Disciplinary Spanking's Role in Attitude, Mood and Mindset [Club Meeting - 567]

“For the first year of marriage I had basically a bad attitude. I tended to place my wife underneath a pedestal.” - Woody Allen

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Wives Club – Tribute blog.  Our weekly on-line gathering of women and men who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship of the type advocated by the former Disciplinary Wives Club (archived copy in the “Links I Like” list, below right).

 

I hope you had a great week.  Ours was eventful, at least by our recent standards, on a couple of fronts. 

 

First, we took a little road trip, knocking a couple of national parks off our list.  

 

Nothing too adventurous, as hiking and similar activities one might set out to do in a national park is still beyond my capabilities.  But, a piece at a time . . .

And, in any event, it was prime “leaf peeping” season.  I love this time of year, although our dry summer apparently meant "this time of year" came faster and is staying shorter than most years.

 

Second, and more germane to the subject of this blog, we dipped our toes back into DD spanking.  Though, in context, it’s probably more accurate to say we dipped our toes back into plain old spanking, as there wasn’t any real discipline involved.  It was more about testing the waters or, more specifically, testing my tailbone and its ability to withstand any level of spanking with any instrument.  We used a cane, and a tool I recently bought that is sort of like a birch bundle, comprised of three small-diameter canes.   

 

My thought process was that, while canes have never been effective for us, they have the benefit of flexibility and, therefore, might be less prone to re-injuring a still sore tailbone.

 

The “good” news is it went more or less as anticipated.  The birch-like tool did sting a fair amount, and the combination of that tool and the cane did leave more marking than I usually display, which I assume was a function of not being spanked at all for over five months.   

 

But, there wasn’t anything very satisfying about it.  Anne was pretty tentative, understandably, given that it was basically a test run to see what my butt could handle. And, because it had that limited purpose, it didn’t feel disciplinary, despite the fact that it was painful and did leave significant marks.  

 

It's probably time to acknowledge that, while I always feel like I should appreciate the cane, given how iconic it is, for whatever reason it doesn't do anything for either of us.  Also, the whole scenario emphasized just how core the accountability/consequences element is to me; without it, the act of spanking itself does little or nothing for me.

 

Still, the fact that the session didn't result in any "bad" pain, means we can start trying to get back to our normal DD routine.  I think it’s probably wise to start with the hairbrush before graduating to her bath brush or a paddle, but those are coming for sure.

 

How do I feel about it?  Well, there is an element of timidity and anxiety.  This has been the longest pause we’ve taken since starting DD twenty-plus years ago.  It feels like starting over, because it kind of is, with all that a "first real spanking" entails.

 

 

The anxiety is exacerbated by the fact that I’ve spent almost six months hyper-focused on protecting my injured areas, and it's a significant mental challenge to purposefully create a situation in which pain in that area is the goal.

 

I also suspect it may take some time to get used to having spanking lingering in the background as a live threat.  I don’t feel like I’ve taken advantage of my physical impairments to get away with anything, yet the lack of any prospect of real consequences had more of an impact than I might have foreseen. 

 

I talked about this a little bit a couple of months ago but it didn’t get much response, so I’ll highlight it again.  One of the things that has surprised me about this hiatus is the impact on my attitude.  More specifically, how the complete absence of DD as even a possibility highlighted just how much DD has affected my attitude and mindset over the last 20+ years.

 

It’s a hard thing to admit, but in the absence of having someone impose boundaries, I start feeling like, for lack of a better word, a dick. A stressed out, pessimistic, anxiety-prone dick. 

 

It’s not that I’ve been acting like a dick.  As I said, I really don’t think I took advantage of this hiatus to act out.  Yet, I also think that in the months immediately prior to my accident, Anne had been getting more assertive about things like disrespect, caustic comments, etc.  Even if I didn't consciously let loose with more of those attitude-driven behaviors, both of us probably were aware of the problem with DD no longer being a live possibility to address them.

 

 

And, regardless of any objective deterioration in behavior, at some point it dawned on me that my attitude and mindset had degenerated and, moreover, that I used to feel like this all the time before DD came into our lives.  Over the last six months, I’ve felt annoyed more often, been more prone to saying snotty things (or at least thinking snotty thoughts), and I generally have felt more negative and judgmental.

 

What dawned on me was that this was my basic mindset before I first discovered The Disciplinary Wives Club and DD.  And, while I wasn’t as clear back then as I am now regarding what exactly it was about DD that appealed to me so strongly, I did recognize that there were too many times when my temper or argumentative attitude made me hard to live with. In fact, when I pitched the idea of DD to Anne, one of the main points I made was that it would give her a way to keep my attitude in check by imposing consequences if and when she was the victim of it.

 

Over the intervening years, I’ve recognized that DD could fix individual instances of a bad attitude.  In fact, it could even fix the content reflected in an attitude, such that I could think I was right about something we argued about but, once my pants were down and her bath brush was descending with force, suddenly I could see the legitimacy of her point of view.

 

I also knew that part of me craved boundaries.  What this accident and lengthy recuperation have brought home to me is that, when left entirely to my own devices, the absence of any prospect of a hard spanking for  particular bad acts results in a generally worse attitude and mindset. I just plain feel better when someone imposes limits and boundaries on me.  

