DCC Meeting #275 - Early Exposure (cont.)

Hi all. Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couple's Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline relationships.  

I hope you had a very happy and relaxed Thanksgiving.  

Ours was good, though nothing especially interesting.  A relatively short drive to relatives for a mid-day get together, then back home by early evening.  The one thing worth mentioning is that, for only the second time in two years, my wife made a comment alluding to spanking me if I didn't comply with something she asked me to do. Like when she did it a couple of Christmases ago, it likely was interpreted as a joke, but this time the only person to overhear was one of our semi-adult kids.  I doubt that in isolation the comment would be taken seriously, but together with other comments and a generally more open approach to directing me on certain things at home, you never know.

I can't say that it bothers me.  In fact, the more open my wife is in asserting her power, the sexier she seems to me.

Well, we did get a few responses to last week's discussion on spanking references in popular culture.  It's intriguing that such references seemed to be more prevalent a few decades ago, when they were at least somewhat common in comic strips, and even on television as the references to I Love Lucy demonstrated.  You have to jump forward several years to find other examples, such as the episode of Weeds that SR pointed to, and they are pretty isolated.  And, the older examples were almost all confined to spanking either misbehaving children or misbehaving wives, and there are very, very few examples of women spanking men.

My reference to the Pretenders' song Bad Boys Get Spanked got me wondering whether I might be looking in the wrong genre, so I did some googling on spanking references in songs.  Lo and behold, I found this example which checks some intriguing boxes.  It's F/m in orientation.  It is domestic to the core, with the wife describing plans to spank a misbehaving husband.  The title and the lyrics both also invoke a maternal dynamic.  What is most interesting to me is, it was a top-5 hit . . . in 1967.  So, once again, I'm wondering whether we are flattering ourselves to think that things have really progressed a lot over the last few years.  Maybe we are more progressive than our parents, but our grandparents . . . I'm now not so sure.  In any event, the song is entitled Mama Spank, was released in 1966, and became a hit for Liz Anderson.  You can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w51LsY9zN-Y.  

And, here are they very explicitly DD lyrics: 

 

When the big hand is on twelve and the little hand's on six
You come home tonight and no more childish pranks
You come home from work real quick or your mama get a stick
Yes your mama get a stick and mama spank.

Every night you don't come home from the way you're out alone

Who would ever think that you're a married man
I would guess your age to be twenty eight going on three
So I'll speak in a language you can understand.

When the big hand is on twelve and the little hand's on six

You come home tonight and no more childish pranks
You come home from work real quick or your mama get a stick
Yes your mama get a stick and mama spank.

Yes, I know you like to play but we've got our bills to pay

And the kids need shoes much more than you need fun
Up to now I've been too mild 
You've been acting like a child
So I'll have to just start treating you like one.

When the big hand is on twelve and the little hand's on six

You come home tonight and no more childish pranks
You come home from work real quick or your mama get a stick
Yes your mama get a stick and mama spank...

So, thank you to our kinky oldsters for setting such a fine example!

I'm not feeling particularly inspired where new topics are concerned, so I'm going to roll out of this holiday with a continuing discussion of early exposure to spanking and how it may have impacted your interest in Domestic Discipline.  ZM talked about how his early discovery of spanking and dominance made him very sensitive to any spanking references he saw in popular culture.  His comment led me to think about the distinction between being exposed to spanking early on, on the one hand, and being exposed to adult spanking on the other.  

 Growing up where and when I did, spanking was so common it was taken for granted. I would be surprised if anyone I grew up with was NOT spanked, and probably by each parent, by extended family, and most likely at least once or twice by teachers or principals at school.  At least for boys, it was just part of growing up.  So, I definitely was "exposed" to spanking early on. But, I do not recall being exposed to adult spanking until much later in life, and then only spanking of an erotic nature.  I really can't recall any exposure to the concept of adult disciplinary spankings prior to finding the Disciplinary Wives Club.  I don't know whether early exposure to adult spanking would have made any difference in the extent of my early interest. Somehow I don't think so, unless it was disciplinary in nature.  Even then, I'm not sure.  

For those of you who were fascinated by spanking at an early age, was your exposure to the world of spanking confined to the sort of generalized corporal punishment that was so prevalent, or were you exposed to something more "adult" in nature, whether erotic spanking or something more explicitly involving dominance or discipline?    

Have a great week.

The Club - Meeting #274 - Early Exposure and Spanking In Popular Culture

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline and Female Led Relationships.  I hope you had a great week.

