“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.
No snow in Long Beach. Actually kind of warm.
ReplyDeleteI'm envious.
DeleteTwo memories from the teenage years linger. One was a neighbour telling me at 17 I was not too old to be put over her knee (she was about 35). The dumbfoundedness that I showed was me hiding confused excitement. She took it as me not pushing my luck.
ReplyDeleteAbout 3 years earlier I disrupted a class so badly the young English treacher had to take me to a storage cupboard to calm me down. As I continued to play up she was so exasperated she threatened me with the words"I will spank you here and now and then take you to the head to tell him what I have done". Again I went silent on the spot.
For forty years from about 14 I thought of myself as a spanker and reflected that in my relationships till about 5 years ago. And yet those two memories remained clearer in my mind that some scenes where I actually administered the spanking. Maybe my brain was trying to tell me something all along?
Cheers GLM.
Threatened and actual spanking was so prevalent around me growing up, I have a hard time remember any particular threat.
DeleteI was very seldom threatened. I was just spanked. My mom would say, "Come in the kitchen, Elizabeth," and I knew I was getting the wooden spoon over her knee. She would sit on a kitchen chair and I would stand in front of her. "What did you do wrong?" she would ask. I would say what I did wrong. "Get over," she would say, and I would bend over her lap. My skirt would always go up or jeans always come down, but whether I got to keep my panties up depended on the severity of my offense and who else was in the house at the time. She spanked hard and fast and we never counted. It was almost always to tears. After she was done she would stand me up and say, "What do you have to say?" I would apologize through my tears and promise not to do it again. Then she would hug me and kiss me and say I was a good girl and give me the spoon to put back in the drawer and tell me to go wash my face, and we would go about our day. This ritual was so regular that eventually I got used to it -- and appreciated that my parents virtually never yelled at us. I did wrong, I paid the price, it was over, my parents loved me. It actually was a great childhood. My brothers went through a similar ritual with Dad's belt and feel exactly the same as I do. We all have treated our children similarly, and they know they are loved.
DeleteLiz
When I was about 12 years old one of my friends kept teasing me or somehting and I said I would tell his mom, which I did when we went back to his house.
ReplyDeleteTo my utter amazement she took him directly into the next room and spanked the daylights out of him. Even then I wished it could have been me. And his mom was dressed skimpily due to hot weather in Florida - which just added to it.
I can understand why that event has stuck with you all these years!
DeleteDanielle here:
ReplyDeleteI have previously said that the first people I told about our FLR were my husband's sister and my friend Barb. That's not exactly true. They were the first women I told. I think I have mentioned that Wayne has a cuckold kink. Because of that I had long term affairs with a couple of men over a period of about 10 years. I wasn't cheating on my husband. He wanted me to do it, though I must confess that he didn't have to twist my arm. Lol. I told both of those men about my FLR with Wayne, including the fact that I spank him.
My longest affair was with a guy named Bert. He was a sweetheart and a gentleman. I really liked him. (Sadly, he is no longer alive). Anyway, Bert found it hot that I spanked Wayne, and he used to ask me lots of questions about it. He wasn’t submissive like Wayne. On the contrary, he would occasionally play spank ME as a form of fore play. (For the record, I liked that, but that was just play; it didn’t hurt).I never brought Wayne and Bert together in the bedroom, but I did introduce them, and they got along well. They even played squash together. They also used to go halves on orders of wine at one of those DIY wine making boutiques.
Well, one day Wayne and Bert got together to bottle a batch of wine. Bert got angry at Wayne because he had done a poor job pre-washing our bottles. Bert was meticulous about things like that, and he had little patience for shoddy attention to detail in other people. After they had finished the bottling, Bert called me to complain about Wayne’s lousy prewashing job, which had slowed down the bottling operation considerably. He then expressed the wish that I give Wayne a good hard spanking to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. I was more than willing to comply because I had previously spanked Wayne for similar reasons, and I felt a little embarrassed that my husband had shamed himself in Bert’s eyes by doing such a simple job poorly. It was almost like the feeling you get when you receive a call from an irate teacher about your child’s misbehavior. When Wayne got home, I gave him a proper scolding and a sound spanking. It was serious discipline because I really was annoyed, but at the same time I felt somewhat amused to be spanking my husband on behalf of another man. The worst part for Wayne was that after spanking him I made him contact Bert to confirm that he had been spanked and to apologize for his shoddy workmanship. That was embarrassing for Wayne, but his embarrassment later turned to arousal, as it often does. The spanking satisfied Bert's sense of justice, but he confessed that it also turned him on to know he actually had the power to get Wayne spanked. There were other occasions when Bert took pleasure offering me suggestions about disciplining Wayne, but that was the most memorable incident of spanking my husband on behalf of another person.
