CorPun.com, and uncomfortable fantasies
I was recently fascinated to discover CorPun.com, a research site devoted to cataloguing reported incidents of CP across the world. I ended up losing about two hours to browsing the archives, which was simultaneously hot and disturbing. The site features a lot (and I mean a lot) of real, modern CP in a school or judicial setting, mostly from African, Middle Eastern or East Asian countries.
It's weird, but although I fully accept my kink and am well versed on the difference between fantasy and reality, I still struggle with the grey area caused by fantasising about some kinds of real-life events. It's really hard to find a pattern in what I think is okay, because it's pretty inconsistent. Here are some examples:
Real events I am uncomfortable fantasising about:
- Most contemporary school CP in other countries, particularly involving underage schoolchildren (the exceptions being North America and Europe)
- CP used by the agents of a contemporary oppressive regime against the inhabitants of that regime
- White people using CP against people of colour in a political/oppressive context (e.g. slavery)
- CP used by colonials against native inhabitants of the countries they've conquered
- Religiously motivated patriarchal violence against women and children
- Sexual abuse of children
- Anything involving Nazis or the Holocaust
Real events I am comfortable fantasising about:
- Pretty much any historical judicial or school CP in England
- Most modern school CP in Europe or English-colonised countries
- Judicial CP involving a Western person travelling to a contemporary country and being caught by the regime there
- Institutionalised patriarchal violence against women in the context of the historical West (e.g. domestic wife-beating, workhouses, madhouses)
- (Most) historical use of CP against underage children which did not have a sexual element
It's messy, though, with exceptions: like, I'm not comfortable with anything involving the Taliban, but I'm happy with fantasies set in the Christian Church, unless it involves real, close-to-home atrocities such as child abuse in Ireland. I'm happy with most stuff in a European setting but I'm squicked by the Inquisition. I very rarely find real modern incidences of rape or violence against women erotic, except sometimes I randomly do.
To make it even more complicated, the "fantasies I'm uncomfortable with" list is divided, seemingly at random, between scenarios I find hot-but-simultaneously-squicky, and scenarios I just don't find hot.
I think basically my fantasies are moderated by a strong but rather imprecise wariness of cultural appopriation. Anything from my own culture is more likely to be appealing. There's also a bit of a "get out of jail free" card for historical events, some distance having been achieved in the meantime, and real people hopefully not being in danger of having to endure the experience these days. But it's a big mess of exceptions and inconsistencies, and it varies depending on time and context as well, so I can't even map it accurately.
All this only applies to my own head - I don't presume to judge anyone else who does enjoy any of the above scenarios, as I think it's mostly a question of personal taste. What ethical considerations do exist (the debate about Nazi fantasies, for instance) are best left to the conscience of the individual, although I think there's a consensus that exposing people affected by real atrocities to your sexual fantasies about them is generally poor form.
It was absolutely fascinating browsing CorPun.com and finding out what turned me on and what turned me right off. All the images in this post are ones that pressed my buttons. Ask me again in ten years time, though, and the answers will no doubt be different.
I'll leave you with an image which I found exciting even though it contained no actual CP; a photo taken at Eton in the 1940s or 1950s:
I love this because it personalises all the historical school scenarios I like; suddenly the anonymous schoolboys and prefects have faces, and the canes hanging on the wall attest that CP was a part of these young mens' lives. I like this picture much more than all the shots of anonymous welted bottoms from the same time and place. Perhaps, too, the fact that this is merely suggestive rather than explicitly showing an actual punishment makes it more appealing. If I were to see a photo of any one of these boys being beaten, part of me would wince at the fact of genuine nonconsent, the invasion of privacy; but looking from face to face, not knowing which might have suffered in what way, I can let my imagination roam.
