"He who cannot obey himself will be commanded." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club. Our weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.
Once again, before we get started, I would like to thank the female commenters who have recently joined us and to extend an invitation to all others who may be inclined to move from “lurker” to “commenter” status. We like having you around.
I hope you all had a good week. Mine seemed to be an extension of a year in which it seems like every damn thing that can go wrong does.
I feel like the above meme is right, but it also means I am fucked, because I’m already drinking plenty of coffee; sex could probably be amped up but that's clearly not the source of my problems; part of my bad luck involves unanticipated expenses and the outflow of money, yet this administration’s fucked up approach to tariffs sure as hell isn’t putting any money in my brokerage account; and, more booze would just exacerbate all the shit that was wrong in my most recent physical exam.
On the other hand . . .
I don’t have a lot to add to last week’s discussion. It was a narrow topic, and thank you to all those who took the time to give us the details of the mechanics of your spanking sessions. Prior to that topic, Norton had dissed those very tactical/mechanical kind of topics, saying he preferred those that were more psychologically penetrating. So, this week, I’ll switch gears to one of those (which I admit I prefer anyway.)
A few weeks ago, Doug had these
two comments:
"Dan, what about spanking not as discipline for any specific infraction, but as a pure expression of power, to make clear who is the boss? Would that not be as powerful as punishment? It is for me because it also makes the spanking “real”. What’s important to me is that she’s not just pretending to be the boss, she is for real. The less consensual it feels, the better. In my head I think that’s not very healthy, but I can’t help being wired this way."
"The thing that really turns me on about DD is the idea that it isn’t fully consensual because it is based on the wife having real authority over her husband, the way parents and teachers used to have real authority over kids when I was growing up. In my fantasies, which began when I was a kid, spankings were always non-consensual, like the spankings I got for real."
It seems like we cover fairly regularly the topic of consent or, more precisely, the desire some of us have to feel like our discipline is imposed whether we like or not. So, I was a little surprised to find that the last time we covered it as a full-blown topic seems to have been way back in 2021. Since it's been awhile, hopefully this won’t feel stale to many of our current contributors.
I predict in advance that I’ll be fighting off the Google censors all week on this one. But, they will me misinterpreting the essence of the discussion, wrongly importing connotations from one context to another in which they don’t really fit. Here’s how Alan put it last time:
The consensual model has been borrowed from contemporary norms of sexual behavior and it is not a perfect fit for adult spanking. That is why we have invented incongruities like “consensual non consent”. “Consent” doesn’t fit that well both due to the nature of disciplinary spanking and due to the needs of most spankos to feel a punishment is being imposed on them or they are being made to obey. To complicate it even further, a lot of the spankings I get are really not wanted (at the time) and for sure during many spankings I do not want it to continue (at that time). Later,of course, I am very happy she did what she did. Thus the dilemma, how does one consent to something really not wanted (at the time)? The answer I think is that consent once given is in practice rarely withdrawn as long as the relationship continues.
I had written in that post about a real-life scandal that was making the news and that I was very intrigued by. It involved a “self-improvement” group called NXIVM, which was the subject of an extensive New York Times article under the headline, “Inside Nxivm, the Sex Cult That Preached Empowerment.”
In its more benign aspects, NXIVM was a collaborative self-help group that
used certain methods to help people get sufficient “leverage” over themselves
to overcome sticky bad habits or motivate higher levels of performance. That could involve aversive consequences for not meeting one’s goals or commitments, along
with some creative means for making those consequences stick. For example, if
someone in a support group failed to meet their exercise goals, they and
the entire group might have to go for a 6:00 am run. Basically, it was peer pressure, but the idea was to tie goals to coercive consequences. Kind of like DD, right?
The consequences got more serious at some levels of the organization. For example, they employed something called “collateral” to “help” people get additional leverage over themselves. For example, a participant might write a letter with some embarrassing detail about their life, or perhaps something even more embarrassing, like a naked picture. If they failed at whatever thing they were trying to do, like quitting smoking for example, the embarrassing letter or picture might be released to a pre-set list of friends or family.
