The Club -- Meeting #260 -- Am I Getting Through to You?

Discipline yourself and others won't need to. - John Wooden

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 or Female Led marriages.

First off, welcome to Sherri, Susan G. and Jeanne.  It's great to have more Disciplinary Wife participation.  I hope you will continue to chime and will also tell us all a little more about your DD or Wife Led relationships.

Well, last week's discussions were . . . what's the right word . . . wide-ranging.  There's nothing wrong with that and, in fact, many things are good about it.  As I've said before, the whole topical format can seem very constraining sometimes, so I usually not only don't have a problem with things deviating from the suggested topic but it actually can yield a more interesting conversation and takes some pressure off me as the blog owner.  The general line for me is, does this deviation from the topic have a damn thing to do with Domestic Discipline or FLR relationships, or is it one more instance of someone trying to hijack the blog for their own purposes?  And, I'll sometimes even ignore that line if the conversation is interesting enough.  Though, we all have different views on what is interesting, don't we?  The wonderful thing about Blogger and all the other blogging and web developer tools that are out there is anyone can talk about anything they want any time -- on their own blog.  All they have to do is put in some time and effort.

There have been a couple of threads over the last two or three weeks that I want to come up with some kind of topic around, though I need to think it through more.  We had a discussion back in January about the "maternal" aspects of Domestic Discipline and the extent to which it brings out the unruly boy in some of us.  I feel like the topic deserves a more thorough treatment than it got last time, and it does keep coming up.  So, if anyone can think of an interesting angle on it, let me know and I'll consider it.  I also liked the point ZM raised about  there not necessarily being a conflict between the erotic side and the disciplinary side of domestic discipline and that the former might actually fuel the latter but without detracting from the disciplinary aspect. I need to think about that more.

In the meantime, Helen raised the following topic suggestion:   "What strategies does the disciplinary couple employ to determine the effectiveness of punishments?  I think there may be many strategies we can share with each other. For instance, Andy and I have a rule that if the behavior is repeated, the punishment must be harsher because it obviously didn't "take" the first time. I also do a Q&A with him during the spanking that demonstrates his willingness to improve his behavior. And I also am very observant when I let Andy off my lap: If there is any resentful body language, or a grunt of disagreement,  or the hint of an erection, back over he goes! His contriteness must be complete."

Let's go with that as this week's topic.  I don't have anything all that interesting or novel to say about it myself.  In the early days, and to some extent through to today, our focus was on making punishments hard enough to match the crime, but not necessarily on assessing them after the fact. 

I've talked before about how in the early days we would assign a minimum number of swats for particular offenses, to guarantee I did not get off easy. I guess our most used post-spanking assessment tool is the journal I share with her, which often shares thoughts on previous sessions.

Other thoughts?  What do you to assess the effectiveness of your disciplinary procedures or what do you incorporate to make sure they are, in fact, effective at getting your message across?

Have a great week!

The Club - Agenda for Meeting 259 - Anticipation and Reminders

"Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences." - Norman Cousins

Hello all.  I hope you had a great week.  Mine was busy, which you may have discerned from my lack of participation.  Unfortunately, I was distracted by other things, both domestic and foreign.  Who would have thought that foreign relations could provide lessons for misbehaving husbands.  If she gets perturbed after a bad self-report and orders an especially hard spanking to deal with it, just say, “Oh, I’m sorry Ma’am.  I misspoke.  I meant to say my behavior wasn’t bad. . . .” 

 We certainly had a lot of volume last week.  Counting my own handful, we ended up with 115 comments, which may be a record though I have not gone back through old posts to confirm that. Of course, the volume gets higher as things drift away from the topic or even the theme of the blog, which is disciplinary relationships, not erotic spankings.  Near the end, there even seemed to be a proposition on the table that a spanking is “effective” if it is erotically arousing.  Uh, no. Not if we are talking about disciplinary spankings.  Those may involve an erotic response but that certainly is not the goal let alone how one might assess their effectiveness.  In fact, as Helen and Alan both talked about in terms of severity, if he is still aroused after the spanking gets going, then what is happening probably either isn’t a disciplinary spanking or it’s a pretty ineffective one.  

