Cordelia Lavington Chapter 41

By Governess

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This story is intended for adults only. It contains depictions of forced nudity, spanking, and sexual activity of preteen and young teen children for the purpose of punishment. None of the behaviors in this story should be attempted in real life. If you are not of legal age in your community to read or view such material, please leave now.
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Chapter 41

When she was first pregnant, Mrs Lavington hoped she would have a boy, a boy who required unrelenting discipline to break his will and render him submissive.   She remembered as a girl how she had watched with growing interest the punishment of her brothers.   A different child might have felt sympathy as they writhed under the rod, but Cordelia saw no reason to pity them any more than she would have dreamt of questioning her mother’s right to punish her for her own misdeeds.   And she came to admire her mother’s strength of purpose and unfailing commitment to their discipline.

She smoothed the pages of Eugenia Strang’s book and began to read.

The Sins of Boys

Any parent or governess who has had the pleasure of raising both boys and girls will know that the sins of boys have a character distinct from that of girls.   Without doubt all children can be rude, disobedient and untruthful, and deserving of the rod, but underlying these failings are differences of substance that must not be ignored otherwise effective discipline will be compromised.

I have written elsewhere of how a girl may seem to be possessed of a more obedient spirit than a boy, but how that often arises from her being more careful about expressing an inner spirit of disobedience from fear of losing the esteem of her mother or governess.   With a boy it is different. He has little concern for maintaining the good opinion of adults and is driven by a wilful and greedy self-interest.

In the Biblical account of the Fall these deep seated differences are already apparent and we may learn from them. The Woman is eager to please the Serpent and to accede to his suggestion that she should eat from the Tree. She is flattered by his attention.   She then seeks to win the favour of the Man by offering the fruit to him. And He?   He too eats. Unquestioningly and greedily, taking what is offered.   And each receives an appropriate punishment. Just as she has opened herself to the Serpent, so in future opening herself to a man will lead to the pain and agony of childbirth.   And from thenceforth she will be ruled by the Man.   And the Man for his greed in thoughtlessly taking the fruit that was offered will in future take no fruit from the ground without sweat and hard labour. And the lives of both of them are to be constrained by death.

Sin from the outset was harshly punished.   And so it must be with our children. Never must they escape deserved punishment.   And these primal sins of the Woman and the Man reveal to us the root of sin in each.

For a girl, her absorption in her appearance and her attractiveness, her eagerness to win the favour of others and to be praised and accepted is the root of her sinning; and punishment must never be withheld or remitted, despite the sometimes superficial charm of her behaviour. But our concern here is not with girls, but with boys and their sins. So how do we apply the lessons to be learnt from Adam’s sin and his punishment?

First, the question has to be asked why the Serpent did not tempt Adam first rather than Eve.   And the answer is not difficult to discern. Adam had a self-sufficiency that Eve lacked. He would have taken the fruit for himself and with the knowledge it conferred have built a kingdom. He would not have offered the fruit to Eve as she had to him. The Serpent knew that if both were to fall, he had to beguile Eve first and use her to achieve the downfall of Adam and the ruination of our world.

And in the smallest boy we see the same sinful self-sufficiency from which all his sins arise.   He has a disregard for others. He is deeply selfish in a way that a girl is not. He is greedy and acquisitive. He has little regard for truth if a lie is to his advantage. He is restive under restraint and has no respect for any rules set to govern his behaviour. In short, he is imbued with a spirit of wilful disobedience.   And increasingly, pleasure rather than duty rules him, and unless restrained by severe punishment, the sin of self-abuse will exhaust and prostrate him both physically and morally.

And a mother’s response to this should be as the response of God to the primal sin of our forefather Adam.   He decreed that Adam’s life would be painful and hard, that nothing would be achieved without sweat and hard labour. As we read in the Book of Genesis:

“In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, till you return unto the ground; for out of it were you taken: for dust you are, and unto dust shall you return.”

