Rather than break in to Jenny & Another_Lurker's MAS(work it out for yourselves!) & add to a huge thread, thought I'd start a new one.

Jenny's stated that her Headmistress was keen on girls and science. This was far from the orthodoxy then. Any one else agree or got some less constructive attitudes of the time to illustrate?

My Sarah's place(Girl's Grammar 66-73)was as bad as any. Her Physics set studied the wrong syllabus for the last term of year 4 & the first 2 of year 5-the entire set failed it.

The teacher continued teaching after this fiasco, too! You wonder how this could happen, but as we later tried to correct an accounting/stocktaking computer system which had been built on the interesting assumption that there are 13 months in the year, you might guess the common denominator-sorry to say,men!

I have to say the attitude to girls doing science or Maths in my schooldays(63-70) was as bad. It was assumed by most of us(NOT me,Jenny!!)that such girls couldn't attract blokes, so buried themselves in such silly subjects.

Luckily for me, I never had such daft attitudes to overcome. So, I could safely say at the end of our first date, that's the girl I'm gonna marry-luckily the train compartment I said this in was empty!


Steve

We had a similar disaster at French at my school. The school introduced new French courses in the first year which were concentrated around oral French. Thus we could pronounce French words but had little idea of grammar. In the third year we reverted to studying grammar that had previously been a first year syllabus.

When it came to doing O levels we were two years behind and out of about 100 pupils only about five passed the O level. This was in stark contrast to other subjects where the pass rate must have been over 60%.

A couple of other points. Jenny asked what would have happened at my school if a boy and girl were caught misbehaving in class, and whether just the boy would have been slippered and not the girl. The situation never really arose , and as I said only a minority of teachers used the slipper. Most punishments were for misdeeds at lunchtime and girls and boys could be separated and sent to the appropriate teacher.

I concur with other posters in saying that Jenny is a welcome addition to this forum , and long may she continue to contribute.

As for the coincidence between Prof n and K ? attending the same school, I very nearly attended the same school as a more distinguished contributor on here , and would have done so if I had done slightly better in my entrance examination.A further coincidence ( or near) is that a current Government Minister who taught at my school ( though not at the same time I was there) was the Minister in charge of the Government Department I worked for , though I left a few months before he took over.

Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone her for making me so welcome.


Steve.

You said: Rather than break in to Jenny & Another_Lurker's MAS(work it out for yourselves!) & add to a huge thread, thought I'd start a new one.

Sorry, we do seem to have monopolised that thread. I hope we haven't caused offence.

Jenny stated that her Headmistress was keen on girls and science.

It wasn't so much that my headmistress was ken on girls and science, she seemed more interested in removing artificial barriers to our achieving our potentials. If a girl had an aptitude for maths and physics, she should have the same right to pursue that course as a boy. In the same way, if a boy had an aptitude for embroidery why prevent him from developing his skills?

It was assumed by most of us(NOT me,Jenny!!)that such girls couldn't attract blokes, so buried themselves in such silly subjects.

I never experienced that or, if I did, I didn't notice.



Declan.

You said: Jenny asked what would have happened at my school if a boy and girl were caught misbehaving in class, and whether just the boy would have been slippered and not the girl.

Sorry to contradict you but my question was in regard to your saying: There were also very few slipperings in front of a normal class of , say, history. If a boy and a girl were caught talking they would most likely be sent out of the room which did happen.

That explains the likely outcome of a girl and a boy talking (to each other) but I asked, "what would happen if two boys were caught talking or two girls?" The reason I asked was that it would not be unknown (possibly quite common) in some schools for two boys caught talking to be given the slipper but two girls doing the same, or worse, just being asked nicely to behave. To avoid making it too obvious that the teacher was unfairly discriminating, a boy and girl talking might just be sent out of class. I wondered if that happened at your school.

JENNY

No offence at all-I just begrudge the time it takes to load longer threads. That is usually anyway only when I don't go via the network54 log in-I sometimes do this to look at the God-awful adverts on here. Not to mention the temporary internet files piled up from searching after certain items on line-not remotely the sort of items that matter on here!

When I was 16, there were 3 or 4 girls from secondary moderns very much interested in me(don't ask why, because I'm still amazed 40 years on). We got to talking a bit(amongst other things!) & I remember that the attitude regarding any pupil there from staff was that they were all just basically factory fodder.

That was not unusual then, I'm afraid. But there STILL also seemed to be a pervading air of it isn't worth teaching you girls very much except cooking and how to change nappies. This was 3 different secondary schools, too.

Wonder if that was just confined to Kent & its' selective policies? I'd better say that none of the girls struck me as especially gifted, but how the hell would anyone know that if they'd never tried to stimulate them academically or educationally?



Steve

Jenny

Sorry to have misunderstood. But the basics are the same. Very few slipperings in my grammar school were for misbehaviour actually in a lesson. ( apart from PE)

If two boys or two girls were caught fighting they were sent to the appropriate teacher for punishment. There must have been quite a few instances of girls being treated more leniently ( I just cannot spell that word, is it leniantley ? No ! )than boys for this offence.

I do recall one amusing incident. A teacher , spotting some misbehaviour, simply announced " The Door for you two " and four girls from different parts of the class walked out. The teacher allowed them all to walk out , I don't know who he meant !

Hi Steve,

How do you get here other than via the Network54 log in? If there's another way, please, please let me know how.

Forty years, or so, ago the idea still prevailed that girls would leave school and do some menial job until they got married. That attitude was common nationwide. It was thanks to the efforts of people like my headmistress that things started to change.

I'm sure a lot a very bright girls were held back from achieving their potential by such sexist attitudes. If they had been allowed to use their brains, we would all have been a lot better off.

Hi Declan


You said: Sorry to have misunderstood.

No problem.

If two boys or two girls were caught fighting they were sent to the appropriate teacher for punishment. There must have been quite a few instances of girls being treated more leniently ( I just cannot spell that word, is it leniantley ? No ! )than boys for this offence.

I think you spelled it right the first time - "leniently". Where pupils are punished separately, or differently or by different teachers, for the same offence, some will be punished more leniently than the others. Which, and how they perceive their respective punishments, is another matter. Suppose, for a moment, a boy and a girl were caught talking in class and the boy got the slipper while the girl got detention. Which was punished more leniently? The answer is not obvious.

Jenny:

This Forum moves in mysterious ways. I have written to you about logging in.

JENNY

Big John will have given you the gen, but I either enter via a desktop shortcut which starts on the current page one here & then log-in after deciding to respond/post, as of now.

The other way is via my other desktop icon, which is my network 54 login prompt. From there, you just go on to home, then, at the bottom, society, then, next page, education, subcategory schools & we are up top.

On the latter, your email address will show on the grid if you post, but you can delete it.

Steve

JENNY

And now I'm in the other way, thus avoiding the phoney lose 2 tons of body fat adverts & not knowing which bunch is sponsoring network 54 today!

Another area I reckon is still hidebound are professional bodies & institutions. Sarah was studying for actuarial exams when I first met her. I think it was part 5 of the 9 IOA exams she could not get.

The last time she tried in 1990, she was regularly getting 67-73% in her tutor-based tests & needed 60%. I went up to the Inns of Court with her for the next try.

And once I saw the vast majority of fellow takers were male, I knew why she'd failed & would fail again.

Afraid I was right-the published results showed 43 of the 62 males passed & just one of the 5 women. Wish she'd stuck to computer programming all along, but then again, it's only in the last 10 years that parts of that profession have woken up to the fact that women in the office aren't just good at making the tea.

As I always say, if you want a quick answer, never ask a woman. If you want the right one, however, never ask anyone else!


Steve

Hi Steve. You say:

No, forget it, I was going to query your TLA but I've just worked it out.    Now we didn't fight over Lotta did we? I do hope that's not a touch of the old green-eyed monster creeping in just because I have an enjoyable dialogue with a most interesting new recruit to this estimable Forum!

You make some very interesting points in your posts above. I have no doubt that there was considerable prejudice against and obstacles to girls doing science when I was at school. Technology hadn't been invented then, but I'nm sure they would have been steered away from that as well had it been around. It sounds as though that was still the attitude to some extent when you were at school 10 years later.

When I arrived at university in 1960 to study what was then a science much in demand in UK industry (not so much now though) out of maybe 200 students and post grads in the department at probably the best place in the UK for the subject there was just 1 (that's ONE) woman, then in the third year. The 'pure' sciences, chemistry, physics had a few more, but not many. I don't know what the ratio men:women is in university science subjects now, but I sincerely hope it is a lot better than 200:1!

