The Club - Meeting 483 - Who is really in control? Safewards and, Conversely, Restraints?

“A kite needs to be tied down in order to fly. I learned how important restrictions can sometimes be in order to experience freedom.” - Damien Rice

 

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 our female readers to move from “lurker” to “commenter” status. We miss having you around.

 

In that vein, welcome to MC and AE, Disciplinary Wives who over the last week or two have decided to join in our discussions.  Welcome! 

I hope you all had a good week.  This summer has been all about ramping up my life-long motorcycle fetish, and this week was no exception.  I won’t go into the details, but I ended up calling it quits a day early, which is why I am able to get around to posting this weekend.  I felt like I needed a breather.  And, I'm still feeling the effects of an injury from my other recent adventure trip and strongly suspect I have a surgery in my near future.  Oh well.  . . .  Motorcycles may not be exactly safe, but I can think of more dangerous pursuits at this age.

 

Any way, on to this week's topic. It's a two-parter.  As you'll see below, the second part was suggested by a couple of reader comments, including one from the newly joined MC.  But, I didn't have a lot of material with which to turn it into a full post, and these to parts seem to me to fit together naturally.  

 

The first part is basically a verbatim re-posting of a topic from five years ago.

 

That topic is “safewords.”  Here is how an urban dictionary entry describes it: “In BDSM, begging to stop increases pleasure and reality. A safeword is used to actually mean "stop", since screams for stopping aren't sincere. The safeword is usually a normal word, like "pink", "banana", or "door" and is determined before starting play.”

 

 

While safewords may seem like a pretty straightforward topic, unlike in the BDSM context where they seem to be treated as more or less mandatory, in DD there are some layers to peel back.

 

 “Consent,” "consensual non-consent," and true non-consent have been on my mind a lot lately.  I’ve always known that part of what initially attracted me to DD was the prospect of losing control to someone or, more accurately, having control taken away from me. 

 

When I discovered the Disciplinary Wives Club, the stories that appealed to me most were those in which the corporal punishment regimen was imposed by the wife, as opposed to initiated at the husband’s request.

 

Similarly, stories in which a spanking goes on way past the husband’s self-perceived limits were and are morbidly attractive to me. 

 

Being spanked when I really, truly do not want to be has always been part of the perverse appeal Domestic Discipline has for me.  Same with being taken way past the point of mere discomfort, to the point that it feels like I simply cannot take anymore.  Yet, take it I must.

 

 

Safewords are not part of our relationship and never have been. To me, they are inconsistent with my need for disciplinary spankings to be as “real” as we, as consenting adults, can contrive.

 

With a safeword, I would remain in control, and that is the exact opposite of what I want.  For us, spanking is all about accountability, consequences, punishment, and payback.  Giving me the ability to shorten the duration of a spanking or lessen its severity by simply uttering an agreed-upon word or phrase seems inconsistent with those motivations. This cartoon from KD Pierre illustrates it nicely.

 

For us, the whole point of DD is putting my butt's fate in her hands, letting her decide when enough is enough, and making sure that some punishments are way more than I want to repeat. 

 

Now, that doesn’t mean a spanking should ever be pushed to a place where it is unsafe or risks causing real injury.  But, for us, a safeword isn’t necessary even in that context.   

 

 

We have been married for a third of a century. We’ve been doing Domestic Discipline for almost 20 years.  We know each other’s actions and reactions so well, if I felt something was really wrong, I’d just say so.  There is no doubt in my mind that she would pause and, if something was wrong, stop the spanking.

 

Also don’t tend to verbalize a lot during spankings, at least not with words.  I do plenty of grunting, groaning and yelping, but I don’t beg her to stop.  Now, we’ve talked a bit about me vocalizing more, and maybe if we did a safeword would minimize confusion. On the other hand, I feel like I can accomplish the same thing simply no not saying “Stop, something is wrong!”   