 

Being spanked for attitude wasn't a part of my teen or early adult experience.  Now that I've had this epiphany about the role that our DD relationship plays in keeping my attitude in a good place, I really wonder how life might have been had my parents, or a significant other, put me over their knee not for some specific act or omission but just for being a jerk or copping an attitude. In fact, I believe that lack of discipline when growing up contributed significantly to feeling chronically stressed out in my 20s and 30s.  Without external boundaries, I always had to try to control myself and get myself out of trouble, which seemed great when I was a teen but laid down some bad emotional patterns.

So, for me, the maternal attitude reflected in this meme never happened:

 

And, it wouldn't have had to be a parent doling out discipline for bad attitude.  I recall teachers in junior high and high school calling me out for attitude issues.  Yet, though corporal punishment was still very much a thing back then, none of them took the next logical step of paddling me until my attitude improved (or until I learned to fake it better).  There were a couple of times that I got sent to the principal's office with the expectation (in my mind) that I was going to be paddled, but it didn't actually happen.  Again, I wonder how my mindset might have benefited if it had.

When we're living the DD dynamic on a semi-regular basis, I tend to perceive my spanking needs in functional/behavioral terms: I do something that we've agreed is spankable, or I do something careless or stupid, and I know I need a spanking to reinforce that there are consequences for bad or thoughtless behavior.

 

But, that’s different from feeling the need for the dynamic itself. What I’m perceiving now is how much, before this accident, I was beginning to feel Anne’s authority--backed up by spankings and spanking threats--as a positive force underlying our whole relationship. Now, I notice it by virtue of its absence, and I notice the weakening of what was a strengthening background of respect and deference.

 

 

This realization about the strength of the correlation between DD and the quality of my day-to-day attitude feels profound, not because I wasn’t aware of it in principle but, rather, because the chronically stressed out, negative mindset of my 20s and 30s—which the frustration of my recovery and the lack of DD allowed to creep in again—seemed so distinct that it was almost like that younger version of me was an entirely different person.  One who probably could have profited from much stronger discipline much earlier in life.

 

Several years ago, one of our then-regular female contributors, Marisa, drew this connection between spanking, humbling, and attitude.

 

“That 'humbling function' allows you to let go of that ego, accept authority and become the (mostly) wonderful, charming and loving men you really are. It frees you to be yourself and that is what we are after. That is also why spanking without the mental and emotional parts of it doesn't really work. The message never gets through because you are not prepared to hear it before you have been humbled. (Parenthetically, I think a man who needs to have his pants taken down by his wife in order to behave should be plenty embarrassed).” 

 

In terms of severity, I don't really know how hard a spanking needs to be in order to result in an "attitude adjustment".  It might be that it's more about the consistency of the DD relationship itself and feeling like the boundaries are always there.  Maybe it doesn't take a lot as long as it happens at the first sign that an attitude problem is taking root.

 

Yet, I also think that the cathartic impact of a hard disciplinary spanking plays a key role.  As long-time readers know, I've always had a morbid fascination with crying, and I think part of that is it seems like it would be such a profoundly humbling experience, and part of me associates that kind of humbling and surrender with dropping the ego issues that lead to bad mindsets.  It's about clearing out the bad stuff to let in the good.

 

 

I note that among the DWC fiction stories is one called Attitude Adjustment, in which the wife--while exhibiting a loving/nurturing approach--delivers a hard two-part spanking with a brush and a strap, to cure her husband's moodiness and bad attitude.  She doesn't take it easy on him just because the spanking is to correct a bad attitude, versus correcting/punishing bad conduct. To the contrary, when she's tempted to stop, she instead gives him a dozen hard ones with the strap because she knows that he needs it and that, in the end, sitting on a sore bottom for several days will help prevent the bad attitude from returning.

 

What role does DD play for you with respect to attitude and mindset?  If it is an important tool in fixing attitude, is it about temporary moodiness, temper, etc.? Or, have you experienced the more fundamental kind of transformation I’ve been exploring; one in which it feels like after DD became a part of your relationship, your attitude/mindset shifted to such an extent that it was almost a personality change? 

 

I hope you all have a good week.

Disciplinary Spankings as Incurring a Cost - The Necessity of Severity (Club Meeting - 566)

"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else." ― Benjamin Franklin

Welcome back to The Disciplinary Wives Club – Tribute blog.  Our weekly on-line gathering of women and men who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship of the type advocated by the former Disciplinary Wives Club (archived copy in the “Links I Like” list, below right).

 

Hello all.  I hope you had a great week.  In many ways, my last week or so has been a big improvement over the 18+ weeks that came before.  It had been a tough month.  After progressing depressingly slowly but somewhat steadily in literally getting back on my feet, I had a major setback that lasted almost a full month.  It’s only been the last week or so that I’ve gotten back to where I was over a month ago.  But, once I got there, I pushed out of my comfort zone a bit.  I took some walks in the forest that weren’t super easy even when I was in good shape. And, on the five-month anniversary of my accident, I got back on a motorcycle for the first time. I was super tentative, but that probably was good, all things considered . . .