Mine was a tiresome mix of busy and boring.  We remain pretty slow at work.  When that happens, I generally double down on trying to find more business, grow more business, and network, network, network.  Which means lots of travel, lots of socializing and lots of opportunities for bad behavior.  That was pretty much the story of this week; running around all over the country and "networking" my way into a bad cold and general exhaustion.

I haven't formally reported this to my wife, but she knows about it.  Even so, I do need to get into some real self-reporting routine.  But, it's an ongoing struggle, and one I need to work on in some focused way. I'll probably turn that into a topic in the near future, though we've covered it a lot.  In fact, the best evidence that I'm struggling with reporting and that I'm focusing more on getting away with rule breaking than owning up to it and "taking my medicine" is that the last time I devoted a topic to self-reporting was about this time last year, yet nothing has really changed.  We come up with plans for formalizing and improving our reporting regimen, but it never seems to stick.

Another thing that happened last week, as some of the geekier among you probably noticed, is that Stan Lee, founder of Marvel Comics, died.  I definitely was just such a geek growing up, and I'm not embarrassed by that at all.  There were worse places to go than Marvel comic books for life lessons on heroism, and trying to do the right thing in the face of long odds, and that sometimes even if you are really strong and really smart and try really hard, things still don't work out the way you hope. It was a complex picture he painted, which is why Marvel eventually crushed its rivals like DC, with its wooden characters and easy morality. 

Now, it is also true that Marvel's female superheroes were super hot, and drawn to spike the hormones of your average teenage boy, though.  Surely that was part of the allure for me at that age, but I don't really remember it that way.  I was reminded of just how overtly sexy Marvel's heroines were when I googled information on Stan Lee and Marvel's history after hearing about his death.  For whatever reason, my interest in DD has been running pretty high recently, and my mind was highly inclined in that direction as I looked for information on early Marvel comics.  Next thing I knew, I was googling for spanking references in comics and cartoons.  I found almost nothing of that sort in Marvel comics.  I can only conclude that although Mr. Lee and is artists had a thing for voluptuous, powerful women,  they didn't fantasize about those heroines swinging paddles. DC Comics (home to Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman), on the other hand, had LOTS of spanking references.  While almost all of it involved M/f spanking scenarios, there were also more than a few M/M examples. Curiously, there were very, very few examples of women spanking men.  It's also interesting how spanking references waned over time.  I found a lot of spanking examples in comics from the 30s through the early 50s, then it tapered off precipitously.  

It was in the course of this historical "research" on spanking and cartoons/comics that I found this:

I found some other, very sexy, rip-offs of Dagwood comics that depicted Blondie being spanked, but those were by other "artists", aka plagiarists. But, the one above appears to be the real deal, with the original artist's name in the lower right corner. I find the strip totally fascinating, because although it appears to be a few decades old, it touches on a lot of themes we talk about here in late 2018:  Rules. Consequences.  Effective implements -- I love it that she is using a very large paddle or board!  Witnesses.  Should it be hidden from the kids? After effects.  Friends knowing or suspecting.  There is just so much going on in those six panels that we talk about here every week!  And, it's all so . . . open.  It reminds me of the paradox we talked about a few weeks ago.  We ask ourselves whether F/m adult spanking will become more socially acceptable over time, yet this strip makes me wonder whether perhaps our forebears were more open about it than we are. 

On to this week, and the topic is very loosely tied to the above.  This weekend was our annual Love our Lurkers.  I'm pretty sure this was the lowest participation we've ever had.  I'm not sure what that's about, but since we've missed a few days of regular comment posting, and we're going into a holiday week, I'm not feeling particularly ambitious and don't expect a lot of commenting activity this week.  So, let's keep it simple, following up on the above with an open-ended discussion about spanking and discipline in popular and not-so-popular culture.  Let's also tie it into last week's "origins" discussion.  

I don't really recall being aware of many spanking references in the popular culture growing up.  But, that may have been because it was just so pervasive in the "real" culture I grew up in.  It was just part of the daily background.  Kids were spanked at school. Teachers spanked.  Principals spanked.  If you were spanked at school, you got another, harder one at home.  Kids were taken out of church and spanked for acting up.  Extended family members were welcome to get into the act, with grandparents, aunts, uncles and others feeling absolute freedom to deliver a spanking when babysitting or hanging out at family events.  Perhaps because it was all around me, I don't recall noticing any particular example of it on television or in the movies or magazines.

But, I'm also not one of you who was drawn to spanking themes at an early age.  For those of you who were fascinated by it early on, did you notice cultural references to it outside your "real" life?  What are the earliest, or most compelling, references to spanking you recall in the popular culture?  Do you recall those getting your attention in some special way?  And, do you have any favorite examples of spanking in popular culture?  

