The Perfect Arch

When I started this blog almost a year ago, I didn't yet know how exactly it was going to look or where the journey would go. I had a few general ideas which I wrote down in an early post, but that was as far as it went. One of the things I was determined not to do, however, is create another "photo blog". There are already plenty of spanking blogs out there that are heavy on pictures, and some of them do it very well and with a good eye. So there was no point in following the same approach, and besides, it wouldn't have been my thing, anyway. I wanted to focus on what I perceived to be my main strengths, that is, on my skills as a writer and commentator.

However, there are cases when a photograph or drawing (especially one dealing with our beloved kinky obsessions) is truly worth more than a thousand words. When it reaches a level of visual perfection and of such steaming, almost magical eroticism that you might as well just shut up and point at the bloody picture - and everyone will instantly understand what you are raving about. For me, the following shot from Restrained Elegance is one such example:

(Download a preview clip of the accompanying video here)

The victim is of course the lovely Amelia-Jane Rutherford aka Ariel Anderssen, and that fact in itself is a considerable part of the attraction. As I wrote in my review of her spanking film debut with Strictly English: "Men want her, women want to be her, and some women both want her and want to be her." She does have a gorgeous figure and an unbelievably nice ass, and they have rarely been shown off as stunningly as in this picture. Add a few cane stripes, and you have a strong candidate for spanking photograph of the year (or the decade).

The pose is pure perfection. The "bent over, arched back, elbows on a table (or some such piece of equipment)" CP position has always been one of my favourites in visual and erotic terms, perhaps the favourite. There is a combination of refined elegance and primordial sex appeal about it that I find incredibly alluring - something about the curve from the victim's head and neck down across the arched back to the outstretched, well-defined bottom. It's a position that, to my inner sadist, simply screams: "Whip my ass!"

Again, I can't remember having ever seen it captured as well as here. As you can see, the pose does not only pronounce the victim's buttocks, the "target area", in a most delightful way. With the elbows on the table and the raised upper body, it also opens up room for facial reaction shots (which you don't have if the head and body are slumped down). Because the reactions are just as important, visually, to a CP sadist as the target area and the marks, that is another part of the appeal for me. You can even catch both in one shot (at least partially), as in the first picture. Ariel's slightly turned head, the way her hair falls, her facial expression, the way she places her hands on the table - every small, but significant detail I can think of simply "feels right" in this photo.

I remember seeing a preview of this "Restrained Elegance" shoot a while back on Ariel's blog and obviously being quite taken with it. Fittingly, I was having an email discussion about "the perfect corporal punishment position" with a female friend at the time. We were planning a scene together and I was trying to explain to her what pose I had in mind for her, and why. So I just wrote: "You know what? I've just found it. Take a look at this. It's exactly what I've been talking about."

So I'm indebted to Hywel Phillips, the bondage photographer who runs "Restrained Elegance", for helping me to illustrate my point - never mind for creating these awesome pictures in the first place. In return, I thought I would do a bit of publicity for him. I can't give "Restrained Elegance" one of my proper website reviews here - it's a bondage site, not a spanking site, so it doesn't really fit in thematically. However, I like Hywel's work a lot and wanted to someday showcase it in some other form. This is a good opportunity.

In so many words, "Restrained Elegance" is a high-quality, polished and artfully done paysite with lots of content and a large cast of victims (among them spanking models like Amy Hunter and Rosaleen Young). It offers photosets as well as video clips in several formats, including some large wide-screen .wmv's with a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels. The technical craftsmanship is great and there is an interesting variety of "themes". In addition to the actual scenes, the site also has some special features like bondage tutorials and galleries of drawings. I could spend quite a bit of time there, and I'm not even a die-hard bondage fan.

While there is a bit of light spanking and whipping, the focus of the site is bondage, of course. However, the shoot from which the pictures here were taken - "Ariel's Job Interview (Part Four)", in which she gets caned over the table - is an excellent little CP clip. In terms of grace and beautiful photography, it surpasses most of the work I've seen from "proper" spanking video producers. In my view, this gem alone is sufficient reason for spankos to give "Restrained Elegance" a try. It is nicely filmed, nicely edited and one of the few examples where "slow motion replay" of strokes is put to good effect in a spanking video - I usually find that a bit cheesy, but it works here, and it works quite well. As a CP sadist, I only wish that the caning had been a little bit harder and the marks a little more vivid - but hey, that is not what the site is about, obviously.