Yes, odd but I too recently discovered Corpun.com. All I can add is that the Canadian federal pentitentiary system did indeed administer so-called 'paddlings' to newly inmates until the early 1970s. Apparently they received 20 strokes, with the first 10 administered at once and the rest 'to be decided', so that was intended to keep them in line (obviously). I saw the actual bench they used during a tour of one such federal institution, and yes, it was arousing in a creepy kind of way.
ReplyDeleteI have to confess that as a spanko I too can easily 'eroticise' real punishment events. I rationalize it thus: I can be turned on by watching someone who is nonconsensually enduring pain, but I cannot be aroused by being actually involved in it. It's strange how that separation occurs, but it definitey does.
Love your blog...
This is very interesting, I am fascinated by what goes on inside the privacy of other kinksters heads. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI personally detest the contemporary school scenes, largely because I experienced this first hand in the 1960s. I also shun any religious fantasy, but then I was at a Church of England School run by 'religious' people. (They did a superb job of turning out a zealous atheist.) There is a lot of school CP in porn, I suspect because this is easy to set up, girl in pleated skirt add white blouse, teacher in a suit with a cane. School desk and blackboard for props and you're all set.
I am totally happy with the boss and employee fantasy, also the servant and master or mistress. I quite like the master and slave fantasy but I am a little disturbed by my agreeing with the slave concept in a fantasy but totally against this in reality.
But of course this is all FANTASY and you can think what you like, inside your head it's all fine and dandy. Role play is also fine if everyone agrees to the fantasy. (If it escapes into reality then you have problems.)
I doubt that your any different to anyone else with having mixed feelings about your fantasy, my understanding is most kinksters have the same conflicts in fantasy.
Fred
Pandora, you are happy when you "can let my imagination roam."
ReplyDeleteThat's this topic in a nutshell. The ambivalence in this topic of more or less remote r/l nonconsensual has been discussed from time to time on all spanking forums I have been to, and many blogs. Strange it took you so long to discover corpun, I have looked at it for many years. In his first years he was reluctant to include cp of females, being a gay male and not wanting to believe that also females were suject to cp.
In corpun, I love those UK school class photos with girls (18+ of course!) that come with the personal accounts from some of the girls, who were caned in the 1960-80s. Can you post one of those - for the guys who are not so turned on by Eaton boys?
Re boys in boarding schools in the 1960s, I assume you love the caning scene in the film "If" ? Maybe it's in Youtube. Very realistic, very hard.
A week or two ago there was a story from India in the world press, that had some of my fav cp ingredients, but that was the worst turnoff I have seen for a long time. Nice part: school girl gets caned and then has to do the very straining 'murgha' pose for, they said, 2 hours out in the hot India sun. With some bricks balanced on her back. Ugly part: the girl was only 12, and she died before the 2 hours were up. Ouch.
Also in corpun CP cases often get documented only when they have gone very wrong and the case goes to court.
But what of cp in the many private (and Christian, hmmm) boot camps in the USA? Many new ones came up in the Bush years.
They are in my grey zone, being close in time and space.
Same with The Magadene Laundries in Ireland. (Before the war, the nazis in Germany sent problem girls to jail/reform for a year or 2, in Ireland it was literally for life, so who was worst? Not counting the holocaust that set in later.)
But I am ok with the 25.000 UK girls age 16-30 who were 'transported' to slave work for 7 or 14 years in Australia, in the 19th century. So long ago.
- What we all do with this, each in our own way and fashion, is to edit the real scene and turn it into a fantasy. But it is a difficult balance.
Thanks, Pandora, for taking the risk and sharing your personal thoughts on what is often a controversial topic.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, I find that your dividing lines of what is acceptable to fantasize about and not, very closely parallel my preferences. The only (sometimes) difference is that as an African-American man, I can sometimes "allow" myself to appreciate erotically a scene from a movie about slavery in which a woman is whipped. I suppose there's another potential level of controversy in there as well, since these are typically back whippings (as opposed to buttocks). Particular scenes I'm thinking of were in two movies - "Dragonard" and one simply called "Enslaved" if I recall correctly.
