The Club - Meeting 422 - Open Mic Q&A continued

 

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

 

I hope your post-Christmas, pre-New Years week has been restful or, if not, at least enjoyable.  It’s still pretty damn cold here.

 

 

If people were at home and did have extra time on their hands, they apparently weren’t using it to respond to Alan’s suggestion for a Q&A session regarding DD and FLR best practices.  We didn’t get a lot of questions, but thank you to those who did participate. If more drift in, I will post a new comment to start a new thread.

 

I’ve put the actual postings (lightly edited) immediately below.  I’ve also put edited/summary versions in the “comments” section, so we have a separate thread for each question.

 

I’m looking forward to everyone’s thoughts on these and will provide some of my own.

 

Alan

 

1. Dildos-If you use them as part of the discipline are they used before or after any spanking or are they used separately from the spanking aspects of the discipline?

2. Rubber Paddles- Are they used in your relationship at all and if so, are they used regularly or only occasionally?

3. Lexan Paddles -same question- are they used at all and if so, regularly or only occasionally?

 

TG

 

There are certain immutables: a DD spanking is always going to be physically painful and I assume it is always going to be on bare skin. However, I think that there are physiological aspects to this in addition to the purely physical. Whether the relationship is more generally FLR or not, at the time of the spanking, the spankee is making themselves subservient to their partner’s authority. My questions are really aimed at (1) learning if others also feel that and (2) if so, then how this manifests. So firstly : bare skin, but just pants down or completely naked ? And secondly : OTK or standing and bent over something ? I also feel there is a distinction between different types of OTK. Lying across the lap on a sofa or bed seems to me more a position for spanking play rather than DD, I believe a more appropriate position for DD has the spanker sitting on a suitable height chair with the spankee positioned across them so that their butt is their highest point and both hands and feet are on the floor. This feels to me a far more subservient position. So, do others feel that there is a strong physiological component to how a DD spanking is carried out and if so, what are the practices that reinforce or detract from that ambiance ? TG

 

ZM

 

1) When multiple spanking instruments are used in a punishment (for example strap, paddle, cane), in which order should they be used for maximum effectiveness assuming that the goal is to maximize both immediate pain and longer lasting discomfort and to allow the spanking to continue as long as possible so delaying skin failure.

2) Alternate punishments - what alternate punishments do your wives use and which do you find most effective? This can be anything including old fashioned childhood punishments like enemas, castor oil, and mouthsoaping, as well as BDSM related things like nipple clamps, pegging, and so on, but only when those things are used as a punishment in a DD context.

3) What things can be done to maximize the effects of a spanking? Some I can think of are making your bottom cold or wet to make impact more painful, wearing pantyhose or tights to compress the skin and hold in heat, or perhaps different positions, but I am sure there are others.

 

Kevin

 

My questions are related to maintaining a long-term spanking relationship. Do wives who spank begin to see it as a chore? If punishment is required for same issues more than a couple of times, is it less satisfying and more tedious?

 

Along those same lines, the husband may find spankings less embarrassing after a while. How do others keep the experience fresh? Are there some changes to the routine that are especially effective? Is it unrealistic to expect satisfaction to remain at a high level for both? – Kevin

 

Spanked Cowboy

 

Here is a question I have rising out of my observations, not only in writings like this blog, but also my actual conversations. As we, and the FLR ages, aided by becoming empty nesters, and winding up with fewer people around, it seems couples tend to be less careful about others 'discovering' your lifestyle. I don't mean broadcasting it or shouting from the rooftops, I mean less hidden. Some here have alluded to spanking near an open or undraped window. Others I have talked with find themselves spanked in less than private situations. Do we become less concerned about others knowing? Is it a change of mind of the female of the couple? As careers wind down are we more open about our lifestyles?

 

Kevin

 

Dan, I know this is a late suggestion, but I've been curious about the duration of other people's spankings. And does it vary, depending on the circumstances leading up to punishment and the implement being used?

 

J

 

J: 1) How to explain DD to children (whether they find out accidentally or they are told). Will you tell the whole truth? Will you sell them the benefits of such a way of doing things when they are older? And any other related points on this subject.

2) Reconciliation after a spanking. Hugging? Kissing? Or anything else. And what works best?

3) Post-spanking sex. Does it happen? Does the spanking typically have much of an effect on it? And anything else people think is relevant.

The Club - Meeting 421 - Christmas Recap and Open Mic Q&A

“Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted .” ― Randy Pausch

 

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

 

I hope you all had a good week and, for those who celebrate it, a great Christmas.

