The Club - Meeting 348 - Severity Revisited

A person who is knowingly bent on bad behavior, gets upset when better behavior is expected of them. - Jane Austen

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 all had a great week. Mine was fairly frustrating. Lots of work drama, much of it set off by my recent announcement that I’d like to start transitioning out of my current roles. It’s becoming apparent that this transition is not going to be pain free and may end up taking a few more months than I’d hoped. And, in the meantime, a return to the office any time soon doesn’t seem very likely given the current Covid trends.  What a screwed up year, and I’m starting to get a little concerned that 2021 may end up looking a lot like 2020.

I liked last week’s discussion, even if I didn’t participate in a lot of it.  It doesn’t really surprise me very much that most of the people answered KD’s question affirmatively regarding whether DD would likely continue in some form even if one’s behavior was suddenly perfect. There were a small number of us who said it might not. It surprised me a little bit more that the women who responded seemed to be unanimous in admitting they kind of enjoy holding the power and might have a hard time giving it up. I’m not surprised they feel that way, but I am a little surprised they all admitted it.  I feel like I might have gotten a different answer back when I first started the blog; it seems like there is an increasing openness among some women when it comes to declaring that they like being in charge.

This week’s topic extends from a comment Belle passed along a couple of weeks ago from her Jimmy.  When asked what he likes and dislikes about DD, his dislike centered on this: 

"I wish she didn't spank quite so hard. I think I would still get the message." (Belle, I found this picture in my collection – it reminded me of how you've described the relationship between you and Jimmy.)

These days, I am kind of there with Jimmy. From the beginning, we have taken Domestic Discipline seriously.  Though it clearly has erotic overtones, it isn't part of a kinky game for us.  The goal really did remain to make me pay a price for bad behavior such that I would be less likely to do it again.  My earliest exposure to Domestic Discipline reinforced that the starting place should be to err on the side of severity. Aunt Kay of the Disciplinary Wives Club advised: "The harder you spank him, the more he will love you for it."  And, I still believe there is a lot of truth in that. I also believe that if it isn't really hard, and designed to push him not only to his limits but somewhat beyond them, then is it really punishment?  If it's something you can easily take, then how are you really being punished? And, over the course of the first few years, I was definitely the one fixated on "hard" spankings.

 

As time goes by, however, I’ve had more doubts about the "harder is better" premise.  Over the years, I followed the “more severe is better” path into experimenting with scarier and scarier tools. We ended up getting rid of several of them, including rubber straps that we found did way too much damage. I’ve also found over the last couple of years that many of our wooden paddles seem to hurt much worse than they used to. I really don’t know whether my butt has gotten more sensitive over time or if Anne is swinging harder. Yet, even as the spankings have come to feel more severe over the years, I’m hard pressed to say they are more “effective.” For example, after about 15 years of being in this lifestyle, I’ve never once gotten to a point of tears, even with extremely painful implements, like those rubber straps.  After a certain point of severity, I just cannot give into the process and reach any point of actual submission or surrender when she is strapping me with them.  My mind becomes so singly fixated on just trying to get through it, there is no way for me to give in.  I not only do not surrender, I become more resistant to surrendering.  

Now, one could argue that tears are more my goal than hers, and if she is delivering an incredibly hard spanking, then I am being well and truly punished and am surely less likely to commit that same offense in the future. But, I’m finding that isn’t really true either.  Instead, I think the way it really works is I just get less inclined to self-report, and I find myself trying to create distractions or excuses so she either forgets about her intent to give a spanking or ends up showing mercy when she probably shouldn’t. 

The plain fact is, even though we are basically empty nesters these days, over the last years the frequency of spankings has dropped, not gone up, and I have to be honest about the fact that part of that is because I am finding ways to delay or avoid.  And, of course, all that defeats the entire purpose of acting for discipline and accountability.  It’s kind of like KD’s observation about pickpockets engaging in their trade during public hangings – severity by itself may not deter the crime though it may make the culprit more careful or sneakier. .  

I am more and more convinced that frequency and consistency are more effective than really severe pain, and that severity may work against frequency and consistency. Honestly, I really believe she might have better luck really changing my behavior if she stuck with two or three effective but not over-the-top instruments and spanked way more often but with each session being less of a long, staged event.  In one of his comments last week, Alan observed:

The more authority a woman feels, the more likely she is to use it to shape her husband’s behavior beyond the issues that led them to adopt a DD lifestyle. A wife often discovers or becomes aware of additional behaviors that she decides to correct. In effect as a relationship matures, discipline becomes stricter and standards are increased.

It hasn’t really worked that way for us, but I think it is what Anne should be aiming for – setting higher standards, being stricter and more quick to punish, but with the caveat that really long and severe sessions be reserved for really exceptional conduct. I still believe that a disciplinary spanking should be an event to remember and that a certain amount of severity is required. But, I also think it’s more about frequency and duration than “hardness” per se.  For me, there seems to be some sweet spot where it hurts a lot, but not so much that my defenses become impossible to surmount. I also think that focusing more on being strict and punishing frequently but less severely could actually reinforce her own feelings of power and control, because she would be exercising her authority more often and being more “bossy” more consistently.

I also find myself really wanting spankings that feel more parental, which in my mind is associated with things like being taken over her knee and spanked with a smaller paddle, which we have almost never done in the past because of concerns the position wasn't very good for delivering a really hard spanking.  Yet, while other positions may produce more pain, being disciplined for me is also about being humbled, and being made to put myself over her knee just seems more humbling than laying over an inanimate object like our bedroom ottoman. Other spanking positions that in my mind are associated with parental or school discipline include being told to bend over a desk or table. So, if she wasn't in the OTK mood or wanted a more immediate spanking, she could take me to her office for a quick paddling. I truly believe that 10 or 20 paddle swats that happened more frequently might get my attention just as effectively as our longer sessions, and might render avoidance less likely.

Any thoughts on this?  Is harder necessarily “more effective”?  Is strictness about being willing to give really hard spankings, or is it more about consistency and frequency?  For those like Alan and ZM who report their wives have gotten stricter over time, can you explain that more in the context of severity, consistency, duration, etc.?

I hope you have a great week.