A Tutor's Tale

Story from Roue 08.

A Tutor's Tale

THE TUTOR AND THE PARENT

The thing which struck me most forcibly when I started my private tutoring some twenty five years ago was that inevitably I found myself dealing with parents who were more than usually concerned about the standard of education of their child. This may seem obvious, but since I started my sideline as a result of financial necessity, I am bound to admit that I saw myself initially as some cap-in-hand fellow hoping to convince prospective clients that I did indeed have something to offer, and, my attitude was one more of the supplicant than of the authoritative professional man.

I realised very quickly however that many of those parents who had decided that their child had need of extra tuition, had often done so very much as a last resort, having despaired of their child's education being adequately catered for by their present school alone. This is not to say that either the schools or the children were particularly at fault; more often it was the parents who were pushing their children along perhaps faster than could reasonably be expected of them, and having ambitions for their offspring which resulted in anxiety when expectations failed to materialise.

End-of-term reports were my most eloquent advocate, and I had more applications for places resulting from disappointing school reports than anything else. Not all parents were of this kind of course, but a substantial majority were. Once I had grasped this fact I was able to see myself in an entirely different light.

Springing from this anxiety on the part of the parents there naturally arose a certain willingness to believe that private and professional attention to their child's needs was the one and only thing that might work — thus the tutor was unwittingly endowed with quasi-magical powers and the gift of turning a dull or lazy child into a winner of scholarships. A good report at the end of term, after a series of private lessons, confirmed this rather naive point of view and guaranteed at least another term or two of continued lessons in the hope of further improvement.

The tutor's opinions were then listened to with yet more attentiveness, and even a subsequent bad report made little difference; the lessons had worked before — if the child was no longer progressing so well it obviously was not the fault of the tutor. It must be the child.

More girls than I can actually remember must have first felt the smack of a ruler across their knickers as a result of this illogical reasoning on the part of their parents. And as a result also, of course, of a discreet suggestion on my part.

Even if progress were maintained, eventually there would be an adverse report from the school, or one which failed to satisfy expectations. Trusted thus far with the girls' education, the tutor's suggestion that the odd smack on the bottom might not go amiss would be accepted without too much trauma. Some parents did not go along with the idea of course, but far more than one might have expected did.

Mothers were the easiest to convince, fathers less so. Uncles, on the other hand, almost inevitably raised no objections, while aunts were hardly more of a problem. I would not wish you to suppose that every one of my pupils were punished — of course not. But I think it would be fair to say that about a third of the girls who were at one time or another members of my 'practice' were disciplined and some quite vigorously. I have to admit, and no doubt you will have realised, that I was anxious to conclude such arrangements out of motives other than professionalism, but I must still say that smacking a girls' bottom never did her schoolwork any harm, and for some it was definitely beneficial.

One last point: I do not regard the parents of these girls as being unusually gullible. One only has to think of the automatic weight which most people attach to the professional advice of a doctor to understand why the advice of a tutor should be accepted so readily. The aura surrounding the two professions is sometimes not very different, certainly in the circumstances in which my pupils were delivered to me by over-anxious parents.

THE TUTOR AND THE PUPIL

Leaving aside the matter of corporal punishment for the moment, I always tried to win the trust and confidence of pupils, the better to understand their needs, for you should remember that I was running a business; it wasn't simply a matter of seeing how many bottoms I could smack in a week. Winning the confidence of my pupils paid dividends, and also led to some surprising results. Having been sent to me in an effort to improve her maths, one girl confessed that it was simply her inability to see the writing on the blackboard that had inhibited her learning — she hadn't wanted to be made to wear glasses, so she had simply kept quiet and fallen behind in consequence.

I also found that being able to discuss problems with someone not actually connected with their school led many of my pupils to regard me in a more friendly way than they would otherwise have done. This is not to say that I was lax or too easy-going; I was never that, but respect for my authority was tempered with an agreeable feeling of approachability — at least I like to think so.

CLASSROOM BEHAVIOUR

I always used a set of rules which I expected my pupils to follow, and which I am certain established the relationship between myself and my pupils which might later lead to the acceptance of classroom punishments in an atmosphere of proper authority.

Standing up whenever I entered the room was one rule — calling me sir was another — it was surprising, even then, how many children were not expected to behave in this way at school. Standing up whenever they were called upon to speak was another thing I insisted upon. These apparently minor things were, I am sure, conducive to the proper atmosphere in the classroom.