 

Anyway, it was nice feeling like there was progress made, even if I paid a bit for the over-exertion.  I was starting to feel pretty damn isolated and bound by a seemingly never changing routine.  Usually, it's great to have unstructured time on your hands, but I can testify that there is such a thing as too much time with too little you can do.

 

Which almost led me to skip posting, for the third week in a row, as Anne and I are about to head out on a little road trip.  But, I hate it when more than a couple of weeks go by without a substantive post.  So, I decided to see if there was more to be made of a suggestion TG put out there last week:

 

Dan, I know you’re always interested in possible contents for posts and discussions. This may be a little too vague and esoteric but I’ll put it out there any and you can use it or not, as you wish. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently, trying to understand better the motivations and emotions behind this DD lifestyle that we’re in. We’ve covered much of this stuff in the past. My view is that these punishments provide her with a way to work off any anger, assuage any feelings of guilt I may have, and overall, hugely benefit a marriage as problems don’t hang around poisoning the atmosphere for hours or days. I’ve been coming to the conclusion, however, that there’s more to it than that, related to cost - in the sense that to be real, a punishment must have some kind of real cost associated with it (I don’t mean monetary.) I guess I’ll elaborate if this turns into a discussion. The second area I’ve been pondering will only resonate with some of the participants here. I have had an interest in spanking since my teens (on either side of the paddle) but only discovered DD when I found the DWC website around 2000. Spanking was obviously sexual for me until then, but I’ve never been into the idea of gentle. Whether giving or receiving, I always expected it to be at least quite hard, with a good after-glow. So my question is, for those who have such an interest, and I guess people who use maintenance spankings as well, what distinguishes a real punishment spanking from any other kind? Is it just a matter of intensity or is there more to it?”

 

I wasn’t sure I fully got the first point he raised and asked for clarification. He replied with:

 

Hmmmm. I’ll try, I don’t promise it will be very coherent, but here goes….. One can apologize for something said, done, or not done. It’s only words, it’s easy and costs nothing. I’d suggest it may be a good start but it can be just a brush-off to make it go away with minimal effort. So I guess the next step is buying flowers or something like that. It’s something I do sometimes for no particular reason, but I’d never do that to say sorry. It’s always felt to me like a cop-out. Again, there’s no real cost to this - I don’t count a few dollars for the flowers. I suppose this feels like “I can do stuff that I know will upset her, whether deliberately or carelessly, and just make it better without it really inconveniencing me in any way.” I see a punishment spanking as something that, in terms of genuine physical pain, costs me something. It should be long and hard enough that I really want to avoid it. If I’ve screwed up in some way, it shouldn’t be too easy for me to repent, and saying sorry or buying flowers is too easy. It also clearly is related to behavior modification, which I think we’ve discussed before. The punishment should be severe enough to discourage a repeat of whatever the behavior was. (Which of course ties into my second question) So I guess “cost” to me is a genuine consequence that I really want to avoid. I’m not sure that that’s any clearer, but hopefully it will help.

 

As an aside, TG’s reference to flowers conjures up one of the very first spanking drawings that I recall getting my attention after I found the Disciplinary Wives Club and became near-obsessed with experiencing real discipline.  It was this one by Jay Em.

 

This one, and several other pieces of Jay Em’s work, tie in nicely with some of TG’s musings, as a recurring theme is a husband (and in a few instances a son or daughter) being held to account in circumstances where they seem to be surprised that they are unable to talk, or emotionally manipulate, their way out of it.  It also ties into one of TG’s points about the nature of a true “cost”: “If I’ve screwed up in some way, it shouldn’t be too easy for me to repent, and saying sorry or buying flowers is too easy.”

 

I think one reason I needed clarification about this point about “cost” is that, for me, the “penance” element—which I tend to think of more in terms of “accountability”—is so firmly at the core of DD for me that, without it, I wouldn’t consider a spanking to be “real” at all.  It’s so central to my DD interest that I don’t think of DD as existing without it.

 

It’s why, for me, DD has always required two elements: First, the spanking must be for some real offense, misbehavior, or significant carelessness.  Second, the spanking must be severe enough that it feels like authentic punishment. 

 

A third element that isn’t absolutely required but adds a critical additional element of realism is that the spanking is “imposed”, i.e., I’m going to get it whether I agree with it or not. In other words, I’m being punished because someone else thinks I need to pay a cost, to use TG’s description.

 

TG’s comment raises the issues of apologies in relation to DD and suggests that the problem with them is they are simply too easy.  I largely agree, though I will say that I personally find apologizing for bad behavior very hard at times.  And, sometimes the verbal recognition of responsibility adds to the humbling process.

 

 

But, I still get his point.  Apologizing, with or without flowers, is sort of a “necessary but insufficient” element of getting to the other side of the bad behavior.

 

And, the fact that an apology isn’t always sufficient doesn’t mean it isn’t sincere. It very well may be. When searching for appropriate memes for this post, I found examples going both ways.  In a few, the wife expressed something to the effect of, “You say you’re sorry, but I want to make sure you really are.”

