© Bélier Press. Posted by the Web-Ed on 06/18/2010.
When we first ran across this, we thought we recognized the artist but just couldn't place him - we're much less familiar with bondage artists than their spanking brethren. Of course there is some overlap between bondage and spanking, as we see here: rather than a conventional sorority paddling scene (which would have been just as welcome), the artist created an improbably complicated device to both restrain the subject and apply the paddle.
We couldn't figure out how the paddle was supposed to be applied - as we'll see below, this was an altered version of the original drawing and part of the apparatus was left out - but we were more interested in the positioning anyway. We're notorious sticklers for proper positioning ourselves, so we were fascinated to see how the individual elements of the device worked together to ensure the spankee's position was absolutely ideal. First, she's on her toes, raising her hips up. Then the pads below the knees and the ropes above them together keep the knees from bending (the single most important point to remember when any bent-over position is used), while the ropes under the arms pull the head and shoulders up as a post keeps the central back down. This forces the spankee to arch her back and turn her bottom up, presenting an absolutely perfect target for the paddle.
The signature was unclear, and we wondered if the artist was trying to send a message with the sorority's initials, which when anglicized read as "S.O.B." Eventually, our research revealed the artist was Gene Bilbrew (1923 - 1974) and the drawing was from a collection entitled (logically enough) Sorority Girls. Bilbrew published his work under a number of pseudonyms, including Van Road, G.B. Bondy and Eneg ("Gene" spelled backwards). His bondage work began appearing in the 1950's, probably through Irving Klaw's mail-order house, and Sorority Girls very likely dates from this period. It was reprinted by Bélier Press in Bizarre Comix Vol. 20 (1984).
We managed to get a complete copy of Sorority Girls, hoping to find some more paddlings. We didn't find anything quite as good as the drawing above, although we did find the original version of it. Now we can see how the paddle was supposed to work, powered by a crazy spring - Robospanker it's not. Questions of mechanical engineering aside, we actually do not favor spanking machines or devices, preferring to do things the old-fashioned, human way. Machines are so impersonal, and spanking should always be very, very personal! But Bilbrew seemed strangely fascinated by bizarre mechanical contrivances of all kinds, and he placed them on every page of Sorority Girls.
As we said, beautiful positioning - too bad we don't get to see the actual swats - but it does look uncomfortable. The spankee should be made as comfortable as possible, with the only real discomfort being felt where she sits down. That allows for a good, long session. When we do get around to designing a spanking bench, we'll make sure it keeps the knees straight and the back arched, but in a way that's less uncomfortable than Bilbrew's crazy bondage machines.