Even when I got into computers 10 years later women were still thin on the ground in technical posts. I can remember my surprise at the very first female system programmer I encountered on George 3. Darn good she was too, but a teeny touch secretive. Now, of ex-colleagues I'm still in touch with working in the same type of technical posts, two out of three have women bosses, so things have certainly changed in 40 years!

A_L

I'm still partly in the doghouse re my Bacons research & the necessary meeting with young attractive ladies, so......!! I do have to say having erudite female company on here is never to be discouraged because, as we've both discovered recently, girls copped a lot more than we ever thought likely in the CP stakes.


Seriously, that Uni experience is interesting. Sarah went to Exeter(1974-77) & the girls there were very far from all being arts/humanities. There were several practical scientists amongst her fellow mathematicians.


I didn't get there, but the one I did get an interview at(Leeds in 1971)seemed to me to be highly biased in favour of women in arts or humanities. It was fairly baldly stated to me that if I applied to do anything partly scientific, I'd walk in, despite having A levels in English Literature and French!! I strongly doubt they'd have been so accomodating to a girl.


God, I could have been the poor man's Doc(only joking, Doc, I just can't aspire to that level of professionalism!)if I'd thought about it


Steve

Steve/Jenny

The system of the old Secondary schools could be even more pernicious. In my neck of the woods to save on building grammar schools , the local authority used a direct grant school plus purchased a number of day places at independent schools like mine at a favourable rate , to provide for the 'grammar ' contingent who passed 11 plus. Rural area too expensive to provide the buildings , buy the places and bus

This had a bad effect on the Sec. Mod because the 'gap' between that and the direct grant /private education was immense particularly in terms of facilities, building, playing fields, swimming pool etc and staff ( who were far better paid than in the state sector).. .

Also just because kids were bright didn't mean they wanted to sign on for a public school education....but they didn't have another choice. Many were unhappy in our school and its sister establishment , and found difficulty in adjusting to the culture, and therefore left early.

This is largely why in these type of areas the state education stock was so bad. So science was a pipe dream in the old Sec. Mods, especially for girls......

Finally in such a system , technology in the 70's a dirty word to both sets of school !

Hi Declan. You say:

I very nearly attended the same school as a more distinguished contributor on here

From previous discussions I assume you mean me. If so, thank you for the compliment, but I'm not.

I'm going to ask Jenny a question which arises out of the discussions she has been having with you, and I'd obviously be interested in your comments on it too, though I think from what you've said that it would probably not have occurred at your school.

Hi Jenny. I might well have asked you the forthcoming question in the 'oldest spanked or given school detention' thread to be found here as we've had some discussion of the balance and fairness of punishments as between boys and girls in that thread. However, Steve doesn't approve of us having a quiet tête-à-tête over there,  and much of your discussion on the issue has been with Declan, culminating in this thread, so I'll raise the subject here.

You say above:

Where pupils are punished separately, or differently or by different teachers, for the same offence, some will be punished more leniently than the others. Which, and how they perceive their respective punishments, is another matter. Suppose, for a moment, a boy and a girl were caught talking in class and the boy got the slipper while the girl got detention. Which was punished more leniently? The answer is not obvious.

Indeed, it isn't obvious. I guess the only way that the equality and fairness of punishments could be judged absolutely was if those committing the same offence were punished together and thus saw that they all recieved the same punishment. I would think that this was not uncommon for same sex groups of miscreants, whether the punishment was slippering in class or caning in the Head's or Assistant or Deputy Head's office. However, I would have expected that it probably didn't happen very often for mixed sex groups of offenders in the classroom, and seldom if ever where a more formal caning was concerned.

Interestingly though you have posted about a mixed sex group classroom slippering, in your post at 12:23 PM on October 5 2009 in the 'Male Teachers Spanking Girls' thread to be found here when you said:

The first pupils in my class to get the slipper (two boys and a girl together) went quite red from the embarrassment of it. It was quite amusing in a way. All three had being messing about and had been warned a couple of time. In the end they were called out to the front and, as they were going there, the teacher picked up the slipper. At that point we knew the boys were going to get it but I wasn't sure about the girl - I had an idea that, despite the headmistresses introductory speech about treating us all equally, the girl was just going to get a "telling off". I think she was thinking (or hoping) that too. As expected, one of the boys was told to bend over and the teacher gave him two or three whacks with the slipper. Then the other boy was told to bend over and he got two or three whacks. Then, as in all honesty we should have expected, the girl was told to bend over and she got exactly the same.

That was clearly a totally equitable and gender neutral punishment, seen by all to be fair, at least as regards the balance between the sexes!

You have also mentioned a possible mixed sex group caning in the Headmistresses office in your post at 2:36 PM on October 4 2009 in the ''oldest spanked or given school detention' thread which I've linked above, where you said:

My first caning was when I was 12 for playing truant with three others - two boys and another girl. We all got three strokes of the cane - the boys on their bums and we girls on our (non-writing) hands. That caning hurt a lot, partly because I got it on my hand and partly because the headmistress didn't mess around.

I take it that you were all punished together in this case, and clearly you felt that the girls had perhaps had the worst of the deal, since punishment on the hand was probably more painful, and so not gender neutral! In that post you go on to say of the Headmistress concerned:

She retired sometime later. Her replacement was a bit more moderate and decreed that girls should be caned on their bums too. The cane was only used by the headmistress, assistant headmaster, and the deputy headmistress. All three caned both boys and girls but it was always through our skirts or (in the case of boys) trousers.

Now as I said above, prior to your post I would have assumed that it was very unusual for a mixed sex group to be caned together. Clearly it allows the gender neutrality or otherwise of the punishment to be assessed, but there are other considerations. My justification for assuming that schools would generally avoid it would be a long one, but some of the factors involved were touched on in paragraph 5 onwards of my discussion with a sadly long absent esteemed fellow contributor Severnboy in my post at 4:37 AM on 11 January 2009 in this thread. I hasten to add that the circumstances of the caning involved there were very unlikely to be applicable in a 1960/70s mixed school!

Assuming that in the case of your first caning boys and girls were indeed all punished together, was this at all unusual at your school for canings please, and did the practice continue once the 'girls should be caned on their bums' ruling was instituted by the new Headmistress?

My apologies. Sadly I have used an HTML close italics tag instead of an open italics tag in my draft and failed to notice when posting the above. Hence when I quote Jenny in paragraph 8 her quote is confusingly in plain text.

A bad night tonight! Perhaps it would have been better if I'd have been steered away from technology like 60s schoolgirls! Amazingly HTML works in the post title when you do Preview, but, as witness the title of my post above, doesn't when you actually post. Ah well, we live and learn!

The title should have been:

Another Another_Lurker coc blunder!

Some of you might have seen the joke!

Hi Another_Lurker,

You said (many things but ended with): Assuming that in the case of your first caning boys and girls were indeed all punished together, was this at all unusual at your school for canings please, and did the practice continue once the 'girls should be caned on their bums' ruling was instituted by the new Headmistress?

No, it wasn't unusual. Those involved in a "joint enterprise" were dealt with collectively.

In class, if a pupil misbehaved that pupil would be called to the front and given the slipper, in view of the rest of the class: subject to the offence warranting it of course. If more than one were misbehaving, they would all be called out and slippered: subject to the same condition. What should it matter what sex they were?

This process was quick, simple, and achieved an immediate effect. To arrange for a teacher of the same sex as the pupil to administer the slipper and/or to take said pupil (or pupils individually) elsewhere to be slippered in private, would be an administrative nightmare and would render classroom CP impractical. It would also remove part of the punishment and lessen the immediate effect it had on the rest of the class. The class was always a little subdued when someone got the slipper even when it was just a "token" slippering.

The incident mentioned in the above quote when when the four of us played truant together. It seemed only natural that we were dealt with together. I was a bit miffed that we girls got it on our (bare) hands when the boys were afforded the protection of trousers and (presumably) underpants but at least we knew we'd all been treated about the same. Being punished together also engendered a strong feeling of camaraderie.

The practice of dealing with joint offenders together continued with the new headmistress. I saw the point you raised in that other thread but the slipper and cane was always given through our skirts. The only exception was in gym when our gym skirts (if we were wearing such) would be flipped up and the slipper applied directly to our gym knickers. Our hemlines were meant to be no more than 2" (5cm) above the knee although that rule wasn't enforced overly strictly. The "punishment" for wearing too short a skirt was that, if we got the slipper or cane, when we bent over our knickers would be on display and we wouldn't get much, if any, protection from our skirts - a sort of "natural justice" if you like. Normally a skirt gives quite a lot of protection. When bending over, the back of a skirt hangs from about the centre of the bum - if you don't follow what I mean, ask your wife to bend over wearing a skirt and look at her side on.. If the cane strikes the hanging part, almost all its kinetic energy is absorbed.