 

 

In others, the wife acknowledges the apology and its likely sincerity but decides that, for whatever reason, it still requires an additional “cost” in the form of a spanking.  The gist was usually that, although she didn’t doubt he was sorry for what he did or didn’t do, she wanted him to be sorrier than that.  There is an inherent recognition that while expressions of regret may be genuine, a spanking inherently increases that regret in a very tangible way.

 

 

It also seems generally true that even if the husband is truly sorry and feeling regret when he apologizes, a spanking ensures that he stays that way for a while.

Another thing about the cost of a spanking -- the wives and husbands' respective perspectives are likely very different as it is happening.   From the man's perspective, the cost imposed by a spanking seems very significant at the time it's happening or about to happen.  

Yet, from the wife's perspective, it's just part of making you the "sorry boy" she knows you sometimes need to be.  Perhaps not always, but she often likely comes at it from a much more casual perspective.  You've done something wrong, and she's going to make you pay up for it, but in the scheme of things, it's not that big a deal.

For her, right?  She's clearly right about the fact that, in the overall scheme of a DD relationship, each spanking is just one of those things.  It doesn't last all that long, and after she makes you pay the appropriate cost for your conduct, you both move on.  Yet, for us spanked husbands, it feels like so much more than that at the time.

 

Another angle on the role of paying a real cost in the form of a hard spanking is that it may increase the stakes in a way that leads to better decisions.  In my work life, I was pretty prone to thinking about authority and rules in terms of: “It’s better to say you’re sorry than to ask permission.” In many life situations, that may indeed be true.  However, the risk-reward calculus changes a little when an empowered Disciplinary Wife enters into the picture.

 

Regarding severity and TG’s observation that, for him, spankings must be hard for him to have any interest in them, I share that bent.  For me, it’s all part of a package – for a spanking scenario to do anything for me emotionally, it has to combine the elements of a real offense, that is punished with a real spanking, and the reality of the spanking hinges to a large extent on it being very hard to take.  

 

I think there is also a connection between the severity of the spankings and Anne's perception of her own power and the reality of the hierarchy we've agreed to.  She's always said that it's not the spanking itself that she enjoys (though I think that has changed over the years) but, rather, the feeling of power she gets when she tells me to get ready for my spanking and watches me comply.  She has said that part of that dynamic involves knowing how hard it must be for me to submit to her in that way, knowing how hard she is going to spank me.

 

Looking back, the lines on the DWC website that held the most morbid fascination for me when I first discovered it were those that emphasized the severity of a real disciplinary spanking and the cost one imposes on the husband:

 

“The training methods suggested do involve strict discipline, and strong doses of corporal punishment. . .. Some of the physical punishments described are meant to be painful. There is no question that welts will be raised and bottoms bruised . . .”

 

“A dose of corporal punishment should have a dual effect. It should be extremely painful while it is being applied, and the area it was applied to should remain very tender for a period of time afterwards.”

 

“If you give a spanking the way it should be given, the results should still show a week later. He should wince every time he tries to sit for days after.”

 

To those who don’t have this bent, it may sound not just harsh but overly so.  Yet, the DWC emphasized that the men who want a real DD relationship want and need the spankings to be that hard:

 

“If you feel the least bit sorry for him during all this, remember, a submissive man does not want a weak or lenient woman. He wants someone very strict and dominant. If he wanted anything different, he wouldn't be over your knees in the first place. This isn't a small child you are holding over your lap by force -- this is a grown man who needs and wants a hard spanking.”

 

As TG points out, his need to pay a significant cost is tied up with the issue of severity, which may or may not be present with non-punishment spankings, like maintenance.  We don’t do maintenance, so I will let others comment on his particular questions around that. I do recall that some who use maintenance regularly, like Al, have opined that although maintenance spankings are less severe than punishment spankings, for them they are still substantial. 

 

A final note on severity.  I saw this picture a while back, and it caught my attention for a couple of reasons. First, I have a thing for spanking pictures and art involving women ascending stairs, though it's usually the spanker climbing stairs with a paddle.  Second, the level of damage to her bottom is pretty true to how much I used to mark after a hard spanking of the type we've been discussing in this post, though I now don't exhibit anything close to this.  Anyway, something about this one attracted me so much, I've wanted to find a reason to post it. 

 

 

I hope you all have a great week.  Because we’ll be on the road, I may be less active in weighing in on this one.  It’s also why I posted a little earlier in the week than usual.

No Post This Week

 Hi all. Sorry to do this two weeks in a row, but we have some family stuff going on this weekend, so I won't be posting.

No Post This Week

Hi all. I hope you're having a good weekend and, for those in the US, a peaceful and/or adventurous long holiday weekend.  

We had some social commitments this week that left me pretty worn out, with some errands to catch up on.  So, I'm going to enjoy my three-day weekend by doing a whole lot of nothing.

Have a great week.  Feel free to keep commenting on/discussing the DWC pamphlets I posted last week and any thoughts they stimulate for you.

DWC Pamphlets and Guides

Hi all.  I hope you had a great week.  Mine was maybe slightly better than the last three, though it is slow-going.  