While I've never experienced anything like that, I admit I do find the idea of someone having that kind of authority over me very stirring. Though, I truly can't imagine how embarrassed it would be to have to call the party that ordered the spanking to tell them it had been carried out. Somehow, for me that seems worse than having a spanking witnessed. I can't explain why, but something someone knowing I got spanked but not actually seeing it is more embarrassing to me, and having to tell that person about it is even more so.
DeleteDan, I think that my sexual connection to Bert made the embarrassment somewhat tolerable for Wayne. I suppose it eroticized the embarrassment. But I could see that the embarrassment was real. It was probably the more embarrassing for being a real disciplinary spanking for a real reason. And Wayne really did not want to tell Bert himself, even though he knew Bert already knew I spank him. He was whiny about it, i.e. “Why can’t YOU tell him?” I insisted Wayne had to tell Bert himself because he owed him an apology.
DeleteIn general Wayne is far more concerned about men finding out I spank him. What concerns him most about my friend Barb and his sister Liz knowing is the thought that they could tell their husbands.
Danielle
Danielle,
DeleteWayne’s reaction was probably very typical male. Another women knowing I was a spanked husband would be embarrassing but more humbling than humiliating. But another male knowing (or witnessing) would be humiliating UNLESS and this is the interesting caveat –UNLESS the other male is also a spanked husband or even better spanked at the same time as me.In that case there is really no acute embarrassment at all. A few years ago we socialized with another couple who had been in a DD for some time. His wife was very open about her control of him including her “no mercy” padding” and my own wife threatened me often in front of them. But I felt no embarrassment probably because he was in the same situation as I was. One night after everyone had had too much wine I came very close to being paddled side by side with him in the kitchen but I had no embarrassment about it happening. As it turned out his wife decided to deal with him privately so neither of us was actually spanked (although I am sure he was later at home as she was livid) But if it had been just me lined up over the kitchen island and him watching I would have been devastated. I will bet Wayne’s embarrassment about Burt would have been much less or none at all if he thought you also spanked Burt or Burt was subject to your authority as well. It’s a status thing for guys, although I admit being spanked at the request of another male, even if that male is also subject to discipline, would be challenging to accept and then having to report to him that the spanking had been carried out would test any man’s obedience. I know you didn’t set out to test Wayne’s obedience but had you done so, there is probably no tougher test than that one. I think you can be sure Wayne will never disobey you. That has to be a power rush. It would be for anyone,
Alan
Alan, I find it fascinating that heterosexual men find the idea of being spanked in front of other men, or having other men know they are spanked, so much harder to deal with than having women witness or know about their spankings. You mention you would have been “devastated” to be paddled in front of that other guy, but it seems you wouldn’t have minded that much for his wife to see. Why is that? I would think men would be more embarrassed to be spanked in front of women, since they should naturally want to appear strong and manly in women’s eyes. What am I missing?
DeleteYou are probably right that Wayne wouldn’t have been as embarrassed if I spanked Bert too. Bert had an interesting attitude to spankings. He asked me lots of questions about my discipline of Wayne, and it clearly turned him on to hear details. But he had absolutely no interest in being spanked himself. In fact, he considered himself to be the opposite of Wayne: naturally dominant rather than submissive. That’s why he wanted to spank me, and I let him do it a couple of times, though only as erotic play. I have wondered since then how Bert would have reacted if, instead of spanking Wayne for him, I had said, “Why don’t you spank him yourself?” Lol. I didn’t even consider that because I thought that would feel too much like sexual contact with another man for either Bert or Wayne.
Danielle
Danielle, I won't speak for Alan, but I suspect men are genetically hardwired to assess where each other fit in "the pack" pecking order vis-a-vis other men. I can't really explain it, but it happens to me even in more benign settings. I don't have any real problem working with female superiors, but I chafe under anything resembling an order if it comes from a man. A man knowing you are spanked is challenging, given that hierarchy mentality. Having tell a man that you were spanked pursuant to his orders is even more challenging, as it seems to settle pretty indisputably that you are under the other guy in the hierarchy.
DeleteThough, I'm not sure it is all gender based. There is a story on KD's website called "Pride." https://mattmansfigures.homestead.com/XPride.html. It raises in me some of the same feelings as your story. I'm simplifying the plot a little, but i involves a spanked husband who does not get along with his wife's friend. After getting spankings from his wife for arguing with the friend, the wife finally has enough and takes him to the friend's house, telling him that he will either apologize or be spanked in front of the friend. He initially intends to apologize, then can't bring himself to do it. So, the wife ends up spanking him in front of the friend, then the friend suggests he should be spanked by her as well. The reason the story has for me the same effect as your story is the friend admits to him that she has been goading him into being rude to her in order to get him spanked, and that she realizes that it is unfair for her to spanking him under those circumstance but she intends to do it anyway. In addition to taking away his pride, she is very deliberately establishing herself as the alpha dog in the relationship. While the prospect of a male doing the ordering and spanking probably does give me a greater emotional reaction, the dynamic between the spanked male and the female friend in KD's story comes pretty close.