I once got the cane with a boy when we were caught out of bounds (amongst other things) Even if we had been caned on the bare (we weren't) we couldn't really have complained considering what we'd been up to.

Hi Jenny. We are even doing synchronised posting now! You in this thread and me in the 'In defence of the quiet ones' thread. We must be more careful or Steve will be getting suspicious! Sorry Steve!

You say:

You said (many things but ended with):

What a gentle and elegant way to say don't go rambling on!

Thank you for your detailed and prompt response. I am just a little surprised that canings could be, and indeed sometimes were, administered to boys and girls together. I fully accept your argument that:

To arrange for a teacher of the same sex as the pupil to administer the slipper and/or to take said pupil (or pupils individually) elsewhere to be slippered in private, would be an administrative nightmare and would render classroom CP impractical.

That isn't what worries me. I've had extensive discussions here, with Doctor Dominum in particular, about women corporeally punishing boys of secondary age, (it happens in his school in Victoria, Australia) and I now have no reservations about that. I'm not so happy about male teachers punishing girls, but I'm well aware that it was regarded as perfectly acceptable in the past. It certainly happened in my junior school, beyond which I have no direct personal experience of mixed schools. I hope though that in the extremely unlikely event of CP being reintroduced as a sanction in UK schools ways can be found to avoid it.

What concerns me about boys and girls being caned together is the effect on the recipients, or at least some of them. At junior school I certainly had a prurient interest if a girl was going to be slippered on her bottom, though I wouldn't have known the word prurient or its meaning. So I think did most boys, there was definitely a certain tension in the air. Many male contributors here have indicated that they had the same interest. That contributors to a Forum such as this should acknowledge such an interest perhaps isn't surprising. However one only has to look at the extensive use of spanking imagery in advertising and films in less politically correct days to see that the appeal extended to the general population. Since the persons being spanked were invariably young ladies it isn't too difficult to work out which section of the general population either!

Now you may tell me that girls had a prurient interest in seeing boys caned, so the honours were even. More on that later, but you'll surprise me if you do. In some asian countries where, for boys at least, very severe 'public' caning in front of the whole school, or part of the school, was the educational 'nuclear deterrent' I've seen accounts of girls crying at the sight.

Why do I confine my concerns to (in your school at least) caning? Basically classroom slipperings didn't usually have much, if any, associated ritual and solemnity (though I did see one that did). Nor, generally speaking were they particularly painful (or so I'm told, as personally I only had one whack, once). It was usually a case of whack, whack, back to your seat. A certain amount of humiliation, loss of face, call it what you will, if having to get it in front of the class bothered you, but nothing too cringe making.

Now caning, or at least some canings, must have been very different. Again I'm going on second hand information, because I've never been caned, but there seems to be some agreement that for caning on the bottom:

• Because of the risk of injury if the cane hits the wrong place position is critical and a certain amount of attention is likely to be paid to getting the recipient correctly positioned.
• Whereas slipperings might well be administered in almost a half standing position, canings would usually involve a definite bending and presenting the bottom, whether over a desk, touching toes or whatever.
• Caning was usually more painful than slippering, so there was more chance that recipients would evince signs of distress, verbal or otherwise, or even cry.

Taking all the factors together we have ritual, solemnity, the exercise of power by the strong (the caner) over the weak (the recipient), a sexually provocative posture and possibly verbal or other signs of distress. All factors which might turn a prurient interest into something more. I suspect that once the bottom caning for all regime came in at your school at least some boys caned with girls might well have found it just such an experience. If, as you indicate, knickers might sometimes be on display, that feeds my suspicions.

It is possible that either having just had it, or knowing that they were about to get it, might distract boys' minds from anything else. In the latter case though I suspect it might even serve to heighten the awareness of the prurient aspects. But does it really matter anyway? In the overall scheme of things, probably not that much, but one would have expected that a school would have anticipated the possibility and avoided it by caning boys and girls seperately. Not difficult, surely? And, returning to an earlier point, what if girls got a kick out of seeing boys caned and thus evened up the score so to speak? I don't think that alters my point about the school's responsibilities.

You say:

Normally a skirt gives quite a lot of protection. When bending over, the back of a skirt hangs from about the centre of the bum - if you don't follow what I mean, ask your wife to bend over wearing a skirt and look at her side on.. If the cane strikes the hanging part, almost all its kinetic energy is absorbed.

I certainly follow what you mean. I seem to remember posting a carefully detailed description of the effect here at some stage. I can't remember in what context and I can't find it now. However, I'm sure that it wasn't to argue a case for skirt lifting, much more likely to have been part of a discussion about the effect on kinetic energy that you mention. (Cue curtains, lights, music, enter Alan Turing stage left.) Sorry Alan!   And as regards asking my wife to demonstrate, do you seriously think that a man who only finds intelligent women attractive but knows that they can twist him round their little finger is going to be mad enough to get married!

You also say:

I once got the cane with a boy when we were caught out of bounds (amongst other things) Even if we had been caned on the bare (we weren't) we couldn't really have complained considering what we'd been up to.

Sounds like a don't ask - so I won't! However I was tempted to make further enquiries regarding your mention of gym knickers, having certain junior school fixated predilictions in that area, but I won't do that either!

Hi Another_Lurker

To avoid extending that other (MAS) thread, I'll mention here that the server I re-built had a little over 2TB (2 terabytes = 2 * 1024 gigabytes) of disk in it.


You said: What a gentle and elegant way to say don't go rambling on!

I'm glad liked the way I put it but I was really only indicating that I had snipped a large part of your post.

You said:I've had extensive discussions here, with Doctor Dominum in particular, about women corporeally punishing boys of secondary age, (it happens in his school in Victoria, Australia) and I now have no reservations about that. I'm not so happy about male teachers punishing girls, but I'm well aware that it was regarded as perfectly acceptable in the past.

I'm sorry but I see sexism rearing its ugly head again. Either allow teachers to administer CP to pupils of the opposite sex or don't allow it. I don't know why you have reservations about men punishing girls when you're happy for women to punish boys. If you see it as some form of sexual abuse, you're accepting boys being sexually abused and I don't think you'd really want that.


You said: It certainly happened in my junior school, beyond which I have no direct personal experience of mixed schools. I hope though that in the extremely unlikely event of CP being reintroduced as a sanction in UK schools ways can be found to avoid it.

I can't think of any way to avoid it in the case of classroom CP (unless every mixed sex class had two teachers). It could be avoided in the formal "canings by appointment" but that would just lead to sex discrimination. Would the boys or girls be caned harder if different (head)teachers did it? Personally, I would rather be caned or slippered by a man because I found it more "controlled" - female teachers had a tendency to just whack away. One, possible, solution might be to give the intended recipient(s) a choice.


you said:Now you may tell me that girls had a prurient interest in seeing boys caned, so the honours were even. More on that later, but you'll surprise me if you do.

Be surprised then. There are plenty of example where (in schools where girls were exempt) girls would actively "engineer" situations to get a boy or boys caned. That tended not to happen in my school because the risks were too great.

You said: In some asian countries where, for boys at least, very severe 'public' caning in front of the whole school, or part of the school, was the educational 'nuclear deterrent' I've seen accounts of girls crying at the sight.

I don't doubt it, especially if girls might also be the recipients, but there were probably more girls giggling about it if they weren't.

You're right about the slipper not (usually) being particularly painful, at least in my experience.

You said: Now caning, or at least some canings, must have been very different. Again I'm going on second hand information, because I've never been caned, but there seems to be some agreement that for caning on the bottom:

* Because of the risk of injury if the cane hits the wrong place position is critical and a certain amount of attention is likely to be paid to getting the recipient correctly positioned.

I disagree position is critical although some care should be taken to ensure the strokes are "on target".

* Whereas slipperings might well be administered in almost a half standing position, canings would usually involve a definite bending and presenting the bottom, whether over a desk, touching toes or whatever.

Canings can be given the same as slipperings - I've heard of girls getting just bend forward a little.

* Caning was usually more painful than slippering, so there was more chance that recipients would evince signs of distress, verbal or otherwise, or even cry.

Agreed - usually but not necessarily.


Taking all the factors together we have ritual, solemnity, the exercise of power by the strong (the caner) over the weak (the recipient), a sexually provocative posture and possibly verbal or other signs of distress. All factors which might turn a prurient interest into something more. I suspect that once the bottom caning for all regime came in at your school at least some boys caned with girls might well have found it just such an experience.

