I do like an image that begs you to concoct a storyline around it. I have no idea what the original story was with this one but to me it's a very powerful and dramatic scene.
The older daughter has got herself into a serious scrape and thoroughly deserved the belting her father has just given her. They've gone through the usual ritual of allegedly affording her the privacy of getting the punishment in the privacy of her own bedroom, but she and her father will have both been fully aware that her younger sister in the next door room with the door open will have heard everything and probably found it highly entertaining to hear her big sister sobbing and begging him at every crack of his broad leather belt on her bare bottom.
And then, with the punishment officially over, he's stood her on the landing with her bright red bottom on display and told she's going to stand there for half an hour with her hands on her head. The stinging in her bottom may fade a little over that time but the ache in her arms will grow.
The ritual was that their father made a point of telling the younger sister that she was not to come out of her room to take a look unless she wanted to get the same. But the reality was that all three of them knew he would go downstairs and close the living room door and pretty soon curiosity would win out and she'd chance her arm to sneak out and peak a look.
She'd have a good giggle at the sight of her elder sibling, safe in the knowledge that she wasn't in a position to make a scene about it.
(Thanks to The Ruleset for this unusual and provocative picture.)
3 comments:
My goodness what a photo. My imagination does indeed run riot after that. But hold on a moment there are some strange things in that photo. What is that pump like thing bottom right? Why is the other girl apparently resting on several mattresses. is he a princess with a pea at the bottom?
Old Tom
Je merite la fessee
Bare red bottoms are a fact of life...
Wonderful narrative, James. Possibly one of your best already (IMHO)...powerful story and photo; but just a normal, routine scene in my life both as a child and as a mother raising two daughters. Corporal punishment was integral to my family experience and strong beliefs, and indeed to most families in our Church community already, in Georgia, USA. It was no big deal. Your comments always stimulate my thoughts, mostly retrospective for myself at age 60 already.
My mother told me and my lil' sis at a very young age (early 1960s) that bath times and spankings were just a normal routine in loving, Christian families...and both involved our bare botties ! Oh y ! That sure was a stark, scary warning. I love the picture of this naughty daughter, hands on head, jeans and panties pulled down as necessary, red bottom blazing - a symbol of defeat but also a symbol of loving, parental punishment suitably administered. I staunchly advocate this. So your narrative rings true already in both practice and principal.
With my own young naughty daughters, they gotten sent to the living room, I fetched the "switch" (a flexible, thin, rattan cane) and two pairs of lil' knickers had to came down for a whooping on a bare, white, sensitive-skinned backside without compromise or delay. That was the punishment.
I upheld my strict, conservative, traditional mommy-approved values on corporate punishment and their overall behaviour throughout their childhoods. They sure gotten bare botty whippings a bunch, not timeouts or wishy-washy modern nonsense...and I gotten the same harsh medicine as a child. It sure whipped me into shape, James.
My girls (now aged 30s) are pro-spanking, and thank me for my strict, old-fashioned ways. That sure makes me happy. It is common in Southern culture for no resentment to exist between mother & father/daughter relationships regarding spankings. We all talk about it a lot now. The Georgia/Southern culture is different to UK & Europe. Although when I was born in 1959, and gotten strictly raised in a religious family, the CP in UK & Europe was then similar to that which I gotten from my mother.
Just a few facts - I do crave authenticity, James. Oh my ! Your Blog gives me pretty darn good feelings of factual content & context - not fantasy. Authenticity, as you know, is hard to find. So thank you.
Well, the facts re this awesome photo and scene are: I did not actually do corner time myself as a child - my mother found it humiliating for me and my sister. The humbling of "panties down for smacking" was necessary for effective punishment, but corner time was not given. That might seem strange, as my friends sure gotten it. And so the same "no corner time" for my own daughters, naturally followed from me in the 1980s/1990s. Oh my ! I always bared their bottoms for the cane (panties to knees only), but never sent them to the corner. Just to their bedrooms with an unbearable sting on a red, sore hiney already. Job done.
Second, I never gotten the leather strap, growing up. Again surprising as it was a Southern stalwart. Mom & dad used the hairbrush & wooden soon and then from age 8, we gotten the dreaded cane - stung like Hell on Earth on a bare hiney. Ditto: I punished my girls the same - the "botty smackers" were the hairbrush and rubber spatula in early years and then the cane (age 8), over the knee and then over the sofa...applied to the sensitive, bare skin on their bottoms always. That goes without saying.
Oh my ! The "hornets nest" dropped on a tender, bare bum sure was/is a loving mother's chastisement - harsh, fair and completely harmless. Lessons gotten learned.
Regards & thank you, James.
Brenda xx
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