The Forum - Vol. 216 - Beginnings

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anais Nin

Hello all.  Welcome back to The Forum.  Our weekly gathering of women and men who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships.  I hope you had a good week.  Mine was insanely busy again.  I'm really hoping to get some downtime this weekend, though it's not looking promising.

As our regulars know, I've been struggling more than usual with coming up with new ideas and also with the structure of the blog.  I do like the topical format, but it feels more than a little random.  Some of that may be inherent to the format of a blog versus a website.  The latter is more like a book, with some kind of purpose and layout, arranged into discreet sections intended to accomplish some specific thing or make some specific information available.  The former is more like a weekly column in the Lifestyle section of the newspaper.  From this blog's inception, I've struggled with which of those I want it to be.  On the one hand, I want it to be a resource for people exploring this lifestyle.  On the other, I did start it because I am a communicative person and, within bounds, I do like talking about what is going on in my own life and my own DD marriage and having a community around that.  Though, I'm not sure the blog format really works that well for community building.  The topics are constraining and I'm always the initiator of the conversation.  I recently was invited to a Facebook group for DD folks. It's mainly M/f in orientation, but I do like the give-and-take aspect of it.  Though, it has its downsides, such as Facebook making it very hard to post anonymously.  Despite that "little" impediment, I am still pondering starting a group there.  If you would be interested, shoot me an email.  Depending on the interest level, I might give it a go.

Having something more interactive and more private, like a Facebook private group, solves only part of the problem, however, as I do still want something that is a more generally available resource and, again, something a little less random.  It occurred to me that this blog has explored damn near every conceivable topic related to Domestic Discipline, but it is spread out over four years of sequential entries.  So, I think what I am going to try for the next few months is imposing a little structure.  A little logical flow.  Something more like a book and less like a journal or weekly column.  It may or may not work, but I am just kind of tired of throwing out random topics every week.  It absolutely will mean repeating past topics and repeating some older content, which may get tiring for the regulars but, as I said, we have at one point or another covered pretty much every damn thing that it is possible to explore regarding these relationships.

So, if I were writing a book about Domestic Discipline, where would I start?  Well, probably with how I got into it in the first place.

 My story is below.  I hope you will share yours as well. 

Exploring Domestic Discipline was my idea, which might surprise you if you knew me in "real life."  Like many men who feel attracted to giving up control to a strong woman and being held accountable by her, I am not "naturally" submissive.  To the contrary, in every other aspect of my life, I tend to be a leader, not a follower.  In fact, I hate being told what to do and I've never been presented with a rule that I didn't promptly set out to break.  I also tend to be hard-charging and very goal focused.  I like performing at my best and feel a lot of guilt when I don't meet the standards I set for myself.  I have been like that most of my life, though my career really brought those controlling and performance-oriented tendencies to the forefront.  After a decade or so of living that way, I was materially successful but not particularly happy. Everything felt out of balance. I was always in charge. Always the person making the decisions. Which was overwhelming sometimes.

Our marriage was similarly out of balance. My wife was raised in a very traditional, male dominated family, and she brought that habitual mindset into our marriage. It wasn't that we had consciously created a male dominated marriage, but that was just sort of where our personalities naturally took us.
 
We had dabbled in erotic spanking, so that bridge already had been crossed. That "dabbling" came relatively late in our relationship.  We had been together for about 10 years.  From what I have since gathered from the conversations on this blog, my DD journey is a bit atypical because, while it was me who introduced spanking into our bedroom repertoire, I did not have any kind of early fascination with it.  I had, in fact, never even considered engaging in it, whether giving or receiving, as an adult.  That changed when I watched a "Real Sex" episode on HBO that had a segment on erotic spanking.  It was a turn-on, and some time after that, I bought a small leather paddle and asked my wife if she would try using it on me.  She did, but it was never very hard and always erotic in nature.

