The Club Meeting 278 - Consistency, Openness & The Holidays

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It's what we do consistently.” – Tony Robbins

Hi 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 relationships.  I hope you had a great week.

Mine was, as usual, mixed. Given the sheer quantity of temptations out there this time of year, I actually had a remarkably successful week where diet, exercise and personal discipline on things like that were concerned.  I had one drink all week, did a pretty good job resisting the piles of baked goods that make their way into our office this time of year, and worked out hard five days in a row.  On the other hand, work productivity remained challenging, even though our workload has finally picked up a little.  Inertia is just a very powerful force, and after being slow for an extended period, it's hard to shift into high gear again. It also was a week in which my patience with some of the "higher-ups" wore really thin.  Which is a significant problem, because as I talked about last week, losing my temper really is an impediment to some greater growth, and accepting some authority is inherent in this thing we do.  For me, it is one of my biggest personal challenges.

Now, that said, I will say something that seemingly goes in the opposite direction.  I am hoping this Christmas signals the high point for the current fashion of faux outrage, of taking offense at absolutely everything, and of proactively looking for things to get your panties in a twist about.  Witness the latest, i.e. the "controversy" around the song Baby It's Cold Outside.  If this isn't the silliest example of political correctness run amok, it's hard to think of a better one, though the PC crew seldom surprises me with the depths they will plumb to find something new and trivial to get all worked up about.  Sorry PC advocates, seducing and being seduced are still perfectly legitimate for most sex-positive people who aren't professors or students at Yale.  The fact that this is, in fact, totally faux outrage that has not one thing to do with the lyrics of the song itself becomes apparent when you look at it from just a slightly different angle. Don't think so? Take a look at this version, this time with Lady Gaga in the role of the seducer intent on keeping Joseph Gordon-Levitt in her arms and on her bed.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtoW4aV-CIc.  Lock her up!  I also found this on BuzzFeed, from a feminist putting the song in perspective and in its historical context:

"See, this woman is staying late, unchaperoned, at a dude’s house. In the 1940’s, that’s the kind of thing Good Girls aren’t supposed to do — and she wants people to think she’s a good girl. The woman in the song says outright, multiple times, that what other people will think of her staying is what she’s really concerned about: “the neighbors might think,” “my maiden aunt’s mind is vicious,” “there’s bound to be talk tomorrow.” But she’s having a really good time, and she wants to stay, and so she is excusing her uncharacteristically bold behavior (either to the guy or to herself) by blaming it on the drink — unaware that the drink is actually really weak, maybe not even alcoholic at all. That’s the joke. That is the standard joke that’s going on when a woman in media from the early-to-mid 20th century says “hey, what’s in this drink?” It is not a joke about how she’s drunk and about to be raped. It’s a joke about how she’s perfectly sober and about to have awesome consensual sex and use the drink for plausible deniability because she’s living in a society where women aren’t supposed to have sexual agency."

It's all in the way you choose to look at things, isn't it?  Right now, I kind of feel like look at things in whatever way offends the most sensitive people around me.   For 2019, I think I need to set a resolution of every day making at least one tight-ass, whether on the political left or the political right, clutch their pearls in offense at something that comes out of my mouth.

Speaking of consistency, it's sorely lacking in our DD relationship right now.  Well, not really "sorely."  Whatever soreness I am experiencing is purely from recent hard workouts.  This is the case, despite the fact that before this week, my behavior had been pretty consistently bad.  And, when I reversed course a bit this week, it had nothing to do with increased discipline or control being imposed on me as part of this thing we do.  Rather, the cumulative impact of lack of sleep and cold symptoms that I can't get rid of four weeks after getting the cold convinced me that I had to get my shit together on diet, exercise, meditation and alcohol because the alternative just wasn't something I could keep dealing with.  But, in an ideal world, the bad behavior would have gotten nipped in the bud much earlier, with a decisive enforcement of the rules and a terrifying application of her strap, paddle and cane.

Why is consistency so hard in these relationships?  I know many parents who are inconsistent in setting boundaries for their kids, but some are pretty good at it.  They see setting and enforcing boundaries as part of the parental gig and something that is absolutely necessary for the recipient's own benefit.   So, why is it so hard to import that mindset into a DD marriage, particularly given that unlike the recipient of childhood discipline, in these relationships the person on the receiving end of the paddle usually has asked for it literally, not just via his actions.  

