The introduction music was lively and urgent with bass-driven undertones of peril. As it got to its second bar a metallic 3D banner scrolled across the screen proclaiming ‘Issues Tonight.’

“Hello and welcome to Issues Tonight,” an over smiling redhead with big hair and a clinging green dress said unnecessarily. “I am Mary Tonkin and tonight we will be looking at education in Afghanistan, the growing oil crisis and talking to Erin Seagrove about her new TV show.”

The camera panned away to show a poised 30-something blonde in a skirt suit sitting on the coach next to the presenter.

“First up… Erin,” Mary said, pausing for effect.

“Good evening,” Erin acknowledged the presenter in a firm feminine tone.

“Now a lot of people are going to be surprised about your new show,” Mary sounded smug as if she was about to spring a trap.

“Well it wouldn’t be good TV if it didn’t have a few surprises,” Erin said with a laugh and a glance at the camera.

“Yes but viewers are going to be shocked aren’t they, I mean your new season of…” Mary glanced away, “Erin Investigates is all about spanking.” The presenter drew her mouth into a line and cocked her head.

“Well not exactly,” Erin countered, “We are joined in our investigations by more than a dozen women who have a family connection or personal association with various historical incidents of corporal punishment.”

“But you are going to be using the descendants of the victims of these incidents, as you call them, to recreate them. Does this mean you will be spanking grown women on TV?” Mary sounded as if she had exposed a scandal.

“Well victims is a pejorative term and spanking… again a little bit salacious,” Erin said calmly. “We have a number of women in the show who have, for instance, family stories of their grandmothers’ or great aunts’ who were confronted with corporal punishment of some kind. Often these ‘victims’ as you called them, are quite sanguine about these experiences, a fact which some of our participants and the modern woman may find puzzling. Our investigation is going to put some historical context on these events and try to find out whether the modern woman is as tough as their predecessors.”

“But you are going to be punishing women physically during the course of the show?” Mary pressed.

“Yes, if the participants consent, that is the whole point,” Erin replied confidently.

Mary looked perplexed and glanced away at something off camera. Then she relaxed and came back at Erin with, “But why women?”

Erin tensed up and steeled herself for the next exchange. She hoped it didn’t show, but her true motives were complicated. She thought about saying that whipping men had been done to death and wasn’t actually controversial. She thought about just admitting that chastising men wasn’t her thing and would be no fun. But that wasn’t the line she had agreed with the producers.

So instead she put her best TV foot forward and said, “Because women are often invisible in history. There are experiences, both positive and negative, that we prefer to think did not happen and that haven’t been explored. Maybe we will be exposing some dark corners of history or maybe we will be gaining an insight into previous generations’ lives. That will be up to the viewer to decide.”

“But you will be actually punishing these women; is that really necessary? I mean what will that tell us?” Mary sounded almost angry.

Erin sat back and adopted a posture of superiority in the face of parochialism. “Women of previous generations accepted and suffered certain situations. Was this just and if faced with the same challenges could the modern woman cope? That is what we want to explore. For instance, many women serving in the services had to undergo rigorous discipline; during the Second World War for instance.  Most who lived through it would tell you it was not as harsh as some of the things we required of our men. But yet the women had to cope with far worse things than we would tolerate today. In an age where we strive for equality, could their modern counterparts even handle these things?”

“But these things weren’t equal back then, they were even worse. As I understand it one of your shows seeks to recreate the military caning of a woman serving in the navy… the flogging of sailors was a barbaric practice abolished over a hundred years ago. These war time canings were a throwback,” Mary said angrily.

“Well two things here, you are right up to a point, but that is what we are trying to find out. In the Royal Navy for instance, officer cadets, both male and female were caned. Also we may not be comparing like with like. Remember in both world wars the Allies had to gear up and mobilise a civilian population as they never had before. This included women who were not as used to discipline in a physical environment as the men were and a way, however imperfectly, had to be found to integrate them into the military as quickly as possible.” This is bullshit, Erin thought, well kind of, but that is not the point. She groaned inwardly. It will be interesting and fun, it will be with consenting adults, and if you don’t like it don’t watch. Why does everything have to be so bloody political? She said none of this.

“Alright, but if you are going to explore the experiences of women in history, why begin with spanking?” Mary fell back on the controversial S-word again.

“I am not beginning with spanking, as you insist on calling it. This is my seventh season, my fifth on women, this is just a new take,” Erin replied calmly.

“Yes but you are actually asking women to suffer a series of punishment recreations…” Mary tailed off as if she couldn’t find a devastating enough question.

“Consenting women,” Erin put in.

Mary nodded in a way that suggested ‘I hear what you say but I don’t agree’ and then she asked, “I mean… would you do it?”

“Oh I am,” Erin threw back.

Mary wondered why she hadn’t been told this before the interview, someone had fouled up. Or else Erin had been holding back with an ambush. She suddenly suspected the latter. The voice in her ear urged her to wrap it up.

“Really,” the redhead gushed, now somewhat flustered, “But… I mean… won’t it hurt?”

“Well I expect so, I guess I am going to find out,” Erin chuckled.

