The Forum - Vol. 240 - Others

This is my work, there were my thoughts, and thus was I. I have freely told both the good and the bad, have hid nothing wicked, added nothing good. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Hello all.  I hope you had a great week.  I'm pretty tired on this Saturday, to a large extent because of way too much workplace carousing.  I seemed to have some sort of workplace social commitment every single night of the week.  So, now I am tried, cranky, facing a weekend of catching up on work, and in all likelihood facing a hard spanking tonight.  And, thanks to recent illnesses and other instances of "real life" getting in the way, it has been a long time since I had a hard punishment spanking, so it probably will be extra excruciating.

Something that happened this week has me thinking again about a topic we have talked about before, though it's been a while, namely sharing more about the disciplinary and spanking aspects of our lives.  I don't want to go into the details, but it involved someone who was placed in a difficult position largely because they were fairly "out" about their spanking-related lifestyle.  It reinforced that there are valid reasons why I am pretty paranoid about maintaining my anonymity and why only a very few people know much about the details of my identity, such as where I live, what I do for a living, or other personal details.

Now, the problem is, I also seem to be going through a phase in which I very much want to have deeper, more meaningful relationships with people, including people who I "know" mainly through this blog or related electronic communications.   I find myself looking for ways to have more meaningful, one-on-one communications that are less topic-driven.  Also, the plain fact is, I have never been particularly good at keeping secrets.  I find myself increasingly wanting people to know about this aspect of my life.  Or, I want certain people to know more about it.  Moreover, as my wife and I continue to talk about cranking up her level of dominance, I am constantly reminded of how hard that is without putting it on more open display, and the part of me that was fascinated by DD from the moment I first encountered it also seems to gravitate toward being more openly subject to her authority.  Or, maybe it is just that I want that authority to be more pervasive and more consistent, and I know deep down inside that the only way to do that is for her to put it on more open display.

There also was an anonymous comment last week from a woman who learned that her mom spanked her father, because her mother told her about after she was grown.  My wife is very, very close to our kids who are themselves now young adults to various degrees, and I will not be at all surprised if at some point they have an adult conversation about this aspect of our lives. 

As I said, this week's topic is not original, but it has been on my mind again, this issue of how much we reveal about this thing we do, to whom, and under what circumstances.

To my knowledge, there are two people who know who I am and that my wife gives me real disciplinary spankings.  One is a friendship with another DD blogger.  We started corresponding with each other and over time we developed enough mutual trust that we were comfortable revealing who we were. The other is a mutual friend my wife and I have known for many years.  The original connection was through me, but she and my wife also got close over time.  I have told this story before, but I'm having a hard time finding it right now.  It's surprisingly hard to search 239 other posts.  The short version is, I had been friends with this woman for a number of years.  After several years of working together there really was very little we didn't share.  One day we were having a few drinks at happy hour, she asked how my wife was doing and how things were going for us, and I found myself blabbing to her about this new lifestyle we were exploring.  I can't say I wasn't embarrassed talking about it, though this friend is one of the least judgmental people I've ever known, so I was really more embarrassed by the kinky nature of the activity and my male reticence to talk about such things openly than out of fear that she would judge me for engaging in it.

After I confessed to this friend, I also confessed my confession to my wife.  She was a little shocked at first but seemed to roll with it.  I learned just how much so a few weeks later.  They had gone out to some event together, and I got a call from my wife.  They had clearly had a few drinks over the course of the afternoon, and my wife had the call on speakerphone.  We chatted about what they were doing, whether the event had been fun, etc., then as the call was wrapping up my wife announced, "By the way, when I get home you are going to get you ass blistered for . . ." and started listing off my bad behavior.  

Needless to say, I was mortified.  She, on the other hand, was having a ball.  "Yes, dear," she chortled, "since you decided to open your big mouth about our private activities, I decided that K. should hear the whole thing from the wifely perspective.  We had a fun afternoon talking about how much I enjoy warming your ass when you've been bad."  I probably would have been even more mortified were it not for the fact I had, in fact, initiated this little "sharing" exercise, so I could hardly object if my wife chose to take it to the next level.

But, as far as I know, after well over a decade of doing DD, those two people are the only ones who know that I am a disciplined husband.  I haven't told any other friends or relatives and, as far as I know, neither has my wife.  And, other than hat one afternoon, I don't think my wife and our mutual friend have talked about this lifestyle, as we don't see each other all that often these days and when we do it is often at parties with lots of other people around.  And, while I admit that I increasingly have these desires to "out" myself, some of my desire to be more open is driven by a wish that my wife had a relationship with at least one other Disciplinary Wife, so they could share notes and reinforce their growth as dominant women.  But, as KD and I recently discussed, I'm not sure that women or "tops" need that as much as I sometimes like to think.  On the other hand, I do increasingly feel a need to have a more "real" connection with disciplined husbands including some of the regulars on this blog.  But, I have yet to find a vehicle to really facilitate that.  Only time will tell . . .