One very explicit one that was around when I was growing up but that I found only recently is a song by The Pretenders.  It came out in 1981 and was called, with a decided lack of subtlety, Bad Boys Get Spanked.  Here are the lyrics:  

You're not supposed to do that

You know you're not allowed to

But you seem to get some kind of kick

Out of doing what you're not allowed to

You deliberately defy the rules

'Cause the law's upheld by fools

Shit on that

Bad boys get spanked

You can look but don't touch

But no you can't resist

Don't you ever think about the consequence

Guys like you never do

That's the kind of stuff boys are made out of

That's the kind of stuff girls are made out of

Bad boys get spanked

Bad boys get spanked

You don't listen do you asshole

Don't be a punk all your life

Someone's gonna sort you out

They'll try to make a man out of you

Say yes sir, say no sir

Say yes ma'am, say no ma'am

Shit on that

Bad boys get spanked

Bad boys get spanked

Get spanked, get spanked

Come here, get spanked

Bad boys get spanked

Come here, get spanked

Now, a girl who I was very into in high school was a big Pretenders fan.  She always was a little advanced for our part of the country. . . . 

I hope you have a great week, and a happy Thanksgiving.

Love Our Lurkers XIII

Hi all.  Welcome to the 13th Annual Love Our Lurkers day.  In a nutshell, it is a day for us to celebrate, and encourage, all those who drop by our blogs regularly but never leave a comment.  For a more fulsome explanation of the concept, please go to Hermione's wonderful blog: 

http://hermionesheart.blogspot.com.   

While I encourage our lurkers to take give our weekly topics a try, on Love our Lurkers day, any comment will do.  Just stop by and say hi. I would like to particularly encourage any of our current or wannabe Disciplinary Wives to take the opportunity to say hello.

Dan

The Club - Meeting #273 - Origins

“There are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely-or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands.” – Oscar Wilde

Hi all.  I hope you had a great week.  Mine was OK.  Nothing special.  Work remains slow, but the pipeline shows a few signs of opening up.  I have my fingers crossed, as I really don't do well with these periods of inactivity.  "Idle hands . . ." and all that.

I also can't say that the downtime has contributed to my creativity in coming up with topics.  I finally gave up on thinking up anything new.  A couple of weeks ago when we were in the midst of some, ahem, drama here at the Disciplinary Couples Club, ZM made a plea to focus on things that draw us together around this common interest in Domestic Discipline.  At the top of his list was:

"How it started for you... Who initiated? Why? How?" 

I somehow always have the impression that we cover this one frequently.  But, looking back at the topic list, it's actually been a couple of years since we had a topic specifically focusing on how each of our Disciplinary Couples first got into this.  So, let's do it again.  Tell us your own origin story.  How did you first get into it?  If your current relationship is not your first in which Domestic Discipline played a big role, tell us about both how you originally got started, and how it began with your current partner.

I've posted our story before, but for some of our new visitors, here it is again:

Until about 10 years into our marriage, we had never heard the term “domestic discipline.”  We had a good relationship over those years, but it was conventional and also not particularly well-balanced.   I had always been more than a little, shall we say, “Type A.”  I tended to do everything to excess.  I grew up with few, if any, real boundaries and none that were every really enforced.  When my wife and I first met, she probably found my excess and brashness attractive, but I doubt she envisioned that ten years later not much would have changed. 

My wife was more balanced and centered, but if anything she was a little too much my opposite.  While I was intense and loud and bombastic, she was modest and not particularly assertive.  Despite her many accomplishments, she had a hard time taking charge.  She was raised in a very traditional, male dominated family.  Her dad worked.  Her mom raised the family.  He spent evenings at happy hour with his cronies.  She got mad about it and pouted, and he slept on the couch for a few nights.  My wife brought some of those same dispute resolution mechanisms to our marriage.

    

It wasn't really good for either of us.  Growing up without rules or boundaries had left me feeling out of control as a kid, and here I was as 30+ year-old man, still feeling out of control and overwhelmed with the responsibility of making too many decisions. My wife, on the other hand, was not developing into all she could be.

Then . . . things changed.  While corporal punishment was very prevalent where I grew up, I don’t recall having thought about spankings even once as an adult.  Then, one night we were watching an HBO series called “Real Sex.” There was a segment devoted to adult erotic spanking, featuring a couple spanking each other with leather paddles and a riding crop.  It did turn me on, and since I thought our sex life could use some spicing up, a few days later I bought a small leather paddle at a sex toy “novelty” shop.  My wife had zero interest in being spanked but was happy to try it on me.  Although it was fun, it never went beyond foreplay and was not “real” in any sense.  Sometimes it did drift into a form of role play, in which she would "punish" me for various real misdeeds.  After a few modest swats with the flimsy leather paddle, we would have sex.

