Sunday, September 12, 2021

The Club - Meeting 383 - Tears

"I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.” - Charles Dickens from Great Expectations

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couple’s 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 pretty good, though not without some spanking-related angst. In my last post, I related a recent incident in which Anne spanked me for not locking doors and closing the dog door when I left the house.  As I discussed, I was sore for several days. Though, apparently, not quite sore enough to get the message across fully.   A couple of days after that spanking, I ended up having to leave the house unexpectedly for a quick overnight trip to cover something that neither Anne nor I had on our calendars.  I dropped whatever I was doing, packed an overnight bag, and headed out.  In doing so—I’m sure you all know where this is going—I forgot about the dog door, again.  When I got home, she sent me a text with picture of the open door. My heart jumped, because my ass really was very, very sore from the last session.  Well, as it turned out, I somehow avoided the spanking I was sure I had coming, though she did comment on it at least once during the week.  And, to cap it off, near the end of the week, I left in the middle of the day and left the front door unlocked.

 

 

Now, one could surmise that I just didn’t take the first spanking seriously, but that’s really not the case.  Sometimes, it just takes a while for an unwanted but somewhat unconscious behavior to become “front and center” in your conscious mind.  My favorite story on the DWC website is Even More, which describes a couple getting started with DD. The husband asks the wife to try such a relationship, they agree to a list of offenses, and he promptly forgets to comply with the rule against leaving the toilet seat up, resulting in his very first bare-bottomed disciplinary spanking. 

 

When his wife brings the offense to his attention and orders a spanking, his first reaction is to try to talk to his way out of it, objecting that he had been distracted and just forgot about the new rule. While understandable, she doesn’t let him off the hook. Honestly, that was kind of how I felt about both offenses this week, though the first was more defensible than the second.  The first really did involve something where I rushed out to cover something that neither of us saw coming, and I left only the dog door open, not the front door.  I really felt like I had rushed out to cover something that I hadn’t even known about, so the oversight was understandable.  But, on the other hand, it’s also simply a fact that she is plainly making this one of her priorities, and I am going to have to figure out a way to remember it or risk back-to-back spankings.

 

 

It’s one of those things that kind of brings home the reality of an FLR or “real” DD relationship.  I handed over authority to her. She is now starting to exercise it and doing so on an issue that is important to her but not to me.  But, I can either choose to get on board with her priorities or get a painful spanking until I do so.  I really do have a sense of my autonomy being curtailed in a significant way. And, it’s bringing to the fore the classic contradiction of DD from the disciplined husband’s perspective – I don’t really like being told what to do; I hate being spanked, and I really hate being spanked on an already sore bottom; but, her exercising her authority in a way that I’m not fully aligned with makes that exercise of pure power all the more erotic.

 

Anyway . . . on to this week’s topic.  It’s an offshoot of something ZM brought a couple of weeks ago, noting:

 

By the way, one of the most interesting things I have noticed is that we have had openness as a theme or at least a subtheme for quite a bit of the last year. It keeps coming back. Yet even so, we keep finding new angles on it, like last week it was kind of how it might affect the witnessing party. It makes we think we could take almost any topic, like tears, and go for a lot longer than you would expect before running out of new insights.

 

It is interesting just how often our discussion spins off into various tangents regarding openness and others knowing about our DD lifestyles.  It’s clearly a topic that holds a lot of fascination—morbid or otherwise—for our little group.  I don’t have anything else to say about it this week, though I did coincidentally come across this Paula Meadows drawing on the subject.  The look on recipient’s face is priceless!

 

 

But, while I’m happy to continue to talk about openness to the extent people have something new to say about it, instead of trying to come up with something new to say about it myself, I’d like to take up the other repeat topic that ZM called out – tears. 

 

As long-time readers know, this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart.  In fact, when I try to put my finger on what exactly it was about The Disciplinary Wives Club that hit me so hard, I’ve always thought it was the prevalence of tears in so much of the advice and in so many of the stories.  For example, in her Tips & Methods section, Aunt Kay advised:  

 

When handling discipline issues be firm but fair, strict, demanding, aloof and unyielding. Don't be afraid to degrade and humiliate, and above all, when that bare bottom is turned upside down across your knee waiting for the paddle or hairbrush, don't disappoint him. When you let him up, his eyes should be wet with tears, his knees should be quivering, and it should be obvious by looking at his bottom that he is displaying the marks left after a GOOD session.

 

Similarly, in the very first fiction story on the website, at the beginning of their very first disciplinary spanking the wife announces:

 

Now this is going to hurt more than you can imagine. I am going to give you a much longer and harder spanking than any you have ever had. I won't stop until you are crying, but don't worry. I won't stop when you start crying.

 

Then, this interaction during the course of that first spanking:

 

"Now be a good boy and don't try to resist. It will be better for you if you don't. " Smack, whap, whack, the spanking continued, and I began to cry, I mean really cry; I had been begging for mercy for several minutes, but now I was in tears. "Good boy" I heard, "You are crying. I like that. " Becky continued to spank me, it seemed harder than before. I wasn't resisting anymore. I was lying over her knee, accepting what she felt must be given without movement or plea. I don't know how much later it was, perhaps two or three minutes of continuous spanks, until she finally stopped.

 


Then, there was this from the story titled Even More, written by our own regular commenter, Al:

 

David was lost to all but the searing, burning pain of the wood against his skin. He had tried to be strong and resist it, but it was too much. Finally he gave into it. Tears turned to sobs as the paddle continued its seemingly unending dance across his severely tormented bottom.

 

And as David began to sob, Susan decided he had learned what a real spanking was all about. She knew this had been his fantasy, and she also knew that he was surely shocked by the reality of what he had asked for. His bottom was a solid red, spotted with purple bruises. He had kicked and screamed, begged for her to stop, and now was sobbing openly. Certainly, he must have had no idea of the truth behind his fantasy.

 

Now, these stories appear under the Fiction section of the DWC website.  I don’t know how prevalent spanking is in “real life” but here are the stats I got in response to a question I put in a 2018 poll (before Blogger got rid of its polling feature) about commenters’ experiences with crying from a disciplinary spanking:

 

I have not but want to:                                            46%

I have not and do not want to:                                12%

I have but only a few tears:                                    17%

I have, including crying hard or sobbing:               22%

 

For the fifteen or so years that we have been doing Domestic Discipline, I have been among those 46% who have not cried but want to.  Or, at least, I think I want to.  As I said, I think the prospect of crying was probably the most significant driver of the emotional reaction I had when I first discovered the Disciplinary Wives Club. Although those stories undeniably did turn me on, it was WAY more than that and far more complicated.  Stories of men being brought to tears over their wives’ knees fascinated me, but it was morbid fascination.  Those stories left me with butterflies in my stomach, though that is a huge understatement.  I couldn't sleep.  I could think of little else. It really was an obsession, and one I felt like I had to act on.  And, the decision to bring it to her attention was one of the most nerve-wracking I’ve ever made because, as I said in response to a comment last week, unlike the character in the Even More story, I didn’t try to pass it off to my wife as just some titillating bit of kink I’d stumbled across.  While I’m sure my words wandered all over the place, I think I was reasonably clear that this was something I was asking her to seriously consider doing. In so doing, I was absolutely cognizant that I was asking for something that might result in a very humbling spanking, one that might involve breaking down into real tears.  In fact, I was naïve enough at the time to think that my spankings would be exactly like those fictional DWC spankings and that, once taken over her knee, I would at some point surrender to the pain and to her authority and dissolve into heaving sobs. It scared me like nothing else ever had, or has since.

