the school scene paradox
A couple more schoolroom pics for you. These seem to be much more "modern" - no Victorian costumes or props here. I love the girl's fashionable pre-war hairstyle. It's not a look you see often in spanking photos, unless you count the many spanking scenes in old movies, and I think it works well here. The schoolgirl's heightened femininity works simultaneously to make her more sexual (she's not wearing a uniform, but stockings and a summer frock) and more vulnerable.
Vulnerability is the key theme in these images: the girl holding her dress up neatly at the back in anticipation of the consequences of error. She hasn't been punished yet, but she's on a last warning, and she's made acutely aware of that fact. Perhaps she failed a test or handed in a particularly atrocious piece of homework. She's summoned for a private detention, by which time she's expected to have brushed up on the material. The teacher goes through it with her painstakingly, gesturing relevant points with a lifted cane. The lifted dress serves to focus her mind. Any error in her presentation and his hovering cane will lash down across her exposed cheeks.
Which it does, sure enough. And there's a strange intimacy in the image of her punishment. The position is most likely intended to show as much as possible to the camera, but a consequence of it is that teacher and pupil become wrapped around one another, her kneeling at his feet, burying her face and hands in his lap while he wraps an arm around her waist and holds her skirt up for her.
The fear and vulnerability of her body language is contradicted by the sexual overtones in the way they're holding each other. She is simultaneously girl and woman. He is merciless, scathing, aloof - and at the same time taking advantage of her, seeking an inappropriate intimacy.
It's a familiar paradox.
3 comments:
Interesting. Don't know about you but looking at the first image I get surprisingly little sense of vulnerability from her - the way she's standing so erect with her head lifted is so poised, and the hand lifting her skirt so graceful, that she seems just to be concentrating on her work and totally focused on that.
Of course in the second image it's a different story - the hiding of her head emphasises her helplessness, and the fact that now he is holding her skirt up instead of her is a powerful reversal. Also there is something very poignantly submissive about her left hand, just visibly, resting on his leg - much more intimate than if she just buried both hands beneath her head.
Lovely images, thanks for sharing them.
Oh my.
Exquisite images I have not seen anywhere before, and I love your thoughtful readings of these vintage photos. Bravo!
Dave
Jon - I'm glad you disagree, because discussion is the spice of life! :)
I do see what you mean about her poise and grace. There is certainly a contrast between her poise in the first picture and her complete helplessness in the second. Possibly I'm reading too much into this, but to me, her poise in the first picture isn't an indication of power, but of defensiveness. She seems to be to be holding herself taut, trembling, fearing to slip. But you could just as easily read the first image as exploring a tension between the proud lift of her head and focus on the task in hand, and her humiliating exposure to the viewer.
You're right about the hand as well - I hadn't noticed that. Thanks for commenting!
Dave - I'm really happy to be able to share these pictures - a lot of them were new to me. They're scanned in from a Taschen book called "1000 Nudes" if you want to track it down, which self-describes as "commentary on the artistic and social evolution of photographic representations of the human body from 1839 to 1939". Most or all of them are taken from the Uwe Scheid Collection. I don't know if I'm breaching copyright by reproducing them, but people seem to be enjoying them, so I do hope not!
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