Virginia restaurateur Henry Allen Fitzsimmons has hit upon a welfare plan the GOP can get behind: He sought out vulnerable young women who needed help and gave them money for education and childcare. All he asked in return was that they submit to being spanked, by him, on demand.

Fitzsimmons, who owns a Virginia Beach bar and grill called Envy, has been accused by six women of sexual assault and abduction in connection with what he calls the Spencer Scholarship Plan. From the AP:

For months, Fitzsimmons gave each of the women $200 weekly, promised to pay for their college tuition, treated them to lavish nights on the town and even bought one a car as part of his so-called Spencer Scholarship Plan. They were spanked if they violated rules, such as failing to call Fitzsimmons or drinking too much alcohol. [snip] One 21-year-old woman testified Thursday that the day she joined the program in November, Fitzsimmons spanked her and gave her $300. He paid for her to live in an oceanfront suite and gave her a $200 weekly allowance. In return, she was required to walk 20 blocks each day, keep a log of her meals and spending and refrain from drugs. When she didn't, she was spanked.

Indeed! Here's the Spencer Scholarship Plan website, the URL for which was registered by one Allen Fitzsimmons. It lays out the principle behind the scholarships—educational and life lessons in concert with "carefully regulated corporal punishment"—and features a sample contract [pdf] wherein the applicant pledges to "get ready for the punishment promptly when asked to do so" and "ask for spankings when I feel I need them."

Among the other benefits afforded Fitzimmons' charges—aside from the "general benefit that always comes from the enforcement of intelligent discipline," of course!—included jobs at his restaurant and free birthday parties for their children. According to the AP, many of the women Fitzsimmons um, helped, are single mothers and recovering addicts. And according to some of the women, spanking wasn't always enough to instill the value of discipline and submission to authority: Fitzsimmon is also accused of assaulting them with a "curtain rod, a hairbrush and a horse riding crop." A riding crop! Fitzsimmons was living the fetish film dream. And now he's in jail, probably still living the fetish film dream.