The Club - Meeting 379 - Topic Potpourri

The rate at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the embarrassment he can tolerate. - Douglas Engelbart

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline relationships. I hope you all had a great week.

 

How is your summer going?  Although I can’t say we’ve done a whole lot, our summer seems to be cruising by a little too quickly for comfort.  We took one vacation, but other than that our weeks seem pretty predictable and consistent.  We both made health and fitness a priority for the summer, though in my case it really wasn’t optional.  I had some rehabilitation work that needed to get done, and it does feel a little like rehabbing a dilapidated house that has seen its better days but in theory with a lot of work could be renovated successfully.  So, for both of us the summer has involved a lot of time at your neighborhood gym. The results have been encouraging, though I truly believe a short course in gym etiquette should be a condition of membership.

 

 

I’ve also spent a fair amount of time on my motorcycle.  Although I’ve spent a bit of time in venues where other riders congregate, sadly I haven’t seen any riders quite this dedicated to the brand:

 

 

 Maybe because I have been keeping busy with other summer projects, my blogging inspiration dry spell continues.  I don’t have a coherent, well-defined topic in mind for this week, so instead I’m just going to throw some thoughts out there and you can respond to anything that catches your interest.

 

We spent a couple of weeks here talking about age, maturity and discipline.  I did have one follow-up, partially in response to a question one of our commenters brought to me off-line.  In discussion whether a certain level of maturity/age is generally a prerequisite for taking up the paddle, Al had the following observation:

 

I once saw a quote somewhere that said that "kinky' women were subs in their 20's, switches in their 30's, and dominants in their 40's. And we actually had a "kinky" friend for whom this exact scenario played out. And it is interesting that the dominant phase correlates with our observations as to when most women tend to be willing to become disciplinary wives.

 

My follow-up question is, do men often go through a similar cycle from “bottom” to “switch” or “top”?  Based on the comments here, it doesn’t really seem so.  If anything, it seems to be the opposite – some men begin exploring DD or spanking kink as the spanker but later become “bottoms” exclusively.  Any thoughts on why that might be the case?  Why do many women who gain some maturity and kink experience migrate toward more dominant roles over time, while for men things seem to go in the opposite direction?  Any thoughts?

 

 

While our summer has been spent mainly on non-DD activities and there has not been a lot of spanking action, there has been some, including one incident that might spur some interest.  Anne decided I needed a spanking for a bit of bad behavior, but she had not specified a time for it to take place.  In the middle of the afternoon, she told me it was time and instructed me to bring her hairbrush. I did as she ordered and then went over to the window to lower the window shades in our bedroom, but she told me to leave them up!  She then told me to get undressed and to get over her knee, after she sat down on the ottoman in front of our bed.  I did so, and she proceeded to give me a vigorous OTK spanking.  Now, I really doubt anyone saw me getting undressed or getting spanked, but it is not completely outside the realms of possibility.  We live in a suburban environment, in a neighborhood with fairly small lots, and there is a house directly behind us.  While unlikely in the middle of the day, it certainly is possible that one of backyard neighbors could have been in his/her bedroom and looked through the trees to ours at just the right time.  I can’t recall any other time Anne has been quite so cavalier about someone finding out about our DD relationship, let alone risking someone actually seeing a spanking in progress.

 

 

On a more abstract note, another thing I’ve spent a lot of time on this summer is training a Covid puppy who has been severely lacking in social skills.  It has taken a hell of a lot time and attention, and imposition of both coercive/corrective stimuli to prevent/punish bad behavior and rewards to encourage modeling good behaviors.  On several walks, it really has jumped out to me just how much successful dog training overlaps with principles we’ve talked about here for years, including:

 

·      Preventing the bad behavior before it happens is often more effective than punishing it after-the-fact.  With our dog, that involves getting his attention quickly as soon as I notice him starting to get riled up about other dogs or other things that he generally reacts to.  A sharp command or tap of his e-collar at the first signs of reactivity is WAY more effective than trying to bring him back into control after he’s already started freaking out.

·      While I sometimes feel bad about the consistent consequences that are required for him to really absorb the lessons and behave better consistently, in the end its better than what might have to happen if the trend of reactivity and aggression he was on had continued.  In short, in the moment consistent discipline is hard for both the disciplining and disciplined parties, but it’s worth it for both.

·      Imposing boundaries on my dog has actually made him less agitated and more relaxed on our walks.  He seems to get that he doesn’t have to take the lead and that life is easier for him when he doesn’t.

·      If you give the dog a command four times and he ignores you three times and then you finally do something about it on the fourth ignored command, without you essentially are training him to know he can ignore you three out of four times without suffering any consequences.

