"I was better
after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude,
more gentle.” - Charles Dickens from Great Expectations
Hello all. Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples
Club. Our weekly meeting of men and
women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline relationships.
Before we get started, I
would again like to extend a specific invitation to any of our female readers to
move from “lurker” to “commenter” status. It’s been too long since we heard
from women who are either in F/m domestic discipline or Female Led
Relationships, or positively interested in it.
Please think about joining in.
Can I just say, I really, really
love this time of year! Other than
Christmas, Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I just love this entire
season. I spent yesterday afternoon
putting up Halloween lawn decorations, though the woman across the street beat
me to it, as usual. Unfortunately, our
travel early in the month threw me off a bit, and I feel like I’m a little late
to the party. And, there is still work left to do, like getting pumpkins.

Speaking of being late, just
an FYI, we are traveling again later this week and won’t be back until early
next week. I do plan to post but
probably won’t get to it until Tuesday.
I know that my posting schedule is getting less predictable, but I think
that’s likely to be the new norm. My post-retirement schedule is more flexible,
but we finally seem to be getting into a more adventurous groove in which more
of that flexible time is spent traveling, which means blogging will be fitted
in more flexibly, though hopefully without a big drop in frequency.
I thought we had a good discussion
last week about telling others about our DD relationships. Though, Alan kind of summed up my own
thoughts, and added some “what if” food for thought/fantasy:
I
am somewhat surprised by the comments indicating reluctance or reticence in
discussing TTWD with other males who have been identified as in, experiencing
or otherwise understanding or understanding F/M discipline. In fact, one of my
unfulfilled fantasies is to be seriously disciplined together with another male
under female authority his wife and my wife both acting as independent
disciplinarians.
There
are probably many causes of this fantasy including seeing how another DD couple
handle discipline But I think a major reason for the fantasy is the opportunity
to have conversation and possibly friendship with a male who has the same
emotions, desires and experiences I have had. I have shared much of that with
my wife (and earlier with my former GF) but seeing another male under
discipline or him seeing me might presage an openness and vulnerability very
different from that experienced with the opposite sex.
This
may be one of those fantasies better left in fantasia. And if it actually was
fulfilled, the experience could be very different from the fantasy. However, I
think the benefits of being in face to face, person to person zoom-less
connection with another male under his wife’s authority would end up a very
positive experience.
I share some of Alan’s
surprise that, while some were open to telling others about this lifestyle,
there was also a lot of resistance to talking openly to anyone about it,
particularly other males. Admittedly,
while I’m open to it in theory, in practice I haven’t done much to open myself
up that way.
It’s also probably one
reason why I haven’t tried more diligently to try to morph this group into
something more truly DWC-like. I’m not quite sure how Aunt Kay, Jerry and
others built a real face-to-face community around this thing we do, when so
many of us are so resistant to that kind of openness, but somehow they did.
Maybe it was just a more open, experimental time? On the surface, we’ve become more tolerant of
kink, but so much of it is consumed on-line.
Maybe solo access actually inhibits group participation? Hard to say.
This week’s topic extends,
for me, from one of ZM’s comments last week regarding “memorable” spankings:
Another
very significant and memorable one was when she spanked me to tears. She has
spanked me sort-of to tears other times, where I was on the verge or perhaps
beginning to cry, but this one was different. I had had several bouts of bad
attitude, and she informed me beforehand that I was going to be spanked, and it
would continue until I was in tears. The combination of her telling me
beforehand that the spanking would only end with me in tears, a horrible Delrin
cane, and her employing the diaper position definitely did the trick. She
stopped spanking shortly after I began crying. She said she would have liked to
go longer, but it was hard to see me cry. I kind of have a feeling that if we
get to this point again, she would be more comfortable pressing on with it.
While he’s related that story
before, it came up in a conversation between Anne and I, and it could lead to
another of those milestone moments.
Maybe.
A couple of weeks ago, some
of us here posted spanking videos that seemed sort of plausible or similar to
the kind of disciplinary spankings we received. Something that jumped out at me
was that most of the recipients were a lot more vocal than I am while being
spanked.
When being spanked, I
definitely trend toward the stoic end of the spectrum. While I do exclaim, gasp,
and groan, I don’t really use words. I
don’t say how hard it hurts, or how I can’t take it, or ask her to stop.
Some women may like it that
way. In fact, one of the first stories I
ever read on the Disciplinary Wives Club website, entitled Pretty Legs II, involved
one disciplinary wife disciplining another wife’s husband and becoming
exasperated that he was “crying and begging for mercy” and couldn’t “even take
his spanking like a man.”
