Bend Her Over Whoop Her Ass

Sexuality and its portrayal in the media, specifically films, evolves over time in some rather surprising ways.

The key here is that at different point over the last 80 years the moving image of someone (usually a man) spanking someone else (usually a woman) has appeared on celluloid for a variety of reasons.

In some instances it’s about power and assertiveness, probably with the added element of male/female gender role reinforcement thrown in. There have been scenes or whole films where the idea of someone who enjoys administering spankings is a running joke or theme of the movie.

Spanking for titillation, either as the added spice to an otherwise mundane flick has to be a reason for spanking’s inclusion into some productions. But it’s only a minority of cases where a truly erotic spanking scene occurs, one which fires the imagination and gives a little insight into what goes on between a spanker and spankee.

That of course echoes what I said in my earlier post about the media having to censor itself so as not to have a film refused a certificate out of hand. Pushing the envelope too far can be commercial suicide. It’s OK to see hundreds of people murdered each year in gore-fests and fantasy war movies, but show a bit of intense human sexual interaction and you’re asking for a rejection at the BBFC.

It’s odd too how changing attitudes shape the content of movies. In the sixties and seventies it was quite acceptable in a film for a man to slap a woman on the ass in a playful and somewhat patronising way. Do that today on screen and you’d be in big trouble. I don’t have a problem with the sexual connotation in that instance, just the patronising bit, like the dialogue in 1960s TV series where every man seemed to be a in a competition to see who could be the biggest misogynist.

What next I wonder?