This post got super long. There’s some good content (not by me) after the jump though. Plus, I manage to write about my childhood without being grim, so there’s that.
And, I’m also posting it at 2:15 AM so it’s very likely there are a lot of grammar, spelling and other errors. Sorry?
I can’t remember a time I wasn’t interested in spanking. There was never a time I wasn’t looking for and noticing spanking references in popular culture.
I mean, interested, in a way that, even when I was 5 or younger, I knew no one could ever know, that I could never tell anyone about. My fascination has always seemed strange, even1Or maybe especially. to me. I was “spanked” too frequently and too hard throughout my childhood in ways that, even for the 1970s and 1980s, were abusive. I hated and feared being punished — even now I remember how terrified I felt. The horrible anticipation; all these things that, when chosen as an adult, when I know I’m safe and loved, are scary in a good and exciting way, were frightening and shameful beyond belief when I was a child.2I knew I had to be truly bad to need to be punished so severely and so often, you see. In retrospect, my sister and I actually were unnaturally well-behaved children; the “trouble” we got into was mostly for dishonesty while trying to cover up mistakes and accidents (so many from ADHD as it turns out) so as not to get punished.
But even so, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel a shameful rush of excitement when I saw a spanking on television, or when another child mentioned they were afraid they might get spanked (my child-self’s lack of sympathy for my classmates appalls me), I could feel my heart pound harder, my face flush.3I don’t think I ever spoke about being spanked with anyone other than my sister. Maybe because by the time I was 7 or 8 I knew that the severity and frequency of my “getting it” was a lot more than my classmates. So I just listened. A lot. Best of all though was coming across accounts of spankings in books. Those stories I returned to over and over. I’ve joked that I learned to read and became such a great researcher, if I do say so myself, looking for anything about spankings across literature, history, and social science.
A number of people (mostly female) over the years have written about reading the strapping scene in Laura Wilder‘s Little House in the Big Woods. A friend commented once that her book eventually opened to those pages on its own, much to her embarrassment. Likewise. I received the whole set of the Little House books for my First Communion when I was seven, meaning I no longer needed to wait my turn to check then out from the library.
The passage we all remember is:
“Aunt Lotty had gone, and Laura and Mary were tired and cross. They were at the woodpile, gathering a pan of chips to kindle the fire in the morning. They always hated to pick up chips, but every day they had to do it. Tonight they hated it more than ever.
Laura grabbed the biggest chip, and Mary said:
“I don’t care. Aunt Lotty likes my hair best, anyway. Golden hair is lots prettier than brown.”
Laura’s throat swelled tight, and she could not speak. She knew golden hair was prettier than brown. She couldn’t speak, so she reached out quickly and slapped Mary’s face.
Then she heard Pa say, “Come here, Laura.”
She went slowly, dragging her feet. Pa was sitting just inside the door. He had seen her slap Mary.
“You remember,” Pa said, “I told you girls you must never strike each other.”
Laura began, “But Mary said–”
“That makes no difference,” said Pa. “It is what I say that you must mind.”
Then he took down a strap from the wall, and he whipped Laura with the strap.
Laura sat on a chair in the corner and sobbed. When she stopped sobbing, she sulked. The only thing in the whole world to be glad about was that Mary had to fill the chip pan all by herself.
Is it any wonder I’m kinked? I mean, there’s a strapping and corner time. Followed by aftercare — something that was not a feature of the spankings/beatings of my childhood:
At last, when it was getting dark, Pa said again, “Come here, Laura.” His voice was kind, and when Laura came he took her on his knee and hugged her close. She sat in the crook of his arm, her head against his shoulder and his long brown whiskers partly covering her eyes, and everything was all right again.
She told Pa all about it, and she asked him, “You don’t like golden hair better than brown, do you?”
Pa’s blue eyes shone down at her, and he said, “Well, Laura, my hair is brown.”
She had not thought of that. Pa’s hair was brown, and his whiskers were brown, and she thought brown was a lovely color. But she was glad that Mary had had to gather all the chips.”
That passage was easy to type. While I copied the text, I could have written it from memory.4Except in my memory that last line is “But she was *still* glad that Mary had to gather all the chips.”
Read on, this is a long post, but if you liked the above it’s (probably) worth it.
- 1Or maybe especially.
- 2I knew I had to be truly bad to need to be punished so severely and so often, you see. In retrospect, my sister and I actually were unnaturally well-behaved children; the “trouble” we got into was mostly for dishonesty while trying to cover up mistakes and accidents (so many from ADHD as it turns out) so as not to get punished.
- 3I don’t think I ever spoke about being spanked with anyone other than my sister. Maybe because by the time I was 7 or 8 I knew that the severity and frequency of my “getting it” was a lot more than my classmates. So I just listened. A lot.
- 4Except in my memory that last line is “But she was *still* glad that Mary had to gather all the chips.”