For us, I think it comes down to entrenched roles, priority-setting and concerns about openness.  First, she fights the entrenched socialization of traditional gender roles and also the "kinkiness" factor that makes taking on the role of a Disciplinary Wife an act of social daring and bucking conventions.  For my part, I tell myself that I need to be better about formalizing a system of self-reporting and asking to be spanked when I know I deserve it, yet I don't follow through, because I have my own entrenched socialization that resists the embarrassment of admitting, in writing or in a face-to-face conversation, that I've done wrong and deserve to be punished for it.  Second, while this aspect of our lives is important to us, apparently not quite important enough to find ways to do it even when other things intrude.  Third, I am convinced that our lack of openness about this has been a major impediment over time, because we put so much effort into hiding it that we limit her opportunities to openly display that she is in control, because we are caught up in the conventions that say this isn't "normal" and that people should keep any non-conventional power arrangements strictly private even when not overtly sexual.

My subconscious may be trying to force the openness issue.  I've talked about the fact that I usually wear a necklace with a pendant that supposedly, in BDSM world, symbolizes a male submissive.  It doesn't quite fit how I view my role, but I can't find anything more DD-specific.  It usually stays safely hidden under my shirt, but not lately.  It popped out three times in one week.   The first time, I had to go to the doctor, and when the nurse told me to take off my shirt, at first I totally forgot about the necklace.  The second time, I got on an elevator to leave work, along with a couple of the younger people on my team.  I turned to talk to one of them, and as I did so I felt the same pendant get caught on my shirt collar as I turned.  It had somehow worked itself out of my shirt and was hanging outside the collar in plain view.  The third time, it somehow worked it's way outside my shirt as I was sitting in my office.  The damn thing is like The One Ring constantly working to reveal itself, for those of you who are Lord of the Rings geeks like myself. Of course, as I've observed before, the only people who would know what the symbol means are those who are in the lifestyle, so why get embarrassed?  Well, what if the male doctor is a male Dominant and does recognize the symbol?  Would I be embarrassed?  Quite likely, though I do ask myself why I'd really care.

When I tie all the above together, I think as the kids have gotten older and as we have fewer financial insecurities keeping me tied to a particular job or career, I'm asking those mid-life questions about the extent to which I am leading my own life, or one that has been imposed on me by social convention.  Part of me is just tired of hiding this part of my life.  It's not like I feel a desire for some dramatic coming out of the closet ceremony.  Rather, I just don't feel as much need to hide it, particularly if doing so means we never take this to the level we both say we want.  For that reason, I keep encouraging Anne to come out and be more open about the fact that she is in charge.  I think you will soon see her take up that challenge a bit, perhaps on this blog and perhaps a bit more in real life.

Of course, the holidays are probably the time of year when maintaining consistency in the disciplinary aspects of the relationship is the hardest.  Friends and relatives are around more than ever.  It takes a certain proactive effort to just maintain the dynamic let alone extend it.

I know this entry has rambled a lot, but that tends to happen when I wake up on a Saturday without a firm topic in mind.  To the extent there is one that you see in the above, feel free to comment on any aspect that strikes your fancy.  But, in order to pretend I do have a real topic in mind, how about this: If you have actually succeeded in bringing a degree of consistency into your DD relationship, how have you done it?  

• Husbands, what actions have you taken to give your wife the control and support she needs to take on this role? What have you done to help ensure that you do, in fact, pay a price for your bad behavior when you know you deserve it.  
• Wives, given all you have going on in your life, and given some of the societal and emotional hurdles, what steps have you taken to make sure that you actually consistently give him what he has coming?  Another question for the wives: Is it harder to be consistent or harder NOT to be?  The surface level answer would seem to be that being a leader is hard, and doling out DD punishments consistently could be a very difficult thing, because of the need to be "on" all the time.  But, might the converse be even more of a problem? The "on again, off again" ebbs and flows might keep the disciplinary wife always on edge and never quite getting into a personal zone where she really feels in control. Thoughts?

One note on last week's topic.  I suspected that an open invitation for more wives to participate would probably flop, and it kind of did.  I suspect there just aren't really all that many female readers.  Also, we talked last week about how women in these relationships have a very practical bent; that may express itself as having better things to do than spend a weekend surfing DD blogs.  I also think there is a dynamic among "Tops" that they just aren't as interested in discussing all this as we "bottoms" are.  I have no idea why, but that is how it seems to work.  But, thanks to new commenter Elizabeth.  I hope she will continue to participate and maybe that will encourage other "lurkers" to join in.  Thanks to Anna as well for sharing some of the interesting new developments in her disciplinary adventures. Perhaps Peter will have something to add?

Have a great week.