The Sunday Times Style
Supplement, 1st August, 2004
By William Georgiades
"Women
should be struck regularly, like gongs," suggested Noel
Coward, not the straightest arrow that ever flew. Le vice anglais
is not the sexiest phrase, conjuring as it does images of doughy,
middle-aged MPs being caned by unconvincing latex-clad girls from
Essex. Much more adorable is the idea of a rosy-bottomed harlot
squealing in gleeful discomfort over a gentleman's lap, her legs
kicking and her whole demeanour fairly saying: "Stop this at
once. But not just yet " We've had postfeminism,
do-me-feminism and now, my personal favourite, beat-me feminism.
I once knew an American woman who liked to be taken to the woods,
fastened just so to a tree, then beaten rather fiercely with a
riding crop before being ravished. I asked where the notion to be
treated thus came from, imagining all forms of gruesome
coming-of-age tales, and she mentioned the salient image of
Catherine Deneuve in Brunel's Belle de jour. She looked so
beautiful, my friend said, and I wanted to feel that beautiful.
As I recall, she did. In 1979, Sweden instituted the first ban on
smacking its children, which, looking at Sweden, explains quite a
lot. As if children were not annoying enough, Britain is now
joining this coalition for the preservation of consequence-free
childhoods, which means that for every smacking that should have
occurred; the relevant child, when adult, will plaintively turn
to their other half and say, just like all 25-year-old Swedes:
"Spank me."' There is a general belief that those who
were beaten properly as children grow up with an acquired taste
for smacking. This tends not to be the case in practice. I grew
up in England in the 1970s, where a day of education was not
complete without some impressive form of violence. Whatever
romantic notions may exist are quickly excised when your
eight-year-old bottom is hit six times with a cane. At 12, I made
a deeply unfortunate move to suburban America, where the same
behaviour that would be cause for a beating here sent me to a
psychiatrist's office. America is an oddly flabby country, where
all sports that involve interaction come equipped with helmets
and pads, and childish infractions are seen as "issues"
that require "help". This "help" invariably
comes in the form of friends for pay, otherwise known as
psychiatry, and, sadly, psychiatry has not yet evolved to
incorporate corporal punishment. The immediate result was that my
bad behaviour only increased, while the long-term effects of
American psychiatry were far more damaging than the momentary
pain of what is, after all, a normal punishment. So, the bottoms
of America's adult population tend to be more used to a
psychiatrist's couch than the sting of a cane. And, as these
young women and men grow up, they realise that they missed
something rather crucial: the virtue, not vice, known as
discipline. There is a fine line between abuse and sexy play.
And, of course, it hurts to be whacked. Yet nothing is more
ladylike than submitting properly to the gentleman you have
chosen to be with. The man who smacks his lady lovingly is
unlikely ever to abuse her in an unwelcome or illegal way. And,
technically, it doesn't hurt if you're spanked properly; rather,
the rush of blood to those vital areas creates a sensation that
is something very different from stubbing your toe or banging
your elbow. There are other matters at hand. Women have become
obsessed with their bottoms, finding ever more inventive ways to
show them off. There are only a couple of things a man can
reasonably be expected to do to a bottom. Four, to be precise. Of
which smacking is the most sanitary, aesthetically pleasing and
generally sensible. The best smackees I've found are American
women, who tend to be relatively prim and proper. Show me a woman
clanging with body piercings and wearing a schoolgirl outfit, and
I'll show you a home-counties mum treading water until she snares
someone equally dreary. One who can be presented in society tends
to be that much more interesting. Or, as a good friend of mine
mentioned to me recently, all nice-girls like smacking. So, as
men get older and have less patience for more elaborate
coquettishness, the most efficient way to determine a young
woman's suitability for marriage, children and companionship is
to put her over your knee at the slightest suggestion of
difficulty, pull up the dramatic Alexander McQueen you have just
bought her (her willingness to wear a McQueen creation is itself
a dead giveaway), pull down the Coco de Mer knickers and have at
it. If she kicks her heels and squeals delightedly, she's a
keeper. If she objects and cites feminist theory, you've just
saved yourself years of misery. Perverts are forever going on
about how their particular interest is really the most freeing,
marvellous thing, and how, if everyone wore rubber and attached
clothes pins to their delicate bits, the world would be a happier
place. But a smacked bum isn't elaborate or a perversion, or even
out of the ordinary. It's one of the most natural things to do in
the world (especially when a woman is being annoying). The
perverse is not smacking the needy. And so, this nation can now
look forward to a whole generation growing up with issues that
can only be solved over a knee. Spare the rod and spoil the
country. On the upside, there won't be a girl in England who
isn't gagging for it.