It was consensual, as the participants agreed to it; indeed, they wanted this additional form of coercive motivation. But, once put in motion, there was supposed to be a real risk that the “collateral” might be acted on (though, I haven’t seen anything indicating it ever was).
Senior leaders of the group were later prosecuted, and some pretty nasty stuff came out. I’m absolutely not defending any of it. But, the stuff that was in the earlier New York Times article had been pretty tame, and I admit that for a while I was genuinely fascinated by the whole thing.
A couple of popular streaming platforms later developed series about the group, and one revealed that at some level of the organization, there had been a disciplinary spanking angle and a pretty heavy Dominance/submission vibe, exemplified in this text string:
ZM was maybe only slightly less fascinated than I, which led him to this observation:
Perhaps the more interesting issue than consent (which we have talked about extensively) is coercion. What role does coercion play in spanking? Just because DD is consensual, it doesn't mean that coercion isn't also being employed. Why do I take down my pants and bend over for a spanking? And what effect does that coercion have? Is it desirable or undesirable? And what does the interplay between coercion, dominance, and submission look like? BTW, coercion doesn't just apply to spanking. About the most interesting thing about the whole NXIUM cult was their use of "collateral" to use to coerce members into achieving their personal goals.
Even though we both know that I will in every case submit to her will on this, I still want to feel like she is coercing me somewhat. I want her to threaten me about what will happen if I check out other women, for example. Right now, I am trying to lose weight, and I like knowing (though I dread it) that if I don't hit my weight target my bottom is going to pay a hefty price. In a very real way, this is similar to NXIUM, only it is physical and personal.
A commenter named Brett
chimed in with this observation about how some of us seem to be wired to want
spanking discipline to feel imposed by an outside will that overcomes our own:
Thinking about it, I’d have to say that the "why" does matter. If I’m obedient to my wife because I’m such a nice guy, or I love her just that much, or I’m naturally submissive, hate confrontations or other such character traits, it’s missing the key ingredient that my obedience is compelled by the threat of a spanking. Obedience is also demonstrated in the submission to punishment, but what makes it so embarrassing and humbling is when obedience is perceived to be compelled, not by willing submission, but by her will to power.
For me, the “imposed” element of DD—being brought to heel by another’s expression of will and power—has always been a key part of the attraction. In fact, the very first fiction story on the Disciplinary Wives Club website—hence, probably the first story I read about real adult disciplinary spanking—is about a woman whose friend advised her to spank her husband, imposing the entire DD relationship, as retribution for some comments her husband made about the friend’s attractive legs.
After she summarily informs him he is going to be spanked when they get home, at first he thinks she must be joking. Then he objects, then tries to plead, then finally crumples under her superior will:
“At that point Becky's look became determined; her voice quiet, but assured. "I will forget it after I have brought you to tears, dear, then all will be forgiven. But I don't want you to think for one instant that there is ANY way you can avoid my spanking you. There isn't. And furthermore, in the future, I shall make it a practice to spank you whenever I feel you need it, and you will accept it as you did your mother's spankings. Most men can profit from a dose of maternal discipline, and from now on you will be one of the lucky ones."
My favorite story on the DWC website, Even More (written by our frequent contributor Al), is more consensual at the outset, in that the husband affirmatively suggests they try the DD relationship. But, from the very first spanking forward, he argues, balks and (verbally) resists each time a real spanking has been earned, and each spanking vignette in the story involves his wife overcoming his resistance with her increasingly confident assertions of her own will and power.
So, for me, from the very beginning I’ve wanted our DD relationship to feel less consensual than it actually is. I have no doubt that Doug is right to connect it to wanting something that feels more like parental discipline, where my views on whether a spanking should happen were utterly irrelevant to the outcome. Having asked Anne for this kind of relationship, I really do wish there was something she could do that would make it clear that, while being spanked by her may have been my idea initially, there is no going back.
