No Post

Hi all.  We're still out adventuring.  So, no post this morning.  There is some limited chance I'll do one later today or later in the week, but no promises,  Enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving - No Post This week

Anne and I will taking some time off beginning tomorrow, so I will not be posting this week.  I hope all of you in the U.S. have a great Thanksgiving!


Dan

The Club Meeting 320 - Switching

I can no longer obey.  I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.  - Napoleon Bonaparte

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.  I hope you all had a great week.

Mine was, and is, frustrating.  As reported recently, I’ve been in this very sexualized mood lately.  The problem is, between my travel, my wife’s travel, and some social obligations, we’ve barely even seen each other, let alone had time to put any of the nasty thoughts running through my head into practice.  Unfortunately, there’s no end in sight for at least another week.  I guess I will treat it as an extended experiment in maintaining a high level of erotic energy through some involuntary chastity.

I can always tell when a topic doesn’t do much for me personally, even if it may appeal to others in our little community.  The sure sign is how often I’ve made it a weekly topic over this blog's roughly six year history.  When a topic really intrigues me, I tend not to just do it, but overdo it.  Hence, lots of topics on tears (ZM, friendly reminder, you still owe us the in-depth tale of your first disciplinary crying experience!), how people got started in Domestic Discipline, boundaries, reporting, and strictness.  Then there are topics like corner time, which don’t do much for me and that I’ve devoted full topics to only a couple of times. 

This week’s topic is one I have really given short shrift to over the years.  In fact, I’ve made it a full topic only once, over four years ago, and the entire post was only about two paragraphs long.  That topic is “switching,” i.e. the spanker and spankee exchanging those roles.  Presumably, it also could apply to a broader power exchange as well, with a couple swapping dominant roles from time to time.

This has come up in a couple of contexts recently. First, my wife and I are not big porn watchers, but a few weeks ago I did some searching for movies that included F/m domestic discipline or FLR themes.  There was basically nothing.  Even M/f domestic discipline themes were more or less non-existent.  I did finally find a fairly well-reviewed series that billed itself as Fifty Shades but with better sex and real BDSM. I bought the series, thinking that even if the theme is M/f spanking and BDSM, maybe it would still give my wife some ideas on how to extend or deepen her dominance. 

So, while the movies were not about switching, they kind of related to switching issues in my relationship with Anne and our dominance explorations. (Unfortunately, much like the real Fifty Shades, there was very little real spanking or discipline/punishment and a lot of bondage and more or less vanilla sex, though the production quality was good by porn standards.)

Then, it came up more directly last week in an exchange between Julie and me, in which I noted that I have an aversion to exercising power over other people (even though I am in that role a lot at work), so I have no desire at all to be the “dominant” party in any relationship.  In fact, taking on any kind of dominant role kind of flies in the face of the entire reason I got into DD in the first place.  I recognized several years ago that I have a very unbalanced personality, in that I am very Type-A and have big issues with giving up control.  For me, domestic discipline and, increasingly over the last couple of years, FLR are means for balancing out a very unbalanced orientation.  Adding some yin to way too much yang.  Doing the opposite by taking on a dominant role, even sporadically, might screw up my efforts to balance things out.

My aversion to exercising power over other people includes my orientation toward spanking.  I am a receiver, not a giver. 

The initial exchange with Julie led to this reply from Alan:

“I hear what you are saying and that's pretty much how I feel NOW. But back in the bad old days (before I received my first real disciplinary spanking), being with a woman you care for who passionately wants a spanking (and who is also very desirable) makes it all seem different. I don't think I could ever return to that mind-set. But, in the day, it seemed very much the thing to do. I might add I believe quite a few people (both males and females) have gone through these transformations --as the wonderful Julie demonstrates on her equally wonderful blog.”

I hear Alan's point, but I’m really not sure I could ever get there.  Even if my wife really wanted it, which as far as I know she still doesn’t.  If the spanking were purely erotic and not very hard – maybe.  But, I’m pretty confident I could never give her a real disciplinary spanking. 

Also, I would be leery about exploring switching when it comes to our ongoing experiments with real power exchange.  I want my wife to explore her dominance and to get more and more comfortable in that role. When I think about switching things up and dominating her even in a purely erotic scenario, I get concerned about the possibility that she might like it and might want more of it, when my goal is for her to be increasingly in that Top role and me on the bottom.  It is that dynamic I want to explore, and I want to deepen it, not dilute it by switching back and forth between dominant and bottom roles.

As I discussed last time I had a topic on this, the one attraction I have to female spanking scenarios is the artwork.  So much better and more nuanced than most of the F/m stuff, and the female form is just so nice to look at!

