Spanking for Stagefright

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I don’t generally expect to get turned on by the New Yorker. But I just read this in the 8/26/06 issue, in John Lahr’s article about stagefright:

“(Carly) Simon has found that physical pain often trumps psychological terror. ‘If you have something that’s hurting you physically, the pain is the hierarchy,’ she said. To that end, she has been known to take the stage in tight boots, to jab her hand with clutched safety pins, and even, just before going on, to ask band members to spank her. At a celebration for President Bill Clinton’s fiftieth birthday, at Radio City Music Hall, in 1996, Simon, terrified of following Smokey Robinson, invited the entire horn section to let her have it. ‘They all took turns spanking me,’ she says. ‘During the last spank the curtain went up. The audience saw the aftermath, the sting on my face. I bet Olivier didn’t do that.'”

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So does anyone else find this (a) totally hot, and (b) somewhat baffling? I mean, I get that stagefright is freaky-ass stuff, and I get that not everyone obsessively eroticizes spanking the way I do. But if I were suffering from severe stagefright and looking for some physical pain to snap me out of it, I’m not sure that “ask the entire horn section to spank me” would be the solution that would leap to mind.

I’ll have to remember it, though. The next time I do an erotica reading, I’ll have to insist on getting a spanking beforehand to cure my stagefright. Of course, I’ve never suffered from stagefright in my life… but that’ll be our little secret.

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Spanking for Stagefright
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6 thoughts on “Spanking for Stagefright

  1. 1

    Simon’s comparing herself to Olivier is a bad idea.
    Perhaps it’s apocryphal, but there’s a famous story about how method actor Dustin Hoffman stayed up for two consecutive nights to prepare for filming a scene in *Marathon Man* in which he is supposed to be absolutely exhausted. So he shows up for filming looking like shit, which prompts Olivier to ask him what on earth is going on.
    So Hoffman explains, whereupon Olivier sniffs, “You might try *acting*.”
    –Bill

  2. 2

    I think one of the things that makes SM hot is that pain brings us into the present. Just as pain helps Simon avoid the internal dialog (“what can go wrong”) we call stage fright, so does SM bring me and my partner into an intensly present awareness where there is no distraction from connection and intimacy.
    As for the horn section, that’s just kinky.

  3. 3

    Oh lord, I’m going to see Sinister Dexter play this afternoon, and they have a HUGE horn section, and what will I be thinking?
    Thanks a whole lot, Greta!
    Of course, it’s really the drummer who has some great implements. Someday I want to do a scene that only involves items you can buy at the music store…

  4. 4

    If Carly Simon needs me to spank her soundly until she can go on stage, well, I guess I’ll just have to give it my best effort.
    Yeah, it’s hot.

  5. 5

    I’ve worked with a lot of performers in my time and there is an enormous variety of weird pre-show rituals to assuage stagefright. Carly’s is one of the kinkiest I’ve heard of, but I know a dancer who kneels down, kisses the stage, stands up, spins around three times and grabs his crotch before stepping onto the boards. For those of us who do experience stagefright, anything that works is the usually the guideline.
    Dan, if you get tired, let me know and I can take over spaking Ms. Simon for you.

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