How about you?  Our friends KD and Merry are obviously very "out" but how about the rest of you?  How many other people, if any, know about you giving or receiving real disciplinary spankings? If you are willing, please give us some details about how the "outing" happened.  Who was it to?  How did you tell them, or how did they learn about it? What was their reaction? 

Have a great week.

The Form - Vol. 239 - Spanker's Origins

Learn to obey before you command. - Solon

Hi all.  I hope you had a good week.  I kept reading that this year's flu bug was especially virulent, and now I can attest to it personally.  The first few days, it hurt just to walk.  Thankfully, I have a pretty well-equipped man cave in the basement.  So, I spent the better part of two full work weeks hanging out on my couch with a laptop to keep up with work while binge watching on Netflix.  But, it's now over -- just in time for a three-day weekend!

A few weeks ago my post was entitled Boys & Men and addressed the extent to which a disciplinary spanking takes us back to feeling like a little boy and whether there is a maternal aspect to the Domestic Discipline relationship.  One commenter brought up the fact that while he had not been spanked often as a boy, his disciplinary wife had grown up in a strict, spanking home.

We've talked quite a bit about how our own early disciplinary experiences may influence our interest in being disciplined as an adult.  But, we haven't talked that much about how our Disciplinary Wives' experiences with discipline as a child may have influenced their openness to doling out discipline as adults.

I'm not really sure where my own wife is on this.  I think it is a factor that cuts both ways.  From what she has told me, she was the "good girl" in the family and seldom was spanked herself.  But, she did witness her trouble-maker siblings getting spanked regularly.  I suspect this made her at least somewhat more open to using spanking for discipline on me than she might have been had she come from a non-spanking family.

On the other hand, I think the overall dynamic in her home probably made it harder to grow into the Disciplinary Wife mode.  Her parents had a very 1950-ish dynamic, with her father working and doing whatever the hell he wanted outside work, while her mom stayed home and took care of the kids and had basically zero authority in the relationship.  When they got into arguments she pouted and denied sex and engaged in all the typical passive-aggressive behavior that disempowered spouses may be prone to because they lack a more direct means of control.  Growing up in that dynamic probably reinforced her early tendency to flounce and pout instead of taking control and using her voice.  Though, she also has witnessed personally the very big downsides of that approach.  So, I think the dynamic she grew up in set an example, but it was a negative one that she wants to get beyond. 

It also probably has been harder to step into the role of a strong Disciplinary Wife without a strong female role model.  It's one reason that I am not as averse as she is to our kids knowing about our dynamic.  I actually think it would be good for them to see a strong female in charge and in control.

How about your disciplinarian?  Was he or she spanked growing up?  Do you think the disciplinary environment they grew up in made them more, or less, open to being a disciplinarian as an adult?

Have  great week.

Dan

No Post Today

  “The best thing about getting a flu shot is that you never again need to wash your hands. That's how I see it.” -- Chuck Palahniuk

Hello all.  I hope you had a good week. 

I appear to have caught this year's flu bug, despite actually getting the flu shot  -- for once.  That'll teach me.  My feverish brain is having trouble working the remote control on the television, so I doubt anything I might write would be coherent and, if entertaining, only accidentally so.   

I hope you all have a great week.

The Forum -- Vol. 238 -- Tears and more tears

"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.  I hope you had a great week.  Welcome back to the The Forum.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships. 

Well, one month down in this new year.  Honestly, I did a little better than usual at keeping to some resolutions around diet and exercise.  Not perfect, by a long shot, but not terrible either.  Though, it did start drifting a bit toward the end, and I'm going to have to whip myself back onto the better track I was on.  Or, a certain someone is going to have to do it for me! But, all in all, 2018 is still looking better than 2017.  But, I recently came across this link that gave me reason to think that perhaps I judged 2017 a little too harshly: 
https://qz.com/1169003/the-99-best-things-that-happened-in-2017/.  Every once in a while, it's good to focus on the positive, which these days generally seems to require completely cutting yourself off from the daily news cycle.

A couple of weeks ago, we closed another poll.  This one on a subject that long-time readers know is particularly near and dear to my heart.  To the point that I consciously try not to overdo it.  Which is difficult, because it was probably the very most important facet of domestic discipline to me in the beginning, and one that I found simultaneously fascinating and terrifying.  That topic is tears, specifically, being brought to real tears by an adult spanking.  The results from the most recent poll are in: 

 

I have not but want to:                                            46%

I have not and do not want to:                                12%

I have but only a few tears:                                    17%

I have, including crying hard or sobbing:               22% 

I've run variations of this poll a couple of times, though this is the first time I've asked whether those who have not cried want to.  The results as to the relative proportions of those who have cried and those who have not has stayed fairly stable across the polls, with about half saying they have not cried, and with the other half somewhat closely divided between those who have shed only a few tears and those who say an adult spanking has led to hard crying or sobbing.   

