The Club - Meeting 509 - Desire? Need? Curious? Fetish? What is your level of DD spanking interest?

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.” - Frank Herbert

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.

 

I hope you all had a great week.  Or, I guess it’s been a couple of weeks since we had a real topic change.  This flu that is going around is no joke.  I felt like walking death for a week, and I’m still not back 100%.  I’m trying to live cleanly to give myself the best chance at recovering quickly, so I think I’m going to try to stay dry for the rest of February.

 

 

Being more or less on the sidelines for two weeks did allow for a wide-ranging discussion about the origin statistics we gathered.  In addition to the statistics themselves and speculations about how to account for them, we ventured into Freudianism, consensual non-consent, caning, fear, and a bunch of other areas that might provide some fodder for new topics. 

 

As for the statistics, I tried to tally up all the responses. These are approximations, because a few people gave narrative responses that didn’t wholly track to the options I’d provided.

 

How prevalent was spanking in the community/communities you grew up in? (very prevalent/moderately prevalent/not prevalent at all)

 

Very - 14

Moderately - 4

Not prevalent - 1

[Varied across multiple communities (2)]

 

How open were parents and kids in your community about spankings, including talking openly about the subject and/or spanking in public? (very open/moderately open/it was known but kept mostly/it was not discussed or performed in public at all)

 

Very open -8

Moderately open - 11

Not open - 1

 

How frequently were you subject to corporal punishment at home? (frequently/a few times but not regularly/not at all)

 

Frequently -10

A few times but not regularly – 9

Not at all – 3

 

If you were subject to corporal punishment at home, who was the primary disciplinarian? (mother/father/both mother and father equally)

 

Mother - 10

Father - 0

Both - 7

 

Were you subject to corporal punishment at school? (yes/no)

 

Yes - 9

No – 12

 

Were you spanked by relatives or third parties outside your home or school? (yes/no)

 

Yes - 4

No – 17

 

At what age did you develop an interest in spanking or being spanked? (pre-teen/teen/20s/30s/40s or older)

 

Pre-teen - 11

Teens - 8

20s - 1

30s - 1

40s – 1

 

At what age did you develop an interest in Domestic Discipline or DWC-style spankings? (pre-teen/teen/20s/30s/40s or older)

 

Pre-teen - 1

Teens - 5

20s - 4

30s - 5

40s - 5

60s - 1

 

As has been the case with virtually every poll I’ve ever done on this blog, the answers quickly revealed some substantial problems with the questions. The biggest was probably in the phrasing of the question around school spankings.  As it turns out, several people drew a distinction between being “subject to” corporal punishment at school, i.e. corporal punishment took place at their schools, versus being “subjected to” it, meaning that had received such punishment themselves.

 

I’m not planning to provide some grand unifying theory, based on this data, for how people come to be attracted to these lifestyles. The data set was very small, there was no control group, and while there may be some visible patterns, there’s not much to go on with respect to why such patterns might be there. 

 

But, there are a couple of things that do jump out at me.  First, the overwhelming majority of respondents said they developed an interest in spanking or being spanked in either their teenage or pre-teen years. It was hard to assign some respondents to only one of those groupings, because their answer was something like “around puberty.” But, the responses did seem to solidly verify that most of you acquired your interest in spanking at a pretty young age.

 

Second, there seems to be an interesting inverse correlation at play. Not a single respondent who was spanked at home said that their father was the primary disciplinarian.  And, the 10-7 split between “mother” and “both” looks closer than it actually is, because if someone referred to even one spanking from each parent, I put them down as “both”, even though some said that they were spanked mostly by their mother and only once or twice by their fathers.  It’s an interesting split, especially given how prevalent the phrase “Just wait ‘til your father gets home” once seemed to be.

 

So, can we conclude that father’s doling out discipline in our childhood is inversely correlated with developing a desire for DD-style spankings later in life?  Hard to say.  It’s a pretty definitive result in this data but, again, the data set is incredibly small.  And, as ZM pointed out, correlation does not equal causation.  Still, it’s interesting, and it makes me wonder a bit more about this hypothesis from ZM:

 

“(original hypothesis): "Suppose that there were always a certain percentage of people who were hardwired to want or seek discipline/spanking/etc. If that is the case, then because spanking in schools and homes was such a common thing up until the past few decades, what if somehow many/most of those who were hardwired that way experienced the reality as a child and either it somehow scratched that itch so the desire went away or at the very least, for most who had that need or want, spanking just became a matter of fact punishment which never transitioned into a sexual desire, since they simply didn't think of it that way? Then, as childhood spankings began to become much less common in society, the people who are hardwired that way were left with this smoldering desire that they didn't understand, which manifested as interest in adult spanking, mostly with erotic tones. If this (admittedly far-fetched) theory is correct, then spankings frequently occurring in schools and homes could have actually de-sexualized spanking for most, and actually kept adult spanking from becoming a thing!"