The problem was, while the spankings were pretend, the bad behavior was real.  Since it was all foreplay and ended in a nice orgasm, in essence I was being rewarded for bad behavior.  Once she became concerned that she might be reinforcing behavior that made her quite angry, she put an end to the whole thing.  Thereafter, if I came across spanking-related content on the internet I might read it or follow a link to other content, but it didn't really bother me at all that my wife was not interested in making spanking an ongoing part of our sex life. It just hadn't been that big a thing for either of us.

Then, one night many months later I followed one of those spanking-related links to a  website called the Disciplinary Wives Club. It’s been so many years ago, I don't recall exactly what led me to it.  But, I definitely do remember the effect it had on me. It hit me like a sledgehammer.  Like no experience I had ever had before, and nothing at all like the erotic spankings we had dabbled in.  What was so different about the DWC?  Well, even though it was all about spanking it wasn’t porn, and most of the material was not even overtly sexual.  Nor were the spankings it depicted facially erotic. Instead, they were real spankings, intended to be real punishment to correct real misbehavior. There were fictional and “real couple” stories illustrating this disciplinary lifestyle, all of them involving wives spanking their husbands in order to discipline or punish them for bad behavior or rule breaking. 

Those stories really, really got to me. Especially the ones involving tears.  Many of the wives announced at the outset that the spanking would not end until after the misbehaving husband was crying – perhaps long after.  Something about that affected me in ways I find hard to describe.  Looking back, I’m not sure it was the spanking per se that really got to me.  Rather, it was the prospect of giving up control in a way I had never, ever done in my entire life.  It was really, truly terrifying.  Yet, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. 

I could not imagine raising the prospect with my wife, but after days of thinking of nothing else, I could not imagine not raising it.  The lure was just too strong, though it  made my male ego tremble.

After a few days of living like that, I initiated the discussion while we were in bed getting ready to go to sleep.  The lights were off, which was good because I was so embarrassed that I don’t think I could have faced her with them on.  I began with something like, "I found this funny website on the internet. . .." and explained the basic premise: women taking control by using real corporal punishment on their husbands.  She started to object that she was not interested in using spanking as foreplay anymore, but I stammered  out how this was different.  These spankings were . . . real. 

She didn’t say much, as I stuttered my way through a description of the relationships the DWC depicted.  When I was done, she paused for several moments, then asked whether I was suggesting this as something I actually wanted to try.  I almost lost my nerve, but finally told her the truth; the idea scared the hell out of me, had left me with butterflies in my stomach and little sleep for three days but, yes, I did want to try it.  

Then, it all came spilling out.  How I felt our marriage was unbalanced.  How unbalanced I felt inside.  How I needed someone to rein me in when I acted up.  And, what I thought it might do for her.  How I didn’t like her feeling like she was playing second fiddle in our relationship. How I wanted so much more for her than that. How I knew there was a strong and decisive woman in there and that maybe this would help bring that woman out.  She listened intently but noncommittally.  She did she would take a look at the DWC website, though I suspected she might let the whole thing drop. 

Nope. She called me at the office the next day. After a few pleasantries, there was a pause, and she stated: “Well . . I visited that website.”

"And, . . .?" I asked, tentatively.

There was a long pause.  "Very interesting," she replied.   

That was it. Interesting.  "So . . . what does that mean . . ." I stammered.

"Well, I guess it means you need to go buy me a nice, heavy wooden hairbrush.  Bring it home with you tonight."

The rest, as they say, is history.  I won't go into the rest of the details here, other than to note that finding a sturdy, wooden hairbrush was harder than I anticipated.  I finally found something serviceable, after walking around a mall for an hour, with this peculiar mix of extreme arousal and equally extreme anxiety.  

Before the first spanking, we established a set of rules. First and foremost, she would control when and how hard I was spanked, period.  While she would listen to my views, she would control the process at all times.  Second, every spanking would be serious.  She still was concerned that “play” spankings could reinforce bad behavior, so our spankings had to be "real" each and every time.

It's odd that while I recall virtually everything leading up to that first spanking, I don't recall a lot about the main event.  I suspect that is because we followed a prescription that was iconic but resulted in a less-than-memorable spanking:  over-the-knee position, with a hairbrush.

