Saturday, December 4, 2021

The Club - Meeting #390 - Odds and Ends, Including Reporting, School, Others Finding Out, etc.

I doubt whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried out without corporal punishment. – George Orwell

 

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 had a good week.  Mine was pretty typical for this time of year, though the first in my adult life that I wasn’t focused on year-end work stuff.  We did some more holiday decorating.  I did some more Christmas shopping, both on-line and in person.  It’s nice seeing crowds return to live shopping and live events, though obviously a little concerning with the Omicron variant beginning to circulate.  It’s also a little hard to get in the Christmas mood when we’ve been unseasonably warm and with no sign of snow and no prospect of snowmen in our immediate future. 

 

 

I wasn’t inspired to come up with any particular topic for this week, so I thought I’d just follow up some recent threads and people can address whatever interests them.

 

A few weeks ago, I talked about my efforts to get back on track by reporting weekly to Anne regarding my behavior.  Well, I made it a whopping two weeks before backsliding.  It happened in conjunction with the incident I talked about in which I knew I deserved a spanking but was feeling mentally and emotionally very off and didn’t want one to happen, in a way that went way beyond the natural desire we feel to avoid a well-deserved butt blistering.  Not wanting to get one, I obviously didn’t want to deliver a report that would call to her attention that she should give me one.  So, I didn’t send her the weekly email reminder, and I haven’t been able to get myself back on track since then.

 

It seems to be part of a larger pattern of avoiding reporting or even documenting to myself things that don’t reflect goals or standards I’ve set for myself.  When I was focusing hard on taking off some unwanted fat, I kept a log of my weight and body fat percentage on an almost weekly basis.  I also was pretty diligent in logging all my food and drink intake in a weight loss app.  Now, I find myself consciously avoiding that kind of tracking, precisely because I know I’m not being very diligent on diet and exercise right now.  It actually feels like some kind of childish form of denial in which if I don’t write down a behavioral or goal failure, then it somehow isn’t real.

 

This seems to be a fundamental weakness with most behavioral tools that involve any kind of reporting or tracking.  They work only if you are reasonably diligent and honest in reporting, and if you are reporting only to yourself, then what is the enforcement mechanism? And, even if you are reporting to someone else, there is an enforcement mechanism only if they are diligent in calling you out if you don’t report as agreed, and even if they do you still have to be honest in your reporting unless they have some kind of verification mechanism.  It's one reason I was so attracted to some aspects of the Nexium group and their methods their "coaches" used to enforce agreed-upon goals (though other aspects of what they were doing was appalling).

 

 

It occurred to me this morning that my failures around reporting dovetail nicely with a topic that came up in some of last week’s comments, namely school paddlings. Those old school teachers and administrators really had the reporting system down Everyone knew when report cards were coming out, and parents definitely would demand it be coughed up if you tried to avoid giving it to them.  Sometimes they were mailed to the parents. The schools and parents conspired to create a system in which reporting was formal and reliable and any attempt to cheat on the reporting probably would be detected. (Today, the reporting system in some schools is even better, with everything related to each student available to his/her parents on-line. But, now there is a great reporting reporting system but little in the way of consequences.)

 

Similarly, the system for reporting bad school behavior to parents was highly formal and hard to “game.”  If you got paddled at school, a note was sent home to the parents.  I seem to recall that at one of my schools, the note was sent home with the student and they had to return it the next day, signed by a parent.  The school also sometimes called the parents directly to let them know that a paddling had been delivered.  It also seemed to be the rule in pretty much every household in our community that a spanking at school meant a second one at home that night, which ties in nicely with our topic from last week regarding the deterrent value of multiple spankings.  I know I was scared to death that I might get paddled at school and then get another one at home.

 

  

Though, perhaps because the consequences were so severe, I don't think I ever experienced an actual school paddling personally. Though, one reason I felt on solid ground responding to ZM with an observation about the whole process around school paddlings and how long those processes took is that I do remember two occasions where I thought I was going to get one. As I recall,  both of them were in junior high. Our principal had a reputation as a very stern disciplinarian, and everyone feared a trip to his office. We had a closed campus at that time, meaning we were not supposed to leave the campus without permission. Some friends and I "ditched" to go to lunch somewhere nearby. We went back to the school after lunch and found that someone had observed us leaving. We were sent to the office, and I was sure the principal would spank all of us. But, for whatever reason he let us off with a warning. Maybe he just didn’t feel like doing four spankings that afternoon?  I don’t know his reasons, but I definitely breathed a sigh of relief when we were sent back to our classes with unreddened bottoms.

 

 

On another occasion, I was acting up in class and cut loose with a very naughty word. The teacher sent me to the office, carrying a note which I was very sure instructed the principal that I should be paddled. Instead, I got a relatively mild lecture on how everyone cusses from time to time, but that I needed to control it in the classroom.  I waited until class was over to go back and collect my things, and the teacher admitted to me that the note he had sent me to the principal with had requested that I be lectured by not paddled. Apparently, since it was a first offense, he had decided to go easy on me, but he clearly wanted to scare me with the trip to the office, including the walk there and the carrying of the note. It worked. I remember being very scared during that walk, to the point that I still remember it 40 years later. That incident involved a male teacher, and I wonder how I would have felt about being "sentenced" to a spanking by a female teacher?  At the time, I didn't have any discernible "spanko" leanings, but maybe discipline from a female authority figure might have brought it out earlier?  Hard to say.

 

 

Bringing this back to my failure to report to Anne, I’m not sure that any reporting system is going to work without the externally imposed consequence of her spanking me or imposing some other punishment for that failure in addition to any consequence for any bad behavior.  The fact that I have thought for a long time that reporting was probably a necessary component for keeping me in line, yet I consistently fail to do it, shows that this is an area where the spirit may be willing but the flesh is weak.  Interestingly, I really don’t think it is the prospect of the spanking that gets in the way of me reporting. Rather, I feel embarrassed about the act of reporting on myself; kind of like what I felt carrying a note to the principal’s office.  There is something hugely embarrassing to me about playing that kind of role in bringing about my own punishment and also in proactively bringing my bad behavior to someone’s attention.

 

On a separate topic, ZM brought up a “what if” hypothetical around our semi-continuous topic of “others knowing.”  He stated:

 

I do like hypothetical questions like "Assuming someone DID find out, how would you explain DD?" I don't think this question is just limited to our offspring either, but rather to anyone in any sphere of life, like our parents, siblings, friends, co-workers, or anyone else. The problem with it for me is that I think the answer would greatly depend on exactly who it was who found out. It wouldn't even be the same with any two of my children or my step-children.

 

I think ZM is right and that my explanation around DD would depend a lot on who I was explaining it to.  In fact, I think that in some cases, I probably would be too embarrassed to try to explain it at all.  For example, if my parents or siblings were somehow to find out, I probably would simply stay silent about the whole thing, praying that they would not bring it up.  And, they probably would be happy to go along with that.  We are one of those families where things like sex and money aren’t talked about unless such a discussion just can’t be avoided, and I think DD would fall into that same category of topics best avoided.

 

With friends and co-workers, I really don’t know.  I have told one friend, and while I don’t plan to tell any others, I think that with a couple of exceptions, they probably would just roll with it.  In terms of what I would tell them, if it was a close friend I probably would admit that this is something I requested, because I felt I needed some externally imposed guardrails.  

