An anal rententive spanko watches Desperate Housewives

With being more sick lately and unable to do much of anything else except bask in the glow of the flickering tube, I've been blazing through my Netflix queue. The last week or two has been mostly dedicated to the first season of Desperate Housewives as I didn't really start watching it (Sunday nights, 9pm on ABC) until last year. And, you know, once I started watching I was always like, "oh oh gotta watch the next one! Gotta see what happens!"

And among the twenty-four hours of viewing has been a bit to satisfy my ever present inner spanko. It started out light -- Lynette (mother of four kids) yelling at her sons to do what she tells them or she's going to spank them (Did she just say she was going to spank them? ::rewind:: Omg, she did!) -- to downright graphic at times such as when WASPy character Bree Van de Camp's husband Rex is walked upon by a suburban dominatrix in stiletto heels.

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Yes, Rex Van de Camp likes be handcuffed and whipped and when he tells his wife, she immediately assumes his mother must have horribly abused him. Then slaps him when her sense of moral outrage can be suppressed no longer. Domination of her husband is definitely something that takes place outside the bedroom sans stilettos and leather. And therein most likely lies the problem. Rex probably married Bree because she was domineering and he vaguely knew he liked that. By middle age he had realized that it was a sexual thing for him. Except, because Bree has had to be the dominant one in the household, she's been most likely looking for him to be dominant in the bedroom.

However on Valentines Day, Bree relents to maybe giving the whole domination thing a go. Rex, almost giddy as he takes his toy box out of the closet, explains how the whole thing works. "So, it's like we're in a little play?" suggests Bree. Indeed, I often think of roleplay as pretend play for adults. And I think the better you were at it as a kid, the better you're at it (or even perhaps the kinkier you are) as an adult.

Rex goes on to explain that they have to have a "control" word (rather than the more commonly used "safeword" -- censors? lazy writing?) and that his is "Philadelphia." "My Aunt Fern lives in Philadelphia," states Bree, "and I don't want to be thinking about her when I'm spanking you with a leather paddle." She then suggests "Boise," which Rex thinks sounds too funny and that they need something that's serious. Bree thinks, then gets a very grave, concerned look on her face. "How about Palestine?" and nods slightly to emphasize how serious a topic it is. This made me laugh my fucking head off. Palestine was part of my academic research and something I have very definite political views that I feel passionately about, meaning she could very easily have been doing a parody of me. Seriously, I think it will rank up there as one of the funniest damn scenes I've ever seen on television.

In the end, Rex decides "Boise" will be fine. And thanks to YouTube, you can watch the whole thing for yourself.

But the scenes that really captured my imagination more were those with Lynette's kids as spanking is more my kink than leather. And as the title of this post states, I'm rather anal retentive (A. will certainly vouch for that) and ended up copying down every single word of dialogue, especially as the two scenes are nowhere to be found on YouTube (though I did find this bizarre but funny as hell video -- ah the wonders of public access television!). I may be breaking a gazillion copyright laws, but I can't imagine it's any more so than all the fine folks posting at YouTube.

So the first scene occurs after Lynette finds out her boys (who are generally out-of-control hellions) stole a potted flower from the neighbor to give to her as a Valentines Day gift. She comes out onto the porch and yells, "Boys, get your fannies in here!" The boys, however, are huddled in neighbor Mike Delfino's yard. When Mike finds them and asks who they're hiding from, they explain their mom because she wants to spank them. In that sweet but sexy way of his, Mike tells them that if they hide, then it will just get worse because then she'll get worried and that if they just go home and take their lumps, they'll have the rest of the afternoon to play. He even tops off the deal with a piggy back ride home.

At home, Lynette sweeps away the Valentines Day cards from the kitchen table and lays down a hickory switch, a hairbrush, a ping pong paddle, a spatula, a metal ruler (I think -- that one was hard to see) and a belt. Seriously, my eyes about bugged out of my head. It felt like one of us showing off the contents of our toy box.

"We don't wanna get spanked," the boys cry.

"Too late. You stole. And then you lied. Even worse, you made me look bad in front of Mrs. Mcclusky, who you know is Mommy's sworn enemy." Lynette waves her hand over the implements. "Time to pick your poison." She then picks up the belt with one end in each hand. "How about the belt? It's a classic."

The boys shake their heads. She drops it and picks up the switch.

"Well, we could go with the old hickory stick. It's a cliche..." Lynette whacks the table hard with the switch causing the boys to jump. "But it's pretty effective." She drops the switch and picks up the spatula. "I know, we'll go with the spatula. The holes give it less wind resistance.." Another whack against the table that cause the boys to jump. "...Moves faster."

