The "T" Word

It will come as no surprise to my regular blog-viewers that I maintain a folder of images to use in future "Favourite of the month" posts. It provides for a handy filtration tool - often I put something into that folder and then later on, sometimes just as it comes up to the moment that image is due to be posted, I change my mind and decide the image just doesn't quite make the cut. This one is different, in that my initial impression was this might be a candidate, but then I ruled it out of ever making the folder for one massive reason. The tattoo. For me, it just spoils the whole scene. I realise that some people really love tattoos and others would think I'm being too picky. But, hey, it has to be a personal favourite for me and I can't put it in that category for that one simple reason. Just wondering how others feels about this.

  

Hypothetical dilemma (3)

 Okay, so it's time for another hypoethical dilemma for us all to turn our (slightly warped!) minds towards. This one is based on an actual factual event I experienced in my school days so I'll tell you about that first. For the benefit of those who may not be overly familiar with my history, I was at school in the UK during the era when corporal punishment was just about beginning to decline but was far from unusual. Between the ages of eight and eleven I attended an all-boys school where fairly mild corporal punishment was routinely dished out in the classroom environment - things like a single hard swat with a plimsoll or stick across your trousers as you touched your toes at the front of the class.

One day our regular class teacher was unavoidably away, engaged in duties elsewhere - the school managed to arrange for different teachers to cover all of our classes apart from one. At the start of that particular class the senior teacher came in and announced that we were going to have be trusted to behave ourselves for the next forty minutes or so. He set us some work to be doing and reminded us that he'd be teaching in the classroom next door and that he'd better not hear any noise from us. Of course, the situation deteriorated fairly quickly and after about fifteen minutes, there was total chaos - everyone was out of their seat and running around and we clearly misjudged the amount of noise we were making. Suddenly the door opened and the senior teacher was framed in the doorway - the first thing I saw was that he was clutching his trusty plimsoll in his hand and was looking very angry.  We all scuttled back to our seats as if to make believe we had been innocent all along. He waited until everyone was back where they were meant to be and then pronounced "I warned you that I wanted to noise. Well I haven't got enough time to waste beating all of you as I should do." There was a short pause, then he pointed the plimsoll at one particular boy "You happened to be the first I saw when I opened the door so you come out here and touch your toes." I remember breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn't pointed at me, and then I looked around to see the red-faced boy making his way out to the front of the classroom. He was far from a regular offender although I think he had been slippered on maybe one occasion previously but he looked rather upset to be the centre of attention right now. As instructed he bent over with the tips of his fingers on his shoes and his legs as straight as he could manage - again my recollection at that point was that his short grey trousers were stretched very tightly and you could quite clearly see the shape of his two buttocks. I don't know why everyone was always so compliant in that situation but we just were - nobody ever tried to get away with being just half bent over, even though we were assuming a much more uncomfortable position and probably making the subsequent beating hurt even more as a result. The arm holding the plimsoll went back high in the air and swiftly came down across the one buttock with a crack as a loud as a gunshot and then before there was any chance to react it went back again and came down, maybe even harder, on the other side. "Right, back to you seat." The boy's face was as red as his bottom probably was and he complied quickly, probably anxious not to be centre stage for a moment longer than he needed to be.  He looked very close to tears but I think he managed not to actually cry.

"Right, now back to your work IN SILENCE. Consider yourselves all to have been given a good beating and  if I have to come back again, inconvenient as it may be, I promise you I will soundly beat every one of you with double what you have just seen your colleague be given."

Most of us heeded the warning and tried to get on with the set work - one or two started messing around, primarily the regular delinquents who were no strangers to getting a beating or two and who probably quite liked the idea of trying to get some of those who never did anything wrong into trouble and getting to see how they took a beating, but by and large peer pressure kept things under control, and we survived the rest of the class without another visitation.

Alright, so there is a true factual situation that occurred in the early 1970's. For your hypothetical I need you to put aside any feeling you have about whether corporal punishment should or should not be used in the classroom. You are now the senior teacher in the scenario I've just outlined. To make it more interesting, we'll make it a mixed class and one where girls as well as boys could be given a physical punishment, although it was much less common - probably for every ten times a boy was beaten, only one girl would get it. You come into the class, everyone scrambles back to their seat, and as they do you hit on the idea of punishing just one (or two) as an example - you can justify punishing them for being rowdy, but you get to choose.