We graduated pretty quickly to wooden paddles and leather straps, and she graduated to a very proficient spanker surprisingly quickly. 

Over the years of doing this blog, and several years before that in various DD groups, I've heard variations on this story many times.   We husbands are so concerned about how to broach the topic of Domestic Discipline but once we do, the wives take up the paddle or strap with surprisingly little diffidence or reluctance and are soon spanking like a pro.

Over the years we have been doing Domestic Discipline, my wife has grown into a much stronger, confident woman with a voice all her own, and the relationship has gone beyond merely discipline.  Instead of just enforcing rules, she imposes them.  She sets boundaries for me and expects me to respect them.  

So, how about you?  How did your interest in Domestic Discipline (not just spanking) arise? What did you do to make it a reality?  Please share as many of the details as time allows.

I hope you all have a great week.

The Club - Meeting #272 - Sex and DD

"Sex is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.”- Marquis de Sade

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, Domestic Discipline and Female Led Relationships.  I hope you all had a great week.

We had a good discussion last week regarding proactively preventing bad behavior, versus simply punishing it.  Several people shared their experiences with preventative spankings, and there seemed to be a general consensus that such spankings can help actually prevent bad behavior.  This week, I was reminded that some punishments can both punish and prevent.  My wife grounded me as punishment for night that involved a little too much carousing with work people, and the punishment was that I am grounded and banned from drinking for a week.  So, the punishment both addressed the bad behavior and directly prevented further misbehavior by removing me from the situation that keeps getting me in trouble.  

Our conversation last week also took off on a slight tangent into whether self-reporting and taking the initiative of bringing her the belt or paddle moves the DD relationship forward or, conversely, undermines her authority.  That one may be worth a topic in the near future, though we've done variations of it before. 

For this week, let's talk about sex.  Do I have your attention now? Of course I do.  Yet, one of the reasons for this topic was an article I read this week that indicates that at the same time that attitudes toward sex are increasingly liberated and sexual imagery and content is more available than ever, Americans are actually having much less sex than in the past.   http://time.com/5297145/is-sex-dead/. It’s a fascinating read, and I encourage you to go through the whole article, but the following gives a sufficient summary for our purposes: "According to the General Social Survey, a profile of American behavior that has been gathered by the National Opinion Research Council at the University of Chicago since 1972, the fraction of people getting it on at least once a week fell from 45% in 2000 to 36% in 2016. One study of the GSS data showed that more than twice as many millennials were sexually inactive in their early 20s than the prior generation was. And the sharpest drop was the most recent, in the years 2014 to 2016." 

The only age cohort fighting the trend was, interestingly, the one that seems to be among the largest of this blog's readership: "Only the 60-somethings are bucking the trend—possibly partly with a little pharmaceutical help. Unlike the retirees who came before them, they’re putting the sex back in sexagenarian, with an average coital frequency that is slightly higher than in two decades earlier."

I also ran across this fairly fascinating Politico article that compares the sexual fantasies of our two predominant political parties.  https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/27/sexual-fantasies-republicans-democrats-politics-221919.  The survey it addresses found that, although Democrats and Republicans fantasize at similar rates, the content of those fantasies differs sharply. According to the author, “Republicans were more likely than Democrats to fantasize about a range of activities that involve sex outside of marriage. Think things like infidelity, orgies and partner swapping, from 1970s-style “key parties” to modern-day forms of swinging. Republicans also reported more fantasies with voyeuristic themes, including visiting strip clubs and practicing something known as “cuckolding,” which involves watching one’s partner have sex with someone else.  By contrast, self-identified Democrats were more likely than Republicans to fantasize about almost the entire spectrum of BDSM activities, from bondage to spanking to dominance-submission play. The largest Democrat-Republican divide on the BDSM spectrum was in masochism, which involves deriving pleasure from the experience of pain.”

The author postulates that the difference may be explained by the fact that people most want what they can’t have.  The Republicans stress “traditional family values” and the sanctity of the nuclear family, so their fantasies drift to scenarios involving sex outside the traditional marriage context.  While the article doesn't discuss it, one can see how that kind of discrepancy between fantasy and reality might create some "problems":

Democrats, on the other hand, stress equality and egalitarianism and, hence, fantasies about extreme power differentials are inordinately appealing.  Perhaps when the sex is most egalitarian, fantasies involving exercising power come to the forefront:

While interesting, the theory does seem a little simplistic.  I’m also not sure it does a great job of explaining why Democratic men would be interested in being on the receiving end of a DD relationship, or why Democratic women might be attracted to being a Disciplinary Wife.  To the extent it’s true that Democrats more actively promote "women's liberation" and helping women break those glass ceilings, then if this author’s theory were correct wouldn’t those of us who are Democrats be attracted to empowering men and dis-empowering women, since our party’s bent is the opposite?  And, while Democrats are fantasizing about BDSM wouldn't their fantasies more naturally drift to sadism and not masochism, given their rejection of "might makes right" and relative aversion using physical violence and power for political ends?  Or, perhaps it's that a lot of the Democratic party-line comes from elites in powerful institutions (professors at Yale, Harvard, etc.), and those people are pretty well-off,  well-educated, and don't lack for independence; hence, their fantasies run to being dominated and controlled?