 

Yet, here we are so many years later, and I still have not cried, even during spankings that plainly fall into the "severe" range.  So, while I think the intensity of the spanking matters, it’s just one piece of the puzzle. What are the other pieces? Here are a few thoughts. 

 

 

First, the last time we addressed tears as a topic ZM made the point that he got there after a spanking in which his wife more or less announced that she wanted to make it happen.  It does seem to me that it is far more likely to happen if the wife has announced that she wants it to.  Her verbalizing it may be important for a couple of reasons. First, if you’ve been conditioned for some time to accept her authority, I think you are more likely to cry in direct response to that authority being expressly aligned with the goal of bringing you to tears.  Second, I would think that her making some pronouncement about it in advance would relieve concerns you might have about whether seeing you cry might scare her off of the entire arrangement.

 

Second, and relatedly, is the role of embarrassment.  The above quote from Aunt Kay makes it clear that, in order to serve its purpose, a spanking probably should be embarrassing. Yet, I have no doubt that the prospect of being really embarrassed is one reason I resist crying.  I have to think that a wife announcing she wants you to cry has to take at least some of the edge off the prospect of embarrassment, or at least would make it subservient to the fact that she wants you to cry, even if that does entail wanting you to experience the embarrassment that goes along with having your bottom blistered for bad behavior.

 

 

Third, I have become more and more convinced over time that severity/intensity of the swats is probably a very distant second to duration when it comes to getting a husband to really surrender to the spanking and to the whole situation in a way that will open him up to tears.  As ZM related after the first time his wife brought him to tears:

 

I don't think she punished harder than usual, but certainly longer, and plus she had said before that the next punishment would certainly result in tears, so I think she set the stage for it and that helped me to get into the proper state of mind. Anyway, the tears took it to a whole new level of "real" feeling for us.

 

As I said, fifteen years into this DD relationship, I have never cried.  So, I don’t hold myself out as an expert on tears or how one might bring it about.  I also don’t have a more focused topic in mind than whatever thoughts any of you may have on crying and tears.

 

Finally, one housekeeping matter.  Google must have implemented some technical change in its spam detection algorithms, and it seems to be more than a little klugy.  Some comments are being flagged as spam even though they are from identified commenters, and often with other comments from that same commenter let through with no problem.  There doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason for why a particular comment ends up in the spam folder, and Blogger doesn’t give any notice when a comment has been identified as spam and is in the folder awaiting review.  So, if you try to comment and it doesn’t post right away, chances are it was flagged as spam.  Hopefully, Blogger will fix the problem soon, but in the meantime I’ll try to check the spam folder more regularly.

 



 

61 comments:

  1. To me Tears are a strong emotional response, almost like a dam breaking, unleashing a flood of feelings and fears. It is something of a trauma to actually break into tears, but almost simultaneously a deep relief and relaxation from letting go, giving in and surrendering to the spanking. I have an approach –avoidance reaction to tears similar to the one I have to being spanked. : I am attracted and fascinated by the concept of it, but actually confronted with it, I try to avoid it from happening.
    Probably any human being can be brought to tears but it is harder for traditionally socialized males in this society, My former girlfriend was a skilled often hard spanker who never brought me to teats ( close a few times though). But my wife had done it several times. So I think I know what makes it happen for me. But I have no real reason to suppose this works for everyone because when you cry or why must be unique for everyone and that must be particularly true for an adult being spanked.
    Trying to consider it analytically, these are what I think have made it happen for us.
    1. The spanking has to be somewhat severe, but not overwhelmingly severe that so you can’t stop involuntarily fighting it. A spanking delivered hard and fast doesn’t bring on the teas of surrender. They are just pure punishment and I just try to get through one of them. So a spanking that brings on tears is one that you feel, but doesn’t put you in a defensive crouch
    2. There needs to be considerable embarrassment or humbling involved. There are a lot of ways we get there at different times but being bared and spanked OtK (however awkward) is very embarrassing for me as well as making me feel out of control.
    3. The spanking should be fairly slow and there should be plenty of scolding or lecturing during the actual spanking. The scolding doesn’t need to be elaborate but should be steady, With us a lot of it is simple interrogation like “why are you being spanked” or I am spanking you because… I think slowing the spanking done engages thought and emotions more and the scolding can produce embarrassment or even shame which itself can produce tears.
    4. Your partner’s attitude toward tears is important. I am convinced that the first time I cried it was because my wife said she expected it. I know now that she likes when it happens because it tells her I am really remorseful and she has accomplished her purpose. She know I don’t cry easy and so it’s a big thing for her.
    5. Mood is an important variable independent of everything else. I have to be somewhat subdues, remorseful or contemplative when the spanking begins if it is to end in tears
    So all in all we get tears when the stars align and they are more likely to alight when it is relatively mild, fairly long in duration, incurs some embarrassment and triggers the right mood. My wife’s attitude toward tears was originally hugely important I don’t think spanking would have produced crying without that positive reinforcement. Once I realized she expected tears and actually approved of it, a lot of my defenses to letting it happen just dissipated
    Alan

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    1. Hi Alan. This is great stuff. I'm sure you are right that the wife's attitude toward tears--and its verbal articulation to the husband--is hugely important. Also, I suspect that for me, it has to be more than just conveying that crying is OK or understandable. For me, I think it might need to be conveyed that she actually *wants* it to happen. Something I've learned about myself over the years--in DD and non-DD contexts--is I don't respond well (if at all) to wishy-washy messaging. But, paradoxically for someone with my real resistance to authority, I can respond pretty well to direct, emphatic, directive communication. I suspect it relates to whether I think the person doing the communicating is a "real" leader, i.e. someone who is comfortable with their authority and willing to use it, or someone who is faking it or really doesn't believe in their own authority or ability to make an order stick.

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    2. Hi Alan,
      "I have an approach –avoidance reaction to tears similar to the one I have to being spanked. : I am attracted and fascinated by the concept of it, but actually confronted with it, I try to avoid it from happening." - Me too. I expect that the crying part is true for most men (and many women too), and not only in the context of DD. For spanking, that avoidance would be true for all except those who actually enjoy getting spanked.

      As for your formula:
      "1) The spanking has to be somewhat severe, but not overwhelmingly severe that so you can’t stop involuntarily fighting it." - Agree 100%. This seems to be a hard one for my wife, since even if she does a "warm up" it is about 10 soft hand spanks then much harder with a paddle. Probably the ideal is a slow ramping in both severity and instrument used.

      "2. There needs to be considerable embarrassment or humbling involved." - Again agree completely. And the loss of control you indicated is probably a huge factor. That is when it starts to feel hopeless.

      "I think slowing the spanking done engages thought and emotions more and the scolding can produce embarrassment or even shame which itself can produce tears." - Again, I think this is another key. This is an emotional journey, and it may take an hour or more for an adult to get there. Children get there immediately, often before even being spanked. And one good way to make it last an hour is rather than spanking once every 30 seconds for a long period of time (which could work too), break the punishment into 3, 4, 5, or more segments each harder and faster than the one before, with times of reflection punctuated by scolding in between.

      "4. Your partner’s attitude toward tears is important. I am convinced that the first time I cried it was because my wife said she expected it." - Me too! I think that a big part of the reason that I got to tears the one time was because she told me beforehand that she had every intention of it ending in tears, so as Dan said, it was not just that she said it is OK to cry, but rather that she expected it to happen and was going to keep going until that was the result.

      Mood of course plays in as well, but that one is harder to control. Probably if someone gets the other parts right, mood will determine when tears will happen, but they will be almost inevitable at some time or other.