We seem to come from a very similar place in terms of CP psyche, so I wonder if you too had some uncomfortable moments witnessing some of these kinds of scenes in the presence of friends or family.
Best Regards,
Franklin
Have a look at:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.answers.com/topic/judicial-corporal-punishment
It has a list of counties where jcp is given
Pandora, your description of the different possible reactions to various CP scenes with a real life background (I guess, somehow all CP scenarios are more or less based upon real life events, right?) raised the following idea in my mind: Could it be that we feel differently depending on a) whether a scene is very close to our personal spanking fantasies or not and b) whether the real life background is one we’re extremely uncomfortable with or not? That would create four categories:
ReplyDeleteTo my mind, the scenarios that are related to our strongest erotic CP fantasies and don’t contain elements we’re extremely uncomfortable with thinking of them happening in real life are the ones we usually find purely hot. I think that’s because we only connect them to our positive fantasy world and not to real life. At the other end of the spectrum there are the scenes we don’t have strong erotic fantasies about and which in addition to that contain real life references we’re extremely uncomfortable with. In my opinion those are the scenes we don’t find hot at all because we only think about the horrible real life background when we see them. Then there is the grey area. The first category here consists of the scenarios which are connected to our erotic fantasies but are spoiled in case they contain real life references we find disturbing. To my mind these are the scenes we find somehow hot but which also cause an uncomfortable feeling. And last but not least there are the scenes we don’t find erotic, but don’t feel extremely uncomfortable with, either. I think we don’t fantasies about these scenarios, but they are not such a complete turn-off as the scenes that we find unerotic and disturbing.
For example, my childhood fantasies were the “caring guidance” fantasies where a sympathetic guardian used CP in the context of educating his protégé (the fantasies were and still are usually M/m). So, I find scenes like that very hot, maybe even looking at a “real” photo or reading a “real” story. But, knowing that it is real can alsomake me feel uncomfortable, especially when it becomes clear that the person being spanked suffered for example psychological harm. On the other hand (unlike the majority of spankos?!) I’m not into women in prison / judicial punishment scenarios. So, I usually don’t find those scenes hot (even not in a spanking film). In case they are connected to for example the abuse of power they are a total turn-off because abuse of power is something I’m extremely uncomfortable with in real life. Even in a film these scenarios make me just very sad because I don’t connect them to spanking fantasies and think about the horrible real life events taking place in our world instead.
I wonder: Could the distinction I’ve described somehow explain your different reactions to the various scenarios you’ve written about, Pandora? Or is it just a pattern that only fits to my reactions?
Many of these "I will/will not" fantasize about this that and the other must be swung heavily by the influences around us.
ReplyDeleteWhen I found out about the slave system in Madagascar in the 1800's (white people where taken into slavery by native Madagascans), this fueled a flurry of fantasies for me. Being captured, sold, conditioned by my new female owner, that type of thing. Yet turn that colour ratio around with the white European being the owner and my blood just runs cold and the fantasy fountain runs dry.
Preconditioning from outside sources can leave strong influences in the mind.
Prefectdt
I think we probably all feel the same ambivalence as you do about some of these things.
ReplyDeleteI think Kaelah has an important point about the "abuse of power". I went to a school where corporal punishment was used, and was generally supported and approved of by the pupils (it was discussed in staff/prefect meetings, and debated on occasion in both upper and middle school debating societies.) It was generally seen as fair, (the ethos at my school was very hot against bullying, and had it been seen as in any way abuse then it would not have met with general approval), and was accepted. Therefore to this day I am turned on by "school scene", that may not be the case had I gone to a school where CP was a form of abuse.
The same can be said of other scenarios, for instance I am turned on by "domestic discipline", but I am fully aware that in real life it can be a form of bullying, controlling and abuse.
So there is fantasy, reality, and maybe many realities, some a turn on, and some thoroughly repellant, and I guess this is what we have to pick our way through.....
