The Art of Petticoat Punishment by Carole Jean

Part 2 - Gene Bilbrew and Nan Gilbert

It took several years of waiting and searching to acquire the other ‘Gilbert’ stories. Many of them are good, but none has ever surpassed the thrill of reading ‘Panty Raiders’ for the first time.

Most of Gilbert's work uses the traditional characters of Petticoat Punishment, the adolescent boy, the stepmother, the maid and the school for ‘girls’. I understand why writers follow this formula. It’s easy to force a boy into dresses. The boy is dependent on and can be overpowered by adult women. He can easily be made to look like a girl. I have found in my own writing that it takes a more elaborate plot to make it believable that a grown man can be forced into dresses and made to stay in them against his will.

The cover of ‘Tales From A Pink Mirror’ shows fourteen year old Gerald being dressed as a sissy for the first time. His stepmother’s maid is applying makeup. How the maid can work in this outfit is beyond me, but I’d like to see her try.

It takes a whipping to force Gerald into this sissy outfit and other spankings to force him into girl’s clothes. Miss Lane from the ‘special’ school is one of the first to see him in dresses.

"How do you like being petticoated?"

"I detest them!"

She reached down and raised his skirt in front. "He has pretty legs, no?"

Soon Gerald finds himself in high heels and corsets in a strange new school where only the pink and blue skirts distinguish the girls from the boys. ‘Miss Alice’, as Gerald is now known, gets into trouble at once.

"Stand up here and face the class, holding your skirts up before you!" Snickers could be heard as I assumed this humiliating position.

Discipline is intense as the boy is made to mince about in his frilly ensemble. Breast creams, suspicious pills and a blue hair ribbon follow.

Grace took his hand and said, "Oh I’m so happy you’re wearing a blue ribbon! If it had been pink, it would mean that you were to be completely transformed into a girl."

He is thoroughly made over, however.

"All ‘little girls’ have their ears pierced," Miss Lane remarked with a gay laugh. Now he was branded for life. The thought was demoralizing.

The story now skips forward six months. ‘Miss Alice’ was developing a girlish bust and hips. ‘She’ was also beginning to enjoy ‘her’ new clothes. By the end of the story, ‘she’ is thrilled about being a girl. The last words in the book are, "A sequel, Vol. 2, will soon be available." I don’t think there was a sequel. However, if you know of one or of any other Gilbert stories I didn’t list in my checklist, please let me know.

The next Bilbrew illustrated Gilbert story, ‘Adventures in Petticoats’, begins as a classic petticoat punishment story. Robert, A fifteen-year-old boy, comes to live with his Aunt. He meets his two female cousins who his Aunt has dressed in ‘childish frocks barely reaching to their knees’. The girls are quite embarrassed about their attire:

"June," Aunty said, "Your petticoats are showing. How many times must I tell you that modest young ladies do not make a display of their petticoats?" June made a rather unsuccessful attempt to suppress the bouffant frilliness of her petticoats, and I must admit I enjoyed the view.

Gilbert adds two other characters that are frequently seen in petticoat punishment stories, the pert young maid and ‘Mademoiselle’. The next morning, Mademoiselle wakes Robert:

"I’m here to help you dress," she said with a chuckle.

I informed her that I was quite capable of dressing myself.

"But Master Robert," she protested, "however would you manage your stays?"

Her words sank into my mind slowly, and I shouted, "My stays! What are you talking about?"

"Your aunt has instructed that you are to be attired in the same fashion as your cousins."

Finally I managed to stammer, "You . . . you mean . . . " She nodded. It must be a joke! I began to laugh. She opened the door and called for help. They dragged me to the bath.

Pantied, petticoated, beribboned, made up and perfumed, Robert is escorted to breakfast:

The girls giggled with delight as Aunty said, "And how is my pretty little niece this morning?" If Mademoiselle had not taken a firm grip on my arm, I would have fled the scene in panic.

Great start! This last drawing is one of my favorites. However, one page later Robert begins to like the transformation. First, he decides that the sensations of his panties and petticoats caressing him are pleasurable. Then he finds that being petticoated released some secret desire and he loves it.

I scrupulously avoid these conversions in my writing. Some readers have commented that my stories don’t have happy endings. Perhaps that is a result of my never wanting the ‘hero’ to accept his transformation or be free of it. As I have said, I believe that a willing victim eliminates all tension.

‘Transformed’ is the last of the four Bilbrew illustrated Gilbert stories. In the 1960’s, I purchased a Utopian press printing with only seventeen drawings (some censored). I thought there must be more of the story because some of the Leslie stories had drawings of Vernon, the twelve year old ‘hero’ of ‘Transformed’.

Thirty years later I found a few more pages of the story. They were printed as 8 x 10 photos with text on one half of the page and art on the other just like ‘Panty Raiders’. A year later, I finally got a complete copy.

The story is quite different from the other three in as much as it deals with the corporal punishment and bondage of a girl as well as the petticoat punishment of a boy. Most of the petticoat punishment art was reused in the ‘Leslie’ stories. However, I have never seen the bondage art reprinted.

Vernon’ parents are leaving to run a plantation in the wilderness for a few years. During that time, he will live with Mrs. Hartley and her 14-year-old daughter, Angela.
Mrs. Hartley has many rules, but of course the children do not obey them. For their misdeeds, the maid, Elsie, spanks them. Furious, they wait for their chance and trap, strip and beat her. A

Mrs. Hartley interrupts them, and the next day they wait nervously to learn their punishment. They are to be flogged. However, since Elsie is in no condition to do it, the punishment is postponed a week until the day before school begins.

Vernon is relieved that he has a week’s reprieve. However, the next morning . . .

Elsie handed me a small garment of white satin, ordering me to put it on before she returned. A crimson flush flooded my cheeks when I saw it was a pair of girl’s panties. I would have protested if I had not sensed from Elsie’s expression that she would put them on me if I didn’t myself.

She curls his hair with a hot iron and then brings another garment for him:

A sudden spasm of horror shot through his slender frame. His eyes popped as he saw the lace on the edge of the garment. With a yell of pure fright, he dashed for the door. Alas! It was locked.

Fully dressed as a girl, Vernon ached to tear the dress off remove his panties and petticoats and rip them into thousands of pieces. But it all must be a joke:

Vernon looked searchingly at Mrs. Hartley. "W..w..when can I have my own clothes back. Please. Madame?" he asked timidly.

"Don’t be silly, boy!" she said briskly, "These are your own clothes now!"

As soon as he was alone, Vernon went to the woodshed and ripped off his hateful clothes. This behavior only caused him to be laced into a long corset and put back into his petticoats.

The book ends with him realizing that his punishment will include going to school -- transformed.

Angela in the meantime is introduced to corsets and bondage. Her treatment is reminiscent of the Klaw stories that Bilbrew did earlier in his career.

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