If you have not noticed already, I have added another entry, dated 29th May tittled 'Another Unconventional Case' and which you may not have seen, as I'd had it saved as a draft copy until today. It's a kind of mind control piece: scroll down to read! Sort of two posts in one day - sort of!
Now, blindfolds have never really been my ‘thing’. It can be – and has been – argued that the use of a blindfold increases the disciplinary effect or efficacy of a caning by depriving the subject of the knowledge of when the next stroke is going to arrive – and yes, there are visual cues the miscreant can pick up on. But such cues can be minimised even in the absence of a blindfold. For example the subject can be secured facing down and away from the disciplinarian, lighting can be designed and arranged to either be shadowless (fluorescents are good for this, especially if diffused) or to cast the disciplinarian’s shadow back away from the subject and finally, there is a lot to be said for a girl being obliged to observe her own features in a mirror as she undergoes correction. The latter can be achieved by the simple expedient of laying a mirror on the floor and works even if she is over the lap receiving a hand spanking – in which case keeping her eyes open throughout can form part of the discipline, with extra punishment dished out for disobedience.
Obviously, when across the lap it is very obvious when the next slap or whatever is coming – not so much when secured over an ottoman or even a purpose-made spanking bench or low padded horse. A padded massage table can be purchased which has an opening at one end for the face. Laid face down on this, with a cylindrical cushion under the hips to raise the bottom, she can be obliged to remain facing the floor - and thus the mirror, - throughout by the simple addition of a broad leather strap buckled tightly and passing across the back of her pretty head. If the mirror is angled thoughtfully the disciplinarian is able to view the girl’s contorted features and thus ensure she keeps her eyes open throughout without her being able to glimpse anything of the rise and fall of the cane etc. Better still is for a witness to be stationed in front to supervise that part of the disciplinary procedure, although of course that person mustn’t flinch or give away any other clue that the cane or the riding crop is about to fall.
All this can be done – Whispers or Blushes or another of that stable of spanking magazines produced a nice set many years ago, and I myself have handed out a hand spanking with a girl across my lap hanging over a mirror – and can produce an exemplary effect on a headstrong young filly. But the real enemy – even given the use of a blindfold – is sound. Never mind the whhhooop of the cane or switch swishing through the air, the rustle of clothing, the shifting of weight on the floor, shoes squeaking, boards creaking – all these things are unmistakable clues that the next stroke is on its way. Yes it is true that you can create apprehension and confusion by pulling up short from time to time, taking practice swings that do little else but produce noise or providing the occasional harmless ‘range finding’ tap, but it is still difficult to disguise the actual stroke. No, rather than blindfolding what is really required is to block out those sound cues.
Ear plugs work – up to a point – but have one or two drawbacks, and miss out on the opportunity to introduce some quite devious refinements that become possible when certain other alternative methods are put to use. Nothing terribly sophisticated is being advocated her – nothing that hasn’t been available since the fifties or sixties. What I am advocating is simply the provision of a pair of descent, padded headphones and a white noise source. The latter is easy enough – an FM radio tuned off-channel, preferably with its aerial (antenna) removed or unplugged will suffice. Failing that, a looped recording of surf on a beach or even a clacking diesel engine will suffice.
Now, if care is taken the girl will have no idea whether or not the disciplinarian is even still in the room with her or not – and to that end, I see nothing wrong with the disciplinarian retiring for anything up to an hour, once she is secured, before commencing the punishment. Utterly caught by surprise in such a manner and totally unprepared I would be surprised if she wasn’t reduced to tears within three strokes or so, possibly even by the very first stroke!
And now the devious refinements I promised. One thing now possible – and difficult with earplugs – is that arrangements can be made for her to hear the disciplinarian’s voice, easily arranged by mixing in the output of a microphone switched on and off as required (voice activation would also be easily achievable nowadays). But THAT is all she’d hear – the disciplinarian’s voice, above a continuous babble of white noise. Imagine her nerves shredding little by little. ‘Oh my god… when is the next stroke coming?... when?… oh god! When?’ Perhaps three strokes might fall in machinegun rapidity… craaack!, carack!,craaack! Right across the centre line of her buttocks, with barely a split second between each and landing so close together as to almost land on top of one another… And then nothing… just the crackle of meaningless static filling her ears… perhaps in anguish, perhaps trying to concentrate to hear past, hear through, the all-blanketing rushing, hissing noise she closes her eyes… Crraaaackk! The cane has been swung up and under the heavy overhang of her bottom, landing right at the point where the flesh is most tender, where the tops of the thighs swell in meeting meet the buttocks, right in that crease that forms there! “Keep those eyes open, keep looking at yourself in the mirror – THAT stroke doesn’t count!”
On the other hand, perhaps the disciplinarian wouldn’t have left the room at all. Perhaps, if he or she has the patience, she is content to just sit, perhaps for half an hour, perhaps longer, waiting for the moment the girl closes her eyes or tries to look away from her own reflection – and then…. Crrrraaaack! The punishment starts.