Rocky - it's a bit weird I hadn't come across the link before, but I think I'm generally more interested in fictional spankings than real ones, so perhaps not too surprising.
ReplyDelete"Arousing in a creepy kind of way" sums up my response to a lot of it pretty well. It's a very personal thing of course.
It's important to remember, I think, that eroticising an event does NOT equal endorsing it. I find it helps me understand people if they are explicit about this, but it's generally true, and I think a lot of people get confused. I can find rape erotic without endorsing it in the abstract. Eroticisation doesn't suddenly turn into endorsement just because it's a specific event.
It seems a bit weird and inconsistent to me that I find the abstract idea of real CP more erotic than specific instances, but I think it's to do with the way my compassion and empathy work - confronted with a real human face to the victim, I find it harder to eroticise their suffering. In the abstract, there are no such distractions.
Fred - thanks for your response! I think you're right that our personal experiences massively inform our tastes. The culture you grow up in is likely to provide you with early fantasy fodder which familiarises you to certain scenarios; unfamiliar scenarios, or scenarios in unfamiliar cultures, are less likely to appeal. (There's some fascinating theory about familiarity breeding acceptance - check out this article on cognitive fluency.)
I don't think there's anything unethical or immoral about having any fantasy - what's inside an individual's head is their damn business. I do think that it's courteous and compassionate to be aware of other people's sensitivities when talking about, or otherwise exposing them to potentially uncomfortable fantasies, but that's just manners - it's not the kind of thing it's possible to police, really.
frants - How interesting that he was reluctant to include CP of females! Perhaps not wanting to believe girls were subject to it - but just not inclined to spend time on it. I can understand that. It's a much more complete resource now that he's expanded his scope, though.
ReplyDeleteI can't post a picture in a comment, but if there's a particular caning photo you like feel free to link it :) I'm not sure I have time to lose another few hours to browsing the archives...
I haven't actually seen "If", I don't think. Surprising perhaps (although I have now finally seen Secretary). I've seen that German clip with the girl dressed as a boy - very hot - is that a different film? I can't honestly remember.
That story about the 12 year old is so sad. It makes me curl up inside. I had a similar experience hearing about a school caning in Uganda. The girl was sentenced to a high number of strokes, to be delivered publically in the school yard. Hot image, no? Except she was caned for being a lesbian - urgh. And she died of the punishment. Suddenly my "slightly creepy" r-l fantasy is a full-on rage-filled shudder at the injustice and cruelty in the world. It's a really narrow line to walk, everyone's reactions are different, and it can really land you in it, emotionally. We are so, so lucky and privileged to be in the position of picking and choosing between events to eroticise, rather than being forced to endure them.
The Magdalen Laundries - oh, god, yes. For me this comes down to my personal pattern of vague r-l scenarios are hotter than specific ones. So, when I first read a review of the film of the Magdalen Laundries, I found the scenario incredibly hot. Women abused by an unjust system, nuns, CP, forced servitude, the lot! Then I read specific narratives from individuals and my heart just went out to them; I couldn't find their experiences erotic. I think I'm best taking a step back from real-life stories. For me, the idea is usually much hotter than the reality.
Franklin - You're not the first African-American I've spoken to who has a complex and messy relationship with the history of Black slavery. I certainly find myself much more easily able to accept it when spankees of colour fantasise about scenarios from their own racial history than when white people do so.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you too had some uncomfortable moments witnessing some of these kinds of scenes in the presence of friends or family.
Oh, very much. I wrote a post about this once - a ghost from the past. And I vividly remember, sometime in the late nineties, seeing a BBC news report on the CP ban in schools, as a pre-pubescent, and feeling overwhelmed with terror and humiliation because my little brother was watching. Grabbed the remote and turned it off.
