Deportment

Deportment training with a backboard, drawing by Julian Guile.

Deportment means behaviour, manners, or posture.

See also deportment school.

Posture training

Training in proper deportment was once a standard practice in private European and American finishing schools in the 19th and early 20th century. Common methods to maintain an erect posture while sitting, standing or walking, as opposed to slouching, included balancing a book or wooden block on one's head, or the use of a backboard (or posture aid, posture corrective, posture corrector, harness) to pull back the shoulders and keep the spine straight. Corsets, too, were used to improve a person's posture.

In the present day, deportment/posture training is also common within the BDSM lifestyle – for example in slave or ponygirl training. The posture collar is a special collar used in BDSM to keep the wearer's head up.

Rejuve Universe

In Lurking Dragon's Rejuve Universe, deportment is subject to its own grade on school report cards. A bad grade in deportment can get a schoolchild into trouble all on its own. This is on top of any punishment they might have already received for the behavior that lowered the grade in the first place. Deportment, in this context, has less to do with posture than other meanings.

Spanking videos

• Ballerina Posture Correction (Assume the Position Studios, aka ATP Studios)

• Blake's Harsh Punishment (RealSpankings Institute, 2008), paddled for fighting while kneeling on a bench and holding cups of water (photos, more photos)

• Brooke Strapped for Incomplete Work (RealSpankings Institute), student holds out books while being spanked, photos

• Claire's Hard Paddling with Added Discipline (RealSpankings Institute), paddled while holding water cup, photos

• Deportment With Aunt Lucy, Part 1 (Northern Spanking), Lucy McLean, aunt, photos

• Deportment With Aunt Lucy, Part 2 (Northern Spanking), photos

• Europe Airlines, Episode 14: Posture Training (Spanked In Uniform), includes book-on-head balance deportment training of a stewardess. photos.

• The Great Role (Lupus Pictures), a girl wearing a backboard walks with a book on her head.

• Heather: Posture Perfect (Spanked Coeds)

• Mila: Sit Up Straight! (Spanked Coeds)

• Sorority Hell Night (London Enterprises), pledge Kiri Kelly has to balance a book on her head.

• Spanked to Tears (Pacific Force), a spy in training fails to walk with a book balanced on her head.

• Trial by Ordeal (Strictly English, 2006), Niki Flynn forced to hold heavy books at arm's length (55 min. video)

See also

• Bowing
• Curtsey
• Ballet
• Military

Links

• Vintage photo: Woman giving teenage girls (17-19) deportment class.
• Vintage photo: Line of girls (7-12) exercising with bowls on heads.
• Vintage photo: Young debutantes at a deportment school in Kensington, London, are shown the correct and incorrect way to retrieve a handkerchief from the floor in this demonstration.
• Vintage photo: Trainee fashion models learn how to carry themselves gracefully by balancing books on their heads.
• Vintage photo: Lucie Clayton instructs pupils in the art of correct posture by balancing a glass and book on their heads at her finishing school in Old Cavendish Street, London.
• Vintage photo: Instructor Dawn Zajac holds a deportment class for synchronized swimmers at the Seymour Hall Swimming Baths in London.
• Vintage photo: Camara models at Cypress Gardens, walking with blocks on their heads for balance and posture.