 

I’m not sure what happened to me this year.  Christmas usually is by far my favorite holiday, but this year I just couldn’t seem to get into it.  And, it wasn’t just me.  Anne felt the same way.  We liked seeing and being with family, but I think we both woke up this morning kind of glad the whole thing was over. 

 

 Oh well.  Not every holiday can be special every year, right?

 

And, how about that cold front that hit most of the country?  I took the dogs for a walk on Wednesday morning, and it actually was pretty pleasant.  By late afternoon, temperatures had dropped by over 50°.  Very frigid for a few days there.

 

 

How is the holiday season going for the rest of you?  Any pre- or post-party spankings?  Anything you should be spanked for but haven’t been (yet)?  Any spanking-related gifts given or received?

 

Anne didn’t deliver any preventative spankings this holiday season.  Perhaps it was because we had family around most of the time.  Though, it also was a function of not having a lot of social events on the calendar. We went to only one actual holiday party and stayed less than two hours.  Like I said, it was just one of those years and neither of us was really in the mood.  

 

The blog was pretty quiet over the holidays, but thanks to all of you who dropped in to exchange holiday greetings.  During the course of one of those greetings, Alan made the following comment and suggestions:

 

To my surprise and delight my wife (who is now officially retired) has told me we are going to inaugurate a back to basics next year around our DD relationship. I am not sure what she is intending –but much more excited than intimidated by it at this point. She has asked me to acquire some toys and a couple of disciplinary items we have not used for a very long time (one never used). To my point: I am thinking of a possible topic/theme for an upcoming Blog (one that may be impractical).

 

Thinking about her direction, I realize I still have some questions (maybe more than some) about spanking related issues. I wonder if maybe some others have a few questions too that someone might be able to answer –maybe a kind of round robin, trading on our own unique experiences. To make this happen as I envision it, you could open up for a week or even less strictly to questions folks have about the art and practice of DD/FLR. Then collated a little, they could be presented ad seriatim to be discussed by whoever might wish to do so.

 

So, let’s do that.  If you have any questions relating to the “art and practice of DD/FLR” that you’d like to raise for the group’s collective consideration, leave them in a comment, below.  In an effort to keep the collating effort reasonable, please try to limit yourself to no more than THREE questions.

 

I’ll leave the process open until Thursday evening and will try to de-duplicate and summarize each question, posting them as separate comment threads in a new blog post. 

 

Please do NOT answer any of the questions until I’ve compiled and posted a new post with them.

 

I hope you all have a great week as we drift ever closer to the new year.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays 2022

Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection. - Winston Churchill

 Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our (mostly) weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.  I hope you all had a great week.

 Thanks for joining me for what is likely to be the final post of 2022, or at least the final post before people start winding down for Christmas and, hopefully, some serious relaxation between now and year-end.  We’re sticking close to home this year, so maybe I’ll get bored and put out something else.  This year, I’m just going to play it by ear.

 There is something I really love about this particular Christmas meme.  It's peaceful, hopeful, and fanciful, all at once.  It symbolizes nicely what I hope Anne and I, and all of you, experience as 2022 winds down.

Last year taught me a lot about playing it by ear.  When I sat down to write my end-of-year post last year, we were a few days away from celebrating the season with family and friends, looking forward to taking our first post-Covid international trip.  We did manage to take the trip but, a few days into it, there was a very traumatic event back home.  But, I couldn't go home, because I got stranded in a foreign country with Covid, then spent the next couple of months recuperating. 

So, it’s fair to say that 2021 went out with a bang and 2022 got off to a very bad start. 

While it’s easy to cast aspersions on an entire year and blame everything on world events, in fairness I didn’t always put in my best efforts in 2022.  The previous year really was one of rebuilding and recuperating.  I was not in good shape, physically or mentally, after putting a pause on my career early in 2021.  I really didn’t have much choice when it came to slowing down and resting up. 

Unfortunately, that unambitious pace seemed to become my new norm and dogged me throughout 2022.  I did some fun and adventurous things, but it was sporadic and pretty unimpressive in comparison to the amount of free time I had on my hands. 

Yet, there undeniably was progress.  With the exception of the world in Ukraine, didn't the world seem just a little bit more rational in 2022, with people maybe acting just a little better to each other?

On the personal front, my overall health and fitness is much, much better than it’s been for at least half a decade and maybe more.  I’m again wearing the same size jeans I wore in college, and I’ve maintained that fat reduction for many months now.  I’m still too prone to binge drinking, but overall I had far fewer of those incidents in 2022 than before my retirement and, while I didn’t keep any detailed statistics, I think overall I drank quite a bit less in 2022 than in 2021. 