Thanks for the story reference. It's a popular one. LOL Even an E-book on Amazon! But to the 'guy' issue. So I have experience with this in many guises and ......wait for it.......IT'S COMPLICATED. LOL. Several men in my life 'know', some have even seen the after effects, ( my neighbor Wally), and some have even initiated punishments through Rosa, like Osito, my stepson. Now the day Wally came over to 'see' after his wife, Marta already was here, I thought I'd have a bigger issue with it. (I got spanked for melting Marta's plates, and part of the 'deal' was she not only got to get new plates, an apology, and got to come up with the amount, but also got to see the damage to my hinder. The full true story is in "Recent Development May 24. 2017" on my blog.) So I didn't expect Wally would want to come over too, but he did and I was there in my chaps and he eventually got to see. It was........fine. A real nothingburger after all that angst.
DeleteI do agree that with strangers or certain types of guys, I too would be reluctant to share because of the perceived pack order thing. But pack order is funny. I am not physically intimidating so I tend to avoid guys that are, but verbally not too many guys want to tangle with me. So even if they felt the spanking thing would give them a huge edge, I'd be sure to see that it didn't. But it's tricky. As I've always said it all comes down to knowing one's audience.
Your point about the audience is kind of what I meant about the level of embarrassment for me isn't entirely gender specific, as demonstrated by the "Pride" story. I think we have a gut reaction about men knowing because of the odds they would ridicule it, whether to your face or behind your back. Or, if not ridicule, at least use it to dominate in a very aggressive way. But, the friend in your story acts like a man in that respect. A counter-example supporting your the "audience" point might be my speculation about whether the female friend I have told about DD has told either or both of her husbands. I kind of assume they do, but I don't really care. Because, neither of them are dominant guys, and I got/get along really well with both of them. So, I don't feel threatened by the possibility that they know
DeleteDanielle,
DeleteYou wrote: “I would think men would be more embarrassed to be spanked in front of women, since they should naturally want to appear strong and manly in women’s eyes. What am I missing?” Dan nails it pretty well in his response to you (above). Males seem hard wired to compete with other males. Spanking and being spanked are very loaded emotionally in terms of who wear the pants and so being spanked in front of another male or even on the request of another male is very threatening. Yes being spanked in front of another woman is also embarrassing BUT being vulnerable in front of another woman is much easier than the same behavior in front of another heterosexual male—AND being spanked in front of another woman can be eroticized at least to some extent but that would be very hard for the same experience with a male. As I write this it makes me wonder if being spanked in front of a gay male would carry the same level of dread. I have not had the experience and honestly don’t know but my sense is it would not.
Alan
Dan, thanks for your explanation about "the pack pecking order" among men. That makes sense of Wayne's acceptance of Bert's knowing versus his anxiety about other men finding out. I think that the way my husband's cuckolding kink works, the other man is automatically above him in the masculinity hierarchy, so that competition for hierarchical status is settled. Also, I think having Bert know that I spank him embarrassed him in an erotic way, whereas there would be no eroticism to mitigate the pure humiliation if it was any other man.
DeleteKD, I have to say, you sure have an interesting life! Lol. I'm trying to imagine what the world would be like if everyone was as uninhibited as you. By the way, I read your story "Pride". I am no connoisseur of spanking stories, but I think that is a good one. I like the way you delve into the psychological aspects instead of simply describing the spankings. And I love the twist at the end of the story. That made me laugh. It also gave me a thought. Dan said he wants to revisit the issue of consent in a future post. I think your story could be discussed in that context. I know it is not specifically about consent, but I think the element of manipulation in the story intersects with consent in an interesting way. Or am I reading too much into the story?