      -ZM






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    3. Count me in as someone who "actually enjoy getting spanked" by my wife. While her spankings presently seem hard to me, we are not in a DD relationship (though I would welcome one). In a DD relationship, I suspect a punishment spanking that was long and hard would not be something that I would enjoy any longer. But maybe I would. Whatever the case, I doubt I would ever develop tears.

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    4. Alan and ZM,

      "I have an approach –avoidance reaction to tears similar to the one I have to being spanked.: I am attracted and fascinated by the concept of it, but actually confronted with it, I try to avoid it from happening." Same here.

      "This is an emotional journey, and it may take an hour or more for an adult to get there." You're probably right. So far, we haven't done one remotely close to that long.

      "It was not just that she said it is OK to cry, but rather that she expected it to happen and was going to keep going until that was the result." For me, this statement fits pretty well into Alan's "avoidance reaction" scenario -- just hearing about it is fascinating and stimulating, yet part of me doesn't want to even imagine it happening in real life.

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  2. Sorry but reading through this I realize I have omitted an important point. I think this is related to slowing down the spanking. But to bring on tears for certain it has to reach a point where it seems it will never end and it is hopeless. That hopeless feeling triggers tears every time.Maybe its not necessary but it sure works.
    Alan

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    1. I can understand this one too. Anne tends to spanking intensely but (relatively) briefly, and I do think there is an element sometimes of me just trying to wait it out. For that reason, choice of instrument may be very important. Almost any wooden instrument (and definitely anything heavy, like a large paddle), hurts like hell at first but inevitably, at some point, I get numb and am way less likely to get any point of being overwhelmed by the inevitability or feeling hopeless.

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    2. I've never had a spanking to tears. Describing the required length and slowness as being enough to make it seem hopelessly interminable seems to be why. Our sessions are so short. I'm seriously wondering if we need to look at spanking something half the speed and five times as many swats, so perhaps ten times longer. In my situation, that's a lot to ask, and I would have to ask because we would probably not naturally work up to that length in years. (It's not promising for the tears that I'm thinking this mechanically.)

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    3. MW, the mechanics seems pretty important to me. Sounds like you're just looking at the current situation and trying to figure out how to lay the right groundwork.

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    4. Thanks, Dan. Sometimes this part of our relationship is like bottleneck troubleshooting at work. (But these results actually feel meaningful!)

      So to continue the mechanical thinking, I think she would agree to twice as many swats, no questions asked. With a short conversation, she might be willing to double it again after trying twice as many. Slowing down the rate seems harder. I might ask her to count between so the spaces don't feel empty to her. Slowing her down would also make the swats build up more as her accuracy would benefit.

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    5. Hi Alan,
      Absolutely true about the hopelessness. Once you realize that it is not ending until you are in tears, and maybe not even soon after that, the will to fight it just sort of dies, leaving true surrender.

      -ZM

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  3. Even though your main topic is tears, the first thing you mentioned struck me. I suggest that the reason you forget to lock the doors is exactly the same as my forgetting to set up the coffee pot. We both want to remember. It isn't disrespect or laziness. It's just not front of mind to do the things we have been told to remember.

    We've learned that consistent punishment for missing these little things does wonders. I've found that having a sore bottom for days does wonders to keep a chore front and center. Mrs. Lion used to give me passes for forgetting. After all, it's not a big offense. When she decided to be consistent, things started to change. I still miss now and then. Each and every time I get a painful reminder that I need to remember. If Anne consistently punishes you for not locking the doors, it won't take very long for you to be more careful.

    In terms of tears, I'm also in the 46% (maybe). I haven't cried yet.

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    1. Hi CL. I have no doubt that consistency plays a huge role in moving something to front of mind and shifting our attention from our own priorities to hers.

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    2. Dan said: "Sometimes, it just takes a while for an unwanted but somewhat unconscious behavior to become 'front and center' in your conscious mind." - I agree that it takes time, and the primary challenge I often face with "little things" is simply not being mindful of them.

      "We've learned that consistent punishment for missing these little things does wonders. I've found that having a sore bottom for days does wonders to keep a chore front and center"

      - One of the wonders of DD is how it can change our very thinking, allowing us to become mindful about things that before we simply couldn't help forgetting, and also changing our perspective and mindset about things in unexpected ways. I was not surprised that DD can help change intentional misbehavior, since that is obvious. What I was surprised is how it can help me to become mindful of things that I simply didn't think about before, and how it has allowed me to change my mindset or mentality on certain things, which was something that I viewed as quite impossible or at least very unlikely before.

      -ZM

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  4. Tears are a weird thing. I would like to cry more often... maybe 3 or 4 times as an adult at the death of a loved one. I'm also in the 46%. Really interested to read other's experiences with tears and spankings. My wife tends to hard but shorter spankings and has never expressed a desire to see me cry.
    I should ask for her view on it, but not sure that I'm brave enough.
    I hope that others comment on what works for them.
    Thanks

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    1. Hi Mark. You said you've cried 3 or 4 times as an adult. The odd thing is, I'm actually pretty prone to crying in some contexts, but not spanking. I'm a sucker for some country songs. I can't watch the final scene of Saving Private Ryan without crying. And, like you, I've cried at the deaths of family and friends or when I learned that they had experienced a personal tragedy. So, I'm not resistant to tears in the abstract, but I just can't seem to bring that openness and vulnerability to spanking.

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  5. As a boy I cried. I believe my siblings did as well. I think that was a necessary element of the experience. Without being broken emotionally, I would have remained above the punishment. Tears were the surrender, and what felt like a victory for the spanker. It was like being owned by the spanker, and that's what I want to feel with a wife who spanks, having to surrender my emotions to her and, in those moments, be righteously owned by her.

    I think for me, tears would depend on the nature of our relationship, her personality and intention, and how she goes about the process of punishment. I never cried at school, and I don't remember any other guys crying either. The relationship with the person swinging the paddle, how punishment was conducted, and the detached institutional nature of it just didn't add up to the same kind of emotional catharsis. When I imagine DD spanking, there's always crying, because otherwise it's too flat dramatically. In real life, though, I don't know if it would happen. It must take just the right mix of volatile components. Physical pain can be the catalyst, but emotional tears are the result of emotions.

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    1. "Without being broken emotionally, I would have remained above the punishment. Tears were the surrender, and what felt like a victory for the spanker. It was like being owned by the spanker, and that's what I want to feel with a wife who spanks, having to surrender my emotions to her." Yes, this! That's exactly how I feel about it.

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    2. I think, for those who feel like Dan about the importance of this (and I am one), more wives need to understand it and the surrender dynamic involved in it. Most guys are not going to be able to let go to this degree unless their wife or girlfriend want's it or expects it -- no matter how real the discipline is otherwise

      Alan

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    3. Danielle here:

      Brett wrote: >>>As a boy I cried. I believe my siblings did as well. I think that was a necessary element of the experience. Without being broken emotionally, I would have remained above the punishment. Tears were the surrender, and what felt like a victory for the spanker. It was like being owned by the spanker, and that's what I want to feel with a wife who spanks, having to surrender my emotions to her and, in those moments, be righteously owned by her.<<<

      Brett, I occasionally spanked my sons when they were young, and I think they always cried. I don’t think they cried because of the severity of the spankings. I didn’t spank harshly because I already had doubts back then about the appropriateness of spanking kids. (I probably wouldn’t even spank them at all if we went back in time). I usually used other disciplinary tools than spankings, so when I did smack their bottoms they knew I was expressing serious disapproval. That probably did more to induce tears than the pain did. By the time they were old enough to rebel seriously against parental authority, I thought they were too old to be spanked, so I never felt that spanking was a contest I needed to win. Other disciplinary measures like loss of allowance or grounding were effective. I believe you have said that your parents still spanked you when you were in your teens. Is that correct? If so, I think I can understand your view of spanking as a contest of wills in which the spanker needs to make the spankee cry to be victorious. I have a feeling that with many young people, a form of punishment that damaged their feeling of personal dignity might make them rebel more strongly against authority, so the punishment would have to be harsher than I would have been comfortable with. Was that the case in your family?