 

I’ve thought about dog training as a metaphor for husband training a lot over the last few weeks, including the value of consistency.  Maybe with that in mind, a week ago I let Anne know (in a journal entry), that in my view some of my recent behavioral backsliding really needed to be dealt with.  Now, it is very rare that I will come right out and ask that bad behavior be addressed.  In fact, in general I am pretty relieved when I get away with things that I know probably should have earned a spanking.  So, it was with more than a little trepidation that I suggested to her that something needed to be dealt with, and I assumed that I would be blogging this week about the topics of “asking for it” and “consistency.”  But, that isn’t how it turned out (so far, at least).  Perhaps more on that next time.

 

I’m not sure when “next time” may be.  I have a mini-adventure planned for next week, and it’s pretty likely that I will not get around to blogging next week.  In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying your summer.

The Club - Meeting 378 - Age, Maturity and DD

“Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.” - Tom Stoppard

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline relationships. I hope you all had a great week.

 

I’ll start out with a bit of apology. I know I haven’t been engaged with the blog very much over the last few weeks.  I wish I had an excuse, but I really don’t.  After we got back from our vacation, I just kind of lost interest in all things Domestic Discipline.   

 

 

 

In addition to the (pleasant) distractions of travel and being busy with the typical summer stuff, I think my DD interest got caught up in a hormonal downdraft that affected my libido in general and my spanking interest in particular.  This has happened before, and I think I now have a better understanding of the likely cause.  Several months ago, I got a bad cholesterol test – bad to the point that I needed to get it under control or go on statins.  Fortunately, I was pretty sure I could get it under control because it was the not-so-surprising result of some dietary changes I had made late last year.  I had added a lot of eggs and red meat into my diet in order to try to add back some muscle as I was recovering from a surgery last year that, along with the underlying physical problem, had caused me to lose a lot of muscle mass.  So, after several months of that probably unhealthy but undeniably delicious cholesterol fest, I reluctantly got rid of eggs and bacon and cut back on read meat.  After eliminating eggs and breakfast meats, I kind of drifted into intermittent fasting, skipping breakfast most days and not eating anything until lunch.  It worked like a charm.  My cholesterol plummeted, and my bodyfat dropped pretty substantially.  But, after a few months, I found I just wasn’t feeling great.  Low energy. No libido.  The same thing happened when I tried intermittent fasting for weight loss a few years ago.  I’ve now educated myself a little more on dietary fat and now understand that while cholesterol and saturated fat get bad raps, they are absolutely necessary for testosterone production and cellular repair.  I suspect that I eliminated way too much fat and cholesterol and it played havoc with my hormones, particularly testosterone, which in turn led to a plummeting libido.  So, I’ve added beef and eggs back into my diet, and I’m a much happier camper.

 

Thanks to those of you who kept the discussion going a bit while I was being lazy.  Regarding the discussion about Belle, I think Alan best summed up my thoughts: “[I]f the frauds are the price we pay for real discussions by real women – it is a price worth paying.”  While I’m obviously not happy with “Belle’s” behavior, I think any cure I could come up with would likely be worse than the disease.  Danielle voiced concern that all “women” commenters would now be subject to suspicion, and I definitely won’t be going in that direction.  As I said a couple of weeks ago, “Belle” wasn’t the first imposter and won’t be the last. 

 

On a point more related to this week's topic, Danielle noted: “Most of the pictures Dan posts show women who are 30 or even 40 years younger than me. If some of the men here have associated me with images like that, I have been guilty of not minding.”  Honestly, it hasn’t been a conscious choice on my part. There just aren’t all that many pictures/drawings out there of older spankers (or spankees).  But here a few I’ve acquired over the years:

 

 

I truly find some of these more attractive and stimulating than posed air-brushed models.  Though, I’ve always been open about the fact that as far back as high school, I’ve had a thing for assertive older women. 

 

In addition to the aesthetic appeal of older spankers, it may (or may not) be that they are more true to how DD works in real life.  Several of our commenters postulated that interest in “genuine” Domestic Discipline seems to be correlated with attaining some minimum level of age-based maturity.  Here are excerpts from a smattering of those comments:

 

Alan: Most if not all of us actually in a DD have learned that a woman usually requires some maturity (say early to mid-40’s and up) as well as a long term committed relationship –before she becomes seriously invested in DD. Since the long running Belle narrative has now been moved from the serious non-fiction section to the frivolous fantasy fiction section, the generation question remains open.

 

Danielle: Like Alan, I found Belle's purported age interesting. Alan's point about most women being unwilling to consider DD until they reach a certain age was certainly true for me.

 

Al: I once saw a quote somewhere that said that "kinky' women were subs in their 20's, switches in their 30's, and dominants in their 40's. And we actually had a "kinky" friend for whom this exact scenario played out. And it is interesting that the dominant phase correlates with our observations as to when most women tend to be willing to become disciplinary wives.

