Fiance Bondage Punishment, 1912
It’s hard to judge how seriously to take this exchange of letters from a 1912 magazine. Certainly one wouldn’t offer such advice today. Quite aside from the morality of treating one’s fiance as chattel in such fashion without prior negotiation, in 2019 it’s a rare bird who wouldn’t have your ass in jail for it, and rightly. But if we assume that letters to pulpy magazines were as likely to be fiction then as they generally were later in the 20th century, then, well, these make for an amusing set of fictions:
I am very interested in the letters which have appeared in your bright paper lately on the question of corporal punishment, and I wonder if any of your readers could give me advice. I am 22 years of age, and in love with a girl of 18. She has no mother or elder sister, so she has always had very much her own way, and when I do not do just as she wants, she will often sulk a long time.
I have come to the conclusion that a good smacking would do her a lot of good, but I am at a loss how to proceed. I once hinted it to her, and she laughed and said she would enjoy it, but of course she has never had a spanking. Can some of your readers advise me?
— WILLIE.
And:
PUNISHING A FIANCEE
If “Willie” wants to try the effect of a spanking on his young lady, the best way for him to proceed (having got three straps, one long and two short), is to wait until they are in the house alone. Then, not telling her what is in store for her, he should strap her wrists together and fix another strap round her ankles. He can do this playfully as opportunity presents itself. Once the straps are securely fixed, he must pro-ceed decisively with her punishment.
He should lay her across the edge of a strong table and pass the long strap through the two other ones, underneath the table, so that my lady is held fast in the most suitable position and cannot wriggle away. He can then spank her as she deserves. I suggest a thin cane as the instrument. This is the manner in which I punished my own fiancee for flirting with another man.
C. N.
The only question “C.N.” does not answer for us is whether he writes the letter as a happily married man…