So, all in all it was a great discussion, though I do want to emphasize that the blog’s theme is not going to drift into a general “spanko” venue.  There are plenty of those around, so the focus here is going to be remain on real couples in real disciplinary relationships.  So, if you find yourself constantly leading your comment with, “We aren’t in a DD relationship and our spankings are all erotic . . .” you may be in the wrong room.

I also do take issue with some of the comments on negative versus positive reinforcement.  There is no shortage of research showing that people will do more to avoid a negative outcome than to gain a positive outcome of equal "value."  One study after another backs that up, while as far as I know there is a real shortage of evidence backing up this position that having high self-esteem results in achievement, as opposed to high achievement being the basis for genuine self-esteem.  (Here is a nice summary of the history of the self-esteem fad in education and the lack of evidence supporting it:  https://www.thecut.com/2017/05/self-esteem-grit-do-they-really-help.html.)  In fact, we have an entire generation that seems to prove the contrary.  The Millennials have to be hands-down the least impressive generation in a hundred years, but they certainly aren't lacking in unearned self-esteem.  My favorite illustration of this phenomenon of runaway but unearned Millennial self-confidence can be found in this hilarious YouTube video entitled Job Interview With a Millennial:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo0KjdDJr1c. 

Our summer of more open dominance emphasizing her disciplinary role may be taking a little pause.  We had a few weeks with no kids around, but that won’t be true for the next few weeks.  We’re actively exploring how to keep things going, however, and I hope we don’t lose all momentum.  If anyone has tips on how we might go about doing that, I’d love to hear them.  But, the reality may be more time spent “anticipating” spankings than actually getting them.  And, that is this week’s topic.  Last week, ZM observed: 

One thing that my wife already does a little, but could do much more of is to use the time leading up to the punishment to build it up in my mind. At least for us, punishments seldom occur immediately after infractions because of logistics. Since so many of the feelings and emotions of punishments naturally occur during the time leading up to a punishment, she could really amplify those feelings by reminding me in different ways what is to come and to set the stage. I.e. "let's sit and have coffee, since you will not be wanting to sit for quite some time" or "I'm sure you feel sorry, but I need to see tears streaming down your cheeks and hear sobbing before I can move on."

I go back and forth about the ideal role of anticipation.  On one hand, I do believe that immediate consequences are best when it comes to modifying behavior.  Yet, I also do believe there is a value in giving him time to think about what he did and to really mull over the upcoming consequence.

 For me, the ideal would probably be same day, but with enough time between the spanking being ordered and it being carried out that I think hard about what is coming.  As ZM points out, she can help that anticipation build via dropping little “reminders.”  And, even an immediate spanking does not preclude doing things to ramp up the anticipation.

 Most, though not all, of my wife’s little reminders happen by text.  I may be sitting in my office, and I’ll receive a text saying, “Enjoy sitting today.  You won’t be enjoying it after you get home this evening.” How does your wife remind you that you have a session coming up?  How does she help ramp up the anxiety and anticipation surrounding it, if at all.  

 

I hope you all have a great week.

No Post Today

Hi all.  Sorry, but I have some family commitments today that will keep me away from the computer. I will try to post tomorrow.  In the meantime, have a great weekend.

The Club - Meeting Agenda 258 - Feelings From Power Exchange

 "Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings — always darker, emptier and simpler.” -- Friedrich Nietzsche

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 or Wife Led relationships.

We've had some really great discussions back-to-back over the last few weeks.  Thanks to Helen for sharing her story and her thoughts with all of us.

My week began pretty boring, but ended with a bang.  Two bangs in fact, one resulting from the fact that for one of the first times ever I verbally asked for a spanking.  I'll share here what I wrote in a DD journal yesterday, as I was in the moment.

