Thank you for your website and all you do to preserve spanking history – I am a long-term reader and thought it was about time I contributed myself.
Mum and dad smacked us right from when we were babies: a smack on our backside if we made too much fuss when being having our nappy changed changed; a smack on the front of the thigh if we fussed in the pram. Light discipline such as that.
My little sister’s first proper smacked bottom happened when she was three, for sticking her fingers in the jam pot over breakfast. Dad quickly had her over his knee for five swift smacks on the seat of her knickers.
My own first formal spanking was at four, when I got mum’s palm put across my bare bottom at bath time for repeatedly running from the bathroom and refusing to be washed. I still clearly remember the sharp sting on my bottom and a feeling of helplessness as the discipline was administered, as well as my tears plopping into the bath water as my mum scrubbed me afterwards.
When we got a bit older, our parents’ ‘weapon of choice’ was a wooden stick, about a foot long, which had snapped off the frame of our loft hatch a few years before.
This stick wasn’t used like a cane or a switch – big, wide lashes which left welts – but smacked down on our bottoms while we were over their knees. It left an evenly red, stinging bottom rather than a striped one.
We also got smacked backsides with Mum or Dad’s hand, belt, slipper, ruler and hairbrush too, but the stick was most regular implement in use. It only bit the dust when it snapped when it was being used across my own bottom at the age of ten. My older brother was so grateful that he bought me a comic and some bonbon sweets to say thank you – it still makes me chuckle to remember that!
My primary school used the slipper liberally on children’s bottoms, alongside a ruler on palms and sometimes knuckles. There were also slapped legs and the occasional smacked backside closer to what we received in our homes.
I was slippered once or twice per school year, though I must say the sanction never did much to deter me from misbehaving. The slipperings were far less painful than the spankings I got at home. My high school did use the cane but only on boys. The closes I got to CP there was when a teacher threw his keys at me in frustration. I ducked and they smacked the boy behind me square in the face!
The worst trouble I can remember getting into is when I swore at my grandmother during an argument when I stayed with her for a week over the summer, when I was about 11.
She immediately washed my mouth out, and I remember whatever soap she used tasting far fouler than the stuff Mum had occasionally shoved in my mouth! .
After she had done that, she phoned my parents. My siblings were with different relatives, so I at least had relative privacy as I stewed and waited for my ‘real’ punishment.
After an hour or two, Nanny appeared in my room and told me what had been decided. She would punish me herself – and I’d be in still be facing another smacked bottom when I got home too.
With that, Nanny ordered me to stack pillows in the centre of the bed and lie over them with my bottom up. I obeyed, as I was far too frightened of the consequences if I didn’t.
Once in position, Nanny flipped up my skirt, pulled down my knickers and gave me a comprehensive hand smacking. I’d been rather too big for my boots and having my backside smacked by hand, like a naughty little child, made it in clear in no uncertain terms that I was still a child!
Once the smacking was done, I was sent to bed without dinner. When I got home, Dad gave me a thrashing with his belt and I was kept in for two weeks, which I’m sure was a nightmare for my parents as well as myself. I was very cross about being punished twice over but didn’t dare raise the issue, lest I get another dose!
The last proper smacking that I received was when I was 15 years old, which even today feels terribly embarrassing to admit. I thought (and still think) that 15 is far too old for a girl to have her bottom smacked – but Mum disagreed.
The reason for the punishment was that she had caught my friends and I smoking a small amount of cannabis. Mum went ballistic. Phone calls were made to the other girls’ homes and they were sent home to face their own fates – I was ordered up to my room.
A few minutes later, Mum appeared with a hairbrush, wrestled me over the end of the bed, bared my backside and gave me a comprehensive thrashing. My buttocks were bruised for days.
As for the other girls, one of my friends had her legs strapped by her father, while another got her palms caned. The rest escaped physical punishment, at least so far as they’d admit.
In all honesty, even back then I didn’t mind a smacked backside all that much. I quite enjoyed the tingling in my nether regions – an evident precursor to my adult predilection for spanking – and found a spanking far easier to get over than other punishments. For example, I hated having my mouth washed out with soap, and being kept in was the absolute pits!
I smacked my own children, but mindful of my own interest (and also how ineffective it was on me as a girl) it wasn’t my primary mode of punishment. I favoured grounding them – though grounding has the unfortunate side-effect of punishing the parent too!
My brother gave his children properly smacked backsides when they misbehave, while my sister didn’t smack at all. My children, nieces and nephews have all turned out to be respectful, kind, thoughtful, loving and gentle humans – so perhaps smacking doesn’t really have much impact one way or another.
Quite recently, the topic of smacking came up at my ‘stitch and bitch’ sewing group. The group is primarily made up of women of 50-plus, with a handful in their 20s. Every single lady there admitted to having been smacked as a child. Indeed, even one of the women in her 20s admitted that she had given her little ones ‘a good spanking’ a few times.
Contributor: Anonymous