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This by now famous scene of a Superman robot spanking Lois Lane in Lois Lane #14 has been seen all over the place, including here at CSR where we posted it several years ago. Also seen before is a remarkable series of five letters from Lois Lane readers requesting that Lois get spanked! For example, The American Spanking Society (ASS) reprinted them and gave some background. However, we'd like to delve a bit further into the subject, identifying the issues these letters appeared in and giving some examples of Lois' conduct to place these readers' spanking requests in context and make them seem less like a bunch of spankos! We're convinced that the letter-writers' desire for Lois to receive a well-deserved comeuppance spanking was justified, sincere, and absolutely "vanilla". We'll also reflect a bit on the editor's responses, since they tell us a great deal about why there are no known scenes of Superman spanking an adult female in the many "Superman Family" comic books.
We don't know who originally scanned the letters - obviously someone with an extensive collection of Lois Lane back issues, and probably the same person who scanned the spanking panels from issue #14 - but we'd like to thank him for this signal service, especially since we can't seem to locate most of our own Lois Lane collection right now.
We'll try to present the letters in chronological order. First is this one from F. Twill in issue #21 (November 1960). Note that this is after Lois had already been spanked once by the robot, and the readers still weren't satisfied - they wanted Superman to administer another spanking: "The next time Lois fouls up Superman's plans, why doesn't he bend her over his knee and give her a super-spanking?"
The editor replied that Superman was too much of a gentleman to "strike" a lady, and then added, "However, he did give Lois a spanking when she was 'Baby' Lois Lane in a story we published a few years ago." If this was a reference to "The Cry-Baby of Metropolis" he was wrong on both counts - Superman mock-threatens, but does not deliver, a spanking in that story, which appeared in Lois Lane #10 (July, 1959) some 16 months, not "years" earlier.
But this response did not satisfy the readers, who really deserve a lot of credit for continuing to press the editor for a Lois-spanking. In fact, an entire Superman fan club, by a vote of 49 to 2(!) politely requested that "Superman teach her a much-needed lesson and give her a good hard spanking" (emphasis added). This letter appeared in Lois Lane #24 (April 1961).
Weisinger stuck to his guns and reiterated that "Superman... would never inflict bodily punishment on a lady" (for reasons we won't go into now, we believe that "Superman Family" editor Mort Weisinger and not his assistant E. Nelson Bridwell did the letters pages). Given all the attempts at spanking Super-Tot and Superboy that took place in his books, it appears that Weisinger (1915 - 1978) viewed child-spanking as o.k. but for some reason thought it wrong or ungallant for a man to spank a grown woman (see also in this connection the aborted spanking of Lana Lang in Superboy #93). This attitude was doubly unfortunate since it allowed for numerous child-spankings while needlessly depriving us of good M/F scenes in all of the "Superman Family" books.
Two issues later (Lois Lane #26), Sharon Bush of Mt. Clemens, Michigan notes the number of readers who want to see Lois spanked, and adds herself to the list: "She should be treated like any spoiled child..." Note that Sharon, like the others, isn't expressing any interest in romantic/erotic spanking, their focus seems purely disciplinary, which is why we referred to it as "vanilla" earlier.
Weisinger refers to an upcoming story called "The Punishment of Lois Lane". We're still trying to track this one down, but we can be sure the "punishment," whatever it was, wasn't as good as a spanking.
Yet the readers were still undeterred. One Betty Makohan was so determined to see Lois spanked she came up with a way Superman could spank her while still remaining a gentleman by Weisinger's standards: red kryptonite! Of interest is Weisinger's joking response, "How could we produce further Lois Lane stories when we'd be unable to show her sitting down for at least two months?" and Betty's introductory observation that "Everybody keeps asking for a story in which Lois gets a super-spanking."[!] This letter appeared in Lois Lane #27 (August 1961).
That brings us to the last letter, from Larraine Lertura and published in Lois Lane #30. At first, because the name is unusual and because it has the initials "L.L." we thought someone had made it up (the significance of these initials is discussed here), but we checked and found there was a Lorraine Lertura who lived in the Bronx and graduated high school a couple of years before this letter was written! (Yes, we really are that dedicated, or crazy, when it comes to investigating matters related to superhero spanking). Like Betty Makohan, Larraine or Lorraine tries to find a way around Weisinger's "too much of a gentleman" argument. Her approach is to point to her own father who, though a gentleman, "has spanked me several times" and to solve the sitting down afterward problem by recommending the use of a soft pillow. What a great letter, and what a great scene it would have been if Lois had indeed been shown sitting on a pillow after a super-spanking!
In fact, she's covered the bases so well that this time Weisinger gives up on his previous arguments and writes that her request comes too late because Lois already got spanked back in issue #14.
Now that we've seen all the letters, and bearing in mind that they probably represent only a fraction of the spanking requests that the readers sent in, let's point out a couple of things:
- Disciplinary M/F spanking was seen as perfectly normal and acceptable to many people at this time.
- Male and female readers were in agreement about Lois getting spanked, so this was not a case of male chauvinism.