If Mr. Phillips ever decides to do a spanking site (most of the competition should be shaking in their schoolgirl panties at the thought...), I would be the first to subscribe and give it a full review. In the meantime, I suggest you check out his bondage work. You can download a quick preview clip of Ariel's caning here. If that doesn't convince you, nothing will (and you are probably clinically dead).

Movie Review: Black Widow

Producer:

Pain4Fem (released in 2007)

Entire Story In Fewer Words Than Are In This Sentence:

Girls are beaten and brainwashed at psychiatric clinic

Victim Appeal:

As the movie opens, we see the title character, a recently widowed young woman, visiting the grave of her husband. Apparently, the marriage was not a happy one. "You pig! I sent you to your grave!" she mutters venomously. "And your daughter will soon follow..." The cunning widow is determined to make sure that she, not her stepdaughter, inherits all the man's money. She commits the girl to a disreputable psychiatric clinic where the head doctor (Peter Schober) owes the widow a favour for something - who knows what collective misdeeds the two of them have been up to in the past! Through drugs and electroshock therapy, the daughter is to be reduced to a complete psychological wreck who doesn't remember her name or identity.

The hapless girl is played by Pamela, who makes her first and (so far) only appearance in a P4F movie. She is a fair-skinned brunette with pretty eyes and a serious, sensitive expression. Pain4Fem regular Dominika is cast as another patient at the clinic, who is also tortured and brainwashed. I'm quite a fan of that racy, dark-haired beauty. Not only is she gorgeous to look at, she also has an intriguing, enigmatic quality about her. Dominika seems like a fairly quiet, shy girl, but her scenes always bristle with a subtle eroticism and she often returns to work with Pain4Fem and Spanking Server - also taking some of the harder beatings in their line of videos. She is either kinkier than the average P4F model, or simply a lot more tough-minded than her appearance would initially suggest.

Can't really say anything about the acting. As usual with this producer, the models don't get a lot of it to do. Especially here, where they essentially play "zombies". Wait a minute - on second thoughts, that does require acting, and both Pamela and Dominika make an adequate job of it. You know, it's not easy to pass for a zombie. Has anyone seen Shaun of the Dead? Oh well, I better continue the review before I totally lose the thread here...

Gratuitous Sadism:

The head of the rogue clinic is not only a specialist in illegal brainwashing, he also enjoys whipping and caning his defenseless female "patients" (in case you were beginning to wonder where CP fits into all this). Needless to say, "Black Widow" contains a series of proper thrashings, as well as other forms of abuse.

I'll go through everything chronologically: at the beginning of the video (juxtaposed with the widow's graveyard scenes, actually), Dominika is strapped to a bed. The doctor and an assistant (Nelly in a "top" role) give electric shocks to the naked and semi-conscious woman. In the next scene, they ambush the stepdaughter in her bed at home, according to the widow's plan. The girl is injected with a tranquiliser (into her buttocks, appropriately enough), put in a straightjacket and abducted to the clinic, where they leave her strapped to a bed for the time being.

Dominika is the first to receive a dose of good old-fashioned CP action. The doctor canes her, as he apparently does every few weeks just for the fun of it. The girl is lying flat on her bed for the first part of the chastisement. After a while, the sadistic psychiatrist orders her to kneel with her bottom up in the air while her face remains on the pillow. She later goes back down on her belly for the last few lashes. A few of the strokes are repeated from different camera angles, but not many - by my count, Dominika gets 35 "for real". The caning is fairly severe and leaves good-looking welts, some of them quite dark.

Afterwards, it is Pamela's turn to receive her first thrashing at the clinic. The doctor drugs her again so that he and his assistant can take the girl from her bed to another room with a special "punishment platform". They tie her down with her ass high in the air and her head locked in a hole in the base of the platform - it's not my favourite spanking position in visual terms, but a nice piece of equipment to be sure. Then she gets 40 strokes with the cane (I didn't see any repetitions this time). Some of them are administered from an almost vertical angle, producing a criss-cross of marks on her bottom. The unusual position also makes for some interesting facial reaction shots. The caning isn't quite as hard as Dominika's, but given with enough force to make the girl howl in pain.