Significantly, for years and years, I’ve set goals to reduce my news consumption and also to focus on creating and producing more instead of just consuming.  While I didn’t perform at anywhere near the level I’d like, I did start doing some (very vanilla) writing for another platform, and it’s gone reasonably well.  For the first time in really my adult life, I’ve been regularly doing something creative that isn’t this blog. 

I also feel like the blog came back to life a bit in 2022.  It wasn’t looking great in 2021.  Some regular commenters stopped showing up. The monthly viewership went way down, after peaking in late 2019.  It was probably a mix of factors, one being the political environment and my own role in stirring that pot. Which I don’t, by the way, apologize for, given the seriousness of the situation at the time.  

 I’m really not sure how much political animosity contributed to the blog’s loss of viewers.  The biggest direct impact was probably from the fact that one popular blog stopped linking to mine in retaliation for me dropping a link to theirs.  A couple of other blogs that had been responsible for a large number of referral traffic were killed by their owners.  In fact, in the course of a little over a year, the blog lost its second and third largest referral sources.

 That downward trend hit its low point about mid-way through this year, and the numbers have been climbing back slowly but steadily since.  Not coincidentally, the upturn started around the same time I started trying to get back to a weekly posting schedule.  I can’t promise to maintain the more consistent pace in 2023, but I’ll try.

 Far, far more important to me than the total viewership, or even the number of commenters, is the number of regular, quality commenters.  That was another area that deteriorated for a while but reversed in the latter half of the year, with new commenters dropping in regularly and some previously sporadic commenters stopping by more regularly.  So, thank you J., T., KOJ, Kevin, MW, JR, Caged Lion, TG, Ward, DWC Fred, Belle, Brett, Red, Glen, and others for dropping by regularly or at least every once in a while.  And, a big thanks to ZM, Alan and al, who so often seem like my brothers separated at birth.

 There was one thing that changed a lot in 2022 and was very significant.  I used to get almost depressed when year after year, not all that much seemed to change or deepen in my own DD dynamic.  Year after year we’d talk about stepping up her assertion of power and authority or about her becoming stricter and more consistent, and year after year it wouldn’t happen.  After we became empty-nesters and still nothing changed, I started to wonder whether the dynamic was just what it was and would remain that way, at least until we hit some age where the interest in it would inevitably decline.  That view was reinforced when I retired, and nothing changed.

 But, then Anne joined me in retirement part way through 2022 and, while it wasn’t a night and day difference, things definitely did change.  Spankings became more frequent.  She became generally more assertive. There was that whole thing with leaving window shades open.  I’m not sure whether either of us were ever conscious of her having big concerns about people at work finding out about this thing we do, but it’s pretty clear that her employment was, in fact, a psychological constraint all those years. 

 So, in that very important respect, 2022 does seem to have been a game-changer.  Either over the holidays or early in 2022, I’ll undoubtedly annoy you all with my annual process of goal setting and resolution making.  Humbling, respect, and obedience have been goals in the past, but now that we are empty-nesters and both retired, there is no excuse for not bringing more proactive attention to those issues.  Moreover, as my most recent post’s references to some recent arguments shows, humbling me and showing me who is boss seems to be not only a good goal but a necessary one.  

 On the gratitude front, we once again were fortunate not to lose any immediate or close family members.  Better yet, last year I did lose a couple of people who were not family members but were very big influences on my life; nothing like that happened this year.  Most of our family and friends are in pretty good health.  

 So, as I said last year, as we all run around buying those last-minute gifts, let's think a little about what a blessing it is to have people in our lives to buy those gifts for. Maybe try to do something nice for a friend, family member, or stranger who may not be as lucky.  

  

Until next year, I hope you all have a restful, peaceful, holiday season and get to take some time away with family and friends.  Merry Christmas and happy holidays!  

 And, in case you're still looking for that perfect gift for that special someone, just remember . . .

 

 

The Club - Meeting 420 - Resentment and Really Giving Up Control

"One regrets the loss even of one’s worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one’s personality." – Oscar Wilde

 

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

 

 

I hope you had a good week. Ours was kind of a roller-coaster.  It started good, with family visiting.  Then it turned bad, with Anne and I getting in a rare argument. Then, it got better with both of us seeming to get over the fight.  Then it got bad again, with Anne getting a very bad case of the flu, which has me sitting around wondering whether I’ll join her suffering soon or whether I’ll succeed in dodging it despite being careless and not getting a flu shot earlier in the season.  (Funny how that carelessness theme keeps coming up for me these last few months, isn’t it?)  Of course, in my partial defense, Anne did get a flu shot and, yet, is sick as a dog.

