The Forum - Question of the Week #52

Hi all.  Welcome back to the Forum.  I hope you had a great week.  We've been spending a lot of time talking about motivations, moving toward stricter FLR relationships, and other fairly serious topics.  I thought about giving an update on our own experimentation with more rigorous wifely dominance but, honestly, I'm not in the mood.  Time for something a bit lighter.

Do you have a fantasy spanking spot?  Some place where you would like to bare all for a serious disciplinary spanking?  Or, is there a specific spanking scenario or scene you would like to explore?

For me, I've always had a thing for rustic settings, like the tack room in a horse barn.  Or, a real woodshed.  There is something that really gets to me about the earthy, tack room setting.  Something especially naughty about being forced to drop my pants, to accept a bare bottom whipping while bent over a bale of hay.

Have a great weekend.  As always, please take a moment to leave a comment in the Guestbook.

The Forum Question of the Week #51

Hello all. Welcome back.  Last week's forum generated some great discussions.  One of those discussions involved the issue of frustration with the dominant partner when she isn't doing something that you think she should. It was raised in the context of the frustration indicating a lack of full submission, but I think there is something more worth exploring here.

A few weeks ago, I asked whether there might be a downside to DD, for either the giver or the receiver.  That stimulated some discussion about the responsibility inherent in being the dominant party in a DD relationship, but what about the issue of whether being the dominant party makes it harder for that party to work on their own stuff?  You know what I mean by "stuff"  -- bad habits, destructive behaviors, lack of self-discipline . . . all the stuff that many of us on the receiving end of a DD relationship hope will be addressed by our partner's stern application of the hairbrush, strap or paddle.  But, what about the impact on the improvement of our Disciplinary Wives?  Does a DD or FLR relationship potentially have a downside for both the dominant party and those living under their authority, if it encourages a sense that the dominant party doesn't have to work on their own behavior and correct it where necessary? I know there are some variations on the Spenser Spanking Plan in which either party can be disciplined for breaking an agreed-upon rule. I don't personally have an interest in exploring that, and it would muddle for me the lines of authority, but it would have the benefit of not allowing one party entirely off the hook.  Thoughts?

I hope you have a great weekend.  As always, please take a moment to add something to the Guestbook or contribute a user-created story (fiction or non-fiction).

The Forum Question of the Week #50

Hello all.  I hope you had a great week.  Mine wasn't bad.  Less productive than I'd hoped; more so than I'd feared.

Sometimes I detect a confluence of sorts, in which multiple seemingly random events all seem to point in a particular direction or play to a particular theme.  Call it Karma or Fate or whatever, some force seems to be giving events a nudge in a way designed to get your attention.  Lately, I've had some of that going on with respect to the notion of "surrender."  It is a notion that covers a lot of ground.  On a philosophical or spiritual basis, it means getting better at surrendering to what is.  Accepting the current state of affairs, and accepting what will come, without as much desire to change or control them. Letting life come as it is.  In my work life, it means being at least a little bit more accepting of the notion that every once in awhile I may actually need to give in to the will of others who are above me in the pecking order. Does my use of a whole long string of qualifiers demonstrate just how resistant I am that particular form of "surrender"?  ;-)

In my marriage, it means giving up my power so my wife can have more.  It means giving in to her will even when my own wants to rebel and even when being bossed or ordered around cuts against the grain of every fiber of my being.  But, that equalization of power was something we were expressly shooting for when we adopted DD.  And, for me, the idea of really "surrendering," of giving up control in some deep, fundamental way, was at the seductively terrifying core of a DD relationship in which corporal punishment might bring me to tears, and those potential tears have to me always represented the ultimate show of surrender.

