After the Spanking and the Strictness -- Seeing Her in a Different Light (Meeting 521)

 “A lot of people would say 'sexy' is about the body. But to me, 'sexy' is a woman with confidence. I admire women who have very little fear.” - Allegra Versace

 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 thought I wouldn't be posting this weekend but ended up having more time than I anticipated today.  I'd pre-drafted a couple of posts, so I decided to go ahead and this one out.

 

I hope you all had a great week. We had a special family event, which was great, but I'm now totally exhausted. 

I’ve been getting a lot of mileage out of a single comment from a few weeks ago, but here is another snippet from a commenter going by “DD”, which I’ll use to introduce this week’s topic.  He left it when we were talking about “zero tolerance”.

 

“My wife was the one who was very strict out of the gate and she has continued to be strict. I get spanked somewhat less often only because I am better behaved. I would never try to force my wife to enforce a zero tolerance policy but she is that way on her own. It took some adjustment initially and it certainly changed our relationship dynamic to something more FLR, and I see her differently than I used to. I have a new/different respect for her and see her as the authority in the relationship. She says she still sees me the same but she does treat me differently in her role."

 

The highlighted portion of DD’s comment resonated with me, for a couple of reasons.  

 

First, in our discussion regarding “zero tolerance”, we talked about one of the ironies of many DD relationships: The wives may be concerned that being strict or showing her authority strongly will be perceived as being “bitchy” or overly controlling, yet many of the husbands fantasize about a wife who exercises that sort of strictness and displays a dominant kind of confidence.

 

Second, I feel like after so many years of doing this, Anne and I are again on the threshold of a step-change in her exercise of authority and the strictness with which she approaches disciplining me.

 

DD’s wife apparently came to strictness naturally, though it also seems that being subjected to it over time has increased, or changed the nature of, his respect for her, culminating in him seeing her as “the authority in the relationship.”

 

That’s what Anne and I are expressly aiming for; a relationship in which we both see her as “the” authority in the relationship.  She's been carrying through with it lately, and it definitely has me feeling a different level of respect.  Not that I haven't respected her over the years. But, this feels . . . different.

 

We’ve talked about it many times over the years, but it’s never quite seemed to gel.

 

That’s not to say that she hasn’t gotten more confident in exercising authority over the years.  She has. But, it’s been incremental and inconsistent.

 

Some women are born empowered and dominant. It sounds like DD’s wife may be one of them. I’ve had female bosses, and female executives as clients, who exuded power and authority. It seemed to come naturally to them.

 

On the other hand, others must learn it.  And, I do believe that confidence can be learned, authority can be taken up as opportunities arise, and a taste for power can be acquired. 

 

As I've said before, my wife is not a naturally dominant person.  Between the two of us, my personality is by far the more brash and aggressive. 

 

But, largely because of our domestic discipline relationship, her confidence in herself and comfort level with her own power have grown and developed over time. 

 

However, because “getting in my face” doesn’t come naturally to her, we’ve had to try to create the right conditions and “permission structures”, if you will, to drill it deeply into her heart and soul that I really do want her to be more strict and powerful in dealing with me.  We've talked a lot about how she needs to make herself "expect respect."  And make my bottom pay the price if I revert to form and fail to respect her place in the hierarchy.

Submitting to her disciplinary spankings is a virtuous circle.  As she orders spankings more often, and sees me submit to those orders over and over again, her confidence in her own authority builds. In exercising power, she grows more powerful, and she learns to enjoy exercising that power. More precisely, she starts acknowledging to herself, and to me, that she enjoys power and being in charge.

 

Including exercising more and more power vis-à-vis me.

 

 

As I said, it has been a work in progress for several years. Paradoxically, one way she gained confidence early on entailed limiting her discretion temporarily. We were brand new to disciplinary spankings, and neither of us had any real feel for our limits or, despite the descriptions on the DWC website, what a severe spanking really entailed. 

 

So, we agreed to non-discretionary rules.  Certain offenses would earn a spanking, and we each such offense would earn a certain minimum number of swats with the fraternity paddle. She could give more, but not less.  For the first several weeks, the number of swats was around 6 at the low-end to 20 at the high end.  Though, given that it was a heavy fraternity paddle, twenty was not trivial.

 

Then, I had one especially bad week.  I swallowed hard as I tallied up that week's offenses and realized it came to 60!  I told her that I wasn't sure I could take that many.  The previous weeks of practice had apparently hardened her resolve.  Without missing a beat, she replied, "Then, I guess you shouldn't have behaved so badly.  You will take every single swat you have coming."  And, she delivered. 