 

A Christmas season interrupted by family visits, illnesses, and arguments somehow seems kind of par for the course this year.  I don’t know why, but I’m having a really hard time getting into the season this year even though Christmas is by far my favorite holiday. I’m totally uninspired regarding Christmas shopping, even though I usually enjoy trying to find just the right gift for each person in the family.  As for decorating the house, we got off to a good start, getting the Christmas lights up on the house relatively early, but then things kind of stopped. 

 

Our whole neighborhood also seems slow to get cracking on decorating.  Maybe it’s the economy?  It does seem like there are years when the world is unsettled and/or the economy is down or shaky, and for some reason that puts a damper on everyone’s holiday preparations.

 

 

This also is the first year that neither of us is working, so no office parties to go to, which may be keeping some of the holiday spirit at bay. On the upside, it's also probably putting some limits on my holiday weight gain. Though, I decided going into December that I was going to put a pause on most diet efforts.  This year, I'm having the damn Christmas cookies and eggnog.

 

 

Since parties lead to drinking, and drinking leads to spankable behavior, it might be reasonable to assume my behavior would be exemplary this season. Unfortunately, it hasn't really worked out that way.

 

 

Which brings us to this week's topic.  Near the end of the most recent topic discussion, a side-discussion about “resentment” ensued.  Here are some excerpts:

 

Alan: Sometimes there is going to be resentment before or even after a spanking and that is probably unavoidable in a real DD relationship. But if it is happening a lot, that needs to be addressed.

 

Me: Alan, I agree. I might even go a little further and say that if you aren't feeling some resentment now and then, is it really discipline you are doing? Or, maybe it is discipline but isn't very strict or effective discipline? I don't want to sound too judgmental on this point, but it does seem to me that some level of resentment is inevitable if the discipline is real, consistent, and hard enough to be effective.

 

ZM: This is a really good point. It has been rolling around in my mind the past few days. We always tend to treat resentment as a very bad thing - which generally I believe it is, especially if there is much of it - but occasional resentment is probably not only the inevitable outcome of DD, but in fact a pretty good sign that DD is being done correctly and that it is indeed real. 

 

Although it wasn’t really related to anything I’d raised in that week’s topic, it turned out to be somewhat prescient, in that later in the week Anne and I got into an argument that left us both feeling resentful and angry.  I won’t go into details about it, other than to say that I said something that she thought was intentionally hurtful.  I felt like it was, at most, accidentally hurtful and really shouldn’t have been hurtful at all.  Sometimes the two parties to a conversation just don't see it the same way.

This followed on an incident a few months ago in which I got two spankings, on back-to-back days, after Anne got very mad about what she saw as boorish behavior while we were out with some friends.  Again, it revolved around something I said. Or the way I said it, Or both. 

After the first incident, my resentment was at a low-boil for a surprisingly long time.  Close to a month.  After this latest argument, I was mad but only for two or three days.  So, I guess that is improvement?

At the root of both incidents was my communications.  The first was mainly about how I said things and how loudly; Anne’s view was I was being boorish and dominating a conversation.  The second time was more about what I said.

Regarding me getting resentful, it's no accident that both incidents involved Anne attempting to change, or hold me accountable for, my verbal communications.

My whole career involved communicating with conviction.  I’m also very analytical, which means I tend not to arrive at opinions haphazardly. Hence, I’m comfortable voicing them with confidence.  From Anne's perspective, with too much confidence and too little attention to the sensitivities of those I'm talking to.

Deep down inside, I recognize that my opinions do sometimes ruffle feathers, perhaps unnecessarily.  I also sometimes forget that I have a deep, booming voice that may give my communications an attack-like intensity that's not really what I intend.

Voicing strong opinions is core to my identity. Yet, in some contexts it probably does need to be restrained.  Which is why the Oscar Wilde quote above resonates with me.

Because my communication style is so core to my identity, I did initially feel resentful that Anne was trying to make me "censor" myself.  More accurately, she was making me stop and think before I talk.

The first time, it pissed me off.  I couldn't look beyond the fact that she was censoring me to appreciate the reason she was doing so.  But, eventually I did have an epiphany of sorts, and not just that she might be right to make me think more before I speak.  It also finally occurred to me that my feelings of “unfairness” were part and parcel of the reality of her exercising control.  