I’m going to do something a little different this week.  For some reason, I’ve recently gotten a lot of inquiries about the DWC manuals/pamphlets that I quote here from time to time.  For those who don’t know, the original DWC website had a Store function, where people could buy DWC-branded spanking implement and download videos and “how to” manuals/pamphlets on various topics.  Unfortunately, after the DWC’s original domain name registration lapsed and they had to start up again at a new web address, the Store functionality didn’t return.

Over the years, I’ve gathered .pdf versions of most of the pamphlets from various sources.  But, most of them had copy protection, which disabled cut and paste functions, thereby preventing simply copying the content into a form I could post.

A few years ago, Aunt Kay’s husband, “Jerry”, sent me a “care package” with a bunch of computer disks (including old 3.5” hard disks that I had to buy an external drive to open – the things are ancient), CDs and DVDs.  Unfortunately, none of them had soft copies of the DWC pamphlets.  

However, a couple of years ago, Jerry sent me a Word document entitled, “The Disciplinary Wives Club: Behind the Scenes”.  It was an early-stage draft, and based on the introduction it was intended to be (a) a history of the DWC; and (b) a compilation of much of the DWC content.  The purpose of the latter seemed to be to preserve the website content so it could be made available in book or hardcopy form, in reaction to the previous incident of someone ripping off their website.  Unfortunately, as I said, it was an early-stage draft, and there wasn’t much new content at that stage.

But, I took a look at it last week, and it included three of the DWC pamphlets in Word format, including the “Woman’s Handbook” (aimed at female readers), the “Companion Guide” (aimed at male readers), and a “How to Scold During Discipline” (a “how to manual” on scolding).  

So, I cut and pasted those guides into blog posts, after creating a new blog site, which you can find at https://dwc-manuals.blogspot.com/.  I’ve also put a page link to that blog at the top of this blog.

Further, I had several electronic copies of a fourth manual, “Please Discipline Me: Persuading Your Partner”.  One of them was a black and white version that was missing one intro section.  It looks like something someone may have scanned from a hardcopy. BUT, it did allow cut and pasting, but the formatting was mostly lost.  I’ve gone through and tried to clean up formatting, which took forever, but it’s still messy and visually unsightly.  But, the content is there.

I asked permission from Jerry to do this, and he was fine with it.  Donn and I had exchanged some comments regarding IP rights.  I’ve always been a little leery about distributing these, as it’s not clear whether anyone other than Kay and Jerry contributed to them, but the reality is, I don’t have any reason to think anyone else did contribute to them, and unlike when the DWC was a live website, no one is trying to sell them, so by posting them here I am not depriving anyone with rights in them to any commercial opportunities.  (I do, fyi, have copies of at least some of DWC videos.  Those I will not make available, because I have no idea who most of the people featured in them are, and they might have objections to someone distributing videos of them engaging in those sorts of activities.)

So, enjoy. I haven’t enabled comments on the blog where these are hosted, so please direct any comments to this post.

What is More Important to Your DD Spanking Relationship - Dominance and Authority or "Fairness" (Club Meeting - 565)

“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.” — Abraham Maslow

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Wives Club – Tribute blog.  Our weekly on-line gathering of women and men who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship of the type advocated by the former Disciplinary Wives Club (archived copy in the “Links I Like” list, below right).

I hope you all had a good week.  Mine was another challenging one, and I’m running out of summer faster than I’m able to get past this physical setback.  But, it is what it is, I guess.

 

 

A couple of weeks ago, I tried out using a captioned spanking meme as a launching pad for a discussion about strictness.  It led to a good discussion about how we each define the level of strictness we want, or think we want.

 

One of the threads suggested an extension of the topic.  It began with a comment from Al about the effect of certain comments from his wife:

 

Comments whose purpose is to belittle or humiliate are a turnoff for me - and thankfully Susan doesn't find them tasteful either. On the other hand - comments that empower Susan's authority to spank at will are very much a turn on - such as Dan's example of "Are we clear?" Just a few days ago, Susan and I were having a minor difference of opinion, and I asked her why her idea was any better than mine. Her reply - "because I'm the one with the paddle". And, I just said "yes ma'am" and let it go. :)

 

 

That last part caused some concerns for T.:

 

I think I would have a bit of a problem if my wife and I had a difference of opinion on something, and she stated I’m the one with the paddle. I guess of course it depends on the circumstances.

 

Al responded:

 

Just to clarify, her comment was actually said in jest - as the issue at hand was of minor importance. Although - it does reflect her comfort level as a disciplinary wife - but we've been a DWC couple since 2001, so probably not unexpected.

 

Which led Norton to observe:

 

"Because I am the one with the paddle" is basically the same topic T and Dan were describing above, as they both had trouble accepting spankings they perceived as unfair or for trivial reasons. In our house, is if she feels motivated to spank for any reason, I have no desire to challenge her, and want her to be dominant. Ms. Terrapin said a while ago, when she realized that she didn't need to be fair, it freed her up to stop second guessing herself. Basically, she assumes the role of a strict mom, and she could stay out late every night if she wanted to, but that didn't mean he could. Of course, you would have to really trust her, and if she really was unfair or selfish, you would probably soon resent it. A future topic could be "what is more important to you in your relationship with your dominant wife - fairness or dominance? That may be an oversimplified question, but it might generate some discussion.