 

ZM: I know that for me (in my late 40's at the time) it was much easier to share what I really wanted than it would have been when I was a young groom many, many years ago. Also, I was able to introduce it early in the relationship, which I think was probably much easier than springing it on someone that you have been with for many years. Finally, for young married couples, there are just so many things going on in life and so many things that cause momentary disruptions (and shifts of perceived power) that maybe would interfere with things? Anyway, just my thoughts.

 

So, is it true that Domestic Discipline usually doesn’t kick off—or at least doesn’t get serious—for most couples until they are in their forties or later?  Was it indeed a tip-off that Belle was supposedly relatively young yet seemed to take to DD like a duck to water?  My instincts tell me that those who voiced that such opinions are right, yet my own experience doesn’t really seem to verify it.  I don’t remember exactly when we started DD, and I’m kind of a reverse-savant where dates are concerned, but I think my wife was about 32 when we started and I was about 37. (Yes, it is the case that while I've always had a thing for older women, I married a younger one.) Similarly, two women (one a “top” and one a “bottom”) who I’ve gotten to know through the blog both seem to have been in their early 30s when they got started.   While Alan was on board with the idea that interest in DD usually starts later in life, he also noted that the woman who introduced him to DD was only in her mid-thirties.  I believe ZM also has noted that his wife was relatively young when they started.

 

So, at the risk of asking people to restate or expand on a topic they introduced last week, does real adult discipline usually start in the 40s and 50s?  If so, do you think the recipient’s interest usually starts earlier but they just don’t get up the courage to ask for it until they hit middle-age?  In that vein, both Alan and ZM observed that it is much easier to introduce DD early in a relationship than to spring it on someone you have been with for several years.  All I can say about that one is that for me it wasn’t an option, as I simply didn’t have that interest in my 20s and early 30s and had no concept that adult corporal punishment was even “a thing.”  What has your own experience been with age/maturity and interest in DD?  At what age were you when you gave/received your first disciplinary spanking or entered into a real DD relationship?  How old was your significant other? For the ladies, how old were you when you became not just a participant in a DD relationship, but an enthusiastic one (to the extent that's true)?

 

I hope you all have a good week.

"Belle" and Just Checking In

Hi all.  I hope you all are having a nice summer.  It’s a weird one where we live, weather wise.  One day it’s pushing 100 degrees and the next I need to put on a jacket when walking the dogs.  Though here in our area, where vaccination rates are fairly high and life has gotten somewhat back to normal, things have improved over this time last year.

 

I guess I should just be happy not to be in Seattle or Portland.  My sympathies to any of our community who live in the Pacific Northwest and have been suffering through this week without air conditioning.  Unlike some of our fellow citizens, they didn’t even inflict it on themselves:

 

  

On the Domestic Discipline front, there have been a few developments.  Nothing earth shattering, but probably worth exploring in more fulsome post, which I’m not inspired enough to write on this Tuesday afternoon.  But, I did want to check in, and the situation with “Belle” has inspired enough comments that I thought maybe it was worth posting about.

 

First, a little more background, though nothing very illuminating.  On the same day that “Belle” apparently accidentally outed herself as a fake, I got an email from an address indicating the sender was someone named Alex, though in the body of the email he identified himself as Anton “an infrequent commenter and longtime lurker” on this blog.  I do recall some comments from someone identified as Anton, but nothing in particular, and if there is a way to search Blogger for comments from specific senders, I don’t know how to do it.  He asked me to post a link to his new blog in my blogroll.  I did and wished him well with his new blog.  (As an aside, the captioning haters must REALLY hate his new blog, because it not only is all captioned pictures but consists entirely of captioned pictures he has taken from other blogs and tumblrs and then slightly changed the dimensions.)  It was not until the next day that I saw the “Belle” commented posted from the ScoldedHubby profile.  It looks like the comment actually preceded his email to me by a few hours, but I had not been checking the blog regularly while I was taking my little break, so I didn’t catch it until the day after Tomy posted the first comment asking, more or less, "WTF?"  I waited a day to see whether “Belle” would respond or take down the comment, then sent an email to Alex/Anton asking for an explanation.  My “WTF?” was met with the same silence as Tomy's.

 

Reactions from our commenters have varied, and morphed a little, over the last few days. Tomy’s initial reaction was: “Oh no! Our trust is violated and it makes me feel like a real fool for allowing myself to believe those compassionate-sounding words. I feel like my confidence in reaching out and making new connections is set back.”

 

Courandir responded: “Please Tomy, don't feel ashamed or even betrayed by this fake person because his life is wide. I found the DWC in 2000 and learned important things about myself with Real people, and you were part of it! Thank you!”

 

Alan observed: “One must wonder what his point was. Kicks and giggles I suppose. But what a lot of work just to produce a tacky charade. Call me naive but I still believe the vast number of contributors to this blog are authentic.”

