Add C.S. Lewis To The List Of Spankos
According to this account in the New Yorker, C.S. Lewis (author of the Narnia books among many other accomplishments) had a spanking interest; supposedly in letters to a friend, he “named the women he’d like to spank, and for a time signed his private letters ‘Philomastix’— ‘whip-lover.'”
Of course, in mainstream media like the New Yorker, this made him “a warped, morbid, stammering sexual pervert.” Wow, feel the hate?
Good for him! Nothing wrong with a man who enjoys the finer things in life…
you don’t agree that a prediliction for spanking as a sexual turn on is a bit of a “perversion”? And Lewis was incredibly morbid, and somewhat warped, for other reasons… He carried a lot of guilt around, behind his Christianity…
Kate
I think it was Woody Allen who defined perversion as “anything sexual I don’t like.”
By that standard I consider *you* the pervert.
Yrs in pervery, Adrian
The article makes an interesting point that Lewis was exposed to spanking in the English public (private) school system at the time of his sexual awakening. I daresay that is what affects us all. We were exposed to a spanking at the time of our sexual awakening and transformed the experience into an erotic experience.
Stephen
I read that, “…it’s clear that the trauma, coming at a time of sexual awakening, was deep and lasting. It seems to have had the usual result: Lewis developed and craved what even his Christian biographer, Jacobs, calls “mildly sadomasochistic fantasies” [sic] and wondered at that statement.
It might *seem* a logical origin of C.S. Lewis’ spanking (spankos in general?), however, I found that smacked of hubris as if everyone’s fascination or love of the things kinky could be so summarily concluded. It doesn’t explain why some of us who have never been or seen spanking are drawn to it. Bad presumption, in my humble opinion.
Thank you for sharing that article!
Holiday Cheers,
poiesia :)
so ridiculous. i’m into S&M myself — why else would I read this blog? i’m defining perversion as “different from the norm” — a twist on the norm…
i chose to post because i used to love lewis’ work as a kid, and when i found out (years and years ago) that he was into S&M, I had much more affinity and sympathy for the man… he can seem very unmerciful in his apologetics and the S&M thing made him a lot more human to me.
and, I know I’m spamming now, but how did you presume to know anything at all about my sexual practices and whether you would like them or not? christ. enjoy spanking bethie; don’t take out your angst on me! i’m comfortable with myself and what i like and don’t like — there’s no need to turn to insult at the sign of of possible (but in this case, not actual) dissent!
I said: “It doesn’t explain why some of us who have never been or seen spanking are drawn to it.”
Correction: Oops, I meant when we were children or in “our time of sexual awakening.”
Thanks again,
poiesia :)
Kate, where did I take any “angst” out on you? I think your comment may have been directed at Adrian, but he’d better not be spanking Bethie? One of us is confused.
I’ll admit I’m confused by Adrian’s comment; it sounds like he’s saying he doesn’t like you, but does he even know you? I’m assuming I’m missing his point — perhaps you are too. I dunno. Anyway, I don’t see enough there to be worth starting a slanging match….
Let me be clear to everyone — “pervert” is not a word of insult on this blog. I’d say we’re all happy perverts here, and I’m good with that. The “hate” I mentioned in the main post is my censure of the idea that a harmless perversion equates to warped morbidity.
I have seen the new Narnia movie attacked over and over again in the mainstream media for being a Christian
movie; I am sure that finding something like this out
about Lewis just made them get their knickers in a twist
with joy at debunking him as an apt and wise writer, who
happened to be a Christian (the HORROR!)
I still had that issue of The New Yorker, so I went back to the original article. In the paragraph before the “whipmaster” reference, the school that Lewis went to is described. An episode is noted where a headmaster with a cane chased a student (not Lewis) down a hallway for acting above his class in life. It is the horrible time at school that turned Lewis into a spankophile (of some kind) and also “warped”, “morbid”, and “stammering”.
Anyone who has read Dickens’s novels or George Orwell’s memoir of his schooling will find the cruelty of the British public schools (what the US calls private schools) to be part of many childhoods in English history. Spanking is often called “the English vice” and stories of these schools is where you usually find the reference (yes, I know, it’s not called a “vice” on this website).