We incorporated some femdom scenarios into our play,  characterizing the spankings she was giving me as “punishment” for various things I had done wrong.  That began to create problems.  Some of my behaviors really were a problem and really were pissing my wife off.  But, because the spankings were relatively mild and always part of our sex play, she began to see them as more reward than punishment, and she was right about that.  She definitely was not interested in doing anything to reinforce my bad behavior, so she stopped the spankings entirely.  I didn't really care, and it didn't feel like much of a sacrifice.  I was still somewhat interested in spanking-related subjects, but while the idea of being spanked did excite me, it was not a big deal and not remotely close to a fetish or compulsion.  If I came across spanking-related content on the internet or in a magazine, I might read it or follow a link to other content, but it didn't really bother me at all that my wife was not interested in making spanking an ongoing part of our sex life.

That all changed when I somehow came across the Disciplinary Wives Club website.   I don't really remember how that came about, but I remember the effect it had on me like it was yesterday.  Unlike our previous erotic spankings, the spankings advocated by "Aunt Kay" were intended to be real punishment to correct real misbehavior.  Many of the fictional scenes and "Real Couples" letters involved wives imposing the DD relationship, or taking it far beyond what the husband envisioned when he first asked to experiment with it.  In other words, many of the scenarios involved "consensual non-consent" or the husband asking for it but "getting more than he bargained for."  In several of the stories, the wife announced that the spanking would not end until after her misbehaving husband was in tears.  That was what really got me.   Not the spanking per se, but the idea of submitting to someone's control so fully that I might have to accept the ultimate humiliation of being brought to tears over my wife's knee. For an admitted "control freak" like me,  that kind of loss of such control was truly terrifying. But, it also was, undeniably, fascinating, though morbidly so.

I spent two or three days in a state of near obsession.  I literally could think about little else and had trouble sleeping, distracted by thoughts about this lifestyle and what it might mean.  After a few days of that, I brought it to my wife's attention, initiating the discussion almost like I was conveying a funny joke. We were laying in bed together, and I initiated the conversation in some benign way, like "I found this funny website on the internet . . . "  I explained the premise.  Women taking control of the marriages and using real corporal punishment on their husbands.  I explained that unlike the situation of "rewarding" bad behavior with fake, erotic spankings that had led her to bring our previous spanking experimentation to a halt, these were real spankings, designed to punish and correct behavior.  She asked whether I was suggesting this as something we should actually try. I told her, very hesitantly, that I didn't really know but that it had been on my mind constantly since finding the website.  The hesitation was because, I knew very well that I was suggesting something that might prove to be incredibly painful and that my ego found immensely threatening. She told me that she would take a look at it.

I was sitting at my desk at work the next day, when she called and said she had visited the DWC website.  "So, . . .?" I asked.

"Very interesting," she replied.  That was it. 

"So . . . what does that mean . . ." I probed.

"Well, I guess it means you need to go buy me a nice, high-quality wooden hairbrush.  When you get home, we can talk about how and when it is going to be used."

The rest is, as they say, history.  While she was game to give it a try, she was concerned that this could still reinforce bad behavior if the spanking became "fetishized."  Therefore, our foundational rule was that the spanking had to be "real" each and every time.   It had to be severe enough to constitute real punishment. And, that is what we have been doing ever since.

So, how did your own Domestic Discipline relationship get started? 

Have a great week.

The Forum - Vol. 215 - Resources

A woman in love will do almost anything for a man, except give up the desire to improve him.
Nathaniel Branden. (US psychologist)