      When it comes to spanking my husband, I have never had the feeling that making him cry represented victory for me or that failure to make him cry would represent victory for him. But I suppose I can understand why you feel that way. Personally, I would never consent to being spanked, and if somebody somehow spanked me against my will, I would probably do my best to deny them the satisfaction of seeing me cry…if I could. It would be a matter of pride. So I guess that even in a consensual DD relationship, the submissive partner may try to hold back tears out of willful stubbornness and pride if he feels the punishment is unfair. In that case, I guess I could understand a disciplinary wife wanting to make her husband cry in order to “break” his emotional resistance and show him that she’s the boss. But with my husband, I never feel that I am in a power struggle with him while I am spanking him. The spanking may be the result of a preceding power struggle, but once he submits to having his bottom bared, I feel victorious before the spanking actually begins.

      One occasion on which I was determined not to stop until Wayne cried was when I spanked him in front of my friend Barb. That was because of the special circumstances. I was spanking him on that occasion for cheating on me by going to a professional disciplinarian. I knew that SHE had made him cry during the paid session, and I was determined to do the same. I also wanted Barb to see that although we were doing something kinky, the discipline was real. Maybe I was also being a little vindictive because of what he had done, and I wanted to shame him in front of Barb. Since then, I generally spank long and hard enough to draw tears from him, but I don’t think of it as a contest of wills, nor do I want to reduce him to a blubbering mess.

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    4. Danielle, these are all very interesting things to consider. I think it's an unusual child who doesn't cry to some degree when getting spanked, and many do at just the threat. It doesn't need to be a harsh beating. The emotional disturbance, the angering or disappointing of a parent, to whom the child looks for everything, especially love and approval, will amplify the perceived pain of a controlled physical assault. Then, of course, children tend to overreact to any kind of pain. As the child develops, they can also become more sensitive to the shame of being spanked. In my experience as a young child, for myself and others I knew, in most cases, the reactions to spankings were more dramatic than the actual severity warranted. Before adolescence, my parents were probably more strict than you were with your sons, but the general idea was to keep things within the norm - the paddle was light, the more intense pain was momentary, and we weren't left with bruises. At least that was typical of non-abusive homes.

      Danielle: "I believe you have said that your parents still spanked you when you were in your teens. Is that correct? If so, I think I can understand your view of spanking as a contest of wills in which the spanker needs to make the spankee cry to be victorious. I have a feeling that with many young people, a form of punishment that damaged their feeling of personal dignity might make them rebel more strongly against authority, so the punishment would have to be harsher than I would have been comfortable with. Was that the case in your family?"

      Spanking changed significantly in adolescence. It was only for fairly rare major transgressions, and it seemed the idea was to unambiguously impose authority, and to shame the rebel into abandoning the rebellion. I don't want to take up too much space about that here, but the upshot was, in my case, it eventually did lead to a strong rebellion against authority. That conflict and all the emotion around those years plays a role or has a connection to the kind of DD/FLR I want to imagine.

      Danielle: "So I decide to spank him to adjust his attitude. I don’t want him to be emotionally broken or remorseful after the spanking. I just want him to acknowledge that I have just cause to be dissatisfied with him, to apologize for his attitude, and to promise to make an effort to do better."

      In the case you offer, I think that makes sense. Being emotionally broken for an untidy bathroom and lack of remorse doesn't add up. How ashamed can one be? The issue can be cleared up with some pain and embarrassment, and nothing melodramatic. I guess that's part of the routine of DD, and to be respected.
      The circumstances of punishment spanking that can fulfill the desire to be broken are more serious in nature, and that's what I learned growing up. That requires a much deeper and clearer surrender to one's wife.

      Danielle: "So I guess that even in a consensual DD relationship, the submissive partner may try to hold back tears out of willful stubbornness and pride if he feels the punishment is unfair. In that case, I guess I could understand a disciplinary wife wanting to make her husband cry in order to “break” his emotional resistance and show him that she’s the boss."

      I would definitely want to remain stoic, mostly because it would not feel masculine to make a fuss and to cry. Not that I'm into a macho thing. It's just instilled since birth that "boys don't cry." I imagine a wife wanting to break the husband of this, to force him to let go of his emotions, and thereby show his shame and contrition to her, a genuine sign that she is getting through to him and that his behavior will be corrected. It truly is showing him who's the boss, in a positive humbling way. For me this only makes sense with serious issues, and the emotion is not just about the physical pain she's inflicting.

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    5. Danielle: "One occasion on which I was determined not to stop until Wayne cried was when I spanked him in front of my friend Barb. That was because of the special circumstances."

      This is the kind of scenario where tears are possible and, even for you, seemed necessary. The cheating was a significant offense, the discipline needed to be demonstrably real, and you wanted your husband shamed under the view of a witness. Could this be achieved without some tears? It's just a matter of degree as to what constitutes for you a meaningful surrender.

      Danielle: "My husband once showed me a video of a woman spanking a man. The man’s bottom was mottled with bruises. He was sobbing and begging the woman to stop, but she just kept spanking and spanking. I didn’t watch to the end because it turned me off."

      I also get turned off by excessive brutality and unrelenting cruelty. Certainly, no responsible and caring parent would punish like that, even 40 or more years ago. Although I admit to an attraction to a woman who enjoys her role as disciplinarian, I don't want tears to be wrought from cruelty. That said, everyone has their own feelings about what is too much, even those into heavy sadomasochism. I'm not much of a masochist. I think with the right combination of physical and emotional pain, fostered by the right disciplinarian, it doesn't require brutality to make punishment a wet-faced catharsis and surrender, and it could be evidence that in a man still lives the boy who is not too big for a spanking.

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    6. "Without being broken emotionally, I would have remained above the punishment. Tears were the surrender, and what felt like a victory for the spanker. It was like being owned by the spanker, and that's what I want to feel with a wife who spanks, having to surrender my emotions to her." - I agree fully. Couldn't have said it better myself.

      -ZM

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    7. And Danielle,
      Lots of great stuff in your comments as well.

      "...so when I did smack their bottoms they knew I was expressing serious disapproval. That probably did more to induce tears than the pain did." - Still true, in most every case.

      "I guess I could understand a disciplinary wife wanting to make her husband cry in order to “break” his emotional resistance and show him that she’s the boss. But with my husband, I never feel that I am in a power struggle with him while I am spanking him. The spanking may be the result of a preceding power struggle, but once he submits to having his bottom bared, I feel victorious before the spanking actually begins." - I see totally where you are coming from, and I agree, though you are thinking from the perspective of the spanker and I am thinking from the perspective of the spankee. My wife probably doesn't need to feel victorious, and if she does, she probably feels it before the spanking even ends because of my submission to her authority. Brett was seeing it from the perspective of the spankee, who may need to be brought to total submission not only to her authority, but also to the punishment itself.

      I know for me, the whole authority part is more sexually exciting, but the spankings themselves are not. Rather, they are a way to show the reality of the authority. I submit to her authority by taking my clothes off and getting into position, but I only fully surrender to the punishment itself when I stop resisting it at all and just give in to it. So I have not only surrendered my bottom and my will to her, but also my emotions. And that happens best and most when the tears start flowing. The longer she could keep me in that state, the more impactful the whole experience would be for me.

      And I really liked your insights about why it was different when you spanked Wayne in front of Barb. There, the "victory" element was definitely in play, since the reason you were doing the punishment was because he had went to a professional, and if SHE got him to cry, then I could see why you would want to also!