Danielle
Alan wrote: <<<< Yes being spanked in front of another woman is also embarrassing BUT being vulnerable in front of another woman is much easier than the same behavior in front of another heterosexual male—AND being spanked in front of another woman can be eroticized at least to some extent but that would be very hard for the same experience with a male. As I write this it makes me wonder if being spanked in front of a gay male would carry the same level of dread. I have not had the experience and honestly don’t know but my sense is it would not.<<<
DeleteAlan, thanks for your response. Your explanation lines up with an explanation my husband gave me. He says that for a woman to know he is spanked is embarrassing, but the embarrassment is erotic, whereas for a man to know he was spanked would be embarrassing in a totally non-erotic way. (With Bert it was a bit different because of Bert’s erotic connection to me). Your question about gay men is interesting. As I think I posted one time in the past, we have an adult son living with us, and I told him that I spank his father. He has even overheard a couple of spankings. That is embarrassing for Wayne, but tolerably so. The thing is, our son is gay. I think Wayne and I both feel that our son being gay made it easier to tell him about FLR and DD. He came out to us about being gay at one point, so it was like revealing our FLR to him was our turn to “come out”. But we have another son who is heterosexual, and I think Wayne would feel much more embarrassed if I told him. By the way, my son tells me that there is quite a spanking scene within the gay community.
Danielle
Danielle: I think I am going to just unabashedly recommend that you read more of my stuff. I don't mean that presumptuously but as a kind of "If you liked that, I think you'll like others" recommendation. Just go to the LSF or click the link to my website in the top right margin of my blog start page in web view.
DeleteAs for "Pride", it was about a lot of things but mostly about 'losing' to someone one doesn't really like, and who behaves in a way that does not alter that for the reader, but have their confidence and aggressive goal of taking charge, present an element of appeal that was previously unseen. I wrote the piece around the time that I was being plagued with fantasies of submitting to people I didn't like.
Consent plays a more pronounced role in some of my other pieces but since consent for me has always been a kind of 'given', I don't dwell on that as much as other issues.
While much more subdued, there is an element of what you are describing in the time my wife made me personally call a guy I had gone off on and apologize. At the time, I *really* did not like him, and that made apologizing excruciatingly hard. Interestingly, we ended up having to spend quite a bit of time together traveling for a work project, and I ended up actually liking him.
DeleteMaybe you wound up liking each other partly *because* you apologized. My husband says his work relationships are much better since I started paddling him for his arrogance.
DeleteLiz
It's possible, though some of it was related to the discussion you and I have been having here about rural upbringing. He and I figure out that we grew up about 30 miles from each other in very rural America. We even had relatives who knew each other.
DeleteHi Alan, Dan, KD, and Danielle,
DeleteI think that the story, as well as the discussion above about the difference between having a male vs a female witness, showed me one of my motivations for having someone know or as a witness. It is the whole power dynamic. If someone knows that you are spanked, or if someone sees you spanked, then there is a power imbalance there. And much of the appeal of spanking/DD/punishment for me is the whole rebalancing (and in fact temporarily unbalancing in the opposite direction) of power.
-ZM
Wow, it's a small world! If I find out I grew up near you and we have relatives who know each other, I'll blush to the brown roots of my blonde hair after the things I've shared here!
DeleteLiz
Believe me, I always wonder if I will publish something here that gives someone who knows me an "aha!" moment, resulting in either a lot of embarrassment or a much expanded friendship.
DeleteWell ... since to my understanding you live in California now and we are thousands of miles away, I think an expanded friendship is unlikely ... and I would rather save myself the embarrassment, so I ain't giving no more identifying details!
DeleteLiz
Well I certainly appreciate that my little blurb led to a topic, but in all honesty, I think I described what it's like in those posts. To say it all again would seem redundant, especially since I even thought my second comment was already a bit redundant. However, I'd be more than happy to answer anyone's questions if they have any.
ReplyDeleteI knew that I was, unfortunately, probably denying you of much to talk about this week. But, thanks for the topic idea. They are ridiculously hard to come by these days.
DeleteIt's OK, I have plenty to keep myself busy.
DeleteThis is Liz. I haven't commented much lately because we are definitely not into witnesses and outsourcing. However, we do have one situation which applies to this week's topic.
ReplyDeleteAs I have related, my mother knows that I spank my husband. He still has a tendency to make arrogant comments, sometimes in her presence. On a couple of occasions she has given him "the stare" of disapproval, and then turned to me and raised her eyebrows with a look of "Are you going to do something about this?" No words, but it was very clear to both my husband and I that she was suggesting I spank him for his comments. He has blushed. I have returned my mother's gaze non-committally, as I am not ready to go further than that with involving her in our DD at this point. But I have taken her "advice" in each instance!
Liz
Liz- That is awesome! No doubt she's assuming, you're handling the matter when she leaves. I totally get you not wanting to "involve" your Mother in this aspect of your relationship but….when you look at her actions, she certainly feels free involving herself! She’s making her opinion on what she feels should happen perfectly clear when she gives you both your respective “looks”. It would be interesting (if not a bit of fun) the next time she does to say to her (in a coaxing way), obviously in front of your hub so he hears everything...."Yes Mother? You clearly have something you'd like to say so go ahead …say it.” Now I’m curious what’s your Mother’s like… would she feel comfortable/confident enough to answer you and say aloud what her expression is clearly saying? If she actually did, a very logical/natural follow up question would be...."So, are you saying… you think I shouldn't be waiting till you're gone, that I should be addressing it in the moment?”. I could only imagine the sensation in your husbands stomach as he for the first time hears you and his MIL actually having a conversation about it.