"No! No! No!" The boys yell.

"Hey, hey, guys, my hands are tied. Thieves get spanked. It's just the way it works." She pauses. "Unless..."

"Unless what?"

"For a first time offense, if you swear, cross your heart that you will never steal again and you write Mrs. Mcclusky a letter I will let it slide." Needless to say, the boys gladly agree to these terms and happily take the pencils and notebooks their mother hands to them.

"Mommy, why are you smiling?" Asks one of the twins when he notices Lynette smirking.

"Do you know what psychological warfare is?"

"No."

"Well, too bad for you." Then Lynette picks up the implements and helps the boys spell Mcclusky.

The second scene was two episodes later in Episode 18, "Children Will Listen." Lynette desperately wants to go meet some friends and refuses to pay the extortionate rate the babysitter demands. After much pleading she manages to talk Bree into watching the kids ("For God's sake, Bree, I'm wearing pantyhose!"). While the boys color, waaayy outside the lines, on Bree's dining room table, she bakes cookies. Porter, one of the twins, can't seem to resist those cookies and tries to get one off the cookie sheet before they're adequately cooled down, meriting a reprimand from Bree. When he complains that he's hungry, Bree offers to make him a nice bowl of peaches and cottage cheese -- which he rebuffs

"Ew barf!"

"Don't be common, young man." Bree leads him back into the dining room to color. "If you play around with those cookies one more time I'm going to have to spank you," she states as she sits him down.

"We don't get spanked," explain Porter's brothers.

"Really?" asks a shocked Bree.

"Mommy always says she's gonna but she never does."

"Well, I'm not your Mommy and if you misbehave in my house, you will get spanked." She brushes Porter's cheek. "Now, be good." Then goes off to tend to the baby.

Did I mention that Lynette's boys are incorrigible?

Porter sneaks back into the kitchen to get that cookie, only to end up dumping the whole cookie sheet of cookies all over the kitchen floor. Bree rushes in to see Porter standing over them with his hands in his pockets.

"Porter, I warned you."

"I'm sorry...I'll be good."

"Those cookies were made from scratch! You're fate is sealed." She takes him by the arm to the kitchen table, pulls out a chair, takes him over her lap and starts spanking. The camera (as it invariably does) turned away to focus on his brothers watching on in true shock and awe to the tune of smacking and yelps coming from the kitchen.

When Lynette finds out that Bree spanked Porter (during their weekly ladies poker game, which I found unlikely as those kids or Bree would no doubt have told Lynette when she came to pick them up -- I dunno, maybe Tom picked them up and didn't tell Lynette) she freaks out. Later that night as she vents to Tom, she points out that Bree could have just threatened to spank them.

"Yeah, cause that works so well when we do it," Tom half sneers.

"It does work, " Lynette insists (forgetting that after letting the boys off with writing a letter two episodes before, she and Tom discover that the boys had been stealing all kinds of things from throughout the neighborhood and stashing them in their playhouse). But Tom points out that the boys are onto them that the treats are empty. "My mom beat the hell out of me and my sisters..." Lynette says in a trembling voice. "...And I won't do it." Tom (as he so often does) empathizes with Lynette but points out that they have to figure out something.

"Eventually they're going to figure out that they out number us and we're gonna be screwed."

So, what to do?

Well, the next night when Preston threatens to flush his toothbrush down the toilet, Lynette starts out with her typical hollow threats as his brothers egg him on. When she realizes they aren't going to work, she glares at Preston and issues a new threat.

"I will walk you down to Mrs. Van de Camp's and we all know what happens when she gets mad!"

Hmm...wasn't this the scenario for an RGE film? LOL -- though they, of course, manage to get even darker than Desperate Housewives.

At any rate, that threat makes the boys straighten right up and brush their teeth. And in the end, Bree and Lynette make up like all good housewives/neighbors do: over a cup of coffee.

I must say, if I were to imagine being spanked, Bree would totally be the housewife I'd want to be spanked by. In some ways, she represents the mother I always wanted as a kid. My mom looks like a cross between Gabrielle and Edie, and acts like Susan's mom, Sophie (seriously, Marc Cherry could have been tape recording my mother when I was a teenager and then written those lines for Sophie). To be fair, if Bree had been my mom, I'd probably still be all fucked up, just in different ways. But, gawd I do love the facade of the anal retentive housekeeper mother who wears an apron and can cook. ;)