The Club - Meeting 428 - Consensual Non-Consent, Asking For It & Communication

“The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.” - Vince Lombardi

 

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 or Female Led Relationship.

 

I hope you had a good week. Things were relatively slow and uneventful here, other than I got pulled into some drama at my former gig, where I haven’t worked in almost two years.  I wouldn’t mention it, except it kind of bears on this week’s topic, which I’ll talk about later. 

 

One thing that did feel eventful was a change in the weather.  I know that Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter, but here winter decided to at least take a breather.  After weeks of bitter, snowy weather, I actually had to take my heavy coat off during dog walks this week.  I can’t say I minded the change, though this time last year I was bitching that we seldom seem to get real winters here anymore.

 

 

I also wanted to address the recent Google/Blogger changes that Donn flagged.  I’ve said before that Anne does sometimes read this blog, though I never really know when or how much.  Well, apparently it made it into her reading schedule last night, because she walked into our room and asked, “WTF?  Why do I suddenly need to login to view your blog?”  Good question.  It would be nice if Blogger would send its blog owners notices about this kind of shit but, of course, they never do.  It also says a lot that the company pulled this move--requiring having a Google login in order to simply view content, arguably locking in more consumers who may not want to give Google their information—at the same time they’re getting sued by the Justice Department for alleged antitrust violations and by the Europeans for violating privacy regulations.

 

I was already thinking about other platforms, and maybe this puts the nail in the coffin of my long-time Blogger relationship. It’s not so much this one move, as the fact that every few years Google decides to put the screws to producers of “adult content,” going so far a few times as announcing a ban.  While you’re always basically a tenant on any free platform, subject to the landlord’s whims, Google seems actually to act on those whims regularly and, as with this login change, unexpectedly.  For that reason, I’m playing around with a “beta” Wordpress version of this blog, though I’m finding Wordpress a much bigger pain in the ass to set up. Very simple things like creating a blogroll or listing of links in the sidebars seems to take me an hour to research.  Nothing is very intuitive.  But, I’m trying.  Then, I’m not sure whether I’ll try to keep the blog in two places, or commit to one and shut the other down.  It seems logical to do the latter, since having comments in two places would be a major pain and inhibit conversations.  Anyway . . . stay tuned. On to this week’s topic.

 

We’ve talked here often about issues around “asking for it,” with “it” being particular spankings, and related issues of consent, rules, and consensual non-consent.

 

We disciplined husbands often seem to have a big need for “authenticity.” We want real spankings.  We want them to be for real offenses.  And, we want them imposed in a way that feels like exactly that – like they are being imposed on us, whether we like it or not.

 

We talk about it in terms of “consensual non-consent” or, perhaps less controversially, “blanket consent.”  We consent to the disciplinary relationship as a whole, and perhaps to the rules that govern it, but we don’t want to have a choice on whether particular spankings are given within that context.  In fact, many if not most of us say that we want her to have the sole discretion to determine whether a spanking has been earned.  

 

Some of us take it even further and say that once we’ve consented to having the disciplinary relationship, she can take a “for any reason” approach.  We consent, but it’s a very broad form.  Basically, we’re consenting to her using her best judgment.

 

In an ideal world, we’d like her to use that discretion fairly but rigorously, erring on the side of strict enforcement of the rules.

 

If there are any formal rules. Many (not all) of us are comfortable with the idea that, like a parent, she’s not confined to punishing only those things that the offender agrees should be punishable. Rather, she can determine in the moment what is spankable.

 

In fact, we would kind of like to be left out of the decision-making process as much as possible. If she is constantly seeking our agreement on whether something should be punished, then who is really in control?  Remember that need for authenticity I talked about?  Does it feel like an authentic imposed punishment if you have much say over the “why, when, and how” questions?

 

 

Yet, there are times when such a wide-open grant of discretion is a problem.  Maybe she’s shown that in certain limited areas, her judgment isn’t always state of the art.  Or, maybe the way the way she’s using her discretion strikes too closely to a core identity issue.  Or, perhaps it’s having social or personal consequences she’s not thinking through.

 

Conversely, maybe the current application of discipline—whether agreed upon or imposed, may be proving to be too lax. Or, maybe something is going on inside his head that she may not be aware of that he may think really needs to be dealt with more strictly, whether in this one instance or more systematically.  Even if both parties prefer her to be in control, maybe he needs to be able to “ask for it” when needed.

 

This came up for me this week in a concrete way.  Anne and I have gone back and forth a lot over the years about what the approach should be to my alcohol consumption, with everything from numerical limits to bans on drinking at home. Such rule-based limits and bans just never seemed to work, to some extent because work and social drinking situations varied so much.  And, as I’ve said, perhaps because it is so easy to say that some arbitrary number is “too much,” Anne has tended to kind of over-rotate on alcohol issues, spanking for them way more often than for other behavior even though other issues—like being disrespectful or communicating poorly or offensively (see last week’s post)—affect her much more personally.

