The Club - Meeting 500 - Community-Based Spanking Discipline and a Real DWC Club

Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we keep fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness.” ― John Updike

 

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 (in the U.S.) had a great Thanksgiving and are getting a good start on a long holiday weekend. It’s never been one of my favorite holidays, but ours was good; a short trip, some time with extended family, and a short trip home.

 

We might kick off a bit of a milestone - 500 posts!  I'd make a bigger deal out of it, except that we really passed that milestone a long time ago, when you consider how many "no post this week" posts ended up with lots of comments and great discussions. But, in any event, thanks again to all of you who have stuck around for so long, regardless of how many it's actually been.

 

I expect this could a pretty quiet weekend here on the forum.  So, I decided to post a little early, given that some may be traveling over the weekend, and because I may be tied up tomorrow.  But, even if many are out and about, some trying not to get spanked, and some thinking about the ones they already earned, let's try to get a conversation going.

On that preliminary note, we are heading into the season where both preventative and deserved punishment spankings tend to spike.  If that was part of your Thanksgiving experience, please help out the more voyeuristic among us.  Give us some details!

 

Second, this may be less a well-defined topic than conveying my own recent reaction to an old comment and satisfying my curiosity as to others’ reactions.

 

As part of my recent review and culling of some old blog comments, I came across this one from Aunt Kay’s husband, known as Tomy here and as Jerry within the DWC.  In a comment from a years back, he reflected on this memory from the DWC:

 

"When Aunt Kay held her occasional Couples Gathering, the high point was the Confessional sessions. The men would bring a written description of something they craved punishment for and release from. They were completely confidential.

 

She studied them and then assigned each man to a different wife who would discuss the confession and administer the spanking. Believe me. The women took their responsibilities seriously.

 

The therapeutic result for the men who took the whole exercise to heart was beyond belief. A couple of guys reported getting rid of guilt from decades past."

 

Something about that scenario really got my attention, which is somewhat odd, because usually the whole group dynamic leaves me kind of cold.  In fact, while I have always been very into all things DWC, my one reservation was the some of the group activities always seemed a little too “play-like” for someone like me for whom DD is, at its core, about real accountability for real offenses.  

 

 

I think this scenario struck something within me, despite my “group play” reservations, because the stated therapeutic goal  included—and, indeed, hinged on—the husband being honest about some failing that might be deeply embarrassing that he wanted to pay a price for.  That injected a “real disciplinary” element that fell well outside typical “funishment” or “role-play” group scenarios. The scenario checked several disciplinary boxes:

 

• the humbling inherent in basically asking for an immediate spanking for a specifically identified bad act;
•  an outsider knowing about the bad act and the spanking to come, and either delivering that spanking, or facilitating it happening;
•  the “all business” nature of the exercise, exemplified by the seriousness with which the women apparently took it; and
• the further humbling in taking a spanking that, unlike in most group settings, reflects a real offense that everyone, including you, know you deserve and fully support you getting;
• while she may not deliver the spanking to her own husband, the wife is still in control of the situation by virtue of participating in it herself
  

 

I don’t recall seeing anything like this on the DWC website or any of the DWC materials, but it must have been a known “thing” among people who knew about the DWC, because during my comment review I found this one in a different post from the one Tomy was commenting on:

 

"While I have been spanked by wives in our DWC circle of friends many times, only once has DeeDee had another wife give me a true disciplinary spanking. It was during a get together where we kind of "mocked" Aunt Kay's confessional idea.

 

It was very powerful. The other wife spanked me, while lecturing me on some things she saw in my life where I was over-extending myself to the point where, by "helping" others, I was hurting myself. It was something blatantly obvious to her, yet swallowed up as part of our "normal" life by DeeDee and I.

 

Mostly however, discipline spankings are a very private and intimate time that are shared only between DeeDee and I.” – Anthony Payne

 

The logistics aren’t quite clear in either scenario, but it says something about the extent to which I internalized Tomy’s description of Aunt Kay’s session that, in my mind, the husband was taken to another room and spanked in private.  I was actually surprised when, upon a closer reading, I found that element wasn’t actually part of the description, and the spankings may have happened in front of a group.  I don't know but intend to ask Jerry.

