“But that intimacy of
mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something,
having once existed, its effect is not to be done away with.” - George Eliot
Hello all. Welcome back to
The Disciplinary Couple’s Club. Our
weekly 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.
Mine was okay. I haven’t been all that busy, but I feel pressured. I’m having a “procedure” in a week to take care
of an injury I’ve been dealing with for about a year and a half. It’s not a major surgery, but the recovery
period kind of sucks. So, I’ve been frontloading any necessary task that
requires physical strength or multiple limbs.
Things like putting holiday lights up on the house weeks ahead of time,
since I’m not going to be climbing any ladders for a few months.
Posting and responding here
on the blog also may get a bit rocky for a while. I’m not sure why, but every
time I’ve had a general anesthetic, my interest in anything
related to DD has evaporated for several weeks.
I’ll try to discipline myself to keep posting even if I’m not in the
mood, but I may resort to dusting some old posts off verbatim.
This week’s topic is a
follow-up from last the last couple of weeks’ discussions about witnessed
spankings and friends with spanking benefits. It’s a topic that I suspect may
have limited appeal, but I like following up on your topic suggestions, and I
do think this one is worth exploring. It involves how we males feel about interacting with each other when it comes to domestic discipline.
It began with this comment
from Norton:
“As
far as others witnessing a spanking, I have no problem with any women friends.
However, in order for another guy to be part of it, I would only not care if he
was there if he was also a spanked husband.”
Alan responded:
“Norton's
feelings about this are exactly my own. Why we feel that way might be
interesting to explore sometime. That he [the witness] was also a spanked
husband would be a game changer for me.”
In a separate thread, ZM
commented on the relationship between his need for spanking and the overarching
need for “exercised authority”:
But
really spankings are just a necessary ingredient in realizing the exercised
authority that I really desire (which interestingly enough I also don't
appreciate when my wife is exercising her authority, but only before and
after).Having said all that, even though it is the exercised authority that I
really crave (and not the spanking) it doesn't necessarily have to be my wife,
but rather just a female. And for that matter, if the exercised authority is
clearly backed up by a credible threat of spanking, it probably wouldn't have
to even be a female doing the threatening or the spanking, since I have
pretty strong triggers around all this that would quickly kick in.
Norton and Alan’s comments
recognize that, when it comes to others knowing about, and possibly
participating in, our disciplinary spanking relationships (and associated fantasies/dreams),
gender matters, as does the status of the witness/participant as a “Top/Disciplinarian”
or “bottom/disciplined husband”, for lack of better terms.
ZM’s comment also reflects
this gender dichotomy and how it relates to our relative needs to experience imposed
authority. In the thread with Norton and
Alan, I had added, “This may sound odd, but I'd also be OK with a male witness
if he was a dominant in a M/f DD relationship,” which reflects for me that need
to experience another’s authority that ZM finds so compelling.
What is it about gender that
influences how we feel about witnesses and being spanked by others?
Why are some of us okay with,
and maybe even attracted to, the prospect of being witnessed, or spanked by, a woman
other than our wife, but not by a man?
And, why in Alan and Norton’s
scenarios does the acceptance of a male witness depend on whether he too is a
disciplined husband? Does it matter whether they are getting spanked at the same time, as depicted in this Glenmore drawing?
I don’t really know the
answer to any of these questions, but it does seem like it teases out some our
individual attitudes about what exactly is at the root of our interests in
spanking discipline and our attitudes toward authority.
For me, in order for a
spanking to have any sort of emotional power, it needs to feel like it
involves, as ZM termed it, “exercised authority”. There also needs to be a real reason for
the imposed discipline. In other words,
I need to feel like I’m being spanked for doing something wrong, and I need to
feel like the person imposing that accountability is doing so because they have
some power or authority over me.
For me, the accountability element
is more central than the imposed authority.
I need to feel like I’m being held accountable, to such an extent that
if that element is missing, spanking holds no power for me. But, sometimes I am being spanked for
something I feel I need to be held accountable but she doesn’t really care
about. In that circumstance, it’s okay but not ideal that I’m the one
holding me accountable even if my wife isn’t exactly imposing it on me
of her own volition but more just accommodating my need. But, the ideal scenario remains one in which
I’ve done something wrong and she is committed to disciplining me for it,
whether I fully agree or not.
For me, and apparently for
ZM, the gender of the person exercising the authority isn’t central to the
experience. (Though, I’m talking theory
here, since I’ve never, as an adult, experienced M/m discipline or a male
witness.) ZM noted that what is important for him is that there be authority
backed by a credible threat of a spanking.
I agree, and I think that’s
why for me, to the extent gender matters at all, an authoritarian male is an
emotionally edgy prospect, because the physical ability to exercise authority
regardless of my views about it seems higher. I don't think it's a coincidence that my most vivid spanking dream involved being taken out of a work function to be spanked by a male office manager or that the "woodshed" stories I have such a thing for often involve being spanked by a male.
Also, I think that deep down inside I feel like a male would be more
prone to judging both the underlying offense and maybe also judging my status
as the spanked party. For me, that would amp up the embarrassment, and part of
me gets off on that, again perhaps because the “authority” element is so strong
for me. I don't think I have a humiliation kink, but I do think I gravitate toward scenarios that involve strong emotional reactions, including embarrassment. Those scenarios don't require the prospect of a physical witness but are triggered even by the prospect of someone knowing I am going to get a spanking. And, yes, while a female friend knowing is embarrassing, a male friend knowing would probably be even more so.
