The Club - Meeting 459 - Moving Goalposts, Severity, and Getting What You Really Don't Want

“Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.” - Salvador Dali

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly meeting of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline and/or Female Led (FLR) relationships.

 

Once again, before we get started, I would like to extend a specific invitation to any of our female readers, if they still exist, to move from “lurker” to “commenter” status. While I’ve always said the blog is open to both men and women, one of our commenters suggested I expressly invite our female readers to join the discussion.  Please consider the invitation enthusiastically extended. 

  

I hope you all had a good week and are making it through, and maybe even enjoying, all that holiday socializing and shopping.  For me, it was a week in which I felt a little of my mojo return, mojo being in this case a euphemism for both erotic energy and interest in all things Domestic Discipline.  Not that we engaged in any actual disciplinary or FLR-related activities, but at least it was on my mind again.

 

Some of it probably is just part of the recovery process post-illness. But, it’s also not lost on me that my interest level in DD jumped by virtue of writing about it.  It’s a good reason to try to exercise some discipline around posting regularly, even when I really don’t feel like it.

 

One area where my interest level is still at a surprisingly low ebb is the whole Christmas season. This is usually my favorite time of year, hands down.  This year, for some reason I just don’t have a lot of enthusiasm.  I’ve talked to others who are feeling the same way. It’s not really about being down on the season but, rather, feeling the need for something . . . smaller.  Less hectic.  Less complicated.

 

Of course, I’m enough of an introvert that I must ask myself whether by smaller and less hectic, I really just mean I don’t want to be around people! Thankfully, now that we are both retired, there is so little on our holiday social calendar, it’s not like I really need a break from the party scene.  One bright spot, I guess, is that maybe there will be no need for preventative butt blisterings to keep me in line.

 

 

While my disciplinary mojo is, indeed, edging back up, I can’t say I’ve had any sudden flashes of inspiration for novel topics. So, instead, I thought we could riff a little more on some of last week’s comments.

 

Let’s kick it off with this from KOJ:

 

“Here's a paradox in the first years of our DD (until I was well-trained): the better I responded to my wife's spankings, the more spankings I got!

Why? Two reasons: One, she saw that they worked to improve my attitude and subdue my male ego, but I still had a long way to go in her eyes. And two, she saw that spankings worked so she kept adding issues covered by DD. First it was all about respecting her. Then she added treating the kids better. Then she added respecting others. Then she added punctuality. Then she added my drinking. Then she added picking up after myself. Then she added actual chores. Then she added procrastination. On and on -- a seeming receding horizon of new issues that guaranteed me an almost constant sore backside for a decade. And she was right about every single issue.”

For those of you who have been in this kind of relationship for a while, has it worked that way for you, too? When you think you’ve improved to the point that discipline might not be necessary at all, does she move the goalposts?  Or, is it the case that regardless of whether you improve in certain areas, new problematic behaviors tend to arise?

 

For us, it’s kind of a combination.  My proclivity for overdoing it when socializing hasn’t changed much over the years.  But, this year was the first in which she focused increasing attention on “respect for others,” in the context of that socializing.  Probably the second worst spanking, and definitely the worst lecture, of the year resulted from what she saw as overbearing behavior at a dinner with another couple.  She also spanked me for an argument we got into, but it wasn’t so much the argument itself but the fact that she felt I had let something irritate me for a long time and then exploded, which was unfair to her because had I been more open about the situation sooner, she could have dealt with it without all the drama.  

Those developments may have been somewhat similar to the process KOJ described.  But, then there were the repeated spankings and threats of spankings for leaving the garage door open and failing to lock the front door.  Those were new-ish instances of carelessness on my part, and not really her paying new attention to an existing problem.