 

Brett seemed less convinced that authenticity is the rule and not the exception: “I don't know what's going on here, but I suspect that, with anything sexual in nature, men posing as women online is common.”

 

ZM noted: “Anyway, this is the ever-present danger of these online forums. As far as I know (unless we have some seriously good hackers here!) only Dan knows who I am in real life, and I only know who Dan really is as well as of course KD, who is out there for the whole world to see!  I don't think we should be disillusioned by the occasional poster who pretends to be someone they are not. It is common everywhere else in the online world, and so it will sometimes happen here as well.”

 

My own reaction was, at first at least, fairly blasé.  This certainly isn’t the first time that someone has slipped up here and accidentally revealed something about their assumed identity that wasn’t quite what they purported it to be.  A year or two ago we had the multiple variations of “Helen” and her husband, who may or may not have even been two people and who kept flaming out and then reappearing again and again in different guises.  There also have been multiple times that “real” commenters have slipped up and accidentally posted from their “real” identity’s email account or accidentally used their real name in “signing” their comment.  (I've done the latter myself a time or two.) Whenever I’ve caught that, I’ve scrambled to take it down for them without waiting for them to request it.  Though, those instances of inadvertent identification are hardly the same thing as intentionally misleading people, are they?  As ZM indicates, KD is out there for the world to see, but he is the exception.  Most of us are participating with constructed identities designed to protect our anonymity to one degree or another, and that’s fine. 

 

But, it definitely feels different when we learn that someone was not just hiding their identity but actively lying about themselves and their their DD dynamic.  It’s not just covering up something.  It’s wasting people’s time and engaging in the conversation in bad faith.  I don’t go quite as far as Tomy’s initial reaction of feeling betrayed, but it is annoying to me precisely when it comes from people I found myself kind of gravitating to on the blog.  I liked engaging with Belle and was glad when she showed up and started adding more “female” perspective to the blog.  Similarly, some of the longer-term commenters may remember Peter and Anna who, near the end of their tenure as commenters, also slipped with a post that indicated to me they were pulling something over on me. I had liked "them" a lot, and it was disappointing to discovery that a lot of what I saw as a relationshiphad been BS.

 

It’s hard not to get a little riled up when you feel like you’ve been duped or had your time wasted. But, overall, my reaction is somewhere between Alan and ZM’s.  I do think that most of our long-term commenters are more or less who they are and in the dynamics they describe, but exceptions are going to reveal themselves from time to time. It seems to me that assuming pretty much every “woman” who shows up on the blog is a sham would be counterproductive to getting more women to participate and I’m also, in the end, just not willing to lead my life being skeptical of every new commenter just because a few will successfully dupe me for a while.  In the final analysis, I probably have less invested than the folks who hook up through on-line dating sites and discover their new companion bears little resemblance to the handsome professional from the Tinder profile.

 

And, really, what is the alternative? Tomy has noted to me that Aunt Kay solved the problem on the DWC by requiring live telephone calls with the wives who wanted to participate.  I haven’t quite gotten to the point of being willing to reveal my own identity by having live conversations with everyone who wants to participate here, and it definitely would drive away some of our commenters who I do believe are real and whose participation I value.  I also think that women might have been willing to talk to Aunt Kay live but likely would be more reticent about talking to me, a man.  Most of us here seem to guard our confidentiality more or less tightly and, while at times I actually would prefer a much smaller but more openly participatory group, I think the current balance is about the best I can achieve right now given my own anonymity preferences. (However, it’s interesting how my “circle of trust” has expanded a bit as time has gone by.  ZM notes that I’m the only one he has revealed his identity to.  I think I am now up to five who know who I am or have had some direct contact that would allow them to easily figure it out.  And, two out of the five are women and have morphed into genuine friendships over time.)

 

Anyway, while it has irked me a little, I’m not going to change my attitude or practice much as a result of Belle’s little deception and, in any event, I tend to believe what goes around comes around.

 

I hope the rest of your week is fun and relaxing.  For those in the U.S., I hope you enjoy this Independence Day weekend and that is it is filled with many genuine interactions with family and friends.  

 

 

Short Update

 Hello all.  Anne and I made it back safely from our recent travels but, unfortunately, I ran out of day today before I got around to a weekly post.  I'll try to get something out later this week.  In the meantime, I hope your summers are off to a good start.

Dan

Short Break

Hi all.  I hope you're all having a great weekend.  For the first time in over a year, we are heading out on a little adventure.  I don't plan on posting while we are out and about, so talk to you all in a couple of weeks.  

Dan

The Club - Meeting 377 - Authority & Obedience

Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline. - Barbara W. Tuchman

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline relationships. I hope you all had a great week.