So? We all the the option of behaving ourselves.

If, as you indicate, knickers might sometimes be on display, that feeds my suspicions.

Our knickers would only be on display if we broke the rule about skirt length AND broke another rule to get slippered. It would be ridiculous to let a girl off because she had broken another rule as well.

It is possible that either having just had it, or knowing that they were about to get it, might distract boys' minds from anything else.

It usually distracted my mind and I expect it had a similar effect on boys.

In the latter case though I suspect it might even serve to heighten the awareness of the prurient aspects. But does it really matter anyway?

In my opinion, NO, and I see you tend to agree when you say:
In the overall scheme of things, probably not that much, but one would have expected that a school would have anticipated the possibility and avoided it by caning boys and girls seperately. Not difficult, surely?

Probably not difficult but, for rwasons I've given, unfair.

And, returning to an earlier point, what if girls got a kick out of seeing boys caned and thus evened up the score so to speak? I don't think that alters my point about the school's responsibilities.

I accept you do have a point but, IMHO, the solution is worse than the perceived problem.

In reply to my saying:I once got the cane with a boy when we were caught out of bounds (amongst other things) Even if we had been caned on the bare (we weren't) we couldn't really have complained considering what we'd been up to.

You said:Sounds like a don't ask - so I won't!

I thought the implication was clear enough.

However I was tempted to make further enquiries regarding your mention of gym knickers, having certain junior school fixated predilictions in that area, but I won't do that either!

Enquire away. It was all quite a while ago now and I don't have to answer questions I don't want to.

I hate to intrude on a private conversation, but I do think it is important to pick up one technical point.

Quoting a few lines:

* Because of the risk of injury if the cane hits the wrong place position is critical and a certain amount of attention is likely to be paid to getting the recipient correctly positioned.

I disagree position is critical although some care should be taken to ensure the strokes are "on target".

* Whereas slipperings might well be administered in almost a half standing position, canings would usually involve a definite bending and presenting the bottom, whether over a desk, touching toes or whatever.

Canings can be given the same as slipperings - I've heard of girls getting just bend forward a little.

While I agree that "critical" is perhaps overstating it, there are two important factors in positioning. The first is that the "target" must be stable so the strokes land accurately. The second is that, with the cane, the more the recipient bends over, the more painful the strokes. Dr Dominum's excellent graphics illustrate a good position. If the recipient is just bending forward a little, the position would be less stable and while the cane would still hurt, it would be less effective both at the time of punishment and after the event.

Hi Jenny. I have a dreadful feeling that we are about to have our first major disagreement.   However, happily it has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this estimable Forum, so all may not be lost!

You say:

To avoid extending that other (MAS) thread, I'll mention here that the server I re-built had a little over 2TB (2 terabytes = 2 * 1024 gigabytes) of disk in it.

I have to very gently disagree there. You are talking about disk storage, not RAM, and it therefore had 2 * 1000 gigabytes, where a gigabyte is 1000 megabytes amd a megabyte is 1000 kilobytes and a kilobyte is 1000 bytes. In other words your server had 2 * 1000⁴ bytes of disk storage, or 2,000,000,000,000 bytes.

IMHO the usually accepted (though very confusing) current convention is that disk storage is measured and sold in SI units, which use powers of 1000, whereas RAM is measured and sold in binary based units where a kilobyte is 2¹⁰ or 1024 bytes, and a megabyte is 1024² bytes etc. Thus in the unlikely event that one of your systems had 2 terabytes of RAM it would have 2 * 1024⁴ bytes of RAM.

Despite the fact that disk manufacturers sell their products in SI based units most OSs report disk space in the binary based units, which is why people often complain that the hard disk they've purchased isn't as big as it should be.

Either way you did extremely well to repair that system. I would have had to think twice before ripping kit as powerful and expensive as that to bits!

And back to school corporal punishment. You said:

I'm sorry but I see sexism rearing its ugly head again. Either allow teachers to administer CP to pupils of the opposite sex or don't allow it. I don't know why you have reservations about men punishing girls when you're happy for women to punish boys. If you see it as some form of sexual abuse, you're accepting boys being sexually abused and I don't think you'd really want that.

If you wish to see sexism, so be it. It is a complex issue (arragh, dreadful word!) and I don't want to rerun past discussions. If you are interested I'll hunt down references to the relevant threads where that discussion took place. I'll simply say that here and in RL a great many girls seem to have been distressed at being corporeally punished by men. You, and possibly one of our Honorary Life Members, are the only women I can think of who have preferred to be punished by males as schoolgirls. Further, in adult life I have never heard of a woman paying to be corporeally punished by a man.

In the case of boys however it is clear that a great many boys had no objection to being physically chastised by a woman at school, and in adult life a number of men seem happy to pay to be physically punished by women. It can possibly be argued that the one leads to the other. However, as regards this discussion I think most boys are not going to be greatly upset, other than by the punishment itself, whichever sex punishes them, whereas many girls may find being punished by a male causes distress over and above the actual punishment. To allow girls to be punished by males could therefore be unfair to girls, and we are looking for equitable treatment. There is also the effect on a male teacher required to punish girls. Yes a few might find it quite enjoyable, but I suspect that the majority would prefer to avoid it. I don't think quite the same considerations would apply with female teachers.

In discussing the above problem, you say:

One, possible, solution might be to give the intended recipient(s) a choice.

I can't really argue with that, but it would of course be necessary to extend the choice to both girls and boys. I suspect that under that system male teachers would effectively be exempt from administering CP, whereas women teachers, especially any specially attractive ones, would be heavily overloaded. Oh dear, sexism rears its ugly head again!

Of girls wishing to witness boys being caned you said:

There are plenty of example where (in schools where girls were exempt) girls would actively "engineer" situations to get a boy or boys caned. That tended not to happen in my school because the risks were too great.

We had a thread on this recently, 'Gender - The Cane and the Double Standard - A Personal Experience' to be found here

Like many threads here it rapidly came to discuss other things (no bad thing IMHO) but it confirms your statement, and I have seen other things that do. However, as in your case, it certainly didn't happen in the only mixed school I attended. Both girls and boys were subject to CP and I think the majority middle aged lady teachers there would have quickly identified any girls trying tricks like that and dealt with them suitably.

In response to my assumption that caning would necessarily involve a certain amount of 'ritual' positioning and a prominent presentation of the bottom you said:

I disagree position is critical although some care should be taken to ensure the strokes are "on target".

Canings can be given the same as slipperings - I've heard of girls getting just bend forward a little.

I stand corrected. Am I right in assuming that this position would in fact remove some of the problem with the 'hang' of the skirt we touched on? There are various videos on the corpun.com site and elsewhere which show girls in Asian countries being caned on the bottom in a standing position, but I wasn't aware that the practice was used here.

To clarify procedures at your school I wonder if you might be prepared to run through a 'typical' caning involving both girls and boys. Let's say by the headmistress - or one of the other caners if you prefer. Who stood where during the various stages of the procedure, who got caned first, what posture had to be assumed and whether 'furniture assisted' or not. It would also be interesting to know the age of the oldest pupils you believe to have been caned in a mixed sex group in your time at the school. These things are of considerable interest to we earnest seekers after truth!

As regards my misgivings that some boys might well have found a mixed group caning of considerable prurient interest you obviously felt that the fact that they were to be caned themselves would nulify this and you said:

It usually distracted my mind and I expect it had a similar effect on boys.

But you also said:

So? We all had the the option of behaving ourselves.

I was suggesting that boys might have found witnessing a girl being caned quite entertaining, despite their own punishment. I'm not quite sure what to make of your response. In context it may appear to mean that if girls had to involuntarily provide entertainment for the the boys involved that could be considered part of their punishment, but possibly that isn't what you meant?

In an earlier post you had indicated that there might be some inadvertent exposure of knickers during the caning, and I said that this might well add to the entertainment the boys derived. You responded:

Our knickers would only be on display if we broke the rule about skirt length AND broke another rule to get slippered. It would be ridiculous to let a girl off because she had broken another rule as well.

Possibly by mentioning slippering, taken with your earlier mention of girls just getting bent forward a little, you mean that this was less likely to happen during caning. If so this reduces my concerns. I have to agree with you that if a girl had broken the skirt length rule to the extent I would have thought necessary to precipitate knicker exposure she certainly deserved punishment of some sort, though ideally perhaps not in front of boys!

You say of my idea that, although the prurience problem might not have been a mojor one, it would still have been better to cane boys and girls seperately:

Probably not difficult but, for reasons I've given, unfair

We'll have to agree to differ on that. In this instance I favour risk avoidance over fairness but with some justification you take the opposite view.