 

So, let’s do that as topic. 

 

Of course, as a preliminary matter, I’m guessing some may say the term “dominant wife” doesn't apply to them, as their wife is not, in fact, dominant. And, the fact that they may do so demonstrates just how separable DD is from FLR and Dominance/submission lifestyles. Note that I didn’t say it’s “separate” from those relationship styles, as there clearly are overlaps for many of us in practice.  But, the fact that some will say they are in a DD relationship but that their wife is not “dominant” shows that the act of discipline may be separate from decision-making power, even when it comes to what is spankable. 

 

I admit, I don’t spend much time thinking about “fairness” in our DD relationship.  But, admittedly, that may be because my wife is someone who does care about fairness and, in the context of DD, probably thinks about it more than I do.

 

And, even though I don’t concern myself that much about fairness, I don’t think I am on the same side of the line as Norton, based on the almost total discretion he is comfortable giving to his wife.  For me, when I say we have an “anytime, anywhere, for any reason” approach to DD, implicit in that is that I know Anne is not the kind of person who acts arbitrarily or might get drunk on her own power.  She’s just not.

 

So, I don’t spend much time thinking about fairness because, in the context of our relationship, I don’t have to.  But, focusing more on Norton’s specific question, our “anytime, anywhere, for any reason” approach probably answers that question by erring on the side of dominance, though I think of it more as “authority” (though that’s undoubtedly just semantics).  Psychologically, I know that I get huge benefits from having someone impose rules and guardrails, and for that to feel real, it can’t be subject to debates about “fairness” or proportionality.  I need to feel that her authority is pretty close to unlimited and, just as importantly, I need her to feel that way.

 

Again, that’s not to say there are not limits or that fairness isn’t a consideration.  If her decisions to spank were arbitrary, I would have a problem with that. But, for me, there is a difference between "arbitrary", on the one hand, and her declaring something is spankable and me thinking it shouldn't be, on the other.  She has a reason, and it may be as one-sided as, "Because that thing you keep doing annoys me," but that doesn't make it arbitrary.

 

 

Similarly, a spanking that was literally for no reason would be a big problem for me, though in part that is because Anne is so binary in her approach, with every spanking being at true punishment levels.

 

"Proportionality", in terms of the severity of the spanking matching the severity of the offense might be another aspect of "fairness", but I think its a potentially problematic one in the context of Domestic Discipline, which is between fully-grown adults.  It's tempting to say that a minor offense should get a moderate spanking, but the reality is, we are fully-grown men, and for a spanking to be disciplinary, it probably needs to be quite hard.  

 

It's also the case that many men who ask for these relationships have at attraction to spanking and, therefore, in order to overcome that attraction, it has to be hard. Period.

 

I also think there is a distinction between "looking for a reason" and there not being any reason.  Right now, thanks to our extended hiatus, I think Anne is very much looking for reasons to spank and wishing she could. But, taking advantage of some conveniently-timed misbehavior as an excuse to spank is not the same thing as not having a reason.

 

 

In any event, whatever concerns I might have about fairness are outweighed by the practical, psychological, and, yes, erotic benefits I get from her being in charge.  So, for me, the answer to Norton's question is that having her in an authoritative, dominant role is more important than abstract concerns about "fairness".

 

It’s also interesting (to me at least), that the concept of “fairness” is almost completely absent from most of the Disciplinary Wives Club website materials and guidebooks.  I ran a quick search on the two main relationship guidebooks, and the terms “fair” and “fairness” don’t appear anywhere in the texts.  I probably shouldn’t be surprised, given Aunt Kay’s emphasis on the unbounded nature of the wife’s authority:

 

The definition of a DWC relationship is that the woman's role involves providing moral and behavioral guidance to the man and he invests her with the absolute authority to decide upon and wield punishments accordingly. The man's role is to accept this authority and strive to gain benefit from it.

 

So, were Aunt Kay and the DWC founders cavalier or dismissive about notions of fairness? I don’t think so.  Just like I don’t think much about fairness because I know Anne does, the DWC seems to implicitly assume the wives’ decisions are grounded in wanting to do the right thing. One of the guides makes it explicit, observing:

 

“Women come from a feminine place of intrinsic wisdom and nurturance.  In fact, we do “know what’s good for men” more often than not.”

 

The wives’ authority was also grounded in the domestic nature of the relationship itself:

 

“Love comes first.  Only with a loving relationship can you have loving discipline. Discipline should be administered because it will benefit both parties.”

 

So, I think Aunt Kay didn’t talk much about “fairness”, because she felt it was already inherent in the maternal discipline mode the DWC promoted.

 

However, note that whatever the DWC founders might have thought about fairness, they would have agreed with Mrs. Terrapin as quoted by Norton that it doesn’t mean the parties are subject to the same rules.  One of the guidebooks noted:

 

“There is an implied "child/authority figure element to the DWC Lifestyle. If a kid gets a discipline spanking from Mom or Auntie, they don't get to say, "Well O.K. but you smoke and drive too fast, so you have to get a spanking too". They just have to accept it, like it or not.”