• Do you choose a boy or a girl or one of each?
• Do you choose a regular offender? That has the advantage that you know you can hit them jolly hard and they'll accept it and there is very unlikely to be a complaint.
• Do you choose someone who you believe has never had a beating before? That gets across the message that it could happen to anyone and they might show more reaction, even to a more moderate punishment - perhaps you'd even get some tears - on the other hand, there is the slim chance a parent might complain about them being picked on (okay, so you have the 'first one I saw' and the fact they were breaking the rules so you're okay, but it might be a bit more hassle).
• Do you choose one you particularly have it in for (probably a regular offender) where you relish the chance to make them suffer another embarrassing punishment?
• Do you chose one that you've always thought had a rather nice bottom that was just made for being whacked, but who had never given you the slightest excuse?
• Do you play it straight and genuinely pick out the one your eye fell on first the moment you opened the door?

Your free choice, but aside from any other (possibly devious) intentions, you need to make an impression that will probably mean the rest of the class passes relatively quietly.

 

Favourite for January

A New Year means "In with the new!"

One thing that has always fascinated me is the way in which schoolkids learned about how discipline was applied in their school. I mean, I don't think I've ever heard of a new intake of pupils being sat down and getting the school rules and possible sanctions explained to them. So most times, the way they learned was by observing others (if they were lucky) being awarded punishments for certain misbehaviour. Over a period of time, you would probably learn first about things the school regarded as minor indiscretions (but indiscretions nonetheless) and the lesser sanctions that you risked if you did those things. It would be relatively unusual for someone to be made aware of a fellow pupil being given more serious punishment early on but eventually that would happen. Also people got to hear of examples of older pupils getting into more serious trouble - perhaps where a classmate had an older sibling in the class affected - but there was always the possibility that someone was exaggerating in order to frighten or impress a younger pupil.

But, inevitably, there will always be some who are the first in their class to discover first-hand how seriously certain behaviour is viewed and how the school addresses such matters. Common sense tells them, for example, that fighting is something the school strongly disapproves of. And waiting outside the office of the headmistress, facing the wall, hands on heads, in obvious disgrace, they are left to their own thoughts, wondering if the tales they heard of the headmistress caning girls for such offences are true and whether that is to be their fate. And if so, is the cane really as painful as people have suggested? And it can be quite a long wait to find out...

Happy Christmas everyone!

 And remember, there are good old traditional ways of dealing with the naughty list...

...however long that list might be!

Hypothetical dilemma (2)

Last month I posted a hypothetical dilemma for you and thought you might like another one.

The year is 1962. You've just been appointed as headmaster in a traditional British Grammar school that employs the use of corporal punishment "for serious and repeated bad behaviour" and now you're meeting with the Deputy Head to get up to speed on how things run in the school currently. The subject of corporal punishment has just come up. Apparently many of the teachers use a plimsoll to enforce classroom discipline and that is generally just allowed to carry on in a fairly unregulated fashion. However what is really meant by "corporal punishment" is formal caning in the privacy of the office of the headmaster or deputy. Canings are never given in view of other pupils unless two or more are being caned at the same time for the same offence. Canings are typically for smoking, bullying, fighting, theft, petty vandalism and truancy, but there is also a rule that any pupil who gets an after-school detention three times in one term will also be subject to caning.

The deputy head expresses his view that this is sometimes a nuisance - for example, in the final week of the previous term no less than seven pupils clocked up a third detention - because they were all in different classes he had to arrange for each of them to be brought his office to be caned at different times and it had taken a big chunk of his time. His suggestion is that the system should be tweaked and that those earning a caning under the three-detentions rule could be caned during the detention even 'though others would be present. The idea seems to have some merits and it might act as a handy deterrent to those already on a second detention.

You're inclined to give it a go. So your decision is either...

1. When one or more of the pupils are there for a third detention, the person supervising the detention checks all the names at the start of the detention and informs the guilty parties that they are going to be caned at the end of the detention - in theory they would know that anyway, but having any hope dashed would mean them having to sit throughout the detention period knowing what was coming to them shortly and would mean they had no time to recover their composure before going home. One of you would then turn up in the last five minutes or so and cane all of those deserving.
2. One of you arrives at the start of the detention, with the cane. As soon as the register is completed those due to be caned would be called forward and their canings delivered. They would then have to sit through the remainder of the detention in significant discomfort, watched by everyone else, and unable to rub their bottoms as they might wish.

Your decision?

Favourite for December

Winter makes us all think about getting warmed up and I'm pretty sure this young lady is about to experience a warming up that she'll remember but probably not really appreciate. She arrived at the office of the headmistress at exactly the time she was told and was brought inside. She's already had a lengthy lecture about her behaviour and how totally unacceptable it has been. She was just about to learn her fate when the headmistress took a phone call and had to leave "for a few minutes." But not before instructing her to stand facing the wall with her hands on her head and not to move - she could use the time to think over the folly of her poor choices. It would not go unnoticed by the girl that she was made to stand facing the wall exactly where the official school cane was hanging up.