I'm writing this at the kitchen table, a few minutes before I am going to walk upstairs and ask her to spank me.  This is something I almost never do.  How I came to it is a bit tortured, as my bottom soon will be.  I have really been struggling with self-control issues on things like diet.  I had pledged to do better this week, and I did until Wednesday.  Then we had a birthday event at the office, which included a large cake.  I have been trying to swear off of all sugar, and at first I successfully resisted.  But, the cake was out on a table for for several hours after the event, and I had to pass by it to get to the kitchen or restroom.  Finally, I decided to have one piece.  That somehow became -- four.   Yes, four.  I was really disappointed in myself and intended to include it in my weekly self-report.  But, the next day, I recalled one of Helen's recent comments about making sure that each offense was addressed separately.  So, I decided that when I got home that night, I would tell my wife about it and with paddle in hand, ask her to spank me right then. 

But, that's not really how it worked out.  Instead, as I was getting ready to go home, a colleague asked me to join her and some other colleagues for happy hour.  I hemmed and hawed, then eventually decided to go for "a drink."  I actually behaved myself pretty well, surprisingly. But, when I got home my determination to bring her the paddle and request a spanking had evaporated.  Then, I had a few more drinks at home, and in in so doing broke another rule.  When I got up this morning, she informed me that I would be getting a spanking for the drinking.  So, I have decided once again not to be easy on myself, and I once again commit to bringing her a paddle and asking her to use it on me, knowing that doing so will now almost certainly result in TWO spankings on the same day.  But, I deserve this for two failures of self-control. 

So, I am going to go ask her to spank me.  This is so fucking hard.  Somehow it seems much harder that when I'm waiting for her to order me to get ready for one.  I've been getting spanked for years, yet I'm feeling really, really nervous about asking for this one.  There is something different about being a real participant in the process, and not just being on the receiving end.  I have butterflies in my stomach, almost like the very first few times she spanked me. Shit.  OK.  I am going to walk up there now.

And, I did.  I explained to her that I had intended to ask her to spank me yesterday, and I had already pointed out to her Helen's advice about making sure each offense is addressed separately with a separate spanking.  So, she instantly agreed.  But, she was in the middle of something, so she made me sit and wait on the ottoman where I receive most of my spankings, instructing me to think about what was about to happen to me.  The spanking itself was not as hard as asking for it.  We had been talking about trying OTK again, and we did.  It did make me feel a little more exposed and vulnerable, and I was acutely aware of the feel of my cock against her thighs. She did say that the OTK position did make it hard for her to generate a swing as powerful as she usually wants.  But, it was not an ineffective spanking by any means.  I am writing this paragraph sitting on a moderately sore bottom, anticipating my second spanking of the day, which she confirmed I will be getting later tonight.

I'm writing the remainder of this after spanking #2.  It was much harder, and at one point I got pretty close to letting go into real tears, but still not quite there.  As ZM observed, I think the real missing piece is duration.  I think I could cross that threshold if it just went on and on, without long pauses to switch positions or implements.

The nerves I felt in screwing up the courage to ask her to spank me brings us to this week's topic, which was suggested to me by Helen.  She asked, "What, specifically, are the feelings that the male and female both get from the power exchange in Domestic Discipline? Not the tangible benefits such as improved behavior, chores completed without complaint, etc., etc. Focus on the feelings."

I will kick it off.  There is a significant difference between my feelings now versus when we first started.  We have been doing this so long, I usually don't get nearly as anxious as I did in the early days.  These days, what I feel as I am getting ready to be spanked is a mix of resignation and modest nervousness about what is to come.  The posture of the men in these drawings seems to capture a bit of that nervous anticipation, and the resignation that comes from knowing it really is going to happen. (The wives' "all business" demeanor is also pretty close to my own wife's approach during our sessions.)