 

How about you?  How would you answer Norton’s question as which is more important to you, dominance/authority or fairness?

 

Finally, I came across this picture the other day. It seemed to me to perfectly encapsulate how some of us are innately fascinated by female authority, and for some of you it happened at a formative age.

 

 

Have a great week. 

Frequent Spankings for Small Things - a Maintenance Subsitute? (Club Meeting - 564)

“If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.” — William H. McRaven

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Wives Club – Tribute blog.  Our weekly on-line gathering of women and men who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship of the type advocated by the former Disciplinary Wives Club (archived copy in the “Links I Like” list, below right).

 

I hope you had a great week.  Mine was another fairly bad one, as I’m having a hard time recovering from my recent setback.  I guess in my late 50s I don’t bounce back as well as I used to.  Getting old is not for sissies, yet I prefer it to the only known alternative.

 

 

We had a fairly good discussion last week, especially considering the set up being a single spanking meme.  I don’t plan to do that a lot in the future, but it seemed better than not posting at all, so I’ll probably do it again, though next time I really try not to let the single meme become a full-blown post.  And, the discussion was robust enough to suggest things to talk about this week. So, there is that. Speaking of which . . .

 

It began with me responding to this comment from Red:

 

“[A]lthough I suggest Cindy should be stricter and spank more often, and she is doing this, it is both a spanking and a learning experience for me that certain little habits that she dislikes (I never knew how much) are spanked strongly. I am not happy with being spanked at these times, but accept and learn upon reflection to be more considerate, which is always my goal.”

 

My response was to the effect that it seems an inevitable risk of asking for more strictness is the prospect of getting more spankings that you aren’t fully onboard with, at least not at the time they are ordered:

 

That's the thing with asking for "stricter" - it almost inevitably ends up applying to things that she sees as a big deal, but you may not. I would put a lot of Anne's "pet peeves" in that category. Though, I would also note that once she says she's going to spank for them, I tend to stop doing them relatively easily. The exception is pet peeves that also involve a big element of carelessness or absent-mindedness, like leaving the garage door open or not locking doors when I leave. In those cases, I'm not downplaying or intentionally blowing off her concerns. Rather, I just forget.

 

Glenmore then shared some of his experience with small offenses caused mainly by absentmindedness:

 

“I share your sentiment on getting spanked for minor offences which are really due to absentmindedness Dan , and how selective she can be as to what constitute a spanking offence.

 

She had been reprimanding me for weeks about spending too much time on my phone , which I agreed with so made s point of tracking my use and even offered to accept a spanking for going over my target. Instead she gave me a pass on the basis I was doing something about it and had actually reduced my use.

 

The next evening, we were going to sit outside and she was really mad because I had made myself a cup of herbal tea and did not make one for her.

To me it was no big deal as it was just a spur if the moment thing and didn't think to ask her.

 

However, when I did the same thing a couple of nights later she was really pissed and afterwards she brought out the paddle and spanked me for it. I'll make sure to remember from now on but found it odd that she considered such a minor thing to be a spanking offense while giving me a pass on my phone use.”

 T. responded with something that illustrated my point about how asking for more strictness implicitly means asking for more spankings, which in turn risks getting more spankings you don’t agree with:

 

I was punished again for raising my voice. I actually didn’t agree with this punishment because, in fact, my wife hurt someone’s feelings indirectly. I explained the situation to her and of course became a bit animated. I was correct but unfortunately raised my voice, and that’s exactly what I wanted my wife to hold me accountable for in the first place. She paddled my bottom hard and I gritted my teeth throughout the punishment because I felt it unjust. Therein lies the dynamic of DD that sometimes I struggle with. I want to be held accountable for my actions, but when in a discussion with my wife, where she is wrong, she doesn’t see it that way. She at times sees her side only. [But], I want my wife to be more strict and if I need a thrashing multiple times a week, then so be it.

 

Red then summed it all up with:

 

“Seems like you have your next topic Dan. That is, what seemingly innocent behavior on your part, whether absentmindedly or simply forgetting to ask, has been a pet peeve of your wife who spanked you for it? Did the behavior change? I think every husband has changed behavior because of this.”

 

We’ve talked before (several times) about getting spanked for “small” things. But, this discussion suggested a new angle, namely the way asking for more strictness entails getting more spankings, and the combination of increased strictness and getting spanked more often almost inevitably increases the risk of getting spanked for things you don’t agree with or that seem trivial.

 

 

Red referred specifically to “seemingly innocent behavior”. Very few of my spankings have fallen into that category.  There were a couple of times when Anne spanked me for behavior when out with others that she thought was boorish or overbearing, while I saw it as just a vigorous conversation. Given the profession I was in for 25+ years, I’m very comfortable with arguing positions and am happy to get as well as I give.  I think Anne gets a lot more nervous when voices are raised, and she definitely is quicker to see some topics as too controversial or political for certain company.  Thus, we set the bar on “innocent behavior” at conflicting levels in that particular situation, but that’s really about as close as I’ve gotten to being spanked for “seemingly innocent behavior.”