She had never been caned before - never really been in trouble - and was very scared because of the tales that went around the school about Miss Meredith's legendary canings. She might get caned on her hands which she had been warned was excruciating because Miss Meredith made a point of hitting across the fingers - however there was less marking and it lasted a much shorter time. Or she might get caned across the bottom. She was told that Miss Meredith's technique then was to make you stand behind the big leather chair, and then bend over it and place your hands on the seat. Probably no girl in the school would be able to do that without their feet coming off the floor which left you in a very vulnerable position.

Some of the girls wore much shorter skirts than was really allowed and by that stage their panties would probably already be exposed. She had alway worn a very sensible and length-compliant skirt but once Miss Meredith had you in position and you couldn't do anything to stop it, she was reputed to whisk the hem off the skirt over on to your back to give her a perfect target. First time offenders could usually be expected to get four strokes but a couple of the more seasoned girls in her class, hearing what she was being reported for, said it was more than likely she'd get a classic "six of the best" - they may have just been trying to scare her but it had worked. If Miss Meredith did do that, there was general consent that she didn't hold back at all. Caning on the hands risked damaging a fragile bone so she had to be a bit restrained, but bottoms were fair game and she used all the strength of her renowned golf swing to drive the lesson home. Those who had experienced this sort of caning said it hurt more than anything they could have imagined and the marks lasted for a couple of weeks and sometimes longer.

She was, most definitely, feeling very remorseful right now, and was getting ever more panicked as the headmistress didn't seem to be returning anything like as soon as she'd suggested.

LOL day 2021

The time is here -  for the first time Love Our Lurkers day has morphed into LOVE OUR LIFESTYLE. And why not?

The truth is, there are some really lovely people in the spanko community, and it only seems right to recognise the varied contributions that they each make. Some may not be exactly to our personal taste but by and large we rub along well together and truly support each other. And surely that has never mattered more than it does in 2021. And, with a slight backward glance, it's still a great day to post some appreciation to the sites we often browse but rarely comment.

LOL day 2021 is coming - and it's all change!

Hermione has announced the date for this year's LOL day is next week - November 19th. But she's also redesignated the annual event - instead of Love Our Lurkers it's becoming Love Our Lifestyle. I'll let Hermione explain:

Hypothetical dilemma (1)

Okay, so there's widespread agreement now that corporal punishment doesn't really have a place in schools today. However, at the same time, we know that it is still widely practised, especially in the deep south of the USA, and there are plenty of people there who thinks it's a good thing. So this kind of dilemma is perfectly possible today...

You're the Principal of a high school in Mississippi and your school still employs the paddle for serious misbehaviour. One lunchtime, two girls are seen fighting and a teacher has to part them. Although there appears to be a strong case that both were equally responsible for initiating the fracas, they have experienced rather different outcomes. One has blood pouring from her nose, the start of a black eye, and the very real possibility that her nose might actually be broken. The other is largely unscathed. The first girl has been sent off to the medical room while the second girl has, as a temporary measure, been placed in the In-School Suspension Unit so that her whereabouts are know while you are briefed.

A quick check of records show that the second girl has been in trouble for this kind of thing before and it needs to be dealt with accordingly. Experience tells you that one of the parents, probably the mother, of the first girl is going to be on the 'phone soon demanding answers so it's best to be seen to have acted quickly and decisively.

The decision is made - she's going to get six hard swats with the heavy wooden paddle across her behind and then sent home for the rest of the day - this means you can tell the other mother that the girl has been paddled and suspended. You arrange for someone to bring the girl to your office, and that's when you're faced with the dilemma.

As well as fighting, you now need to address what amounts to quite a serious infraction of the school dress code. I think you have two main options.

1. You inform her that, for fighting, she is to receive six swats with the paddle tomorrow morning at the start of the school day, and that she will be receiving further punishment for the dress code violation. That way, she'll have a significant amount of time to think about the paddling that is coming her way and she'll be able to dress properly for the paddling to be carried out. And she'll also have to spend the rest of tomorrow with a very sore bottom sitting in her classes with all of her peers being well aware of what has happened to her.
2. You administer the six swats there and then - it might hurt her rather more than if she had dressed properly but that really is her own fault and might serve to avoid the need for a separate punishment for the dress code violation. Plus you could then make her go back to her class for the rest of the day. Since she doesn't seem to care generally about how much her classmates can see of her bottom, it will be interesting to see how easy it will be to see the way it's been marked.

Okay, so your decision?

Favourite for November

 I do like attention to detail.

A couple of important lessons are about to be learned here. Firstly, that a pair of old style school gym knickers provide next to no protection from a solidly applied cane. And second, that if that cane lands exactly where it's being aimed, it is going to hurt very much and she won't be repeating that behaviour any time soon.