The Club - Meeting 368 - Coercion and Will to Power

“To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it.” - Garrett Hardin

 

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. It was another snowy one here.  I’m getting kind of tired of it.  But, did you notice that we had another semi-normal week with a paucity of controversial national or international news.  Could it be that the spirit of 2020 is FINALLY behind us?

 

I thought that was a great conversation last week.  Thank you, Liz, for both the stories of getting spanked as a girl, and the discussion about regionalism and its influence on spanking practices and frequency when we were growing up.  The focus on regionalism reminded me of this meme I saw recently and thought was pretty funny:

 

  

Part of the discussion about how prevalent spankings were in the communities where some of us grew up reminded me of this cartoon, which totally cracks me up:

 

I also enjoyed Danielle’s story about her husband getting spanked at the request of another man, and especially about him having to report back that he had, in fact, been spanked.  She also speculated about what it might have been like to have her boyfriend (if that is the right word) spank her husband.  (This Jay Em (altered) drawing is as close as I can come to something on point.)

 

  

I don’t know why, but something about that – having to report to a third party that you got you got a hard spanking because of something involving them – does something to me.  It’s why I found this pic that I posted last week really fascinating, along with this one that I also saw recently (perhaps on Red’s blog?).  I wonder who they are talking to?

This week’s topic is a suggestion by ZM from two weeks ago.  He said:

 

Perhaps the more interesting issue than consent (which we have talked about extensively) is coercion. What role does coercion play in spanking? Just because DD is consensual, it doesn't mean that coercion isn't also being employed. Why do I take down my pants and bend over for a spanking? And what effect does that coercion have? Is it desirable or undesirable? And what does the interplay between coercion, dominance, and submission look like? BTW, coercion doesn't just apply to spanking. About the most interesting thing about the whole NXIUM cult was their use of "collateral" to use to coerce members into achieving their personal goals.

 

Even though we both know that I will in every case submit to her will on this, I still want to feel like she is coercing me somewhat. I want her to threaten me about what will happen if I check out other women, for example. Right now I am trying to lose weight, and I like knowing (though I dread it) that if I don't hit my weight target my bottom is going to pay a hefty price. In a very real way, this is similar to NXIUM only it is physical and personal.

 

I’ve read a lot about NXIUM since I first brought it up here many months ago, and I now do appreciate that a lot of what its leadership did really was appalling, particularly the Scientology-like way they retaliated and harassed anyone who tried to leave.  And, then there was his thing for underaged girls and anorexic female bodies.  But, some of the stuff he and his lieutenant came up with to help people reach their own goals and improve their performance still fascinates me.  As ZM points out, there is a more or less direct analogy between what he was doing and our DD notions of consensual non-consent or, as ZM has focused on, coercion.  The members of the group would turn over something that was valuable or, more often, embarrassing, knowing that if they didn’t do what they had agreed it would be forfeited or released to the world.  Something I never quite got about the prosecution’s case was it sounded like there wasn’t much dispute that handing over this “collateral” was entirely voluntary, and the whole goal was for it to be used coercively to effect a behavioral change.  So, there was consent to the overall arrangement, but after that there was a very coercive element.  Also, there actually was a very “physical and personal” element to it, and it was exactly what we use with DD.  This text exchange was highlighted in the HBO series about NXIUM:

 

 

ZM’s thoughts on this led these observations from Alan:

 

The consensual model has been borrowed from contemporary norms of sexual behavior and it is not a perfect fit for adult spanking. That is why we have invented incongruities like “consensual non consent”. “Consent” doesn’t fit that well both due to the nature of disciplinary spanking and due to the needs of most spankos to feel a punishment is being imposed on them or they are being made to obey. To complicate it even further, a lot of the spankings I get are really not wanted (at the time) and for sure during many spankings I do not want it to continue (at that time).Later of course I am very happy she did what she did. Thus the dilemma, how does one consent to something really not wanted (at the time). The answer I think is that consent once given is in practice rarely withdrawn as long as the relationship continues.

 

 And, this from Brett:

 

Thinking about it, I’d have to say that the why does matter. If I’m obedient to my wife because I’m such a nice guy, or I love her just that much, or I’m naturally submissive, hate confrontations or other such character traits, it’s missing the key ingredient that my obedience is compelled by the threat of a spanking. Obedience is also demonstrated in the submission to punishment, but what makes it so embarrassing and humbling is when obedience is perceived to be compelled, not by willing submission, but by her will to power.