 

Then, there was this series of exchanges between K., GH and me:

 

K: The first time she did it [gave a post-orgasm punishment spanking] the anticipation was exciting, but that was only because I had no real idea what I was in for. Any physical pleasure is over very quickly. She has me use her vibrator, which gets the job done in no time. I've usually lost most of any erection I had by the time my pants are down, but the vibrator still gets through. What follows is pure punishment, with no sexual edge at all. There's no sexual element to counter the pain or energize me through it. Usually she uses a rubber strap that hurts like hell even with a warm up (and I definitely get no warm up if I'm being punished). There is absolutely nothing you would confuse with fun or sexiness about the whole ordeal. After considerable time passes, I can look back on it and feel warm and grateful, because I LOVE being in a relationship where my wife has that authority and isn't afraid to use it. But her punishments are something I've learned to fear and avoid, not be aroused by. So they work.

 

Me:  I go back and forth on whether a true punishment can still be "too much." I do feel like there is an important mental element of accepting accountability. During a hard spanking, I will sometimes remind myself that I put myself in this position and could avoid such pain by behaving better in the future. But, I've found that with some instruments--those rubber straps in particular--the pain was so extreme that all such thoughts were driven from my brain as I simply tried to gut it out. On the other hand, one could argue that a very painful punishment has a purpose regardless of whether you "accept" it in the moment. In fact, maybe it reinforces that if she is really in charge she can and should punish whether you "accept" it or not. As I said, I go back and forth on it.

 

K: Basically, our disciplinary relationship is "she's my disciplinarian, even - maybe especially - if I'm not into it at the time."

 

That thread touches on areas that I’ve thought about quite a bit this year, as Anne has gotten stricter in some areas.  The incident that triggered those thoughts wasn’t directly about spanking.  Rather, it had to do with one of those hard lectures I referred to above.  That one, and another that came within a few weeks of it, caused me to feel resentful for quite some time.  I started to get past that only after I talked to Aunt Kay’s husband, and he said something to the effect of, “Well, a real, tough scolding is hard to take. It just is.” 

 

The more I thought about it, the more I started to understand at a deep level that the emotions I was feeling were a demonstration that we had hit one of those milestones in which the transfer of authority, the imposition of a distinct hierarchy with her at the top, became more real.  The scolding stung precisely because it was real and angry and took me down a peg or three.

 

K.’s discussion was about the severity of the spanking and not a scolding, but the principle is similar.  You know the authority and the discipline are real when they happen regardless of whether you are “into it at the time” or regardless of whether the severity is way more than you would choose if you had any control over it.  The fact that you don’t have any control over it is what makes it more real.

 

When I look back, I think many—probably too many—of my conversations with Anne have included feedback about whether something “worked for me” or not.  This year, I started thinking a lot more about the fact that it’s when it her approach is not working for me, when I am feeling the most emotionally upset or resistant, that it’s actually doing its best work.

 

 

That same point carries over to seemingly more pedestrian, less philosophical issues like the choice of implements and whether some are just “too” severe. I really do go back and forth on that, as noted in my exchange with K.  I do feel like really absorbing (no pun intended) the lesson she is trying to impart requires me to think about why the spanking is happening, how I got myself into this, how I could avoid a similar one in the future, etc.  With certain instruments, that whole mental process of accepting responsibility and really meaning to do better goes right out the window. The pain is just so sudden and so severe that I go into a “man up” attitude that is all about not surrendering and, instead, trying to get it out and get through it by any means necessary.

 

 But, then there are times where I wonder, are there certain punishments for things like repeated instances of the same behavior, where that kind of severe punishment is not only merited but might be the only approach that’s really merited.  A spanking like that may not really be so much about deterrence—though it could be just want is needed for that purpose—but about pure punishment.  Or, maybe it is still about deterrence but it’s about her being willing to escalate to something that just hurts so fucking bad that you will do anything to avoid a repeat session. 

 

I don’t have a lot to add in terms of a specific topic, so take it any direction that seems fitting.

 

Even if I’m having a bit of a hard time fully embracing the Christmas spirit, I hope that’s not true for all of you. Enjoy the season. But behave yourself or suffer the consequences!