The many spankings of Robert Heinlein

So, I’ve been such a good girl this month in participating in the #JuneInstaSpank challenge on Instagram. It’s a platform I’ve never used before. I go there to look at pictures but until this month I had never posted anything. Shocking, I know. But I do love a challenge and I’m very self-competitive so when I decided to join in I figured I’d end up putting a lot of time into it, and I have.

I don’t think I’ve done too badly all things considered, and to be honest It’s been fun. I’m enjoying learning a new platform now that I figured out how to do it from my computer. Between you and me I do as little as possible with my phone. I don’t even care much for laptops, but I love a good desktop, so I can do twenty things at once without having to flip screens.

Several of the themes in the challenge have brought to mind mainstream movies and books that had spankings in them, and the other day the theme was #TheBookThatStartedItAll and I immediately thought of Robert Heinlein. People who know me well know that Heinlein is my favorite author and has been since I was eight or nine and read Cat Who Walks Through Walls. It was not a children’s book. It was sci-fi with some very adult themes, and a whole lot of mentions about spanking.

If there was any way to get my attention as a kid (or now) it was to mention spanking, so obviously I fell in love with his work. I still own that book. I mean that exact copy. It has a childish drawing on the first page because I was in 3rd grade and tended to draw on everything. It’s also lost most of its cover, but I can’t make myself replace it; it’s like family. There were things in it I didn’t understand for years, even though I read it many times, but eventually I grew up and all things were made clear…ish.

In high school we moved, and I discovered Waldenbooks. And I discovered that in Waldenbooks there was a whole shelf of Heinlein books—dozens! I began a weekly pilgrimage to the store, buying them as fast as I could afford and that’s when I discovered that most of his books had spankings, or at least mentioned spankings. I was thrilled!

I didn’t really understand then, my fascination with things like that. I just knew that if I found a reference in a book, or the holy grail—an actual spanking scene, I had to hold onto that book. If I didn’t love the writing, and stories of Heinlein’s books anyway I would have kept them all for that, but he was a double-threat and held my fascination for multiple reasons.

Among those books was the book. The book that let me know I was not a freak, and that spanking wasn’t just about punishment, because yes, even in his books most of the spanking references were either punishment or joking. But then I found I Will Fear No Evil. 

In some ways his books are very dated, and they should be, because most of them are over fifty years old. You find a lot of strong alpha males who think they have the right to spank the women around them for whatever reason, but you also find a lot of really well-written strong female characters and some themes that are far beyond the time they were written.

For instance, his books have a lot of LGBT mentions and characters. There’s a lot of free-love and group families in his books and not just women together for the titillation of male readers, but men together too. Even when you have some of the very manly men being weirded out by the men kissing them they eventually tend to get over it and even when they don’t there’s not much judgment, they just aren’t into it themselves. I fully credit Heinlein for my complete openness to all sexual pairings and polyamory after being exposed to that freedom and love in his books as a kid. And although spanking had caught my attention before then, his books probably had a lot to do with the way I processed that too.

Years ago, I did a spanking bibliography for my Publisher at the time. It’s still around, shockingly, and can be found here for an EXACT rundown of all spanking references. http://www.cfpub.com/heinlein.html

Spoilers below on a very old book that’s still worth reading for a lot of reasons.

This book was…is incredible to me. Every time I read it I find new nuances I missed. While he did write young adult novels and many action adventure stories for young boys, this was another of his adult themed books. The book centers around an old curmudgeon named Johann Smith who is on his death bed. He’s very wealthy and that’s the only reason he’s still alive. The one bright spot in his life, the one thing that brings him joy, is his secretary.

She’s a sexy minx, who is full of love and very comfortable in her body. The world he’s set up allows for women to wear a wide variety of clothing or nothing at all, and since her husband is an artist she often goes to work in nothing but her skin—but painted so you can barely tell. She does this to distract him from the pain, give him something lovely to look at, and a little mystery at the same time—is it clothes? Is it paint? Both? Sometimes he guesses right and sometimes not, but it gives him something to focus on besides hurting.

A lot of things happen, some very sad things but I’m trying to be low on details. It turns out having a ton of money gives you certain advantages. Instead of dying, a doctor is found who can perform a body swap. A recently deceased young woman of the right blood type, who has donated her body for medical purposes, is the recipient of the old man’s brain and suddenly he has to learn to live again, as a young woman.

Over the course of the book he goes from a fairly typical, somewhat sexist old man to a very feminine girl. He has the body and he doesn’t want to be a man in a woman’s body, so he sets out to be a woman in a woman’s body. He has help from his secretary who teaches him everything, including how to seduce his old friend and lawyer Jake.

And that’s when the scene happens. Johann, now called Joan Eunice is fully in love with Jake and she desperately wants his attention in a carnal way, but there are all kinds of things going on and there isn’t time. She throws a fit when they get interrupted and Jake gives her a spanking. That sets her right and they leave with no more fuss, but once in the car she confesses with a small embarrassed voice that she thinks she had an orgasm.

Wow. Mind blown. I was seventeen at the time and that was my first validation that spanking could be more than punishment. That people could actually want and enjoy them. It was kind of life changing honestly. So, for me that book is the one that started it all. I present here, in a fair-use reviewing way some excerpts. There’s too much to post it all, and I needed to edit some out because of major plot points, so you really should read the book.

I Will Fear No Evil (1970) By Robert Heinlein

He stepped to the wall and squeezed down the intercom to zero, then said gently, “Get dressed, dear.”

“I won’t! If we leave now, you’ll have to stuff me into the car bare naked.”

He sighed and picked her up; she stopped crying and looked suddenly happy.
The expression did not last. He turned her in his arms as he sat down on a straight chair, got a firm grip on her, and walloped her right buttock. She yelped. And struggled.

He got her more firmly, placing his right leg over both of hers, and applied his hand smartly to her left cheek. Then he alternated sides, stopping with ten. He set her on her feet and said, “Get dressed, dear. Quickly.”

She stopped rubbing the punished area. “Yes, Jake.”

Neither said another word until he had handed her into the car, climbed in after her, and they had been locked in.

Then she said timidly, “Jake? Will you hold me?”

“Certainly, darling.”

“May I take my robe off, please? Will you take it off me?”

With the robe out of the way she sighed and snuggled in. After a bit she whispered, “Jake darling? Why did you spank me?”

It was his turn to sigh. “You were being difficult… and it is the only thing I know of which will do a woman good when a man can’t do for her what she needs. And right then- I couldn’t.”

“I see. I think I do.”

And…
“Jake?”

“Yes, Eunice?”

“I didn’t really mind being spanked by you. Even when I was crying. But- Well, I’m padded now- Built to take a spanking. And when you are spanking me, you aren’t ignoring me- and any attention is better than none. And besides-” She hesitated.

“Besides what, Eunice?”

“Well, I don’t know- but I think it happened.”

“What happened?”

“Female orgasm. Well, maybe. I don’t know what one is supposed to feel like. But while I was crying and hurting; you have a heavy hand, sir- suddenly I felt very warm inside and something seemed to grow and explode- that’s the best I can describe it. And I was ecstatically happy and didn’t mind the last few wallops, hardly noticed them. Was that a female orgasm?”

“How would I know, dearest? Perhaps you’ll be able to tell me. Later.”

And (a couple chapters later)…

“I accept! But -well, it’s hardly worthwhile opening those packages. They’ll be disappointments.”

“Would you like a spanking?”

“Yes.”

“I’m too tired. Let’s open the packages.”