 

I still recall that spanking, and I remember having a disquieting feeling as I pulled my pants up over my bruised bottom.  It was the first time I had felt the implications of the fact that, under the sort of DD arrangement we had adopted, the nature or our relationship had, in fact, changed.  

 

She had been empowered, and I had been disempowered.  Given the radical change in the dynamic, I could not help but see her—and myself—in a different light after that spanking.

 

There were other incidents in which I was confronted—via a sore and blistered bottom—that she was changing and was becoming much more willing to enforce her will over me. I recall vividly one time that she spanked me very, very hard for what I saw as a minor issue. I don’t remember the spanking itself very well. What I remember is that I was surprised at how hard she had spanked me and, again, feeling unsteady physically and emotionally as I pulled my pants up, like the ground had shifted under me. 

 

In both those instances, feeling so concretely one’s own disempowerment and loss of autonomy wasn’t pleasant. “Disquieting” is the best word I can come up with, though “humbled” would also be part of it.

 

 

However, that feeling of disquiet was, in the coming days, enhanced—not replaced—with an increased admiration and respect for her personal power and authority.

 

I felt a deference to her that I sure as hell never felt for any boss at work, and it had something to do with her expressing her power regardless of how I felt about it.  

 

Yet, a few nights ago, as we had a discussion about what increased “strictness” would look like, the archetype that seemed to resonate for both of us was that of a boss. 

 

Bosses don’t need to be mean or nasty. But, good ones have a confident demeanor that lets everyone know they are in charge.  They set the rules and can be rigorous in enforcing them.  They know that sometimes an employee needs to be kept on a tight leash and subjected to progressive discipline until they get their act together. They can, and at times should, make an employee nervous, or at least very conscious of their place.

I could give her concrete examples of being strict but, in the end, it wasn’t easy to articulate because so much of it is about attitude.

 

I want her to treat me in a way that displays that she believes to her core that she is in charge of my discipline and that, while we may make major decisions together, she has unlimited authority where my behavior is concerned.  It’s about not just exercising power, but knowing inside that she has it, to such an extent that it kind of radiates.

 

It's about both of us accepting that she is the authority in the relationship, as DD put it. 

 

That’s how “seeing her in a new or different light” plays out for us and what we are consciously trying to grow and reinforce.

 

How about you?  Has the DD relationship as a whole, or some particularly strong show of authority or especially painful spanking, caused you to see her in a different light?  Has she come to see herself in a different light? How so?

 

I hope you have a great week.

Warnings and Threats to Head Off a Spanking (Meeting 522)

“In spite of warnings, change rarely occurs until the status quo becomes more painful than change.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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 good week. Mine was fairly tame, other than another damn injury that required another trip to the doctor’s office.  I feel like I’m living in that place these days. I remember with fondness when I used to bounce rather than break.  

 

We had a good discussion last week about being spanked for attitude.  It seems to be a major reason many of you get disciplined.

I’m mostly in Alan’s camp, believing that it should be a significant part of our DD relationship but recognizing that, at least for issues related to temper, a “cooling off” period may be important. However, I think it's also important for Anne to maintain the position that even if I'm right to be angry about something, I better not direct that anger at her, or there will be consequences.

Though, too much cooling off and it’s one of those things that is likely to be dropped entirely.  After alluding to my attitude issues on the recent motorcycle trip, I had strongly considered going beyond blogging about it and, instead, suggesting to Anne that a spanking for it would be appropriate. I really was angry about my anger. It felt like something that needed to be corrected. But, I waited too long, and the moment seemed to pass.  

 

Yet, here it is, a couple of weeks later, and I do still see the behavior itself as a problem. In the post, I think I referred to it as juvenile.  In a comment on the post Norton used the word “childish” to describe similar behavior on his part:

 

My GF has not had to deal with me being snippy with her, as it just doesn't happen. We haven't argued much, and she has learned to stop any argument simply by saying "Are you arguing with me?" By asking me that, she is letting me know that if I persist, I am in for an immediate spanking. The main issue I had was, when I lost things, I would get irrational, which falls into the category of childish behavior. She soon learned that by giving me a hard spanking, I would calm down. These days I go slower, and don't tend to lose things as often. When I do, I try not to react immediately, and it helps knowing that if I do, I absolutely will get a spanking . . .. After losing my wallet a few times, she told me I would get a disciplinary spanking if I lost it again, which I never did. To me, it seems that an immediate spanking is appropriate for any childish behavior. This plays into the maternal aspects of spanking and F/M DD.