TAKING ADVANTAGE

When I had been in 'private practice' for some time, and having discovered after some six months that it was not beyond the bounds of possibility to turn a young lady over my lap and smack her on her knickers and get away with it, the next step seemed to be both desirable and at the same time fraught with peril; that of taking the girl's pants down and spanking her on her bare bottom.

I pondered the wisdom of this move at length, and at last convinced myself that I might, with caution, try a little experiment.

My current favourite was a girl named Penelope, whom I had coaxed across my knee, albeit at first rather uncertainly despite her mother's permission, on several occasions. She was about seventeen and quite a 'big girl'. She filled out her school presuming that Penny herself had been told of this authorisation by her mother, was somewhat taken aback when Penny's mum arrived with her daughter one day to pay the monthly fees and remarked to me that it was a tribute to my expertise that I had managed Penny's recent advances in scholarship without the need to resort to physical chastisement.

I questioned Penny closely about it when her mother had gone. It transpired that not only had Penny not told her mother that she'd been getting her pants taken down, she hadn't even admitted that she'd been spanked at all. Asked why she'd been so reluctant to mention this aspect of her education to her mother Penny said tearfully that she was too embarrassed, even though her knickers more than adequately and was a delight to spank because of her wonderfully firm bottom and her way of bleating plaintively with every smack. Truth to tell she was also, at that time, the only one of my pupils whom I had parental permission to chastise.

Approaching the matter of bare-bottom spanking by a roundabout route, I took to easing the elastic legs of her knickers into the middle while I spanked her, which gave me a goodly amount of bare buttock to smack while preserving her modesty. Having accustomed her to expect this semi-denudation, I eventually took my courage, and Penny's knickers, in both hands and whisked them down to her knees one afternoon. Her reaction was not particularly adverse, her bottom having already been pretty well smacked thus giving her more to think about than what was happening to her knickers.

I awaited developments, my arguments ready on my tongue for when Penny's mother arrived to protest, but nothing happened.

I repeated the experiment several times without any unhappy results, and then began to take Penny's knickerless spankings for granted, though Penny was understandably less than enthusiastic about her punishments. For several months this continued, and I, knowing that Penny's mother had authorised the disciplining of her daughter and mum had told her that it was going to happen.

I found this most instructive, and on many subsequent occasions with other girls discovered this same reluctance to admit such things to their parents. As for Penny, since I had said nothing to her mother she continued to get her bare-bottom spankings in camera.

Incidentally I overcame this problem of knickers-down punishment with other girls simply by not making an issue of it. Instead of saying "Your daughter might benefit from the occasional spanking" I would say "Perhaps your daughter needs her pants taken down and her bottom smacked." It seemed to cause very little concern when put that way.

THE CANE — A BLUNT INSTRUMENT

I have read here and there that to be effective, a punishment should result in tears. If this is true, and I admit that a few tears do indicate a certain degree of contrition on the part of the punishee, then the logical conclusion would seem to be that the more painful the punishment, thus the more tearful the wretched girl, then the more effective the chastisement is likely to be. Logically then, something like a cane, soundly applied to the tender backside of a girl in her teens, would seem to provide the best results with the least likelihood of failure. Well possibly it would. I must say however that I am not, in general, in favour of caning girls.

This is not to say that I have never caned a girl. I have caned dozens, particularly in the few years after I first started my private lessons, but my views on this have changed as I have grown older. (Mellowed, perhaps).

I suppose that my lack of conscience regarding the caning of my earlier pupils stemmed from my full-time occupation as a teacher in a boys-only grammar school. At this school the cane was used indiscriminately it is not surprising then that I saw nothing very wrong in caning girls if they deserved it. I was, after all, quite used to the 'Thwack!' of a cane across grey flannel trousers; at first girls didn't seem so different to boys and I assumed they needed the same kind of discipline.

I now consider this to have been a mistaken point of view. If tears are to be considered evidence of an effective punishment, then I must point out that I have come across very few girls who have been able to bear even a moderate spanking without bursting into tears. Certainly a couple of dozen good strokes with a substantial ruler will reduce even the most determined girl to hysterical weeping. On the other hand I have to admit that not very many boys will let themselves down by crying even when caned. Perhaps then there is a case for the caning of boys. I no longer think this to be true for girls however.

In the interests of accuracy I shall deal briefly with the matter of caning girls, but would add that in the last five years of my private lessons I didn't use the cane at all.