In the second part of her ordeal, Pamela gets her back whipped with a short single-tail that produces gorgeous (and fairly loud) thwacking sounds. The young lady is still kneeling on the platform, but now upright and with her hands tied above her head in the classical back-whipping pose. I counted 31 lashes in quick succession, and the scene is over pretty quickly. The space between Pamela's shoulders is nicely reddened by the end.

Best Reactions:

The two victims show very different reactions to the spankings - Dominika is in character for most of it, acting like she is brainwashed and only barely awake, while Pamela is more real and more vocal overall. Dominika's caning scene is quite surreal, in a half-funny, half-nasty sort of way. The doctor talks to her in the language and tone of voice that one would use with a little child or a pet: "Well, are you looking forward to this? Yes? Super! Oh, this is fine, isn't it...? Yeees!" He refers to her as his "little imbecile". Dominika answers back with vague, semi-sentient "Mm-hmm!" sounds and lets out drowsy moans after the strokes. She gets more animated and "genuine" towards the end, when the caning gets harder.

However, while that scene is certainly unusual in terms of reactions, I ultimately find Pamela to be more enjoyable from a sadistic point of view. She is just natural and unartificial, the very opposite of Dominika's performance. Actually, it looks like the girl got a little more pain than she expected from the shoot - she repeatedly breaks out of character, mumbling indignant protests and curses in Czech. Probably something along the lines of: "Damn it, this bloody hurts!" But while she is much worse as an actress than the other model, the result is ironically more fun to watch.

As a matter of fact, the back whipping is excellent and one of the best CP segments I've seen in recent years from Pain4Fem. My only complaint is that it is unfortunately much too short. Aside from that, everything is near perfect: Pamela is in a very sexy position, arms in the air and bottom stretched out, forming a beautiful line from her head down to her legs. The doctor grabs her hair with his left hand (a nice touch) and really lays into her back with the single-tail in his right. The girl screams and moans pitifully, throws her head back in agony and struggles against the restraints (and against the hand in her hair). Her contorted face, her writhing body and the whip lashing her back are all captured wonderfully. It could have been an all-time classic scene had it been a bit more extended.

Best Line:

When the doctor and his assistant come to the widow's house to fetch her stepdaughter, he explains how they will drug and subdue the girl: "The drug takes effect in just seconds and she will get very woozy and quite docile." I copied that line from the English subtitles - actually, the German adjective he uses is "benebelt", which could be translated as "foggy" or "disoriented". But the English "woozy and docile" part had me in stitches. For some reason, I just thought that it sounded hilarious.

Nice Psychological Touch:

Obviously, the "abducted and brainwashed at the mental clinic" story is very intriguing all around. Combined with the "black widow" theme, it is one of the more creative plot ideas to be found in a spanking movie, beyond the usual trinity of schoolgirls, secretaries and juvenile delinquents. As in several of their other films (Judicial Caning comes to mind), Pain4Fem show a fondness for "medical" settings that play with the clean, orderly scariness of hospitals and doctor's rooms (never mind mental institutions run by criminal sadists...).

I also liked how the stepdaughter's abduction was shown in some detail, which gives an air of suspense and impending doom to the proceedings. The ending of the movie was a lot of fun, too, and a nice little twist - but I'm not going to spoil it for you here.

How Good Is It Really?

A good video from Pain4Fem that has all the ingredients - an interesting story, attractive models, solid action and technical competency. I'm not a huge fan of the "head down, ass up" spanking position, so the two canings aren't all that great in my book, even though Dominika takes a fairly hard one. However, that is a matter of personal taste, and Pamela's highly erotic (but brief) whipping scene makes up for it in the end. Overall, "Black Widow" is well worth checking out.

What You Learned:

Fear the people in white coats! Especially when one of them is Peter Schober.

New Year Resolutions 2009

A happy new year to you all! I hope you had a "guten Rutsch", a "good slide" into 2009, as we say in German.

May it turn out to be a fine year, especially for us corporal punishment fetishists. With much striking of bottoms with canes, whips, paddles, birches and other instruments of correction (and preferably without any of the idiotic tabloid garbage we had in 2008 - I'm of the opinion that we spankos deserve a bit of extra good fortune now to make up for that sordid affair). As always, I'm curious to see what fate has in store for us these next twelve months.

