilarating ! I was just leaning over an ordinary kitchen stool on some pillows with only a jockstrap on. He used a really wicked old ex-Army strap, heavy and solid, and the most flexible old school cane (thick as a middle finger) that you could ever imagine (kept very well soaked in Linseed oil, I think), but not once too hard so you were never frightened. The cane he only used bastinado, which means that instead of individual heavy strokes you just tap it fast and light using the natural bounce of the rattan - as you got used to that the force could be easily adjusted so that quickly it was very hard yet you were never really feeling the individual strokes but only the "average" overall sting.
He took a polaroid afterwards of my fiery red bum for his album, but we didn't have any sex and we only ever met those two times. From his stories and the evidence of the photo album he was extremely popular with young guys/older boys and I know why. It wasn't really punishment, but stimulation in the purest sense - it was a fantastic lesson to learn, especially as my first real erotic CP experience, and I will be eternally grateful to him for it as he honestly did change my life . . .
I've tried to use what he taught ever since in my own encounters and I have always been gratified how others have enjoyed the approach as much as I did, as it makes for a definitely erotic rather than a merely painful experience. I became more confident and exacting in what I was looking for in my small ads, and quickly had a lot of mostly very good experience with a number of very interesting people of all ages, underlining for me the sheer range of lifestyles and backgrounds making up the discipline subculture. Sex was not always part of the deal - I became used to separating it from discipline rather than integrating it. Similarly, discipline was often sidelined in my purely amorous encounters as I explored the more "vanilla" side of my nature in bars and clubs.
However, one of the most perfect CP encounters I ever had was with another, much younger East End lad I met a few times, not particularly dominant but extremely friendly and with a very similar interest to my own. After I'd enjoyed putting him in restraints and working his bottom over nicely with a few good leather straps, he did the switch and returned the favour ! He tied me up on his bed, arms cuffed behind my back, my legs stretched wide and my naked ass raised and completely exposed, then he paddled and strapped me gradually to that incredible point where you can't quite feel the pain any more, only the natural body endorphins (adrenaline and pain-killers) cutting in and giving you a high. I asked him to go on and on until I was so utterly turned on that I begged him to fuck me, which was quite unusual for me in this situation. He was completely unprepared for it, so by the time he found the condom . . . It was great though ! Even so, it was a fairly unusual encounter which just happened to have a perfect dynamic.
The psychology of wrapping discipline in a shared dramatic fantasy (perhaps dressing up and play-acting as schoolboy and teacher/prefect, dad and son or footballer and coach, etc.) is fascinating. For example, I never went to a public or private school so I don't know whether I really would have enjoyed being a young gay kid in that all-boy environment, with all the fagging, vicious prefects and powerful teachers looking for an excuse to swish a cane . . . In reality it would probably have been very different by the time I would have attended, but even though it is a perfect erotic fantasy I know it simply can't be recreated for me with a few words, short trousers, a school blazer and a desk, however good the person giving the caning or the quality of the oak-panelling in the room ! I will always be handicapped by never having actually been to such a public school, so to recreate that REAL experience from scratch will always be impossible from just those few cues. In a way I envy those who did grow up there, for whom only a few visual cues and appropriate dialogue may bring back a whole host of stored memories, feelings and even smells to enhance the erotic charge of the scenario.
Having some luck with your choice of contacts in the first place always helps build a
successful scene ! I've got two excellent examples. Recently, I was introduced to someone who
was ostensibly helping me with some career enquiries, but I was informed helpfully that he was
into SM and used to be a teacher (now 40ish). You can imagine my interest ! For our first meeting
I got a short haircut, had the extra long bath with the perfect shave, wore the most boyish yet
masculinely stylish clothes I could think of (white poloneck, faded Levi 501s, classy suede
jacket) and worked myself up to a complete frenzy imagining the way the pub meeting we would have
might progress . . . We had a great time in the pub and he was a really really nice guy,
but he just wasn't quite, well, tough enough or masterful in any way ! All that effort and I just
couldn't bring myself to say what I really wanted to - I knew that it just wouldn't work for me
in my head even if he was attracted and our fantasies clicked - the dynamic wasn't there.