In that incidence, while she did spank me—twice—the spankings had little if anything to do with the resentment.  It was really the tone and content of the preceding lecture, and the fact that was intent on making me change how I do something that is core to me, i.e. communicating with others.

The lecture was very humbling, and my ego clearly didn’t like it. After the spankings, it kept whispering in my ear why I was right and she was wrong.

Honestly, it felt a lot like being punished as a kid.  When has any teenager accepted responsibility after a hard scolding by a parent or other authority figure?  Didn’t we always assert we were right and the authority figure was being “unfair”?

 

In those days, even after a spanking, wasn't it rare that you really accepted you were wrong?  At best, you complied with the spanking and life went on.

In the end, the incident and my reaction to Anne cracking the whip and enforcing her expectations about something as fundamental as how I must talk to others served to drive home just how deep-seated my issues with authority are.  Given how negatively I react to being controlled, it's probably inevitable that Anne imposing real constraints in important areas will lead to resentment or feelings of “unfairness.” 

Part and parcel of accepting her authority is capitulating to it when I least want to do it. Really accepting it goes deeper, however.  It involves that epiphany happening when you accept not just the reality and inevitability of the authority, but that here exercising it and you accepting it are things are right. That it's what you asked for, what you want, and definitely what you need.

  

It’s hopefully a good sign that, while our second argument was far more heated than the first, I got over the resentment far more quickly and, importantly, within a couple of days I recognized that she's right that I have to accept some limits on how I communicate.  

I’m not going to lie – part of me does continue to really chafe at someone trying to censor the opinions I voice or how I voice them.

Yet, when I’m honest, I know my predicament is because of my own failure to impose some stricter “time, place and manner” restrictions on how I talk to others.  There's no doubt my failure to rein myself in at work led to a reputation for being “pugilistic.”

I’m quick to talk here about how much I want and need imposed guardrails, yet it’s also the case that I feel anger or resentment when they are imposed.  Which is, as ZM pointed out, the best indicator that they are real.

In those moments when they are the most real, I can’t help but have doubts about whether this is something I really want -- giving someone else the authority to set limits on my behavior, including behaviors that reflect an “essential part of [my] personality” as Wilde put it.   

But, when I have those doubts, I’m reminded of a comment from Danielle about  Anne imposing some limits around workplace socializing:

“You also seem to think that the following behaviors are not issues for couples who aren’t in FLR’s:

 

- coming home late for supper

- having a third drink at happy hour

- receiving texts from your wife asking you not to stay out late

 

If you think those aren’t bones of contention in non-FLR marriages, I think you are fooling yourself. Sure, lots of guys will ignore their wives’ nagging about such behavior, but many will likely have bitter arguments with their wives about it, and in the worst case such disputes can lead to marital breakdown. The only difference between a FLR and a regular marriage is that a wife in a FLR has more leverage to curb behaviors she doesn’t like.”

 

She really hit the nail on the head.  It wasn’t like we didn’t have arguments about things like my tendency to be domineering back before we discovered DD and FLR.  If anything, before DD those arguments happened more often, were more intense, and lasted longer.  

 

 

Where do things go from here? Well, I suspect this will be a “work in progress” for some time.  Anne and I both need to recognize a few, perhaps uncomfortable, truths.

 

First, the more often she uses her authority and the more often I give in, the more comfortable we both are going to get with it.  Practice makes perfect.  It’s a good reason for her to exercise her authority more often and on “small” things.

 

Second, there inevitably are going to be things that don’t feel “small” to one or both of us.  Hopefully, her practice with exercising authority on small things will pay off in exercising her authority more easily when emotions are running high.

 

Third, I need to accept, and learn to concede more quickly, that there are going to be times in this kind of relationship—one that I initiated and continue to want—when being bossed around is going to be emotionally uncomfortable for me. Put quite simply, I’m not always going to get what I want. Period.   

 

When that happens, we both need to accept that although resentment is inevitable, it’s her role to impose her authority and my role to comply, as difficult as that may be.  And, when there really are good reasons for her imposing the boundaries she’s imposing, then my resentment really is all about ego, isn't it?

 

What are your thoughts about this?  Does being disciplined, or having rules enforced, sometimes leave you feeling resentful?  What do you do when that happens?  Does it make your wife more reluctant to enforce her rules, or has she gotten comfortable with it? 

 

I hope you all have a great week.

 

(Probably) no post this week

 

Hi all.  I hope you're having a good weekend.  We have visitors this weekend and upcoming seek.  It's doubtful that I'll have time to post.  Enjoy the season.  If holiday parties are in store, be careful out there.