 

If it somehow became widely known at work, honestly I think the only way to deal with it might have been to “own it” to an extent, not trying to avoid the scandal at all but, rather, glorying in the naughtiness of being outed as kinky.  A few years ago, I did know someone in a professional capacity (though he was not a member of my own profession) who was very “out” about being into S&M.  In his niche, honestly he seemed to be kind of a rock star.  Perhaps we all should take a lesson out of Trump’s playbook and just get through anything potentially embarrassing by virtue of utter shamelessness.  However, I'm not sure how much I would own up to the FLR aspects or how I would explain those if I were somehow "outed."  As I've said before, mine was a very "dick waving," testosterone laden profession, and I definitely do think some would have tried to exploit any knowledge around real DD or FLR to my disadvantage.  But, perhaps I'm just paranoid and "owning" it would have been the way to go.

 

Regarding kids, it’s a hard call, to some extent because I don’t feel like I have a perfect read on what form my kids’ interest might take. I used to think that one of them was wired so similarly to me that perhaps a confession about DD from me or Anne might result in that now adult kid taking up the paddle but, like me, on the receiving end. I’ve even considered that if you thought being involved with DD might help one of your kids in the same way it helps you, wouldn’t it be a failure of parenting not tell them about it or make them aware of it in some way? One could make the same point about sharing with good friends. I do have at least one male friend who I think definitely could use some imposed boundaries, and I sometimes wish I had found a way to raise the whole DD topic with him. Though, I also never got any hint from him that it was something he might be open to; quite the opposite.

 

At this point, the kids haven’t asked us about it and neither of us has brought it up directly. But, the dynamic was kind of touched upon on at least one occasion. Two or three years ago, one of them observed to Anne that she seemed to kind of be in charge and asked how that came about.   

 

Anne said something to the effect of I had a very demanding, stressful job that required me to make a lot of decisions, such that I really did not want to have to make a bunch of decisions at home and preferred that she handle a lot of things.  The whole conversation seemed to touch more on the more obvious FLR or hierarchical aspects of the marriage that we were exploring a bit more at that time and didn’t directly address DD or spanking.  But, I do suspect that Anne’s explanation was not accepted as the whole story, as the question likely never would have been asked unless the questioner already had a pretty strong suspicion that we were in some kind of kinky alternative lifestyle.

 

To this day, I don’t know what the kids may or may not know, and I’m content for now to leave it there.  Recently, however, we have gotten more cavalier about things that could give them even more reason to suspect their parents are kinksters. I've talked here about the bath brush Anne bought for herself a few months ago. We've had another one for a long time, but for whatever reason Anne never really liked that one. It was always kept on the side of the large bathtub in our master bedroom, pretty much exactly where you would expect a bath brush to be.  Her new one, on the other hand, has been laying  on the bathroom counter between our two sinks, ever since she bought it.  

 

To a large extent, we both are responsible for this new subtle openness, though we never talked about.  I had taken to leaving the heavy black hairbrush on the counter, then she started leaving her bath brush there. The result is now there are two brushes laying out on the counter, one of which is a very iconic spanking instrument.  Moreover, the other bath brush still resides in its place at the side of the bathtub, which could lead a keen observer to wonder why we need two bath brushes and why only one is kept near the bathtub or shower.  When our kids come over, they do sometimes hang out in the master bedroom with Anne, and they easily could see our growing display of brushes. 

 


What they might make of it I think would depend a lot on whether they have had sufficient exposure to adult spanking material (movies, blogs, etc.) to draw the connection. I suspect people recognize these signs when they already have some reason to be looking for them or at least are primed to be sensitive to them.  My kids are plenty smart and very able to draw conclusions from subtle hints and, if Alan's theories about genetic predispositions are correct, it certainly would be within the realm of possibilities that one or more of them would have more than a passing interest in and knowledge of spanking-related paraphernalia.

 

Finally, I did have an incident a few days ago that could have, with different timing, lead to someone discovering by accident that I am spanked.  I’ve been seeing a therapist (physical, not psychological) for some ongoing aches and pains.  While the treatments often involve taking off shirt or pants, my underwear always stays on. But, during our last session she was working on my lower back and pulled my briefs down in the back, far enough that had I been spanked recently marks very well might have been on full display.  As luck would have it, I had not been spanked recently, but it reminded me that unanticipated detection is always a possibility.

 

Have a great week.

 


 

76 comments:

  1. I love the fact Anne leaves both her favourite spanking implements in full view , albeit in the ensuite but still there for some to see.
    A sense of pride for her and a warning to you!
    I dont know if Anne has long hair , but if she doesn't, there would be absolutely no reason to have such a solid, large hairbrush sitting on the counter as she would rarely use it for grooming?
    Then the fact there is already a well usdf bathbrush by the tub , I would say any curious mind would come to only one conclusion!

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    1. Another clue is that a hairbrush used for grooming would have hair in it. If I saw a paddle style hairbrush with no hair in it, I would suspect that it is used as a spanking paddle.

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    2. Good points. I also wonder how many of the heavy, paddle style hairbrushes would ever be used for that purpose today. They are so heavy, and the bristles usually close together and either very flimsy or very hard and scratchy, I doubt many women would choose them today for actual hair brushing. But, I could be wrong.

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    3. Never thought about a hairbrush used for spanking not having any hair in it. Yet another detail that I will certainly notice every time I see a heavy hairbrush laying around in the future! I'll be like the CSI of spanking... :-)

      My wife almost exclusively uses paddles, canes, and our new DD strap from LT, none of which are ideal to leave out in open view, but I do wonder just what would happen with spanking frequency if there was always a spanking tool close at hand?

      -ZM

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    4. “I do wonder just what would happen with spanking frequency if there was always a spanking tool close at hand.”
      The answer in our case was counter intuitive. She actually started leaving sauna brushes around not to advertise our lifestyle but to have them handy. She did this early as she was still spanking at least weekly. But leaving the brushes around (one strap) actually reduced the overall number of spankings administered. It could have been a coincidence but there was a correlation. It might be similar to old time cop practices when a cop was placed on every block (it didn’t work for cops by the way as the crime just moved). But it did probably have an effect on my behavior and definitely on the number of spankings. Even today the sight of a brush, particularly if she is holding it settles me down like nothing else.
      Alan

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  2. All of our toys are kept out of sight of any visitors, so there is no easy detection. As far as how to explain to anyone if our lifestyle is discovered, I try to honestly tell them. When my behavior warrants it, instead of anger or an argument or silent periods, I am spanked. Then the issue is totally over, no further discussion, no anger, no resentment, just over and life continues as if nothing happened. The person admitted that sounded better than a grudge being held even for several hours. I have said it before here.....I am a spanked adult male in a FLR and not ashamed of it.

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    1. I'm curious, how often has someone actually asked you about it?

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    2. I really like SC's approach to this whole thing; not leaving implements out in plain view, and nothing that is in your face. But at the same time, if someone does find out for whatever reason, just owning it and not being in any way ashamed of it, but rather clearly articulating the reasons for and benefits of this type of relationship.

      We are not there yet, but I think this is pretty much where I want to be with the whole thing of other random people discovering our activities/lifestyle. So most will never know, but it someone does find out it is no big deal at all. Meanwhile, we will selectively tell a few closer friends and they will have a more complete understanding of exactly how it works and what the motivations are. BTW, it was really no big deal when my wife's sister was visiting and the friend stayed over at our house one night (both of them recently heard all the details about our DD relationship). I was sitting in the room with my wife, her sister, and their friend - all knowing full well that my wife spanks me - and it really didn't feel awkward at all. The only reference to anything was when they were planning to stay up later and talk, and my wife jokingly said "I am going to put him to bed, and then I will be back out" and the friend kind of laughed a bit. My wife has had a bit of fun referring back to the time we were together by jokingly suggesting that she should have put me in an apron or dressed me as a maid and made me serve them all tea (taking a page from Danielle's or Cecelia's playbooks).

      -ZM

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    3. To Dan, I have been approached 3 times with questions. Once in my prior relationship and twice in the current. One person wanted no explanation, he just said that's weird, when I said I am spanked for discipline. One of the others is a very close friend who listened to my explanation and replied OK, that's good for you, but not interested. We remain close friends to this day. The other agreed the concept is good, but felt uneasy about discussing it with his spouse.