It's all very interesting though very complicated.  But, taking it down to a personal level, I have no doubt at all that I crave yielding up control to someone else, because in most of my life I have control and authority in over-abundance. Perhaps it's not just that we fantasize about things that we can't or don't now have, but also perhaps about things that we think we missed out on, like strong maternal discipline or boundaries.

With those observations in mind, I’ll leave you all to make whatever comments you can make about them.  The one concrete suggestion I have for a topic is, does practicing Domestic Discipline lead to more sex?  I’m not sure what impact it has had on our own batting average.  I do think that Domestic Discipline contributes to the overall level of erotic energy in a relationship, and I do think that both the “Top” and “bottom” can find the power exchange very erotic.  And, some of our Disciplinary Wives admit candidly that they come to be turned on by exercising power even if it felt unnatural at first. I don't know whether power always corrupts, but I have no doubt it can be addictive.

  

 On the other hand, I have seen instances in which parties tied discipline and sex too closely together, such that he would get spanked only after a hard spanking, which seems like a great way to make him adverse to sex in general.  Or, if the couple adopts a “no sex after discipline” rule, does that result in less sex? Or perhaps could it result in less discipline?

I look forward to hearing from you all.  Whether Republican or Democrat, don’t spend so much time fantasizing that you forget to vote!  Well, if you’re a Republican and intend to vote that way, I’m personally fine with you getting a little carried away and forgetting to cast that ballot. 😉

DCC Club Meeting #271 - Preventing vs. Punishing

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." -- Benjamin Franklin

Hi all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couple's Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or want to be in Domestic Discipline and Female Led Relationships. I hope you had a great week.  Mine was slow.  Though, that's stressful in its own way.  I'm in one of those careers in which my earning is more or less directly related to my level of busyness, so being slow tends to be a momentary relief but a longer term problem. But, there's not much I can do about it, so I'll just try to enjoy the Fall weather and color, while hoping some big, hairy, audacious project walks in the door soon.

Speaking of enjoying the  Fall colors . . .

Have I said how much I like this most naughty of holidays?

Now that I've gotten that out of my system . . .

This weeks "topic," feels more like tying together some loose threads.  We didn't get a lot of response to Alan's topic re: using DD to bring about total abstinence from alcohol, or much on the broader topic of using it to break bad habits. The former is on my mind this morning, as I wallow in my all-too-typical Saturday morning fatigue, because I stayed up too late watching a movie and enjoying too many beers along the way.  The shame of it is, I had actually been very well behaved all week, surprisingly so given the slowness at work.  I worked out hard four days, kept to my diet, meditated every evening, and I even stayed totally dry right through Friday until we went out to dinner.  Then, a couple of beers there led to a "nightcap" at home, which led to watching a James Bond movie until midnight.  It reinforces the point I made to Alan, that some people just can't seem to do moderation in relation to certain habits.  

So, by over-indulging I earned myself a good hard spanking this weekend.  But, as I was kicking myself this morning, I got to thinking about how I could have felt a lot better this morning if, instead of letting me indulge myself, my wife had simply ordered me to come up to bed when she went.  Admittedly, I would have resented the hell out of it at the time, but it would have helped me have a much more pleasant, productive weekend.  And, I would have complied.  That's the thing I'm not sure my wife always appreciates -- I am not great at following rules when left to my own devices, even when I know it may earn me a hard spanking, but I am pretty good at following direct orders.  So, her getting in full-on "boss" or "maternal" mode  is actually much more effective at bringing about real behavior change than is spanking.

It's an interesting reversal on my normal life philosophy of, "It's better to say you're sorry than ask permission."  In most areas of my life, I really believe that to be true. But, when it comes to the behaviors that create problems for me at home and that are self-destructive, it actually is better for both of us if she takes the bull by the horns and acts to prevent the behavior from happening, instead of punishing it after-the-fact.  I see this "prophylactic" approach as being one of the distinguishing points between "mere" Domestic Discipline versus being in a real "Wife Led Marriage."  The former emphasizes punishment on the back end (pun intended), while the latter involves more pervasive control including taking action on the front end to prevent bad things from happening.  