 

That is very different from the early days. The men in these drawings seem a lot more subdued than I felt internally when we took our first steps into this kind of relationship. I still have very vivid memories of the time period (about a week) between discovering the Disciplinary Wives Club website and getting my first disciplinary spanking.  It really did hit me like a sledgehammer.  I had trouble sleeping, as it was all I could think about.  The butterflies in my stomach were so powerful, I felt nauseous.  Yet, I had an erection that seemed to last for days.  I distinctly remember how nervous I felt taking the concept to her, and I felt a little of that yesterday when I asked her to spank me. After she agreed to give DD a try, I recall walking around a mall trying to find a wooden hairbrush that was suitable for my first spanking, my stomach doing somersaults and my cock hard as steel.  It was the strangest mix of genuine terror and perverse excitement, and it lasted for days and days.  I really was terrified about bending over to take that first spanking. I don't think it was the fear of the pain in and of itself.  I actually have an abnormally high tolerance for pain.  No, it was the prospect of embarrassing myself by crying.  That didn't happen in reality, but it did in most of the stories I had been reading compulsively on the DWC website, so I thought it was pretty likely.  Now, close to 15 years later, I still haven't cried, and I think that is because I am still so petrified of letting go like that and I can't quite give up the control that a thorough power exchange would entail.

Regarding how I feel as a result of the power exchange our current experimentation with having a Wife Led marriage, it also has competing emotional elements.  I am turned on by the thought of her really taking over. And, just like I craved that first spanking but was terrified of it, I crave her becoming a really strict wife and exercising an almost maternal authority over me.  Yet, giving up control like that still unnerves me.  And, in the moment, when she is actually ordering me to to do menial tasks around the house, or from time to time grounding me, I do resent it in that moment even though I've specifically asked for it and know it ultimately is for my own good.  But, there wouldn't be any real value in obeying authority if it were easy, would there?  

Helen also wanted to address erotic feelings specifically, and I can say that there is little that turns me on more than thinking about my wife becoming stronger and more powerful.  While we haven't really taken things very far in a D/s direction in the bedroom, she is taking charge more and more in bed and is becoming more physically aggressive, which I absolutely love.  I continue to believe that I am not really a "spanko" at heart, in that it is not really the spanking per se that turns me on so much.  It is her exercising authority and getting more and more comfortable wielding power.

How about you?  What feelings do spankings and the power exchange aspects of your DD or Wife Led  marriage elicit in you?  And, please, as hard as it is for us guys to even identify our emotions sometimes let alone talk about them, let's try to take Helen's suggestion and talk about the actual feelings involved, not the goals or benefits.

Have a great week!

Disciplinary Wife Profile - Helen

“You have to be a man before you can be a gentleman.” –John Wayne (McLintock!)

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 or Wife Led marriages (aka Female Led Relationships). I hope you had a great week.

A new development in mine is my wife's new, and seemingly sustained, interest in reading and really thinking about Domestic Discipline.  She seems to be arriving at that point some of us talked about a few weeks ago in which she starts really internalizing  this process and doing it because she wants it.  In other words, owning it.  She has powered through a couple of books on the subject.  She's also shown a new interest in this blog, which I came to find out when she announced out of the blue that she objected to, and strongly disagreed with, a comment I made to the effect that I do more of the housework than she does. I may be paying for that one!

What a great discussion last week.  As I said, the last time I posted about that topic I got four comments.  This time we had over 75 (if you include my responses), including a great discussion about the nature of manliness and metaphors for this thing we do, such as the ever popular Queen and her knight.  In relation to the theme of positive views of the male role and the possibility--perhaps the necessity--of being "manly" even within the context of a DD marriage, I saw this article on the myth and reality of another great manliness archetype, the alpha wolf: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/how-to-really-be-alpha-like-the-wolf/.  It's an interesting read. I kind of like this website, though a lot of it is aimed at a much younger male cohort, i.e. guys who need help on practical knowledge like learning how to tie a necktie or dress for a job interview, not for the old fart crowd that frequents this blog.

