The Club - Meeting 401 - Degrees of Openness

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip. - Will Rogers

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.  

 

It’s been another slow couple of weeks here on the blog. I’m actually a little concerned about one of our most regular regulars.  Alan, are you OK?  I’m hoping you’re just out on a long vacation or something.   

 

This is one big problem with relationships that are anonymous and exist purely on-line; it’s very hard to determine what happened when a person you’ve come to like and value just suddenly stops being there.

 

I have to admit the quietness makes me wonder whether the blog has hit a point of rapidly diminishing returns. A few weeks ago, someone (I forget who) speculated that maybe this whole topic of DD and spanking has run out of gas, not just on this blog but generally.  I’m not sure that something that never took off outside a very small niche is ever in danger of having reached peak cultural penetration, but who knows?

 

I also think sometimes that blogging as a whole is in decline.  Certainly, more visually-oriented media like TikTok and YouTube seem to be taking the place of other forms of media, particularly those that take some substantial time to engage with or digest.

 

Then there are the limitations of Blogger as a platform.  It’s clearly not one of Alphabet’s priorities for technology and marketing investments, and it seems like every time they change something it becomes more klugy.

 

There is no danger of me walking away from the blog in the near future, and I don’t think I’d ever take it down just to take it down.  I’ve never quite understood bloggers who run out of gas and decide to take the blog down entirely. Why? It’s not like it costs anything to keep it up.

 

I don’t feel like I’m done with writing and engaging with others who are into Domestic Discipline.  I’m just wondering whether this platform for those discussions has run out of fuel.  In the past, I couldn’t think of any alternatives that weren’t subject to the same limitations.  Lately, I’ve had some other thoughts. Stay tuned.

 

Like I said, it's not that I'm done with DD.  In fact, it’s been on my mind a lot lately.  I’ve always thought it kind of odd that I don’t dream about DD or spanking very often, given how much time I’ve put into thinking and writing about it.  

 

It seems like my subconscious is mulling over certain aspects of it more these days.  In the last couple of weeks I’ve had at least three dreams with themes involving either telling people about our DD relationship, knowing others are about to find out, or DD couples getting together.  My subconscious clearly seems to be mulling the whole “openness” thing. 

 

To the point that it may even be trying to “out” me. Anne and I took a trip recently.  I have two locking suitcases at home, one a little bigger than the other.  I had been storing most of our spanking tools in the bigger suitcase but decided I wanted to use that one for our trip.  So, I transferred all the spanking tools to the smaller suitcase.

 

At least, I thought I did.  When I got to our hotel and unpacked some clothes, I found a leather tawse pressed all the way against one side of the suitcase; a side that had been oriented away from my line of sight as I was packing.

 

The tawse wasn't the only spanking instrument in the bag, but it was the only unambigously so. I had brought her ebony hairbrush with us.  If my suitcase were to be searched by TSA, an agent who wasn’t kinky probably wouldn’t think anything about the brush.  On the other hand, one who was into it him/herself might wonder or even surmise that in our relationship its intended use isn't brushing hair bur, rather roasting bottoms.  But, they wouldn’t really know.  

 

A tawse on the other hand?  They wouldn’t know which of us was the receiver and which the giver, but there wouldn’t be much doubt about the basic fact that we were into spanking in some form or fashion.

 

My bag was not, in fact, searched on either leg of our trip, but it could have been.  I honestly don’t know how I would react if some official went rummaging through my bag and found something so obviously spanking related.  I’m sure they come across vibrators and other sexual paraphernalia all the time.  I don’t know whether a tawse would even make the average TSA agent’s Top-10 list of most interesting or amusing items found in passengers’ bags.

 

Given my subconscious mind’s nocturnal wanderings around themes of being discovered or found out, or interacting with other couples, maybe I even sort of want to be discovered? 

 

Maybe, though I haven't taken a lot of action in that direction even though, looking back at some posts from a couple of years ago, it seems like I was in this same mind-space back then.  As I said then, in pertinent part:

 

***

[Last year], I was going through a phase in which I wanted to have deeper, more meaningful communications and relationships with people who are into this lifestyle, including some of the regular commenters on this blog. I also found myself increasingly wanting people, or at least certain people, to know about this aspect of my life or to know more about it. 

 

Moreover, as I observed at that time, I am constantly reminded of how hard it is for my wife to punish bad behavior consistently and with some degree of immediacy when we are so paranoid about anyone else catching on to our relationship dynamic. It’s an irritant, because the part of me that was fascinated by DD from the moment I first encountered it also seems to gravitate toward the “humbling” impact of her exercising her authority more openly and about others knowing that she’s the boss. None of that has really changed over the last year. If anything, it's grown as I reach a point in my life where the possible risks of being exposed seem less and less weighty.

