I was smacked quite regularly when a child. I can’t remember how old I was when I started getting spanked, but I don’t think the spankings lasted much beyond my second year at senior school – that would be age 12 or 13 in the UK.
I was often rude or disobedient, so I earned a ‘good smacked bottom’ on several occasions. These were given to me by my mother. They were carried out in my bedroom and, of course, administered on my bare bottom.
I would be told I was to get a smacked bottom and sent up to my room. I had to wait for, I suppose, 20 to 30 minutes. Sometimes, if I had been naughty while out, I’d get the sentence on the way home, so had plenty of time to think about it.
Once in my room I had to get undressed and put my pyjamas on. This was because I always got sent to bed in disgrace after a smacking.
After a while, I would hear my mother coming up the stairs. Naturally, I felt a lot of apprehension – I can still recall the knotted sensation in my stomach.
When she came into my room, she would tell me to take down my pyjama bottoms and bend over the bed. I would be bent across the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor and my stomach on the bed (when I got a bit older and taller she put a pillow or two on the side of the bed for me to bend across).
Then I would get a brief talking to about why I was getting smacked, and then the punishment would begin. I have no idea how many smacks I got – I know it went on for some time and I would be crying and pleading for it to stop. If I put my hands in the way or wriggled too much she would just pause for a moment, tell me she hadn’t finished yet, then carry on.
I know the spankings were hard because I would have vivid marks for some time after. I remember once, in the school changing rooms, someone made a comment about my bruised bottom and that my mum must have smacked me hard. I muttered something about having slipped over but I don’t think anyone would have been convinced.
I think my punishments were fair – if anything, I probably deserved a lot more than I got. I half wanted to continue getting physical chastisement when I was older – but by that time, it was becoming unfashionable. I never got the cane at school, either – that was more or less abolished by the time I was in my later secondary school.
Contributor: Michael