“But I thought… I mean weren’t most of these punishments carried out on eh… well, on the bare bottom? Are you going to be nude on TV?” Mary asked in astonishment.

“I will be appropriately attired for my particular experience,” Erin acknowledged. “My show does go out after the watershed after all. This is a grown-up programme.”

“What experience have you chosen for yourself?” Mary sounded interested in an answer for the first time.

“That’s something the viewers will have to wait to find out,” Erin smiled.

“Sounds like an interesting show,” Mary came back with a plastic smile and a placating laugh as if she had been on Erin’s side all the time.

*

“What time do you call this?” The man spoke with a broad Northern accent, his words obscured on account of a large pipe in his mouth.

“It is only 10.30 Dad,” a rather pretty but harassed young woman of around 20 replied.

As had already been explained to a TV audience, for the purposes of this dramatisation, April Reynolds was a factory worker still living at home with her family. The local dance had been a rare opportunity to let her hair down. After running late she had taken the time to remove some lipstick and wash a pencil line from the back of her legs. This had been drawn on by a friend to suggest that she was wearing expensive silk stockings that a girl like her could never afford.

“Get in here, I’ll give you ‘it’s only 10.30,’ you should have been in half an hour ago. I’ve got work tomorrow and I can’t be waiting up for the likes of you,” the father said angrily, but so far his temper was even.

April was in fact a small business owner with an interest in BDSM parties. Erin had recruited her as an easy win for her new show after finding out that April had always been fascinated by the colourful stories of her great aunt growing up in a mill town just before and during the Second World War.

The aunt, also called April, was expected to live according to strict social rules for a woman and it had proved difficult to make an independent life while still living at home and had been subjected to routine corporal punishments.

“It is just the way that it was,” the younger April had been told, “It wasn’t all that much to get fussed over to tell the truth.”

Now April was going to find out.

“But Dad I only went to the dance,” April rolled her eyes and sighed heavily.

“Only a dance is it; and you with work tomorrow? How comes I am only hearing about this now? You said you were out with the Rosie Skillen.” Her father had become more enraged.

“So I was,” April said defensive and trying to get past to get to her room.

“Lies, bloody lies, now get out to the shed my girl, I think you need you need a lick or two of my belt,” the father scolded her.

A lick or two usually prove to be a considerable application across the bared bottom, usually with the reluctant compliance of the adult daughter, but not without some protesting.

“But Dad, I’m almost 21, you can’t,” April whined.

“Don’t you ‘twenty-one’ me, while you live under this roof…” he didn’t finish but pointed to the yard door and ushered up the passage.

“Please Dad,” April wailed once she reached the small patch that served as the yard.

The shed had coal storage on one side and her father’s bike and garden tools in the other.  It also held her mother’s upturned wash tub ready for Mondays. It was bent across this that she would receive her punishment.

Once there the father unhooked his belt and pulled it through several loops until he had freed it to double it over. April regarded the preparations with a sour expression and then reached under her dress to tug at her undergarment. Bending across the tub was an old familiar posture.

“Hitch that skirt up… more than that…” Father growled, “I said get it up.” The last words were said with a grasp and push of the hem so that April’s bottom was now completely bare.

April took a deep breath and steadied herself. Almost by its own volition her bottom pushed back and up to meet the coming assault. The detail had been in her great aunt’s note, although it was as much an unconscious act now as it had been for the elder April.

“I’ll give you going to a dance,” the father growled as he brought the leather down with a will.

April yelled; the sting was more than she had counted on. All the same she tried to behave as if she were used to it and stay in the moment; hard to do as two more belting swipes came down.

The two or three promised licks turned into a good two dozen, but long before that April was bawling and stamping her feet as she rode out the burn.

“Alright lass,” he said at last.

“Sorry Dad,” April sniffed, hard pressed not to dance around the small space.

“I know,” he sighed, “Now get up them stairs.”

“Yes Dad,” April sobbed, the guided but ultimately improvised dialogue coming naturally.

Once lying on the bed April inspected the ravages of her skin. These were no love pats and the welts and near blisters throbbed in a sea of reddish-mauve. The lady camera woman closed in and the docudrama actress surrendered to the part and began to cry again. It was felt quite cathartic, she thought.

*

“How do you feel now?” Erin asked once the dramatised sequence was over.

April smiled and gave her still exposed bottom a good rub. “Not too bad, I mean it hurts and will for a few days, but I can see the whole thing from a different perspective now.”

Erin nodded. “I want to debrief you properly later, for an interview, but do you think this treatment was cruel or unnecessary?”

April frowned. “I can’t say. I mean I know how I feel and I can imagine that my aunt would not have resented this now. I mean she knew the rules and the consequences… were they fair… if that’s what you’re asking? I don’t know. I mean what else could he do given the fact that he had to protect her physically as well as her reputation and still go to work and make sure she went to work?”

“You’re a little older than April in the film… do you think you would feel differently if you were younger?” Erin asked.

“You know, it would make even more sense to me and would have done back then I think,” April answered.

“Alright, we will leave it there and we’ll see what you think tomorrow,” Erin smiled encouragingly. Then she looked directly into the camera and stop gesture with her hand.