You say of the out of bounds episode:

I thought the implication was clear enough

Indeed it was!

You also say of my response to your mention of gym knickers and being slippered therein:

Enquire away. It was all quite a while ago now and I don't have to answer questions I don't want to.

If you have followed up an obscure link within an obscure link I've given in this post you'll be quite prepared for the question! Errm, any chance they were bottle green?

Hi hcj. You say:

I hate to intrude on a private conversation

There are no private conversations in cyberspace, and most certainly none in this estimable Forum.

If I appear to be monopolising Jenny I apologise to her, to you, and to everyone visiting here. I happen to have some time on my hands at the moment and Jenny appears willing to discuss the subject of this Forum (along with a few incidental items we happen to have in common). After a surge of initial posts in discussion with Jenny other people appear to be busy at the moment, and in those circumstances I feel justified in entering into a series of posts. If anyone else returns to engage Jenny's attention I shall happily step aside.

You also make some very relevant observations regarding caning. As noted above I must say that I was surprised at Jenny's indication that a 'just bent forward a little' position was sometimes used for slippering (and possibly by implication for caning) at her school. This seems to be one of the positions used for caning both boys and girls in schools in some Asian countries as I said, but I haven't heard of it for 'on the bottom' punishments in UK schools.

Hi Another Lurker,

I don't want to intrude on private grief but you say :

I can't really argue with that, but it would of course be necessary to extend the choice to both girls and boys. I suspect that under that system male teachers would effectively be exempt from administering CP, whereas women teachers, especially any specially attractive ones, would be heavily overloaded. Oh dear, sexism rears its ugly head again!

IHMO in my school in the 70's empirical study ( you know how I detest that!)demonstrated that the least popular choice of caner by the boys was Miss F. In her early thirties and as I said performing Country Rock, I think your proposition might fall at the first hurdle!

Actually the situation was that boys could ask to be caned by a Man. As the Head and Ms. F were 'ranked' as the hardest caners, ( and the head didn't cane routinely ),many used the option to get what they thought an easier ride. (I didn't have the option , if you see what I mean : more than my life was worth! ).

Jenny seems to agree on this one , don't know if all her school would have been unanimous?

Hi Another_Lurker


You said: I have a dreadful feeling that we are about to have our first major disagreement. However, happily it has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this estimable Forum, so all may not be lost!

Good, I like a good argument. Seriously, people who agree with me without considering the issues for themselves are far more annoying than those who disagree and put forward a reasoned argument.

In response to my saying that 2 terabytes = 2 * 1024 gigabytes

You said: I have to very gently disagree there. You are talking about disk storage, not RAM, and it therefore had 2 * 1000 gigabytes, where a gigabyte is 1000 megabytes amd a megabyte is 1000 kilobytes and a kilobyte is 1000 bytes. In other words your server had 2 * 1000^4 bytes of disk storage, or 2,000,000,000,000 bytes.

IMHO the usually accepted (though very confusing) current convention is that disk storage is measured and sold in SI units, which use powers of 1000, whereas RAM is measured and sold in binary based units where a kilobyte is 2^10 or 1024 bytes, and a megabyte is 1024^2 bytes etc. Thus in the unlikely event that one of your systems had 2 terabytes of RAM it would have 2 * 1024^4 bytes of RAM.

Despite the fact that disk manufacturers sell their products in SI based units most OSs report disk space in the binary based units, which is why people often complain that the hard disk they've purchased isn't as big as it should be.

Yes, you're quite right. The matter is further complicated by "kibi", "mebi", "gibi" etc. (being 2^10, 2^20, and 2^30 respectively) instead of kilo, mega, and giga etc. I tend to use powers of two when talking about anything inside a computer but I admit that's not always correct. (Just to keep this on topic, do I deserve the slipper for that silly error? )

Either way you did extremely well to repair that system. I would have had to think twice before ripping kit as powerful and expensive as that to bits!

You're making me blush now. It wasn't a powerful, expensive bit of kit. The chip had blown so, as it stood, it was next to worthless. Re-building it wasn't exactly a skilled job.



In reference to men punishing girls and women punishing boys, you said:If you wish to see sexism, so be it. It is a complex issue (arragh, dreadful word!) and I don't want to rerun past discussions. If you are interested I'll hunt down references to the relevant threads where that discussion took place.

I might have seen them but, just in case, if you can find any references I would be interested.

You went on to say:I'll simply say that here and in RL a great many girls seem to have been distressed at being corporeally punished by men. You, and possibly one of our Honorary Life Members, are the only women I can think of who have preferred to be punished by males as schoolgirls. Further, in adult life I have never heard of a woman paying to be corporeally punished by a man.

Can you say who that life member is? I'd be interested to read what she said about the subject. I can't say I ever saw any girl distressed purely by being punished by a man but I accept that could happen. Equally though, boys can feel under more pressure to hide the fact they're in pain when being punished by a woman. That's something which has been mentioned here and elsewhere on numerous occasions but the effect on girls being punished by men doesn't seem to be discussed as much. That could, of course, simply be due to its happening lees often. As for women not paying for corporal punishment, quite a few of use desire it but we can usually twist a man round out little fingers and get him to do it free of charge - we might even get him to pay us for the privilege Yes, that's sexist as well so I wouldn't go that far.

you then said:In the case of boys however it is clear that a great many boys had no objection to being physically chastised by a woman at school, and in adult life a number of men seem happy to pay to be physically punished by women. It can possibly be argued that the one leads to the other. However, as regards this discussion I think most boys are not going to be greatly upset, other than by the punishment itself, whichever sex punishes them, whereas many girls may find being punished by a male causes distress over and above the actual punishment.

I have to disagree, the potential exists in both cases.

To allow girls to be punished by males could therefore be unfair to girls, and we are looking for equitable treatment.

No more unfair than boys being punished by females.

There is also the effect on a male teacher required to punish girls. Yes a few might find it quite enjoyable, but I suspect that the majority would prefer to avoid it. I don't think quite the same considerations would apply with female teachers.

That is probably correct but it's a matter of education. We need to get away from the idea that women are fragile creatures that would shatter into a thousand pieces at the slightest. Taken to the limit, that idea implies that the strongest women is weaker than the weakest man.


I can't really argue with that [my suggestion that recipient be allowed to choose], but it would of course be necessary to extend the choice to both girls and boys.

Of course - I wouldn't want it any other way.

I suspect that under that system male teachers would effectively be exempt from administering CP, whereas women teachers, especially any specially attractive ones, would be heavily overloaded. Oh dear, sexism rears its ugly head again!

That could happen but, for reasons given, it might not be as disproportionate as you think. In any case, does it matter?


Regarding girls wishing to witness boys being caned you said:We had a thread on this recently, 'Gender - The Cane and the Double Standard - A Personal Experience' to be found here

Yes, I saw that. I just clicked the link you gave and the first story I saw was an example of exactly what I said happened.

Like many threads here it rapidly came to discuss other things (no bad thing IMHO) but it confirms your statement, and I have seen other things that do. However, as in your case, it certainly didn't happen in the only mixed school I attended. Both girls and boys were subject to CP and I think the majority middle aged lady teachers there would have quickly identified any girls trying tricks like that and dealt with them suitably.

That's my point. Where a girl risks the same punishment she trying to get inflicted on a boy, she'll think twice about it. In schools where girls were exempt from CP, there was no risk to her.

I said: Canings can be given the same as slipperings - I've heard of girls getting the cane just bending forward a little. (corrected here).

You replied: I stand corrected. Am I right in assuming that this position would in fact remove some of the problem with the 'hang' of the skirt we touched on? There are various videos on the corpun.com site and elsewhere which show girls in Asian countries being caned on the bottom in a standing position, but I wasn't aware that the practice was used here.

I don't think it would make much difference to the overhanging skirt problem but I don't really know because I never got it like that.

To clarify procedures at your school I wonder if you might be prepared to run through a 'typical' caning involving both girls and boys. Let's say by the headmistress - or one of the other caners if you prefer. Who stood where during the various stages of the procedure, who got caned first, what posture had to be assumed and whether 'furniture assisted' or not. It would also be interesting to know the age of the oldest pupils you believe to have been caned in a mixed sex group in your time at the school. These things are of considerable interest to we earnest seekers after truth!

