The Club Meeting 424 - Needs, wants and usefullness

“Desire is in men a hunger, in women only an appetite.” - Mignon McLaughlin

 

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.  For me, so far so good in terms of no flagrant behavioral breakdowns or resolution breaking.  I shouldn’t be so excited about making it a whopping week, and yet in past years, it hasn’t taken more than that to screw up in some significant way at least once.

 

Several of us also seem to share some post-Christmas fitness and weight loss goals.  Here's hoping we all meet them.

And, ZM has resolved to stop looking at women’s butts, while I refuse to make any such commitment.

 

 

It seems like many of us share a resolution or goal around wanting to crank up the intensity of discipline or FLR, however we each may define “intensity.”  It’s interesting, but in the roughly 11 years that I’ve been running this blog, I can think of maybe one instance in which a commenter said they are in a DD relationship and wished his wife was less demanding, less strict, less consistent, etc. Which is a segue into this captioned resolution photo and into this week's topic.

 

A couple of weeks ago, during the Q&A session, Donn raised this question, while suggesting it probably was too broad for that session and, instead, merited a full-topic discussion:

 

“My wife suggested a question (more likely a "subject") that she is interested in learning more about. It is not something that can likely be answered with just a "sentence or two," so it may require an entire week's discussion. This is for the men . . . "Do you believe you have a "need" for Domestic Discipline (DD)? Or rather, is DD "useful" in your relationship, but you could (psychologically) "prosper" and "happily live" your life without it? "All sorts of people have tried to define what are "truly human needs," and many people make a point of contradicting people when they claim something is one of their own personal "needs." We're not interested in anyone else's definition of a "need;" every person has to define for themselves what their own needs truly are (and their decisions should be respected). So, . . . "How do you, personally, know what you feel is a "need" for Domestics Discipline?" Thanks everyone, and have a great New Year!”

 

I can kick things off and give my answer here within the body of the post.

 

For me, it’s hard to separate out “need” from “useful,” or “need” from “want.”  Probably because there are multiple meanings of “need,” which can overlap to the point of fully encompassing or being encompassed by concepts like “want” or “useful.”

 

 

I have a really hard time distinguishing between “need” and “want” because they are more or less the same thing, different in degree not kind.  In fact, one of the Merriam-Webster definitions of “need” is “an urgent want.”

 

I have seen one effort at line drawing that I felt was somewhat helpful to me in analyzing why each of us wants this thing we do.  It comes from Jillian Keenan’s book Sex With Shakespeare, in which she discusses her own spanking needs.  She distinguishes between a “kink” and a “fetish” in a way that I think correlates at least loosely, with the difference between a want and a need.  According to Jillian:

 

“Plenty of vanilla people explore kink as an accessory to sex. The difference is that fetishists explore sex as an accessory to kink. Our fetish is our baseline. It is our first, and most fundamental, need. This is about identities, not activities.”

 

She goes onto explain that if she had to choose between spanking and sex, she would choose spanking, because in some real sense spanking is her core expression of sexuality.

 

By that standard, I plainly am someone who has a kinky interest that I want to fulfill, not a fetish that I need to fulfill.  If forced to choose between sex and spanking, sex would win hands down.  Another way of illustrating the difference might be that if Anne ever decided she didn’t want to do Domestic Discipline anymore, I wouldn’t be happy about it but I could easily live without it. It simply isn’t core to my identity in the way it is to some people.

 

I also have a hard time distinguishing between “need” and “useful” because, again, the definitions aren’t all that separable.  Another Merriam-Webster definition of “need” is “a lack of something requisite, desirable, or useful.” 

 

I think that definition also brings into play the question of “need” from whose perspective?  I sometimes want a spanking but I often don’t, while my wife would probably say that while I might not want one I desperately need it, in the sense that one is requisite, desirable, useful, or has been fully earned.

 

 

Getting past the dictionary definitions down to brass tacks, my answer to whether I have a “need” for DD or, rather, find it useful, it’s not an either/or. Instead, there are really three overlapping answers.

 

First, in terms of my own desires and needs, I certainly want the lifestyle and at times that wanting has been more or less urgent.  Yet, to use Donn’s words, I could prosper and happily live my life without it. 

 

Second, there are times that from my perspective I need a spanking in the sense that it is helpful or useful in maintaining boundaries or in “cleaning the slate” after some bad behavior.  My wife would agree that I often “need” it in that sense of it being requisite or what accountability and justice require.

 

Third, it does serve “useful” purposes for both me, Anne, and the relationship itself.

 

 That’s about the best I can do.

 

Also, during the Q&A session, Alan asked about dildos and pegging.  Fortuitously, I saw this meme last week, which seems directly on point.

 

Have a great week.