DeleteHi Liz. Welcome back. I actually thought about the situation with your mother when I wrote this topic. It's probably the only real-life example among the current group of a family member not just suggesting *a* spanking but instigating the entire spanking relationship. One detail I've forgotten -- I know your mother did suggest that you start spanking your husband, but does she know that you actually do?
DeleteHi, Dan,
DeleteYes, my mother does know. I told her so I could get more information about her and my dad's DD.
Liz
Thanks. I thought that was the case, but my memory wasn't clear.
DeleteDarren,
DeleteEven though there was and is a lot of corporal punishment in my life, there is very little talk about it. My parents just did it, and I am the same way. I would never discuss punishing my husband with my mother-in-law while he was present, because I have absolutely no interest in humiliating him. That may be your fantasy, but it is not part of our reality. The family I grew up in and the family I am now in as the mom and wife uses spanking to correct and change behavior, but we don't link it to embarrassment/humiliation beyond what is inherent in the act itself. I adore my husband and would never do anything to hurt him ... other than the hurt he has asked me to regularly apply to his backside.
Liz
Hi Liz,
DeleteYour explanation makes sense about being careful to not increase humiliation, but it also makes me realize just how different all of our experiences are. You treat spanking as quite private, but then you told your mother. My mother, or my wife's (when she was alive) would be the LAST person I would want to know, and I would feel much, much less embarrassed by her telling a friend, coworker, her sister, or most anyone else than her mother or mine.
-ZM
Yea, well my mother initiated our DD with a comment to Art that he presented to me. He didn't want her to know we had actually started doing it, but I was driven to find out about my parents' DD and so told her about ours to get her talking. I told him ahead of time I was going to talk to her and he didn't really like the idea but he didn't say no way, either. I wouldn't have said anything to his parents if they were alive. And I have no plans to tell anyone else. If I did get someone at his work to report to me like you may possibly have, I definitely wouldn't tell them about the paddle. But everybody knows he has a mouth on him, and all of us wish he didn't. To me, that's on him if we gang up on him a bit to get him to quell the sarcasm.
DeleteLiz
I feel like ZM on this one. While I am attracted to others knowing, my parents or siblings aren't on the list. My mother is pretty tolerant for someone of her generation, but I still don't have any desire for her to know about that aspect of my life. I think my dad would be, at best, very perplexed by the whole thing and very well might look down on it.
DeleteNothing in adulthood, but growing up with school officials, family, neighbors, babysitters and live-ins, and on occasion even strangers, there were many times when others played some role, either knowing or unknowing, in a punishment event where I was somehow involved - all part of being raised by a village, as they say. With most adult fantasies and experiences of this expanding the circle of participants I've read about, I recognize obvious parallels with what I know from life as a boy.
ReplyDeleteYou and I seem to have grown up in similar environments. I think it is hard for people of a much younger generation, or who grew up in some other parts of the country, to imagine, but spanking was really everywhere when I was growing up. I don't really recall strangers, but certainly immediate family, relatives of any degree, neighbors, babysitters, teachers, principals . . . pretty much everyone with any connection at all to you or your family felt entitled to deliver an on-the-spot spanking if they witnessed bad behavior.
DeleteI totally agree with this. There was a lot of spanking when I was growing up, and adults thought nothing of reporting misbehavior to my parents. My grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbors ... my brothers and I all got spanked for things told to my parents by them. Occasionally they spanked us themselves, at least the relatives did. I never got spanked by a neighbor, but my brothers may have. We also had the "spanked at school, spanked at home" rule, which caused my brothers quite some consternation (I was better behaved). The school also phoned home when they had delivered a paddling.
DeleteHowever, it was different with kids reporting bad behavior. My parents did not like "tattletales" (at least not kid tattletales), and if we did that the tattletale was more likely to get spanked than the culprit being reported! Sort of a double standard between adult reporting and child reporting. At the same time, we were supposed to report kid behavior that was dangerous or immoral ... and we were supposed to know the difference between that which should be reported and would earn a sibling or friend a spanking, and that which should not be reported and would earn the tattletale a spanking! I found it very confusing, so I basically didn't report anything my brothers did. It didn't take very many tattletale sessions with Momma's wooden spoon for me to understand that I was supposed to handle my brother's teasing myself, for instance.