It was SO frustrating !! (I read through a lot of the stories in The Jimka archive, now
The second example is the complete opposite. The second magazine I subscribed to was called "REPORT" and I got to know the young editor quite well until he moved suddenly and we lost contact (I'm glad to say we're back in touch now). He introduced me to a few people including one regular contributor, with whom I had one session where he beat me literally black and blue ! In fact I started off getting more than I bargained for, as I proudly showed off to him some sexy shorts I'd found and "borrowed" a few weeks before from an empty boys' changing room when I was giving a concert at a school ! He decided that he REALLY had a reason to punish me, for stealing, and that was a very hard extra bare spanking plus some stinging extra strokes with the cane because I took too long to take my pants down . . .
So it was my own fault, really, but it was not at all pleasant - I was just gritting my teeth and trying to tell myself that I should be enjoying it. Finally he put me over a sort of horse contraption and thrashed me with my big tough strap - I was so glad that he let me keep my trousers on for that, although I knew that he wanted me to have it naked ! I didn't cry, but for some reason I just got extremely angry !! Maybe at a different time and place the beating would have turned me on and made me react differently, but there was something about the dynamic between us on that occasion that went very badly wrong - it certainly wasn't either erotic or fun. At the end of the day, though, I just chalked it up to a bad experience - I had agreed to submit to him and I did, and I'd wanted to see for myself just how much I could take.
Changing the tone after an initial meeting and starting the discipline in an encounter is often the most difficult thing - just getting over that mental barrier of deciding that you're going to do it. It's hard to change the subject to wanting to be whipped over a nice cup of tea and a biscuit ! In one situation a guy I met simply put on some good spanking videos from Man's Hand Films and Control T Studios and waited for me to get into it - it didn't take too long for me to get over my nervousness and into the idea, and we had an excellent time, especially when I discovered to my astonishment (I have no interest in soccer at all) that I quite liked dressing up in the tight football gear he had ! I think it was a Manchester United kit - I felt really boyish and sexy in a jockstrap and those little red shorts, and when he knelt me over, pulled them down and shaved my hairy ass before he spanked it - WOW !! Having my ass shaved makes me feel really, really good. It's not just the feel of the razor stroking it as it's being done, but the ultra-naked silky smooth feeling afterward as you bend over and really feel each breath of cold air in every exposed crevice and the caress of a firm hand or the first light, teasing tap of a whippy cane on a completely bare cheek . . .
Getting back to the subject of beginning a scene, there is a really good series of gay SM novels by the American writer John Preston ("I Once Had a Master", "The Love of a Master" and "Entertainment for a Master") where he clearly explains the psychology of what's going on along with the excellent descriptions of each encounter. In one section he describes the otherwise "normal" relationship between two men, a classic young gay Californian couple, but they have a physical boundary beyond which the tone is instantly different. In any other part of their house they operate as equals, but once through the door to the cellar, which is their dungeon playroom, they are strictly Master and Slave and the dynamic instantly changes - their way of initiating a scenario was simply to walk through the door.
This means of separating the ordinary and mundane from the erotic contrasts greatly with the
choice of some interested in submission to enter a full-time contract of what is often known
as Total Power Exchange. They usually give over complete authority and responsibility for
their entire home life and the rules they live by to a trusted partner, where there is no
day-to-day negotiation of the rules and punishments but unquestioned acceptance of whatever is
decided by the dominant partner. Clearly I am oversimplifying here somewhat, as this is outside
my direct experience, but many good (and some true) stories on this subject can be found in
The ultimate literary expression of this type of complete immersion in submission, 24 hours a day, is certainly the amazing "Beauty" trio of fantasy SM novels by Anne Rice (better known for her "Interview With a Vampire" book series) written under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure - this widely available set cannot be recommended highly enough and should be on every male and female spankophile's erotic bookshelf !
