What turns a minus into a plus?

Dear Lorraine

Over the years I have read fetish-based stories that have been presented as factual and sometimes have suspected there is an element of fantasy, an element of "this is how I wished it had been". On the other hand, now and again I think I detect a ring of truth, even though the tale being told is unusual or bizarre.

I haven't the skill to put into words why I accept one narrative as true but question another and, of course, I never know if I am right or wrong. It's rarely the subject matter that raises questions in my mind - my own experiences tell me that truth can be stranger than fiction - the devil of doubt is usually in the detail or the practicalities of what is being recounted.

My tale is told as it happened to me. I cannot prove its truth, but it is true. As best I can remember no significant facts have been added, the only additions are my own reflections on motives and my adult interpretations of juvenile responses, both physical and emotional.

Due to my Father being an officer in the Merchant Navy (or Merchant Service as he used to say), I and my elder (by three years) sister, Sally, were effectively brought up by two ladies, our Mother and Aunt Jean, who was my Father's sister and probably my Mother's closest friend.

I was brought up in 1950/60s detached-house middle-class respectability. Offspring and their behaviour were regular topics of conversation and in the time and place where I was brought up it wasn't a matter of 'if' you agreed with corporal punishment, it was a matter of 'how much', 'how often', and 'what with'. We went over my Mother's or Aunt Jean's knee for a spanking by hand and/or a small very lightweight 3-tailed strap (known as "the baby strap") that had belonged to my Mother's mother. As we grew older Sally and I learnt to respect a longer two-tailed strap that Aunt Jean had permanently 'borrowed' from the school she taught at.

My childhood wasn't harsh or cruel - it was happy and loving - but discipline within the home was attended to keenly and creatively and there was no soul-searching confusion over the fact that punishment, whether it be corporal or otherwise, was meant to be unpleasant and memorable. At the time I didn't think I was treated with more severity than most of my friends, but in retrospect I'm sure both my Mother and Aunt were determined that my and Sally's behaviour (especially mine) would not deteriorate due to the day-to-day absence of a father. Certainly it seemed that we grew up 'slower' in that at any particular point in time we felt we were dressed a little younger than our peers and we were allowed less social independence.

My Father's ship carried cargo and a small number of passengers. Occasionally my Mother was allowed to join my Father on board and if such an occasion coincided with school holidays she would go and Aunt Jean would come and live in. She was lively and jolly but she was a real martinet. While Aunt Jean was very patient (perhaps due to being a teacher) and was a lot slower than my Mother to resort to punishment, she was more severe and whatever the punishment, she seemed to drag it out more and make it more humiliating.

A day that changed my life.

I had just become a proud 13 year-old teenager when I was invited to a friend's birthday tea, and as my Mother knew the family well she came too. When we arrived we were both mildly surprised, since it was the holidays, to see the eldest of my friend's three sisters in her school uniform. My Mother assumed she was going to a school-related function and asked what the event was. But the girl's mother intervened to explain that her daughter was occasionally put back into school uniform during week-ends or holidays if it was felt she "needed encouragement" to improve her behaviour. My Mother found this intriguing and my friend's mum was happy to explain the reasoning behind such a punishment, further adding to her daughter's discomfort.

This encounter instigated similar punishments in our house, and it came to be that the punishment I dreaded the most was a Saturday or a holiday day in school uniform. This punishment was once referred to as 'uniform punishment' and such days came to be called simply 'U.P.' days. Such a punishment was infrequent but was to be avoided as, unlike a spanking or the strap, it wasn't over quickly. The day was filled with seemingly endless chores and jobs - and even lines if Aunt Jean was in charge. The time to be spent in school uniform varied, at least until late afternoon but it could last until bedtime; one's own attitude and behaviour could influence both the content and duration of the day's punishment.

When my Mother introduced the idea of uniform punishment, Aunt Jean pointed out that the effect of putting a girl back into school uniform was far greater than for a boy. A shirt, tie, and trousers could appear as smart normal attire, whereas a girl suffered the additional humiliation of knowing she was wearing an obvious 'statement' for all to see. As one of the openly stated objectives of a U.P. day was to "bring me down a peg or two", it was decided to re-introduce short trousers for U.P. days, a decision that lasted until my 15th birthday. However, if I thought the embarrassment of being put back into short trousers was bad, then worse was to soon to come. That same sort of "creative" thinking led to, what was for me, the single most overpowering and punishing item of all - an everyday Mackintosh.

.On Saturday afternoons my Mother nearly always went shopping into town with Aunt Jean and until my 15th birthday I was (reluctantly, I suspect) taken with them. After lunch one fateful rainy U.P. Saturday I had to explain to my furious Mother that I had left my coat at school.

At first she was flummoxed, my sister was out and she didn't want to leave me in on my own. Suddenly she pushed me out into the hall, followed by a curious Aunt Jean, and delved into the large space under the stairs where the coats were all hung. From the darkest recesses she produced a solution which was so alarming that at first I didn't realise what was going to be imposed.