 

Belle observed that her man submitting to a spanking voluntarily is sexy, but it sounds like even there the sexual charge in the obedience isn’t the submission itself but, rather, that it is happening as a direct result of her exercise of female or authority, or what Brett called her “will to power.”

 

For me, the “imposed” element of DD, the act of being brought to heel by another’s expression of will and power, has always been a key part of the attraction.  The very first fiction story on the Disciplinary Wives Club website is about a woman imposing a spanking, and the entire DD relationship, in retribution for some comments her husband made about another woman. At first, he can’t believe what she is saying. Then he objects, then starts trying to plead, leading her to tell him exactly how it is going to be:  

 

“At that point Becky's look became determined; her voice quiet, but assured. "I will forget it after I have brought you to tears, dear, then all will be forgiven. But I don't want you to think for one instant that there is ANY way you can avoid my spanking you. There isn't. And furthermore, in the future, I shall make it a practice to spank you whenever I feel you need it, and you will accept it as you did your mother's spankings. Most men can profit from a dose of maternal discipline, and from now on you will be one of the lucky ones."

 

While the woman imposing the DD relationship is certainly the exception and not the rule, it does seem to be a powerful part of the attraction.  It certainly is for me.  As is the idea of coercion.  I really do wish there was something Anne would do that would make it clear that while being spanked by her may have been my idea initially, now there is no going back.  I think part of my attraction to Jay Em's drawings like the one above has always been that there really is not much of an element of consent.  Similarly, in KD's story that we discussed last week, there may ultimately be consent, but only after a very large dose of coercion.

 

Yet, it is complicated.  One thing I’ve never been able to figure out is how I can be so completely anti-authoritarian at work, yet I have this thing for being under the authority of a strong, aggressive woman.  I have almost no respect for authority at work and never have, especially if that authority is a man.  Yet, I’ve talked here about a dream I had that involved being taken out of an office gathering to be spanked by a male office manager. And, the prospect of being bossed around by a very strong woman absolutely does something to me.  Even more complicated, stories like Danielle’s about her husband being spanked on the orders of another man and then having to report the spanking to that other man definitely do spark that desire I have to submit to authority. It is a very odd mix of personality attributes, and I really don’t have a good explanation for it.

 

The other issue is, coercion and imposed discipline may be a compelling fantasy, but in real life I think they are much more complicated.  My friend Jane over at the Tamed Shrew blog, https://shrewtamed.blogspot.com/, recently talked about a situation in which her husband suddenly decided to spank her for something that actually was “spankable” under their arrangement, but it came after a long break and took her by surprise. The result was resistance and resentment.  KD has also talked about the necessity, for him, of agreeing on some level that the facts actually do support the fairness or justice of the sentence.  In short, it does seem like in the real world some amount of “buy in” probably is required.   

 

 

Though, again, it’s complicated. I can’t think of a time when Anne has spanked me that I thought I truly did not deserve it. But, there have been a couple of times that I thought it was much harder than had really been earned.  And, yeah, in the moment I did feel resentment about it.  But, afterward, it was a turn-on thinking about her exercising her power and authority like that, spanking as long and as hard as she thought I deserved.

 

 

Like ZM, I don’t know exactly where to take this topic, and I probably have drifted a little from “coercion” and into non-consent.  But, feel free to address whatever aspects of the two come to mind.

Have a great week.

The Club - Meeting #367 - Others, continued

“I inform without pleasure, because it is necessary.”  - Whittaker Chambers

 

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. It was snowy here again this week but, then where wasn’t it snowy this week?  Unfortunately, while I’m slowly getting back into something resembling decent functional shape after last year’s little medical procedure, I’m still not quite up to hiking through a snowy mountain trail or resilient enough to hit the slopes.

 

  

Speaking of snow, what an interesting week, particularly if you’re a Texan.  Don’t all the rest of you love it that all those rugged individualist politicians down there, like Governor Greg Abbott, who insisted they need their own electricity gri to avoid federal regulation are now bitching that that same federal government isn’t sending them their FEMA checks fast enough?  

 

  

Though, I have to be honest, it feels like maybe things are on a good trend if the event dominating the news was Ted Cruz’s trip to Cancun as opposed to real news, like an armed insurrection or something.  Maybe some kind of weird and semi-amusing sign that things are drifting back to something approaching normal?

 

That was a good discussion last week.  I really didn’t expect it to get very far, given that most of us probably have little experience with being on either the giving or receiving end of an outsourced punishment.  But, the topic did manage to elicit people’s thoughts on the possibility of it and get some insights on what drives some of our respective desires for discipline and being under someone else’s command.