This year's spin on the poll does seem to show pretty clearly that of those who have not cried, a very solid majority would like to. You definitely can put me in that camp.  The prospect of crying was probably the most significant driver of the emotional reaction I had when I first discovered domestic discipline by reading about it on-line.  Stories of men being brought to tears over their wives knees transfixed me, though not in a wholly positive way.  More like being in a car and knowing you are about to crash and can't avoid it.  It left me with butterflies in my stomach, though that really understates things.  I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't think of much of anything else for the couple of days between when I first stumbled on the concept and when I brought it to my wife's attention. I found the whole prospect both utterly compelling and utterly repulsive.  It both fascinated and scared the living hell out of me.  The thought of letting go of control so thoroughly that I would sob in front of my wife as a result of a paddling or strapping she delivered really shook me to my core in a fundamental way.  It scared me like nothing else really every had or has since, yet I found myself compulsively drawn to it.   

This fascination with tears shows up even in my reaction to spanking-related art and media.  Pictures that show real tears as the result of a spanking still give me butterflies in the stomach:

 

Though, it probably says a lot about the factors that prevent men from crying that in order to find a good drawing of an adult spanking resulting in tears, I have to go with a woman spankee, because the art depicting men crying is almost completely devoid of anything resembling actual emotional release.

Yet, here we are so many years later, and I still have not cried. Even as a result of spankings that plainly fall into the "severe" range.  So, while the spanking fantasy literature may suggest it's all about effort on her part, that's clearly not the case.  Instead, I would describe it as a necessary but insufficient part of the recipe for tears.

While it's impossible for me to pinpoint exactly why, I've come to believe there are certain factors that play into why some men get there and some don't:

Severity:  A spanking must be severe enough to "get the job done."  But, at least in my case if it starts out very severe from the start using a really painful instrument like a skinny wooden paddle or a rubber strap, I absolutely will not be brought to tears because, paradoxically, it is just too hard and I can't stop myself from resisting it.  I cannot stop myself from trying to "man up" and just get through each swat.  No matter how much I go into the spanking with the intent of "taking my medicine" and leaving myself open to it in a way that might let me release into tears, I just cannot do it if the pain level is too much at the beginning. 

Duration: My wife tends to spank very hard, but sometimes so much so that my bottom gets in bad shape quickly and then she decides to terminate the spanking.  I suspect that duration plays at least as big a role as severity in bringing about real tears and that sobbing is more likely to happen when it starts really occurring to him that this spanking is going to go on way past his ability to "take it like a man."

  

Immediacy and remorse:  Oftentimes, I'm being spanked for something that we both agree is something I should be spanked for but, (a) it's something that didn't have any real impact on her or anyone else and, hence, I don't really feel all that guilty about it; or (b) so much time has passed between the offense and the consequences that whatever guilt I once felt has dissipated.

Lecturing: Related to the presence or absence of remorse, I suspect that a very strong lecture before the spanking would help soften me up emotionally and leave me more vulnerable and, hence, more likely to cry.  This has, unfortunately, never been my wife's strong suit, though she has been getting better at it recently.  

"Manliness": Some men's identities are more bound up with the concept of being "manly" with all that it entails.  Unfortunately, one thing it may entail is a very deep-seated resistance to showing vulnerability and an inability to easily display that vulnerability or weakness.  Those identity traits are actually strengths that can help us get through a lot, accomplish a lot and succeed in out-sized ways. But, like all such traits, they can come at a price when they become excessive or one-dimensional. That price may be a very strong resistance to embarrassment and emotional vulnerability, both of which crying from a spanking would likely entail.

Pain tolerance:  The plain fact is, I have a lead bottom and a weirdly high pain threshold.  I've suffered some fairly significant injuries in the past, but they just didn't hurt me as much as they seem to hurt other people.  So, getting me to a point at which the pain becomes truly unbearable is a daunting prospect.  

Encouragement from the disciplinary spouse:  Those of us who have a strong emotional resistance to crying may also fear embarrassment more than others.  In those cases, I think the disciplinary wife probably has a role in facilitating tears not just by lecturing sternly then spanking severely, but also by letting her husband know before and during the spanking that not only is she comfortable with him crying, but she wants him to do so. My wife and I have discussed this several times, and I think her attitude has progressed a lot as she has become more comfortable in her role, going from acknowledging that my crying might disturb her because it it shows is hurting me "too much," to getting over that and being OK if I do cry at some point, to mildly disappointed that it has not happened yet. 

Determination to Deliver Discipline.  While this may not qualify as a truly separate category, I do think that tears are at least much more likely to result when she (a) wants them to happen; (b) is determined to bring them about, and (b) is determined to do so because she is determined that the spanking will be given and received as a real, true disciplinary experience.  ZD alluded to this a few weeks ago when he shared with us that he had finally cried from being spanked.  As he told us, it came about largely because his wife announced it advance that it was going to, period.

So, with that very long-winded opening, tell us your situation, hopes and fears where tears are concerned.  Have you been brought to tears?  Would you like to be?  If you have, were there certain things that enabled you to get there? If not, what do you think is holding you back?  For those of you who have cried, what role did your spouse playing in getting you there, and have they told you how they feel about you crying as a result of their disciplinary efforts?

 

I hope you all have a great week.