 

(revised hypothesis): Same hardwired people as above, still growing up surrounded by spanking. Of those that got spanked with some frequency, it generally scratched the itch or at least satisfied their curiousity, so it ended up de-sexualizing spanking for almost all of them. But for those who either were spanked infrequently or not at all, the thought of spanking became a very sexually exciting thing.”

 

We seem to have this intuitive sense that childhood discipline somehow gets sexualized and that leads to an adult interest in spanking.  But, ZM’s hypotheses flips that on its head and asks whether it might be the case that the prevalence of spanking in the community might lead many to be curious about it (some morbidly so), but many who actually experienced it, or experienced it often or hard enough, may have had that curiosity fully (or more than fully) satisfied. I don’t even think we need to start with the assumption about a large number of people being hard-wired to be into spanking. It could simply be that it was so prevalent in many communities that kids pretty much universally knew about it, and unsatisfied curiosity could turn into a fetish-like interest in the right circumstances.

 

 

How does that relate to the inverse correlation with spankings by fathers?  Well, maybe spankings from dad were just a lot harder, or the power differential was such that they were more threatening or intimidating, so those spankings not only did not lead to any erotic attraction later but stamped out whatever curiosity the recipient may have had?

 

Did it really work that way? I don’t have a clue.  As ZM suggested, a fundamental problem with trying to draw conclusions from this kind of survey is our respondents are by definition in a population that is self-selecting for a strong spanking interest. The data we don’t have is from all those people who were spanked at home or at school and who grew up in communities where spankings were prevalent and openly discussed, yet they never developed an attraction to it. You can hypothesize that the difference is the result of some Freudian process that gives some an Oedipal-like interest but not others from similar backgrounds, or that there is a genetic predisposition that exists in some but not others or that is triggered in some but not others, but in the end all we have is theories and none of them are really testable.

 

Partway through the discussion last week, someone suggested this topic.  It might have been Doug, but the specific comment it was in didn’t identify the poster:

 

"I had a thought that is tangential to this topic. Maybe it could be a future topic. The questionnaire asks at what age we “developed an interest” in spanking and DD. We all have an interest in spanking and DD or we wouldn’t be here. But I’m curious what different people mean by “having an interest.” That could cover a wide range of mental states, from being curious about it to being obsessed with it. Is DD something you would like to have, but it’s okay if you don’t get it? Or is it a really strong desire? Or not just a desire, but a need? A craving?"

 

 

So, let’s make that this week’s topic.

 

 

For me, it’s hard to characterize. The easiest way to begin might be with the question is it “okay if you don’t get it?”  Would my life be okay without DD?  Sure.  If something were to happen to me and Anne, would it be a deal-killer for any future relationship?  No.  DD is part of my life and part of our relationship, but only part.  If I had to, I could and would go on, more or less okay, without it.

 

In another sense, however, I’m not okay if I don’t get it.  There are times that we get out of the habit, or that I start not liking being accountable to someone, when I think that maybe I’ve outgrown the need for DD.  Yet, almost as soon as I have that thought, something happens that proves that indeed I do still need and that I’m not okay without it, in the sense that without it my behavior does get objectively worse, as does my mood and sense of well-being.

 

Does my interest reach the level of a fetish?  No, not even close in any scientific sense of that word or even in most colloquial senses. But, is it something that has a strong element of erotic energy, one that fuels lots of fantasies and dreams?  Yes.

Is it merely a desire, or a need?  That’s a tough one.  As I said, when I don’t get it, it’s undeniable that my behavior gets objectively worse, and I feel less balanced.  In that sense, it tilts toward a need.  And, the whole concept of “desire” is paradoxical when it comes to DD, because when it is an immediate prospect I definitely do not desire it.  

 

How about curiosity versus obsession? That’s an interesting one, because when I first discovered adult spanking, via a segment of the HBO series Real Sex, I was curious. When I discovered the DWC, however, I think “obsessed” would be a fair characterization of what I felt.  Today, “obsessed” probably would be a bit strong, yet it’s true that my interest level has stayed high enough to do this blog almost weekly for over 10 years.

 

I would say I have a desire for discipline and accountability, and I need them to be serious and real.  The need/desire does not rise to the level of a fetish, but is strong and long-lasting.

 

How about you? How would you describe your level of interest in or need for disciplinary spankings?

 

I hope you all have a great week.