It's difficult to pick a good example. Despite what it may seem, there weren't large, mixed sex groups being caned everyday. I suppose the first time I was caught smoking is a reasonable example and one I remember fairly well. So, there we were, boys and girls, having a fag (cigarette for US readers ) at "smokers' corner" when along comes a teacher and, after a brief enquiry of "What do you think you're doing!!", (I thought it was obvious but didn't feel the need to say) we were escorted to the headmistress' office. The teacher went in to speak to the headmistress and we had to wait outside - speculating on our fate. We all knew it was going to be the cane: it was just a question of how many and how hard. After a few minutes, we were all invited in. There was the usual lecture about obeying school rules, smoking being bad for us, etc. etc. then the announcement the she would "have" to give us all the cane - four strokes each. She didn't seem particularly angry but, then again, she never did. She always seemed in complete control of herself. The room was fairly large with her desk at one side. We were standing in a row in front of her desk so there was quite a bit of space behind us.

At some point she went to her cupboard to fetch her cane and the punishment book then came round to our side of the desk behind us. I'm not sure if she asked us to turn around or indicated that we should but, either way, we all turned to face her. She just started at one end of the row, calling the boy there to step forward and bend over. He did so, bending right over and touching his toes, side on between us and the headmistress. She then gave him the four strokes at about 1 - 2 second intervals. It didn't look particularly hard but I could see, by the expression on his face, and some yelps, it wasn't the most pleasant experience he'd had. He was then told to get up and stand in another part of the room. Then the next one (a girl) was called forward. She bent over and touched her toes too, again side on between us and the headmistress. She made quite a bit more noise as she got her four but took it reasonably stoically. She was then told to up and stand with the boy. Next it was my turn. I was just hoping I was going to be able to take it as well as the first too, I didn't want to look like "the baby". I bent over just as the others had done, gritted my teeth and waited. That first stroke stung like Hell! I have no idea what expressions my face was going through but I know I yelped. I just hung on as best I could while the other three strokes were delivered - each one seemingly worse the the previous. I was then told to get up and stand with the other two. I don't remember anything about the other two (boys) being caned, I was too preoccupied dealing with the fire in my bum. When she had caned them we had to wait a bit longer for another lecture about breaking the rules, not getting caught again - at least I think that's what she was saying, I wasn't listening very carefully as I had other things on my mind.

As for the oldest mixed-sex group being caned, I can't be more precise than years but it would be sixteen - I was one of them. As far as I know, no sixth former got the cane so I doubt there could have been an older, mixed-sex group (or even a single sex group).


You said:As regards my misgivings that some boys might well have found a mixed group caning of considerable prurient interest you obviously felt that the fact that they were to be caned themselves would nulify this and you said:

It usually distracted my mind and I expect it had a similar effect on boys.

But you also said:

So? We all had the the option of behaving ourselves.

I was suggesting that boys might have found witnessing a girl being caned quite entertaining, despite their own punishment. I'm not quite sure what to make of your response. In context it may appear to mean that if girls had to involuntarily provide entertainment for the the boys involved that could be considered part of their punishment, but possibly that isn't what you meant?

I think I expressed myself badly there. The initial "So?" means exactly that. If a boy derived some sexual pleasure from seeing me get the cane, good for him. So long as he didn't deliberately engineer the situation that got me caned, I don't see what difference it makes to me. In the case of caning, he'd only see me getting it if he were getting it too. The second part of my reply is simply that, if I did have some objection to a boy seeing me get the cane, all I had to do was behave myself. It's that gamble I mentioned in another post. The question there was "is what I want to do worth the risk of getting the cane?" The difference here is that the question becomes "is what I want to do worth the risk of getting the cane with a boy watching?" I don't think that's too far off what you inferred from my statement.


Regarding my take on short skirts and knickers on display, you said:Possibly by mentioning slippering, taken with your earlier mention of girls just getting bent forward a little, you mean that this was less likely to happen during caning. If so this reduces my concerns. I have to agree with you that if a girl had broken the skirt length rule to the extent I would have thought necessary to precipitate knicker exposure she certainly deserved punishment of some sort, though ideally perhaps not in front of boys!


At my school we bent over to be caned or slippered. Not necessarily touching toes, hands on knees was often enough but, if our skirts were too short, our knickers would be on display. It didn't happen very often because most of us had the good sense to wear knee length skirts. My reference to girls just bending forward a bit was what I'd heard happened in some other schools. I think I understand why you say "ideally not in front of boys" but you forget that one of the reasons some of us wear very short skirts is to increase the chances of "inadvertently" flashing our knickers. It wouldn't surprise me if some of my peers deliberately got caught committing some minor offence in class, with a teacher known to not slipper very hard, while wearing a short skirt, just so they could flash their knickers when they bent over for the slipper.

If you have followed up an obscure link within an obscure link I've given in this post you'll be quite prepared for the question! Errm, any chance they were bottle green?

No, sorry, they were maroon. You've gone right off me now haven't you?

Hi Prof n.

You said: Actually the situation was that boys could ask to be caned by a Man. As the Head and Ms. F were 'ranked' as the hardest caners, ( and the head didn't cane routinely ),many used the option to get what they thought an easier ride. (I didn't have the option , if you see what I mean : more than my life was worth!.

Jenny seems to agree on this one , don't know if all her school would have been unanimous?

I can't speak for the whole school but amongst my friends and classmates, in general, snippets of conversation might be "You got it from her? I bet that really hurt!" or "You got it off him? Did you feel it?" Some teachers were worse than others but, in general it seemed that male teacher gave more, what could be called, "token" slipperings" whilst female teachers were more likely to do it properly. It wasn't that the men went easier of the girls either, it was the same with the boys.

Hi Steve. My apologies, I'm afraid I have overlooked your post at 10:59 PM on October 9 2009 until now, when my to my surprise I spotted it while flicking back looking for something. I don't know if it is the time I come on here that causes me to miss posts which have been held back for any reason, but it's a problem I have repeatedly. I shall have to start recording the number of posts and last item in active threads when I close down.

I'm sorry to hear that your Bacons efforts still have you in some trouble. Hopefully it will pass before too long! It was in a good cause, the truth must out!

I think the male:female ratio in my University course was exceptional, but there certainly wasn't a very easy route into University science subjects for girls then. I'm very happy that this has corrected itself to a large extent in the intervening years. A lot of the credit for this has to go to girls themselves, as they acquired the habit of working somewhat harder than boys at school and thus having better entrance qualifications to offer.

I trust you haven't taken my little digs about your MAS comment too much to heart. As you know I only pick up the torch here when there is no one else to run with it, and hence would never monopolise a thread.

You say:

as we've both discovered recently, girls copped a lot more than we ever thought likely in the CP stakes.

Indeed so, and the information that Jenny has posted about her Comprehensive School seems to me to indicate that that school was also very active as regards CP of girls in the late 1960s early 1970s. Clearly though Jenny doesn't regard the situation there as having been exceptional or in any way disadvantageous to girls. I wonder what Treesortees or soooze would have made of it?

Hi A_L,

You wrote:

If I appear to be monopolising Jenny I apologise to her, to you, and to everyone visiting here.

Oh dear, I only made the remark in fun. The posts are most interesting, please keep them coming.

Hi Jenny. An epic post, thank you! Possibly even surpassing the early Another_Lurker efforts here, and it is rumoured that slower readers are still trying to get to the end of some of them. Goes with the territory I think. I blamed the detail required in my employment when someone took me up on the nature of my posts once.

As regards "kibi", "mebi", "gibi" etc., I wasn't going to mention them. In fact in practice I have never had to use them. They weren't around when I was gainfully employed on mainframes, and although I do a fair amount of PC support for fun the 'clients' I encounter have enough trouble dealing with mega, giga and tera without confusing them with IEC terminology. However, I do often have to explain to a disgruntled purchaser why their system says that their new hard drive isn't as big as they thought. Unless I know they are numerate (and many people aren't nowadays) I go for the cop-out and say it is due to a mysterious thing called 'allocation units' in their PC. They don't ask any further questions!

You said of your minor error regarding disk sizing:

Just to keep this on topic, do I deserve the slipper for that silly error?

Well probably yes, but we'll let you off this time. However any repetition and it will be the cane!

And you said of your repaired system:

Re-building it wasn't exactly a skilled job.

You said you changed the M/B as well as the chip and IMHO the former is never a fun job. All those stupid plastic offset whatnots to keep in place, to say nothing of all the ludicrously tiny and often unmarked fan, temperature sensor, main switch, reset switch, panel display etc. cable connectors to relocate on those minute pins!

with regard to cross gender punishments and my mention of former discussions you say:

I might have seen them but, just in case, if you can find any references I would be interested.

As I said, my discussions were mainly with Doctor Dominum over the question of women teachers caning boys. The main block is to be found in the 'punishment witnessed by females' thread here, from 07:23 on 13 December 2008 thru' 00:03 on 20 December 2008, with occasional diversions.