 

Merk Smith responded:

 

In our rather lax DD relationship, I get "do you need a spanking?" far more often than I'm actually spanked. There is something deeply ingrained in my pysche which means that those words basically act like a Hard Reset on a computer... I stop what I'm doing immediately. Sometimes I'm spanked later for it, but I never say yes, and I never continue with the behaviour that prompted the question. I'd like to check if she would by continuing sometimes, but I just can't do it (and I'm sure that she would actually spank...).

 

Alan picked up this refrain regarding intervening “threats” versus immediate spankings:

 

Thinking about these “threats”, it's surprising we have not discussed them more. They probably comprise a high proportion of discipline in the average DD relationship, more than a few years old. I am estimating about this, but I do estimate that for every punishment spanking I receive, there are at least five or six threats or warnings. And they do work. Other than temper, discussed earlier, she can back me down almost every time by the proverbial “do you need a spanking or do I need to text Ann (her sister).” These warnings from her are credible - she rarely threatens without backing it up. And they have the effect on me of eroticizing discipline without the physical and emotional turmoil of actually being spanked. My premise is that most women in a DD relationship have found out how effective spanking can be -but would rather not need to spank if she can achieve her objective (obedience and harmony) without spanking. Hence, the frequency of threats and warnings. Am I right about this, or is my experience not the norm?

 

I really don’t know whether a large ratio of threatened spankings to actual ones is the norm or whether wives often prefer the threat to the real thing. Hence, this week’s topic.

 

Alan is right that we don’t talk about this one a lot.  I think I’ve done threats/warnings as a full topic only a couple of times in 10+ years, the most recent about two years ago.  That topic also was initiated by a reader comment, from some anonymous someone raising points similar to Alan’s:

 

Dan, something I am curious about is the role of warnings and spanking threats in DD relationships. My wife threatens spankings more often than she actually gives them. I guess that’s because she has found that just threatening or warning me has the effect that she desires, so she doesn’t have to follow through. I haven’t seen much discussion from other guys about warnings and threats, so I wonder whether that is a unique feature of DD at our house. Maybe I am more responsive to threats than most guys?

 

It is kind of surprising that it doesn’t come up more often.  So many of us began our journey into DD with the Disciplinary Wives Club, and one of the most memorably pictures from the website involved an unheeded warning resulting in a spanking.

 

 

Yet, for us warnings have not played a big role, though that may be changing.  What has been more typical for us is she would announce a spanking was in my future but, for one reason or another, it wouldn’t actually happen.  I don’t really see those as “warnings” or “threats” properly understood, however, even if they may have a similar impact in terms of bringing me up short and reminding me of possible consequences.

 

Things may be changing on that front, however, and in a way that is a bit different from the typical situation in which some small bad behavior is observed and then the wife tries to head it off or keep it from escalating. 

 

 

A couple of weeks ago, Anne called out of the blue to tell me about an issue one of our adult kids needed help with and was kind of upset about.  Anne told me expressly that, because the kid was already upset, I should be sure to be constructive and measured in my response . . . or I could expect a spanking.

 

Now, this was a pretty pedestrian situation and not one where there was any reason to think I wouldn’t behave constructively. So, I was a little offended at first.  Yet, I kind of get it.  I’ve learned from feedback at work that I can sometimes come off as more gruff than I intend, and it sometimes intimidates people even when that’s not at all how I perceived my words or demeanor.

 

And, although part of me was slightly offended, another part of me was turned on by her taking control like that.  In fact, I think it was more of a turn-on because there was so little objective basis for the warning.  Rather, she subjectively determined that there might be an issue, and she proactively threatened a spanking to make sure she got me aligned with her concern.

 

In fact, I told her later that I thought what she did fit perfectly with our recent discussions about me needing/wanting an elevated level of strictness. When we talked about what “stricter” looked like, I struggled a bit to define it. I fell back on certain archetypes of strictness, like teachers, principals and, of course, some mothers.   

 

That’s why, though Norton’s quote above talks about childish behavior deserving an immediate spanking, I was more intrigued by how a warning about what would happen if he lost his wallet again changed his behavior immediately.  That seemed very maternal to me.