      "I also wanted Barb to see that although we were doing something kinky, the discipline was real." - This is why I crave the whole witness thing so much, I think. To somehow make it even more real.

      And the fact that you brought him to tears in that spanking keys into the whole reason that the thought of being spanked in front of someone else is so morbidly fascinating. Because what if I cry from the combination of pain and embarrassment?

      "Since then, I generally spank long and hard enough to draw tears from him, but I don’t think of it as a contest of wills, nor do I want to reduce him to a blubbering mess." - This seems to confirm something that Alan said before. Once the dam is broken and tears have flowed once, they are likely to flow again and again. And this is likely due to changes in both of you. He is no longer as afraid to cry from a spanking. He has done it, in front of Barb no less... And you are used to seeing tears from a spanking now, and may even come to expect it. In short, you own his tears now.

      -ZM

      -ZM

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    8. Danielle: "One occasion on which I was determined not to stop until Wayne cried was when I spanked him in front of my friend Barb." I believe Alan has observed that spankings in front of witnesses seem to be even harder, because there is a certain "showing off for the witness" factor at play, in which the wife wants to demonstrate her proficiency and seriousness in front of her guest.

      ZM: "I submit to her authority by taking my clothes off and getting into position, but I only fully surrender to the punishment itself when I stop resisting it at all and just give in to it." Your observation about the submission taking place when you get undressed and get into position seems to be a perspective my wife shares. She has told me that while she has come to enjoy delivering the spanking, what she really enjoys is seeing me submit by complying with here order to get into position.

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    9. My wife also relishes the 'pre spanking ' ritual and her curt commands like "strip!" , "bend over!" or "Get over!" really resonate with me even long after the spanking is over.

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  6. We enjoy the lifestyle for multiple reasons but do not like tears. JR

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  7. A couple of comments from what Alan wrote really resonated with me:

    >The spanking has to be somewhat severe, but not overwhelmingly severe that so you can’t stop involuntarily fighting it. A spanking delivered hard and fast doesn’t bring on the teas of surrender. They are just pure punishment and I just try to get through one of them. So a spanking that brings on tears is one that you feel, but doesn’t put you in a defensive crouch<

    >Sorry but reading through this I realize I have omitted an important point. I think this is related to slowing down the spanking. But to bring on tears for certain it has to reach a point where it seems it will never end and it is hopeless. That hopeless feeling triggers tears every time. Maybe its not necessary but it sure works.<

    I related somewhat (but less so) to the other aspects of a spanking that leads to tears and sobs - but the comments above really hit home with me.

    While I have received punishment spankings that were quite severe - to the point of it being very difficult to endure and stay in position (and even involuntarily jumping out of position on occasion - costing me extra whacks), as Alan points out, these are so intense that it puts the husband in an endurance mode - rather than submission mode, which is where the real tears and sobs come from (not that there might not be some tears from a punishment spanking as well, but tears of real pain rather than submission).

    But the spankings that really drive me into submission and often tears and sometimes outright sobs are (again, as Alan said) the ones that seem to go on forever, and you don't know if it will ever end. It just seems hopeless and that all is lost. And while the whacks may not be as severe as a punishment spanking, they are still hard enough that each one stings and burns - and is genuinely painful. My wife has mastered this art - spanking just below my threshold of endurance - a spanking that sets my ass on fire and keeps in burning for what seems like forever - but not so hard that I have to concentrate on just surviving the pain of severe whacks. It does indeed just become seemingly hopeless - and this is when I just submit - and give in to the pain of the discipline - and just let the tears - and even sobs come. And this is where she wants me - in submission, reinforcing and maintaining the aura of maternal discipline in the household.

    Yet another interesting topic. -- al


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    1. --al wrote: “And this is where she wants me - in submission, reinforcing and maintaining the aura of maternal discipline in the household”
      Did your wife encourage tears, know or expect them? In our experience I think that was pretty key. I remember during one early conversation she said something like most people cry when they are being spanked or its normal to cry from a spanking. Whatever she said, it normalized tears for me and when it happened I think I felt safer to just let it go. The reality for me is that I am really not crying ( just) from the spanking but the spanking is a powerful catalyst that releases pent up emotions.
      Alan

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    2. Excellent description of the feeling of surrender, Al!

      -ZM

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    3. "But the spankings that really drive me into submission and often tears and sometimes outright sobs are (again, as Alan said) the ones that seem to go on forever, and you don't know if it will ever end. It just seems hopeless and that all is lost." This seems to be a really important common point being made by those of you that have gotten to the point of real tears."

      "It does indeed just become seemingly hopeless - and this is when I just submit - and give in to the pain of the discipline - and just let the tears - and even sobs come. And this is where she wants me - in submission, reinforcing and maintaining the aura of maternal discipline in the household." Yes. This is definitely the mystique that brought me so firmly into the DWC obsession after first reading about it.

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  8. Alan wrote:
    >Did your wife encourage tears, know or expect them? In our experience I think that was pretty key. I remember during one early conversation she said something like most people cry when they are being spanked or its normal to cry from a spanking<

    Yes - in one our earliest spankings, I had plenty of tears and was probably "borderline mildly sobbing". She noticed it and told me it was ok to cry - that she didn't know how anyone could take a spanking like the one I was getting and not cry. She even said that she knew that she would if she were being spanked bare bottom with a paddle - but also added that she would never be on that side of the paddle.

    She also told me later that she had read a post somewhere on an F/M forum about tears and crying - that had not only prepared her for the idea, but encouraged her "to take me there" - as she thought it would be a good "emotional outlet" for me. (Very insightful).

    And - that turned out to be the case. So, like you (Alan), spanking did turn out to be a "powerful catalyst for emotional release".

    --al

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  9. Danielle here:

    I have probably said this before, but I don’t get the fascination with crying. Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t want my husband to be stoically silent during a spanking, and I see nothing wrong with tears. But I can’t think of many circumstances in which I would want to spank him until he was sobbing or “emotionally broken”, as Brett put it.

    Consider the kind of circumstance in which I might spank my husband. Say, for example, I notice the bathroom is not as clean as I would like, and I point it out to him. Instead of acknowledging that he has let it slip and getting down to cleaning, he gets snippy with me. So I decide to spank him to adjust his attitude. I don’t want him to be emotionally broken or remorseful after the spanking. I just want him to acknowledge that I have just cause to be dissatisfied with him, to apologize for his attitude, and to promise to make an effort to do better. I can think of few circumstances in which I would be so angry that I would want to “break” him or make him feel abjectly remorseful.

    My husband once showed me a video of a woman spanking a man. The man’s bottom was mottled with bruises. He was sobbing and begging the woman to stop, but she just kept spanking and spanking. I didn’t watch to the end because it turned me off. I know it was probably a staged scene, but the woman seemed excessively cruel, and I thought it was degrading for the man. Not just humbling, but degrading. I still feel that way, but ever since my husband confessed to having gone to a professional disciplinarian, I have been spanking him longer and harder. If wet eyes count as crying, I guess you could say he cries when I spank him now. But I don’t make him sob and plead like the young man in that video, nor would I want to. I notice that so far only men have responded to this week’s topic. I wonder how other women feel about it.

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    1. Hi Danielle,
      Your comment was, as always, well thought out. I can see why you would feel that way about not wanting to reduce your husband to sobbing, especially over some more minor offense. Undoubtedly if I were the one swinging the paddle, I would feel the same way.

      One reason that tears are fascinating to me is because they represent true and total loss of control. Until I am in tears, I am arguably more in control than she is. My reaction will determine how hard she hits and how long she continues. However, once I am crying, I am clearly NOT in control anymore, because I am sobbing and she is still continuing.