I will let them speak for
themselves, but it seems like Alan and Norton’s perspective is almost the
opposite of mine. While we all three would be open to being spanked in front of
a witness, they seem to prefer the relative absence of a hierarchy between them
and the witness/participant. For them, it’s important that any male participant
share their status of disciplined husband, while for me that might detract from
the emotional power of the scenario.
It does seem like Alan and
Norton’s gender-dependent openness to witnesses and participants places them
firmly in the majority, as reflected in popular spanking art. I have hundreds of pieces in my collection
that include one or more women witnessing a spanking delivered by a woman. On the other hand, I have very, very few in
which there is a male witness, and virtually all of those few involve two or more men
being spanked with each other or at the same gathering, as in this other Glenmore drawing.
Though, it’s notable that one of the first DD drawings I ever saw was this one, from the Disciplinary Wives Club, depicting a male surreptitiously witnessing another male’s spanking. It may be the only one in my entire collection in which there is one male being spanked, being spanked by one woman, with another male watching.
These power dynamics between
males were reflected in a story from one of our former commenters, Danielle.
Her relationship was more explicitly FLR or D/s than some of ours here, but it’s
illustrative of how I think I would feel about a male participant, even though
in her story that participation is indirect:
I
think I have mentioned that Wayne has a cuckold kink. Because of that, I had
long term affairs with a couple of men. I
wasn't cheating on my husband. He wanted me to do it. I told both of those men
about my FLR with Wayne, including the fact that I spank him.
My
longest affair was with a guy named Bert. Bert found it hot that I spanked
Wayne, and he used to ask me lots of questions about it. He wasn’t submissive
like Wayne. I never brought Wayne and Bert together in the bedroom, but I did
introduce them, and they got along well. They even played squash together. They
also used to go halves on orders of wine at one of those DIY wine making
boutiques.
Well,
one day Wayne and Bert got together to bottle a batch of wine. Bert got angry
at Wayne because he had done a poor job pre-washing our bottles. Bert was
meticulous about things like that, and he had little patience for shoddy
attention to detail. After they had finished the bottling, Bert called me to
complain about Wayne’s lousy prewashing job, which had slowed down the bottling
operation considerably. He then expressed the wish that I give Wayne a good
hard spanking to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. I was more than willing to
comply because I had previously spanked Wayne for similar reasons, and I felt a
little embarrassed that my husband had shamed himself in Bert’s eyes by doing
such a simple job poorly. It was almost like the feeling you get when you
receive a call from an irate teacher about your child’s misbehavior. When Wayne
got home, I gave him a proper scolding and a sound spanking. It was serious
discipline because I really was annoyed, but at the same time I felt somewhat
amused to be spanking my husband on behalf of another man. The worst part for
Wayne was that after spanking him I made him contact Bert to confirm that he
had been spanked and to apologize for his shoddy workmanship. That was
embarrassing for Wayne, but his embarrassment later turned to arousal, as it
often does. The spanking satisfied Bert's sense of justice, but he confessed
that it also turned him on to know he actually had the power to get Wayne
spanked.
I’ve always reacted strongly
to that story, particular to Danielle requiring her husband to call the other
man and tell him that his spanking request had been carried out. (I couldn't find any pics with a man calling someone after his spanking.)
In response to some of the
comments, Danielle noted that it seemed paradoxical that most men seem less
concerned about being spanked in front of a woman, given that we usually want
to seem strong and manly in women’s eyes.
It does seem paradoxical, especially given that when I was growing up, boys getting spanked together was not all that uncommon.
I suspect it comes down to men being evolutionarily hardwired to assess where they
fit in the pecking order vis-a-vis other men in the pack, as how we match up
with other males also affects how the women see us. A man knowing you are
spanked would be challenging, given that hierarchical mentality, but perhaps not if both were being spanked together.
On the other hand, having to tell a
man that you were spanked pursuant to his orders—as Danielle’s husband did—would
would be very challenging, as it would settle pretty indisputably that you
are under the other guy in the hierarchy.
For many, the ultimate embarrassment probably would be being spanked by another man, as Danielle seems to have contemplated with her husband and Bert.
Though, for me, it is again
more about the authority that results in imposed discipline than the gender of
the disciplinarian. There is a fictional story by former commenter KD Pierre
called Pride (available on The Library of Spanking Fiction website), in
which a spanked husband does not get along with his wife's friend. After
getting spankings from his wife for arguing with the friend, she gets fed up
and orders him to either apologize or be
spanked in front of the friend. He initially intends to apologize, then can't
bring himself to do it. So, the wife spanks him in front of the friend, then agrees
with the friend’s suggestion that he should be spanked by her as well. The
friend takes him to another room and, before spanking him, admits that she’s been
goading him into being rude to her in order to get him spanked. She acknowledges
it probably seems unfair, but she spanks him anyway, in a conscious effort to
both humble him and confirm her elevated place in his hierarchy.
That story really got me the
first time I read it, and for me, it would work just as well or maybe even
better if the friend was a male.
Anyway, while I recognize
this topic may not appeal to, and may even cause a strong negative reaction, in
some of our readers, perhaps it will serve as an opportunity to reflect a bit
on why exactly that is.
One last thing to mention about these witness scenarios: I had a post a few weeks ago about how Anne didn't react negatively to the possible real life prospect of someone witnessing a spanking by video. We recently had another conversation about witnesses, in which she said very matter-of-factly that she thought it would be good for me to be spanked in front of a witness. Although there was no "real life" prospect on the table, she said it so cavalierly, it left me with the impression that she really does see it as something that would humble me, which she almost always see as a good thing. It left me thinking once again that I need to stop simply assuming that Anne wouldn't be into something and that I need to take more responsibility for why some of these more adventuresome experiences haven't happened.
Have a great week.
