Spanking literature

Spanking literature refers to the genre of fiction, also known as flagellation, and a subset of sadomasochist literature. Spanking literature reached its "golden age" in the early 20th century in France and lasted nearly forty years. It began in the early 1900s, grew significantly in the 1920s, reached its peak in the 1930s and came to an end at the outbreak of World War II.

Several things are notable and peculiar about this period. First, it was a very local, French, phenomenon that did not have counterparts in other countries—not in the UK, not in the Netherlands, and not in Germany either.

After 1950, as the French book market quickly returned to normal, interest in spanking literature did not return to its former levels. The war effectively put an end to the kink-tolerant spirit that had flourished in Paris before the war. No other country jumped in to fill the gap. There were individual erotic publications, including some with BDSM themes, but these were exceptions, not a mass phenomenon, and many in fact were banned shortly after they had appeared. 1968 put an end to much of this conservatism, but by then the anti-spanking movement had become so strong that spanking novels were unpublishable for other reasons.

The French "golden age of spanking literature" was followed by a gap of 50 years until the 1990s which brought a new, and this time worldwide, boom of spanking literature.

Contents

Specifics

The early 20th century saw a flourishing of spanking fiction in France, catering to a fetishist and spankophile (or as it was called then, flagellant) clientele. Publications were typically in novel or novella form, often illustrated with spanking drawings. They were sold over the counter in some adult bookshops and by mail order. The center of this literature was Paris, where several publishers and many more imprints under which the novels were published. The authors and illustrators typically used pseudonyms to protect their privacy.

In terms of content, the most popular subject matter of that era seems to have been corporal punishment of girls (either preteen or post-puberty, between 13 and 17 years of age) by their (mostly female) authority figures. The typical pairing was F/f. The spankings described were harsh (whippings "until the blood came" were not infrequent) and disciplinary in nature, at least in pretext. At the same time however, they were also often described as a pleasurable and/or erotic experience for both the spanker and, in the case of adolescents, also for the spankee (being past puberty and discovering their sexuality). But any pleasure taken from such corporal punishment was typically hidden, secret or unofficial because the official scenario was normally one of non-consensual disciplinary spanking between an authority figure and their charge.

There is also another aspect that is notable about the spanking literature of that era. Modern spanking literature (since the late 20th century) often places the spankee into the focus: the reader is interested in what the spankee feels and experiences, physically and emotionally. The spankee is the protagonist and in the course of a longer story or novel, will often be spanked by different spankers, each giving a somewhat different experience.

In the erotic spanking literature of the early 20th century, the authors usually focused on the spanker, who is as a rule a dominant and a very attractive woman. The spankees are more or less objects to her: proof of the spanker's power. In the course of a longer story or novel, the spanker will often punish different spankees in different, creative ways.

Besides the obvious physical nature of corporal punishment, the works always placed a strong emphasis on the emotional side of it: the feelings of shame, embarrassment and humiliation that came with such punishment. Individual works of the genre also addressed "related" fetishes such as bondage, imprisonment, enemas or petticoat punishment.

Reprints and translations

These books were written in French, and only a limited number were later translated to other languages such as English or German. Some novels saw reprints after World War II, up to the 1970s. Today, some of the works of this period have entered the public domain (depending on the year of death, or where unknown of the last known publication, of their copyright holder), making it legal for everyone to use and republish them.

Publishers

Authors

Illustrators

Selected Works

See also

References

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Further reading