Have you made any new year resolutions? The most common ones are out for me - I don't have a problem with my weight, I don't drink much alcohol, I already quit smoking and I don't have a habit of over-spending money, so there is no need to change anything there. As kinky people, we should strive to come up with something more out of the ordinary, anyway. So after a bit of thinking, I've laid out the following goals for me, which I'm going to share with you here.

Five Kinky Things I Want to Achieve in 2009:
- Attend my first spanking party in the UK
- Try out at least two new CP implements (one actively, one passively)
- Add at least one more nationality to my list of victims
- Make more spanking videos than in 2008
- Review more spanking videos and websites than in 2008

A few notes: I've spanked girls from three different countries so far, so adding a fourth should not be too difficult (there are currently 193 states with general international recognition, which means I can still choose from 190). As for the next point, I'm counting the promo clips for Dances with Werewolves as one video, but I'm also including my cameo as Amelia-Jane Rutherford's gambling addict boyfriend on SM-Circus. That brings the number of videos I have to make this year to at least seven. Moreover, I have to write a minimum of 20 movie reviews and seven website reviews - which is doable if I stick to my usual posting routine, but I can't afford too many breaks (nor am I planning any).

I haven't figured out yet what I'm going to do if I fail to achieve one of these goals. Knowing my vile sadistic readers, I predict a lot of clamouring for me to switch to the bottom side once more and get severely thrashed. Given that I already have a whipping and caning coming up this year for losing my football bet with Niki Flynn, your chances of me agreeing to such an arrangement aren't all that good. But they would improve significantly if you put your money where your mouth is by posting some new year resolutions of your own here - and if you don't achieve them, it should of course result in a similar punishment for you (I'm sure you can find someone to do it). So let's see you put your posteriors on the line, and I'll consider doing the same.

I think it would be fun, anyway, to hear what (if any) vows you have taken for 2009. Post a comment if you like, and let us all know. It's for your own good - studies clearly show that people have a better chance of success with their new year resolutions if they make them public and get support from their friends. I imagine the effect to be even greater when it involves cruel, mischievous kinky friends...

Whether you decide to let us in on your plans or not, I wish you all a pleasant, interesting and successful year!

Movie Review: Caning International

(Picture courtesy of Punished Girls, where you can download the movie)

Producer:

Calstar (released in 1999)

Entire Story In Fewer Words Than Are In This Sentence:

An aid worker and a refugee get spanked

Victim Appeal:

This movie supposedly takes place at a missionary station of some kind in Africa. You wouldn't really know it, of course, because all of the action was filmed at two of Calstar's usual indoor locations. But kudos for coming up with an "international" alibi story for the thrashings this time. The video has two episodes, both of them starring the curly-haired English domme known as Lady Vernon. Naturally, she plays the director in charge of the station, or the camp, or whatever strange outfit they're running down there.

In the first part, she punishes a female missionary worker for screwing around with the local chief's son and generally behaving like a slut (sounds like this employee is in the wrong job line). The victim has straight blonde hair and a big, round bottom. In episode number two, the lady has a very frank and open chat with a refugee girl who has hoarded more than her assigned share of food rations. That is against the regulations, and we can all imagine where things go from there. Fittingly, the model is black, or perhaps half-black, as her skin is a relatively light brown. Like the other victim, she has an inviting, spankable bottom.

The acting of the three participants is rather wooden and the lion share of the video is taken up by the action, anyway. So there isn't really much to write about beyond the physical attributes. Neither of the two spankees, it must be said, is spectacularly beautiful in a classical sense, but I thought the black girl was cute in her own way. As well as that, they both take a reasonably hard beating.

Gratuitous Sadism:

The two CP sessions follow the same sequence of implements as most other Calstar movies: hand, leather (or rubber) paddle, cane. To start things off, the blonde missionary worker goes over the lady's knee for about five minutes. She is spanked over her dress, then over her panties, then on the bare. Afterwards, she has to strip off for the rest of the punishment, which consists of a four-and-a-half minute thrashing with the paddle while she is kneeling on a chair, another four and a half minutes with a longer, thinner paddle while bending over a table, and last but not least, a caning. The girl is made to touch her toes during the finale, which causes her some discomfort ("Can't, Miss!", "Don't say 'can't', touch your toes!"). As usual, Calstar repeat some of the cane strokes from different camera angles. By my count, she gets 10.