 

One could probably argue that after the last couple of weeks I’ve now beaten the general theme of “others” knowing about or participating in our Domestic Discipline lifestyles for all its worth.  But, last week’s discussion brought up what I think is one more distinct angle on it.  In discussing that his wife sometimes delivers spankings that were requested by someone else, or that someone else had some role in determining the severity of his sentence.  As he related:

 

Another thing is that I am well used to being spanked by Rosa, but there is something different for me when the impending punishment is not from her and in fact has to do with something that had no impact on her. She truly acts like a professional executioner of sorts......impartial to the details but duty-bound to carry out the sentence.

 

It got me to thinking about the role that others might play—knowingly or unknowingly—in bringing out a well-earned spanking, even if they weren’t witnesses or in-person participants.  There are a lot of possible angles to this, and I invite you to address any of them that strike your fancy.

 

For those of you who have told others about our DD lifestyle, has that third-party ever suggested that some bit of bad behavior merits a spanking? Or, maybe someone has reported some bit of bad behavior not knowing that it was going to get you spanked?

 

Or, have you ever told them about a recent spanking or that you had one coming soon?

Can you envision someone you know playing some role in determining when or whether  you get spanked, such as informing your wife about some bit of bad behavior? If there is some particular bad habit you’re trying to address or performance you are trying to improve, is there someone in your life that you’d like to empower to tell your wife about how you are doing or to report times when you’ve screwed up or failed in some way? 

 

Or, stepping away a bit from scenarios in which some third-party actually knows about the corporal punishment aspect of your relationship, have you ever given or received a spanking based on something that was reported about his/your behavior?  Or, perhaps there have been spankings for something he did or said to someone other than the disciplinary wife?

 

This is another topic on which I don’t have many personal anecdotes to offer.  Although I have told one mutual friend about our DD relationship, she hasn’t played any role in suggesting to Anne that a spanking should be given.  I also don’t think I’ve ever told her that one was coming or had been delivered recently. 

 

I’ve often wished I had some at work who knew about our relationship and might rat me out to Anne for bad work behavior, but there really hasn’t been anyone who might serve that function. I did have an assistant who I am sure was quite kinky, based on some of the books she told me she had read.  Perhaps if she had stayed in the job longer things might have gone in an interesting direction, but she was promoted into a bigger role in less than a year.   

 

 

I’ve thought from time to time that if, in the next phase of my professional life, I was to start my own business, I might keep an eye out for a dedicated staff person or partner who might come to know Anne and be empowered to talk to her about behavior or performance issues, but I think that’s more a fantasy that is unlikely to become a reality.  I’ve also toyed with the idea of whether some of the commenters here could, at some point, have something like a real Disciplinary Wives Club that might lead to some kind of mutual empowerment or participation in suggesting or ordering discipline when deserved but, again, that seems like more fantasy that likely reality.

 

Though, one situation I can think of that many might have experienced at some point is notes being sent home from school.  There isn't a doubt in my mind that back when I was growing up, when teachers or the principal would send a note home about some bit of bad behavior, they did it with every intention that it would result in a spanking that night.  It was just how it worked back then in that part of the country.

In any event, tell us about any experiences you’ve had with others playing some (knowing or unknowing) role in you or your spouse getting punished, or any wishes or desires you have along those lines.

 

Have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 366 - Outsourced Punishment

“It may be a man's world, but men are easily controlled by women.” ― Ashly Lorenzana

 

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.  It was bitter cold where we live.  I did get in a few hikes in the snow with the dogs, which nice if a little physically challenging.

 

 In a sad testament that 2020 so far looks a lot like 2021, I spent way too much time watching a “trial” of the weightiest of issues the outcome of which was beginning to end a foregone conclusion.  At least when it was over, I didn’t have to listen to a lot of contrived rationalizations from the Profiles in Perfidity crowd.  May we now finally move on?  Somehow, I doubt it.

 

I assume others may have shared my distraction or come up with their own, as we didn’t get nearly as much discussion about as I anticipated on the popular topic of “witnesses,” this time with a nearly exhaustive set of sub-topics.  But, since it is so popular, I will continue to try to think of other possible spins on it.

 

This week’s topic took me an unusually long time to prepare. Not because writing it up took a lot of time, but because even though it is sort of related to witnesses—a topic for which there is no shortage of relevant spanking art and captioned pictures—it took me hours of going through my spanking art archives to find anything that fit the topic, and none of what I found was directly on point.  So, I’m stretching a bit to make some of these meet the subject. 