I would also like to welcome our newest Disciplinary Wife commenter, Helen.  She is going to give me a little respite this week from pontificating about a particular topic, by instead telling us about how she and her husband Andy came to be a DD couple.  If any other Disciplinary Wives would like me to post a similar story about how they got here or a profile of their DD or Female Led relationship, just let me know either with a comment here or by sending me an email.  I really would like to seriously ramp up the female participation here, so I hope others will take me up on this offer. For this week, I hereby introduce Helen:

The story of me beginning to spank Andy is a little different than the typical one of the husband finally getting the courage to ask his wife to spank him. We sort of came to it together, which is very appropriate for our marriage because it is not FLR—we make major decisions together. Because we are Catholic, there are some areas where he is rightly the leader: He is our protector, provider, and spiritual leader. But the Bible also says that the wife is the manager of the household, and we have taken that to mean that I am very much in charge of the day-to-day operations and in that realm he is a “servant-leader": Instead of washing feet (as Christ did), Andy washes toilets (LOL). OK, enough religion, but I thought that background was important.

 We had been married for several years when our disciplinary life began. I was a young stay-at-home wife and mother trying to care for a household and a baby with colic and feeling overwhelmed. He was a young professional trying to launch a career and feeling overwhelmed. We had a very traditional marriage: I did the cooking and cleaning and he brought home the bacon.

But I also am three years older than Andy and have always been in a mentor position with him: we met in high school when he was a freshman taking advanced chemistry (he is very smart and is now a chemical engineer) and I was a senior assigned by the teacher to be his lab partner and to “show him the ropes” (though we aren’t into bondage, LOL). I also am much more outgoing than Andy (some would say dominant), while he is more reserved (some would say submissive). So, here we were, a young married couple, both stressed out and bickering constantly about the so-called little things (him not helping around the house, coming home late without calling, leaving the toilet seat up, forgetting to take out the garbage, and on and on and on, driving me to distraction and to be a nag … if not a complete bitch).

I knew something had to change. He acted like such a naughty little boy that I wanted to treat him like one. And to me that meant spanking: I grew up with two younger brothers in a home where the mom was the disciplinarian, and they got the hairbrush over her knee fairly regularly. (I got it a couple times myself, but that is another story.)  Andy also grew up with a mom as the disciplinarian; his dad died when he was quite young. And coincidentally, he also got OTK spankings with a hairbrush (he called it a hairbrush but I later learned it was a clothes brush). We had shared this information about our childhoods with each other while having those exploratory conversations that people have while dating.

So the scene was somewhat set, as they say. One day, when Andy AGAIN forgot to take out the garbage as promised (and missed the garbage truck), and he was complaining about my scolding him for it, I said, “Well, what would your mother have said to you?”

“She wouldn’t have said anything,” he replied.

“She wouldn’t have said anything when you forgot to take out the garbage for the umpteenth time?”

And he blurted out, “It’s not what she would have said, it’s what she would have done.”

And then he blushed to the roots of his hair.

And I said, “What would she have done?”

He didn’t say anything, but I was sort of figuring it out.

“She would have let her hairbrush do the talking?” I asked.

“I’m not saying a word,” he said and quickly left the room.

So I had to read between the lines, which was the way our relationship was back then. When it came to sex or anything really private, we did not talk about it directly.

I figured it was pretty certain that he was saying that his mom would have spanked him for not taking out the garbage, which means she was spanking him maybe into his teen years (we had not ever discussed when the spankings stopped in our respective homes). It also was clear to me that his mom’s spankings worked with him. But what was not at all clear was whether he would accept spankings from his wife.

One part of me would have loved to talk to his mother about this, but I would have been so embarrassed to bring it up. But I started playing very close attention when we visited her, and I noticed more than I had before that there was a lot of “Yes, Ma’am” and “No, Ma’am” coming out of his mouth and that he treated her with a lot more respect than he treated me. I also noticed that very occasionally she would threaten him when he did something she didn’t like. She was very strict, and especially so about language. To her, “Oh my God” and such phrases were a form of swearing. One time we were at her house and he said “Oh my God” and she commented tartly, “You’re not getting too big for your britches, are you, young man?” And he immediately said, “No, Ma’am” and was quiet and respectful the rest of the evening.