      To -ZM I have found open honesty to be the best policy. When my Brother had some thoughts but wasn't sure, I said nothing. But he kept trying to learn more. So finally I said, look Rich, I am spanked for discipline and she is in charge of the relationship. So he has accepted it and no longer says anything about it.

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    4. ZM: "We are not there yet, but I think this is pretty much where I want to be with the whole thing of other random people discovering our activities/lifestyle. So most will never know, but it someone does find out it is no big deal at all." I'm not in full agreement on the "no big deal at all" part. As I've said before, Aunt Kay once described to me (by email) her conception of the DWC as a sort of club whose members shared a "naughty shared secret." I think it's hard for something to maintain it's "naughy" or "kinky" status if it becomes more widely adopted, practiced or accepted, Personally, the fact that DD is NOT that widely know or accepted is part of the appeal.

      SC: Your friend who was accepting but not interested is similar to my one experience telling one of my friends about it. I told her about it years ago, and recently we discussed it again over a beer, culminating in my re-referring her to this blog. She read some of it and told me that she found it "very interesting but not personally stimulating." While I think DD can be a valuable relationship tool and probably could help even fully vanilla people, at the end of the day it probably is pretty binary with respect to whether one finds it appealing enough to try.

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    5. Hi Dan,
      I agree whole-heartedly that part of - or maybe even much of - the attraction of DD is the "naughty secret" part. And though I am not a psychologist, I expect that much of the reason that we even feel compelled to share it with anyone else is because the only thing more exciting than a naughty secret is a naughty shared secret. And part of the reason we don't want to tell everyone - other than the obvious possible embarrassment - is because it would then lose the "secret" status (plus of course it is really nobody's business anyway)!

      What I was referring to when I said it would be "no big deal at all" is in the event that someone did happen to discover our lifestyle, despite our attempts to keep it mostly secret. I don't ever seeing us being very open, so we would only intentionally let a few close friends in on the secret. But, if someone inadvertently finds out, I don't want it to be that big of a deal FOR ME. It might well be a big deal for them, but I think that the DD or FLR lifestyle is a valid enough lifestyle, and it does have very tangible benefits, so if they have a problem with it, let them. I am not go and try to advertise our DD/FLR to the world, but at the same time if someone does find out about it, I am just going to tell them a few of the benefits of it (but none of the details that we tell those who we have selected to tell about our DD) and leave it at that, and let them think what they want to.

      In the end, I hope it will remain a "naughty shared secret" between us and those we choose to tell, and we do take reasonable precautions to try to keep it that way. But I just don't know that I am going to spend too much time worrying about what if someone finds out, since I simply don't care enough about what their opinion might be, especially since they would have so little understanding of just how our relationship works.

      -ZM

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  3. I think spankos pick up things like hairbrushes in view and sometimes subtle language a couple uses whereas a non spanko is blind to their possible meaning. Once my former girlfriend told me she was certain a friend of hers I will call Patricia spanked her husband Tom. Asking why she thought so she told me that Patricia talked regularly about “training” Tom and my girlfriend had spied several hairbrushes in various spots in their house. Now training was a term my girlfriend used a lot in talking about our DD relationship and her main punishment tool was a brush. On that basic she speculated that Patricia was a disciplinarian (there were a few other things she picked up as well like Patricia’s take charge personality).
    In that same situation a non spanko would probably never conclude that Patricia spanked Tom on the basis of what my girlfriend saw, but another spanko like my girlfriend might think so. And Patricia who actually was a take charge woman who talked of “training” her husband and had several spanking implements in view - was she also actually a spanking disciplinarian?
    We never found out for sure and probably never will now. My guess would be that she wasn’t But to my point, my girlfriend saw that “evidence” and concluded she was a disciplinarian while a non spanko would probably make little or nothing of the same “evidence”
    At a different time in my life I had an ironic personal experience along the same lines. I had a bench designed for stretching and strengthening the back that I used for its intended purpose, it was never a part of my spanking life. But one day a friend noticed it and asked me a little self-consciously if it was for caning (my wife). When I reacted with surprise he quickly retreated back to humor clearly thinking he had revealed too much and I didn’t understand the spanking reference. The irony was that I was very involved in spanking at that time but that bench as Freud might have said was just a bench. So spankos sometimes see things that aren’t there but if people figure out we are spankos from the things we leave around or from behavior traits, they probably are spankos themselves or at least interested enough in spanking to know something about it
    Alan

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    1. "So spankos sometimes see things that aren’t there but if people figure out we are spankos from the things we leave around or from behavior traits, they probably are spankos themselves or at least interested enough in spanking to know something about it." Alan, I've mentioned before that I sometimes wear a pendant that, for those in the BDSM community, is associated with a male sub. It doesn't exactly fit how I classify myself, but close enough. For a long time I was concerned about others seeing it and what that might reveal, to the extent that I got a fit of nerves on a couple of occasions when I forgot to take it off before a medical examination and one occasion someone on my work team saw the leather choker under my shirt and actually asked me about about it. After getting nervous or embarrassed on those occasions, at some point it finally occurred to me that if anyone did see it and recognize it as a BDSM symbol, they would almost certainly be in the lifestyle themselves, so why should I be embarrassed. (Though, the teammate asking about it was a little different situation, as he just wondered about the pendant and asked about its significance. I lied and said I had bought it when on vacation in a foreign country and wasn't really sure what it meant.)

      Being in an alternative lifestyle probably does make us more sensitive to signs of it in others, though as you point out, it's very hard to know whether it's a real clue or whether you are projecting. I haven't gotten many of those clues from others, but there was a young woman at my firm who I noticed bossing her husband around at a holiday party, specifically, telling him to go to the bar to get her drink refills. What caught my attention wasn't so much the act itself, but the fact that she wasn't really asking and wasn't saying "please." She was just very directly telling him to get her a drink. And, based on what I'd seen of her at work, she had a personality that was kind of "Domme-ish." But, as I said, who knows whether I was detecting legitimate clues from someone in one of these lifestyles, or just projecting my own interests.

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    2. I bet her home had a hairbrush in every corner. But seriously we are making the same point . If anyone detects our spanko lifestyle it is likely to be another spanko. We ourselves probably experience a lot of false positives along the way.
      Alan

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    3. I can certainly say for myself that I am hyper sensitive to anything that could even be remotely construed to be related to DD. Walking through aisles in stores, most people would see hairbrushes, kitchen implements (like cutting boards), or fashion accessories that hold up their pants, but I see spanking implements. The same is true for anything that is spoken or nonverbal cues; if it is in any way possible to connect what was said to DD/FLR/spanking/domination then I will absolutely take it as such, even though I know it is usually not intended that way. So I assume that most of the "signs" that we see are false positives.

      However, as Dan pointed out, when his teammate saw his pendant and asked about his significance, he lied about it. What if that co-worker did suspect or know what the pendant signified and was just feigning casual interest? Dan walked away assuming that his co-worker just had casual curiosity in the pendant. But in the unlikely event that the coworker DID know the meaning of the pendant, he walked away thinking that Dan was naive and was probably imagining if only Dan understood the truw meaning of the pendant he was wearing (this would be particularly ironic since Dan runs one of the most well-known DD blogs on the internet)! And in Alan's ironic experience of the friend asking about the bench, Alan answered truthfully and the conversation quickly deflected to humor, but in that case Alan walked away thinking that his friend was likely a spanko - either actively or in inclination - while his friend walked away assuming Alan was not, which is clearly false.