 

The topic is outsourcing punishments to third parties.  A few weeks ago, one of our group (I think either Alan or ZM) left the following comment:

 

Now as far as "outsourcing" punishment, that would definitely work. If my wife decided that I was to be punished and sent me to someone else for them to punish me, whether it was a professional or just a friend, that would still very, very much seem like genuine punishment. In fact, because of the embarrassment factor, it would seem super intense, whether she spanked hard or not.

 

I’ve thought more than a few times about the scenario of Anne ordering me to take a spanking from someone else, either to increase the punishment in some way or, perhaps, because she was away from home or physically unable to deliver a well-deserved punishment spanking.  When I’ve thought about that scenario, for some reason it usually involves being spanked by another man, though I’m not intending to take this topic in that direction specifically.

 

 

It probably shouldn’t surprise me that one of the first times I recall encountering this topic it involved spankings from a mother-in-law, which is a pretty prevalent theme in spanking art and stories.  I’m pretty sure a story called Military Duty Calls in the “Real People section of the Disciplinary Wives Club website, http://auntkaysdwc.com/abegin.htm, that I read very soon after finding the website was the first I encountered that dealt specifically with a wife deciding to “outsource” her spanking role to another woman.  The story involved a Disciplinary Wife who was a member of the U.S. military and was leaving the country on a deployment.  She asked her mother to assume disciplinary responsibility over the husband in her absence. Something I liked about the story was that wife stayed pretty firmly in control, laying out the rules and the process for her husband before she left and staying informed as her mother inevitably had to take things in hand.  As I recall, she also spanked him again herself when she got back, as she had said she would when putting the process in place.

 

However, when I set out to prepare this post, that DWC story was really one of the only examples I could find of stories, drawings or captioned photos related to “outsourcing.”  I found this example from Barbar O’Toole, that for whatever reason I’ve always interpreted as a mother outsourcing her son’s spanking to an aunt or other relative.

 

 

It also occurred to me that there is one fairly common “real world” example of “outsourcing”—one that some of us may even have experienced personally—namely, a frustrated mother leaving a punishment spanking for dad to take care of when he gets home.

 

 

I also found this captioned picture with a slightly different spin on the spanking in boarding school trip, with the text suggesting a mother sending her son to boarding school for the specific purpose of outsourcing some deserved discipline. 

 

 

But, I found very little on the topic of a wife sending her husband to another woman for a spanking, or having another woman carry out a disciplinary spanking because the wife wasn’t available or couldn’t do it for some reason, or for some other reason.

 

What are your thoughts on “outsourcing” punishment? Would it feel like real punishment, or like some kind of kink?  If a spanking were to be outsource who would you as the spankee “prefer” take on the spanking role, if you had to choose someone?  For you wives, would you ever consider letting someone else give your husband a real disciplinary spanking?  Why or why not?  Who would it be? 

 

Tomy, I know you both experienced this and witnessed other men being sent to Aunt Kay for a spanking.  I hope you will share a few of those experiences with us.

 

Have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 365 - Witnesses & Others Knowing, Part ??

“Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we keep fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness.” ― John Updike

 

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 good week.  Isn’t it weird going a whole week without some big catastrophe dominating the news?  Here we are on Super Bowl Sunday, and the biggest thing on the late news tonight is likely to actually be the Super Bowl.  As for the game itself, I like football but am not a fanatic about it, and I don’t have much skin in the game this year, as all the teams I follow kind of sucked this year.  So, while I don’t care that much about the game itself, I will say I’m really missing the whole sports bar experience.

 

We had a good discussion last week. Thanks for all the helpful advice about getting back into the swing of things, so to speak, after a long spanking hiatus.  I didn’t take that advice (yet) in terms of actually just biting the bullet and asking for one. Though, I also had a glimmer of the old (bad) me come out, after three back-to-back work-related virtual happy hours in one late afternoon/evening led to a few too many beers for a weekday.  It wasn’t like gonzo excessive but definitely enough to leave me feeling tired the next day.  So, while she didn’t order a spanking, I guess at a minimum I now have some reason to ask for one if I want to go in that direction.

 

While last week’s topic may officially have been about pauses or hiatuses from the disciplinary lifestyle, much of the discussion ended up being about witnesses.  It’s been way less than a year since we last did something on that topic, but it is plainly one with ongoing appeal and, since I didn’t have anything else lined up to talk about this week, let’s go with something along the lines of the sub-topics ZM suggested.  I’ve paraphrased or added my own spin on some of them, and I’ll provide my own answers in-line.  If possible, I’d like to keep the discussion focused on witnesses in terms of personal relationships, not things like spanking parties.  I think the two dynamics would be very different, and most of the exchanges we’ve had on this relate to the interpersonal dynamics.