 

Things kind of came to a head over the holidays when we were hanging out with other family members, with everyone drinking. Everyone had a good time and there was zero bad behavior on my part. Yet, the next day Anne suggested that maybe I should be spanked simply because I—along with everyone else—had several drinks. 

 

It was part of one of those big arguments I referenced a few weeks ago.  I basically blew up that she was tightening the screws in the context of a social event in which my behavior was exactly on par with everyone else’s and absolutely nothing had gone wrong. I let her know that if that was going to be the rule, then I’d just start refusing invitations to hang out with friends or family, because she couldn’t expect me to socialize freely with drinkers when the line between “okay” and “not okay” seemed to be totally arbitrary.

 

I told her that my view was that alcohol in itself isn’t the problem.  It’s the bad behavior that rarely, but sometimes, goes along with it.  If such bad behavior happened, then it should be spankable.  If it didn’t, then it really should be “no harm, no foul.”

 

 

That seemed like a workable compromise, and I think she agreed.  But, now I’m kind of backtracking.  Not on the part about bad behavior should be spankable but, rather, about whether consuming “too much” should earn a spanking even in the absence of some glaringly bad behavior.

 

It’s about something we talk about here frequently – guardrails.  I also sometimes use the word “boundaries,” but I’ve been thinking lately there is a subtle difference.  A boundary seems more like an externally imposed standard that could be entirely arbitrary; if you step over it, there are consequences even if the behavior didn’t harm anyone or have any negative impact on the relationship. 

 

A guardrail seems more like something that isn’t designed to stop movement that is good or non-destructive.  To the contrary, it's about allowing the driver a lot of autonomy when it comes to setting speed and direction, but also providing for a warning or course correction if things seem to be getting out of hand in a way that looks like it easily could become destructive.

 

However, sometimes I am the only one who can tell when things are starting to feel a little out of control.  Also, sometimes things that aren’t problematic in and of themselves have a way of accumulating into an unhealthy pattern.  Sometimes I need those things to be nipped in the bud even if they haven’t yet reached the level of a real problem.  I’ve learned from painful experience that about the time I decide I’m doing fine on my own and may have outgrown the need for DD, something usually blows up in spectacular fashion. 

 

Yet, I still don’t want to go back to Anne exercising unfettered discretion in this one area, because for all her great judgment, she does seem to over-rotate on this one issue.

 

What’s the solution?  Well, I think like a lot of things with couples in the “real world,” expanding communication might help a lot.

 

In most areas, I do still like the notions of “consensual non-consent” and “anytime, anywhere, for any reason.” Therefore, I continue to think it should be our baseline rule.

 

However, since setting the right bar around alcohol has proven to be so challenging, there needs to be a carve-out for that one.  The baseline rule we came up with around spanking only if there was other bad behavior at issue still seems to me to be a wise one.  But, if either of us sees a potential pattern developing, that should be discussed.  It could include things like:

 

·      if I blow my usual pattern of not drinking a majority of days each week even if none were really excessive;

·      if I have multiple weeks in a row in which I have even one objectively excessive night, even without other behavioral problems;

·      feeling bad enough the next day I skip a workout or otherwise limit my activities;

·      I stay up later than some pre-set time (11:30 or 12:00?)

 

The point being, there are signs a pattern might be developing and might need to be nipped in the bud. 

 

January was kind of the poster child for what I’m talking about.  The month started out great, with no drinking at all the first week. Then, we had family in town and had a night or two where everyone was drinking a fair amount. Then, two weeks ago I skied with a friend, and we had too many beers the night before and quite a few the following day.   

 

 

That incident really illustrates the problem.  I actually had a great time with that friend and, given that reconnecting with friends was a big goal for me in 2023, I’m not sorry at all that we connected over beer.  But, in the larger context of the month, it could be part of a pattern that I don’t want to extent into February.

 

Therefore, if there are times when some of those other indicia of a pattern are emerging, or if I just feel like things may be getting out of control, I feel like I need to be able to affirmatively ask for one. 

 

Now, whether I actually will when confronted with the prospect is a whole other matter.  For that reason, she too should be able to raise it as an issue.  Perhaps, instead of the “for any reason” default rule, she could come to me and say, “Here are the facts I’ve seen lately.  My inclination is to spank you for it. But, if you disagree, here’s your chance to make your case.”  It’s kind of like what she did a week ago, but in that case she asked my opinion only about whether the facts as she described them.  In this case, she could also ask me my opinion on whether a spanking is merited, though my view might not be binding.

 

 

These issues around consent are tricky, but so are the issues around asking for it.  I know ZM has said his wife doesn’t want to be asked.  Anne said that too, though it was several years ago.  I haven’t followed up to see what she feels these days.  And, even if she were more open to it today, I still think things work better when she’s making most of the determinations on her own.  So, even if I were to start asking, or reporting more knowing that the result would be the same, I still think I would want to limit it in such a way that she still had far more control than I did.

 

I don’t have a specific topic around this but welcome any thoughts or reactions.

 

Speaking of alcohol, I burst out laughing the first time I saw this meme and still do every time I stumble across it in my collection.