      The fact is that spanking is an activity that is mostly kept hidden or secret or at the very least only reference in a veiled manner, as evidenced by Dan making up the story about finding the pendant on a trip to a foreign country and Alan simply stating the true purpose of the bench, without taking the spanking bait. It is also evidenced here (where we are all interested or active in DD in some way) by our ongoing conversations about "others." Who knows, if anyone? Do we want others to know? If so, who, why, and how do we tell them? What do we say if someone inadvertently find out? All these questions arise from the secretive nature of our shared interest.

      Consequently, while most things that we see or hear that trigger us are just because of our sensitivity and overactive imaginations, it is also almost certain that at least some of those things that trigger us are actually what they seem. And at least some of the people that we see in our day to day lives do share this interest in DD - or at least spanking or domination and submission - with us, but we don't know because they are probably at least as likely as we are to keep it hidden.

      -ZM

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    4. "However, as Dan pointed out, when his teammate saw his pendant and asked about his significance, he lied about it. What if that co-worker did suspect or know what the pendant signified and was just feigning casual interest? Dan walked away assuming that his co-worker just had casual curiosity in the pendant." In this particular case, I do think it was an entirely innocent query. The team member was a young male, "Midwestern farm boy type." Though, that kind of describes *me* in my much younger days! Moreover though, he asked about the necklace before he really saw the pendant. He saw the leather choker and asked me about the necklace as a whole. I don't think he had seen or, from his position at the table, could have gotten a good view, of the pendant itself.

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    5. Yes, probably, almost certainly ...yet... one never really knows does one. In my example of a related interaction I am pretty sure he was a spanko of some kind, but I didn't want to embarrass him. How weird is that : one spanko not wanting to embarrass another spanko for revealing they are a spanko. The Human Comedy I believe it is called.
      Alan

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    6. ZM wrote: “while most things that we see or hear that trigger us are just because of our sensitivity and overactive imaginations, it is also almost certain that at least some of those things that trigger us are actually what they seem. And at least some of the people that we see in our day to day lives do share this interest in DD - or at least spanking or domination and submission … but we don't know because they are probably at least as likely as we are to keep it hidden”
      Thank you for succinctly and eloquently expressing the heart of our interest in others “knowing”. We don’t mind being members of an exclusive club – but we don’t want to be the only member of that club.
      I don’t think we need worry about the latter possibility though. Information and interest about spanking is pervasive on the internet and beginning to flow out to other media. If you are looking for it at all there is a veritable explosion of spanking talk. The very anonymity of the net drives that while at the same time suggesting that lots and lots of us are interested in talking about ( and presumably engaging in ) adult spanking as long as we are anonymous. That is also why it remains so difficult to determine how widespread spanking (of all flavors) actually is. Most spankos remain anonymous.
      Both that anonymity and questions about how widespread spanking is will remain until ( if ever) spankos emulate gays and other supposed minorities by coming out in large numbers and forcing society to deal with the reality that there are more of us than most expect. I am not delivering a sermon on coming out and I am far from the person to do that. While a handful of people know my wife spanks for discipline, I am far from out. But I plan to come out – as soon as you do.
      Alan

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    7. Alan, very true. I also just noted to myself that I had little problem thinking that the young female team member I referenced could be a "top" in some kind of D/s or DD relationship, but I also concluded the young man likely wasn't it such a relationship because he was young. Though, I will defend that double standard to some extent, because I think women really are more likely to know themselves at an earlier age than men. I don't know many men in their 20s or early 30s who seem to be very in touch with, or at least very open about, their drives and desires.

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    8. “I also concluded the young man likely wasn't it such a relationship because he was young.”
      I do think that men are more likely to have some confusion about which side of the paddle they belong on. I sure did. But the (still) stiffly patriarchal culture we all grow up in sends both men and women the message that men spank and women are spanked. That certainly delayed my serious interest in F/M spanking for many years (and it may prevent naturally dominant women from finding out who they are early too) . What I am curious about and don’t think we have discussed directly on the blog is whether the genders differ in what age they become interested in spanking. OR it may be that gender has nothing to do with it, so for example it was late for you but definitely pre-puberty for me. This whole topic area might be an interesting one to toss around
      Alan

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    9. You're right, it is an interesting question. I don't have many real data points, other than relationships with a couple of women in D/s relationships, on each side of the paddle, and Jillian Keenan's book on her spanking fetish. Both the women who are on the receiving end (one on-line friend and Ms. Keenan) were similar to you and developed spanking interests at an early age. My (mostly on-line) friend who is on the "top" end seems to have been more complicated, with her and her husband exploring D/s and DD in their early 30s and with her having a very strong personality but no obvious pre-existing DD interest.

      I also wonder whether women may be more "labile" in their spanking interest, i.e. is it more likely that they may come to enjoy spanking if given the opportunity, while with men it is more hard-wired? It seems to work that way to some extent with bisexuality. The comedian Dennis Miller had a joke that most women are five drinks away from a bisexual experience, and I do have female friends who acknowledge experimenting with same sex relationships in college. While the same happens with men, it does seem to be less prevalent.

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    10. It may be that women are more "labile" in their spanking interest although I have the impression that to many women the partner matters more than the gender. Alluding to Bill Miller ( if we must)I think his "jokes" are sexist not in the sense that they disparage women but in the sense they ignore that male sexual behavior may be just as labile if the normal inhibitions are removed. i an mot saying that a lot of males are probably bi-sexual and inherently as labile as apparently some women are. I just don't know. Personally I think I would be open to sexual experimentation but its just not my sexuality. I am hopelessly hetero -sexual. But to single women out as sexually labile without acknowledging that some man may be also is probably not the case accurate
      Alan

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    11. Hugh, I was also raised traditionally with the precept that boys don't hit girls, and I always agreed. However, I fantasized constantly about being in a position where I was spanking girls I liked (as a person, not necessarily as a sexual object) because they had misbehaved. It was part of the development of my fetish for punishment and discipline. The rationale was that spanking is not hitting. It was a legitimate method of discipline applied for the benefit of the one being spanked, and this was largely supported by the culture in which I was raised. Most adult DD relationships I'm aware of are based on that idea. At least as a consensual act, there's nothing inherently different about M/F and F/M. And from what I've gathered, in many traditional romance novels, even non-consensual M/F spanking is considered a good thing if it's similar in intent to a parent's role in controlling unwanted behavior. I don't condone anything non-consensual but, obviously, the attraction to it is real for many who spank and get spanked.

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    12. Wow, I quit checking for a few hours, and find a whole lot of conversation happened in my absence. I don’t know if I have anything of much substance to add, but I usually don’t let that stop me from diving in!

      Dan and Alan,
      Dan said: “I think women really are more likely to know themselves at an earlier age than men.” - I agree. Maturity and self-awareness just seems to come at a much earlier age for women.

      Alan said: “But the (still) stiffly patriarchal culture we all grow up in sends both men and women the message that men spank and women are spanked. That certainly delayed my serious interest in F/M spanking for many years (and it may prevent naturally dominant women from finding out who they are early too).” - It certainly seems true that the idea that men spank and women are spanked is much more prevalent than the inverse. As for the stiffly patriarchal culture, you are right that we all grow up in it. It is not just a USA thing; I have spent a fair amount of time in different countries and cultures, and I would say that in reality, the USA is less patriarchal (and for that matter less sexist and less racist) than the vast majority of other countries. The whole world is pretty patriarchal, varying only in degree.

      The idea that being spanked is unmanly is almost certainly the main thing that keeps guys from sharing their desires or fantasies for this with their partners. And of course, the inverse it just as true. Girls learn from a young age that being dominant (especially in a male dominated world) really gets you nowhere and quickly gets you labeled as a “B.”

      Since both of you mentioned age and how it might play into all this, though possibly from different angles, I would add that this seems to tie in to a previous topic we had about how men seem to become more submissive with age and women seem to become more dominant with age.