Yet, while vocalizing may on
the surface seem like a form of resistance, I think on some level trying to
stay stoic is, at least for me, absolutely a subtle way of resisting
authority.
One of my biggest emotional
attractions to domestic discipline was the prospect of having to give up
control but, the reality is, twenty years into this I still find ways to maintain
that control, and one of them probably is trying to “man up” while being
spanked. As long as I don’t vocalize how
badly it hurts and how much I wish it would stop or, worse yet, let her bring
me to tears, then I’m not really giving in to it. It’s a very subtle form of control, but
control nonetheless.

ZM’s post came up in my conversation
with Anne, because after the “videos” post I told her that I was thinking about
trying to let myself go verbally a bit during, and maybe even before spankings. It could take many forms. Maybe, instead of
trying to delay spankings in my usually passive way, I come right out and ask tell
her I’m afraid to be spanked and ask her not to. As long as she knows that she
absolutely should NOT let me out of it, it allows me to own up more to what I’m
actually feeling and gives her a chance to express her authority by reinforcing
verbally that I am, in fact, going to be spanked whether I like it or not.
Similarly, crying out during
a spanking about how much it hurts, telling her I can’t take any more, begging
her to stop, all might be more honest and open than my usual stoicism, while
again giving her a chance to take more demand by not giving into my pleas and, in
fact, letting me know that it’s going to keep going and going.
Anne’s reaction to the prospect
of me being more verbal was quite positive. She said it would be an indication that she was doing a really good job and that I was really learning a lesson.
She also said that she thought it would
help humble me. I asked whether that was one of her express goals, and she didn't hesitate in saying that it is.
Which brought us to . . .
crying. There have been times I have gotten
close to real tears, but I always “man up” in the end. ZM’s wife got around that by making it clear
that the spanking would not be over until he cried real tears.
Anne has never given me that
kind of ultimatum. In fact, I’ve always
gotten the sense that she was kind of reluctant to take me to that point, maybe
because of her own reaction.
This time, however, when I
talked about ZM’s story, including that his wife did find it hard to see
him cry, she seemed much more open to it.
She said she wasn’t sure whether she would, in fact, find it that hard
to see me cry as long as she thought the conduct that led to the spanking merited
a spanking to tears.
She acknowledged
that, given the way I’m wired, an “until you cry real tears” spanking could
take a LONG time, possibly involving an hours-long effort with multiple
sessions separated by breaks for any numbing to recede. I acknowledged that might be the case, though
I’m not sure it necessarily would. I
think if she were to emulate ZM’s wife and announce up front that it would go
on and on and on until I cried real tears, that might cut off my “man up”
instincts in their tracks.
The odd thing is, none of
this seemed to phase her, while she used to be quite skittish about the subject What has changed? I’m not sure, but overall
she just seems less concerned than she used to be about me suffering substantial
embarrassment or other negative consequences on top of the spankings. A lot of the memes I see about embarrassment and crying involve the wife assuring the husband that it's not something to be embarrassed about.
I don't think that's Anne's present attitude at all. Instead, I think maybe she's inching toward become more like KOJ's wife (I miss him, by the way) who, in retirement, started caring less and less about asserting her authority openly even if it embarrassed him. To the point of taking him to a private room for a spanking during a busy party.
It’s in-line with, for example Anne's sudden determination to
leave window shades open when spanking. For some reason, she’s simply stopped caring as much if someone sees and
I get embarrassed.
Or, if she lectures me strongly and I get embarrassed or
temporarily resentful.
Or, if she gives me a much harder spanking than I think
the situation deserved (as happened a few days ago).
Or, possible, if she spanks me until
I cry mortifying tears.
I did tell her that we both might
need to be prepared that bringing me to real tears, after all these years of
DD, might work a really fundamental change in our relationship that might be hard
to predict in advance. I told her that I
can’t imagine that it wouldn’t leave me feeling like there was a very
substantial shift in the hierarchy, with me feeling in a very concrete way that
my position was firmly under her.
We’ve talked a lot about
tears in this forum over the years, and people can respond to this post with
any thoughts they may have about the subject. But, I hope at least a few people
who have experienced it can tell me, am I right to assume that letting go and
really crying during a spanking is, in fact, humbling on a whole different
level? That it likely will reset the power dynamic in a pretty fundamental way? That the relationship likely will feel
fundamentally different afterward, with her more firmly in charge? Is it likely
to make the spanking feel even more maternal?
If any of our female readers
are inclined to weigh in, have you experienced your husband crying real tears
from a spanking? What was your emotional reaction to that? Is it something you wanted to happen? Is it maybe even a turn-on to do it, or to consider doing it? If it hasn’t happened, do you want it to?
Have a great week, and happy October!