 

Yet, my adventures in openness have been pretty tame so far.  I wear a pendant that a few people who are in the BDSM community and very into its culture might recognize as the symbol for a submissive male. That’s not quite what I consider myself to be, but it’s about as close as I can find for ready-made paraphernalia that puts my status "out there" a bit as a disciplined husband who has been “taken in hand,” by his wife in some form of FLR relationship.

 

Further, as I’ve discussed, to my knowledge, there are two (and sort of three) people who know who I am and that my wife gives me real disciplinary spankings.  

 

Compare that to the description of Disciplinary Wives Club gatherings that Tomy’s wife, Aunt Kay, sent me a few years back and that I posted again last week, including her description of sending him off for a session with another wife:

 

"We made friends with other couples and that was a whole other unexpected outcome. I never imagined disciplining anyone but my own husband. But it became easy for me after a while. I learned that some men need a lot more intensity than my Hubby and I had some really fun times delivering longer and harder sessions than he could ever endure. I still recall smiling to myself as I watched him head off with another DWC wife to get a spanking. When we did things together with other DWC couples; like going to dinners, events, visiting for weekends, there was such a sense of liberation. Just hanging out, being able to talk about lifestyle stuff was amazing. It was like we knew we were special, we shared a kinky little secret when we were out among the rest of the world."

 

 

We’ve done nothing close to any of that.  Part of me really wants to explore it, though that part is at war with the part that obsesses about confidentiality and not creating any kind of electronic rabbit trail that would allow anyone interested and snoopy to link my on-line and “real life” identities.  I assume my wife feels the same way and may even be more concerned about it. Though, honestly, that is an assumption on my part. I’ve never really asked her. . ..

 

 

It occurs to me that I always assume my wife is reluctant to meet others, communicate with others or display her authority more openly, simply because she hasn’t initiated any of that, other than a handful of cryptic references to spanking made with family around.  But, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to make assumptions about her willingness or openness to new things just because she has not initiated them, particularly since . . . why should she be embarrassed? She’s not the one getting spanked.

 

***

 

I’m not sure how much has changed since then.  In terms of developing closer relationships with people in the lifestyle, in some ways, maybe a lot, though not enough to satisfy my itch for connection.  I’ve deepened my relationships with at least four people I’ve met through the blog, though very little of that interaction has been face-to-face and I’ve met only one of them in person. 

 

In that post from a couple of years ago, I put together a list of things associated with various degrees of “sharing” this lifestyle and asked people to identify how many they’d done.  Here is my current status on each, along with a few new/modified ones:

 

• Worn something symbolizing your DD or FLR status? Yes. 
• Left a spanking tool, including innocuous but iconic tools like a hairbrush or bathbrush, on prominent display in a context that might hint at its naughtier use? Yes, but only a hairbrush and bath brush, and not in a place that clearly signaled their intended use.
• Openly displayed or traveled with a tool that is most definitely associated with spanking, such as a paddle or strap? Only unintentionally so, though I have gotten much less diligent about hiding and storing them securely. 
• Made a cryptic, reference to delivering or getting a spanking within earshot of friends or relatives?  Anne has made some cryptic references.  I haven’t, at least nothing suggesting that spanking and DD is something we do.

• Engaged in or been subjected to some very overt display of authority in front of others? Not really, at least nothing that overt and unambiguous. 

• Openly told a friend or family member that you get spanked by your wife or that you spank your husband? Yes, though only one friend and no relatives.
  

• Told someone openly that you are going to be spanked or recently were or that you are going to deliver one or recently did? Not that I recall.
  

 

• Exchanged emails or talked by telephone with someone about your DD or FLR relationship? Yes

• Talked face-to-face with another person who you know is into DD or FLR? Yes. 
  

• Gotten together socially with one or more couples who are into DD? No

•   Been spanked by your wife/spanked with others present or able to overhear? No.
  

• Been spanked by someone other than your wife or spanked  someone other than your husband during your current relationship? No.

 

• Engaged in any kind of group spanking activity? No.

How about you? Which of the above have you done?  How open have you been so far about your DD relationship? How open would you like to be, or at least how open could you see yourself being under the right circumstances?

 

And, before I go, thoughts and prayers for so many suffering families, and hopefully a little more than thoughts and prayers from those in a position to do something about it.

 

 

 

 

 

Have a great week.