      -ZM

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    13. Regarding lability with regard to interest in spanking, and if so which end of the paddle they are on, and to sexuality in general and sexual preference specifically…

      Disclaimer: I am only shooting in the dark here and am just as likely to be wrong as right about all this!

      “I also wonder whether women may be more ‘labile’ in their spanking interest, i.e. is it more likely that they may come to enjoy spanking if given the opportunity, while with men it is more hard-wired? It seems to work that way to some extent with bisexuality.” - Certainly possible, but I don’t have a lot of data to go on. What I can say for sure is that my wife has certainly taken a liking to giving spankings, and she had no previous interest in it.

      “male sexual behavior may be just as labile if the normal inhibitions are removed.” - Again, certainly possible but impossible to know because the inhibitions are really fixed in place.

      I think that when it comes to evident differences between the sexes, it is impossible to determine just how much is due to biology and how much is due to social conditioning. From my observations, I would agree that women seem more labile when it comes to bisexual experimentation. If that is true, which is obviously far from certain, I think that much of it is due to social conditioning. From a young age, boys are taught to not pay much attention to other boys bodies, and there traditionally was quite a bit of social pressure to never have even the slightest appearance of being gay or bi (that has changed quite a bit now, but I think it still exists). At the same time, men don’t think quite as much about their own bodies because most females don’t judge or value men quite as much for their bodies as guys tend to do to women.

      However, girls from a very young age are taught a lot about their bodies. First about protecting their bodies and making sure nobody does anything inappropriate. Then of course they kind of become part of the global sorority of women when they start menstruating. Menstruation is common to most all women for a good share of their lives, so they talk about it and are just generally more aware of their bodies and of the bodies of other women. This continues through pregnancy, when their bodies change in every imaginable way (and some unimaginable ones too). Throughout this, they talk to other women, share stories and experiences, give advice, and so on. So in the end, probably due to a combination of necessity due to biological factors and social conditioning, women are just much more comfortable with other women’s bodies as a subject of conversation and interest. So from that, it isn’t hard to imagine that they might find it easier to cross that barrier and experiment a bit with bisexuality.

      -ZM

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    14. ZM: "From my observations, I would agree that women seem more labile when it comes to bisexual experimentation. If that is true, which is obviously far from certain, I think that much of it is due to social conditioning. From a young age, boys are taught to not pay much attention to other boys bodies . . ." I agree, though I have big doubts about it based on my own anecdotal experience. Most of the males of my generation probably experienced showering in the nude in a public setting, at various school or private gyms. Exposing ourselves in the nude in those settings may have been embarrassing at first, but most get over it. On the other hand, my wife has always been totally resistant to disrobing and showering at our gym, and I've had female friends who've told me they too won't shower in public. So, I'm not really sure it's true that women are more comfortable with women's bodies.

      I also wonder about the proposition that more tolerance of same sex relationships equates to more openness to doing it oneself. I think tolerance for, and acceptance of, LGBT individuals and relationships has skyrocketed in recent years, but has it in fact led to more homosexual experimentation among men? I don't know, but I don't see any real evidence of it. I know my age group has become way more accepting of gay men than would have been the case when I was in high school, but I don't know that more of us accepting it has led to more of us *trying* it. Ironically, I suspect that if acceptance of LGBT individuals was leading to more homosexual behavior, the first place I'd hear about it would on Fox News or from one of my fundamentalist Christian relatives bemoaning that acceptance leads to conversion.

      Now, the counterpoint probably is that historically gay relationships were normal in many cultures, including influential "Western" cultures such as Greece and Rome, most particularly older men with much younger men. (In fact, I had to chuckle when someone took issue with my cartoon about Indians blocking Puritans from entering because, in his opinion, Indian culture including pedophelia to which we should not aspire to assimilate, seemingly unaware that the Greek and Roman philosophical and political culture that underpins much of our social and political cultural included very commonly heterosexual "mentor/mentee"-like relationships.) Flexibility in sexual preferences may not have been the norm historically, but it seems plain that it has been accepted in some eras and cultures far more than it is here today, which would as you say seem to indicate that a lot of the current rigidity results form social pressure and and is not biologically "hard wired."

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    15. I too wear a pendant 24/7 identifying me as a 'collared male submissive'. Most lifestyle would readily know its meaning or at least partial meaning. True vanilla folks have no idea and for questions from those folks, I make up some absurd answer which they know is not true but seems to end the conversation. If they really press the question I say it describes my lifestyle and if further pressed I will explain it much the same way I explain if someone 'discovers' our lifestyle. People in the know sometimes nod or say something like ' nice, same here'

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    16. SC: So far, I haven't come across a lifestyle pendant on any male except myself. What I do see very often are women wearing choker with an "O" pendant or ring, such as this one: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1063757896/rose-gold-submissive-day-collar-bdsm-o?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=collared+submissive&ref=sr_gallery-2-11&frs=1.

      The design is so nondescript yet also aesthetically pleasing, it always leaves me wondering whether I am, in fact, seeing someone in the lifestyle or reading too much into someone's choice of aesthetically pleasing jewelry. But, I guess that just makes it more intriguing, which is half the fun.

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    17. I too have seen females wearing the ring, and have wondered exactly the same thing! The problem I see with the collared submissive "O" choker is that to me it just seems WAY too generic. So when I do see it, I of course think of that meaning, but I also assume that probably it is just someone wearing it because they thought it looked cool, totally oblivious to the underlying meaning of the symbol.

      My take on it was always that they needed a less generic symbol if it is to have any real meaning. But now that you mention it, I can see where the ambiguity does make it more intriguing and also, it provides an easy out for anyone wearing it. If anyone asks, they can just play dumb and say "Wow! I have never heard about that. I just thought it looked cool."

      -ZM

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    18. Exactly - it is just so generic. As I said, I don't fully identify with the BDSM symbol for a "submissive male," but it has elements that are distinctive enough that someone who is in the lifestyle probably could conclude with some reasonable degree of certainty (though obviously not 100% certainty) that the wearer is, in fact, signaling something about the lifestyle they are in and their status in it.

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  4. I recall Dan commenting about the huge number of lurkers to his blog who never comment. Their curiosity in lurking on a DD blog suggests to me two things: 1) the practice of F/M DD spanking is way larger than direct evidence suggests; 2) these lurkers are quite a bit more secretive about their kinky marital behavior than those who routinely comment on Dan's blog. As mostly a lurker, I will reveal that my wife and are in a spanking relationship in which she is the spanker and I the spankee, but we are both extremely secretive about this, and have no interest in sharing this with anyone.

    But on the current topic, I am quite certain that the father of a son-in-law and a close family friend of this father are spanked husbands. The father serves his wife breakfast in bed every morning, and the wife of his close friend has strongly hinted to me on several occasion that she dominates her husband. The wives are very close friends, and a common interest in dominating and spanking their husbands is, in my mind, an important part of that friendship. The two couples jointly own a beach house together. My wife agrees with my assessments.
    Doug

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    1. Hi Hugh,
      I agree with you strongly about violence toward women of any kind but particularly stronger males using their greater strength to try to control. But consensual adult spanking, both desired and enjoyed is -for me- not violence, but usually motivated by love and caring as well as sexual pleasure. This is not a decision I have had to make for some time since my wife is exclusively the spanker in our family and intends to keep it that way.
      But earlier I met several women who experienced being spanked much as I now do when my wife spanks me. I was happy then to please them (although even then I knew I really wanted to be the spankee)It’s a pretty moot point but even today if faced with that same saturation I would be comfortable spanking ( I think) if a woman I cared about desired it.
      Violence to me is the unilateral imposition of your will on another person using physical means. It is a bully’s tool. But consensually spanking your partner is another form of love making and no part of violence. And if anyone should find themselves in a relationship where spanking was violence, they should get out of there pronto
      Alan

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    2. Doug: With respect to the number of lurkers, "huge" must be put in context. The blog gets 2000 or so a day (some of which are undoubtedly the same person visiting multiple times), which is a trivial percentage of even the adult US population, and the blog is accessed by people outside the US as well. Therefore, not only do I not think you can extrapolate from our readership to a conclusion that there are a large number of people interested in or practicing DD; if anything, the lower overall readership would seem to indicate the reverse, i.e. that the number of people interested in it even enough to seek out content related to it is very small.