Well, I knew very well that the britches line is a euphemism for getting pants taken down for a spanking, and while a lot of moms might use that just as an expression, I knew otherwise with Andy’s mom. Not that she would actually spank him as a 20-something married adult, but that she meant he could use some discipline like she used to provide. And I actually started to wonder whether she made that comment for MY benefit as well as his!

Being a young wife without a great deal of confidence, I did nothing after that. But I did think about it. And eventually I cooked up a plan which may seem quaint to many of you, but this was many years ago and times were different and we just did not come straight out with things. And even today, how many wives would have the guts to say to their big strong husbands, “I think I should start spanking you”?

My plan was tied to my birthday that was coming up. We were in the habit of getting lists from each other and then buying off those lists—not everything on the list, so that it was still a surprise, but maybe half the things. So I put on my list “a hairbrush.” And a couple of weeks before my birthday he came to me and said, “I have a question about your birthday list.”

“Oh?” I said.

“You listed a hairbrush. What sort of hairbrush?”

“Why don’t you surprise me?” I said.

“You don’t like the hairbrush you have?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s cheap plastic. I would like a wooden one.”

“OK,” he said, “what else?”

“As I said,” I replied. “Surprise me.”

“But I don’t know anything about hairbrushes!” he exclaimed.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I replied coyly. “Why don’t you ask your mom?”

And I left it at that. I didn’t know if he was reading between the lines—men typically aren’t very good at picking up signals—but I had decided that this would be my test: If he gave me a brush that was obviously good for spanking, I would try to take the next step. If he gave me a brush that was no good for spanking, I would let it go and try to deal with his recalcitrance some other way.

I was nervous and excited birthday morning. He had bought me several presents—I knew none of them was very expensive because we didn’t have a lot of discretionary income—but there was really only one that I cared greatly about. And when I opened the present, it was perfect: a large flat-backed wooden oval with a shaped handle.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“I love it!” I said. (I wanted to add, “But I don’t think you will,” but I was chicken.)

Then Andy brought up spanking! (And I realized that he must have been thinking about it too as he bought the brush, which he later confirmed).

“Would you like me to give you your birthday spanking with it?” he asked (even though we had no such tradition in our young marriage).

I saw an opportunity and I jumped on it. “I think YOU should take my birthday spanking for me!” I said with a slight grin. He just laughed. “No, I’m serious,” I said a bit sternly—and I pointed the hairbrush directly at him. “Come over here.”

And in that moment Andy morphed right before my eyes into a naughty little boy who had been caught misbehaving. He stood up and came to me, with his face burning and his eyes cast down. He stood still by my right side, hands at his sides. I had expected him to bend over, but he didn’t. He just stood there. And then I realized what he was waiting for—for me to take his pants down! Which I promptly did … to find him in a manly way, as they say.

I put him over my knee and started to give him a light-hearted play spanking with my new hairbrush—29 spanks and one to grown on. But as I whacked his bare bottom I started to feel drunk (and turned on) from the power he was relinquishing to me. The spanks got harder and harder until he was grunting. And then my exasperation came to the fore.

“Are … you … going … to ever … forget … the garbage … again?” I scolded, punctuating each word with a hard spank.

“No, Ma’am!” he exclaimed.

“And … are … you … going.. to … call … whenever … you … are … late?” I yelled, continuing to spank hard.

“Yes, Ma’am!” he hollered back, and I could hear the pain in his voice.

“Good!” I said, and paused. “And do you agree that this is what should happen whenever you misbehave in the future?”

He hesitated. I whacked him a few more times. “Yes, Ma’am!” he exclaimed.

I pushed him off my knees and he buried his face in my lap. He was sobbing softly. I stroked his hair. After I few moments I reached down and kissed the top of his head. He turned toward me and we kissed on the lips. It turned into a passionate embrace, and we proceed to have explosive sex right there in the living room. He was all man again, believe me. And that is how it has been ever since!"  

Thank you, Helen!  I hope all the rest of you have a great week.