Beauty and the Birch: May 2010

And now a topic close to the heart of all readers of this blog I suspect. Story by Steven Rawlings adapted by me. Enjoy.

The Victorians had an almost pathological fear of masturbation or 'the shameful act', as it was often referred to. Boys who indulged were savagely whipped by their governess, which often resulted in even more vigorous masturbation and the cycle was repeated. Of course the governess was often the source of the masturbation fantasies.

Girls were treated as least as severely. It is a mistake to think that the Victorians did not understand the sources of sexual pleasure in women. Unlike nowadays when there seems to be a vibrator in every teenage girl's bedside cabinet, in those days the fingers had to suffice. The clitoris is certainly not a late twentieth century invention and our foremothers understood its capabilities very well. However, the morbid fear among the middle and intellectual classes of anything that smacked of joy in sex led them to condemn and punish female masturbation as roundly as that in the male.

If they had no biblical authority for this condemnation, medical science was willing to fill the gap. Eminent doctor after eminent doctor filled the pages of the medical journals with warnings to mothers to prevent such unnatural vice in their daughters. The most notorious was Baker Brown, who summed up the findings of his colleagues in declaring that masturbation in the female was the source of hysteria and madness, that the practice was a disease that, if unchecked, would otherwise 'proceed inexorably from hysteria to spinal irritation and thence to idiocy, mania, and death'. The first symptoms of the disease, he thought, manifested themselves at puberty, when girls became`restless and excited and indifferent to the social influences of domestic life. There might be depression, loss of appetite, or a quivering of the eyelids, and an inability to look one in the face!
One clue was that such girls often wanted to work, to escape from home and become nurses or sisters of charity; we can easily imagine how Baker Brown would have reacted to Florence Nightingale and, in his own terms, he would have been entirely justified. Miss Nightingale, according to her own diaries, was 'a martyr to the shameful act.' Night after night she would seek solace between her thighs, unable to resist the temptation to frot her bud until passionate convulsions overcame her, only to writhe in mental agony afterwards, as inbred guilt took the place of evaporating erotic emotion.

To guard against these ever present dangers, parents of daughters were advised to watch them closely for the tell-tale signs, to minutely examine their underwear and night-gowns for the shameful stains of vulval lubricity and to curb their blood with cold showers and loose drawers, removing stimulants such as red meat and French novels. And of course when masturbation was detected only the most severe punishment would suffice.

1. Letter from Dorinda, Countess of Batewell, to her sister, Lady Camilla Travaise. My Dear Sister, How wise of you to write concerning your eldest. It is, I know, a very trying time when daughters reach a state of bud, and yet are not yet ripe to plant. As you say, when seeking my help, I have travelled this path before you, and with more than one fair flower, and will impart to you what words of wisdom I may
In the first place you must harden your resolve, and not let pity for a tender plant impair your duty to her, for her ultimate welfare, no matter that it may be painful for you both in the short term. She has her whole lifetime before her, and it may be blighted, or even cut short, if you fail in your duty at this time, and take no action over the dreadful discovery you described to me. I must emphasis as strongly as I can that what you found, her stimulation of her woman's parts, the frotting of the pubic nerve, is a matter filled with terrible danger. The most eminent of physicians have given public warnings of the inevitable progress to madness and death if unchecked.
Now to matters practical. In the first place she must, of course, be severely punished, to drive home to her the seriousness of what she has done. I recommend at least a good birching; several dozens of strokes at least, and well laid on. Indeed,for my own daughters, I preferred to use a whalebone rod. Like myself you have more than one chick to consider and I heartily recommend to you that she should be whipped before her sisters, bare-arsed to heighten both her humiliation and the impact of the lesson on the younger girls, since they will see so much more clearly how her bottom so scorched by the rod if there are no drawers to draw a veil across the seat of her punishment.
Once the girl is well thrashed and penitent (You must not hesitate for her own sake to repeat the dose if you do not detect an adequate humility in the girl after) you will need to exercise a constant vigilance. These young things are wilful and devious, and quite capable of backsliding, however genuine their repentance may seem at the time. Ensure she is watched carefully by her governess to check on repetition. Have her inspect the girl frequently and look out especially for erection or inflammation of the pubic nerve, excessive wetness between the legs, or stains in her drawers, which should be examined every time they are discarded. If necessary appoint one of the maids to collect the used garments and bring them to governess. Listlessness, inattention and lack of respect for authority, an inability to look one in the eye, these too are all symptoms of the same fatal malady.
If this occurs, there must, naturally, be a more severe flogging, again in front of siblings to shame her and deter them, but you must also consider practical methods of deterrence, or restriction of opportunity for sin. Chastity belts can be obtained from several reputable sources, you will find their advertisements in the better class of family journal. But be careful. Even the best may be circumvented by a vicious child.