And similarly for a small boy: no respite should be allowed from hard work and application; no relaxation in the demands of strict obedience; unrelenting discipline should be applied that limits his life and the opportunity to sin; and there should be the imposition of severe physical chastisement that provides a taste of the agony of Hell awaiting those who die unrepentant.

As the aim of my writings is to provide practical rather than theoretical guidance, I will now set out some examples of how as a governess I have myself responded to these demands.

First, between his first and second years, a boy should be taught the meaning of the word ‘no’, and when it is spoken quietly and authoritatively he should cease whatever activity he is engaged in. Should he ignore your command or be slow to comply, several sharp smacks on a bare thigh should be given and the word repeated. That process should continue until there is compliance.

Soon after the age of two, a boy should be expected to come when called, to sit quietly when told to do so, and as a discipline to stand in silence with his hands behind his back. As soon a boy is trained to the chamber pot, true spankings should commence, and these should be applied with vigour and unstintingly.   As soon as he begins to talk, he should be made to repeat back to his mother the few simple rules he has been given until they are well and truly learned. This process may result in tears and resentment but on no account should these be tolerated. A spanking, followed by standing face to the wall for five minutes, should normally be sufficient to re-establish concentration.   If not, further spankings should be given until there is compliance.   The learning process should then recommence and continue until the boy is word-perfect.

As the boy grows older more should be demanded of him and rules should be written out and displayed prominently in the schoolroom and in his bedroom. And they should be learnt by heart. An example of such rules for a five year old might be:

1.         Wash, dress, and have your bed made and be down for breakfast by 7 o’clock.

2.         Be polite, and be respectful of adults at all times.

3.         Always tell the truth and answer truthfully whenever questioned.

4          Obey immediately when instructed by an adult.

5.         Be always hard-working and diligent.

For an older boy, of say ten, additional rules might relate to particular duties and responsibilities he has been set; and particular sins that are to be scrupulously avoided. For example,

6.         Tidy your room before bed

7.         Write legibly and neatly at all times

8.         Do not abuse yourself

Every time I add a rule I insist that both it and all the rules to which it is an addition are written out twenty times. Thereafter, the new set of rules are re-numbered and written out neatly for display.

From time to time, a boy should be asked, without prior notice, to repeat a rule at random: “John repeat for me Rule 3 of the Rules you have been given”.   If there is any hesitation or error, the boy should be soundly spanked and made to sit and write out all the rules again twenty times, and be advised that he will be re-tested on the morrow.

The temptation to leniency while rules are still fresh and recently given should be studiously resisted.   Indeed, it is at this point that firmness and severity are particularly required.   The sooner the rules are firmly committed to memory, the sooner the boy has the opportunity to obey.   And if for every disobedience he is soundly spanked, the sooner will he acquire an acceptable standard of behaviour.

It should be recognised that what the rules confer on a boy, from the outset, is a knowledge of sin. As the Apostle Paul says, “I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” And so with a boy.   If he has been told to wash, dress, and have his bed made and be down for breakfast by seven o’clock, then, if he fails to wash or forgets to make his bed or is down for breakfast at one minute past 7 o’clock, he has disobeyed and has fallen into sin and is without excuse.

And this appreciation informs the whole routine of discipline that should govern a boy’s life.   Once a law has been given to a child, however young, it must be rigorously enforced. As the Apostle Paul says, the law is righteous. It embodies the will of God expressed through his mother’s nurturing concern.   A child’s disobedience is an affront to God not just because wrong has been done but because of the disrespect shown to his mother’s word. I recall my sister scribbling on a page of the Family Bible.   It was only a small mark but she was soundly spanked for the disrespect she had shown to the Holy Scriptures that are the source of our life in Christ. And for a small boy, his mother’s word is the source of his life within the family, and disrespect for her role of law-giver is a grave sin that strikes at the very heart of God’s providential love for him.

I would say without a moment’s hesitation that unless a child’s nursery law is accompanied by discipline expressed through bodily chastisement it is worthless. No mother should underestimate the value and the profoundly beneficial consequences of whipping a boy who has chosen disobedience over obedience.