 

I think I associate warnings with maternal discipline even more than I do spankings, because warnings were far more common than actual spanking growing up.  As I’ve said, my parents weren’t big on actual discipline of any sort, yet I distinctly remember many threats of being spanked.  It was a fairly regular occurrence.

 

It also wasn’t at all uncommon for parents to make those kinds of threats in public, and they were effective because everyone knew they were credible.

 

As an adult, that doesn’t seem to happen quite as openly, but I suspect many of you can share examples of not-so-veiled threats.

 

Aunt Kay’s husband has talked about how she would warn him in public that he was coming dangerously close to a spanking:

 

Often she would, if we were in public settings, subtly make a gesture on her palm indicating "that's one." It was her counting to "three," which was a definite point of no return. I didn't make a game of her getting to "two". But if she did, I was very vigilant to avoid "three."

 

Anne has, from time to time, pantomimed a spanking motion over a dinner table to warn me about behavior. But, it’s almost too light a warning to really get my attention. For me, to really get my attention, the warning needs to be verbal and explicit, preferably with a clear statement that unless I do, or stop doing, something a spanking will result. And, if I do choose to cross the line she set, she should leave me with a crystal clear understanding of what happens next.

The only other time I can think of Anne giving a warning that had those elements was during a Christmas brunch two or three years ago. She asked me to help with something and, having had a couple of glasses of champagne, instead of doing it I made some smart remark. She too had had a couple of glasses of champagne, which is probably why she felt comfortable responding with, “Or, I could just spank you and then you can do what I asked.”  I don’t think anyone overheard, but she said it loudly enough that it was certainly possible.

 

 

Personally, although I know I wouldn’t like it at the time, I would welcome Anne being more aggressive and proactive with warnings and threats.  Clearly, there are times when my behavior is trending in a bad direction, and a timely warning might nip that in the bud. 

 

Now, an obvious question is, even if warnings are effective at changing behavior, do they scratch the same itch for those of us who asked for DD relationships because we thought we needed actual spankings?  And, do they meet the wife's need to impose actual consequences for behavior she's seen way too many times?

 

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. For me, warnings seem to scratch a separate but related itch.  I was drawn to the DWC and DD because of a need for accountability and boundaries.  For substantial bad behavior, i.e. something that causes me guilt or that I feel I need to change because it's having a negative impact on me or others, my need for accountability requires a spanking. 

 

But, my need for boundaries can be served, at least in part, by a warning that a spanking is coming if I continue my present course. A strong verbal warning serves as an imposed boundary, even if it isn't quite as solid a message as a spanking.  But, for it to be credible, the jump from warning to action can't be too uncertain or attenuated.

I’ve also come to appreciate that my need for DD spankings is an expression of my more fundamental need for imposed authority, especially female authority. Although a spanking is one (very painful) way of experiencing her exercise of such authority, a warning conveys a similar message and, given that warnings can happen more often and more openly, it serves to highlight that her authority is a daily reality as opposed to something exercised on a less frequent basis.

 

And, when the time comes for warnings to be replaced with a trip over her knee, the message conveyed by her bath brush might be enhanced by a strong verbal reminder that she did, in fact, warn me and, therefore, I got myself into this mess because of my behavior and because I ignored opportunities to straighten up before the spanking became necessary.  A pointed reminder along those lines would help me take responsibility on a deeper level and would reinforce that warnings and spankings aren't an either/or proposition. If the former happened, then the spanking should be especially hard, and I have no one to blame for that but myself.

 So, what role do threats and warnings play in your DD relationship?

 

Are they something the wives uses commonly?  If not, do you wish that were a bigger part of your dynamic?

 

Or, is it the converse – she warns too often and it would be better if she went for the immediate spanking instead?

 

If warnings are a part of your dynamic, does she ever warn you in public? Are those warnings more a coded signal, or something more explicit? Has she ever given you a warning that you are sure has been overheard by others? Was the warning obvious enough that others would understand exactly what was going to happen to you if you didn't toe the line?

 

For any wives who are lurking but would like to participate, do you commonly issue warnings or threats before resorting to an actual spanking?  If so, is it one warning then on to the spanking, or do you have a longer fuse than that?  Do you find the use of warnings and threats empowering or confidence-building? Are there different or more severe consequences for him ignoring a warning?

 

Before we go, one housekeeping matter: We are tied up next weekend, so there is a high probability I won’t be posting next week.

 

Have a great week.