Just a short preamble: Roman parents strongly believed that you were ill-mannered and un-educated if you had not received numerous beatings from your school master. Those ancient Romans laid on with a will.....old engravings and woodcuts show a master applying the strap with great vigour, to a sorrow-faced young lad. More to the current era. I was hired by a 'state' (government) training facility for delinquent youth, shortly after my discharge from the armed forces. This particular facility, (call it the 'farm' since it was indeed based on farming activities for the boys) made regular use of corporal punishment for any type of misdeeds or unacceptable behaviours.
The Director of the farm, a rather nice middle-aged guy, was pretty easy to get along with--both with the staff, and the inmates. All he demanded of the boys was that they obey orders given them, and speak respectfully to the counsellors and staff. I was engaged to act as a house "parent" - that is, guardian, father confessor, disciplinarian, encourager, etc. etc., to a group of 25 young men, ages 15 thru 18. The only demands made on me by the Director were to enforce order, and see that the boys were looked after. My inititiation into this atmosphere was short and simple. The Director chatted with me after I came up to visit the farm before beginning my employment. He said that I would find the work easy, and rewarding, as long as I cracked the whip! As I soon learned, that was a literal statement. Punishment was swift and certain when a boy messed up. The house parent in charge would administer a beating with either a razor strop, a heavy wooden paddle faced with cowhide, or a 5-foot lash. Obviously, the place of application was the bare buttocks of the offending boy, with the choice of implement left up to the house parent, but usually being dictated by the severity of the offence. The manner of application was basic; the boy was ordered into the basement of his residence building. There, he was order to strip completely nude, and once bare, the lad would be escorted over to the flogging horse - a nifty device fashioned out of an old vaulting buck. The horse had provisions to restrain the wrists, arms, waist, legs and ankles of the offender, if all those points were desired (and some of the older boys receiving the lash had to be tightly tied down). The end result was a teen-age male, securely fastened in a bent over position, with his buttocks and upper thighs uptilted and stretched tight - ready for some much-deserved disciplinary attention. Thinking back to those days brings back numerous memories of some of the 17 and 18 year old boys I was called upon to train and discipline. If this approach was utilized today, I'd bet money that the incidence of violent crimes by youth would diminish sharply. The house parent would then instruct the boy as to the exact infraction being dealt with; the amount of punishment to be administered (minimums of 10, 25, 50 strokes, etc.), and warn the boy to take his licks like a 'man'. The commonly accepted rationale was to equate manliness and maturity with "owning up to one's misdeeds", and accepting the flogging as a consequence of bad behaviour. To be sure, there were lots of rewards for acceptable behaviour -- so this method seemed to be fair and just. At least none of the boys or their parents complained of any of the beatings.
There would usually be at least one other staff member present during punishment, and often several of the older boys were ordered to be present as witnesses. This achieved two significant points: the boys who saw their buddy get a terrific beating on his ass were usually cowed into reasonably good behaviour; and the lad who was on the receiving end could not boast afterwards that he took his licks with a laugh and made no outcry-thus receiving hero status amongst the boys. In fact, I never saw or heard of any boy who received punishment who didn't yell, scream, and vent tears during the application of the implement to his bare bottom.. I was one of the younger house parents in this facility, and I asked the Director to allow me some leeway in the application of corporal punishment to my boys. He agreed, and I added the caning rod to the inventory of flogging implements used.. I must admit that the memory of a boy bent over the horse, with 10 or 15 parallel striped welts glowing bright red across his butt cheeks, indeed warms my soul! Warmed his ass too! I never had any of my boys complain about the pain beyond the day after a flogging, although I am sure it must have hurt them to sit down for a number of days after a beating. When a boy had taken his punishment, he was unbuckled from the horse, and helped to stand up. If there had been peer group witness present, they were allowed to stay with him for 10 minutes to help the offender prepare for return to his classroom or other activity. Many of the boys whom I punished had very stiff erections when allowed to rise from their bent-over position. This was discussed amongst the staff at the farm, and our duty psychologist explained that the flogging often _s_e_x_ually aroused the recipient, although it was not necessarily an indicator of S/M type behaviour. Most of the boys who sported a hard-on after their licks were slightly embarrassed, but when allowed to use the shower afterwards, quickly jerked off to relieve themselves.
One of the most enjoyable punishments that I ever meted out was to Paul, a husky 17-year old spoiled brat. Paul was about 5 foot 11, and built like the football player he was - well muscled chest, thick thighs, and the roundest, fullest, tightest pair of ass cheeks I had ever seen on a male in my life --- and having been a medical corpsman in the forces, I saw thousands of guys' asses! Having been blessed with this cute bubble-butt, Paul was the obvious choice for a good paddling or strapping when the boys needed an object lesson in behaviour improvement.
more later on