And, there undeniably elements of our DD relationship that do happen without my express buy-in. Sometimes, it’s very subtle. Here in this group, we often discuss aspects of the spanking mechanics or dynamic that we don’t really like or would like to change. In recent years, I’ve gotten more sensitive to the fact that if I don’t like something or have a strongly adverse reaction to it, that may be a sign that her authority is working exactly as it should – if this is real, then there should be all sorts of elements I don’t like yet have no real choice about.
And, there is of course the inherent lack of subjective consent in getting a spanking that you really do not want in the moment, and that you really, really want to end, even if you undeniably consent to it happening again in the future. Alan's quote above says that even though consent can theoretically be withdrawn, it probably rarely is, and my sense is that's true thanks to some combination of her learning to enjoy exercising her willpower and him becoming increasingly psychologically bound to do what she wants.
Most of the time, the elements that feel somewhat nonconsensual are subtle and mild. Yet, part of me really does not want that to be the case.
I have no idea why I want to feel like I’m so thoroughly under another’s authority in this one facet of my life, and seemingly nowhere else. I’ve never been able to figure out how I could be so completely anti-authoritarian at work, yet I have this thing for being under the authority of a strong, aggressive woman at home.
Part of me clearly craves being spanked over my objection and in circumstances that violate my sense of personal boundaries. I’ve talked here about a dream I had that involved being taken out of an office gathering to be spanked by a male office manager. It was made clear by everyone in the room—including my wife and dad, who were both oddly in attendance at this large office function—that it was going to happen because I richly deserved it. I was led out of the party by the office manager, knowing that he would bring me back afterward with everyone knowing I had been spanked. It was very mortifying.
It’s by far the most vivid spanking dream I’ve ever had. I had one recently that touched on similar themes of being spanked involuntarily. Though the dream was shorter and less vivid than the other, the consent themes were, if anything, even stronger. I’ve lost a lot of the details, but I had accidentally gone into another couple’s house. The wife was surprised and disturbed to see a stranger in the house, and I tried to leave as soon as I realized the error. But, her husband—a big, burly man, much larger and older than me—followed me out, carrying a large belt in his hand. In that funny way of dreams, we seemed to know each other, but he doesn’t clearly fit anyone I know in real life (in my office dream, the manager who took me out was, in fact, the manager of my office). He was a very big guy, with a big unruly beard. He made it clear I was going to get strapped with the belt. I ran away and made it back to my house, but he appeared out of nowhere and reiterated that I was going to be spanked. I was very resistant to it, but he kept making it clear it was going to happen. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I woke up before it did.
I don’t dream about spanking very often, and that when I do the dreams often involve parental presence and/or a strong element of coercion or embarrassment is suggestive of something my subconscious wants and/or fears. That the person holding the belt in this recent dream was a large, domineering man, suggests I want—or think I want—something that feels more coercive, less consensual, more threatening.
The reality is these relationships are, should be, and must be consensual. I could physically overpower Anne to resist a spanking anytime. I think the closest we’ve come to me feeling truly disempowered in a way that felt almost like consensual non-consent were a couple of times when I had done something that I saw as very minor, but she delivered a very hard spanking for it.
The imbalance between the spanking I thought I deserved and the spanking I actually received did accentuate the uneven power hierarchy. It was a consensual hierarchy, but one that resulted in a real power imbalance. And, while immediately afterward it felt very disquieting, later on it was a very big turn-on.
So, I share Doug’s fascination with spanking scenarios that feel like I am not the one in control and that things will happen whether I like or not. That’s why this sentence in his comment really struck me:
“What’s important to me is that she’s not just pretending to be the boss, she is for real.”
I don’t have a concrete set of questions in mind for this topic. Do with it what you will.
Have a great week.