The 'solution' belonged to my sister, although she hadn't worn it for quite a while. It was dark green gabardine, was slightly small for me but still came down a couple of inches below my knees. Like my coat it had a fly-front, it was belt-less and had a hood. In its basic style it wasn't that different to my own school coat and, even with the hood, I'm sure the reality was that most people would pass by without noticing that a boy was wearing a girl's coat.

Aunt Jean commended my Mother's brainwave and I stood in a daze as I was put into my sister's raincoat. As the awareness of what was happening grew within me I spluttered and stammered my protests and refused to co-operate. Mother returned with the strap and gave it to Aunt Jean, and my ensuing silence was taken as the required change of heart. Once I was "properly dressed" we all started to head for the front door at which point my nerve broke and pleadings and promises poured forth. For me it was a very long afternoon.. . . .

While my Mother could dole out a painful spanking with the best of them, she was no great advocate of corporal punishment. As we grew towards and into our teens she tended more towards non-corporal punishments and if she felt sore bottom or hands were justified she left it to Aunt Jean to expertly wield the strap. So, the dramatic effect on me of being made to wear my sister's raincoat was seen as very useful and it became another weapon in the constant fight to ensure control was maintained. It was a weapon that was more often threatened than used, but my Mother and Aunt were under no illusions as to the power of this new weapon they had discovered.

I very quickly grew out of that first coat - only to inherit my sister's next discard, and it was this garment that probably changed my life.

This coat was longer in length (to mid-calf) than the previous one, was the colour of a roof slate but with a slight blue-ish tint (petrol blue?) and it had, believe it or not, a double row of red buttons down the front. Everything about it was completely different, but the most significant difference was that this particular coat of my sister's was made of rubberised cotton. It was double-breasted and the double row of red buttons down the front seemed to draw attention to the mac. It had wrist straps with small red buckles for tightening the sleeve ends, a wide belt with eyelets and a tongued red buckle, three or four small round metal-rimmed holes under each armpit, and a vent in the rear skirt of the coat which, when it flapped against the backs of my calves, seemed to emphasise my juvenile bareness.

Like the previous coat it had a hood, but this hood made the other almost acceptable. When pulled up, it stood proud with two pointy corners at the back, it seemed to add to the sense of being enveloped and increased my awareness of the pungent rubbery smell and of the rustling ripple of the mac. The hood was secured under the chin with tie tapes and it could be removed by undoing numerous small red buttons underneath the back of the collar, but needless to say it was always attached.

As already mentioned, the mackintosh had a distinctive rustling sound and a pungent rubbery smell. I had come into contact with rubberised materials before (our red bathroom apron, my Mother and Aunt Jean's had proper macs) but this mac of my sister's seemed really smelly and noisy. Also, the material was slightly stiffer than the material of my coat which, when added to its distinctive noise and rubbery smell, increased my sense of being bound into the Mac, almost being over-powered by it. While the colour wasn't a major problem, boys' macs did not have red buttons or a hood and it was clearly a girl's mac.

I was actually frightened of it. Knowing that I was going to have to wear it generated initially a combination of frustration and anger, but this was quickly replaced by fear and embarrassment when it was held out for me (often with my gleeful sister as a witness). As I was being buttoned and belted into the Mackintosh - and being double-breasted this brought the problem of the mac being done up on the girl's side - the overwhelming feeling became one of submission and helplessness. It was soon noticed that I became quiet and compliant as soon as I was actually being put into the Mac. As time went on it became increasingly common to warn me at times of bad or noisy behaviour that I would be put into the mac - "that'll calm you down" or "now you will behave". Sometimes the warning was emphasised by the Mac being hung over the banister post at the bottom of the stairs. And, of course, my dear (not so) sweet sister never teased me.

It's obvious now that the sound and smell of the mackintosh material stirred these overpowering and smothering emotions. I had experienced a similar sound and smell before. When I or Sally were to be spanked, both my Mother and Aunt Jean always wore the bathroom apron, due I think to an accident involving my sister at a young age. This apron was long, full-skirted and bibbed, and was made of reddish-brown rubber-surfaced cotton that rustled heavily, or to me ominously, with every movement. Over-the-knee punishments were given well after Sally and I were no longer little children, with the baby strap being used more as we grew older. I was last spanked when I was 15 or 16, but my sister was last spanked during her first year at college. Any reduction in pain compared to getting Aunt Jean's strap was more than compensated for by embarrassment, and being sent to fetch the apron, waiting while it was put on, and having to return it after the spanking was all deliberately retained as a sort of family ritual. I'm sure, as I heard the Mac's rustling and rippling, my mind immediately linked it to the sound of the bathroom apron as it was put on before I was spanked. Similarly the smell was akin to the smell of that apron as I stood close next to the wearer with weak legs and a churning tummy prior to going over her lap for that most intimate and embarrassing of punishments, an over-the-knee spanking.