2. And now a description of how a girl’s masturbation, detected by the maid examining her nightdress, was punished:

Promptly at eight, as decreed at the breakfast table, there was a low knock on his door,and he barked permission to enter. Mother and daughter were waiting outside, and came in on his command. The girl was wearing a robe de chambre of thin silk over her essential underwear of corset, liner, and drawers, plus stockings, gartered above her knee, and buttoned boots in soft kid leather. Her hair was done up on top of her head, and held in a small lace cap.
Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of the long, lean cane lying on the desk, but she merely said," You asked me to attend you this evening, Papa."
"And what purpose did I state for your visit?"
"So that I may be corrected for my shameful acts last night."
"Good. We understand each other. Kindly remove your clothing, as necessary."
Nancy untied the narrow belt that held her robe, shrugging it off her shoulders, folding it carefully, and setting it on a convenient chair. She turned back to stand facing her father, her body held rigid it the tight embrace of the steel-boned corset, that encased her from her breasts to her hips. Above, her swelling mounds floated in a nest of lace, below the high-cut back of the corset, below the extreme narrowness of the waist, caused her buttocks to flare out into generous rounds, barely covered by thin cotton drawers, in front the corset extended very low, a solidly boned panel reached almost to the dark triangle visible through the thin cotton of the drawers, pressing hard against her flattened belly.
"The drawers too," he commanded.
His wife protested at the suggestion.
"Please, William, this is not seemly. A girl of her age should not have to bare her lower person in front of a man, not even her father."
"Mary, I will not have you constantly questioning my judgement. Either keep quiet or, if you cannot contain yourself, leave the room," he said angrily, "I warn you, you will not like the consequences if you persist."
"But William, Nancy has put on, especially for the occasion, her finest Batiste drawers. The cotton is so fine you may see through it, and it will afford her no protection, except from your male eye."
"That is enough, Madam," Sir William exploded, "kindly leave the room at once. I will send word when you are to attend me to receive your own punishment."
After the mother had left the room, the daughter entered a diffident plea on her own behalf.
"Papa, they are very thin. I am sure that they will not diminish the rod's effect in the slightest. I am grown too big now, to bare my bottom in front of a man."
"Hold your tongue girl," her father replied, still agitated from his exchanges with his undutiful wife, "Bare flesh is traditional on such occasions, and moreover, necessary for you to fully absorb the lessons to be learnt, and for me to lay on your stripes in the most effective and telling manner. Now let us have no more delay. Down with them at once."
Flushing with mortification, but not daring to delay further, she untied the ribbons that held the flimsy garment at her waist, and pushed it down until it clung around her knees, revealing the whiteness of her plump globes, pushed out into full prominence by the action of the heavily-boned corset, laced bowstring tight at her waist.
"Now to the chair," Sir William ordered, some of the exasperation leaving his tone as his daughter began to return to her proper obedience, "Kneel up on the arms, and lean over the backrest. Keep that position until your chastisement has been completed."

She did as she was bid, making no more demur, now the Rubicon of bare buttocks had been crossed, and knelt as he had instructed, displaying them to their best advantage, perfect snowy hemispheres, with a woman's fullness that justified her claims to be full grown now, though not to be excused exposing them in this manner for correction of her offence.
Sir William took up the rod,and gave a few experimental slashes through the air, testing its balance and whip. As a father and husband he was, of course, well used to such exercise, but it was a year or so since he had last corrected his child, and this was a new and different rod. It felt good in his hand, well balanced, very flexible without twisting from the straight line as it parted the air to impact the cushion he had selected as his target. It hissed as it flew, and struck the leather roll on his couch with a noise like a pistol shot. Nancy's buttocks flinched at the sound, but she said nothing, staying bent over the chair, her bottom up, her arms around the chair-back, grasping a turned rail low down, the top rail pressing into her breasts, barely covered by the light lace at the corset top.
Satisfied he had got the measure of the rod, a tingle of excitement going through him at the electric feel of it as it had struck the leather, giving promise of even more thrilling sensations from its contact with female flesh, Sir William advanced to initiate its application. To set his mark, he rested the cane's tip lightly on the base of the right buttock cheek, and the bending girl could not resist clenching her buttocks out of fear yet again.
Her father checked her.
"You are clenching. It shows a rejection of the rod, and no true acceptance of your correction. Relax them at once. I shall not commence the punishment until you do."
She made a tiny moan of despair, but the cheeks ceased to press in on each other and Sir William drew back his arm and struck.