First, a whipping marks out for the child that his conduct is reprehensible. At one level, it simply reinforces the law as given and says to the child “This is wrong”. Let no mother think that once she has taught a child a moral rule that that rule, even if remembered, has anything other than a weak and negligible hold on a child’s conduct. His will is fatally weakened by sin and although lip service may be paid to “mother’s rules”, the claims of his own will and desires are inevitably going to prevail over yours. A boy will regard your wishes for him as of little consequence unless they are reinforced and made real for him by punishment.

Second, the pain of the punishment that follows disobedience must far outweigh the pleasure gained from it.   A boy who knows that stealing a bonbon will only incur an ineffectual scolding is unlikely to be deterred from sinning. But if he is confident that such theft will result in a sound spanking that leaves him with a smarting bottom and a tear-stained face, he will think twice before indulging himself.

But thirdly, and perhaps more importantly, the severity of the punishment is a measure of the seriousness of the offence. All sin is an affront to God and all disobedience to a mother’s rules should be punished, but not all sin is equal in its seriousness or in the harm it may do. A lie to avoid punishment is more serious than an untruth told in a game, but such a distinction only becomes real for a child when it is reflected in punishment. A boy who lies out of self-interest should have his nether garments removed and be spanked with the back of a hairbrush until he is sobbing and writhing in agony. Only then will he truly know how unacceptable such lying is. Just as God took human flesh and revealed his justice in the suffering of his Son, so also does a mother’s law become real and effectual in the bared and quivering flesh of her own son when he is whipped for his sinful transgressions.

It cannot be emphasised enough that such loving and transforming suffering should be at the heart of a mother’s nurturing care for a boy from his earliest years. And this for many reasons.

First, the rod breaks down a boy’s arrogance and self-satisfaction. It should be a visible presence in the household and a boy should view it with the utmost trepidation knowing that should he break his mother’s law it will be taken down and applied vigorously to his bare flesh.    Shakespeare in his play Measure for Measure rightly warns against fond parents who

Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of birch,
Only to stick it in their children's sight
For terror, not to use, in time the rod
Becomes more mock'd than fear'd.

The rod is not merely for display but for use. I would rarely birch a boy before his seventh year, preferring for younger boys a sound spanking with the hairbrush. But I have noticed that when the transition is made from nursery to schoolroom discipline, there is a tendency to apply the rod with a hesitancy that would have been unthinkable with a hairbrush. As a consequence a birching becomes little more than tickling up a boy as an encouragement to good behaviour. But no boy whatever his age is going to respond positively to mere encouragement. His will needs to be confronted and broken if a change in his behaviour, and more importantly in his attitude, is to be achieved.   Around the age of seven, the sin living in a boy’s heart takes on a new strength and determination and the whole purpose of the birch is to confront this and deal with it.   But this it will only do if administered with resolve and the firm intention to punish and punish severely.

The birch should consist of six of eight switches, freshly cut and bound up to two thirds of their length. At the bound end, each should be about half an inch in diameter, while the end that is of greater interest to the boy should splay out into a whippy tracery that is tough and flexible. It should be used with a confident wristy action to cut and score bare flesh until the boy is screaming and writhing like a cut worm. I am sometimes told that such punishment will inevitably break the skin and draw blood, as though that were something to be avoided. But such reluctance is foolish sentimentality. A boy often sustains injury when pleasing himself in his games and play. How much more acceptable is it that he should shed a little blood in punishment that cleanses and reforms.

Indeed, the Scriptures tell us that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. This refers to the sacrifices of the Old Testament and to the great sacrifice of Our Lord on the Cross that these prefigure. But I believe, too, that it has a relevance to the discipline of the children in our care. A boy in his small sinful person stands to the mature Christian as do the people of ancient Israel to the living Church saved by the precious blood of Christ. A spanking may not shed blood but it draws blood to the surface and inflames the skin of a small boy’s bottom until it is painfully red and raw; while sound birchen discipline should certainly break the skin and leave a boy wealed and bloody.