One of the strains nudging me toward paying some more attention to the idea of "surrender" was a series of posts in the I'm Hers blog at www.im-hers.blogspot.com.  The blog's author has been exploring his need to be subjected to a deeper, more challenging dominance. One of the quotes that really resonated with me:

My feelings are changing. I’m realizing the value of being broken by her (if that is the correct word).  I know that by becoming completely hers, by being more accountable, by reframing my view of ‘whose first’ to be Katie at all times, by conforming to her will strengthen our bond.  I want to give myself more fully (or should I say completely) to her. 

And this:


I had aha moment a several weeks ago. I came to see just how much I wish to have Katie take me completely. I need less freedom. I need more accountability. I need to be broken and made to make her my first priority, putting my wants second.  I need to gain a healthy fear of her, similar to the way a child both loves and fears a parent. (As Kathy would call this, I desire for Katie to completely snuff out any 'pocket of resistance' left in me. That to me is synonymous with 'being broken'.)

That does a pretty good job of summarizing what I was really looking for when we started our DD explorations, even if I might not have articulated quite that way at the time.  The line about needing to gain a healthy fear struck a particularly strong chord.

Is being "broken" or, to put in a slightly less threatening way, deeply surrendering yourself to your partner's will part of your relationship?  If it isn't yet, is that a goal for you or your partner?  If it is, how did it feel as it was happening?  How has the transition been?
Have a great week.

Dan

The Forum - Question of the Week #49

Happy Independence Day!  I hope you all had a relaxing, abbreviated work week.  Thanks to all the contributors to last week's discussion.  It was illuminating.  For me, it also was a bit reassuring.  When I started this blog, I really wanted it to be focused not on spanking per se, and not on Femdom to the extent that entails some kind of overall female superiority, but on Domestic Discipline.  I don't care a lot about how that is defined, but in general I want the blog to be about relationships in which the husband is subject to his wife's discipline when he strays into bad behavior.  That discipline sometimes, though not always, takes the form of corporal punishment, i.e. spanking. 

All these terms are fluid, and I try not to use them as part of an exclusionary process resulting in putting people into little boxes labeled "Us" and "Them." There is more than enough of that in the world.  But, I have wanted this blog to stay true to its original Domestic Discipline focus for the simple reason that there are plenty of blogs out there devoted to spanking, to Femdom, and to BDSM, but there just aren't that many that really focus on Domestic Discipline.   For years, it was just the Disciplinary Wives Club and a handful of Yahoo groups. 

Therefore, what I found reassuring about a lot of the responses to the last post was that the majority of the comments reflected the core elements of Domestic Discipline, i.e. using corporal and other punishment for disciplinary purposes.  While the element of the wife's dominance is inherent in a F/m DD relationship, it seems like a lot of this group are not interested in a more Femdom-oriented relationship in which it is more about female superiority and service/slave relationships. 

Now, I say this recognizing that my wife and I are injecting more of those "service" elements into our own relationship. But, we're really doing it not for its own sake but, rather, to help increase her confidence and assertiveness as a Disciplinary Wife.  While we have made a lot of progress over the years, we have just never quite gotten to where we want to be when it comes to her naturally, conspicuously and consistently assuming an assertive role.  So, we are over-compensating for awhile until the state we are aiming for becomes more natural.

I began this entry with the observation that there just aren't that many blogs devoted to Domestic Discipline of the F/m variety.  And, some of the best ones have fallen by the wayside.  (Recidivist, are you out there among our readers?)  So, this week's question is, why aren't there more blogs out there that focus on Domestic Discipline, and why do so many of the people who contribute to blogs like mine do so in wholly anonymous fashion, without even using a pseudonym? Is the lack of blogs in this area a function of the fact that there really aren't many people practicing Domestic Discipline?  Or, is it something else, like a fear of being outed?  And, what about those who post anonymously?  Is it, again, fear of being outed?  For the record, I too have that fear, but it's offset by a compulsion to communicate, as anonymous as they may be in the world of pseudonymous blogging, that doesn't seem to work as well without an identity that people can communicate with.

Hope you all have a great holiday weekend. Be safe!

Dan