Next, it's the refugee's turn to be chastised. Same progression: first, a six minute OTK spanking, over her skirt, over her panties, finally on the bare bottom. All clothes go off for the subsequent action with the paddle, some seven and a half minutes (she only gets one of the two paddles). The girl bends over a chair for that part, and also during the caning that ends the session. Not counting the repetitions, I believe she takes 12 strokes.

As is her custom, Lady Vernon (or whatever her name is supposed to be here) isn't too tender with her victims and gives them a proper, no-nonsense thrashing with the paddle and cane. The former instrument leaves their bottoms visibly reddened while the latter produces a nice set of welts. A middle of the road video in terms of viciousness, not super-severe, but hard enough to be satisfying for the sadistically inclinced viewer.

Best Reactions:

The blonde model from the first episode is by far the more vocal of the two. Her reactions to the beating run the gamut from short, sharp cries to surprised giggles to tearful sobbing by the end. On the whole, I found her pretty annoying, though. She is too squeamish for my taste and flinches too much. Especially during the caning, when the "Touch your toes!" command is quickly forgotten while she jumps around and frantically rubs her bottom.

The black girl takes her punishment with more restraint. She definitely feels the pain and starts crying halfway through the session, but soldiers on without too many complaints. I like that, and I like how she sobs and squirms under the cane strokes, but ultimately manages to hold her position. Finally, after 11 strokes, she has been on her limit long enough and meekly asks for a bit of mercy: "Not so hard, please!" In response, Lady Vernon gives her an especially harsh final stroke, and the girl lets out a loud, pitiful "Ooow!". It's a delightful little moment and a good ending to the better scene in the video.

Best Line:

There isn't any truly memorable dialogue here. One exchange I recall is when the refugee explains that she hasn't really been hoarding food out of her own initiative - one of the relief workers gave it to her because he fancies her. Lady Vernon bluntly replies: "I don't see why he would fancy you, I certainly wouldn't fancy you. The only thing I fancy doing to you right now is punishing you..."

Hardly a great line and pretty mean, actually, but it was kind of cool how the domme said it. As well as that, I like how she - the director in charge of the missionary station! - basically lets on that she does fancy women, as long as she finds them attractive.

Nice Psychological Touch:

When the director lectures her promiscuous employee that she is not supposed to have sexual relations with the "natives", she declares: "As a missionary, you are here to show these people a very cultivated way of living, do you understand? Instead of being barbaric. And you are not at all coming across as a Westerner..." Then she proceeds to beat the girl into obedience. Hooray for enlightened Western values! A nice, brief touch of irony for those who have an eye for it.

How Good Is It Really?

"Caning International" is an average spanking video and fairly typical for this producer - not a classic or a must-see, but not bad, either. There isn't really anything that stands out about it. Except for the backstory, perhaps, which is even more preposterous than usual. However, I like the domme, she is always fun to watch and probably my favourite top from Calstar. There is a kind of rustic elegance and sex appeal about her. Moreover, she knows how to wield a cane, clearly enjoys her work, and even though she is not a superb actress, she usually has good chemistry with the spankees.

What You Learned:

Judging by the lady's fondness for making girls strip, female missionaries are gay, too. Which is not a groundbreaking new insight, I know. But I couldn't think of anything else.

A Cattle Prod for Christmas

Normally, it would be time for a movie critique. If you've been following this blog for a while, you will have noticed that every third post is a movie or website review - it's part of my intricate numerological system that keeps the cosmic spheres of my world in harmony and me happy. However, I'm Bavarian, not Prussian, so I do break from my rigid routine on certain special occasions. Christmas is one of them.

Mind you, I haven't really celebrated Christmas as such since I was a child. I just have a nice dinner nowadays. Nonetheless, in the spirit of the season, I thought that this would be the perfect time for a gift to you, the readers. As a thank you for your interest this past year, for your comments and emails, and for generally making me feel that I'm doing a good job (actually, to be honest, I know that myself, but it's nice to see that it is being noticed). So here's your gift - if you are an agnostic like me, you can treat it as a worldly, secular offering among friends.

Instead of a movie review, you are getting a movie today: the next installment of the "Niki & Ludwig Show" (or "The Caning Saga", as some of you call it). In this newest morality tale, we learn what happens to naughty girls who zap people with cattle prods. Remember, they are for cattle, not for human beings. And especially not for tops.

AVI format, resolution 720 x 576, 140 MB:
Uploaded.net link

(Click on "Free Download", wait for the counter to count down, then solve the captcha and download the file. The video uses the Xvid codec and MPEG Layer-3 for audio.)