The forgiveness of his mother or governess that this secures is but a foretaste of the fullness of that remission of sins into which he will enter when he comes of age and affirms his commitment to Our Saviour. Until then, he is under nursery law, just as the people of Israel were under the law of Sinai until the coming of Christ.

And the work of disciplining a boy should be undertaken willing and with diligence. That a mother is confronting sin in her child should be an encouragement to her to apply the rod with vigour. And if she finds a real visceral pleasure in administering the rod to the firm, bare flesh of a boy’s bottom, this should occasion no surprise.   It is God’s way of ensuring that a mother does not shirk her duty but embraces it with relish applying frequent and appropriately severe discipline for the containment and forgiveness of sin.

Sometimes I am asked what constitutes an adequate chastisement. First, the severity should be commensurate with the offence. Secondly, no chastisement should be something the boy can laugh off: even for a small offence it should leave the boy red and smarting, deeply contrite and dreading a repetition. Thirdly, where greater severity is required this should be provided in such a way as to maximise the pain suffered and the humiliation undergone. Additional strokes on flesh already numbed by a sound whipping should be avoided. Instead, stand the boy on a low stool with his whipped posteriors exposed to view, both to shame him and to allow his inflamed flesh to regain its sensitivity. After an hour resume the whipping until he is howling and pleading for remission: and heed the scripture “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying”.

I now wish to say something about the heinous sin of self-abuse to which all boys without exception are tempted. And let there be no doubt that it is a sin and a grievous one. If what I say offends by its directness, I offer no apology.   The matter is too important for circumlocution or euphemistic expression.

A boy is by disposition greedy and like his forefather Adam ruled by self rather than duty. From an early age, he will seek to satisfy his animal instincts and give himself to idle play. And it is the parents responsibility to curb such behaviour. As the 17^th century divine, Richard Baxter, wrote in his little treatise on The Duties of Parents to their Children:

“If therefore you love either the souls or bodies of your children, habituate them to temperance from their infancy, and let not their appetites or cravings rule them.”

Although it is relatively easy to control a child’s eating habits and to punish much self-indulgence, the same is not true of masturbation. A child who steals chocolates from the box is soon found out, but a boy who yields to the temptation to masturbate is not so easily discovered. I have known boys as young as seven engage in the practice of masturbation, and at that age, with no seminal emission, it is difficult to detect.   Certainly, by the age of ten all boys will be sorely tempted to masturbate and most will succumb. However, around this age, seminal emissions commence and detection becomes easier, and punishment more assured.

Masturbation expresses in an acute way the deep sinfulness of a boy’s nature.   All self-indulgence is sinful but a boy who masturbates becomes more and more obsessed with his own body and his own pleasure. It soon becomes an all-consuming passion and the more he masturbates the more exhausted he becomes. He cannot concentrate; his schoolwork suffers and he becomes tired and bad-tempered. He is utterly focussed on his own pleasure to the exclusion of all else.   In short, masturbation is the very antithesis of love which reaches out to others and seeks to bless them.   It is a instead a devilish path that leads only to destruction.   And this is a path all boys are tempted to take and on which most embark unless deterred by loving and consistent discipline.    And let no one believe that a boy is easily deterred other than by the most severe and unremitting punishment.

It may be helpful if I iterate some of the steps I have myself taken to crush and expunge this habit.   I recall a ten year old boy called Nicholas whom I had been appointed to govern because of a lack of application in his studies. I suspected that the problem was an enslavement to masturbation and listening outside his room after settling him down for the night, this was soon confirmed: the movement of his bed, his quickened breathing, and finally the shuddering gasp as he wasted his seed. Straightway, I entered,   The schoolroom cane was already in my hand as I confronted him.   His eyes dilated in horror and he pulled up the sheets to cover his face. With a swift movement I stripped back the bedclothes and pulled up his nightshirt. The sticky emission was clearly visible just below his navel.

“And what is this, Nicholas?   Explain yourself.”

As can be expected there was an initial hesitation, followed by a stuttering apology.

“And how often do you do this, Nicholas?”

He was reluctant to answer and I placed the tip of the cane underneath his scrotum and lifted it.

