Wide-ranging discussions followed on from yesterday’s post on Sue Bradford’s anti-smacking bill. It was nice to see some lively debate on PublicAddressSystem, especially when contrasted with the name-calling, hair-pulling, cussing and general potty mouthed behaviour across the road. I have a lot of respect for David P Farrar, but some of the company he keeps, jeez…
One emailer raised a point I had hitherto not considered however, and I think it's one all MPs should consider when casting their votes.
What effect will this Bill have on spanking fetishists, both now and in the future?
Having spent a fair amount of time considering the issue (during my lunch hour), vox popping members of the public and ringing around all my ex-girlfriends, I’ve arrived at a couple of conclusions.
Let’s face it. Sex is great when it's naughty. Forget all the “it’s best when you’re doing it with the person you love” rubbish; that’s up there with “when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much...” for explaining to a kid where they came from. (I’m going to tell my kids the truth: Mummy and daddy met in a bar, where mummy had too much to drink and daddy was in fine form…”)
Anyway, whether it’s naughty with someone you love (hotels on holiday, a “sick day” spent in bed) or just naughty with someone you feel like getting down with (alleyway, Speaker's Chair), that's your call. But naughty is better.
So if smacking is suddenly against the law, won’t that make an already kinda kinky act (and I’m talking about the whole spectrum here, from a quick slap on the arse, to an Ian Wishart-style paddling) even hotter? I think it just might. Spanking will become the new, well, I don't know, whatever the hip sex act is right now.
Generationally though, I suspect things will change. If you were never smacked as a child, never equated physical discipline with ‘being naughty’, wouldn’t the whole thing just be a bit foreign? In a world where being smacked was just a completely alien concept, wouldn’t it be more like “What the hell? Did you just strike me on my bottom with your open hand? What’s that all about?”
I’m not just concerned about what effect this might have in the bedrooms of New Zealand circa 2030, but on the BDSM industry in general. It would appear that the whole spanking thing will go through a boom for a while, as it becomes even naughtier, but then suddenly drop off as the now nascent generation reaches sexual maturity.
I’m no investment analyst, but I’d be checking your diversified portfolio if I were you. If it includes any of the following – rubber, leather or latex manufacturers, producers of restraining devices and other such goods, you’d be well advised to keep the above in mind.
As you were.