      I agree that this would seem a bit much, especially for anything minor, and maybe fore anything at all. For me, I would expect her to reserve this for things where she feels genuinely hurt or things that are very serious. For example, if I do or say something that makes her feel genuinely bad, that would be a good time. Or if I do something that is very risky, like texting and driving or anything that endangers our very lives (or at least our life together).

      As for the video, I agree that a spanking like that is very hard to watch, and probably even harder to administer. The only consolation I can say is that after he reaches the point of surrender and is sobbing, it probably doesn't take much to keep him in that state, so she may not have been hitting all that hard after that. Also, he was probably pretty numb at that point, so was more feeling emotional distress than physical pain. However, beating him longer can leave more long-lasting soreness to really allow a lesson to sink in, and I think (but don't know) that this time of absolute surrender might also be a time of very deep learning.

      -ZM

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    2. The language Brett used about being "emotionally broken" is something I've learned from experience here can be really controversial. I did a topic about it several years ago, and much of the reaction around the word "broken" was strong and negative. For me, I think ZM and Al's focus on "surrender" is closest to why I think crying would be a positive. As ZM says, the failure to cry is, for me, probably as much about "refusal" as just a failure of conditions to bring it about (though I do think that longer, less severe spankings probably are "necessary but insufficient" conditions for it really happening). This statement by ZM really resonates with me: "One reason that tears are fascinating to me is because they represent true and total loss of control. Until I am in tears, I am arguably more in control than she is."

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    3. I can see how words can have that kind of impact. To me, crying is being broken emotionally - not like the damage of a broken bone or crushed ego, but could be seen like the sun breaking through the clouds to shine light on the world below. And another word, defeat... a wife can win a battle of wills by forcing her husband to tears, but I don't see the defeat as being bested. I'd describe it more like going to a doctor, and she defeats the disease. With applied discipline, both partners can benefit, but one benefits by the other taking control and imposing their will. Humiliation is another difficult word but, to some of us, not a negative.

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    4. Yeah, "humiliation" is definitely another word to which people have a wide range of reactions.

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  10. Hi Dan,
    One of my favorite topics because I have such a morbid fascination with it, but at the same time something I really know little about. My wife has spanked me to tears, once, and I have been close at other times, but I certainly don't it down to have a formula. The closest I came to a formula was something that I posted on a previous "tears" thread here, though now I am less sure of a few parts of it.

    "Generally, you will cry only after you are first reduced to a little boy who feels remorseful about what effects his actions have had on others. Embarrassment and humiliation play a HUGE role. By humiliation, I mean more of a humbling; not taking away someone's self-worth, but instead clearly (but temporarily) reducing the big strong man's status to that of the little boy, or maybe a little girl if you want to take it a bit further! In my opinion, if he is reduced to a sorry naughty little boy, then the spanking was a total success, regardless of whether tears were shed.

    The largest factor that is most often missing for my wife and I is time. To bring about this complete breaking down of emotional barriers that I have carefully built over decades and to reduce me to a child is not an undertaking of minutes, but rather an hour, if not more.

    The ideal scenario would be:

    - Anticipation: I should know what I have done wrong and that a punishment is coming so I have time to think about it and about my actions. Knowing it will continue until I am in tears helps set the stage.

    - Scolding. This should continue so long that I am feeling so bad that I am dying for the spanking to start, just to end the lecture! And then of course it should continue throughout.

    - Spanking. I view pain as playing a supporting role in the process, albeit an important role. As Dan said, if the pain is too much or too fast, it works against the process, since it causes the spankee to focus on the pain rather than the humiliating situation and the reason for the spanking. But the right amount of pain at the right times can act as a very strong positive reinforcement, breaking down internal barriers.

    - Multiple cycles of punishment: There is no way that she will be able to adequately move me from big, strong, proud man to sorry little crying boy in 5 minutes, no matter what tool she is holding in her hand. This takes time. Time for her to scold… Time for me to reflect… And this time is best spent making me feel little, with things like corner time, mouth soaping, serving her, or whatever. As a side benefit (?) the time also allows my bottom to regain sensitivity in between rounds of punishment."

    As I look back on it, I am less convinced on the role of anticipation, in terms of knowing a punishment is coming. The other parts I will still maintain as true.

    I think it is quite critical to know that the punishment WILL end in tears. That minimizes that barrier of not wanting to appear weak, and also makes it clear that she will just keep going and going until you are in tears, so better to just give up quickly.

    -ZM


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    1. ZM wrote: Multiple cycles of punishment: This takes time. Time for her to scold… Time for me to reflect… with things like corner time, mouth soaping, serving her, or whatever”
      I envision this as multiple breaks with nose to wall, bum pushed out, corner time followed by repeated bouts with the brush and continued scolding. We have done something like this a few times but not that many. I think it would be extremely effective in not just breaking down resistance but imprinting a lesson.
      But for whatever reason my wife’s style is to carry through from start to finish however long without a formal break. I am not going to argue with success, but I would really like to experience more of what you are describing
      Alan

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    2. ZM, I didn't realize that she had brought you to tears only once.

      "Anticipation" is an interesting part of the possible formula, and one I go back and forth on. Sometimes I think that as a deterrent, spankings would be more effective if they were immediate. But, I do think that a significant period of anticipation definitely has a humbling role and puts me in a more submissive mindset. But, I think it's a narrow window, measured in hours not days.

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  11. Some other fun comments I dredged up while reading previous posts. Good insights all...

    " A good long spanking provides opportunity for the recipient to make a spectacle of themselves. There's greater intensity and dominance when the spanking is not just about pain but one party taking the other on an emotional journey. That can't happen in an instant." (Jake)
    - I like the "emotional journey" part of this. I think it is not about spanking duration, but rather the duration of the whole ordeal. Long emotional journeys, like all other journeys, take time.

    "And that is when crying happens, when you mix shame and remorse with a sense that it is never going to end." (Alan)

    - I agree that it is a combination of a long time (to allow you to give up hope of it ending without you surrendering) and remorse for what you did and how it affected others.

    "My wife uses a paddle most of the time and it's over her knee. She will usually bring me to tears but not from the pain of the spanking. She brings me to tears from her scolding and lecturing. She very good at making me feel so guilty about what I did and it makes me cry. When I start to cry the spanking will get much harder and faster until I become limp over her knee crying and promising to be good." (other Dan)

    - Good description of surrender. And again it seems to be tied in more to the emotions than just the pain of the spanking.

    "But there is another way that tears come which relies less on the severity of the punishment than the emotions you are feeling. These include not just regret but embarrassment, contrition and shame. For me that comes mostly from my wife's scolding and my sense of how bad I have behaved and how ashamed I should be to have to be spanked to make me behave and realizing how upset she is. That sense of deep shame and contrition is not present in every spanking but with one exception it has been there for every spanking i ended up crying. If a woman combines severity of the sort Peter experienced with a sense of shame and embarrassment, she is going to move mountains" (Alan)

    - Couldn't agree more, Alan.

    -ZM

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    1. "Lecturing" or "scolding" is, like severity, an issue I've changed my mind about a bit over time. I used to be really fascinated by it and thought I needed more of it. Yet, as she has come to scold more, I haven't found that it changed my attitude very much, at least not during the spanking. I feel like it might be more effective if she was just more strict and more verbally assertive in general, as opposed to during spankings. My ego is pretty damn strong, and I think taking me down a peg would really require a significant adjustment of the whole communication dynamic.

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  12. And then this one from Miss Cecilia, since I think that the whole tears things ties in a lot with my fascination for "witnesses."