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    3. Agreed that consensual adult spanking isn't violence and that it is (often) motivated by sexual pleasure (it certainly removes the foreplay requirement from me). When you say "love and caring", do you mean "tough love"? One of the benefits on both sides of my wife spanking me is that although I am a "forceful" personality, this side of me is refined into something much more useful.

      However, as I say, even though I know it isn't violence when it is consensual, it is hard for me to break the link, meaning it remains something I couldn't bring myself to do.

      When it comes to getting out of a violent relationship, it would be a fairly extreme situation for a man to have to leave a relationship for spanking violence alone: realistically, it would be more likely that a woman would find herself in that situation.

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    4. Hugh Jass: "However, as I say, even though I know it isn't violence when it is consensual, it is hard for me to break the link, meaning it remains something I couldn't bring myself to do."

      Do you like the idea of spanking a woman for her benefit, but you can't do it because it feels "wrong," or do you just have no desire to ever spank a woman, or anyone for that matter?

      I think most people have no desire to spank, and are uncomfortable with the idea. In my experience, it seems that women more than men have less inclination towards wanting to spank, and they were also less likely to be raised with the explicit warning that hitting a boy is a crime against nature.

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    5. Brett: "I think most people have no desire to spank, and are uncomfortable with the idea." For me, it's a little bit of both. I don't have any desire to be a spanker. But, I could probably get comfortable giving a man a disciplinary spanking, but not a woman. I probably could get comfortable giving a woman a purely erotic spanking, but not a disciplinary one. But, I don't have any real desire to give an erotic spanking either; it would be purely to meet her request, which as I stated to ZM, is very unlikely to ever happen given that my wife seems to have zero interest in it.

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    6. Having no desire to spank a woman for the purpose of discipline makes sense to me, as it's apparently not a wildly popular desire. If I didn't have the fetish I have, I wouldn't give it much thought and, if faced with it, I believe I would have a genuinely difficult time providing it for a woman wanting to be disciplined. It's just natural to be at least uncomfortable with what would feel like beating a woman. However, if a woman wants this kind of discipline from a man, then she should be respected in the same way we men should be respected for having the same desire. There's nothing wrong with her, and I want her to get what she's looking for. It seems ironic to me that a man, as a spankee, would choose a lifestyle that is based around submitting to a woman's judgment, but wouldn't respect a woman to judge for herself what she needs in this regard.

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    7. It's not a matter of respecting her judgment about her needs. It would be about her wanting me to do something that makes me want to gag thinking about, for the precise reason you identify: discomfort with something that, to me, would feel like beating a woman. If I had asked my wife to be the spanker and it was something she had a major problem with doing, that would be the end of it. Spanking isn't my life with her. It's an add on. If she wasn't comfortable with it, then we wouldn't do it, period, and it wouldn't be a matter of her respecting my judgment about what I need. Rather, it would me respecting her boundaries.

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    8. Yes, sorry, Dan, I should have directed that to what Hugh was saying. To my knowledge, you've never said women should not be spanked, just that you have an aversion to doing it yourself.

      My wife is not comfortable in the role of disciplinarian, and I don't want her to be burdened by it. She's also not into being disciplined, but she likes being spanked to some degree, so we've had fun with that.

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  5. Regarding M/F spanking, I agree absolutely with Alan that if it is consensual, it is obviously not the same as violence.

    I am not particularly attracted to M/F spanking and generally don’t find it much of a turn-on, though I do kind of like looking at pictures of female bottoms reddened and marked up. This is not surprising since I also like looking at female bottoms that are not reddened… But to actually see a spanking, for me it ideally is F/M, and if not that, then F/F is also fine.

    I playfully swat my wife’s bottom, so I guess I do like that, but don’t do more than that. If she wanted to experiment with erotic spanking, I would have no problem with that, but I don’t think it would be all that much of a turn-on to me, or no more than just seeing and touching her bottom is (so the source of the turn-on in this case is her bottom, not the spanking).

    If she wanted a M/F DD relationship, it would be much harder for me. I guess I could do it, but I would have to be absolutely sure that it was what she wanted, and any pleasure I derived from it would only come from knowing that somehow it meets her needs or fulfills some desire of hers. I am just really not wired as a dominant in any way when it comes to interpersonal relationships.

    -ZM

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    1. This is pretty much where I am, though I don't know whether I ever could deliver a disciplinary spanking to a female. Intellectually, I totally accept Alan's view that consent and motivation make all the difference. But, emotionally, for me the aversion to striking a woman and causing pain is about as hard-wired as it gets. I'm not sure I could ever bring myself to do it.

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    2. I do think this would be very difficult for me to do. I expect I would be able to do it if it was what my wife really wanted, because I can't really imagine much I wouldn't do for her. But since she seems to have no inclination towards this, I probably will never have to cross that bridge.

      -ZM

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    3. Same here. Mine is crystal clear that she has zero interest in being on the receiving end of a DD spanking.

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  6. Dev and I are pretty private about what goes on. She has several hair brushes ( no hair on them ) our car license plate starts with OTK . Every once in a while we will get a knowing look. JR

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    1. I absolutely love the fact that you have license plates with OTK, and I'm a little surprised it made it through the DMV. I guess the reviewers weren't into it and, thus, weren't sensitive to it!

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  7. Fellow seekers re the incidence of spankos in the population:

    I know one more post on this will not resolve it, but fool that I am, I am going to do it anyway. The reality here is that we are fencing a bit about differing opinions. Opinions are all that we have here. There is quite a lot of “anecdotal” evidence to support either side of the discussion (and by anecdotal I mean interesting, possibly suggestive but non systematic evidence from which no valid generalizations can be drawn)

    The science of it is that there is almost no science and very little if any scientifically valid data to support or refute either view. For that we would need
    1. A competently constructed survey,
    2. Competently administered
    3. A competently drawn random sample of the population of interest, presumably all adults.
    4. Followed by a competent analysis of the results.

    Such a study is notoriously difficult to carry out due to the well-known tendency of people to under-report any activity the larger culture sees as deviant -- plus the inherent problems of surveys in general. (Ask President Hillary Clinton if you don’t believe me) I don’t think it will shock anyone to hear that we don’t have such a study and I am not at all sure that past iconic sexual behavior surveys (Kinsey, Master and Johnson etc.) have met that standard.

    So for now we have the anecdotal data you chose to consult and the opinions you have reached. But not much else in the way of solid evidence. In the absence of scientific data people tend to form their opinions and then search for the evidence to support it.

    SO we are all equally free to express an opinion are arguing it, marshaling whatever facts we can. But we should remember that we really don’t know –and if we ever do know it’s likely to be far into the future.
    Alan

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    1. Alan, I agree with almost everything you said, with the exception of, "Opinions are all that we have here." That creates an equivalence that I don't think fits. With respect to the specific exchange between Doug and me, on one side we have some small set of data points, subject to all the limitations that you've laid out. On the other we have . . . nothing; just a request that we grant, for no particular reason, that some substantial number of couples are practicing DD but that few of them visit blogs or websites devoted to that kink. That is simply a list of unsupported propositions coupled with assertions around people's use of blogs and websites that fly in the face of common sense. I'm happy to concede that I don't know, but I can't concede that what has been offered in response to the facts I do have available is a marshaling of facts on the other side.