 

More common is being spanked for things that seem trivial to me but aren’t to her. Leaving a chair pushed out after getting up from a meal is a biggie.  

 

 

Leaving doors unlocked is another.  Leaving the garage door open (accidentally) has gotten me spanked multiple times, yet I’ll concede that one as more of a problem, because our once crime-free neighborhood has experienced a surge of petty thefts from open garages.

 

A bigger category for us—at least in terms of threatened spankings and, had it not been for my injury, probably actual spankings too—is carelessness and the kind of absentmindedness Glenmore referred to.  That has become a bigger and bigger focus, but that’s been mostly at my request.  I honestly don’t think Anne cares that much about most of the incidents in this category, but for me, they are frustrating because (a) many have caused me to waste time and money fixing problems or replacing things, and a few have caused increased physical risks; and (b) many of those situations could have been avoided by paying more attention or being more careful.

 

When I’ve asked her to take carelessness more seriously, I’ve recognized that her doing so might increase dramatically the number of spankings, at least at first, because those incidents happen fairly regularly, and that probably isn’t going to change absent bringing a lot of strictness into it.

 

Further, for me, increasing the number of spankings is kind of a goal in itself, not because I “want” to be spanked more often but because I think it would benefit both of us.  It would benefit me, because it would result in more behavior change and also would humble me in way that, frankly, I think I need.  Conversely, spanking more often would increase her confidence and enable her to exercise more and more control more comfortably.

 

Yet, I know that in getting spanked more often, there are going to be more times that I disagree with the premise for the spanking.  It’s very similar to what T. is going through.  His example is kind of a mixed case, in that he wants his wife to spank him more often for raising his voice, yet in this case he raised his voice because he thought his wife was wrong about something.  It’s the kind of trade-off that probably is inherent in asking for more strictness and her delivering it.

 

For me, getting spanked more often for more trivial things, and possibly for things I don’t agree with, is kind of a substitute for the way other couples use maintenance spankings.  I do see a value in maintenance spankings in terms of reinforcing the roles, empowering her and humbling him, and in keeping the whole DD dynamic front-and-center.  Yet, the concept of spanking on a schedule, with no accountability element, doesn’t really resonate with me or, I think, with Anne.  She does seem to be fully on board with the premise that I should be spanked more often, but she seems unenthused by the idea of scheduling one weekly just to reinforce roles.

 

Lowering the bar on what earns a spanking, therefore, seems to offer the prospect of more frequent spankings while maintaining an element of accountability that we both want.

 

Another justification that resonates with me, and I think maybe with T., Red, and Glenmore as well, is the element of obedience that is in play when you get spanked for something that she has said you will get spanked for even if you think it isn’t inherently wrong or is too trivial.   

 

That situation was summed up best by one-time commenter Mrs. Terrapin:

 

Early in our DD relationship, my husband, like you, asked for strictness and firmness. He craved a structured environment with clear boundaries, much like you described. However, when it came time to enforce discipline, I often found myself hesitating, especially over what seemed like minor infractions. For example, if I had told him to use a coaster on the coffee table and he didn’t, I’d question whether it was fair to spank him for something so trivial. This second-guessing was compounded by his reaction—when the moment for discipline arrived, he’d often try to talk his way out of it, sensing my hesitation. He’d say things like, “Really? For something that small?” and I’d waver. Later, though, he’d circle back and ask me to be more strict, which left me feeling caught in a cycle of doubt and frustration.

 

This pattern persisted until I had a game-changing epiphany: nearly all of the behaviors that warranted discipline boiled down to one of two root causes—disobedience or disrespect. This realization shifted everything for me. Instead of focusing on the surface-level infraction, I began to see the deeper issue. For instance, not using a coaster wasn’t about the coaster itself (which, I agree, is minor); it was about him disobeying a direct instruction, which is an extremely serious matter. And even in instances where I hadn't given a direct instruction or rule, often there is a root cause of disrespect (for instance, him leaving a pair of dirty socks on the bedroom floor - the socks are trivial, the attitude that it's my job to be his maid is a significant display of disrespect).

 

This perspective changed how I approached discipline. The coaster thing is not just a hypothetical - it was exactually the reason for the first spanking I gave my husband after this epiphany. When I told him he was getting a hard punishment for not using a coaster, he tried to downplay it, saying, “Seriously? Just for a coaster?” But I held firm. By the time the punishment was over, his burning backside made it crystal clear that the issue wasn’t the coaster—it was his disobedience to a direct order. I explained that disobedience, no matter how small the context, would always be met with strict consequences, no leniency, no mercy. The same applied to disrespectful behaviors, like leaving messes for me to clean up. Whether or not there was a preexisting rule, those actions showed a lack of respect for me and our dynamic, and that warranted firm discipline.

 

This shift in mindset eliminated my second-guessing. It gave me the clarity and confidence to act decisively when I felt annoyed or disrespected, knowing that I was addressing the root cause, not just the surface issue. It also aligned perfectly with my husband’s desire for stricter boundaries, even if he wasn’t thrilled about the consequences in the moment. Over time, this approach has strengthened our DD dynamic, making it more consistent and fulfilling for both of us.

 

Thoughts on any of this?

 

Have a great week.