As regards male teachers corporeally punishing girls, there has been considerable discussion about this here. I will point you at some posts by Doctor Dominum. In my opinion Doctor Dominum's posts here represent the standard of exellence a teacher should aspire to, and I think his opinion would reflect that of the best male teachers. He sums up perfectly why in the modern world a male teacher should not be corporeally punishing girls. Note that I say in the modern world, and recall that my misgivings over this were with regard to a possible reintroduction of CP. What happened in the past was for the most part considered appropriate at the time.

First a description of some canings is to be found at 19:58 on 22 September 2008 in the thread here. Doctor Dominum's retrospective comments on those caning, together with his summary of why it is probably no longer appropriate for male teachers to physically chastise girls are to be found at 07:56 on 15 August 2009 in the 'Male Teachers Spanking Girls' thread here, The section I am referring to starts part way down the post, where Doctor Dominum quotes from a book and says 'My point in quoting this is to point out one fact' I certainly feel that he is absolutely correct in his views.

In response to my comment that you, and possibly one of our Honorary Life Members, are the only women I can think of who have preferred to be punished by males as schoolgirls you said:

Can you say who that life member is? I'd be interested to read what she said about the subject.

I have some misgivings here. The Honorary Life Member concerned is Halfpenny. She was badly treated here in the past as regards disbelief, and when she re-posted the accounts I am referring to, at my request, there were some difficulties again. However, she has since had an extensive thread without problems. I trust she will forgive me for giving the relevant links here. I would stress that I said she probably preferred to be caned by a male, she does not explicitly state this. I did pose a question to her touching on this in the recent thread, but sadly she has not been back since then. I hope that this was not a consequence of my question, her appearances here have been intermittent of recent years.

The two accounts of her canings are to be found at 09:06 and 09:12 on 10 October 2008 in the 'get real girls were never spanked' thread here. The recent thread in which together with other material Halfpenny discusses various aspects of her thoughts on CP is the 'Naming a school - an experiment' thread here.

To my claim that given a choice both boys and girls might prefer to be punished by a female teacher you said

That could happen but, for reasons given, it might not be as disproportionate as you think. In any case, does it matter?

and prof.n seems to agree with you! As to whether it matters, it is you who advocates equality of the sexes - surely this includes division of the workload!

Thank you for the very comprehensive and interesting description of your own group caning for smoking. There has been a report here that at least one school used a rather strange rigid cane. I assume the ones used at your school were the usual very flexible ones. Were they the crook handle variety or straight please? I assume from your account that the same cane was used on all of you. Not very likely that you gave any thought to this, but did you get any impression of its dimensions? Finally you mention the Headmistress fetching the cane and punishment book. Was the punishment book filled in while you were present? I assume also from your account that the headmistress was the only member of staff present - or did the teacher who reported you remain to witness the punishment?

As regards my misgivings regarding boys perhaps enjoying seeing girls caned you say:

If a boy derived some sexual pleasure from seeing me get the cane, good for him. So long as he didn't deliberately engineer the situation that got me caned,

A most liberated attitude! I'm not sure that all girls would have felt that, and even if they did I still maintain that the school shouldn't have risked encouraging it. Your subsequent analysis of the balance of risk is commendable, but can you recall if you even considered the risk that you might be an inadvertent source of entertainent at the time? Perhaps you have already answered this, since you were smoking in a mixed group!

Your take on knicker flashing is interesting. Girls in the senior classes at Junior school certainly seemed to spend a lot of time doing handstands or similar dress flipping activities, but I always assumed this was for exercise. Having attended a boys only secondary school I did not come across the activity during punishments. Besides, when I was at school short skirts were nowhere to be found, at least not on schoolgirls!

And finally you say of the gym knickers:

No, sorry, they were maroon. You've gone right off me now haven't you?

Certainly not, a big disappointment but I'll live!

Hi hcj. You say:

Oh dear, I only made the remark in fun.

I fear that it isn't always evident when I'm half joking! I was well aware that you were not totally serious but just in case other people less familiar with this estimable Forum than you were concerned I though an apology and explanation were in order.

Hi Another_Lurker


Ypus said:An epic post, thank you! Possibly even surpassing the early Another_Lurker efforts here, and it is rumoured that slower readers are still trying to get to the end of some of them.

I try to be as precise possible: which often requires using a lot of words.


Regarding disk sizes, you saidI go for the cop-out and say it is due to a mysterious thing called 'allocation units' in their PC. They don't ask any further questions!

I use similar explanations. "If you can't blind them with science, baffle them with rubbish"

I said:Just to keep this on topic, do I deserve the slipper for that silly error?

and you replied:Well probably yes, but we'll let you off this time. However any repetition and it will be the cane!

Fair enough. I made sure I put extra thick knickers on today (not bottle green, sorry) just in case.


Regarding my re-building a server, you said:You said you changed the M/B as well as the chip and IMHO the former is never a fun job. All those stupid plastic offset whatnots to keep in place, to say nothing of all the ludicrously tiny and often unmarked fan, temperature sensor, main switch, reset switch, panel display etc. cable connectors to relocate on those minute pins!

Changing the M/B did mean removing everything from the case but it's more time-consuming than tricky. The "offset whatnots" are bolts with an external thread one end and an internal one at the other so you just screw them into a panel in the case, lay the M/B on them and put bolts throughthe M/B into the offsets. Most of the offsets were already there for the previous M/B so I just had to move a couple and put another couple in. I know what you mean about the tiny cable connectors but I cheated (I suppose I'll get the cane for that ) - I looked in the manual.


Thank you for the reference to other posts on cross gender punishments. The 1969 example was about the same time I was at school - attitudes were very different then.

I thought that Honorary Life Member you mentioned was she. After I asked, I took a look for myself. I haven't read all her posts yet but, from what I've seen, I think we might concur on that point. Perhaps, if she sees this, she might like to expand on it a bit.



With regard to pupils choosing the sex of the person to cane them you said:

and prof.n seems to agree with you! As to whether it matters, it is you who advocates equality of the sexes - surely this includes division of the workload!

Equality of opportunity does not always equate to equal outcomes.


Regarding my description of a "typical" mixed sex caning, you said:
Thank you for the very comprehensive and interesting description of your own group caning for smoking. There has been a report here that at least one school used a rather strange rigid cane. I assume the ones used at your school were the usual very flexible ones. Were they the crook handle variety or straight please? I assume from your account that the same cane was used on all of you. Not very likely that you gave any thought to this, but did you get any impression of its dimensions? Finally you mention the Headmistress fetching the cane and punishment book. Was the punishment book filled in while you were present? I assume also from your account that the headmistress was the only member of staff present - or did the teacher who reported you remain to witness the punishment?

The cane was very "whippy", I didn't have my external calipers with me at the time so I can't say how thick it was and I wasn't able to measure its length either but it did have the traditional crook handle. At a rough guess, I'd say the straight part was about 30" (75cm) and about 3/8" (8mm) thick - perhaps a bit thicker. I think the punishment book was filled in after we'd left - I don't recall it being done. The teacher who caught was present all the time and stayed after we'd left, perhaps to complete the punishment book.


In reply to my saying:
If a boy derived some sexual pleasure from seeing me get the cane, good for him. So long as he didn't deliberately engineer the situation that got me caned,

you said:
A most liberated attitude! I'm not sure that all girls would have felt that,

I think that sense of camaraderie we got from all being treated the same has something to do with it. In general, I didn't see "boys" and "girls" at school, I saw "friends" and "classmates". OK, there was a difference in certain matters but for everything else it made no difference.

and even if they did I still maintain that the school shouldn't have risked encouraging it.

That's a different matter but, in those days, I doubt anyone considered it a possibility or, if they did, pretended to ignore it.

Your subsequent analysis of the balance of risk is commendable, but can you recall if you even considered the risk that you might be an inadvertent source of entertainent at the time? Perhaps you have already answered this, since you were smoking in a mixed group!

I don't think I consciously analysed it that at the time, but that's what it comes down too. We were certainly aware that, if caught, we all be getting the cane together but I don't recall thinking I might be a source of entertainment for the other any more than thinking they would be a source of entertainment for me. I doubt that idea even crossed my mind.

You said:
Your take on knicker flashing is interesting. Girls in the senior classes at Junior school certainly seemed to spend a lot of time doing handstands or similar dress flipping activities, but I always assumed this was for exercise.

Now you know better.

Hi Jenny. You say:

I try to be as precise as possible: which often requires using a lot of words.

