"The ability to have a choice in what you do is a privilege.” - Anton Yelchin
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 Female Led (FLR) relationships.
Once again, before we get started, I would like to thank the female commenters who have recently joined us and to extend an invitation to all others who may be inclined to move from “lurker” to “commenter” status. We like having you around.
I hope you all had a great week. Ours was, honestly, not so great. I got covid and flu shots at the end of last week. The day of, and the day after, I felt fine. Then, two full days later I got what felt like a full-on case of the real flu, complete with fever, chills, body aches, etc. It left me pretty sapped for a couple of days.
Then, Anne and I got into a real row that began with something I said that probably was sarcastic and unsupportive, but I also felt like the reaction was over the top. The details aren’t important and, honestly, I’m not sure they even mattered that much at the time. We’ve basically been stuck together at home for the better part of two months, which probably made some kind of blow up inevitable, especially given my introverted inclinations that tend to go into full meltdown mode if I don’t get time to totally to myself (though dogs are allowed), every few weeks.
I feel like being housebound also inhibited my enjoyment of Halloween a bit, though honestly that feel probably had more to do with the fact that until about a week ago, it still felt like summer around here. The day of Halloween I did see this picture of a lawn display that totally cracked me up. I swear I’m going to buy a riding lawn mower next year just to replicate it.
Before we get started, those of you in U.S. please, please, please remember to get out and vote if you haven’t already done so. The quote at the top of the page is one I’ve used before to reinforce a DD-related message, but this time it’s about remembering how privileged we are in having our election-related choices, even if some rounds those choices are more attractive than others.
We had a good discussion last week regarding DD’s efficacy in dealing with “big” issues. What it reinforced for me was how differently we each define “big.” But, I don’t think anyone was of the opinion that DD can’t address bigger issues, though several agreed with me that it might require taking things up a notch with respect to consistency and/or severity.
A few weeks ago, Norton suggested this topic:
"One topic we may want to discuss is how much self-disclosure we do. That is an issue I am dealing with now, as last week I did something she wouldn't have approved of, but I haven't mentioned yet. It will probably come up during our next check in, which is tomorrow.”
I thought we had done this one pretty recently but, when I reviewed past topics, it’s been at least a year since we dealt with this one directly. It’s probably tangentially related to my posts this spring about our check-ins for helping me get “unstuck” on life goals, but they aren’t quite the same thing. So, let’s do it again.
Self-reporting, and its twin—asking for a spanking directly to address a particular incident—is something that always seems beneficial to me in theory but I really struggle to implement in practice. I know that it almost certainly would help with consistency, which has been our DD’s historical weak point, yet when push comes to shove, I have a really hard time reporting bad behavior in a straightforward matter, let alone coming right out and asking for a spanking even when I know I richly deserve one.
Why? Well, the easy reason would, of course, be that spankings hurt a lot and, thus, I really don’t want to bring one on myself. And, that really is what I would be doing if I made a habit of self-reporting. The closest I come is probably when journaling, and even there it’s sometimes hard to be fully honest about all relevant behavior, and harder still to come out and ask for or suggest one, even though for all intents and purposes that’s what I’m doing.
Although an obvious answer, I don’t think that the pain of a prospective spanking really gets at the heart of my reluctance. Instead, I think I find a direct, face-to-face confession of bad behavior to be very humbling, in a way that exceeds the spanking itself.
The fact that I’m confessing something means
I know I did something wrong, and admitting it straightforwardly and in person
emphasizes a failure, whether that failure is meeting some personal standard,
or an agreed-upon rule, or simply a failure to obey something she has told me
to do or not do. I see myself as a high-performance person, and having to confess to a specific problem demonstrates that, in that particular case, I didn't live up to a standard, whether mine or hers.
In the past, I also saw self-reporting or, as Norton called it, “self-disclosure” as potentially undermining my deep-seated need to have the sense that she is imposing discipline on me, as opposed to accommodating my request for it.
But, I’ve kind of come around on that one. Around this time last year, TB posted something regarding his wife’s expectations that really stuck with me for a while. He said:
“I now explicitly 'own up' to failings and request that she addresses them via a spanking has moved her sense of power and control (she says) to a new level. If I miss anything she will point it out during the pre-spanking 'talk'.
I was a little surprised that his wife felt a greater sense of power and control, since some might see it as him controlling the process more via reporting and asking for a spanking. He explained:
“The only behaviors that she is interested in punishing me for are disrespect, moodiness, etc. - behaviors that impact her directly. She is, therefore, already aware of anything that I 'own up' to (and would usually take action to address either specifically or as a general 'reset').
She does see that my recognizing and admitting to the behavior before she takes action is another level of submission and self-awareness. In fact, although we have only been using this approach for a number of weeks, if I don’t ‘own up’ to some failing that was obvious to both of us, she will take extra spanking time to highlight that particular issue. A virtuous circle of sorts, in that I am encouraged to document my own failings even though I am aware of the consequences, because if I don't there is a very good chance that the next spanking session will be increased to cover the omission.