 

 How about you?  If you are now the discipline recipient in a DD marriage, or the “bottom” in a Dominance/submission relationship, was there was a time when you were the paddle swinger or in the Dominant role?  Do you switch between the two, or is the more submissive or “bottom” role now more or less permanent?  Was there any particular event that helped you realize which role was right for you?

For the ladies, have you ever been the spanked party or a “bottom” or “submissive”?  (For whatever reason, I gravitate toward the term “bottom” more than “submissive,” though the converse is not true – I don’t like the term “Top,” though I don’t know why.  Probably too many on-line encounters with too many dick-ish self-identified Tops.)  If not, is it something you want to experience?  Why or why not?  If you have been the spankee, were the spankings for real discipline, or more purely erotic or sexual?  Were you spanked growing up? 

For those of you have switched, was it just the spanking role that you switched up, or did the switching extend to more fundamental power exchange elements, like decision making power and authority, making rules for the other party, etc.?

Have a great week.

Club Meeting 319 - Spillovers

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Club Meeting 318 - How Long?

“I met an old lady once, almost a hundred years old, and she told me, 'There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? And Who's in charge?” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.  I hope you all had a great week.

It was an interesting one, on multiple levels.  Belle’s question about why an “alpha” male would want to be the recipient in a Domestic Relationship ended up covering a lot of ground: young men and their ability to grow up, or lack thereof; spanking fetishes versus balancing power and giving up control; female empowerment and its possible impact on that female’s desire; Domestic Discipline’s ability to “fix” problematic relationships or lack thereof; preserving  male “swagger” while punishing arrogance; parenting philosophies as applied to 30 year-old daughters; and, of course, the need for a better label than “Alpha” to identify men who with dominant or aggressive personality traits.

Lost in all that was an uptick in our number of female commenters, in addition to Belle. Liz, thanks for dropping by again. Lola and Drew, welcome.

Coincidentally, as our efforts to answer Belle’s questions about female empowerment in the context of bad experiences with an immature spouse were playing out here on the blog, a political situation with some parallels was playing out in the press.  Katie Hill, a Democratic congresswoman from California and the first openly bisexual member of Congress resigned after someone, probably her jealous ex-spouse, leaked naked pictures of Ms. Hill participating in a threesome.   

From the reports in the press, it sounds like Ms. Hill’s high school boyfriend/spouse was upset that she outgrew him, went on to bigger and better things, and became a very empowered young woman. While he was living with mom and griping that his estranged wife wouldn’t pay him spousal support, Ms. Hill was embracing her power, sleeping with staffers and casting votes to impeach the most powerful man in the world.  So, estranged husband apparently got some revenge. Some of the same right-wing press that forgave non-consensual grabbing of women by their pussies got very moralistic about consensual relationships between a congressional candidate and her same-sex staffer.  In the era of #MeToo, that was enough to sink her career.  In her parting speech, she bemoaned the “double standard” applied to women in power.  While I sympathize with her and really hope the person who leaked the photos is prosecuted for “revenge porn,” I don’t think the “double standard” label fits the facts.  Senator Al Franken was driven from office for conduct that was arguably way less problematic than sex with a subordinate, so the Democratic leadership actually couldn’t support Ms. Hill without engaging in the kind of double standard she is now condemning.  Their previous treatment of men in power kind of put them in a box.  So, to me the issue isn’t about “double standards.” Rather it’s about how far we take a movement that has done good things but when applied blindly risks denying the reality that human relationships always have, and probably always will, revolve around sex and power.

Fortunately, here at the Disciplinary Couples Club, we openly celebrate the complex blending of power relationships and sexual attraction!  If that puts me at odds with our current puritanical bent and faux egalitarianism in all aspects of our complicated lives, so be it.  Also, I'm struggling with one of the most obvious lessons of Ms. Hill’s plight, namely: “Don’t let anyone photograph you naked.” Yet, at around the same time Ms. Hill was resigning from Congress, I was posting on KD’s blog about how much I like pictures of women “flashing” in public and how I wish I could entice my wife to join in.

Now, on to this week’s topic, which I will try to keep a little tighter than last week’s meandering, as interesting as some of it was.  Near the end of last week’s discussion, Belle, Alan and I got into some exchanges about the mechanics of delivering a real disciplinary spanking, including the tools she should use, what a hard adult spanking entails, etc.  In the course of that conversation, Alan observed:

“I don't know of your guy has had a real spanking as an adult. If not, he is going to be shocked at how much it hurts and how bad he wants it to stop. Be prepared for that and making sure he has that experience and understand it is definitely part of DD. You will see a pretty radical transformation just from that –and if he doesn’t submit to it, you will know early that it’s not going to work. Tough love maybe but very important.”