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    2. It would get us no closer to an answer to this vexing question of just how many total people are into F/M DD or FLR, but I had a thought exercise that would be really interesting anyway, considering that while we who visit here are self-selected, we still have at least moderate diversity as far as age and geography.

      List on a piece of paper every couple you can think of that you know at least moderately well. Maybe family, friends, co-workers, people you know from a church or social club, old family friends, etc.

      Now, for every couple on the list, give them a score of 1-5 on just how likely you would be to believe that they are FLR (and maybe into F/M DD, but that is much harder to guess). 1 = he wears the pants, absolutely. 5 = no question, he has to ask to even wear pants.

      If you really don't know them well enough to at least make a guess, strike them from the list.

      Then report how many couples you thought of, and of those how many were 1's, 2's, etc.

      -ZM

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    3. That is an interesting exercise, though I think most of mine would fall into the "I don't have enough visibility int their relationship to make an educated guess" category.

      BTW, Blogger continues to love your IP address, but haphazardly. On your two most recent comments, one posted with no problem and the other was marked as spam.

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    4. Hi Dan,
      I tried to send an anonymous response last night (since I was too lazy to sign in on my phone), and I thought it might have went to spam, but it looks more likely that it simply didn't submit at all.

      For the thought exercise, as you said, I think pretty much all of mine would fall into the "I don't have enough visibility into their relationship to make an educated guess" bin. However, this is only true for DD, because of the secrecy and privacy surrounding it.

      But I think this would be much different when it comes to FLR; in most of the relationships where I know both partners reasonably well, or even sometimes where I know only one of the partners, especially if I have seen some them interact some in public or even a small amount in private, I would be reasonably accurate in guessing the probability of the relationship being female led, and probably much of the time to what degree. This dynamic is much harder to hide (as evidenced by one of your kids cluing into it and asking about it). And as we were talking about earlier, those of us that are into this sort of thing are hypersensitive to it, so all it takes is a little subtle hint or the slightest nuance and we would be onto the scent of it.

      The whole IP address thing is interesting, because most of the time it lets me post with no problem, but then occasionally (and quite randomly) it throws it to spam.

      -ZM

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  8. Dan
    I offer an honest answer here and wish to offend no one. Both of you are relying on anecdotal evidence which doesn't imply bad evidence, merely evidence devoid of demonstrably validity or reliability. Having said that, there e is a hierarchy of anecdotal evidence it is my judgement that your particular anecdotal even is much stronger. Inference is simply reaching conclusion from known facts while remaining aware that that inferences can change dramatically if other facts are know.In point of fact there are ascending levels of anecdotal evidence ranging from the truly absurd to the plausible. You are well withing the ranges of plausible evidences short of scientific certitude, By the way, if you really want to understand how bad we are at assessing evidence and assessing conclusions in the absence of valid science, just take a look at the average jury verdict. Good look with that and god bless our justice system
    Alan

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    1. I actually have spent a lot of time looking at jury verdicts, and reading a lot of research on them. It's certainly a mixed bag. Though, interestingly, there is some research on jury verdicts in complex cases that shows that juries often do get to the "right" verdict, i.e. the verdict that trained lawyers and judges would have approximated based on their review of the evidence, but when interviewed it becomes clear that the juries got there in ways that wouldn't make much sense to those lawyers and judges. There is also a huge problem with "Garbage In, Garbage Out." I personally think you could see that in spades comparing the recent Rittenhouse and Arbery trials. The judge and prosecutors in the Rittenhouse case were, frankly, pretty awful. By comparison, the judge in the Georgia case did a great job, as did the prosecutors. While I'm not sure how "winnable" the Rittenhouse case was for any prosecution, I am very confident that the poor lawyering more or less dictated the outcome.

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    2. Yes I agree on all points. The problems in our criminal justice system are so many and so pervasive, it is hard to point a finger at any one part of it such as judges or juries – not that they don’t do their share of harm. Beyond the incompetent jurists, the bad cops,the blatant racism, the clueless juries, the incestuous DA’s, and the public apathy that lets it all go on, there is the fundamental unfairness linked to the imbalance of resources so characteristic of our society today, If you have the bad luck to be just an average Joe, let alone a poor person, your chances at fair treatment today are minimal.
      Alan

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    3. Agreed on all points, though it's not a modern phenomenon. Seems like not a hell of a lot has changed since Dickens wrote Bleak House in 1852.

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    4. Not a lot has changed it seems, other than we have exchanged Dickens classism for our racism. Maybe we need to try a world without isms for a bit and see how that works out. Btw if you read Dickens you ae one of the very few today and that is too bad. My wife is a voracious reader but won’t go near him. I think it’s partly the structure of his books originally produced in serial form that put some off and the resulting length is another barrier. But we should all read some of him today because he still has a lot to say
      Alan

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    5. It's been a very long time, with the exception of last year around this time I read A Christmas Carol for the first time ever. I've enjoyed various movie adaptations of it over many years, but I had never actually read the book.

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    6. Christmas Carol is actually probably an ideal introduction to Dickens, Bleak House which you mentioned is also good and my personal favorite is a Tale of Two Cities, although there is some opinion that Tale is not his most characteristic book
      Alan

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  9. Dan,

    Reporting;
    I implemented a written report process that center's on my husband's attitude and on the quality of the chores he performs. He must write it. I'm not completely heartless and if hubby has had a very busy week in his job I'm lenient. If not, it's dealt with at our weekend discipline session. In the beginning I did a verbal review. Once it resulted in hubby being argumentative and cursing me out. Hey, he wanted a real FLR with DD. Instead of spanking, I restrained him on a hard cot in our bedroom from late afternoon until bedtime (Yes, I checked on him regularly). He was pretty uncomfortable. After, I decided it was over the top and cruel. I didn't do it again. I always could, and my husband knows this. Unfortunately, he confessed he liked it. So, now maybe I'll NEVER do it to him again lol. We got away from reporting for awhile at this point.

    Others Finding Out;
    It wouldn't be the end of the world if somebody found out, but nobody knows. A woman we both know extremely well suspects the nature of our marriage, but I'll never confirm it to her.

    Our grown children;
    The nest is empty and they have no idea we practice DD/FLR. That means I keep the discipline tools hidden.

    Have a great weekend,
    Carol

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    1. "It wouldn't be the end of the world if somebody found out . . . " Honestly, that's probably the truth for almost all of us, were it to actually happen.

      Have a good weekend, Carol.

      Delete
  10. Interesting discussions. Two conflicting trends I wonder about in younger people are the increasing rates of loneliness and short-term rather than long-term relationships, contrasted with all the online tools and ammunition available to have breakthrough communication of desires with a partner. I think there is a connection between them since it's not a given that courage to reveal true desires will be given years of stability in which to develop.

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    1. I think we also probably should not automatically assume it is actually true that the younger generation really is more experimental. There is a fair amount of data out there that seems to indicate the Millennials and Gen Z are actually pretty prudish:

      https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/

      https://www.vice.com/en/article/wd7vj9/why-arent-millennials-fucking

      https://slate.com/human-interest/2010/04/why-millennials-are-so-judgmental-about-promiscuity.html

      On issues of gender identity and sexual orientation I'm sure the younger generations are way more liberal than mine was, but I really don't know whether we can just assume that openness on those issues leads tom more openness, let alone more personal experimentation, with kinks like D/s and DD.

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    2. Hi Dan,
      Good point regarding the assumptions we make about the younger generation being more open to experimentation. I think it is largely because of their being much more open-minded about gender identity and sexual orientation than were previous generations that we assume they are more open to everything that is in anyway unconventional sexually, but there is no real basis for that assumption. As the articles pointed out, they certainly are not more sexually active or more promiscuous than others in the past.