The lean dark length caught the full rounds a little below their widest part, seeming to be embraced by them as it buried itself in the soft folds, then was rejected like a chestnut taken straight from the fire, and too hot to hold, falling away to leave a distinct mark on the pale hinds, an absolute white against one just blushed with pink. It did not last. Even as her father watched, recording how the rod had acted, the line filled with red, and began to swell.
Nancy too, had recorded the impact, in her mind a line of fire, not snow, and then the returning blood, that stained the track an angry red, brought to her a pulsing ache that spread and spread, until it seemed to fill her whole belly, and rise up above her waist and press into her skull.
She was no virgin, as far as a rod's caresses went, but this far outdid what she remembered of the stick used in the class room, or even in her father's study. This had some extra quality to it that pushed it just that bit beyond what had been bearable before, indeed, become an accepted part of life. This new level of correction would always be salutary, and could never become a mere unpleasant annoyance, as school swishings often were.
Well, she knew what to expect now, and braced herself for the next. It hurt her no less, catching her just below the first, but at least the shock was not quite so dramatic, and, where she had gasped aloud and whined at the rising pain, now she bit her lip and absorbed the cut in near silence, only the laboured breath telling of her struggle not to cry out.
Three, four and five, thrashed into her cringing buttocks. Sir William took no regular exercise, but he was a powerfully built man, who had retained much of the strength of his youth, and had added weight to put behind the blows. Moreover he had thrashed his womenfolk many times during his career as a family man, and skill counted for as much as strength in this commerce between man, woman and rod. Such skills, once learnt were not easily forgotten.
The sixth stroke completed a regular ladder of welts, the top rungs turning purple now, the lowest still an inflamed red, almost on her gluteal fold. Sir William paused to review his handiwork and Nancy rose, straightening her back, gripping the top rail of the chair, and putting one delicately booted foot down onto the floor, preparatory to standing.
"And where do you think you are going, my girl?" her father snapped.
"I thought you had finished, Papa," she replied in a voice thick with tears, "At school we were never given more than six."
"As you have so unmannerly insisted already, you are a grown woman now, and may expect a woman's tally, not a school-girl's. Get back at once. You have another six to come."
Unable to suppress a sob of fear and pain, she never-the less obeyed him at once, resuming her former pose, presenting the welted buttocks, her drawers still around her knees.
She had fought bravely to keep her courage alive, her dignity intact, holding out to the end of the six she had anticipated. To have to go down again, exposing her throbbing posterior for another six of the same, was almost more than she could bear. She bit her lip and tried to take her new stripes as as she had the old.
Sir William retraced his steps, starting again at the fullest part of the buttock. Nancy gave a small cry as the rod bit into already welted flesh. The stiffened and sore weal shrieked its agony in her brain, and it was all she could do not to vocalise that scream.
Eight, nine and ten hurt her atrociously, bringing tears to her eyes, that later turned to a humiliating weeping from her nostrils, miring her face and chin. With the eleventh he caught her across the tops of her thighs, a little above the knotted garter ribbons, and she kicked up her foot.
"Stay still," he growled at her, "or the count will go back one," then stood back watching the welt rise on her thighs, while the girl sobbed quietly to herself, in terror as much as pain.
Finally he moved, slashing the rod in its final cut of this correction, putting a last extra thrust behind it, driving the venomous weapon into delicate flesh of the once snowy buttock, now flushed and inflamed over its lower half, the tracks of the rod showing as dark pulsing bruises, that would provoke severe discomfort to sit upon, for they were all in that part of the anatomy one might designate 'the seat'.
Nancy gasped with pain at this brutal valediction, then knelt still in her submissive pose, fearful of rising, although she thought he had indicated that a dozen would be her due. When he finally released her, she was slow to stand, her bruised hinds responding in painful protest to any movement, the rear edge of her corset pressing down as she straightened, aggravating the response.
Groaning still at the extra soreness induced by each movement, she pulled her drawers up over her hips, hiding her welts from view, but doing nothing to mitigate the hurt, even the fine cotton batiste irritating the tender weals of raised flesh where they touched it.
"I trust we will have no more of such shameful activity," Sir William remarked, "or I shall have to repeat the treatment, and I shall not be so lenient with you next time."
Dear God, if this be leniency, she thought, the anguish in her throbbing bottom still rising to its peak, then I will do all I must to avoid his severity. Aloud she said.
"No Papa. I have learnt my lesson."
I am glad to hear it. Now put on your robe and return to your room. On the way, be so good as to tell your mother I am ready for her now."

More on this fascinating topic here