 

Maybe it’s just how my own imagination depicts it. Or, perhaps I subconsciously intermixed the described scenario with some of Tomy’s other stories involving men being sent to Aunt Kay for punishment spankings.  He was always instructed to take himself elsewhere in the house when those happened.  So, while he sometimes overheard them, he seldom actually witnessed them.

 

That relates a bit to an exchange between Miss C and Alan.  Miss C related a story regarding her own husband being spanked by Aunt K. and how watching him spanked by another woman left her feeling confused.  It led Alan to observe:

 

“I do get this. I have been spanked with her sister present several times. But neither her sister nor any other woman has spanked me in my wife's presence. If it did happen, as it apparently did for you –i.e., another woman in effect demonstrating her technique for your benefit- neither my wife nor I would be comfortable with that as your husband was not.

 

However, if my wife told me she was sending me to another woman for discipline (there could be several reasons for doing that), then the spanking would feel like an extension of her authority: she is delegating her authority to someone else. Then, the spanking from another woman would be an extension (an embarrassing one) of my wife’s authority. So, in the example you cite -if you had asked Aunt Kay to discipline him on your behalf, that would have been an entirely different situation.

 

In the real world, do disciplinary wives delegate their authority like that? I don’t know, but plenty of instances of it are recounted on various websites. If my wife decided to do it, her motive would probably be to help someone else with their relationship. But the point is, if she ordered it, I would obey her. But if we were at a spanking party or another social setting, I would have no interest in being spanked by another woman.”

 

The element I subconsciously read into the scenario—of the husband being taken to another room by the assigned disciplinary wife and the spanking taking place in private—would seem to address the concerns Miss C and Alan’s concerns about a spanking being delivered by another woman in front of the wife, and it would involve Alan’s scenario of the spanking being conducted as an extension of the wife’s authority.

 

 

It’s interesting how our minds may read elements into stories and pictures that may or may not be what the author/artist intended.  For example, this drawing, which I’ve posted many times, came up when I was searching for art for today’s post.  In the past, I’ve assumed the woman leading the man upstairs was his wife.  But, when I viewed it with today’s topic in mind, it occurred to me that the woman on the far left, looking slightly nervous or concerned (or, that's how she looks to me), might be the wife, watching her husband being taken off to be spanked by an Aunt Kay-like disciplinary surrogate, wondering how much he's in for.   

 

My search also pulled up this other picture by the same artist, which seems to suggest either his wife, or another Aunt Kay-like woman, sending a reluctant husband off for a private session, while the other women look on knowingly.

 

 

I think one reason the whole scenario got my attention is my attitudes toward witnesses and others knowing seem to be changing subtly.  Though, I think the change is not so much about witnesses or groups per se, as about the whole “community” aspect that the DWC seems to have pulled off in real life; an aspect this blog, as stable as it has been, has never managed to extend into or replicate.   

 

It’s ironic, as we found the DWC near the time it was starting to come apart, but long enough before that actually happened that, had we been more open at that time, we probably could have participated in something like the sessions that I know find myself oddly attracted to but have no present outlet for exploring.  This isn’t the first time over the last year or two that I’ve found myself much more interested in an in-person community-based experience, though that ebbs and flows.

 

Another reason I find it increasingly appealing has little or nothing to do with any prospect of me getting spanked in such a situation. Rather, it’s about the imagined prospect of Anne participating by being the surrogate for some other wife. In real life, I think her jealousy, which she acknowledges is firmly-rooted, might preclude any scenario involving me getting spanked by anyone else (at least by any woman).  However, I don’t seem to be similarly wired for jealousy when it comes to DWC-oriented spanking, as I don’t think I would have any problem at all with her spanking another man.  Although I think it is very unlikely to ever happen, I think I’ve crossed some threshold where it’s all about Anne’s reluctance to engage in anything more “community” oriented, and not really my own.

 

 

And, of course, things can change.  KOJ has related how his own wife’s transformation from purely private disciplinarian to having little problem “outing” her problem by spanking him at a party, where others didn’t see it might have overheard, and how it happened astonishingly quickly after she retired.

