Anger (and other deadly sins…)

This is my ‘A’ post for the Spanking A-Z Blog Challenge. What’s that I hear you ask? Check out my page here for more information.

When it comes to sinning, I reckon I’m halfway there. Of the seven deadly sins (made famous by Dante’s Divine Comedy and that movie with – spoiler! – Brad Pitt’s wife’s head in a box), there are three that I regularly indulge in, three that I don’t and one that I’m not really sure about. Pride? Do I do that? Is that even a sin, do we think? (“Hey, you got your degree, you should be really proud of yourself.” “Thanks, I am.” “SINNER!”)

There’s quite a bit of weird shit in Dante’s books, to be fair

Gluttony, lust and sloth are all key motivators in my life. The importance of each of these things switches around depending on the time of day (and time of month, come to think of it) but generally if you need someone who is an expert in eating too much, having sex (sometimes even with other people) and twatting about on the internet for hours on end to no productive purpose, well then I am your woman. (Slothfulness is so much easier these days than in Dante’s time. They probably didn’t even have Cracked.com in the fourteenth century.)

On the other hand, envy, avarice and anger aren’t really my thing at all. Maybe all the snacking and web browsing and wanking distracts me from furiously coveting my neighbour’s possessions and trying to achieve my dream of diving into massive piles of wealth like Scrooge McDuck. Sloth and avarice aren’t really compatible bedfellows, anyway.

I do occasionally get angry. Not necessarily about the right things, mind. I feel like I am always banging on about my depression here, but as I am sure many of you know, ‘sadness’ isn’t the only emotion associated with depression. Most of the time, depression robs you of feeling any emotion at all. Sometimes, however, it can make you feel angry for no good reason. I was flicking through one of those free magazines you get at the supermarket a few weeks ago and every single thing in it made me ridiculously bloody furious. All these products are stupid! All this food looks horrible! None of it should exist! Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Puddles? Fuck the fuck off.

Becoming incandescent with rage about the existence of a confectionery product is not something that guides to ‘Living with Depression’ necessarily warn you about.

Usually, though my anger levels never really rise feeling a bit miffed. Any disgruntlement usually passes pretty quickly.

Anger is a common theme in spanky romance books, of course. Romantic heroes and heroines usually have a lot of issues and misunderstandings and conflict to work through before they can reach their happily ever afters so it’s no wonder that tempers can get a bit frayed along the way.

It’s an interesting subject to tackle because as any responsible adherent to a BDSM or Domestic Discipline lifestyle knows, anger and spanking really shouldn’t mix. It’s perfectly fine to punish but if you go around hitting people in anger then that’s when things can get awkward. It’s the sort of thing that is embroidered onto a sampler and hung on the walls of BDSM clubs.

Or would be. If I were in charge of a BDSM club.

This issue is handled very well in Renee Rose’s The Bossman. In the below snippet the hero Joey is angry at his girlfriend Sophie. She has made some bad decisions and when you’re involved in the mafia, bad decisions have the potential to be very bad indeed.

“You could’ve been killed, Sophie! Or you could’ve got me killed for breaking the code and telling you. Jesus Christ, Soph!” 

“Jesus, yourself, Joey!” she yelled back. “Why don’t you just spank me and get it over with?” 

“I’m going to,” he thundered. “But I’m too angry to touch you right now!” 

She drew in a sharp breath, realizing how meticulous he’d been to not lay a finger on her. Instead, he’d shaken the chair she sat in, banged on the end table beside her, waved his hands in the air. 

Hearing he was mad reduced her to a small child. She drew her knees up to her chest, perching her bare feet on the seat cushion and hiding her face, her tears turning into a full sob. She must’ve looked pitiful, because when Joey knelt beside her and peeled her hands back from her face, his expression was kind. “I’m sorry. Don’t be scared, little girl.”

I cover a similar theme in my first book, His Lordship’s Apprentice. Lord Hardcastle is justifiably very pissed off indeed when following a misunderstanding his stage apprentice, Violet, throws a prop at his face with enough force to leave him with a bruise and a cut below his eye.

Violet’s rage may have subsided but Lord Hardcastle’s was only just beginning. His face was set as hard as granite. He grabbed a leather strap which had been used to secure one of the props trunks and took several swift strides towards Violet grabbing her forcefully by the arm. He pulled her towards the desk and pushed her over the desktop so that her face was pressed against the wood and her bottom was raised in the air. His hand pressed down heavily on the small of her back so that she could not move from her position. 

Violet heard the noise of the strap swishing through the air and held her breath waiting for the thick leather to make contact with her body.

But the contact never came. Instead the strap forcefully struck the side of the desk to Violet’s left. The startlingly loud crack it made caused Violet to jump with surprise. 

Lord Hardcastle threw the strap away from him and let go of Violet. He returned to the sofa. 

“I’m too angry to do this” he said softly. “Just go.”

 Luckily in both cases, the ladies get the spankings they deserve once their spanker has had the chance to calm down a bit.

Although anger isn’t a good mix with spanking scenarios, there are of course other sins available. And some of them fit very well indeed. Well maybe not gluttony – that sort of thing can lead to indigestion. And slothfulness isn’t a terribly good fit either. There needs to be a certain amount of effort expended in a good spanking.

Lust, on the other hand? There’s a sin which fits with spanking very nicely indeed.

Fifty Shades of Grey managed to combine spanking with a whole bunch of sins that Dante had never even thought of. Appallingly bad film-making for one.