    "He wasn't getting spanked in front of just anyone, he was getting spanked in front of someone who would actually enjoy watching him get spanked. He was going to be seen in pretty lingerie and a dress by someone he'd rather not see him like that. He was going to have to curtsey to her and ask her to watch him get a spanking...Once I was sure that there'd always be tears, I made an excuse to invite her to watch, again. Her comments were very humiliating."

    - I think that the primary reason I have such a morbid fascination with witnesses is not because of what they might think about me being spanked in front of them, but rather because of what they might think of how I actually take the punishment.

    By the way, I think that not wanting to have my wife see me cry from spanking is the primary thing that keeps it from happening often. Quite ironic, since she has seen me cry quite a few other times from sappy movies, relating traumatic stories from the past, and so on, but somehow this is different.

    But when I read Miss Cecilia's post about how she spanked her husband in a dress in front of someone he doesn't like, and made sure it ended up in tears, it just hits on so many things (witnesses, humiliation, and tears) that I just can't even imagine it. I so wish (and at the same time don't wish) that something like that could happen once in my life.

    -ZM

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    1. ZM wrote: >>>But when I read Miss Cecilia's post about how she spanked her husband in a dress in front of someone he doesn't like, and made sure it ended up in tears, it just hits on so many things (witnesses, humiliation, and tears) that I just can't even imagine it. I so wish (and at the same time don't wish) that something like that could happen once in my life.<<<

      That reminds me that the day I spanked Wayne in front of Barb, I made him wear a cute, feminine apron to serve us lunch before the spanking and to somewhat protect his modesty when I took his pants down for the spanking. I had often threatened to make him wear a feminine apron, instead of one of his gender neutral aprons, when we had guests over to dinner, but I had never done it before then. He blushed when Barb teased him about the apron, but unlike Miss Cecilia, I didn’t think of the feminization as a part of the punishment. I saw that aspect as pure kink, knowing that he fantasized about forced feminization. I think that deep down he probably liked that touch. Another difference is that Cecilia chose a witness her husband didn’t like, whereas I knew Wayne likes Barb and finds her attractive. I suppose it is easier for a man to be shamed in front of a woman he likes, and who likes him, than in front of a woman he doesn’t like?
      Danielle

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    2. Danielle wrote: “I suppose it is easier for a man to be shamed in front of a woman he likes, and who likes him, than in front of a woman he doesn’t like?”

      That may vary according to the guy. I think I would be more embarrassed to be spanked in front of a woman who I thought was attractive who reciprocated the feelings. That would really feel like a shameful take-down to be bared and punished in front of her. When my wife first disciplined me in front of her sister (N), her sister thought I was a little pompous and arrogant .So I really didn’t have a lot of status to lose with her. But to be spanked in front of an attractive women who holds me in some regard –that would be devastating, but probably positive overall in terms of our DD relationship. It’s also probably completely unlikely because my wife has been very careful to keep any hint of sexuality out of witnessed spanking –to the point she makes me wear a jock strap when it happens.
      Alan

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    3. This is an interest split on the nature of the relationship with the witness. I'm more closely aligned with ZM's position on this one. For whatever reason, I think it would be much harder to be spanked in front of someone I don't like or, as was the case with Alan's sister-in-law, someone who I knew did not like or did not respect me. I think if it was someone I was attracted it, it would be *less* emotionally difficult, because I think the attraction might convert it from discipline or humbling to something more about kink or eroticism.

      KD has a story on his website entitled "Pride" that hits on some of ZM and my morbid attraction to being spanked by someone you don't like. For me, the morbid fascination comes from the imposed hierarchy and how much harder it is to be "put in your place" by someone you really don't like or have been locked with in a "heat-butting" contest.

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    4. Dan wrote: >>>For whatever reason, I think it would be much harder to be spanked in front of someone I don't like or, as was the case with Alan's sister-in-law, someone who I knew did not like or did not respect me. I think if it was someone I was attracted it, it would be *less* emotionally difficult, because I think the attraction might convert it from discipline or humbling to something more about kink or eroticism. <<<


      Dan, that is exactly how I thought about it when I decided to proceed with the idea of spanking Wayne in front of Barb. Barb was surprised and amused—and titillated, I think—when I revealed the nature of our FLR to her. But she and Wayne had always got along well, and I knew they liked one another, and Barb didn’t seem to think any less of Wayne when she found out about our FLR. In fact, she said the kinkiness of it was sexy. I think I would feel too protective of my husband to spank him in front of a witness who disliked him and wanted to see him cruelly humiliated. Wayne was embarrassed to be spanked in front of Barb, but I don’t think we were cruel to him. Barb added to his embarrassment by teasing him, but it was sexy, light-hearted teasing, based on her awareness of his kinks. I would never involve a witness who would see my husband’s submission to me as a reason not to respect him.
      Danielle

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    5. "In fact, she said the kinkiness of it was sexy. I think I would feel too protective of my husband to spank him in front of a witness who disliked him and wanted to see him cruelly humiliated." I suspect Anne would feel the same way, though she didn't have any problem with making me apologize to someone I really didn't like. I know those sound like two totally different things--apology versus spanking--but it's kind of a difference in degree, not kind. Though, more pertinently for your comment, I do think Anne is protective of me when it comes to DD; more so than I am. I have always been more or less open to the fact that our kids might know about that aspect of our relationship, and I wouldn't really have any major concerns if Anne decided to tell one or more of them about it. But, she has never gone there, and she's told me that she was concerned that doing so might cause them to lose respect. My position has always been that I've always been a strong personality at home, and I've tried very hard to be a good, present dad even when I had a crushing work schedule, and I've given up a lot in my career in order to give them more stability in an environment they and my wife wanted. If they learned I get spanked and that caused them to lose respect, man did I do something wrong as a parent.

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  13. "It’s one of those things that kind of brings home the reality of an FLR or “real” DD relationship. I handed over authority to her. She is now starting to exercise it and doing so on an issue that is important to her but not to me. But, I can either choose to get on board with her priorities or get a painful spanking until I do so. I really do have a sense of my autonomy being curtailed in a significant way. And, it’s bringing to the fore the classic contradiction of DD from the disciplined husband’s perspective – I don’t really like being told what to do; I hate being spanked, and I really hate being spanked on an already sore bottom; but, her exercising her authority in a way that I’m not fully aligned with makes that exercise of pure power all the more erotic." - I love this paragraph. It is pretty much exactly how I feel about the whole FLR thing.

    -ZM

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  14. Danielle,
    Danielle wrote: “I have never had the feeling that making him cry represented victory for me or that failure to make him cry would represent victory for him”
    “Victory” -if that is what occurs in DD-- happens when you take his pants down or he does it and assumes the position (or other acts of submission to your authority). Once that has happened, there is no question of who is in charge and who is “victorious”
    But I don ‘think of obeying her or any other submission to her authority as victory per se or winning and losing -- because in a successful DD, both parties win. But whatever it is called it is different from appropriateness and effectiveness of whatever punishment is administered
    Appropriate punishment is just punishment proportionate to the offense. If I forget to completely close the refrigerator door or leave the toilet set up (yes that is a cliché) an appropriate punishment is maybe a few cracks with a paddle, an embarrassing scolding or some corner time. But it would not be appropriate to administer a severe spanking to tears for a minor issue. On the other hand if the offense was something like untruthfulness or flagrant disobedience, a severe spanking, possibly to tears, might be appropriate. Punishment needs to be proportionate
    And it also needs to be effective and that is simply about getting the job done. And what it takes to get the job done must vary a lot both from person to person and offense to offense. A disciplinarian has lot of tools in her quiver to make sure it is effective and spanking to tears is just one of them. That said, spanking to tears is the most effective tool she has because it does produce lasting results – lasting because you remember every one of them, and when and why they happened – and why you don’t want it to happen again.
    Alan

