Naughty and nice: Readers' Letters from classic spanking magazines

Magazines in the Janus stable always published pages of letters from their readers, usually detailing the disciplinary measures exerted on submissive wives by their dominant husbands, and often illustrated by the resident artists, or sometimes others.

As letter headings go, 'Strapped for Inconveniencing Her Husband' (Janus 96) is rather typical of the common theme! Perhaps because they accompanied the Letters section rather than the stories, many of these artworks never seem to have appeared online, but I have finally been able to view them thanks to the extensive Magazines section of the Spanking Art Wiki. So let's mix our Christmas metaphors and reach inside Santa's sack to see what Christmas treats await inside our stocking(s)...

Though many of the claims were outlandish, presumably at least some of the letters were genuine given that they were accompanied by 'Readers Wives' style photos in the porn mag tradition.

It must have been rather thrilling to send in a photo of your wife's freshly spanked backside and wait to see whether it would be published...

Presumably this means the Janus editors have a colossal collection of photos of their readers' wives in extremely compromising positions!

With titles such as 'A Punishment She Will Remember For Years' and 'Perfecting His Wife', these letters were quite explicit about the rigours a submissive wife must be put through to keep her in line...

Said wives were often considerably younger than their husbands, which was also a common theme in the stories of the magazine... hard to know if this was genuine or just wishful thinking on the part of the writers and readership!

Other letters were accounts of 'real-life' punishments from the past (received or witnessed) but these rang rather less true than the letters from couples in DD relationships.

Those interested in less intense and more loving disciplinary lifestyles also regularly wrote in...

Spanking Monopoly anyone?

Other common subjects included discussions of the content of Janus and the various restrictions placed on erotica in Britain (especially in relation to how European and American counterparts did not have to deal with such obligations), and the usual musings of the Compulsory National Service/Bring Back the Birch Brigade.

An important lady...arranged to have herself flogged for ten minutes... her large, fair-skinned buttocks were soundly whipped from ten of the clock until ten minutes after the hour, the last few strokes being across her broad, bare thighs, and making her howl like any street harlot.

Most seemed to be the fantasies of sadistic men, though some were purportedly the brainchild of the submissive ladies themselves.

Her crime? Perhaps she left the biscuits to burn whilst...flirting with the stablehand... Which would be more appropriate: the crop or the strap, the cane or the whip? Maybe he ought to plunge himself into her ripe, juicy honeypot first and then put her to the strap, or should he stripe her behind and thightops before entering her...?

Although many of the artworks in the Letters pages didn't really bear any resemblance to the accompanying text, some did depict the scenes shown in the letters. I don't know what would be more thrilling: having a photo of my wife published in a classic spanking magazine, or having my letter illustrated by Hardcastle! In Janus 16, 'Belinda' takes a houseguest's car without permission and is spanked in front of him...

In 'Four to Punish... and a Hairless Wife' two daughters and two French exchange students are spanked for staying out drinking, during which the lady of the house takes inspiration from the French girls in female grooming, much to her husband's delight in the bedroom later on!

And with 'Karen Caned', all the description you need is pretty much in the title itself.

This artwork illustrates a lengthy letter, 'Punishments Unseen Evidence Revealed' (Janus 36), recounting a reader's fantasies of women being made to expose their bottoms to reveal the evidence of previous punishments. Paula has done a great job capturing the sadistic joy on the faces on the male executives, as they relish their power over the naked young woman. It certainly matches the gleeful cruelty of the letter itself.

'She Would Rather Be Caned Every Day' (Janus 44) describes an establishment where young ladies are trained in 'femininity'.

And in Janus 71 there is an 'Exciting Visit to Germany' to stay with a friend and witness some traditional German domestic discipline...

Much of Janus was published when The Iron Curtain was still in place. Issue 84 included a lengthy theory on how the Soviets achieved such athletic and Olympic excellence, titled 'The Stick for Nude Soviet Sportsgirls'.

The sportsgirl is conditioned to feel no resentment... if she wishes to volunteer her favours that is another matter, and sexual arousal is normal in girls with hot, red, throbbing bottoms, especially if they're not allowed boyfriends...

In 'Memories of a Marvellous CP Relationship' (Janus 88) a man subjects his girlfriend to a lengthy punishment session as retribution for showing him up at a party.

In another classic porn magazine trope, the longer letters were often styled as 'Readers' Confessions'. In 'Cheek to Cheek' (Janus 109) a woman confesses how she was caned by her friend before they went swimming with her stripes very much on show!

'Longing for the Cane' (Janus 91) is a rather tragic tale in which Penny's husband goes travelling with work and leaves her craving the thrashings he regularly doled out... and her attempts to encourage an old friend to take his place are repeatedly thwarted!

I found less correspondence of interest in the letters pages of Fessee and Februs compared to Janus, but I certainly enjoyed the drawings by Paula Meadows that illustrated this section in every issue.

'The Letterbox Ladies' article in Februs 21 even fleshed out the characters showed in the 'Letterbox'. The top two, Kirsty and Dominique, are colleagues (Kirsty works in the shoe section, Dominique in the canteen, giving a clue to their physiques and demeanours) and flatmates, with Dominique spanking Kirsty whenever she breaks one of the many house rules.

The couple below are professional figure skaters, though the account of how their adoring fans have started copying their disciplinary methods is the most enjoyable part of their profile.

Next we have Diane and Rachel...

Diane hides her face in the original sketch, and well she might, for she is a respectable housewife who every few months travels with her husband to attend meetings of 'The Group', an even more debauched version of the gathering seen in the story 'The Baker's Dozen' (Februs 42).

When she has finished [confessing] the Master hands her over to another of the men, who will take her across his knee and bare her bottom for a sound, stinging, shamefully public spanking.

There are games to be played... races to be run... The winner is allowed to choose which man she will kneel before, to open her lips and accept her prize. The losers are whipped, howling and pleading...

CP videos are shown, and the Master chooses one of the women to share the misfortunes of each actress...

If Diane needs a respite from the programme... she may go to either  Heaven or to Hell. Heaven is on the first floor. A woman entering one of the bedrooms there is exempt from correction. But she is sexually available, in any way, to anyone... There is no sex in Hell, in the basement, but the rooms are well equipped with punishment implements...

Rachel too is experienced in discipline, having been spanked by her father's friend and several boyfriends, and now regularly by her boss and his wife... 

As for the final woman, her story is left untold.

This being the case, it is perhaps a shame that her face wasn't left obscured, so we could better picture her as one of our own wives or girlfriends... especially those of us who missed out on a chance to send our own Readers' Wives photos to the magazine!