 

 

Anyway, as I said, I don’t have a fully-articulated topic in mind.  Instead, I’ll leave it more open-ended and invite you to talk about your reaction to the scenarios depicted above.  Do they have any appeal, whether as something you would want to explore in real life, or as just a private little “what if” scenario?  If so, what elements do you find most appealing. 

 

This topic very much invites responses from the wives as well.  Does anything about the scenario Tomy/Jerry depicted, with wives taking on the assignment of spanking another man for something real that he has confessed a need to have dealt with, seem appealing?  Why or why not?  If doing the spanking isn’t appealing, do you find anything appealing about your husband being told to participate in anything like that scenario, perhaps for its humbling aspects?

 

And, generally, how do people feel about the kind of real life “community” the DWC built, for at least several couples who were open to it?

 

Have a great week.

Happy Thanksgiving

 

Hello all.  I hope you're having a good weekend. I'm getting some other things done around the house this weekend.  The conversation has been a little light this week, and next week is Thanksgiving for those in the U.S.  So, I'm going to skip posting this week.  

I hope you have a fun and relaxing time with friends and family.  If you're traveling, be safe.

The Club - Meeting 499 - The Power of Asking for What You Have Coming, and Anger's Role in Spanking Timing

“Love implies anger. The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing.” - Edward Abbey

 

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.

 

Before we kick off this week’s discussion, I wanted to highlight a fun development.  I’ve mentioned a few times lately that I’m trying to compile a book using some of the best comments from over the years. It’s actually going relatively well, though it’s been a much more laborious process than I envisioned when I started plowing through every topic beginning with the very first.

 

In thinking through publishing logistics, I gave some passing thought to cover art.  I figured I would have to pay someone to create something original, since I have zero artistic ability. But, almost on a lark, I reached out to the artist who distributes his spanking art under the name RedRump and asked whether he might consider letting me use one of his pieces.  I have been a huge fan for many years, but I had no real expectation of even receiving a reply, since he hasn’t been publishing new works recently. And, I thought if he did reply it would likely be a polite “no.”

 

Thus, I was shocked when, a couple of weeks later, I got a positive reply.  His only request was that I publish a couple of his newer works.  I was more than willing!  I love his stuff and am honored to publish anything he gives me. Here are the two works he passed along. One is brand new. The other is a new version of one that has circulated in colorized form for a while, the colorizing apparently not his doing.  So, enjoy!

 

I was intending to do a new topic this week, but something happened that made me decide to further explore some additional angles on some things we’ve talked about over the last couple of weeks.  I don’t do many personally revealing posts, but this one will get a little introspective.

 

As I’ve talked about, we’ve been stuck mostly at home for two months, dealing with Anne convalescing from a big surgery.  A couple of weeks ago, it became clear that the stress of the confinement and having our routines disrupted was showing, when we got into a big argument.  That doesn’t happen very often with us, and this one was harder to move past, because we both thought we were right.  That went on for several days.

 

Then, we were in bed one night, talking a bit during the pre-glow of our first sexual encounter in well over two months, when I steered the discussion toward getting the DD and FLR aspects of our relationship back on track.  At first, I didn’t detect a lot of enthusiasm.  Then, I said something about her spanking me for the recent fight, and she perked up very noticeably.  I told her, in that conversation and in a follow-up journal entry, that I didn’t think I was in the wrong in our argument, or maybe it was that we were both in the wrong, but I did recognize that the way I argued was wrong and should be punished regardless of who was right on the merits.  

 

The mere act of taking responsibility worked a major change in her mood, and she became downright enthusiastic about getting our DD back on track. Maybe even more so the FLR aspects, as I learned the next day when I got home from the gym and found a list of chores she wanted done that day. 

 

So, things were going in a good direction. Then, I once again did something really stupid.  Without getting into too many details, I did something that was basically “roughhousing,” but without thinking about its possible impact on her surgical recovery.  It wasn’t malicious in anyway.  It was just incredibly, unthinkingly careless.  This time, I not only accepted that I was in the wrong, I felt terrible about it and apologized profusely. 

 

She seemed to accept that, though her demeanor was notably cool the next day.  I don’t blame her and, in fact, totally understand if she remains pissed off and lets me know it.

