A fictional story in the Abraham Heights strand a few weeks elicited an unexpected response.

Apparently, housemother spankings in college were not so fictional.

Over at Sometimes a girl (linked right) there has been a discussion about trainee nurses being spanked back in the day that has echoes of our story.

Jane X replied to this very blog with her take:

I was at a women’s college at the end of 70s and into the 80s. I lived freshman hall for the first two semesters and the set-up was just like the one described in the story.

It was an overhang from when the college was founded way back between the wars.

Our housemother used to spank plenty. The bathroom flood was a common error of new girls – I made the same mistake by cutting my hair in the bathroom (a forbidden activity) and it blocked the sink after I left the tap running.

Ouch! I got it bare and how. OTK with a hairbrush! Not the only time. It was so embarrassing at the time, but I have fond memories now. It was usually a private affair but I did see another girl get it once.

I never got corner time but I heard it happened.

There were a few non-freshman students even grads and they got it just the same if they screwed up. Coming home late, coming home drunk, smoking in the rooms, too much noise… you name it, powee!

Following this Ruth dropped us line about her experiences. This excerpt has been edited and published with her permission.

Back in the early 1960s in New England, our college used to get a lot of scholarship girls who may have had the smarts but who had little idea how to act in polite company. I am sure that they used our residency to put all the misfits in.

We had a housemother who we used to call the Dragon, to keep the ‘menagerie’ as we called it, in line.

The first day I was there this ninny of a girl flooded the bathroom (I saw Jane’s comment and the memories came back). A few girls rallied round to help sort out the mess, but most of us weren’t even unpacked.

The Dragon turned up and asked who had made the mess. On instinct I think fingers were pointed in a rush to rat her out. The girl didn’t even get to apologise. She was upended over our new housemother’s knee right there in the common room and spanked.

My eyes popped out. This was no messing as the girl was in tears.

Then everyone in hearing was told that the next girl who messed up would get it on the ‘bare bee-hind’, that’s how she always said it.

There was this sensible girl called J who had been there the previous semester. She helped the girl clean up and warned us that the Dragon was not joking.

In the coming weeks we found out for sure.

There were always girls outside the Dragon’s room, either waiting to be spanked or sometimes standing out side facing the wall having been spanked.

The only saving grace was that although all spankings were bare with her hand, hairbrush or a small paddle she kept, at least they were mostly private.

At the time, a friend of mine told she got spanked with another girl and had to wait in the corner with her panties down, the full bit .I didn’t believe her until later.

I didn’t get spanked until the second semester, which I tell you was unusual because I must have been one of two or three unspanked freshman up until then.

Why was I spanked? I came home forty minutes late one night.

I wasn’t actually spanked until the next evening, which is hell on the nerves and very embarrassing. When I turned up J, who I had got quite friendly with was waiting outside. I didn’t get it at first, as she was a bit older than me and always so grown-up and sensible. Then she told me she was getting it too.

Apart from the first day, this was the first time I had been this close to the set-up, we tended to stay clear as you can imagine. So when I heard J getting it I can tell you I was quite daunted. The crack of wood was loud and fast and went on quite a while. Then I could hear J crying out and then really start to yell.

Outside the Dragon’s room were these awful yellow chairs and everything smelled of polish. It was like waiting for the dentist and examinations all at once. I can’t smell wood polish to this day without remembering.

The Dragon told me to come in before J had pulled her things up. Her bottom was quite something and she was crying real bad.

I was wearing this tight thick weave skirt, I think I had chosen it in case the spankings weren’t bare as I had heard. So I had to take it right off. That was sick-making on my nerves.

Then the Dragon just pulled me over her lap and hiked up my slip and pulled my panties down. I was so scared and embarrassed that I stated to cry at once. I should have saved it.

She used the paddle and it just hurt like nothing else. I had no restraint or dignity, I know I kept saying stuff like begging and promises, but I have no idea. J said afterwards that from her position facing the wall in the hallway outside, she could hear me saying something like ‘I’ll be good, etc’. The spanking went on for ages. I have no idea how long. I was too scared to keep time when J got it and too lost in crying during the next girl’s spanking.

I hated standing outside her room with J and two other girls. Although by then, not too many girls were laughing.

Later J took me to her room and we helped each other out with the cold cream. Which was weird but nice. I said I hated the Dragon, but J said that we both had it coming and she was just doing her job.

We were grounded for that week and when I wasn’t studying, I spent a lot of time with J and we talked a lot about spankings. J was definitely pro them. She told me that she wanted her future husband to handle things in the same way.

I looked at things differently after that and started fantasies about boys and spankings. Not that I wasn’t scared of the Dragon.

I must have got a lot of spankings after that. One of the worst was when I had to stand in the corner still bared in her room while she handled another girl. I certainly heard about a lot.

That was college life back then. Well for me anyway.

Ruth said more, although mostly not for publication. She never joined a sorority and said she thought that sorority girls got it even worse, but that she might tell more about that some time.