Magnificently put! That has now gone into my little book of quotable items. I have been saying the same thing myself, but at much greater length, for many years. Precision is essential in our field, and whatever it takes to ensure that precision has to be undertaken. Sadly, as I am sure you are aware, the great mass of the population is now incapable of absorbing anything that extends to more than 3 short sentences.

Regarding your hardware rebuild you say:

I cheated (I suppose I'll get the cane for that ) - I looked in the manual.

That's not cheating, it's common sense - if you've got a manual! However outside IT installations the first thing most people do on acquiring a new PC is throw away the motherboard documentation and the utilities and drivers CD. Strange but true. Apparently loose bits of paper and non-music CDs hanging about offend the lady of the house, and they get binned - or at least that's what the men invariably say!

Regarding cross gender school CP you say:

The 1969 example was about the same time I was at school - attitudes were very different then.

I assume you are referring to Doctor Dominum's timeline of attitudes to male teachers punishing girls. As he noted, he was referring to his location, Victoria, Australia. However I think certainly for the 1969 entry attitudes were similar here.

Regarding my presumption that you and Halfpenny might possibly share an attitude to being punished by a male teacher you said:

I thought that Honorary Life Member you mentioned was she. After I asked, I took a look for myself. I haven't read all her posts yet but, from what I've seen, I think we might concur on that point. Perhaps, if she sees this, she might like to expand on it a bit.

I hope your last sentence comes to pass. At the moment with regard to Halfpenny I am open to the same accusation that was levelled against me with regard to JJ. Incidently, are you familiar with JJs thread 'School Slippering Memories'? When you were bending over to be slippered by a male teacher it might just have been JJ who was wielding the slipper, the period is right. However, as you describe your school as using what I'd term typical school canes that perhaps rules out JJ, as his school is the one where the rigid canes were in use. However, if you wish to reprise some of those slipperings and understand how the male teacher may have been operating, JJ is your man. The thread is here.

Just a little aside: JJ, if you are by chance reading this, your thread was extremely popular, and you promised descriptions of a number of assorted slipperings which were never delivered. You'd be very welcome indeed if you decided to return!

And back to you Jenny. Thank you for the additional information about the group caning. A most interesting account overall, and despite my own misgivings about the mixed punishment it clearly wasn't regarded as anything out of the ordinary by you or the other participants. If you would care to give an indication of roughly where the school was it would be interesting from a regional point of view. There used to be a slogan much bandied about on this estimable Forum to the effect that:

An unnamed school is a fantasy school.

I don't hold with that on an unconditional basis, and nor I think do many of the present habitués. I've identified my secondary school, where I haven't described the CP experiences of any readily identifiable individual, but I haven't specifically identified except by area the Primary school where I've described my own and others CP experiences on an individual basis.

I notice that you've encountered larry1951, which is the pseudonym of the Management censorship function in this estimable Forum. It happens to all of us at some time. There are, I think, two levels of censorship. An automatic Network54 filter which bleeps out what it perceives as naughty words, or naughty words within legitimate words. Pretty much the same sort of software which prevents me from using my surname as a username with most ISPs. Should you wish to use a legitimate word in the word within word category, simply insert ­­­­ (the HTML soft hyphen) in the middle of the naughty bit.

There is absolutely no point in doing this for naughty words by themselves though, as the Forum Management will remove them, and other things besides, as this is a Family Forum. Some things which can readily be voiced in the average computer installation are not permissible here! The immense benefit of this is that this Forum doesn't fall foul of Network54 rules and get deleted.

Hi Another_Lurker,

You said:

However outside IT installations the first thing most people do on acquiring a new PC is throw away the motherboard documentation and the utilities and drivers CD.

That's true but I do work in an IT installation. I usually put the Utilities and Drivers CDs to one side though - they're rarely any use as they usually only work with Windows. We're all Linux here.

In reply to my saying
The 1969 example was about the same time I was at school - attitudes were very different then.

You said:
I assume you are referring to Doctor Dominum's timeline of attitudes to male teachers punishing girls.

That's right. His ten-yearly example concur with my view on how things have changed.

I haven't perused JJ's thread yet, I'll do so in a little while.


You said:And back to you Jenny. Thank you for the additional information about the group caning. A most interesting account overall, and despite my own misgivings about the mixed punishment it clearly wasn't regarded as anything out of the ordinary by you or the other participants.

The way I see it is that a group of us were misbehaving together so we were punished together. Nothing more and nothing less. There was nothing "indecent" about it at all.

You said: If you would care to give an indication of roughly where the school was it would be interesting from a regional point of view.

I'm loathe to identify my school because I'm sure certain unscrupulous elements in society would twist my words somehow to produce a juicy story for the "Sunday Papers". I'll only go so far as to say it was in the South-East quadrant of the country.

You mentioned that
There used to be a slogan much bandied about on this estimable Forum to the effect that:

An unnamed school is a fantasy school.

There are many reasons for not identifying a school which made extensive use of CP 30 - 40 years ago. Such practices were perfectly acceptable at the time but might not be viewed that way nowadays and I would not want my teachers to be judged by modern standards. They all did a very good job of providing us with an excellent education and I have the greatest respect for them.


You said:
I notice that you've encountered larry1951, which is the pseudonym of the Management censorship function in this estimable Forum. It happens to all of us at some time. There are, I think, two levels of censorship. An automatic Network54 filter which bleeps out what it perceives as naughty words, or naughty words within legitimate words. Pretty much the same sort of software which prevents me from using my surname as a username with most ISPs. Should you wish to use a legitimate word in the word within word category, simply insert ­­­­ (the HTML soft hyphen) in the middle of the naughty bit.

I'll remember that if I ever need to mention a certain North Lincolnshire town.

There is absolutely no point in doing this for naughty words by themselves though, as the Forum Management will remove them, and other things besides, as this is a Family Forum. Some things which can readily be voiced in the average computer installation are not permissible here! The immense benefit of this is that this Forum doesn't fall foul of Network54 rules and get deleted.

I only word larry1951 appeared to have replaced was in the phrase "baffle them with rubbish". That last word was originally a word commonly used to describe the waste products of male bovines but I had starred the some of the letters out. I'm surprised now that a certain "technical term" I used elsewhere (albeit partially starred out) hasn't been replaced with another word. Still, I'll try to mind my language in future.

Hi Jenny. You said of your business:

We're all Linux here.

Very wise. I am trying to get round to trying one of the free distros myself. There's nothing like a bit of command line stuff to keep the brain active. A young lady of my acquaintance with feminist views not unlike your own gave me a rundown on what I should get and how I should go about it and I shall be in trouble if I don't action it soon!

In response to my query as to whether you were referring to Doctor Dominum's timeline you said:

That's right. His ten-yearly examples concur with my view on how things have changed.

There are a few contributors here who consistently post very sound, very useful and very interesting on-topic items and Doctor Dominum is most certainly one of them. Although he did once blot his copy book with a little verse about the amorous limitations of the mini - the car that is!

You say of the group punishment you have so excellently documented:

The way I see it is that a group of us were misbehaving together so we were punished together. Nothing more and nothing less. There was nothing "indecent" about it at all.

I am convinced that that is a fair summary of the incident.

Of identifying your school you say:

I'm loathe to identify my school because I'm sure certain unscrupulous elements in society would twist my words somehow to produce a juicy story for the "Sunday Papers". I'll only go so far as to say it was in the South-East quadrant of the country.

That is as much as I was hoping for. You will note that I did say 'region'. And you also say:

There are many reasons for not identifying a school which made extensive use of CP 30 - 40 years ago. Such practices were perfectly acceptable at the time but might not be viewed that way nowadays and I would not want my teachers to be judged by modern standards. They all did a very good job of providing us with an excellent education and I have the greatest respect for them.

In general those are my sentiments. However there are certain schools where press coverage (Bacons for instance) and self-advertisement (the Rodney School for instance) have made the CP activities at those schools widely known anyway.

You say of the Network54 auto-censoring software:

I'll remember that if I ever need to mention a certain North Lincolnshire town.

Mention of that town is in any event deprecated in this Forum - a bit like most of the HTML Network54 forces you to use is in the W3C standards! It is rumoured that Network54 does indeed censor the place anyway, so should I need to mention it, which is not often, I always employ the soft hyphen.

You say of your encounter with larry1951:

That last word was originally a word commonly used to describe the waste products of male bovines

Most definitely a no no. Waste products of any living organism are best avoided. I had an entire post deleted once for just such an offence. I threw my toys out of the pram and shook the dust of this estimable Forum off my feet for ever, only to return a few days later when I realised that Big Ray's Old Mum, the ultimate arbiter of taste and decency here, really does know what's best for us. I have tried to stay within bounds ever since - well almost!