 

 

These two incidents highlight the intersection of anger and timing.  Last week, there was some discussion about “spanking in anger.”  Those discussions almost always involve the scenario in which the wife is angry, but in our case it’s often my post-argument anger that creates a timing issue. It’s very rare that we get into big arguments but, when it does happen, it can take several days for passions to cool, including mine. Until my own anger and resentment taper off enough that I can at least accept my own role in the argument, a spanking won't accomplish anything constructive beyond simply imposing punishment (though, I recognize that alone could serve her purpose.)  But, at some point, I almost always come around to accepting my role in causing or escalating the argument and am contrite about it and ready to take what I have coming to move us both past it.

 

In my journal entry, I suggested she might try doing something Alan I discussed here a couple of weeks ago.  I has posted:

 

“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 in the next day or two, but left it to me to come in and ask for it when I was ready.”

 

Alan replied:

“We have never done this but I am going to discuss it with my wife. It could be a powerful tool for her I want her to know about. As I think about it, it may be some cultures have used something similar as part of the punishment process.

It does check some boxes. It would almost guarantee that you spent time thinking about what happened and what is going to happen. The point when you go to her and say you are ready means you are taking responsibility for the behavior and ready to pay the price. My former girlfriend liked it when I came to her after she had decided to punish me. But not so much when I asked for a spanking or told her I needed one without her first deciding it was going to happen.”

 

I think this idea of coming to her when I’m ready to accept responsibility is powerful.  Although she could end an argument by ordering a spanking, it would probably work only during the course of fairly minor arguments.  When we’re both really angry and in the heat of battle, even if I complied I think I would be incapable of learning any real lesson from it.

 

But, in those situations where we’ve both cooled off but I’m not quite contrite yet, I think it would be very humbling for me and very empowering for her if she told me something like, “You are going to get spanked, not for the argument itself but for your attitude and lack of respect. It must happen in the next two days or you will get an additional spanking for each day you make me wait. But, you come to me and let me know when you are ready for it.”

 

 

I think something like that would accelerate my accepting responsibility, since I'm usually on the cusp of doing so anyway. And, it would be incredibly humbling to have to go to her and tell her directly, face to face, that I want her to spank me then and there.

 

It doesn’t, unfortunately, fit our current situation, where I was very contrite and genuinely sorry from the very beginning, but she may need to stay angry a while.   

 

Just like there is a sweet spot where I’ve gotten over my anger but haven’t totally moved on from the situation, there probably is a sweet spot for her where she’s still pissed off at me but has cooled enough to see spanking as a way to make sure I am not only sorry but as sorry as she wants me to be and in a place where a spanking may get her over the anger she’s justifiably carrying instead of possibly reinforcing as might happen if she spanked when she was still very mad.

 

Something that did surprise me a bit about both these incidents was how much better I felt just from accepting responsibility, even before any spanking has taken place.  Accepting responsibility really is hard.  A couple of weeks ago, I talked about a “moderate drinking” app I’ve been using and how weird it was that I found it difficult to be honest in “reporting” to a disembodied app with no power to hand out aversive consequences. I think it’s hard for the simple reason that admitting to ourselves when we’ve screwed up is almost as hard as admitting it to someone else.

 

Anyway, I don’t have a concise topic description to go along with this but welcome any more thoughts you may have about spanking in anger; being spanked while angry or when not yet accepting responsibility; and, reaching that point where you not only accept responsibility but take the next step and come to her humbly asking for what you have coming.

 

 

Have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 498 - When Should/Does a Domestic Discipline Spanking Stop?

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” ― James Baldwin

 

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.

 

Well . . . that week was quite a year, wasn’t it?  It’s very hard for a political junkie like me not to comment in detail, but what’s the point at this stage?  I’m really an “I told you so,” kind of guy anyway, so I’ll hold my fire for a more opportune moment, which is inevitably right around the corner.

 

 

It was a little quiet here on the forum last week.  I wonder what else people had going on.   