To frame the proper perspective I should say that though I was used to punishing boys at my school I was not particularly expert at it, by which I mean I had never thought about corporal punishment except in terms of a couple of good swats across someone's trousers, in the full expectation that the recipient would be back for more on some subsequent occasion. Caning in boys schools, at least so far as I was concerned, was simply a matter of vengeance; I don't think any of my contemporaries ever thought of caning as being constructive, nor indeed particularly likely to deter. Boys did wrong, got whacked, then went out and did wrong again; that's all there was to it.

This being so, and not having any appreciation of the subtleties of corporal punishment, my approach to punishing my private pupils was not very different, except that they were girls and were more interesting sexually. (Possibly you will have noticed that I have not mentioned any boys amongst my private practice. This is no accident. I did not take on boys, except very occasionally, mostly because I had enough of them all day at school. This is my excuse anyway.) When combined with a rather uneasy approach to chastising girls, an awkwardness which I suppose I must attribute to my conscience which constantly reminded me that I was smacking the girls' bottoms purely for my own gratification rather than for any actual professional reason, my inexperience tended in the early days to make me rush at things, rather than take them slowly as I later learned to do.

Because of this, I think, my spanking of girls' bottoms, while satisfying for me, was perhaps not so effective as I eventually learned to make it. As with the boys at school it was all rather peremptory, being a case of pants down, (or not, as the case might be) a short sharp spanking and back to work. Had I been more expert I would probably not have had to use the cane at all. However, to get on with the matter of caning.

The first time I caned a girl it was the result of one very determined pupil's efforts to avoid doing the extra homework which I set her. Sensing the possibility of an 'arrangement' I duly mentioned the matter of discipline to the girl's mother. Permission was given, and the young lady's bottom suffered in consequence. Regrettably no improvement in the matter of homework was forthcoming, though I spanked the girl every time she failed to deliver the necessary work, which probably meant about twice a week, though I don't recall exactly. The girl's mother having become involved, and these regular spankings having no effect, it was only a little surprising that eventually the woman suggested 'stronger measures'. There was only one 'stronger measure' that I could think of; the cane!

Fortunately for me, although the girl was disobedient when it came to doing her homework, she was fairly well-disciplined in class. With her mother present, I had the girl bend over my desk, skirt up but with her pants on in deference to Mum's presence. As I recall I gave her four good strokes. I well remember how she yelled, but mother was more determined than I and the girl was made to lie still till all four strokes had been stingingly applied across the seat of her school knickers. She wept piteously, and I was glad that her mother had been present, or else I supposed I might have been in an awkward position.

This first experience of caning a girl convinced me of two things. Firstly that, unlike boys, girls made a terrible fuss! I resolved that henceforth I would always insist upon a witness being present, and on the witness being the girl's parent or guardian. Secondly, because at once the girl's homework started to arrive on my desk on time, I became convinced of the efficacy of caning vis-a-vis naughty girls!

Now obviously I cannot argue that caning doesn't work, but I do still say that with girls it isn't necessary; however, I will explain later.

Having caned my first girl, when the occasion arose I wasn't slow to suggest caning as a remedy for other girls' serious misbehaviour. I hasten to add that caning was not a very regular occurrence in my little classroom, although the instances when it was employed differed from the first girl's caning in that whereas in her case the stick was used only when less dramatic methods had failed, I now kept a cane in the classroom and sought permission to use it when a girl had done (or not done) something particularly deserving of punishment. Thus, as with the boys at school, I sought to use the cane less as a deterrent than as a means of revenge, although I doubt that I would have seen it in that light at the time.

Having established the principle, with some of my pupil's parents, that physical chastisement was not an unsuitable method of maintaining my authority, the suggestion that a cane be used on their daughters' bottoms did not come as too great a shock.

These canings were carried out with the parent present, and ranged from two to four strokes, usually across the girl's knickers. Doubtless the presence of their parent assisted me in keeping the girl in the right frame of mind to take her dose of the stick. If I caned more than two girls in a month it was unusual, although with certain of my pupils this average increased dramatically.

As I think I have mentioned elsewhere, mothers were the most readily convinced of the need for discipline, and a few girls were sufficiently ill-behaved at home for their mothers to ask for my assistance. Thus a girl, once caned by me in the course of her lessons, would sometimes find herself 'sentenced' to a caning by her mother for something unconnected to my tuition of her. I was used as a 'bogeyman' with whom naughty girls were threatened by exasperated mums. This suited me very well, thank you, and there were thus several young bottoms which got to know the feel of the cane more than most.