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  15. Brett,
    Brett wrote “… in my case, it eventually did lead to a strong rebellion against authority. That conflict and all the emotion around those years plays a role or has a connection to the kind of DD/FLR I want to imagine. “
    I really do get this. I too was spanked late. Especially earlier in my life, this created an aversion to having authority imposed and created some other maturity problems (actually quite a lot of them) I am still working on.
    But learning to accept my wife’s authority and discipline has probably been better than a lifetime of formal therapy. It has allowed me to see myself and my behaviors clearly and more important do something about them.
    But if this relationship never happened or I rejected it and the experience of submitting to her authority , there is a pretty good chance I would have gone through life a first class jerk ( instead, on my worst day, I’m no worse than a third class jerk)
    Alan

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    1. "I really do get this. I too was spanked late. Especially earlier in my life, this created an aversion to having authority imposed and created some other maturity problems (actually quite a lot of them) I am still working on." The way our life experiences can send us in such different, and sometimes opposite, directions is always so interesting to me (and one reason that I'm such an anti-determinist). I often feel like maybe I would not be such an anti-authoritarian while not simultaneously feeling so much need for boundaries if my own parents had been *more* prone to spanking (and other discipline) and been more strict at later stages, including when I was a teenager. I feel like the *lack* of such discipline and strict boundaries account for why I feel such attraction to imposed boundaries today. Though, of course, Alan and Brett are talking from experience, while I have to speculate about how things might have turned out differently had a string mother or father put me through the humbling of being put over a knee in my teens, when I so richly deserved it.

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    2. Dan wrote: >>>Though, of course, Alan and Brett are talking from experience, while I have to speculate about how things might have turned out differently had a strong mother or father put me through the humbling of being put over a knee in my teens, when I so richly deserved it.<<<

      The idea of teenagers being spanked seems strange to me. Without putting much thought into it, I instinctively stopped using spankings as discipline when my boys were pre-teens. Maybe this is bad analogy, but I would have felt that continuing to spank my sons into their teens would have been like continuing to bathe them. I don’t know. Maybe it would have felt different if we were naturists or something and nudity within the family was no big deal. I may be wrong about this, but I tend to think that spanking teenagers would have an impact on their sexual development, so I imagine that must have had an effect on Alan and Brett. (I hope that speculation doesn’t offend them). I don’t base that on any sort of psychological expertise. It’s just a feeling. It’s the same feeling that told me that when my husband asked me for disciplinary spankings, he was asking for something kinky.
      Danielle

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    3. "I may be wrong about this, but I tend to think that spanking teenagers would have an impact on their sexual development." It's possible. I really don't know. I'm sure it would have been incredibly embarrassing, and that it would have affected me in some significant way. But, whether that way would have been sexual, I don't know. In the past, corporal punishment certainly didn't stop at pre-teen. I think about, for example, the paddling scene in The Dead Poets Society and other popular media scenarios involving school spankings. Though, of course, the references I'm thinking of didn't involve spankings by a mother.

      And, even if it had a sexual impact, that leaves open the question of whether that impact would be positive or negative. I'm not sure whether it would have been a bad thing if teenage spankings led to an interest in domestic discipline later in life. Personally, I kind of wish that I had known about DD and tried to work it into our relationship earlier. Though, I really have no way to predict in what direction the effects of being spanked as a teenager might have gone. We seem to have had plenty of male commenters here over the years who developed F/m spanking fetishes without being spanked by their mothers as teenagers. At the end of the day, we are pretty complicated creatures, and cause and effect relationships around this stuff seem very hard to predict.

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    4. Alan, I'm not completely sure about this, but my feelings towards parental spankings and authority seem to rely a lot on where and when it happened. This was a time of social revolution and, in my teens, the practice had become controversial. I had to try to hide the fact of what discipline was like at home, and that made it feel more humiliating, more unfair, more emasculating, more alienating. If I had been born even just 10 years earlier, maybe my adolescent experience would have been no different than as a younger child. Fortunately, it wasn't a common occurrence, but still a highly emotional event when it did. In hindsight, my subsequent rebellion makes sense, and also adds to the fascination. I eventually became obsessed with the idea of being punished for that rebellion, so the negative reaction to being spanked earlier in adolescence turned into a kind of yearning for justified punishment not received.

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    5. Dan and Danielle, I'm not sure of the scientific evidence around these issues, but it feels to me like childhood spankings had a huge impact on my sexuality and, the older I got, the more difficult and confusing. The idea of spanking as punishment was "sexual" from an early age, and I believe that made teenage discipline worse for me. I didn't experience a spanking as sexual but, under the surface, the fetish lurked. Spanking didn't have that same impact on my siblings, so it appears it also must have a lot to do with who we are, and how we experience the same general thing and the circumstances surrounding it.

      Danielle says that the idea of teenagers being spanked is strange to her. It was more than strange to me. It was emasculating, and like being bathed, dressed, or spoon-fed, it was having to not only assume the position of a child, but forced to become that child as a reaction to overwhelming circumstances. I should also say that school corporal punishment and parental spanking could be significantly different experiences. The former was a shared condition for all kids, and conducted in a relatively dignified, and sometimes public, proceeding, while the latter was perceived as the most undignified punishment of a small child under a more sheltering and intimate authority.

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    6. "I didn't experience a spanking as sexual but, under the surface, the fetish lurked. Spanking didn't have that same impact on my siblings, so it appears it also must have a lot to do with who we are, and how we experience the same general thing and the circumstances surrounding it."

      It is a very complicated "what came came first the chicken or the egg," isn't it?

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  16. Tears were always an objective for me. There were a lot of reasons.

    1. It would tell me I was delivering an effective message to his bare bottom that I was displeased with him.

    2. It would be humbling him.

    3. Like somebody posted here, it told me he had absolutely no control while I was in total control.

    4. While there are some erotic elements to it, the tears told me the main purpose was discipline and I was succeeding at it.

    5. Me being in total control and him having absolutely none helped bring my relationship in line with other aspects of my life.

    These are just some, but there are more. Somebody mentioned the feminization. It has a couple of purposes. It makes him more submissive to me. I was sure it would help bring the tears, since it seemed to break down his macho resistance to other things. I can use it to humble him, in front of witnesses or even if it's just us two. There is also the erotic aspect for me.

    Somebody mentioned the tears started when he realized the spanking wasn't going to stop any time soon and it was already severe. I think that was part of what got husband to tears for the first time. When I discipline husband, it's a long session anyhow, usually. It was an early session with the Brown Spanking Paddle (the implement he fears the most). I was especially displeased with him, so the session was already quite severe. I was delivering my message to his bare bottom and I guess he was sure I wasn't going to let up any time soon. (I wasn't). The tears & bawling finally came and I just kept spanking. The safeword never came.

    Husband says it's equally humbling for him whether he's spanked in front of women he likes or doesn't. I encourage the witnesses to make comments, and the women who like him are sometimes even more cutting than best friend, who doesn't like him. Best friend can be very cutting.

    My next objective is to get him to pre-cry his spankings. I've been working on my pre-spanking lecture/scoldings. I can remember as a child, when I was going to be spanked, once I saw there was no getting out of it, the sniffles and sobs started. Other people I know who were spanked as children have mentioned the same thing.

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    1. "I can remember as a child, when I was going to be spanked, once I saw there was no getting out of it, the sniffles and sobs started." I remember that experience, too. Even today, there is really something very powerful about inevitability; about knowing there is "no getting out of it."

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