 

Mine finished better than it started.  I reported a couple of weeks ago that after making some substantial progress on the behavior front, particularly with respect to over-indulging, there had been some troubling signs of backsliding.  Unfortunately, it happened twice over less than two weeks, with Anne present at both. The first was a work event that turned into a total booze fest.  Anne and I left by 10:00, and the party was still in full swing.  Then, last Sunday we had dinner with friends, and the husband was very diligent in refilling glasses.  The result was a painful Memorial Day.  In more ways than one.  I’ll explain in more depth, as it relates to where I am going with this week’s topic.  It also serves as a bit of a follow-up to last week’s topic as well.

 

Anne wasn’t mad at all about the first incident.  I really wasn’t drinking much more than others we were hanging out with, and at no point did I get out of control or do anything embarrassing.  So, it really was a “problem” only in that I really have been trying to learn to moderate, and there was not much moderation on display that evening.  She wasn’t mad about the second event either.  I wasn’t really drinking more than the other couple—or at least the husband, who was the one who kept pouring—and I again didn’t get out of control.  But, when we got back home, I decided I wanted to stay up and listen to music, which is always a bad idea for me and almost always results in even more drinking (alone) and a very tired and painful morning.  Therefore, she insisted I come to bed.  I eventually did, but only after a fair amount of initial resistance.

 

 

So, the next morning she announced that I was going to get spanked that night.  I didn’t really argue or try to get out of it.  In my mind, I deserved it for failing to moderate my drinking on not just one, but two, recent occasions.  But, in announcing that I was going to be spanked, she did not link it to the over-indulgence.  In fact, she said she wasn’t concerned about my behavior at dinner the night before. Rather, she was going to spank me because I didn’t mind her when she told me to go to bed.  I was to be spanked for disobedience and for not complying with something she told me to do or doing so only after first resisting and evading.  

 

 

I thought about trying to get out of it for at least a day, as I really wasn’t feeling great most of that day. But, I also kind of wanted to take my medicine and get it over with.  As with the last time she spanked me, she used the vintage hairbrush, and this time we also tried it OTK.  For someone wired as I seem to be, it was a pretty powerful combination, emphasizing her feminine, maternal authority.  OTK with a hairbrush is about as iconic as it gets where maternal spankings are concerned, and adding to that dynamic in a major way was the fact that I was being spanked specifically for not minding her when she told me to go to bed.  We talked about it after it was over, and she agreed that the position added to the dynamic and reinforced her feeling of authority. 

 

 

She also noted that using a single instrument that was readily available (we had been leaving it in open view on the bathroom counter) and a simple position, with her sitting on an ottoman that was already in place, just made the whole thing easier for her.  In the past spankings have always been kind of a ritualized event, with me going upstairs, setting up the ottoman in the middle of the room and putting pillows in it to elevate my butt.  Then, I’d get out a suitcase in which we keep her tools.  I would disrobe.  She’d come up and lecture, then tell me to get in position, then she would work her way through a variety of tools. . ..  It kind of went on and on and on, taking a lot of time and preparation.  I had suspected for a while that all the ritual might be getting in the way of consistency, because if each spanking was such an event, it might come to seem almost like a chore.  It sounds like she is now seeing it that way as well, as she commented that this simplified process will probably make it more likely for her to spank more often and more immediately after the offense.

 

 

I don’t really have a set topic for this week and welcome any comments on the above or any thoughts that it raises.  In preparing to write the post, I looked back at past posts that might touch on similar themes. I was a little surprised to discover that even though we talk a lot about authority, obedience and related themes, I really have not devoted many actual topics to them.  This week’s spanking puts authority issues—maternal or otherwise—front and center in my mind.  There definitely was an added emotional element connected to the fact that she was spanking me specifically for not obeying her instructions.  For not “minding” her as the parents would say in my part of the country.  Some of these authority issues were also plainly on the minds of our commenters last week.

 

I think the routine we have established of paddling him every Monday (except when the kids aren't in school) has been good for Art. He knows what to expect. And it is good for me too, to remind myself of the authority I now hold in our marriage. I don't have to and won't accept his arrogance any more. Maybe we both need weekly reminders of that!

Liz

 

  

Belle’s comment about Jimmy not liking the idea of preventive spanking suggests another benefit of the practice that I hadn’t really thought about. But it teaches obedience especially when a husband initially thinks the spanking is unfair or unwarranted – but still submits to her authority. Thinking back I have probably learned more about obedience in those situation where I have been punished despite disagreeing with her reasons. As I have mentioned before and several other husbands have also recounted, it is amazing how often a guy moves from resisting a punishment before it happens to admitting it was necessary afterward. My feelings before a spanking are completely genuine but a brush or paddle (or strap) are great persuaders as well as great truth serums.