 

What do you think?  Yes or no on safe words?  Are there some situations (medical emergency, real injury, etc.) where it is appropriate but others (the spanking just hurts a lot) where it is just trying to avoid the punishment itself and should not be allowed?  If you do use one, care to share what it is?

 

Safewords are all about empowering the recipient to end a spanking on their terms.  Last week, a couple of comments related to the converse, i.e. doing something to control a spanking recipient who may be struggling to take what he knows he is due.

 

 

In discussing some modifications he made to a dining table, Adek had the following topic suggestion:

 

“We have solid oak dining table with very chunky legs. I made some minor modifications (a couple of eye hooks hidden under the table top) as the biggest issue with me is moving when receiving a spanking. The idea was that with legs secured at the knees to the table legs and hands cuffed and secured to the eye hooks this would prevent moving. I’m also fascinated by the description here where a the woman is able to give the larger man a severe spanking despite apparent resistance. https://www.spankinglife.com/how-i-spank-my-husband. I think restraints and restraining are very interesting as removing the husband’s ability to resist for me would seem very humbling and step up the realism of a punishment.

 

Later in the week, MC described her preferred spanking furniture set up:

 

I tend to use a backless wooden barstool. I can drape my husband over it in either direction, and he can hold onto the cross bars to support himself. I have a long belt that can go around him and the seat to hold him in place, but I only use it occasionally. For our respective heights, it works well, as his bottom is stable and I have room for a good swing.

 

Late this week, AE also brought up restraints, noting that she and her husband do not use them, as she expects him to hold still and cooperate without them.

 

To me, using restraints to immobilize the spankee is the converse of using a safeword.  Restraints emphasize that the spankee is not in control and does not get to get up or thrash around in a physical declaration that he has had enough.

 

 

Yet, even though I do crave being taken outside of my comfort zone, restraints aren’t a part of our DD practice.

 

We did experiment with them a few times. I bought some cuffs that attached to a strap and a small bar that could be used to secure the cuffs to the top or bottom of a door.  When the kids were young, we would often conduct discipline sessions in the basement, after they were bed.  There was a large storage closet that was accessed through a door in the basement bathroom, which provided a double layer of security and sound-proofing.  We experimented with draping me over a small foot stool, binding my hands in front of me with the cuffs and securing them to the underside of the door using the attached strap and bar. 

 

Given that it did render me pretty helpless, I thought it would add to the sense of being completely under her control, subject to whatever severity and length of spanking she chose to deliver, whether I agreed with it or not.

 

For whatever reason, it didn’t have the anticipated psychological impact.  Perhaps my lack of emotional reaction is rooted in the same dynamic that has always led me to reject safewords:  No matter how hard the spanking, I’ve never tried to resist by thrashing around to get out of position.

 

Now, if I did, I would want her to solve that in some concrete way, perhaps something like the belt MC sometimes uses to secure her husband to the bar stool.

 

But, I don’t think we would use something like the cuffs again.  Over the last couple of years, we’ve simplified the whole spanking “ritual” a lot and, as I explained last week, I think that’s been a good thing in that it has encouraged consistency and frequency. Cuffs and elaborate restraints are a complication I don’t think either of us would really want.

 

 And, of course, there is nothing that says being restrained requires a piece of equipment.  While Anne has never actually used it with me, I find the whole “arm behind the back” thing perversely attractive.

 

Perhaps augmented with a leg-lock.  

 

 

Or, for those who have experienced or fantasized about witnesses, perhaps those witnesses could have a more active role in securing cooperation? (I realize that's probably not quite the scenario depicted in this drawing, but I like it a lot and wanted an excuse to use it.)

How about you?  Have you ever been tied down or restrained during a spanking or restrained your partner, whether with implements like straps, belts or ropes  or using body positioning like an arm or leg lock?  Are restraints--implements or bodily--part of your usual routine or reserved for certain occasions, such as when a spanking is going to be especially severe or the recipient is already sore from a previous session?

Does the recipient have a strong emotional or psychological response to being restrained? Does it make the spanker feel more powerful or in control?

 

Have a good week.