Ian Head is the craftsman behind The London Tanners, a Florida-based manufacturer of leather straps, tawses, paddles and other implements of correction.
Ian, thanks for participating in this Q&A. To begin, what is your personal interest in the CP scene?
I am a male top. I’m involved more in the spanking, corporal punishment and domestic discipline scene, than I am the BDSM scene, thought I am a member of several local Florida BDSM clubs. I’m also a member of Shadow Lane, Crimson Moon, Bottoms Up in Texas, and Florida Moonshine, all of those spanking groups.
Where did you grow up?
I am an American by birth. I have an American father and an English mother. I was born in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, lived there for about three months and then spent the next 29 years in England.
The reason I’m here now, in Dade City, Florida, is that it’s next to a place called Zephyr Hills. I was a professional skydiver for 12 years and at one time Zephyr Hills was the skydiver capitol of the world.
When did you first discover you had an interest in corporal punishment?
This is the gospel truth: I was spanking girls before I went to school. I used to play mothers and fathers and school with my best friend and his sister in their garage, and we would spank each other with the washing line. That was probably at about the age of 4 ½ years.
I wasn’t aware of any sexual connotations until I was probably 10. Corporal punishment was still in use in many schools then, and I saw a girl get spanked in front of the class. That was the first time I ever put it together.
Do you remember what the circumstances were?
She was talking in class or something, and the teacher kept telling her to stop, and this went on and on. I remember her name was Sandra. The teacher called her up in front of the class, put her over a desk, lifted her skirt and hit her maybe four times with a slipper. That was the first time that I was aware of a sexual connotation.
As you entered your teenage years, did you explore your interest in CP?
Yes, but I felt guilty about. In my late teens, I’d spank girls lightly while making out. But like most people, until the Internet really opened the whole thing up, I kept asking myself, “Am I weird?” I didn’t know how to say, “I’d like to spank you,” to a girl. So it took a while to really adjust.
It seems like the English are very interested in corporal punishment and related diversions.
The Victorians used to call it the English vice. Most of the Victorian brothels had flagellation rooms.
I think it comes from corporal punishment in the schools, and especially in the public schools. Most of the politicians, judges and people like that came out of the public schools, so I think flagellation, corporal punishment and S&M have been going on for a long time in the higher echelons of the society.
How did you get into leatherworking?
My first wife wanted a handbag and I couldn’t afford it, so I thought, “Well I’ll buy some leather and make one.” She was a dancer -- a proper dancer. Some of the women that she worked with saw her handbag and started asking, “Can your husband make me this? Can he make me that?”
As I became more involved, I decided I really wanted to learn more about it, so I took a saddlery course. You can see the saddlery influence in my implements. I use saddlery- and harness-grade leather, the best I can possibly find, and the actual construction is basically the same as I would use to construct a saddle, harness or tack.
Tell me about your current company, The London Tanners.
Let’s go back right to the beginning. In the late 1960s, back when the
hippy boom was happening, I had a company in England called The Saddlebag
Company. I made handbags and belts and things like that.
Because I was young and couldn’t afford to be in a good area, I was in a very seedy part of London. Consequently I was surrounded by a lot of pornographic book stores. Well within probably two weeks of moving in there, I was approached by a couple of the sex shops about making cuffs and other leather bits and pieces. That’s how I started making items for the BDSM scene.
Now The London Tanners, as it is today, doesn’t sell cuffs or floggers. I concentrate mainly on what I call corporal punishment implements. I try to produce toys that I myself would like to buy, and also to deliver them quickly. If people are good enough to send me their money, then I’m good enough to try to fill their orders as quickly as possible.
How do your implements differ from the mass-produced slappers and crops that people can buy at their local adult toy store?
For a start, I think my prices are better and I think my quality is far superior. I hand-stitch everything; there’s no machining whatsoever. I use only the best leather, which I buy from the best tanners around London and around the world. Most of the implements listed on the Web site are made from English harness leather, which has a nice heavy, waxy feel to it.
Also, I guarantee my work. If one of my implements comes apart from normal use – that is, the customer didn’t run over it with the car or leave it right in front of the heater or something like that -- I will replace it.
Who is your typical customer?
I don’t think there is a typical London Tanners customer. Some are people who are actively involved in the scene, but there are also a great number of people who wouldn’t consider themselves to be part of the CP or BDSM scenes. They think they’re just sexually adventurous. I receive a lot of emails like, “My husband and I are interested in domestic discipline. Can you recommend an implement for us to start with?”
So there are more people interested in this than one might imagine.
It’s very much in the mainstream. I deal with a large number of married couples.
We should point out that these toys are serious implements, and should not be used carelessly or maliciously.
Correct. You can always spank someone harder, but you can’t take it back. Say you order something from London Tanners or another company. It arrives. Your girlfriend, wife, husband, lover, whoever, comes home. You open the box together and you’re all excited. You say, “Let’s try it!” If you don’t know the toy, if you’ve never tried it before, try it lightly. Work into it and find out what it can do.
I know you have a fondness for straps. What is the secret to administering a good strapping?
A strap is not like a paddle or even a flogger. The stroke should be delivered from the shoulder, using the full arm, not the wrist. Don’t try to snap it like you would a hairbrush in an over-the-knee position. What happens is people tend to twist the wrist. This makes the strap twist and land sideways.
To deliver a firm and accurate stroke, use your full arm and your full shoulder. It doesn’t have to be devastatingly hard. If you are doing it properly, the strap will make a definite smack.
What about strapping the palms of the hands?
This is really how the cane and tawse came into being. Again we go back to the Victorians. The Victorians, because of their almost Puritanical modesty, decided it was obscene to punish people on their behinds.
This was during the days of the great British Empire. England was into Malaysia and Indonesia, and so they were using rattan for making furniture and things like that.
The cane and the tawse came about because you can’t use the birch across the palm of the hand and you can’t use the birch across a clothed bottom. It’s ineffective. So both the cane and the strap really became relevant then, with hand punishments. It was a way of punishing, while maintaining the Victorian modesty.
I personally do not punish on the hands. There are just too many small bones.
What is your advice on leather care?
I recommend Fiebings Aussie finish or something similar. When you’re shopping for leather care products, always look at the contents. You don’t want anything that contains chemical petroleum products, such as white spirits, or anything like that. Any spirit will actually dry out the leather. I’d go for product with high beeswax lanolin tallow content.
What about cleaning leather toys?
What I recommend is baby bottom wipes. They have enough bleach and disinfectant in them to clean, but they’re gentle enough to use on a baby’s bottom. I carry a little pack of them in my toy bag -- they’re already wet -- and I just wipe my toys before and after I use them.
That’s all the questions I have for you, Ian. Any parting thoughts?
Just that I really appreciate the support that London Tanners has received from people, like yourself, in the CP scene. I’d also like to invite everyone to check out the Web site and to contact me if they have any questions.