Hello all.  Welcome back to The Forum.  Our weekly gathering of women and men who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships.  I hope you had a good week.  Mine was busy.  A little too busy, and it hasn't ended yet.  My business is project-oriented, and it can be feast or famine.  Just a few weeks ago I was whining that I didn't have much to do, and now I'm so busy I can't see straight.  Seldom is there a happy medium.  I've also been having some employee issues.  One in particular involves a very headstrong guy who has a lot of great qualities, maturing not being among them.  At forty years-old, he's still locked firmly in "Bro" culture, with one foot in the professional world and one firmly in the world of college frat boy culture.  He's one of those guys who could really profit from a steady relationship with a woman wielding a big paddle.  But, unless you happen to get "lucky" and end up with a woman who introduces you to such things, you need to have at least enough self-awareness to realize you need help with goals, boundaries, maturity, etc. and then you have to make the move to ask someone to help you attain those things.  Unfortunately, this guy is not remotely self-aware enough to even own up to the havoc his immaturity and judgment issues wreak on himself on those around him.  So, I suspect his life may become a series of very hard lessons.  Which is maybe an irony about these DD relationships versus something more vanilla.  Some may recoil from DD because it seems harsh or the consequences of breaking the rules are just too painful.  But, it is a pain with a finite start and end.  In contrast, an undisciplined lifestyle can result in all sorts of long-term pain and angst and negative personal and professional career impact. The same thing obviously applies to the overall relationship.  Lots of non-DD couples are living Thoreau's lives of "quiet desperation," grinding their way through simmering resentment and hurt feelings, while most who have tried DD report that one of the key benefits is problems are dealt with quickly, then the couple moves on.  So, do you want your pain now and all in one dose, or long and slow and grinding?

After that philosophical lead in, I'm going to go in the opposite direction for this week's topic and keep it very grounded.  TB brought up the issue of FM fiction and suggested a topic involving the best sources for it. I'll expand that a little.  Do you have favorite blogs, websites or books that have inspired or guided you when it comes to DD or FLR relationships?  I admit that most of the stuff I've found out there is pretty dreadful, to the point that I've thought about writing my own "how to" book, though I've never found the time to do it.  I don't spend a lot of time with DD-related fiction, because again I don't have a lot of free time, and I haven't found much out there that is worth the little time I have. But, I do think that  some of it can serve a purpose beyond entertainment.  I have sent a lot of DD-oriented journal entries to my wife over the years, but I've noticed that when I have sent along some DD-oriented fiction that seems to illustrate the severity or tone I wish for, she seems to respond more than when I just say it directly in a journal or even face-to-face.

Anyway, as I said, my own list is not extensive, but here are a few thoughts on resources I may not have referred to before or in awhile:

• The "real" DWC website:  www.auntkaysdwc.com
• Spanking Life:  http://www.spankinglife.com.  I recently ran across this.  The stories are a little repetitive and only some of it is DD or FLR themed, but there are a few I liked.
• The Hesitant Mistress (this book is probably the most realistic book I've found on setting up a real world FLR)
• The Good Wife's Guide to Taking Charge

What about you?  Are there particular blogs, websites or books that have been particularly helpful, or entertaining, for you or your spouse as you explore and experiment?

I hope you have a good week. 

The Forum - Vol. 214 - Before the Event - Anticipation and Attitude

"I am an old man and have experienced many troubles over my life, most of which never happened." - Mark Twain (or Seneca, or Thomas Jefferson or . . .)

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Forum.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationship.  I hope you had a good week.

Mine was one of those where I feel like I was going non-stop, yet I didn't get much done.  In some ways, I think I did accomplish some "big picture" things or at least laid the groundwork for them, but I didn't get around to a lot of the day-to-day work projects that I really need to get done.  So, another weekend may be spent catching up instead of recovering.  My own fault to some extent.

We had a good discussion last week, all extending from a fairly simple topic about spanking in front of a window.  I want to thank Tina for reminding us all that while being spanked in public may be arousing to the participants, it may not be to accidental observers.   It's a very good point that sometimes gets lost in this age of social media where everyone shares everything and just kind of assumes that others want to be exposed to it all.  While I do think my wife and I have been perhaps a little too guarded about our DD relationship, I think it is one thing to consider exposing your own family to knowledge of the fact of a DD relationship, and quite another to simply impose it on others in a very graphic and visual way.

Tina also offered several topic ideas, and Anna sent me another. Two of them kind of overlapped, focusing in one way or another on sex, eroticism or arousal in DD.  I do want to work those topics in from time to time, and this week's topic probably touches on them, but when I looked back at past topics, we had done some closely related topics fairly recently.  I do agree with the commenters who voiced supported for recycling content, but I do want to try to space things out at least a bit.  But, as I said I think this week's topic has the potential to work in those themes, as well as some bits and pieces of Tina's other suggestions.