She is a big fan of the new approach, and she enjoys matching my journal view of my behavior with her own recollections. She also feels that it takes some of the pressure off her in deciding if/when a spanking is due. It helps me in that I dislike the delay & uncertainty between offense & punishment - if punishment is due then I am always keen to get it over and done with. My behavior has definitely been better for the past few weeks, mainly because I now feel that if I misbehave, I have to submit a 'confession'.
In theory tattling on myself does leave me in control. Yet, what TB says resonates with me. The plain fact is, telling on myself ramps of the feeling of vulnerability. Also, I’ve always said that DD works better when the consequences seem to arise inevitably from the behavior, and it’s certainly true that in confessing I make receiving the consequences much more inevitable.
Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising that in those very rare instances when I have not only disclosed something that but suggested it should be punished, I have felt less in control, not more so. And, in the tiny number of instances in which I have flat-out asked her, in person, to spanking me for something, I felt very vulnerable and not at all in control. So, for me this a concrete example of why I hate the BDSM concept of "topping from the bottom" as applied to DD, especially when it is suggested that confessing for asking for a punishment constitutes such "topping" behavior. There really isn't a time when I feel less in control than when I confess to something she didn't know about or suggest that something that probably was not going to earn a spanking really should. To me, that's simply laying out the information, then letting fate take over from there.
I’ve also had some recent experiences, in a currently non-DD context, that highlight some of the complex psychology at work in self-reporting. A few weeks ago, in response to one of Jackson’s comments regarding drinking, I said that I had been using an app that is popular in the “conscious drinking” movement, where the goal isn’t so much to stop but to moderate by making more fully-aware choices. It’s a pretty robust service. At the beginning of each week, I enter into a plan for each day, including goals for the number of dry days and specific limits on non-dry days. Each afternoon, I get a text reminding me what the goal was for that day. Every morning, I get a text asking how many I had the day before. Every week, in preparing the weekly plan, I get a report of how I did for the preceding week and (supposedly) AI-generated suggestions for the upcoming week.
The thing I found the most interesting was how resistant I was initially to reporting honestly when I had failed by exceeding a daily goal. I’d get that text in the morning and, particularly if the failure was a big one, I’d struggle hard with being completely honest.
Now, the only one getting my “self-disclosure” was some computer program, and the summary reports went only to me, and there was no adverse consequence associated with any part of this reporting. Yet, I still really struggled to answer honestly! I’ve made myself do it, and it’s gotten easier over time, but I am fascinated by how hard it was even in the absence of an actual consequence, such as a hard spanking.
And, the app has objectively helped in lowering my number of drinking days (though they were far less than daily already) and, to a lesser extent, the number of drinks on those days There is a principle in psychology called the Hawthorne Effect, which documents how people change their behavior simply by virtue of knowing that the behavior is being observed. To some extent, that’s probably what’s going on with this drinking app, even though the only “observer” is a computer. Yet, I think it is actually something about the whole reporting process and the way it forces me to regularly think about my own behavior and set related goals.
Notice that the app has a few features that probably enhance the power of reporting. It is consistent. Every day, I get a reminder. More importantly, every day I have to engage actively with the process by providing information. It is also certain. If I answer honestly, I get a report that lays out the monthly calendar identifying how I did each day, and if I make bad choices it will be an ugly picture, even if I’m the only one that sees it.
The one thing it lacks is anything resembling coercive, adverse feedback, like a spanking. In fact, kind of the opposite. On good days and weeks, it provides some positive textual pats on the back, and on “failed” days it tells you not to judge yourself to harshly and encourages you to get up and try again. Honestly, I think it would work better if, at some point, the message would get a bit more “in your face,” like “Hey, that’s the third fail in two weeks. Are you even really trying? Get on it.”
Circling back to this week’s bad behavior with Anne, I do think that having to affirmatively ask for a spanking would add a significant deterrent to future bad behavior. Like TB’s wife, she obviously knows that the bad behavior (our argument) happened, so self-disclosure wouldn’t add anything in and of itself. But, it could add a lot if she told me that she expects to come ask for a spanking to deal with it. (Setting aside whether that’s physically doable right now; though it’s definitely getting closer if not there yet.) Outside the context of something big, like a fight, I've wondered whether it would add a distinct humbling element to our usual DD rituals if, instead of her telling me when to get ready for my spanking, she ordered that one would happen over a given day or two, but left it to me to come in and ask for it when I was ready. Honestly, just writing about the prospect gives me butterflies in my stomach.
Anyway, I’m interested to year your answers about how often you self-disclose and whether that self-disclosure rises to something like TB describes in which you are expected to not only ‘own up’ to the misbehavior but suggest or ask for a spanking to deal with. If she requires self-disclosure of some sort, what is the consequence for failing to do it?
And, again, get out there and vote.