Having found that a girl, once caned, lost her ability to concentrate on her work, these 'parental request' canings were administered at the end of a lesson, and with due ceremony. The girl's mother having arrived, I would give her daughter a brief lecture on respect for her elders etc., and she would then be told to bend over my desk. Her knickers would perhaps be taken down, and she would then be given her two, three, or four strokes, hard enough to make her yell with each one. These punishments were somewhat more severe than those suggested by me, mostly because mum would insist upon it being "good and hard" or some such phrase.

For a number of years then, I used the cane more or less often, and I can certainly say that I rarely had to cane a girl a second time for the same offence. Tears there were in plenty, and I should suppose therefore that the canings which I administered would be ajudged 'effective' by those who say that tears provide evidence of a punishment well applied.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH

On the matter of tears then, let me now elucidate my present, and updated, attitude to corporal punishment.

If tears are to mean anything at all useful, then I would suppose that they should indicate more than just a temporary sensation of pain. If pain alone were the object of physical chastisement, then the aim might as easily be achieved by, for example, slamming the lid of a desk down on a girl's fingers. Pain there certainly would be, and tears. But discipline — I think not. Hate, fear — these would be the results. I have introduced my comments upon caning as — 'The cane, a blunt instrument'. Certainly in the way that I first used the cane it was not dissimilar to a desk lid.

During these past years however, I have realised that unlike boys, girls do not look upon spankings and canings as chiefly physical punishments, but rather as emotional ordeals. This realisation has led me to an appreciation of the psychological subtleties of chastisement, and away from the 'blunt instrument' cul-de-sac. I now employ nothing more brutal than a springy eighteen-inch ruler, and more usually my hand, and I achieve the desired object, punishment, along with fringe benefits which include a genuine desire to please and, as I like to think, respect.

Punishments in my classroom in latter years tended to follow the pattern which I shall set out below, with variations as the whim, and circumstances, allowed.

I adhered to the usual 'over the knee' spanking position for minor chastisements. I found it much more intimate than other methods and considerably more rewarding from an erotic point of view. I also think that such a punishment, with the closeness of physical contact and the 'submissive' position necessarily adopted by the girl, leads her to view her spanking in a more paternal and thus less authoritarian light, and is less likely to alienate her feelings than 'discipline' pure and simple.

I prefaced such spankings with a short lecture, allowing as much time as was convenient between this lecture and the girl's actual spanking as possible to give her, and myself, time to think about it.

According to the degree of 'disciplinarianism,' desired, I would either take the girls pants down once across my lap, take them down for her prior to putting her over my knee, or have her take them down herself. The two latter alternatives I found most useful in producing the desired emotional effect, particularly on the older, thus more sensitive, girls. Combined with a lecture, and the wait of perhaps half an hour beforehand, telling a girl to take her knickers down, or to 'come here' and doing it myself, has produced tears of embarrassment and contrition as often as has the actual smart of a well-smacked bottom.

Knickers having been taken down, (and I learned that 'bare-bottom' was invariably to be preferred to 'knickers on'), I would proceed with the girl's spanking, never too hard, but prolonging the punishment for increased severity rather than spanking harder. I discovered that the effects of a girl getting her bottom spanked are cumulative, which is to say that the spanks, though no harder, seemed to have considerably more effect as the punishment went on. Tears, if not in evidence at the 'taking down of knickers' stage, would usually appear after a few minutes. By spanking moderately I found that, though the girl might begin to cry, her struggles and protests were likely to be less violent than in the case of a 'sound spanking'.

I would talk to the girl continuously, and indeed have had a few proper conversations while a girlish bottom has bounced about on my lap, (I found your 'Tutor's' insistence that his pupil recite a rhyme while being spanked quite amusing). When I considered the punishment to be adequately administered I would then send the girl off to a corner to dry her eyes, bottom on display. This, I felt, 'rounded off the psychological aspects of a smacked bottom perfectly.

If I needed to be more authoritarian, I would punish the girl with the ruler which I mentioned, and then always bent across my desk. Again, the actual spanking would not be too hard, but might comprise twenty, thirty, or more fairly stingy smacks, well spaced out and with each spank preceded by some suitable comment from me. A teenage bottom thus punished would take on a very rosy hue, but even as little as an hour later would exhibit few signs of punishment save a little blotchiness here and there.

These fairly simple methods I found to be the most effective, and indeed the most rewarding. Caning I found to be less so, unless that is my conscience clouding my recollections of the unfortunate girls whose bared bottoms swerved around across my desk some years ago.