We filmed the clip in the summer, when Niki (along with Amelia-Jane Rutherford aka Ariel Anderssen) came to Germany to work with SM-Circus and Loge Cologne (I wrote a behind-the-scenes report about the pet girl shoot here). It was only two weeks after the Ludwig's Comeuppance video had been recorded, and while the cane marks had faded by that time, the memory was as fresh as if it had been yesterday. In other words, I was itching to get some revenge on Niki ("to restore the natural order of things", as I like to describe it in cosmic harmony terms). I got a first taste of it with the Who has the best football team? clip, an idea of the Loge Cologne director which I gladly helped to realise.

Which would almost, under normal circumstances, have pacified me for the time being, at least in terms of swinging the cane. But by that point, Niki in her usual restraint had already decided to up the ante with a little stunt she pulled off in the morning - by using me as an unwitting test target for a cattle prod she found lying around on the set.

It was pretty funny, actually. While the crew are getting ready for the shoot and the rest of us are waiting around, I suddenly hear Niki's voice behind me: "Hold still." I turn my head around and see her touching my right leg with a pole of some sort. I look down at the device with polite, befuddled curiosity. One and a half seconds later, before I can even begin to wonder what it is, I feel a searing jolt of electricity and jump three feet in the air. After I land and get my wits together, I stare at Niki, and she looks back at me with an expression, it must be said in fairness, that seems like genuine surprise and embarassment. "Oh!" she says, wide-eyed. "Is it charged...?"

It was, and it produced quite an impressive shock, even through the jeans. Nasty little tool. Later, one of the guys gave Ariel a demonstration jolt on bare skin. She let out a blood-curdling shriek and collapsed to the floor, where she stayed for about a minute. Ariel subsequently declined to have the prod used on her during the Loge Cologne shoot. Niki declined to even submit to a one-off demonstration (wimp).

She did submit to a spanking and caning courtesy of yours truly the next morning at the hotel, though. After all, that little episode with the cattle prod deserved a proper response. All things considered, I think Niki got off pretty lightly with a quick OTK spanking and a dozen moderate strokes of the cane (13, actually). But she had already been abused non-stop the previous day, so I felt uncharacteristically lenient.

Even so, I managed to spring a minor "shock tactic" of my own on her. Quite unintended, too. I simply ordered Niki to strip off for the finale and, honestly, I didn't expect her to be much inconvenienced by it. I mean, she had been naked for most of the previous day's shoot. But this morning, she was utterly unprepared for it and made her objections loudly known. I like how she says "No!" six different times in six different tones of voice, from surprised to indignant to defiant. Didn't help her much, but it sure is fun to listen to.

It's a beautiful moment, I think, because it was neither planned nor acted. When Niki made me strip in the "Comeuppance" video, I feigned surprise, but it was part of the script (I think most of you can guess as much, so I'm not destroying too many illusions here). In this case, however, Niki's vocal "I'm not doing this!" reaction is absolutely real. Which, of course, left me no other choice but to insist all the more. Had she calmly said "Look, I don't really feel like getting naked this morning, can we please do it another way...?", I might have relented. But open, foot-stamping refusal is a challenge that cannot be ignored.

On a related note, the immortal line "All dress must down!" seems to be becoming a running gag on our show. But like Niki before me, I couldn't resist quoting it. If we keep it up, we'll have to start paying royalties to Maximilian Schubert.

You don't have to pay anything, though. It's a Christmas gift, another free spanking clip and you better well like it. In a couple of days, I'll do the movie review that normally would have gone up today, and that will be my last post of the year. I wish you all happy holidays, and I'll see you in 2009.

Tales of the Two Peters

This clip is one of those bizarre accidental finds from YouTube. You start out looking for something, and a mere three of four mouse clicks later, you are on a totally different subject - one that is worlds removed from the original search terms, but intriguing nonetheless. In this particular case, I went from the Roman empire to Peter Ustinov and eventually ended up with these two little tales about sadistic headmasters in the school days of old.