A second refinement: Most disciplinarians would agree on the value of having the miscreant count aloud the strokes. And I think most would agree penalty strokes or other, further forms of punishment should be awarded for failure to count, miss-counting, losing count – that sort of thing. Similarly when it comes to the recitation of various formulae, such as giving thanks for her correction and so on, which of course should be given in some tightly stipulated manner, the later having an element of humiliation providing great disciplinary value. All well and good, when she can actually hear her own voice, a little more difficult when she is deprived of that feedback by the constant rush of white noise filling her ears and seemingly, after a while, her head. This becomes a LOT more difficult, requiring no little concentration, when she DOES hear her own voice, but delayed by half a second to a second – easily achieved with a directional microphone set close to her mouth and a tape delay; and it really comes in to its own when a group of several strokes are given together spaced by a roughly similar period to the delay and is exacerbated in any situation in which the girl is required to recite an extended formula along with the stroke number: “….th,th,three…th, th, thank y,you miss – thank you for correcting me, miss…. Four, th, th, th,ank thank you, you for correcting…” “Wrong girl – start again: The next stroke is number one!”
Her nerves are shredded. Her mind confused…. It is the second time the punishment has been restarted – and she can’t take any more… But of course she will have to…
By finally it is over – and THEN it is time for the blindfold. If a small enough device is available the white noise can be continued on her way back to her room. This is where the blindfold comes in to its own. Whether strapped into a psychiatric hospital wheelchair, or made to walk, led uncertainly along the meandering corridors, that lack of sight is a major contributor, both to disorientation and to a feeling of dependency on the person whose job it is to see her safely back where she came from. And several twist and turns can be added to the journey, perhaps several turns around the floor, perhaps passing the actual door to her room several times before being led in.
In bygone times there was a treatment available in some psychiatric hospitals which involved strapping a patient in to a chair which was then continuously revolved. If such a device happened to be still in situ in some old disuse room somewhere thereabouts, and given the girl is kitted out in her blindfold and headphones or earplugs than there would be nothing wrong – and a lot might be gained - from breaking the journey and popping her in the rotating chair for a short period. Then on leaving, perhaps heading the other way, assuming a circular arrangement of corridors, back to her room the long way, thus making her disorientation complete. And disorientation is the reason the Victorians built their psychiatric hospitals and workhouse with such long, convoluted, winding and maze-like corridors and passageways – it made running away more difficult and left the inmate easier to control. And therein is a sort of another advantage of blindfolding – kept blind folded when not in her room or on the ‘ward’ – if kept with a small number of others – and only ever interacting with a very limited number of individuals, the girl can’t know if she is in some sort of huge rambling complex inside some large institution, or in some small network of cellars or suit of rooms under or within a private house.
But why have been prompted to write this when I say I’m not THAT keen on blindfolds. Well it all boils down to yet another of those re-bloged images from Tumblr. Except this one I never actually re-bloged. It was one of a pair and I downloaded this one (picture above) but now I can’t remember where from. Years ago I had the idea of taking a girl out essentially blindfolded, but in a manner not obvious to the public. It was all about developing psychological dependency of course and my wife of the time and I came up with the solution of procuring for the girl we had living with us – and who was very much under my wife’s wing, as my wife liked to put it – a pair of very strong reading glasses, which of course the girl didn’t need. These were of such a strong prescription that with them on the girl had to have her nose practically pressed to the page to read a book; her distant and mid-distance vision was hopeless and I gather all she could make out was a blur of shifting shapes – most disconcerting one would imagine – a bit like looking out through frosted or misted glass, except where she could see around the edges and down along her nose, that sort of thing. And so we’d take her out – and of course she’d quickly kick up a fuss and take them off. So how did we fix this? Well, my wife did to tell the truth. Our girl was proud of her hair back then (that was ‘fixed’ too, but at a later date – and another story). My wife had tried fixing elastic to them, like they sometimes do with young children’s glasses to stop them falling off, which went around the back of her head, where it tucked under her ponytail out of sight. And of course we are out, and she pops to the toilet, and she comes back with them tucked in her dress pocket (no – she wouldn’t have dared throw them away or break them; she knew how far she could push us!).
So… and here comes the clever part… the next time my wife made her put the glasses on she popped a piece of the gum she had been chewing out of her mouth and pressed a bit of the gum around the elastic at the rear and pressed a small part of it in to the hair at the back of her head. Just in case the woolly-headed thing didn’t grasp the implication my wife quickly told her what she’d done – and what would happen if she tried now to pull the elastic over her head and that pony tail of hers without help from one of us, how the gum would undoubtedly ‘string out’ spreading and gumming up her hair, and high-up where there would be little option other than to take drastic action with the sheers. THAT did the trick…
From that day on, each time we all went out together the glasses went on, and then a blob a chewing gum to keep ‘em on. There was no popping into shops or wandering away on her own after that, when we were out! Not if she had those glasses on. She was like a puppy brought to heel with those things on – she couldn’t even go to the toilet unaccompanied.
But can you imagine what could be done with THIS little innovation (see above). Completely opaque contact lenses! Now these would definitely make the best kind of blindfold. If only they had been around in the eighties!!