Alan

 

Alan’s comment nicely ties together last week’s “preventative” spanking topic with this week’s emphasis on authority and obedience.  As a short follow-up on the former, after drafting that post I thought several times about asking Anne to spank me prior to both gatherings where I ended up over-indulging.  One would have been logistically difficult, but one would not.  I honestly regret not following through, because I do think that a preventative spanking would have helped me make the alcohol consumption more mindful, i.e. I would have thought more as I was drinking instead of just feeling the ill effects after the fact.

 

On a non-spanking topic, the world continues to open up, thanks to increased vaccination rates.  Thanks to this new freedom of movement, we may be out and about—and largely offline—for a week or two.  So, I may not post for a couple of weeks; I intend to play it by ear.  By the way, for those on the fence about whether to have kids vaccinated, this from Benjamin Franklin.

 

[Those who have tried to politicize vaccinations, sometimes citing the Founders’ supposed superior devotion to personal liberty, might want to do some reading up on George Washington’s use of smallpox vaccinations on his soldiers during the Revolutionary War.  There is a pretty good argument that we won that war not because of Washington’s superior battlefield acumen but, rather, because he did a much better job than his British counterparts in responding to the pandemic with vaccinations and social distancing.]

 

I hope you all have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 376 - Preventative Spankings

 

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." -- Benjamin Franklin

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline relationships, mainly of the Female/male variety.  I hope you had a good week.

 

Mine wasn’t bad, all things considered.  I went into it with some trepidation regarding some of my personal conduct issues.  As I alluded to a couple of times recently, in the back half of 2020 and the first part of 2021, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I seemed to make some actual progress on the health and behavior front, including a pretty substantial reduction in alcohol consumption, particularly binge drinking.  But, it’s not so easy turning on a dime from something like this (my profession really does feel depressingly like Mad Men sometimes) . . .

 

 

to something more like this . . .

 

 

While the progress of the last few months was real and undeniable, I knew going into it that May had the potential to be really stressful and, sure enough, this month has involved some backsliding.  By the end of last week I was pretty disgusted with it and started  thinking a lot about how to get back on track.  Hence, the quote at the top of last week’s entry regarding abstinence being easier than moderation, at least for those of us prone to excess.  But, I had a couple of events going on this week involved saying good-bye to some people I’ve been close to, where the relationship has always involved getting together and talking about life over a few beers.  I also had a dinner planned with Anne to celebrate an important milestone.  So, I really didn’t feel injecting a stilted abstinence into those social gatherings, but I kept worrying that with my track record, one or two drinks would lead to a bad night and yet more backsliding.  Well, somehow it didn’t turn out that way.  I attended those events, had a few drinks to celebrate people and events that are important to me, and nothing got out of hand.  Progress.

But, while I was ruminating about the prospect of things getting out of hand and possible means of nipping that in the bud, my mind drifted to this thing we do, and some of the comments naturally took me there. While our topic was spanking instruments, some of the discussion drifted into the topic of preventative spankings.  In response to a comment that referenced “maintenance” spankings, Liz observed:

 

“We do weekly spankings whether or not there have been any transgressions, but we don't call them maintenance. We consider them motivational: Art gets paddled every Monday morning to remind him to keep his arrogance to a minimum. I do believe in DD that is proactive in addition to reactive. Maybe that's what some couples mean by maintenance, but I don't care for the term. It sounds weird to me. I'm not his maintenance department. But yes, I like restricting DD to one day a week so it is not a dominating thing in our lives.”

 

 Alan responded: 

 

“’I do believe in DD that is proactive in addition to reactive.’ In one sentence Liz, you have captured the essence of ideal DD for me and I suspect many others. DD can be very effective as both a way to modify behavior and a relationship tool if it is just reactive. Many men and I include myself will thrive with DD that is just reactive. But if a woman takes a proactive position together with the energy it generates, DD reaches a new plateau. That’s one reason I believe that preventive spanking work so well-- because she is proactively managing behavior rather than waiting for misbehavior to happen and reacting to that. I don’t think I can express it better than that but it is both thrilling and intensely motivating when a wife acts proactively to establish or maintain discipline.”

 

Art also gave his perspective on the “preventative” nature of Liz’s spankings and also their limits:

 

“I also have come to believe in preventive DD. Liz paddles me every Monday morning as a reminder to curb my arrogance. She spanks hard enough that sitting is uncomfortable for 2-3 days and I can even feel it as I walk. And with the discomfort is the sense of being humbled by the corporal punishment. That discomfort serves as a constant reminder to be humble and keep my mouth shut when I want to make sarcastic comments. As the discomfort fades, so does my humility. All of my recent incidents of arrogance have come toward the end of the week. I obviously have not yet internalized the message. I continue to need that proactive external reminder and maybe I always will. For a few weeks I got a second paddling on Thursday mornings but Liz feels that should not be necessary and of course she is right. I must develop the self-discipline to keep my mouth in check for at least a full week. I am grateful to my wife for the externally applied discipline that has helped me improve my behavior.”

