The phrase 'smacked bottom' has always been the English word for spanking so why do so many English sites including this one use the phrase 'spanking'?
Also why has the word spanking become an umbrella term for all corporal punishment recently, it was never the case at school was it?

Also how accurate is the phrase 'school spanking'? Has anyone here male or female ever been given a smacked bottom at school? Actually put over a primary or secondary school, teachers knee, male or female given a spanking (or smacked bottom)...i.e. meaning without the use of a slipper, or belt etc just with the hand????

I believe it is the Americans who first used the word spanking to refer to all forms of corporal punishment and unfortunately their influence has spread to Great Britain. I have never heard a teacher say “spanking” at school, but have often heard “smacked bottom”, particularly in primary schools.

In my experience, over the knee spankings were rare, but more common in junior than secondary schools.

"Spanking" sounds very much more gentle and mild than paddling, strappng or caning. It tends to be used by "Christians" who think children should be hit.

"Hit" and "hitting" are words commonly used by those who think children should never be "spanked".

Very true, I've also heard anti-spanking people use other emotive words like beat, assault to describe acts of corporal punishment, the word violence often comes up too.

I remember smacked bottoms at primary school, for girls and boys and usually administered by the Headmaster. I imagine they became extreamly rare by secondary school, does anyone recall one actually ever happening beyond primary school?

I rememeber at primary school the teacher asking a boy if he had told his parents that Mr ****** had had to smack his bottom yesterday? to which he looked rather and upset and told her that he had.

I only rememebr rumours of smacked botttoms apart from that, some of them did involved girls though!

Following on from the idea of telling parents about punishment, I had a friend when I was in the 1st. year at secondary school who had a very beautiful mother. He was slippered quite often and I remember asking him if he told his mother about it. He said that she actually asked him for the details and on hearing this I came over all hot.

Has anyone actually heard of a girl actually getting a smacked bottom at school?

To me, spanking means fully consensual activity between two people who both enjoy it, whether it’s a hand spanking or a caning. CP to me means punishment, as such I only class it as semi-consensual.

Logically it might make no sense but that's why I say spanking rather than CP.

Ok that makes sence then in England 'spankings'= frisky bedroom fun between adults, and 'smacked bottoms'= real old fasioned school/domestic corporal punishment.

Does anyone have any memories of females being given 'smacked bottoms' otk either by their fathers or by teachers beyond the age of say ten???

"Has anyone here male or female ever been given a smacked bottom at school? Actually put over a primary or secondary school, teachers knee, male or female given a spanking (or smacked bottom)...i.e. meaning without the use of a slipper, or belt etc just with the hand?"

Please see the 'Get with it get Witham' thread for a detailed report of an OTK spanking received in Primary school back in the fifties.

Richard

Which page is that on and is it true, or just the fevered work of a fantasist?

‘Get with it! Get Witham!’ is now on Page 1.

The account is almost certainly true. We know that Alan Witham, and at least two members of his staff, were dedicated spankers.

It is very hard to imagine that a male teacher could get away with smacking girls bum's even back then...I wonder if there ever was a time when male teachers smacking girls bottoms would have been compleatly acceptable rather than just a prosecution waiting to happen? Wartime schools perhapse????

It is rumoured that it was quite acceptable for girls in green knickers to be slippered (bending over, touching toes) by a male teacher at a secondary school in Wembley in the 1960s.

Hi Sadie,

As the recipient, I can assure you that the account of the spanking I took from Mr. Witham is most definitely true!

Richard

I find it hard to believe that boys and more especially girls would agree to bend over a male teachers knee for a spanking, wouldn't it have be obvious that it was wrong?
I guess I can understand that in the sixties and seventies there was less info about what punishments were legal or not available to pupils, but didn't you think it was a bit unaceptable at the time?

Actually was it legal to smack pupils, I mean over the knee, bare bum type spankings back then? I assume it wasn't, but I don't really know being twenty two it was long gone by the time I was at school.

The law relating to corporal punishment in British schools was that teachers had the same right to inflict 'Reasonable Chastisement'as parents did.What constituted reasonable chstisement was never clearly defined.It was up to a court to decide if a complaint was made,which in the vast majority of cases never happened.Oppinions varied through time and from place to place.That which was considered reasonable in rural East Anglia in the 1920's may not have been regarded so in a politcaly correct inner city borough in the 1980's.
Many parents punished bare bottoms of both boys and girls and
some children would not have found it strange to be punished so at school.It was not unusual for children who had got into trouble at school to be punished again at home if their parents found out.A girl who was spanked at school was not likely to complain if it meant the certainty of a bare bottom belting from her father.
Generally speaking,it was common for boys to be punished by males and girls by females but this was not universal.It was up to individual schools and LEA's to fomulate their own policy. Junior schools usually had a mainly female staff and smacking of boys up to the age of 11 by females was frequent.As late as the 1980's the headmaster of the semi-private Ripon City School wrote in the school prospectus the he was responible for all corpoal punishment of girls.