Then, later, in the kitchen - my brother asking my mum "what's caning?" - my mum answering - "it's when someone, usually a grownup, hits someone else on the bottom, usually a child, with a stick called a cane, as a punishment. It hurts a lot and it's not legal any more." I wanted to die. I was absolutely, 100% convinced that my feelings must have shown on my face. I absolutely couldn't bear having this sort of thing discussed in front of me.
I think a lot of us are quite similar in that respect. Thanks for your comment Franklin - it's nice to meet you :)
tim - interesting, thankyou. I've received email from a reader who suffered JCP on the Isle of Man in the 70s.
I find the generation difference between spankos who lived through CP and those who didn't absolutely fascinating. In some ways I feel that CP being purely fantasy for most young people in the UK liberates us, allows us to enjoy it without the messy complication of personal trauma or humiliation. But I've spoken to a lot of older kinksters who are sure that kink is dying out with the CP ban. Anyway, I don't know if you can extrapolate anything - I feel as much of an affinity with older kinksters as young ones - but it's interesting how people's kink seems more or less unaffected by the reality they're brought up in.
Here's a question - would people still be spankos in a world where CP had never taken place?
Kaelah - thankyou for your thoughtful comment. I think your categories have a lot of merit. For me, though, the primary differences are cultural and temporal. For instance, a scenario from history is more appealing than an identical scenario from the present. It's not that the scenario is different at all, just that I'm more easily able to enjoy it with that temporal distance.
The other primary factor for me is cultural. A scenario that is hot in my own culture, or a culture I am very familiar with, is much hotter than an identical scenario from an unfamiliar culture. I think this is mostly a desire not to unwittingly engage in cultural appropriation, but it's not really rational, when you think about it. I mean I might not want to offend people, but some people are already offended by my kink, my sex work, my pro-porn stance, and that doesn't bother me. And as I say above, I believe that eroticisation of a scenario does not equate to endorsement. So my response is inconsistent, but perhaps not wholly unpredictable.
Your categories form a sound basis, though, from which to detect those inconsistencies. Apart from the irrational temporal and cultural factors in my responses, you're pretty much right about the basic intersection of erotic appeal with emotional comfort.
comment replies
ReplyDeleteKarl - Well, I don't have any plans. But it's nice to know my options might be more open than I've assumed.
I can't remember where I read this now, but someone has commented
Prefectdt - yah, influences are really significant. Maybe if I hadn't grown up on Roald Dahl and Victorian sentimental novels I wouldn't fetishise English/historical stuff so much. Tom was raised in Africa, and although he's white, he still has a lot of fantasies based on the environment he grew up in.
I think political stuff HAS to be a factor for any responsible white Western person. We are surrounded so much by the legacy of the cruelty of our ancestors, the need not to perpetuate oppressive thought patterns or behaviours. It's not 'political correctness', it's thoughtful decency to be circumspect about these things. That kind of care should be a matter of course when eroticising the suffering of culture you do not belong to. One's own cultural suffering is rather more fair game. Like the meme: only I can beat up/badmouth my sibling, no-one else is allowed to. Things that are in our own mental "territory" are a safer outlet for sadistic fantasies; and that factor is compounded by the fact that our tastes are informed by what we are exposed to as a young age.
Birchwand - How fascinating to hear your experiences of consensual school CP! That's already given me fantasy fodder - and I can see how it would inform your own tastes.
I share your ambivalence about domestic discipline. It's hot, but when real people are currently living in non-consensual, abusive domestic servitude in our own culture and others, care must be taken to separate fantasy from reality.
I guess that's one of the reasons one's own experience is easier - because it's understood that the person at risk of harm is oneself, and you can generally assume that if someone is fantasising about their own experiences they have already thought about this stuff. Historical situations, too, are easier because the people who might be most traumatised to discover our fantasies are long dead. (The exception, of course, being events with a strong memorial meme, such as the Holocaust.)