Clearly there is give and take (hence my use of the word "dynamic") - the submissive has already indicated consent by accepting discipline and should not feel the need to have to veto or restrict the activity of the one giving the discipline, who in turn should operate with reason and respect for the one being disciplined. While individuals have different needs and expectations, for me the whole point is that you are submitting to the will and choice of the person punishing you, and maybe playing that game with yourself where you see if you were really as tough as you thought. To be frank, if you can't take the heat (on your butt) then don't get yourself sent to the woodshed !
At the end of the day you have to be willing to give up control of the situation and allow yourself to simply experience and trust, and maybe find new limits for yourself in the process. If you can't trust people to stay within the limits you want to impose on them then your encounters are always going to be a bit frustrating, as you will never be able to "let go" in true submission, which can be awesome and beyond erotic ! Although some might want to endure extremes of pure pain in the pursuit of a scenario, for me it is important that it should be FUN - for both of you, and not just afterwards but during the session too - reality CAN be better than fantasy !!
For some submissives the thrill of the unknown, new experiences from new Masters, is more
important than the safety and trust factors, while many prefer to build long-term friendships
and active relationships, whether social/sexual or not, in which trust and familiarity allows
new nuances of shared exploration to enhance and spice up their activities in a safe environment.
The sheer variety of the situations people seek and the vast range of relationships represented
within CP scenarios, from the ultimate distance and separation of a military or judicial scene
through the friendly cop giving an alternative to a speeding ticket all the way to the most intimate
family bonding of a "Dad" and "Son", can be staggering. My own frequent dips into
As a British reader, the very different experiences of the mainly American writers is refreshing, and I have developed an appreciation for a strongly consistent theme from some of them of a familial setting quite different from the one I grew up in, yet strangely attractive and almost ideal - the rational, loving although strict Dad with a mutually agreed contract with his son where the fairly earned punishment for errant behaviour is accepted willingly, even if not eagerly ! I have now started to include some of my favourite stories on this subject here, by the author Cal - do check out Cal's story listings page. I sometimes wish I'd had more discipline as a kid if I could have had it like that . . .
Finally, I am now 35 and could be considered to be approaching middle age (although I don't feel it !) - for how much longer can I consider myself a "boy" ? The increasing gap between my internal fantasy of me being spanked as a teen and my real age, a sort of "suspension of age belief", can surely only stretch so far before I have to radically reappraise my approach and my advertising ! As an analogy, I am reminded of a chapter in a great book I read a long time ago by Edmund White called "States of Desire: Travels in Gay America" (sadly now out of print) in which the author visited different American states and described the predominant gay scene in each one, which obviously varied greatly from the meat-market backroom bars of New York to the highly closeted, intimate and secretive social circles in the southern states where gay sex is (or was) still illegal. He described the plight of gay men in the Deep South where until their late twenties they are "Southern Belles", expected to be effeminate and partnered like a young woman by an older macho man, but overnight at thirty or thereabouts they must swap roles with no transition and become that older man, finally too old to play the "girl" any more in that society.
Will I grow up and beyond the point that I feel that I can realistically play "boy" any more, which is what I think I still need and want from time to time ? I hope not - I am encouraged by the many examples I have seen in photos and fiction on the 'Net of older men getting just as much attention to their disobedient behinds, and I look forward to hearing from any of you willing to pass on your experiences. I know that in reality my age will not be a problem for the right guy, so if you're out there "Dad" and think you could cope with a new "son" . . . I'm always looking to make good new friends - as a gay man I feel they are as important as the family most of us will never have - so don't be shy to get in touch to find out even more about me, to discuss any of these musings or to comment usefully on my site. As long as the right of adults to seek out and enjoy getting a good spanking, and more, is not completely eroded away . . .
|
|
Site FAQ |
CP/SM links |
My profileMy thoughts |
|