At around that same time, I had an email exchange with Caged Lion, who suggested the following topic (here in abbreviated form):

“I have an idea you may want to use for a topic. It may not be quite whatyou like because it does tend to attract the BDSM crowd, but it's an issue that's been bothering both of us. My wife keeps expressing concern about how long and how hard a spanking should be. I don't have any suggestion for her because I have no idea how other people in disciplinary relationships manage this. Do spankings always produce bruises? How long do they typically last?  Like almost every other guy in a DD relationship, you and I asked our wives to punish us. On your site any mention of a spanking might include whether or not it ended in tears but doesn't talk about how it was administered and for how long. I know would be helpful to us if we could find out how other couples handle this.”

I actually disagree about whether we’ve addressed “how long and how hard” on this blog.  I’ve posted some variation on that question multiple times.  But, it never really seems to draw much in the way of helpful, concrete responses.  And, it often isn’t participation by the BDSM crew that cuts off the discussion but, rather, those who weigh in strongly against any kind of formula or slogan, including any along the lines of this one:

In order to avoid that sideshow this time, and recognizing that we do all have differing pain thresholds and different abilities for absorbing well-earned lessons, let’s focus on the more concrete question of how long your own spankings typically take, whether measured in time or number of swats or some other metric.

I don’t have a lot of guidance to give on this one, because when I am being spanked I typically am looking at the floor and not at a clock. And, time spent in that position is, well, a bit relative.  When I am bent over the chair or ottoman and taking a very hard paddling or strapping, it seems to take forever.  But, in reality I am sure the whole thing takes well under 10 minutes.  Probably more like six or seven minutes.  For the most part, I haven't timed them. We did inject a time element into a few spankings earlier this year, however.  Following up on a suggestion from Helen or Elizabeth (I forget which), I suggested that my wife ensure that each offense is dealt with separately.  My thinking was that by separating each spanking into a separate mini-session, I would always have an incentive to behave better even if I had already earned a spanking that week.  So, the plan we came up with is that each offense would get at least 5 minutes of actual spanking time, as measured with an hourglass, with intervening sessions of corner time to let my butt recover and to get rid of most of the numbness. We only used that approach two or three times, with the longest resulting in about 15 minutes of actual spanking time.

When we were first getting into Domestic Discipline, we implemented a system that focused more on the number of swats than the temporal duration of the spanking.  Under our system, each agreed-upon offense was assigned a certain minimum number of swats. I don’t recall the details at this point, but it went something like this:  We had agreed the binge drinking was a problem that needed to be addressed.  We set a limit on the total number of drinks I was allowed to have (two or three, as I recall).  Exceeding that limit resulted in a baseline of 10 swats with a heavy “school”-style paddle plus five swats for each drink over the agreed-upon limit.  So, even one drink over the limit resulted in 15 hard swats. There were other offenses too, most with presumptive swats in the range of 5 to 10.  I still  recall vividly a session during our first few months of DD in which I had been particularly bad. When I tallied up the number of swats, it came to 65. Now, today, that is a fairly small fraction of the number of swats she gives me during a robust session, but at the time it was far more than I had ever taken.  I told her that I wasn’t sure I should take that many.  Without skipping a beat, she told me, “Then, I guess you should have behaved better.  You’re getting 65.”  Thus, a true Disciplinary Wife was born.

Over the last few years, I have become convinced that my lack of tears will never be solved by increasing severity, in terms of the kind of implement or the strength of the swat.  If anything, it works the opposite.  If the tool is just “too much” (thick rubber straps and some paddles qualify), I cannot prevent myself from going into “resistance mode” in which I can’t avoid just trying to gut it out.  But, I’m not as sure that the same thing holds with respect to duration. I have always wondered whether a longer spanking would result in me finally breaking down, if it just kept going on and on with no relief in sight.  I’m hoping ZM will weigh in on this one in particular, as he did reach a point of real tears last year and I recall him saying it was because his wife basically decided it would keep going until he did.  I would love to hear more details about what that actually looked like.

So, for the group, how long do your spankings usually take?  Have you ever timed one?  Is there a goal for it to last a certain amount of time? Does that vary depending on the offense? Or, Ladies, are you looking for some particular indication (tears, begging, etc.) 

By the way, regarding Caged Lion's specific question about bruising, I used to bruise regularly and fairly easily.  After the first couple of tries after we discovered DD and after she laid down the hairbrush in favor of an actual paddle, I bruised pretty much every time.  Now it is the reverse; regardless of the severity of the spanking, I very seldom bruise.  One exception was a few months ago when she experimented with some synthetic cane.  One of them wrapped around my butt and left very nasty bruises on my hips.  Honestly, I do miss bruising.  It was concrete evidence for her of a spanking well-given, and the need to cover up in the gym made the whole thing seem a bit more edgy.