 

Does the spanker in your relationship have any desire/motivation to have a witness or to tell someone about your spanking relationship?  If so, is it either telling someone, or having a witness, or both?

 

I don’t think Anne has any desire to tell anyone that she spanks me or to have someone witness a spanking.  Though, as I’ve recounted here, there have been a couple of instances in which she has made cryptic or not-so-cryptic references to it in front other others, mainly family members.

 

For those who have crossed the Rubicon and told someone or given a spanking in front of a witness, was it a one-time thing or a repeat occurrence?

 

For me, it’s been kind of a blend with respect to telling someone.  So far, I have told only one person from my “real life,” namely a female friend of many years.  Anne later had some fun talking to this same friend about it.  I haven’t told anyone else about it, though I have had some of the on-line relationships from this blog blossom into real, if still mainly electronic, relationships.  Though, I don’t really think of that as the same kind of “telling others” that ZM has become so fascinated with lately.

 

 

For those who haven’t done it, what keeps you from telling others?  From having witnesses? Fear of how they would react?  Fear of their indiscretion?

 

That’s a hard one. With respect to family members, I do wonder how they would react and I don’t really want to find out.  With others, like friends, there hasn’t really been any natural entry point for such a conversation. I don’t know anything about my friends’ respective kinks, and it’s not something we’d usually talk about.  I don’t think the reluctance is so much fear of indiscretion, because I think if you do choose to tell someone about this, you kind of have to presume they’ll tell someone else, especially their spouse.  I don’t know whether the friend I told has told her husbands (she’s been divorced once since I told her) about it, but I wouldn’t be surprised.  Honestly, I think what holds me back the most from telling anyone else is I wouldn’t want to make them uncomfortable. 

 

 

Is having an eyewitness more embarrassing or threatening than someone merely knowing that you get spanked?

 

While I think having someone witness a spanking would be more embarrassing than that same someone merely knowing that I do get spanked, context is important.  Something I think I would find very embarrassing would be having someone know I was about to be spanked, being taken out of the room for the spanking, and then having to come back and face them.  I don’t know why I find the thought of that more embarrassing than actually being spanked in front of someone, but I do.

 

 

Would someone hearing you get spanked be as embarrassing having an eyewitness?

 

See my previous answer. I think it would and perhaps more so, though I can’t really explain why.

 

  

Would someone seeing the after-effects of a spanking be as embarrassing as witnessing the spanking itself?

 

 If you have told someone that you get/give disciplinary spankings, who did you tell and how did they react?

As I said above, I have told one person; a female friend who we both have known for many years.  Her reaction was some mixture of interest and amusement.  I don’t think it is something she herself has an interest in, but I think she was generally interested in hearing about it and in me revealing that part of myself to her.  

 

If you have been spanked/given a spanking in front of a witness, how did the witness react?  How did they feel about it, if you know?

 

  

If you have not told anyone but were ordered to do so, who would it be and why? 

 

This is a hard one.  Our parents and siblings are out, for various reasons, mainly that the parents would be uncomfortable and scandalized, and we don’t have that kind of relationship with any of our siblings.  Part of me is attracted to the idea of Anne being much more authoritative and openly in charge in front of our (adult) kids.  I think it would give them an even greater level of respect for her, and perhaps lead them to think about whether they have any desire to incorporate DD into their own adult relationships.

 

 

How did it/how might it change your relationship with the person who knows or the witness?

 

If one of us were to tell a friend or acquaintance, I’m not sure how it would change the relationship.  With the friend I told, it didn’t change the relationship, but when we get together I do think about the fact that she knows.  It is embarrassing, though also adds a kind of risqué energy.  It is the same with the people I’ve gotten to know through DD and FLR blogging. Even though as the relationships have developed much of what we talk about has nothing to do with DD or FLR, it definitely remains in the back of mind that, “This person knows I get spanked!” The above picture reflects that feeling a bit.

 

If a spanking hasn’t (yet) been witnessed, how do you think it would change your DD relationship if it were to happen?

 

I think if my wife ever decided to include a witness, it would be a real milestone in terms of both of us knowing that she is really in charge. While on the surface it adds a game-like element to things, I think it would make the reality all the more real.