While all this was very common, I never knew of any adult being reported. We knew our parents spanked each other, but we would never snitch on one parent to the other. My Dad used to sneak us to the ice cream stand when we were out running errands; my Mom thought that should be a very occasional treat. But we never dreamed of ratting him out.
I guess the conclusion for me is that reporting and spanking kids was very well accepted but reporting and spanking adults was very much a rare and private thing.
Liz
And yes, Dan, all of us got spanked by babysitters, some of whom seemed to enjoy acting the strict parent and laughed while they were whacking our backsides over our pajamas! I distinctly remember one incident where my brothers and I were sneaking out of bed as a game and the babysitter, who was trying to do her homework, lined us all up and put us over her knee one by one. Fortunately she believed in modesty enough not to take our pj's down. (It was our relatives who might spank bare bottom. Neighbors, babysitters, and school personnel really didn't, but we always feared that they might.)
DeleteLiz
One more memory: All of my girl cousins and even my best friend got familiar with my Mom's wooden spoon, and my boy cousins had many experiences with my Dad's belt. My parents almost always gave spankings to their same gender, and these were always incidents when they punished their own children first and hardest while the cousins or friends waited their turn.
DeleteLiz
Spanking was common and a fairly open event when I was a child where I lived but, as an adolescent, we had moved to a different place where, except for school paddling, most discipline in the home only involved parents and was kept behind closed doors. By my previous description, it sounds like spanking was an everyday occurrence, but that was not the case at all. There were several memorable situations but spread out over the course of many years. When it happened, and others were involved in some way, it was a special event, and that’s how I imagine DD as an adult. I also imagine that, should these kinds of scenes become in any way routine, they would lose much of their power.
DeleteLiz, I had forgotten about the "tattletale" dynamic, but I definitely saw that too growing up. And, in your world growing up, little Tomy certainly *would have* gotten that spanking he fantasized about in the entry below!
DeleteYour descriptions of what the spanking environment was like growing up are so close to what I experienced, it does make me wonder whether we grew up in the same part of the country. Though I don't really recall being expected to report "immoral" behavior. I do know, however,that one of my earliest memories of a spanking from my mother regarding was for doing something dangerous, namely wandering away to a friend's house without permission when I was way too young to be wandering around anywhere by myself. Years later I got another one for similar behavior, but that time involving driving a car.
This is Liz. We grew up along the Ohio River, near where Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky all come together. It might technically be the Midwest, but we didn't call it that and had a lot of Southern values (and accents), including old-fashioned "whuppins". We all drove tractors all over our property, and our parents let us move the car and truck as needed by the time we were 12, well before we were old enough for licenses. But my brothers and I were each punished pretty severely for taking the car out on the public road before we had a license. We didn't see what the big deal was, but our Dad did.
DeleteUnfortunately, I did not learn the lesson from my brothers and took the car myself for a little joy ride with a girlfriend one night at the age of 14 (almost 15). It was the last time I got my Dad's belt. He was waiting outside with his belt in his hand when we got back, and I knew not to say a word of excuse. He bent me over the hood of the car in the dark and yanked my jeans and panties down and gave it to me good until I was in tears. I wasn't counting but it wasn't less than 20 and maybe a bunch more. He was just too mad to turn me over to Mom as he usually did. My girlfriend got to watch, and I was afraid she might get the same, but instead my Dad made us wait outside while he went in the house and called her dad and told her what we had done. He came and got her and took her home and gave her a whuppin, even though I had done all the driving.
My Dad loved me greatly and hardly ever punished me, but I knew taking the car on the public road was a big no-no and that I deserved everything I got. I apologized profusely the next day, and he surprised me by apologizing to me for losing his temper. I think he felt a little bad about it and never touched me again, leaving it up to my Mom to punish me thereafter. When I think about it, I wonder if my Mom disapproved of him taking my pants down at my age (he hadn't done that since before puberty), and maybe she even had a private "discussion" with him about it! That would have made me laugh at the time, if he had gotten it because of what he gave me. Maybe I'll get up the nerve to ask her.
I didn't know this topic was going to trigger childhood stories!
Liz
Yeah, I originally came from one of those states that is similarly hard to characterize. It's sort of Midwest, sort of Southern, sort of neither. But, definitely a lot of Southern values. Very Bible belt, and lots of spanking belts, too!
