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LIFE AT THE
BOTTOM: MY YEAR AS A PROFESSIONAL SPANKER
By JADEN KODA
Riverbed
Press, 2008
ISBN 978-41870927
304 pages; Paperback
GENRE(S): Nonfiction, Memoir, Sexuality, Psychology
Reviewed by Binky Knox
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While
it's true that Life at the Bottom: My Year as a Professional
Spanker may seem like just another entry in the already
overcrowded "I spent a year doing something ridiculous" genre,
Jaden Koda—who spent five years as a social worker prior
to entering the world of professional domination—has
a lot to offer in the way of insights into her dirty, dirty
boy clients.
As with
most of the books in this genre, Koda's adventure begins when
she becomes fed up with her job. She finds that social work
in city agencies involves routing papers more than getting
help and housing for New York City's homeless population.
Week after week, she feels the frustrations of her "clients,"
the undereducated, drug-addicted, and psychologically damaged
people who live on the streets of Manhattan. Bureaucratic
nonsense makes it difficult for her to keep up with the growing
mountain of paperwork that needs to be processed in order
for the homeless to get vouchers for food and housing. She
finds her salary slipping away as she gives money to particularly
hard cases, and her soul slipping away as she sees her clients
end up on the streets over and over again. Koda comes to the
realization that staying in this sort of job for the salary
is counter-productive, and she begins a soul-searching quest
to find what it is she really does want to do with her life.
A chance
excursion with a friend to a beauty pageant—Miss Rubber
Queen—at an S+M club leads to a meeting with a handsome
and affluent stranger who offers Koda $100 to spank him for
ten minutes with a paddle that has former New York City mayor
Rudy Giuliani's face on it. Koda spends eight torturous pages
detailing each thought and tangent that goes through her mind,
delaying the reader's satisfaction in a delightfully devious
fashion. When Koda finally consents, she describes her new
friend's perceptible joy as it spreads across his well-chiseled
face. It turns out he is an attorney and well-connected in
the underground New York City spanking scene, and he spreads
the word among his friends about his new find. Koda takes
the name Urania Chastain and embarks on her new lucrative
career.
Koda's
prose is a little choppy and breathless, but her social work
training allows insights into her clients, most of whom she
never actually knows much about. Still, much is revealed during
each spanking session, and her clients are fascinating. There's
Harry, a big middle-aged, red-faced man who likes to dress
as a French maid and be spanked with a hair brush; Phil the
police officer, who wants to be beaten (lightly) with his
billy club; Josh the indie rocker, who puts on his PJs and
is spanked when he sasses his babysitter.
All the
men seem to have tremendous power and authority in their personal
lives, and they use their spanking hour as a chance to give
that over to someone else.
It's
particularly interesting and annoying that Koda rarely offers
the readers insights into what drew her to this, other than
the money and a chance to write an interesting memoir. Certainly,
this is not the sort of job that everyone could do. Perhaps
her training as a social worker prepared her for this sort
of work, or perhaps this allowed her to vent her frustrations
at her old job, but these topics are not addressed. Nonetheless,
Life at the Bottom is an enjoyable, fun, and interesting
book.
(April
1, 2008)
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