It was a couple of months ago and I don't remember how the chain of links went exactly, but I was reading something about Rome and it reminded me of the movie Spartacus. During a break, I started looking up scenes on YouTube (saves the time of fetching the DVD). I'm a big fan of old sword and sandal epics (as silly and historically inaccurate as they often are) and this is one of the crown jewels of the genre. Starring, among others, the late and great Peter Ustinov in a famous performance as the slave dealer Batiatus (he also played emperor Nero in another Roman epic, Quo Vadis). Naturally, I'm also a fan of Ustinov, and before long, I was looking for clips with him.

There are few people to whom the three-part description "great actor, great comedian, great human being" applies as thoroughly as it does to Sir Peter. He was a brilliantly gifted man and everything about him seemed to be larger than life - his unusual family background, his cosmopolitan charm, his sophisticated humour, his inexhaustible wealth of anecdotes. There is a lot of hilarious stuff with him on YouTube, including African Customs, Former Yugoslav Partisans and the Bach Cantata Parody.

One of the things you don't think of in association with Peter Ustinov (at least I don't) is spanking. But sure enough, I found a TV show from the 1980's, and in it he talks about his stern headmaster from school. No actual beatings are mentioned (only a threat thereof), but it's a great little story. Ustinov's genius for voices and accents is well in evidence even in this little clip. The other guest chiming in with his own headmaster impersonation is Peter Cook, whom I hadn't heard of before, frankly. Apparently, he is another British comedian, and quite a well-known one at that.

It shows you how many of these old schoolteachers must have been closet spankos. It also raises the question what they would say about the society of today, post-sexual revolution. Back then, a photograph of Betty Grable in a bathing suit was enough to cause scandal at the boys' school. I hadn't heard of her, either, but as it turns out, she was the number one pin-up girl of her time and wildly popular with the American GI's during World War II.

Which, by the way, makes me wonder if Ustinov remembers this part of his story correctly: according to some mini-biographies I read, Grable didn't start pin-up modelling until the 1940's. By that time, Ustinov (born 1921) was already a grown man, so she couldn't have been on a poster during his school days. Then again, he has been known to occasionally spice up his tales by mixing fact with fiction. And when the results are as entertaining as here, who wants to argue (except for the detail-obsessed historian in me).

My resarch also reveals that Peter Ustinov was educated at Westminster School in London, while Peter Cook (born 1937) went to Radley College in Oxfordshire and to Pembroke College, Cambridge. That gives you a bit of context (maybe someone can find out the names of the headmasters at the time!). Obviously, the most prestigious, most venerable schools in Britain also had the kinkiest teachers.

I cut the clip out of a longer interview on YouTube, but even though it is off-topic, I left in the ending. In it, after another headmaster story, Ustinov talks about new year's resolutions - the show was recorded around that time. The next year is comng closer here as well, so that is a fitting conclusion (to the video, if not the year itself). Sadly, Peter Ustinov did not reach his goal of living until 2005. He died in March 2004, and our world is poorer for it.

Cook is also no longer with us, and in a way, it reminds us that their memories of school are from an entirely different era. Fortunately for the kids of today, corporal punishment is now a thing of the past, at least in most of the Western world. But in its time, it certainly produced a couple of intriguing anecdotes for spankos like us.

Insulting the Flag?

(Philipp Veit, "Germania", 1848)

Remember the football-themed spanking clip I posted recently? If you haven't seen it yet, you should, it's a fun little video starring Niki Flynn and yours truly (you can also read a bit of backstory on how it came into existence here). As usual, I also uploaded the clip to Spankingtube to get a bit of extra circulation.

Interestingly, one of the commenters there by the name of Cinderella complained that the clip "insults the German flag" because we used it as a CP implement (presumably, therefore, we also insulted the Union Jack, but she didn't mention that). Later, Cinderella elaborated: "As a German, I don't want to see a flag symbolizing the proud [sic] of my nation in a clip with sexual contend [sic], furthermore beating [someone] with it." She also sent me a rather angry email the next day.

It would be amusing to quote from the letter, which contained little in the way of argument, a lot of venting and one beautiful self-contradiction. But I don't want to be mean, and honestly, I don't believe Cinderella's remarks in themselves deserve more attention than I already gave them on Spankingtube and in my reply to her mail. But as I said, I did find the whole thing fairly interesting, because I think it reveals a kind of schizophrenia that is not uncommon in the kinky community.