 

Anyway, while the conversation was a little slow, it still was good.  One of the best, in my opinion, didn’t really have anything to do with the actual topic but was, rather, a great statement on how putting one person in charge can, paradoxically, lead to more collaborative and inclusive decision-making.  It was this from Jackson:

 

“I believe my wife and I already had a close, good marriage. We have been together for over 30 years, but only a little less than 2 years have we introduced FLR with DD. I have to say it has greatly improved the way we treat each other…not only am I much more respectful, calm and better behaved in almost every way, She treats me better too. She asks my opinion and consider it more often than She used to before DD. I think it’s because She has more confidence knowing that She will ultimately be the Decider…so She feels less need to sell Her point of view or dig in on Her positions. Knowing that I will stay in my lane and after voicing respectfully any disagreement I will conform to Her wishes or face the consequences which are now very clear because of DD. Before DD consequences could be the silent treatment, sleeping in a different bedroom, withholding sex…all of that is gone now…and settled with the paddle and strap.”

 

I think that’s a great point about how people who are confident in their decision-making authority can actually be more open to the kind of input that leads to better decisions.  It seems like kind of the opposite of a Femdom model.

 

This week’s topic comes from one of our group members but, unfortunately, I wrote down the topic suggestion but neglected to write down who made it.  Anyway, here it is:

 

“When should a spanking stop?  Bruised?  Spotting (remember ZM's observations)?  Signs of surrender? Tears? Numbing?  Time limit? Number of swats?”

 

In our household, there is a big difference between when a spanking “should” stop and when it usually does.  Many here have noted the irony so many of us experience in which, while we are over her knee or draped over her favorite piece of furniture, we can’t wait for a spanking to end.  Yet, when it does, we often feel like maybe it should have gone on a bit longer.

 

 

To me, when “should” a spanking stop probably depends, in the first instance, on her purpose in giving it.  We don’t do maintenance spanking and have only very rarely done preventative, and those obviously might have a different end-point than a punishment spanking because they have a different purpose.

 

Assuming we are talking about punishment spankings, however, for me the the answer would be that a spanking should end when she believes her message has been received and absorbed and/or when she’s determined that he’s gone from saying he is sorry to truly being sorry.

 

So, when do spankings end in our household?  Eight times out of ten, it’s the condition of my bottom.  Bruises don’t really set the bar because they usually don’t appear until well after the spanking is over.  

 

 

Often, it’s the “spotting” that ZM has talked about in previous posts, i.e. tiny, tiny droplets of blood.  I don’t think of these as real “bleeding,” because the skin often isn’t even noticeably abraded, let alone broken. It’s more like tiny droplets were forced up through the skin from the force of the repeated swats.  Now, I don’t know whether that is the mechanism, but I do know that often she will tell me that I’m “bleeding,” but when I get up and go to the bathroom, a tissue reveals nothing at all.

 

 

 

Some spankings end because of numbing, but I think that too is probably too early a marker to set.  As some have pointed out, the pre-numbing swats are the immediate punishment, but post-numbing swats still serve a purpose, as they result in that deep-seated reminder that you feel multiple days later.

 

I conflate “tears” and “signs of surrender,” though they might be distinct for others.  I’ve never gotten to tears despite some very hard, long spankings.  But, I know some of our commenters have said they got to tears precisely because the wife let them him know in advance that she expected tears and that the spanking would not stop until she got them.  

 

As far as I remember, we’ve never set a timer for a spanking, and I personally lose all sense of time when over her knee.   

 

 

As for setting a number of swats, in the very early days we had a system that prescribed a minimum number of swats per designated offenses.  But, she gained confidence as a spanker so quickly, that system didn’t last very long.  If she now has a particular number of swats/strikes in mind when she starts spanking, she’s never told me that, and I think it would not be helpful if she did.  If she told me in advance how many to expect, I think I would have an even harder time surrendering to the message she is trying to convey and, instead, I would be counting down each swat and trying to gut it out.

 

 

One end-point that wasn’t on our commenter’s list was when I don’t think I can take anymore.  That’s never been a part of our dynamic and, in fact, for us the whole point is for her to give me a spanking I don’t think I can handle so I am maximally incentivized not to repeat the behavior that caused me to be over her knee. 

 

 

How about you?  When do you think a spanking should end?  Is there a difference between when it usually does in and when it probably should?

 

I hope you have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 497 - Self-Disclosure and Asking for a Spanking

"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.