As the title suggests, this week's topic is about what happens in our heads before the actual event of a disciplinary spanking.  To varying degrees, you all obviously have a fascination with the "idea" of a real disciplinary spanking--otherwise you wouldn't have come searching for this content or return here week after week--but what happens when the idea becomes reality in that most concrete of fashions, i.e. you did something wrong, she has ordered a spanking, and you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is going to happen? Is the excitement or arousal now replaced with dread?  If it's not, is that a sign that what is being delivered is not truly disciplinary or is not functioning as true punishment?  Is there also some resentment if you feel the punishment exceeds the crime, and is that a thought that would occur to you at all when you are just thinking about DD in the abstract?  In other words, don't we often say we want our Wives to be more strict, more severe, less forgiving, but then do those aspirations quickly dissipate as soon as she takes it there for real?

And what about our Disciplinary Wives?  Are they anticipating the event with some glee at the prospect of giving him what he has coming?

Or, is it more business-like?  Just rolling up her sleeves and taking care of a job that needs to be done? Or, to take that a step further and weave in another of Tina's questions, is it a somewhat annoying chore?

These themes are on my mind this morning, because last night after I got home from a business trip, she announced that I could expect a spanking some time today.  And, yes, as usual I have gone from wanting this lifestyle and wanting it more strict, more severe, more 24/7, to really wanting to avoid the whole thing.  And, that has been the entire history of our DD relationship, craving being a disciplined right up until that moment that is going to really happen.  The quote from Mark Twain above illustrates how a true DD relationship really is a little outside the norm, because while many men spend their lives worrying about all sorts of bad things that never end up happening,  we disciplined husbands may spend a good bit of time worrying about the prospect of painful events that are likely to become all too real!

I hope you all have a great week.  If you are new to this Forum, please take a moment to leave a comment in the Guestbook (tab above), telling us about your DD lifestyle or aspirations.

The Forum - Vol. 213 - Windows and Other Embarrassments

 Man is the only animal that blushes.  Or needs to.  -- Mark Twain

 Hello all.  Welcome back to the Forum.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships.  I hope you all had a great week.  Mine was filled with quite a bit of misbehavior.  Though, because of some family things, I doubt any of it will get the punishment it deserves.

And, once again, I'm not feeling particularly inspired.  I think at some point I'm going to have to concede that there really are only so many topics to explore when it comes to something like Domestic Discipline, and I'm going to have to either get comfortable with recycling them every week, or decide that the blog has run its natural course.  Though, some of this probably is just lack of inspiration and, honestly, laziness. But more the former than the latter, I think.  Inspiration can come and go in a flash.  This morning, I spent 30 minutes trying to come up with a topic.  Then another 30 trying to find a good quote for it. I failed in the latter, gave up, started to write, and then all of a sudden I remembered a quote I like that at least sort of fits.  Sometimes it works that way.

This week I borrowed some inspiration from one of last week's comments.  Spanked Cowboy talked about how his former disciplinarian believed firmly in spanking immediately after the offense.  If bad behavior happened in public, he was punished in public. 

Honestly, that's how it was for many of us growing up, right?  Misbehaving kids were taken out of church or parties or other gatherings where adults were present, ushered off to another room, and given enough swats to get his attention.  Everyone saw it happening.  At least when I was growing up, adults just didn't try at all to hide the fact that misbehavior led to spankings.  Teachers sent bad boys to the principal's office, and everyone knew what was happening.  Sometimes, they were just taken out of class and spanked in the hallway, where everyone could hear it going on.

Today as adults who are in consensual relationships involving corporal punishment, very few of us are subject to discipline as openly as Spanked Cowboy.  And, I wonder sometimes whether that reflects a certain lack of "reality" in the "discipline" part of DD.  If we were really trying to bring about real and lasting behavioral change, wouldn't the prospect of public humiliation be a pretty big weapon in Her disciplinary arsenal?  Wouldn't most of us be on our very best behavior every single time we were out with her in public if we knew the alternative might be to be ushered off to another room for a spanking that everyone could overhear?