Whether it came from the apron or my Mother's light-green rubber-proofed mackintosh (a material with a shiny surface, so maybe rubberised satin) or my Aunt's fawn rubber-lined mac, the rubbery noise and smell was a memory "trigger" that immediately swamped my mind with associations of female presence, of female authority.

Rubberised!

As I've already said, there is no doubt that my Mother and Aunt Jean became aware of the effect the Mackintosh had on me and to them it was logical that such a weapon should be occasionally used to add an edge to a U.P. day, irrespective of the fact that I never forgot my own coat again. If my behaviour on that U.P. day was deemed by lunch-time to be below the expected standard of cheerfulness and instant obedience, to go on the afternoon shopping trip to town wearing the mac was an extra 'treat'. I was always warned first that the Mac was being considered and I cannot imagine that I would have constantly failed to respond to such a warning. So, sometimes at least, I'm sure that awful extra punishment was allocated just because the person in charge was feeling a little spiteful - in the same way that a spanking could be given harder or longer on one occasion compared with another for the same offence.

The only time I knew that I definitely would not have to wear the mac was when the weather was good enough for outdoor coats to be cast aside, and it had to be very good for that decision to be made I have already mentioned the confusing conflict of mental resistance mixed with and then being replaced by acquiescence when faced with the punishment mac, as I came to think of it.

But as time passed more confusion was to soon follow.

I found that, without wanting or wishing for it to happen, the use of the mackintosh would not only trigger a sense of submission but it also gradually prompted another type of response. As I was buttoned, belted and buckled into this punishment garment, the sense of being controlled was very powerful and from an indeterminate point onwards I began to find the experience physically stimulating.

Eventually, the mere sight of the mac hanging on the banister post had the same confusing effect.

I did not enjoy punishment and I cannot explain such a reaction.

The number of times I was actually made to wear that mac over a period of maybe two years was almost certainly in single figures, but the effect was so powerful that just the sight of it hanging up made me edgy.

I then started to generally notice macs. I became fascinated with the one worn at that time by my sister, which was shiny and black; and when near to a woman wearing a coat, such as one of my sister's or mother's friends or a teacher at school or simply at a bus-stop, I found myself visually checking if it was rubberised or had a rubber lining. I became fixated by Aunt Jean's Mac, which was similar in style to 'my' mac but was of a creamy/light brown cotton with a putty-coloured rubber lining. After she had taken it off she would smell of warm rubber for a while and I would have done anything she commanded at that point.

At night, among the myriad images that teased and tormented the adolescent brain were those of various females wearing macs, including Aunt Jean, and me wearing various macs of various females. I would desperately concentrate to find 'normal' fantasies but the influence had been well absorbed, the pattern had been set.

In retrospect, this was obviously the beginning of a life-long preoccupation and I have no regrets or resentment over that. The frequency and severity of my punishments, both corporal and otherwise, were determined by my behaviour and therefore by me. With hindsight the disciplinary environment created for me is not one I would condone, but what's done is done. I can accept that actions/decisions were taken/made with the best of intentions in the context of those times and domestic circumstances.

So I came to associate the very distinctive sound and smell of rubberised material with female authority. The most common encounter with rubberised material was via macs, and I found it very disturbing to be in the company of a woman wearing a rubberised mackintosh. I found it difficult to concentrate, I became 'hot and bothered', and despite not being a generally submissive person I became submissive, and stimulated. This caused me much embarrassment of course as rubber-lined or rubberised macs were commonplace in my teens.

It is easy to see why I associate rubber with situations of punishment or being controlled, and it doesn't take great analytical skill to explain why rubber-lined or rubberised macs have an effect on me.

However, what I don't understand is the nature of the effect. Before and during punishment I felt fear, embarrassment, humiliation, compliance, and a massive sense of 'I don't want this to be happening to me'. So why then in that context should I have become sexually aroused? At the time I suffered confusion and guilt along with the punishment, but later I grew to greatly enjoy the extra dimensions that such experiences add. I still react to a woman wearing a rubber-lined or rubberised mac (including my wife - very, very luckily for me) and I am still potentially submissive and compliant should the wearer decide to exercise her power. A woman wearing such a mackintosh because she knows its power (irrespective of whether she explores that power or not) is still for me the most all-consuming stimulus ... but I still don't fully understand why.

Tony

For what it's worth I think you are so right to be puzzled. The mere fact that you were punished by being made to wear that (gorgeous-sounding!) mackintosh of your sister's doesn't explain why it turned into something stimulating. My own sneaking feeling is that it has to do with smell. I wonder if there isn't a smell in rubber which echoes the smells put into us by natural selection to trigger certain reactions ...Completely unsupported speculation!.

Thank you so much for a very very interesting account.

Lorraine