DeleteWe just called it the "heartland." We weren't North or South or Midwest. It wasn't a direction. It was a state of mind and a way of life. We cared about our neighbors -- white, black, or Native American (there were no Asians and few Hispanics where I grew up). It was a true community. Kids respected their elders and got whupped when they didn't. If a mom was sick, dinner showed up at the door from a neighbor. If a truck broke down or a roof leaked, neighbors tried to help before you had to hire a professional. Most of your relatives lived within driving distance, and in some families three and four generations lived on the same property. Every kid worked for their parents, helping maintain their place, whether it was a farm or not. Families watched out for each other, and that sometimes included spanking kids who were not your own. I'm not saying it was perfect, though it may sound like I am. Would I change anything? Maybe the schools weren't that good. Maybe we were sometimes on the edge of poor. But I didn't realize any of that then. I loved my childhood, and I still live in the area, though in a different town than where I grew up. My mom is still in the house I grew up in, though we've sold off some of the land. I miss my Dad, belt and all.
DeleteLiz
I'm not saying there was no racial discrimination, but overt acts of it were really frowned upon. I remember one senior bully (a white kid) at our high school picking on a black kid in the freshman class. The black kid was a little guy but he had gone out for freshman football. When the varsity football players (white, black and Native American) found out about it, they beat the beJesus out of the bully, and he wasn't much of a bully after that.
DeleteAnother thing our football coach did was he paired up a varsity player with every special ed kid in the school. They had lunch together at least once a week. Everybody knew you didn't pick on the special ed kid or you were going to answer to the football player. We had one hell of a good football coach and I wish that idea had gone nationwide.
And the girls weren't teased about our clothing because none of us had designer stuff. It was a simpler world.
Sorry for so many posts. I'll shut up now.
Liz
One more thing the football coach did. He had a "study table" at practice. He got reports from the other teachers, and if you were doing bad in a class you sat at the study table and did schoolwork while all of your teammates and friends were out on the practice field right in front of you. Boy did the players hate that. The other players gave them a hard time for not being on the field. The cheerleading coach picked up on it too. You sat at the study table once and you made sure you weren't failing any classes after that. Another great idea that should have gone nationwide.
DeleteLiz
No, please don't shut up. I've been enjoying the exchange.
DeleteMy first home town had a lot of the elements you talk about. The same kind of rural, farming community. But, it was less idyllic on the racial front. There weren't that many minorities, but there definitely was a background of prejudice against the few that were, including the hired farm workers and their families. My dad constantly defends the people there as the nicest in the world, but I always point out to him that they are, in fact, very nice but only to those who are just like them. We moved to another small town when I was pretty young, and while I have a lot of affection for it, there were huge racial divisions there, and it could be downright dangerous.
We had a huge amount of forest service land and a lot of people still working in the woods back then. It was dangerous work, and you had to rely on your fellow man, regardless of his color. I think that made a difference in our area.
DeleteMy brothers got in fights, but it was invariably with other white guys, in my memory, usually over some girl, of course.
We did have neighborhoods in the towns that were pretty segregated, and you didn't go there unless you were with somebody who lived there.
I don't recall feeling in danger, though. Maybe as a girl I was a bit naive.
Liz
Hi Dan,
ReplyDeleteI’ve had little experience with anyone else playing a role in my getting spanked as an adult. I can’t think of a single time that I have been punished due to something that someone told my wife about. And the only situation that I can think of where she has spanked me due to things I did or said to other people is when she has punished me for being excessively harsh and sarcastic with our teenage (at the time) son. Even in those cases, he certainly didn’t know that I was punished, nor did he ever really complain to my wife about things, but she saw how my harsh words hurt him and she helped me to change my attitude. She has also threatened to punish me for playing on my phone too much and ignoring people, which should it happen would fit in this category unless it was her I was ignoring.
As I mentioned before, I really don’t remember most childhood spankings, though I do know that I was spanked from time to time. It seems likely that at least sometimes that was the result of someone reporting something I had done to my parents. I don’t think I ever got punished due to something that happened at school since I was pretty good at following the rules - though now I wish I had ventured outside the boundaries more.
I am quite fascinated by the topic of others knowing and even possibly witnessing. However, I find that there are very few people that both would seem likely to be open to this and that I would wish to know about our DD. But for some reason, when I think about people telling on me, I can think of lots of people who could play this role, even though most of them I would not necessarily want to know that my wife spanks me.
The most obvious people would be my coworkers, since most of my waking hours I am either at home with my wife or at work. I have a team of 4 females who are all recent college graduates, and they spend more time with me than anyone else does. They know my wife and frequently joke about “I’m going to tell (my wife’s name)” whenever I pick on them too much, eat things that aren’t diet-friendly, etc. Of course, because they are young enough to be my children, I wouldn’t feel very comfortable if they knew that my wife spanks me, but still somehow I could see them telling my wife something, like when she occasionally comes for coffee, and them knowing that it is going to get me in trouble without having any idea of just what kind of trouble!