But, what about something where the risk of someone overhearing is not 100%, but still enough to crank up the embarrassment and humiliation factor?  A few days ago, I was going through my collection of spanking-related art and "tagging" by subject or theme to make it more easily searchable by subject, and I started noticing just how prevalent the theme is of being spanked in front of an open window or door.

While some of the prevalence probably is attributable simply to the artistic choice to include a window in a bedroom scene, others definitely play up the semi-public nature of a spanking given at home but in front of a window or door that might allow someone else to see.  And, for at least some of the people who are into this lifestyle, the combination of domestic setting but openness to public exposure seemed to be part of the attraction. For example, the Disciplinary Wives Club's website displayed a drawing of a "peeping tom" witnessing a domestic spanking scene.

And, it's not like a full-blown spanking is required to raise the prospect of public or semi-public humiliation in an FLR relationship.  A lecture could be more than sufficient in displaying to the neighbors who is in charge.

Do those kinds of scenes play any role in your DD or FLR relationship?  Are you ever spanked in front of an open window or other semi-private place that still might allow a neighbor or curious passer-by to see what is going on?  If not a part of the reality of your DD or FLR relationship, should it be?  Would the threat make you more likely to behave?

I hope you all have a great week.  If you are new to this Forum, please take a moment to visit our Guestbook and tell us a little about yourself and your DD or FLR relationship.

The Club - Meeting 292 - First Times

“A woman in love will do almost anything for a man, except give up the desire to improve him.” - Nathaniel Branden

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline relationships.  I hope you had a good week.  Mine started off pretty well.  I felt like I was finally getting my feet under me in my new job role.  Then, it all deteriorated by week’s end.  But, I’ll take whatever progress I can get.  It’s, hopefully, a little like walking up a circular staircase; you come back to the same point over and over again but at a slightly higher elevation.  At least, that’s the hope.  I also developed a little physical ailment that may actually do a better job of slowing me down that Domestic Discipline has.  Getting old is not for wimps.

Last week’s topic on “others” knowing didn’t get a huge volume of response, though it did strike a chord for Elizabeth and Frank in light of the dynamic going on with her sister and brother-in-law. I am very interested in hearing about their upcoming discussion, if they care to share it with us. I am more than a little envious that Frank could end up with someone he can talk to face-to-face about this thing they do, with someone on the same side of the paddle.  As I’ve recounted, only three people really know about our DD relationship, and only two of those are in-person relationships.  Of those two, one isn’t into DD and the other is on the other end of the paddle.  That’s not nothing, but it would still feel freeing to have the comradery of someone else who has these same needs.

I’m a little distracted this weekend, so this topic will be a little short, and not one I have a lot to speak about directly.  It is an extension of the theme on “asking for it.”  Our earlier polls and most of our discussions verify that it is usually the husband who asks for the DD relationship.  It seems to be the same with most M/f dynamics – it is the disciplined spouse who initiates the relationship.   This week’s topic is pretty simple: Was there a specific event that lead you or your spouse to ask for it – “it” being the DD relationship as a whole?  Was there some particular bit of bad behavior that preceded asking for it that first time?  Or maybe some particular low point in personal behavior that drove wanting the accountability? Or, was there a point where a pre-existing fascination became overpowering?

My own story doesn’t really follow any of those lines.  I didn’t have a pre-existing fascination with adult discipline, and there wasn’t any behavior-related precipitating event.  I encountered the Disciplinary Wives Club website, and it caused a reaction that was strong, I really had to ask for it.  I suspect I did have some deep and previously unrecognized need for enforced accountability that was triggered by that website, but even though I like to think I am a fairly self-aware person, I did not recognize that need in myself until I found a website that expressed it so openly.

How about you? Tell us about the precipitating event that led you to ask or be asked be in a disciplinary relationship.  Or, if you are in that rare DD relationship that was imposed by the disciplinarian, tell us about that.