      I still wouldn't be surprised if they turn out to be more open to things related to dominance and submission (at least as play) than our generation was, since that they have had many, many more cultural references to BDSM and other D/S related things as they were growing up. And for those who do actually dabble in anything related to dominance and submission (in any form), I think there will be less psychological barriers to F/M because of the rapid weakening of traditional gender roles.

      -ZM

      -ZM

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    3. I suspect that's all correct. Though, wouldn't it be disappointing if it turned out the 1970s were the high point for heterosexual sexual liberation?

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    4. ZM, hard to say if we are generally more open to DD, though I note that references to DD have been around for a while. I mentioned in a previous post an engraved plate. There are a couple of spanking scenes in the 1963 film "McLintock!" (albeit M/F) and I doubt it is the only reference.

      Though I won't be there to see it, I am definitely curious about what will happen when my children grow up and whether they will be more open to adventure in their married lives than my wife and I are! Maybe they will be free to be open about how they do things in their marriages because society will just say that it's fine what they get up to amongst themselves.

      Dan, I agree with you to a large extent. Though I don't agree with promiscuity, I think it would certainly be a shame if couples were no longer experimenting within marriage. I would say that my wife and I do lots of experimentation, though the subjects covered are a little off-topic for this page. At a similar time to when I discussed F/M DD spanking with her in the run-up to marriage, I also said I wanted us to be adventurous, within the confines of our marriage.

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    5. ZM wrote: “I still wouldn't be surprised if they turn out to be more open to things related to dominance and submission (at least as play) than our generation was … (and) for those who do actually dabble in anything related to dominance and submission (in any form), I think there will be less psychological barriers to F/M because of the rapid weakening of traditional gender roles”

      I strongly suspect that time will bear out the accuracy of your prophecy. However for the generations we are discussing the greater comfort with kink may also produce relationships that are much more BDSM related than what most of us on this blog seem to consider DD. I say this because BDSM allows play without all the messy intimacy and trust necessary to DD. And speaking very generally (which is the only way to speak when characterizing an entire generation) – intimacy and trust are major issues for many of them. So we may be in the golden age of F/M DD, at least for a while. And if we aren’t, it’s still fun to speculate that we are,
      Alan

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    6. ZM wrote: “I still wouldn't be surprised if they turn out to be more open to things related to dominance and submission (at least as play) than our generation was … (and) for those who do actually dabble in anything related to dominance and submission (in any form), I think there will be less psychological barriers to F/M because of the rapid weakening of traditional gender roles”

      I strongly suspect that time will bear out the accuracy of your prophecy. However for the generations we are discussing the greater comfort with kink may also produce relationships that are much more BDSM related than what most of us on this blog seem to consider DD. I say this because BDSM allows play without all the messy intimacy and trust necessary to DD. And speaking very generally (which is the only way to speak when characterizing an entire generation) – intimacy and trust are major issues for many of them. So we may be in the golden age of F/M DD, at least for a while. And if we aren’t, it’s still fun to speculate that we are,
      Alan

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    7. Alan, another factor could be that the younger generations seem very resistant to hierarchies and obsessed with consent. It's hard to see any dynamics that involve unequal decision making authority and hierarchical power structures catching on big with Millennials or Gen Z.

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    8. Alan,
      "I say this because BDSM allows play without all the messy intimacy and trust necessary to DD."
      There is a level of intimacy and trust necessary for DD in the context of a successful FLR, or a relationship led by a man. I think it takes trust to be obedient to someone else. My husband trusts me. Maybe it's a partnership sort of trust that grew into me dishing out what he wants, if that makes any sense.
      Carol H.

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    9. Hi Carol,

      You wrote: “I think it takes trust to be obedient to someone else.”

      That resonates with me more and more. It takes many things for a successful DD relationship including great communication and strong commitment. But I don’t think I realized as early as I should how important simple obedience was. My wife has always reacted strongly to any challenge to her authority or disobedience, especially direct disobedience as in refusing to obey a direct order or telling her “no”. I have always understood that was a big deal but not sure I always understood how important obedience was to her as a part of our relationship. Growing up being disobedient sometimes was a way of expressing myself. But in an adult relationship it really is toxic if it happens very often.
      Alan

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    10. Alan,
      "I have always understood that was a big deal but not sure I always understood how important obedience was to her as a part of our relationship. Growing up being disobedient sometimes was a way of expressing myself."

      My husband grew up with little structure and guidance. He came home to an empty house after school. He didn't get in trouble but had to figure everything out for himself. He lacked self confidence and often told me I could do better than him back when we dated in college. That didn't scare me away but it made me feel sad for him. Hubby tells me I changed things for the better because he wanted discipline in his adult life. He's had some hard canings and other punishments after challenging me and disobeying. That rarely happens these days because he is well behaved and has things together. I'm surprised he wanted a strong FLR, but obeying me is required if that is going to continue. It all seemed to work for him because he is happy, enjoys some kink, and feels it all helped him be successful. Disobeying can be toxic, I agree. It may also make your wife unhappy and she may not always want to be put in the position of punishing you, just like I don't want to be in with my own husband.
      Carol H

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  11. ZM, agreed on the point about the lack of psychological barriers. Many younger people (myself included) consequently feel free to just construct things in their marital lives according to what suits them. Why do you believe intimacy and trust are major issues for many younger people? I am aware of a variety of situations when it comes to DD in terms of how open people are to intimacy. My wife and I have a lot of intimacy, though I am aware of DD couples who are the opposite extreme: only show as much flesh to each other as necessary and sleeping in separate beds.

    Dan, hard to say with millennials and Gen Z. From time to time, I come across such people who feel odd that there are none or almost none of the things you mention in life today and therefore want to incorporate it into their married lives, but yes, as you say, some of them have that anti-authoritarian streak.

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  12. I'm anti-authoritarian and, in my youth, was anti-establishment. I think what drives people to personal relationships that involve authority and discipline often has little or nothing to do with ideology or how we negotiate with the world at large. I'm not going to predict the future of DD, but I don't expect the desire or need will become less prevalent.

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    1. Good point, and likely true in many cases if for no other reason that many people lack the self-awareness to see the discrepancies between their personal desires and how they negotiate the world at large or pretend to.

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    2. Brett, I am aware of some husbands who are similarly anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment and pro-freedom, but who seek to have an F/M DD setup in their marriages because they recognise that even if they have societal freedoms, they need to have some structure that guards them from transgressing too far. In other words, they don't want societal restraints, they would rather the restraints came from their personal relationships.

      This isn't too far from my situation. My wife and I are conservative and so I am the head of the family, but our F/M DD situation is primarily about keeping my leadership of the family in check and applying "guard rails", in other words, "checks and balances" F/M DD, a bit like how government leaders have safeguards on their power.

      Dan, I suppose there are both people who are aware of the discrepancy (and see it as a paradox) and those who are not aware. However, even if people don't understand the underlying workings, F/M DD can still be beneficial.

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    3. If we're talking about what will continue to drive some percentage of people to F/M DD, for many the practicalities are just one side of it. There's a sexual attraction to it that overrides everything else. I don't see why that should lessen or go away. I think it should grow as more people are exposed to the idea, and the social stigma loses its power to discourage or cause shame for having the desire. Maybe these kinds of DD practitioners will no longer have to rationalize their relationships. In my case, the desire starts with the sexual attraction, and then whatever practical benefit we might get from it would be icing on the cake. There would be no confusion about the paradoxes involved.

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    4. Yes, hopefully, the stigma will be lost as it becomes better known. I have long been advocating the idea that F/M DD does not compromise a man's masculinity, but enhances it. If the sexual attraction behind it is sustained, even better.

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