I think most people who comment on analytical kink blogs have already considered this stuff. I was surprised, at the demo I attended against the extreme porn legislation, to find a lot of Nazi fetishists being very loud and overt about their kink. I mean, okay, to each their own, but for the sake of others I wouldn't want to shout about my edgiest fantasies in the centre of town.
From a blog about real cp experienecs: "Going to Catholic Schools as a kid, those "penguins" (nuns) were sadists! They knew all sorts of weird ways to torture a kid thaqt usually didn’t look or sound too bad but were hell! We had to kneel on top of pencils for hours…doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Try doing it sometime – OUCH!"
ReplyDelete-- This mean trick can be seen a lot in the Russian site Slaves In Love. Many girls there do it, I checked if it hurts, and omg it does. Check that site. Famous and beautiful top model Krista does it, nude, while teaching her master English. Quite funny, but an ordeal for her.
@ Pandora: 'If' is a 1968 film starring malcolm macdowell, set in a gruesome boarding school. I didnt find the scene where he gets caned, but here is another :
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqoGcC4S5jk
The film is a classic, see it!
"Birchwand - How fascinating to hear your experiences of consensual school CP! That's already given me fantasy fodder.."
ReplyDeleteI am quite sure that amongst the Eton boys in your final photo there would have been a similar consensus of opinion as at my school at a (slightly) later date that firm, fair and measured corporal punishment was the most appropriate and effective way of maintaining discipline in an environment of several hundred testosterone-fuelled teenage boys.
Here's a question - would people still be spankos in a world where CP had never taken place?
ReplyDeleteAnswer: yes. Check Norway. Few people under 70 were given cp at home, and none in school. Yet 20-25 yo old girls want to dress up in school uniforms that Norway never had, to get schooled and caned.
Bdsm is quite big in Norway.
This might apply to our thing too? Canadian historian Gwynne Dyer was once asked "Why are perfectly normal, non-violent people fascinated by war? Those are the history books that sell best." and he replied "War is about the extremes of human behavior in people that are normal, not psychos not crazies not people from the fringes, but rather perfectly ordinary people put in the situation and you can see how they behave in these extreme situations. There's a curiosity in those that haven't experienced war and there's a fascination even among those who have."
ReplyDelete"Here's a question - would people still be spankos in a world where CP had never taken place?"
ReplyDeleteWhen our ancient ancestors started to stand upright they began the development of the muscles and tissues that form buttocks. They also liberated their front paws to evolve into hands.
Once hands and buttocks evolve a noisy interaction between the two takes on a kind of inevitability wouldn't you say!
I think what it boils down to is that most of us are OK with fantasies about people who we have no real empathetic connection with - be that because they are from an historical period, or because they are idiots (Western tourists caught out overseas etc.) or because we feel that they deserved some form of punishment.
ReplyDeleteThe more we can feel for the victim - because that is what they almost inevitably are, victims - the less inclined we are to build a fantasy around the event. For example, I have said before on another blog that under other circumstances the way that the Catholic Church in Ireland treated children under its care would be pretty much a spanko's wet dream. However, the whole thing is so incredibly sad (not to mention upsetting and rage-inducing) that it most certainly is NOT suitable fantasy fodder.
In a way this is almost hypocritical because our judgement on what is in good taste is based on our cultural biases and personal experiences. I am sure that the countless witches who were tortured and burned alive by the Inquisition were far more mistreated. However, I am fine with fantasising about that.
It's all enough to make me throw up my hands in disgust. I like nice well defined rules, and like you I can't really see any way to draw a "line" and divide possible sources of inspiration into "good" and "bad".
Fascinating post. Your list of things that don't work for you pretty much coincides with my own - slavery in particular being a real no-no for me.
ReplyDeleteWhere the lines become more blurred for me are accounts of contemporary judicial floggings, or of R/L school corporal punishments, featured on sites like CorPun or News of The Lash (www.newsofthelash.com). I know I probably *shouldn't* find them hot, but I do...