Also there is my close friend for many years who has now grown very close to my wife as well. She is the one who knows that my wife holds me accountable and that we have weekly check-ins to see how I am doing on my to-do list, diet, and goals. Again, she doesn’t know that my wife spanks me, though she could possibly suspect it, since I very jokingly alluded to it when I told her about the accountability and she made several jokes about it and references to it afterwards. Either way, I could see her telling my wife if she ever saw me do anything that my wife disapproves of. The most likely thing would be me paying too much attention to attractive young women when we are out for coffee, because my wife has made way to many jokes about how I do that (not only to this friend, but also to others like her cousin).
Finally, I can easily see myself being punished at some time or other for something that I do or say to someone other than my wife if she observes it and it rubs her the wrong way. In these cases, the offended party would probably have no idea that I was in trouble for it, unless my wife told them or even worse made me tell them and apologize. It is almost certain that at my wife will punish me now and then for something that I do that does not involve her directly.
-ZM
Hi ZM. I too have several young women on my team. None of them are close to my wife, however. But, even if they were, it wouldn't work for me for the same reason you identify -- they are so young, the association with my daughter would be too strong. It would just feel weird.
DeleteDan,
DeleteI find it interesting that there are women at your workplace who actually threaten to rat you out to your wife. Does it impact your behavior in any positive way? Especially since you think it is possible that they would follow through when your wife comes for coffee? I would actually like to have someone at my husband's workplace who would report to me and threaten him with reporting to me. I think it would further reduce his arrogance at work. Maybe I should start going to his workplace more often for "coffee with the girls." Hmmm ...
Liz
Sorry, Liz, was that question meant for ZM? The women at my work aren't close to my wife, but it sounds like some of ZM's are.
DeleteOops, yea, I read it wrong. For ZM.
DeleteLiz
Hi Liz,
DeleteI am not sure that it impacts me all that much since I think that they are mostly just joking and even if they did tell her, they probably wouldn't tend to make it too big of a deal. On the other hand, I am not sure just how that would play out. I do think it is certainly possible they might tell my wife things when she comes for coffee, but probably would never contact her explicitly to tell.
How my wife would respond would probably have a lot to do with how she reads their emotions (like are they just having fun and joking, or is there some hidden bad feelings from it) as well as how it ties into her own observations when I am not at work. So, for example, if my wife and I were working on me being more on time, and if they tell her that I am never on time and late to everything, I could see her acting on that.
Either way, even if they knew that I was "in trouble" with my wife, I hope they wouldn't figure out that I was spanked!
-ZM
ZM,
DeleteI agree. I don't want people at Art's work to know that I spank him. But I wouldn't mind them knowing that telling me about his arrogance at work gets him "in trouble" with his wife (whatever that means). I definitely would paddle him for it if it was bad enough for a co-worker to tell me about, but they would never know that and would probably take it as all a big joke. I see that as a win-win-win-win: They get a less arrogant co-worker, I get a less arrogant husband, Art wants to be less arrogant, and our DD is still a secret. The only "loser" is his sore behind.
Liz
Dan,
ReplyDeleteRe Kd’s excellent story alluded to above: I had a different reaction from you, although I identified with the situation portrayed and that undoubtedly is influencing me.I felt his wife was trying to teach him a very important lesson about pride-fullness and the discipline he received helped him to let go of it. Much like myself I felt he really wanted to let go of that pride but needed discipline to do it. Part of the reason my wife chose her sister to witness my discipline was because I had a bit of a tense relationship with her sister feeling she was just a little arrogant. In reality I think I was in a kind of competition with her. Being being spanked in front of her ended that which my wife expected ( and wanted)It also actually was the beginning of a very close relationship with her
Alan
I do think that was the wife's goal in the story, but it also seems to me the friend is pretty direct about her own goals and her own role in getting him spanked, and those seem a little more nefarious than just helping the wife teach him a lesson. But, KD can obviously elucidate on his views of his characters' motives
DeleteI just kind of did this in my reply to Danielle, but to be more specific to Alan's point and yours, you are both correct. The wife had that goal and knew her plan would likely achieve it. But the annoying friend is indeed not totally pure in her motive. What the ending was supposed to show was that while the guy abandoned his pride due to being so thoroughly defeated and that helped him open up, he also did that "sub-thing" of falling prey to feeling admiration for one's tormentor. Something his wife probably did not expect. Thus making the story more real and sticky than pat and simple. Everything has unexpected nuances.
DeleteThe psychological nuances in the pride theme were fascinating and they really resonated with me -- something that doesn't always happen with fiction. As I mentioned above I identified with the protagonist particularly in that sometimes I manifest that stubborn pride trait. I have sometimes wished my wife would paddle it out of me. Fortunately or unfortunately she is happy to do that and strangely enough it actually works.
DeleteAlan