Somewhere in between are "preventative" spankings, which were alluded to in some of last week's comments.  We've talked about this before, but it's been a couple of years.  When it came up last time, it was in response to another comment by Alan.  He summed up "preventative" spankings as follows:

"These are spankings administered before parties or events in which historically my behavior had earned me a spanking after the fact. Her reasoning was that if she was going to have to spank me eventually, she would prefer to avoid the behavior and get it done before rather than afterward. Most preventatives are done several hours before a party or we get into the car to travel and designed to give me a warm bottom that reminds me what could happen. With one unforgettable exception this does work to prevent really bad public behavior." 

When we talked about this last time, I had no real experience with this "before the fact" form of discipline, and I wasn't sure whether it was entirely "fair."  I still don't have a lot of experience with it.  But, she did do it once a few months ago, prior to a group dinner that was exactly the kind of event at which I normally might over-indulge.  But, not that time.  It worked like a charm.  Sitting there on my tender behind kept me continuously aware of the need to moderate my behavior and, for once, I did. 

How much does your spouse focus on preventing bad behavior instead of just punishing it?  Are preventative spankings part of that?  What other techniques does she use?  Has it worked to prevent problem behaviors from occurring?  What are the logistical challenges and how have you overcome them?   

I hope you have a great week!

The Club -- Meeting #270 -- Bad Habits

"One regrets the loss even of one’s worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one’s personality." – Oscar Wilde

Hello all.  I hope you had a great week.  I really do love this season.  Though, ironically, work often goes crazy this time of year and, as a result, I've missed a lot of Halloweens.  It looked like that was going to happen this year, but things are looking better. 

 Although I love this time of year, neither it nor the break in the workload has fundamentaly changed some of my behavioral challenges.  I did make some progress getting back on course after a pretty rough time at work, then it kind of fell apart at the end of the week.  My efforts at self-control and progress on real self-improvement seem to come in bursts.  Unsustainable bursts.  So, as I sat there yesterday kicking myself for not sticking with the program, I was in the perfect frame of mind to reflect seriously on this comment/question from Alan:

"This is somewhat off topic but definitely related to the issue of a woman willing to be “bitchy” as well as experiences you have discussed. To the point: my wife wants to gradually reduce my drinking of alcohol ultimately to end it entirely and she is proposing using DD including lots of spanking and some embarrassment to achieve this. She did this years ago with smoking and it worked but I was motivated to stop myself then although the discipline was a crucial part of it happening. My question is can DD stop drinking entirely? She has some solid reasons for proposing this and I don’t disagree with her. I just don’t want to completely stop although I am willing to be spanked for exceeding my limits, I want to keep those limits. I sound like I am whining and maybe I am but looking for an honest answer from anyone who might want to comment whether DD can really achieve abstinence. Has anyone tried it and if so what happened? Thanks"

As I said in my reply to Alan's comment, I am hardly the guy to answer this one.  Like him, I don't want to completely stop, and I do think that in my case doing so would have some negative career ramifications.  It's just too big a part of my particular professional culture.  But, beyond that, I do like hanging out and having drinks with people at work and with friends of ours in the neighborhood. The plain fact is, many social bonds are formed or fostered over a mug of beer or glass ofwine.  As de Sade said, “Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated.”  The plain fact is, I *like* drinking alcohol, and I really like the social aspect of doing it with friends and co-workers. I really don't want to give that up, though moderating it would be a great thing. 

 But, I do wish I could get better about limits while continuing to imbibe socially. But,  I do wonder sometimes whether it's really possible. I think some people are pretty binary when it comes to bad habits -- it has to be either on or off and nothing in between really works.

Alan also related his topic to our discussion of "bitchiness," I do think that something that would really help me in sticking to limits or not drinking at all in certain situations is if she would just tell me not to, and do it strongly, forcefully and consistently. While I don't always succeed, I do try to obey when she gives me a direct order. So, maybe to make it work it has to be some kind of stepped up bossiness, plus DD, plus the embarrassment Alan references, though I'd like to hear more about that latter one. Another thing she tried on one occasion and that actually did seem to help was a spanking before we went out to an event.  Sitting on a tender bottom kept me very aware of how much I was drinking and that too many would result in a another when we got home.

