The Club - Meeting 506 - DD, DWC and BDSM - What's the Difference?

“Power is not a means; it is an end."  - George Orwell

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 relationship.

 

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 had a great week.  Mine was kind of mixed.  The super cold weather finally let up a bit.  It was nice to be able to go for a walk without having to bundle myself up like the younger brother in “A Christmas Story.”

 

 

On the DD and FLR front, for the first time that I can really remember, I came right out and asked not for a spanking, or for more strictness, but for a pause.  I realized that I was still struggling internally with the family loss we experienced at the first of the year, and I just wasn’t in the right headspace to deal with disciplinary spankings for something other than really egregious conduct problems or with our recently implemented check-in procedure.  I told Anne honestly how I was feeling, and she appeared to get it.  Isn’t communicating like adults wonderful?  I told her that I don’t expect to be in this negative headspace for that much longer (maybe a week or two), and hopefully that’s the way it plays out.

 

But, the situation was, perhaps a nice segue into part of this week’s topic.  Norton had brought up the possibility of discussing something along the lines of the story, A Husband’s Essay, from the DWC website.  He said:

 

"Dan, your last post was very compelling, and included two enthusiastic disciplinary wives who both talked about how much they enjoy disciplining their husbands. There was also a mention of "A Husband's Essay", which is about occassionally giving disciplinary level spankings even when the husband had done nothing wrong to earn one. This has also been referred to as a "therapeutic" spanking, which has been discussed on the blog before. One idea for a post is to see if any of us have tried it and/or how would we feel about it if the wife suggested it?"

 

The situation he referenced—giving or getting a disciplinary-level spanking even when the husband had nothing wrong—wasn’t quite the situation I was in last week.  Mine was more getting a spanking for something relatively minor (in my mind) at a time when I was wrestling emotionally with something much bigger.  There would have been nothing therapeutic about that for me at that time. Though, I can see how others might use spanking to work through emotional issues or to instigate some kind of catharsis.

But, as I told Norton, I’ve just never really liked that story and, in fact, it’s one of my least favorite pieces of content among all the DWC stories.  Why?  Well, I think it’s because my attraction has always been to what I see as the core elements of the DWC, i.e. accountability and consequences.  In my view, A Husband’s Essay could easily be titled “All the Reasons I Like Spanking That Have Absolutely Nothing to do With Domestic Discipline.”

 

As I think someone pointed out, in the FAQ section on the DWC website, Aunt Kay was emphatic that, in her view, it was not best to reserve all spanking for disciplinary purposes in a DWC home.  So, she was clearly more than open to non-DD spankings.   

 

But, I think it’s also a fact that virtually all the content she chose to write about and put on the DWC website was about real spankings as real consequences for real bad behavior.  A Husband’s Essay is, to me, the single nod to those other kinds of spanking that she wholeheartedly supported but chose not to make a focus of her group.

 

Al focused in on an another potentially “therapeutic” spanking scenario:

 

However, the idea of the wife spanking the husband (who has not "earned" a spanking) simply because she feels the need to spank - to relieve stress or frustration perhaps - is an interesting concept that we have not discussed as much as other topics.

 

 

For me, that one is a hard “no.”  So, I guess in addition to refusing a spanking if either of us are intoxicated, we can add that one to my very limited list of exceptions to “anytime, anywhere, for any reason.” 

 

Though, I recognize that maybe it’s not all that limited.  Instead, it reflects that, for me, the whole attraction to the dynamic needs to be tied to accountability and consequences. I have exactly zero interest in experiencing a very significant amount of pain just because someone else feels like inflicting it.

 

 

That discussion, and my observation that the WordPress version of the blog seemed to be attracting a lot of BDSM interest, led Alan to propose a somewhat broader topic:

 

There may be a future blog topic in the apparent confusion with F/M DD spanking and master/slave-femdom -BDSM It would be interesting for folks practicing or interested in spanking within a domestic discipline framework to discuss and explain the key differences felt between DD and BDSM. Many consider DD spanking to be another branch of the BDSM umbrella that comprises DD. I don’t. Dan doesn’t, and I think many others feel similar. Yet nowhere I know has anyone articulated clear differences. Spanking, for example, is common in BDSM; indeed, often, it seems central to BDSM. But to me, DD spanking has little in common with BDSM as it is commonly described. The comments Dan mentions above from Femdom interests illustrate the practical nature of the issue. Many in the BDSM community see no difference between what we practice and what they do. Can we move the needle a little?

 

So, let’s combine that with Norton’s suggestion about “therapeutic” spankings to explore exactly what it is that distinguishes a DD/DWC relationship from everything else? Or, is it really distinguishable?

 

To me, it clearly is, even if I can’t lay down a precise definition that encompasses all DD relationships and none of anything else.

 

Though, I don’t think it’s a purely binary thing. There are lots of variations in these relationships and, as we explored during our most recent explicit exploration of BDSM back in May of last year, many do incorporate BDSM elements into their DD/DWC relationships.

 

To me, maybe it boils down to two (sort of three) questions:

 

·      To what extent is there a core element of accountability and punishment, i.e. real consequences for real misbehavior, and to what is extent is that element “real” versus just an element of some kind of scene or role play; and

·      Is the erotic element, which I fully accept is a part of virtually every DWC-oriented relationship, the central motivation or goal?

 

I brought up—based on some real recent comments—what I see as something that is pretty clearly not on the DD side of the line, i.e. a scenario where he gets off on being spanked, and she gets off on giving spankings, so they do it every day regardless of behavior. To me, that is just plain old S&M. 

 

In response, Alan added: 

 

“But the question I raise is not -what are the degrees of difference--but is not the difference one of a kind? As many have noted re DD, it must be real and ( con sensually ) non-consensual to work.”

 

I’m not sure I understand 100% what he means by “is not the difference one of a kind?”  So, Alan, if you wouldn’t mind, can you explain that a little more?

 

So, let’s wrap up these threads into one topic on what distinguishes DD/DWC-style relationships from other relationships and activities that include spanking.  Or, as Al, put it: “This is an interesting direction - a post/discussion about the differences between true DD (DWC-style, for example) and BDSM - and perhaps the overlap as well.”

 

As a subset of that, we could talk about Norton’s reference to “therapeutic” spankings. On that one, Al had observed that he thought of “therapeutic” as being the same thing as “maintenance.”  I don’t see them quite that way.  I used to see maintenance as something that was pretty much outside the DD/DWC paradigm, but Al has convinced me that I’m wrong about that.  

 

 Although it probably is a gray area, I get the role in plays in reinforcing the couple’s respective roles and the overall DD/DWC dynamic. I see the dynamics in A Husband’s Essay as scenarios in which spanking is being used to serve an entirely different purpose, i.e. some kind of therapy or stress relief for either the spanker or the spankee. But, I’ve very interested to hear whether others see it differently.

 

Have a good week.