“When I ask a boy a question, Nicholas, I expect an answer.   Let me repeat the question: how often do you do this?

“P . . . please Miss Strang, not very often.”

“And what is ‘not very often’? Do you mean once a week?”

“Please, Miss Strang, not even once a week. Please.”

He gasped as I dug the cane into his scrotal sac.

“I don’t believe you, Nicholas. A boy who has discovered the delights of masturbation rarely limits himself to so infrequent an indulgence.”

I stepped back and ran the slender length of crook-handled rattan through my hand.   He was unable to hold my gaze and cast his eyes down. I spoke softly with no anger in my voice.

“You do it before you rise in the morning, don’t you, Nicholas? And again when you clamber into bed at night. And if you have the opportunity you do it during the day, too. Isn’t that right?”

He bit his lip and tears pricked at his eyes. His reply was a small choking whisper.

“Yes, Miss Strang.”

“Yes, Nicholas.   And I am here to help you break this disgusting and debilitating habit.”

I ran the cane through my hand, and then flexed it in front of him.   His breathing became short and anxious.

“So tell me, Nicholas, why do I call it a “disgusting” habit?   Well?”

He looked down.

“I . . . I’m not sure, Miss Strang.”

“You see nothing “disgusting” about it?   Playing with yourself until you spurt thick sticky mess all over the bed sheets and over your nightshirt? Reducing yourself to a small, grunting animal?   Aware of nothing but the satisfaction of your own sensual greed, like a piglet wallowing in the trough. Utterly without shame.”

He looked at me, his eyes heavy with tears.

“P . . . please, I’m . . . I’m sorry . . . Miss Strang.”

“And do you realise how debilitating and weakening such behaviour is? How it saps your energy. Your resolve to apply yourself to work. How it damages your health. How you might even go blind through such indulgence.   Do you want to go blind, Nicholas?”

“No . . . No, Miss Strang.”

“Then you must be helped. This noxious habit must be broken.    Get out of bed and remove your nightshirt.   Use it to wipe that disgusting stickiness from your stomach. And now stand at the bed end and lean forward over the bed rail, and grip it tightly.”

And I caned him, administering twenty slow swishy strokes that raised weals on his soft little bottom and thighs and reduced him to a sobbing squirming baby. When I returned him to bed without his nightshirt, I tethered his hands to the bedhead and continued to do so nightly until I had some confidence that the habit had been broken.

Another technique I commend is to make a boy who indulges in such bestial behaviour sleep in a dog kennel. This should be placed in the hall of the house where all can see it. It needs to have a barred door fitted that fastens from the outside and ensures the boy remains on the hard wooden floor for the whole night.   I used this with good effect for a boy called Robert who was completely enslaved to the habit of masturbation.

“If you behave like an animal, Robert, then you will be treated like one.”

Each night he was denied the soft warmth of his bed and was made to curl up, naked, on the hard floor of the kennel. On a hook on the side of the kennel, I hung a thick, flexible leather dog whip, and warned him it would be used to punish him if, in the morning, there was any sign of mess in the kennel, any at all.

The control over his bladder and bowels that was demanded in addition to denying him the pleasure of masturbation was an excellent additional discipline.   Eventually, after several weeks of unremitting chastening, the habit if not broken, was brought under control.

Cordelia put down the book, and felt guilty that she was not addressing the issue of Samuel’s masturbation with greater resolution.   She thought of how her mother had punished her brothers for masturbating. How her mother had shared Miss Strang’s disgust and concern at such debilitating indulgence.   And how that had been reflected in the methods used to discipline them. In smearing a chilli preparation on Clough’s and Graham’s penis and scrotum she had employed one of her mother’s techniques. But there were others. She recalled how Charles when they were still living in Ste Foy had been stripped of all his clothes and secured to the gatepost to be birched before the village, and how he had then been made to stand on the doorstep with his abused member shamefully on display with a notice hung around his neck declaring that he had been flogged for self-abuse.

She glanced at the clock.   It was time to send William to his room for the further caning she had promised before settling him down for the night.

(to be continued)

(The End)