But, while I may not be the right person to answer Alan's question regarding this particular habit, hopefully some of the rest of you can provide some input? But, let's cast a little wider net with the topic:  Have you used Domestic Discipline successfully to break any deeply ingrained bad habit?  Let's also put a bit more of an FLR spin on it:  Have you done so in a situation like Alan's in which your disciplinarian spouse wanted to break you of a habit that you yourself were not so wild about eliminating?

I hope you have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 269 - Limiting Beliefs

"One is not born a woman, one becomes one." - Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1949

Hi all.  I hope you had a great week.  Mine was both exhausting and relieving at the same time.  The exhaustion came from WAY too much business travel combined with WAY too many business meetings and WAY too much business socializing.  All while trying to get some real work crammed in here and there. The relief came from the fact that the overwhelming work project that was going to keep me under water for five or six weeks came to a screeching halt.  Knowing myself as well as I do, the temporary feeling of freedom will almost certainly be replaced soon by frustration and anxiety about not having enough to do.  That's just the way I'm wired.

But, it is good to have a weekend mostly off, especially at this time of year.  I really do love the Fall.  Walking the dogs this morning was wonderful.  The briskness of the air, the gorgeous colors . . . it really is my favorite time of year, though Christmas season is a close second and probably comes in behind only because I don't like the cold all that much. 

Also, this month brings Halloween, which is hands down the most interesting of our U.S. holidays.  No others combine mischievousness with a touch of kink. Imagination also plays a role, with certain costumes and displays appearing innocent if you're, well, innocent, but perhaps just a tad kinky if that's your thing.  For example, is this guy engaging in some innocent mooning, or perhaps bending over for his spanking:

Because of my travel, our DD and FLR activities got put on hold. But, my wife's interest seems to be stirring again.  We talked last week about why the "bottom" partner seems always to be more into than the Top. But, lately, if anything my wife brings it up more than I do.  Which is good.  Even though we have been doing this for a dozen or more years, it really is only in the last year or so that she seems to have gone mentally from just accommodating my need and seeing some collateral benefits to her from using DD to end arguments and express her dissatisfaction, to really starting to enjoy the power exchange and being more openly dominant.  In other words, the real change has been in her attitude.  I think deep down inside, the Domme was always in there, but it was so buried in layers of cultural and social and familial and personal inhibitors, it stayed dormant.

So, what are the things that hold your disciplinarian back from being all they can be?  I'll kick it off with a few of the things my wife probably had to overcome, some of which are still a work in progress:

• Following is more acceptable than leading:  I think for both men and women, following is more socially acceptable than leading.  We dress the latter up with pleasant labels, like being a "team player" or a "good soldier."  And, while we respect people with strong leadership skills, those who exercise them can quickly come under criticism for being "uppity," presumptuous, or "too big for their britches."
• Social pressure to be nice and to put others' needs ahead of our own:  There is a constant pressure in our society to be nice.  Polite.  Self-effacing. Those who put their own interests first are often seen as selfish or "not nice."  For the dominant party in a DD relationship, it can be hard to give yourself permission to express your own desires and preferences, let alone to express them as a command.
• Fear of hurting the other party:  This has both physical and emotional dimensions.  Many new Disciplinary Wives fear literally hurting him via a "too hard" spanking.  They fear hurting him emotionally via a "too strict" demeanor.  Ironically, most of the husbands want the physical discipline to be harder or longer, the non-physical discipline to be more humbling and unyielding, and the dominant partner's exercise of authority to be far more strict, more authoritarian and to be that way more consistently.
• Fear of being powerful:  I think some Dominant Wives worry deep down inside about what will happen if they really give in to what Nietzsche called the Will to Power.  We are all so conditioned to deplore dictators, authoritarians, sadists--basically anyone who shows too much comfort with exercising power over others--that budding Disciplinary Wives and Dommes fear the stigma of being seen to revel in exercising power over another human being and probably have some socialized aversion to being that kind of person.

My wife's newfound enthusiasm for being dominant seems to have two aspects.  First, she is finally really accepting that I want this.  That while it may be hard for me to accept in the moment, part of my wants and needs boundaries and rules.  And wants them to be imposed strictly and consistently.  Second, she is finally getting comfortable admitting that she enjoys bossing me around, setting the rules, and being served.  Another aspect that we are both getting more comfortable with--but which I will save for a future post once I can come up with a new angle to hit it from--is that there is a relatively strong "maternal" energy at play for both of us, which in the past there was a lot of reticence about acknowledging let alone exploring.

So, what attitudes are holding back your disciplinarian or have held them back in the past.  Are those attitudes something they have overcome?  If so, any thoughts on how that came about?

Have a great week.