 

 

When we first addressed this topic a few years ago, Alan characterized “preventative spankings and their effects thusly:

 

"These are spankings administered before parties or events in which historically my behavior had earned me a spanking after the fact. Her reasoning was that if she was going to have to spank me eventually, she would prefer to avoid the behavior and get it done before rather than afterward. Most preventatives are done several hours before a party or we get into the car to travel and designed to give me a warm bottom that reminds me what could happen. With one unforgettable exception this does work to prevent really bad public behavior. It does not always make my behavior perfect but I am careful enough that she is satisfied. There are now three or four of these scheduled before holiday events and they have become so routine she actually often puts them on the calendar. This gets to your point about that second (or third) drink just pushing the reality of future punishment out of your mind.) The reality of punishment is very much on your mind after a recent spanking (For me that feeling lasts at least two or three days.) So sipping your drinks, avoiding family confrontations and boorish behavior is much easier.”

 

 

I used to be a skeptic about whether preventative spankings had a legitimate role in DD relationships.  It didn’t seem to qualify as real punishment or accountability,  and seemed to be more than a little unfair, since it seemed to involve “punishing” something that hadn’t even happened (yet).  But, I now definitely get their value in tackling deep-rooted behaviors that seem to arise in particular contexts.  Anne has done it only a couple of times, but when she did it truly did stay on my mind throughout events at which usually would have created a high risk of me over-indulging. 

 

  

For two reasons, I didn’t end up asking Anne for a preventative spanking prior to the social get-together that I was the most concerned about this week, though I thought about it.  First, the get-together was in the early afternoon, and Anne had to leave for work early that morning. That made a same-day preventative spanking logistically difficult to pull off. Second, I probably chickened out, using the logistics challenges as a rationalization. 

 

At the risk of asking people to comment further on something they addressed last week, let’s talk a little more about preventative spankings. Have you used them?  In what contexts?  Have they worked to prevent problem behaviors?  How do they compare to real punishment spankings in terms of severity and duration?  For the ladies, do you feel like addressing problems before they happen enhances your authority and feelings of being in charge?  For the men, do you find preventative spankings to be more or less humbling than punishment spankings, or are they about the same?

 

Have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 375 - Instruments

"For those who are given to excess, abstinence is easier than moderation." - John Drybred

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline relationships, mainly of the Female/male variety.  I hope you had a good week.

 

Well, I think last week will go down in history as the week the pandemic ended in the U.S.  Not “ended” ended, of course.  But, the week it ceased to be the defining fact around which so much of our life revolved.  The CDC announced that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask.  While many of the businesses I’ve been into this week still have signs requiring them, my gym—which has been very conservative and responsible throughout the pandemic—ended its mandate and took down the temperature screener it had installed at the front desk. 

 

Like so many big, complex, nuanced events, this one brought out the best and the worst in so many people.  I’d say this meme pretty much sums up whatever wisdom I take away from a year of lockdowns.

 

 

I admit I’m a little nonplussed at how little life changed in some ways and that a year of lockdown didn’t result in some profound change in the way I feel about, well, life in general.   

 

 

Though, at a practical level a few things did change, mostly for the better.  I seem to be one of the few people who can say that I actually lost weight over the pandemic, so thankfully I never experienced this:

 

Unlike so many, I managed to shed a couple of pant sizes over the last year, and so far I am keeping it off.  Also, and perhaps relatedly, while alcohol consumption soared across the nation during the lockdown, mine actually dropped pretty substantially. Though, there have been some troubling relapses lately.  (More on that below.)

I can’t say I will mess all the electronic team building and happy hours, though going back to the office will be a drag for many and may require some readjustment.

 

 

It would not bother me one bit to never, ever participate in another Zoom team meeting.  My inner introvert never liked meetings anyway, and Zoom meetings were even worse.  At least physical meetings during the pandemic were kept short, small and distanced.  Though, I had to laugh at this cartoon that I came across shortly after reading Liz’s latest story about Art’s arrogant behavior at work.  Maybe liberal mask wearing in meetings might literally have saved his ass? 

 

 

And, was mask wearing really all that bad?  It was almost like a fun fashion trend.

 

Thank god I was too old and committed to have to deal with dating, and its consequences, during a pandemic.