Before I come to that, though: does our clip really insult the German colours? Or the British ones, for that matter? Needless to say, I don't think it does. Neither did the director who came up with the idea, or the rest of the crew, despite the fact that all of us are German (some of us Teutonic sauerkraut-eaters have a sense of humour after all). It certainly wasn't our intention to sully the "proud" of the nation when we shot this silly little video, and I think this should be obvious to most people who watch. Had I burned the flag while spouting inane anti-German slogans in some political (or pseudo-political) context, that would be another thing. But we didn't do that. We used it as a nonsensical spanking implement in an equally nonsensical and light-hearted clip - about football, of all things. To take this seriously in the first place and to claim that it constitutes an insult of some kind requires a great deal of imagination, or pomposity, or both.

In any case, Cinderella is the only one who complained so far. But I think her reasoning is worth examining, because it exemplifies the schizophrenia I spoke of: "I don't want to see the flag of my nation in a clip with sexual content." The natural question to ask is, why not? What is wrong with that?

One possible answer she could give is that she finds sexual content distasteful or even immoral, and therefore, she doesn't want to see the flag associated with it. But I don't believe that this is her opinion. After all, Cinderella is registered on Spankingtube and has watched 80 plus clips according to her profile, so presumably, she does not object to spanking porn in principle (otherwise, why is she watching it?). But if spanking porn is okay, and if flags are okay, then why is spanking porn plus flags not okay? Double standards or just plain confusion?

Another possible argument would be to say: while sexual content is not distasteful to me or immoral, and while I like watching it, I nonetheless consider it to be something "low" and basic. So therefore, it should not be combined with "exalted" things like the flag. This is probably closer to what Cinderella is trying to say. But such a position is problematic. For one thing, these terms are diffuse and the value judgments expressed by them are quite subjective. It's debatable if a flag is really such an exalted object (whatever that means, exactly) that it must never be used in an erotic (or humorous) context. It is also debatable if porn is inherently "low" and primitive - personally, I don't see it that way at all.

Moreover, even if you hold that porn is primitive, you can ask yourself if it is any worse in this regard than football. Isn't that a somewhat "bawdy" pastime as well? But people take lots of flags to the international football games, they even wear them as clothing or hats. So why not complain about that, too? Of course, you can argue that football stands for noble values like competition, skill, strategy, fighting spirit, physical exercise and so on. But that is precisely the point I am trying to make: what an activity stands for, and what using the flag in such a context stands for, is always a matter of interpretation. On my part, I could say that spanking films represent some equally exalted things to me: creativity, wit, humour, self-exploration, excitement, interesting psychology, even art.

Mind you, the "Who has the best football team?" clip wasn't Great Art and wasn't intended as such. But neither was it intended as an insult to the flag, and the vast majority of viewers didn't see it as such. As for me, I have nothing against flags. As elements of cultural identification in an increasingly globalised and homogenised world, I am actually quite fond of them. Moreover, I'm a historian, so unlike most of my countrymen today, I know when and how the black, red and gold colours of the German flag originated, what they symbolise, who wrote the national anthem and where the melody it was set to comes from. By contast, it has been my experience that, ironically, many of the self-proclaimed super patriots around the world are woefully ignorant of the history behind the national symbols they hold in such high esteem.

At the end of the day, symbols are just that: a representation of something. The important part is what they stand for, and that is what patriotism is really all about: not symbols, but values. In case of the Federal Republic of Germany and other democratic, pluralistic societies, one such core value is freedom. Which includes the freedom of art and even the freedom to use the national flag in a humorous or "casual" way. In an enlightened philosophy of the state, a flag is not some hallowed or untouchable thing. It's not a holy symbol like a Christian cross or an Islamic star and crescent. And fundamentally, there is no contradiction whatsoever between what the German flag stands for and kinky play among consenting adults.

Cinderella not only exemplifies a view of national symbols that is more at home in the chauvinistic 19th century than in the Europe of today, but also a strange double standard which I have seen, in one form or another, with quite a few kinky people. "I like spanking and spanking porn, but it's still a dirty and lowly thing somehow, and we have to separate it from the 'nobler' aspects of life..." I don't claim to know the exact pathology that lies behind this kind of thinking in every case, but it's not unreasonable to assume that, most of the time, it simply comes down to discomfort with one's own erotic fantasies and a feeling of guilt about them.

These people have my honest sympathies, and as a blogger, I'm quite willing to help them come to terms with their fantasies and show them that there is nothing shameful about being kinky. But what I'm certainly not going to do is censor my own fantasies to conform with their convoluted views.