 

 

So, life is getting back to normal.  Unfortunately, so is some of my bad behavior.  I talked last time about the fact that after many weeks of relative temperance I kind of fell of the wagon.  It happened again last week.  To some extent, that’s happening because I’ve been in the process of transitioning away from work, and that has created its own surge in socializing.  But, I definitely do not want my new normal to look like my old normal. And, honestly, I really can’t let it.  For years I’ve had to deal periodically with some nagging health issues, basically a constellation of “chronic fatigue” or fibromyalgia-like symptoms, with period bouts of fatigue, joint pain, digestive problems, etc.  The irritating thing is, lately even when I am relatively good on average, if I have one slip up on diet or drinking or exercise, everything seems to go to shit.  It’s like I have to live like a Buddhist monk just to have a shot at feeling somewhat healthy.  It really is irritating as all fuck, though I suspect I have myself to blame by virtue of burning the candle at both ends for so many years.  Even back in high school I was living like I was on borrowed time.  I suspect when you spend 40 years digging an energetic hole, it takes more than a few months of relatively healthy behavior to pull yourself back out again.   

 

 

For those reasons, ZM and Something Random’s discussion about DD and maintaining health resonated with me, especially this from ZM:

 

“DD for health-related things is a very good idea. While it might seem a bit extreme to give a spanking for missing a pill or two, often these small patterns are what ultimately lead to poor health. An extra piece of cake or two here, not getting enough exercise this week because life got busy, not taking medicine when needed, etc. Since the marriage long term kind of requires both partners to be alive, I think it is a totally valid use of DD to help ensure that your spouse will be around for many happy and healthy years to come.”

 

Agreed 100%. However, I didn’t really feel like building a hole topic around that this week.  (Feel free to comment, however, on whether you have used DD to address health issues or behavior that has a bearing on health.)  Instead, I was feeling kind of lazy and uninspired, so I thought I would default to a very concrete topic that will probably bore the hell out of some of our long-term commenters but might give some insight to folks who are new to DD or thinking about trying it.  Last week, we had several comments about spanking implements.  When we first started DD, I had no idea how effective any particular element might be (or not be), and I had no idea where to find quality instruments or even what a quality instrument might look like.  I do remember the flimsiness of the first brush I bought for her.  It was laughably ineffective, and it sounds like Tomy had a similar experience.  It was only with a lot of experimentation over the coming months and years that I developed some strong views on what works and what either doesn’t work or, in some cases, works a little too well.  Yet, as my thoughts about the session with the hairbrush indicate, even today I can be forced to reevaluate some of those opinions.  Prior to that session, I was very skeptical about whether a hairbrush, no matter how heavy and solid, could deliver a spanking that I would truly be desperate to end.  Now I know it can, and she wasn’t even trying that hard.

 

So, tell us about your preferences around instruments.  Do you have one “go-to” instrument, or do you incorporate several into your disciplinary activities?  Do you use more than one per session?  Are there instruments you have found to work especially well?  Are there others you have tried that were either ineffective or, conversely, just too much?

 

To kick things off, I often think we have too many instruments at this point and too many are used in a given session.  It seems like sometimes just when it is building up to something that is genuinely pushing my limits, she will stop and switch to something else. Often something not as effective.  I’ve thought about suggesting that she just pick one per session and really use it to full effect. Though, I don’t think that would really work with the vast majority of our wooden paddles, as they all seem to result in a high degree of numbness after maybe 20 – 30 swats.  After that point is reached, they really aren’t accomplishing very much.

 

I’ve become a big believer in leather straps over the years. They seem to me to be the perfect combination of severe, but not too severe, and no many how many times she brings one down on my ass, there is very little numbness.  While I’ve bought a few over the years, her go-to looks a lot like this:

 

 

It's from the London Tanners, which is a great source for leather implements. It wasn't cheap, but the quality is great and it will last forever.   

 

A couple of years ago, Tomy was kind enough to share with me another strap from the DWC collection that looks deceptively mild.  It is pretty short – almost more of a leather paddle than a strap.  It isn’t long enough to really strike both cheeks at once, and that is exactly what makes it some ungodly painful.  The end of the strap always seems to find its way right between the cheeks, which is really excruciating.

 

We also have tried rubber straps, but they fit into a category that I was once not sure existed, i.e. they are too severe.  I’m not sure why they are so much worse than leather, but they are.  In addition to inflicting really unreasonably sharp pain, they were very prone to cutting and tearing the skin.  After trying several, I finally threw them all way. Way too many spankings came to an abrupt end after a rubber strap cut into the skin, which is counterproductive to teaching a real lesson. So, Anne fully agreed with the decision to get rid of them.

 

Then there is the bath brush.  Anne doesn’t use it every session, but it definitely is use in a lot of them.  Belle forward me this picture. It’s not the same brand that we have, but the size and shape are pretty similar.

 

 

If a couple had to choose only one instrument, the bath brush should be high up on the list of contenders.  It is very painful – far more than most hairbrushes.  The combination of a wide—but not too wide—head and longer handle can deliver a truly memorable spanking. I also don’t tend to get numb nearly as fast with the bath brush than with a larger paddle.

 

Those are my initial thoughts on instruments.  Please share some of yours.

 

Have a great week.

 

PS: Received these from Tomy in relation to his comment below regarding a recent gift from his daughter: