The Club - Meeting 353 - From Obligation to Enjoying Her Power

“There are no good girls gone wrong - just bad girls found out.” -  Mae West

 

Hello all.  Welcome bac to the Disciplined Husbands Forum. Our weekly gathering of men and women participating or interested in Domestic Discipline Relationships. I hope you had a good week.

 

Mine felt like – just another week in 2020.  Hurricanes.  Police killings leading to protests. Teenagers with AR-15s gunning down protesters. Quarantines and locking yourself up in your own home seem like pretty good ideas right now. I guess social distancing at least has led to some new and interesting fashion trends.

 

  

That was a good discussion last week.  Consent is, I think, one of the most difficult and nuanced issues that comes up in this group, and it always stimulates some interesting viewpoints.  While there were some great comments, I didn’t see a lot of hooks for a new topic this week.  So, I’ll set consent aside for now and, instead, go back to a comment from a few weeks ago.  In describing her own transition from an admittedly 1950s style wife to a swinger of a disciplinary paddle, Liz observed:

 

I do think I slipped into my disciplinarian role quite easily, but I assumed that was because spanking was so prevalent in my family that it was not considered a big deal. So it is interesting to hear that other women without my background also have been able to adopt the role easily. Maybe it is not that hard to act parental towards men who act childish!

 

A few years back, we had another regular female commenter, Marisa, who like Liz came to DD in an attempt to fix a problematic marriage.  But, unlike Liz, Marisa attributed her ability to adopt DD so readily in part to her naturally dominant personality.  As she put it: 

 

We found our way to DD through a crisis in our marriage, the next step would have been marriage counseling if we had not tried discipline. I am aggressive and take charge and that personality trait can't be taught.

 

In my own DD journey, Anne took to giving disciplinary spankings pretty easily, though unlike Liz she thought the whole thing was kind of weird.  At first, she probably was doing little more than accommodating my request that she give it a try. Over time, I think she came to see it as an outlet; a tool she could use to show to get a sense of “payback” or resolution when I got out of line. Today, she says she actually enjoys making me strip down and bend over the ottoman.  She has told me that it is really that pre-spanking exercise of power that she enjoys, but I think over time she has come to actually enjoy actually blistering my ass.  She actually seems disappointed these days when I’m not marked or bruised the next day.

 

 

How about for the rest of our Disciplinary Wives? How readily did you take to your role in the DD relationship?  Was it something you slid into pretty easily, as Liz did thanks to her pre-existing exposure to DD?  Or was it a slower or rockier transition?  Over the course of that journey, where have you ended up in terms of your approach to DD and how it makes you feel?

 

Is it basically just another chore or duty?

 

 

Or, is it something you’ve come to actually enjoy doing?  To the extent you do enjoy it, what is it that you like about it?   

 

 

Do you have any hints for how your fellow Disciplinary Wives who may have mixed feelings about it can come to actively enjoy the role, particularly given all the negative soclialization that women are subjected to where power and authority are concerned?

 

Have a great week.

The Club -- Meeting 352 - Consent, Non-Consent & Consensual Non-Consent

“The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.” - Vince Lombardi

 

Hi all. Welcome to the Disciplined Husbands Forum. Our weekly gathering of men and women participating or interested in Domestic Discipline Relationships. I hope you had a good week.

 

It was kind of an interesting week where DD was concerned, even though no spanking happened.  The fact that one didn’t happen was both noteworthy and kind of expected given our track record where consistency is concerned.  What was noteworthy was that what got me into deserving a spanking was also kind of what got me out of it.  The short story in terms of what got me in trouble was I was surly with my wife.  Twice in one morning.  The slightly longer story is, I was feeling pretty lousy that morning, which has been a problem for a week or more.  I’m not sure what is going on.  I even wondered briefly whether I might have Covid, though I am now pretty sure I don’t.  Whether it was the flu or some other virus, I’m not sure.  I just felt extremely tired and achy, which made me surly.  There isn’t any real doubt that I did mouth off and it was very inappropriate and unwarranted.  She didn’t do anything at the time because she was leaving for work. But, when she got home that day, she told me I was going to get spanked.  There was some interruption that night, however.  I kept expecting it all week, but she kept having “mercy” on me for various reasons, including that I was watching the Democratic National Convention, and I’m a political junkie.  But, I think much of it came down to, she knew I was still feeling lousy, so she let me off the hook.  As usual, I have mixed feelings about that.  This was one of the few times in recent history that she ordered a spanking specifically because of me showing a lack of respect, which is something we keep saying she should do more often.  But, as is too often the case, I managed to delay, finally delaying so long that I wonder now how much immediate connection I would feel to the underlying offense were she to spank me for it now. I guess it’s just another one of those situations I have to write off to reality interfering with our best laid plans.

 

What a great discussion last week!  It meandered quite a bit, but that was what made it interesting and engaging.  Somehow in one week we touched on maintenance spanking, preventative spankings, consent, psychological control and dominance overcoming non-consent, empty nesting, post-orgasm spankings, and family histories of spanking and discipline.  There were a couple of months of topics flying around in one week!  I do plan to hit on several of these in the near future, but for this week I tried to narrow it down to one. I’m a little concerned we might have exhausted it last week, but hopefully others will weigh in and maybe those who talked last week will have things to add.

 

I narrowed this week’s topic to consent: its necessity, its frustrations, its limitations, the fantasy of not having it, its boundaries, its limits, etc.  In a nutshell, my question is, what role does consent play in your DD relationship, what are its limits, and is it desirable or, perhaps, something you wish wasn’t as inevitable as it kind of is?   

 

 

 

This topic suggests a pretty big range of subtopics:

 

·      Was your DD relationship "imposed" on you in some way?  For example, did your wife finally get fed up with your behavior and tell you that she was going to spank you? 

·      If there was no such express lack of consent, was there a situation like Liz and Art’s where spanking became kind of a quid pro quo for staying together after his behavior almost brought the relationship to and end?

·      Even though you (the husband) probably consented to the DD relationship as a whole, have you had spankings that you consented to only under some kind of coercion or threat (ending the relationship, perhaps) employed to get you to comply?

·      If you wanted to withdraw consent now, would she let you?  Ladies, if he said he’d like to drop the DD aspect of your relationship, i.e. withdraw his consent, what would your reaction be?

·      Even though you may as a practical matter always have the ability to withdraw consent and resist, has her authority or dominance become such that as a practical matter you won’t or even feel like you can’t?

·      For the men, do you actually like that DD is consensual, or do you kind of want something like parental discipline where there really isn’t a choice? In other words, is part of the attraction to DD or FLR that that there is an involuntary element to it?  Does part of you need that element of "non-consent" in order for it to feel like you really are being controlled or dominated?

·      For the women, do you have any views or feelings about the role consent does or does not play?  Does it make you feel more powerful the more you feel like discipline is something you are imposing whether he likes it or not? Or, conversely, is it important to you that you feel he is consenting on an ongoing basis?

 

These and other aspects of the consent issue were raised by several of last week’s comments, including:

 

Al:  Regardless of how much we want to the spankings to be "real punishment" - in which the husband has to accept whenever the wife decides, with no questions asked - ultimately, there is always consent involved at some level. In that regard, it is never truly like a parent spanking a child - where the child has no say about it all - it is never truly involuntarily punishment. Even though the husband may not have to "consent" to any given spanking, he has given a blanket consent by agreeing to enter the DWC contract. And, really, he can walk away or refuse to be spanked at any time. So whether the spanking is for a specific punishment, preventative, or maintenance there is always underlying consent.

 

That said, many disciplined husbands (myself included), reach a point where they are psychologically almost incapable of refusing a spanking once their wife has decided that they have one coming. It is an acceptance of her disciplinary prerogative that, to me, is far more of a submission than any involuntary discipline. Even though I recognize that I have a desire to be a spanked husband, I also know when my wife tells me to assume the position (for punishment, maintenance, preventative) - that the spanking is going to be genuinely painful - that she will set my ass on fire with that damn bathbrush (or whatever implement she chooses). Crossing her lap anyway and accepting that pain is the real submission (hot and sexy thought before and after the spanking, not so much during the spanking).

 

Alan: This is something I sometimes ponder in the context of blanket consensual spanking ( a concept that captures the real dynamic of consent) Some while ago with a former girlfriend, we were having a conversation about what would happen if I rebelled or just refused to take a spanking. Her answer was that she was in complete control "when we were together" (meaning in physical proximity versus over the phone) and she was very confident that I couldn't and wouldn't disobey her about a spanking. Another time she told me that I had given her disciplinary authority and I couldn't "take it away" There were the first times I realized I really could not stop or resist for long a spanking she had decided upon. In addition to consenting to her spanking I had taught her how to push all my "spanko buttons" and she had learned well. She never relay abused her authority and my wife never has but it is sobering sometimes to realize the bridges I burned behind me when I consented. It is not a power lightly given or easily withdrawn. I don't consider that a negative of any kind and in fact it makes DD much more authentic. But in the early days I got through some pretty severe spankings telling myself I could stop it if I wanted. That was an illusion and it would be now too if I deluded myself about it. It's not that physically I couldn't stop it but psychologically probably not.

 

ZM: And on the consent issue, yes I physically could stop any punishment in theory, but submission feeds continued submission, so even though I have the strength and the right to stop things, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Plus since we don’t have per-punishment consent, but rather only blanket consent, while I could withdraw consent at any time, it would be the blanket consent I would be withdrawing, which might well lead to a life of frustration without the imposed discipline I so want and need.  So in the end, I may consent to it, but I am easily controlled by my own desires and would not and could not withdraw that consent.

 

You can definitely count me among those who recognizes that I consented to, and continue to consent to, our DD relationship. I am, in fact, all too aware of it.  I am one of those whose attraction to DD really hinges on it being as close to involuntary as is practically possible and that is attracted to the maternal aspects of DD, and to stories and art involving school spankings, precisely because those were not voluntary. That non-consensual aspect was definitely part of what both fascinated and terrified me about DD, and that has not changed that much even today.

 

So, tell us all about what roleconsent or "consensual non-consent" play in your DD relationship. 

 

Also, I want to thank Art, Al and others who commented on the value of this blog brings when it’s at its best. It’s gratifying to read such comments, and while I don’t over-estimate the importance of this thing we do in the overall scheme or our lives and marriages, I do hop the blog plays some concrete positive role for a few of you.

 

I hope you have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 351 - Maintenance Spankings

“We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.” - Samuel Butler

 

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 relationships.  I hope you all had a great weekend.

This was one of those weeks that leave me wondering how I can have little to do and still get nothing done.  This is by far the longest really dry spell I’ve had at work.  I keep telling myself that it’s the universes way of preparing me for a glide path into retirement or a significant change of direction, but it’s still really frustrating in the moment.  And, it’s not just work.  Between an injury I was recovering from, the Covid shutdown, and now sporadic and inconvenient gym access, I’ve pretty much let myself go physically, too.  Funny how that can happen to the best of us, whether disciplined or undisciplined.

I also find myself failing in getting us back on track where DD is concerned, even though I undoubtedly could profit form it.  I do think that the talk Anne and I had about amping up her control but scaling it back in some areas did, in fact, make her less inclined to take me to task on my binge drinking challenges, even after incidents that were pretty plainly excessive.  That had me thinking all weekend about simply suggesting she take care of business.  Yet, in the end, I didn’t.  To a big extent, it was because Saturday I was really beaten up physically by some work around the house. The kind of work that six months ago I would have handled with ease but now left me sore and stiff all over.  But, I think deep down inside it was because I have been talking a good game about knowing I need to get back on track, yet it’s hard to actually ask to be spanked, right?

The fact is, we’ve been out of the habit for so many weeks now, it’s just hard to get started again.  I got to thinking about that in relation to a few comments last week about maintenance spankings.  Brett brought them up as a category of “undeserved” spanking.  KD and I saw them as spankings that really aren’t about deserving or not deserving but, rather, serve some different purpose entirely.  KD saw them as “preventative” in nature:

Maintenance is a behavioral tool that can't really be defined by 'deserved' or 'undeserved' but rather whether it is effective as a preventative. As such, if it is an agreed-upon tactic, the underlying reason is valid even without an actual offense. The only thing that would make maintenance unfair would be if the behavior was not so deeply rooted that maintenance was necessary, and as such, the recipient didn't feel it was needed for good behavior to continue. However, it seems to me that most folks who practice maintenance do so because both parties find it effective and beneficial.

 

 I came at them from a slightly different angle (while acknowledging we don’t really do them, seeing them as primarily about role enforcement, i.e. reinforcing her role as disciplinarian and his role in submitting to her decisions where discipline is concerned.  I also see them having a role in just getting her used to thinking about spanking and discipline if it isn’t a firmly rooted habit yet. 

It’s both interesting and a little depressing that the last time I did a topic on this was back in 2016, and or much the same reason I’m thinking about it now.  What I said then was: 

I have been concerned recently that despite some changes in our circumstances that should have opened up opportunities for making discipline more spontaneous and regular, that really has not been happening, despite both of us talking a lot about being committed to really amping up the FLR aspect of our relationship.  Our best intentions notwithstanding, real life just keeps getting in the way. I also feel that while my wife is genuinely interested in taking on a much stronger FLR and HoH role, it just does not come naturally to her and having to constantly make decisions about whether to spank can lead to it not happening even when we both know it should.

 

As the situation became more frustrating, I thought back to some of the ways in which we established Domestic Discipline early on, when it was unnatural to both of us.  One thing we did was to establish some formal structure and practices.  Early on, we came up with a list of offenses, each of which had a presumptive minimum number of swats with the paddle associated with it.  This served two purposes.  First, it took away some of her concerns about how long or hard to spank or whether it might be too much, by setting an agreed upon floor.  It also meant that if I had a bad week, with lots of bad behavior, the number of swats could get pretty scary, which would hopefully deter some of the behavior before it started.  I had to give her a journal every week tracking the offenses and tallying the swats.  And, it worked to a large extent.  I think setting the minimum number of swats helped her get comfortable with delivering a real disciplinary spanking, by removing just a bit of the discretion.

Do you use maintenance spankings in your relationship, or other means of turning Domestic Discipline or her exercise of her authority into a habit?  This obviously may not be an issue for those women who are naturally dominant and who exercise authority easily and naturally.  But, I do think that incremental steps help to make authority and leadership a habit, and coming up with those incremental steps can require some thought and creativity.

By the way.  We have a new potential Vice President here in the U.S.  Doesn't she look like someone who might be capable of swinging a mean paddle.

 

And, also, thanks to all the kind words some of you left as we neared the end of the week.  It's always appreciated. I hope you all have a great week!

The Club - Meeting 350 - Arbitrary Orders & Undeserved Punishment

Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline. - Barbara W. Tuchman

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 relationships.  I hope you all had a great weekend.

Mine was interesting.  First business trip since the Covid lockdown.  It was interesting comparing how two different areas of the country are complying with Covid shutdowns and mask requirements.  I thought our area was pretty good when it came to masks, but the city I travelled to was much better. It didn’t surprise me that we are seeing a substantial uptick where we live but the city I traveled to isn’t.  It’s also interesting how masks have become part of some people’s everyday routine.  I’ve actually gotten pretty good at eating and drinking with one. 

This is one of those weeks that I’m not getting much in the way of inspiration for a new topic.  I was looking through some old ones and came across the topic of  “undeserved punishment,” and also saw the above quote.  For some reason, a topic related to giving in to orders you chafe against, or taking a spanking you personally don’t think you deserve, resonated with me this week.  I think maybe it is because there was a dispute going on at work, and I was firmly in one of two competing camps.  I was hopeful that the powers-that-be would get to the right decision, but I did spend a fair amount of time thinking about what I’d do if they didn’t.  So, maybe that context was in my mind when I saw the above quote and thought about the times we’ve talked about “undeserved” punishment.  In any event, it’s been about two years since we talked about those topics, so let’s give it a go again.

Have you ever been given a disciplinary spanking for something you felt you didn't deserve?  Perhaps you were seemingly "caught" doing something you really didn't do? Or, perhaps something bad did happen but someone else was the real offender? Or, maybe you did something that wasn't contrary to any clearly set rule, but it was something that annoyed or aggravated your HoH, so they disciplined you for it unexpectedly?  In those circumstances, how did you react?  How did it make you feel?  Humbled?  Resentful?  Respectful?  If you are on the giving end of the spanking, have you ever imposed a punishment that maybe in retrospect wasn't really earned or was more severe than maybe he deserved?  

And, for those of you in an FLR, what about giving and taking orders?  Do you follow only those orders you think are “reasonable”?  Or, is it sometimes a turn-on to be subject to an order precisely because it is one you do not agree with?  Remember when we were kids objecting to an order that seemingly came out of nowhere and mom’s response was “Because I said so!”  For those of us for whom the maternal vibe is a strong component of our attraction to DD, is that seemingly arbitrary or capricious imposition of ad hoc authority part of the attraction? 

I can't think of a circumstance where I have been punished for something I really didn't do or something that I didn't know was a problem for her.  The closest I can think of is a situation where I repeatedly left a chore undone, or done half-assed, and she finally had enough, ordered a spanking, and delivered a very, very hard one that evening.  It was not that it was "undeserved" per se, but this chore was not so much something assigned to me under some express rule, but something I have just always done.  Moreover, giving  a very hard spanking for not doing a chore was not a direction either of us had taken things in up until that point.  So, perhaps the right word is "unexpected" as opposed to "undeserved."  There was also one time when I expected a fairly light "maintenance" session, but what I got was a full-blown punishment spanking.In both cases, there was perhaps some resentment as I pulled my pants up over my very sore bottom that night, but there was also an offsetting respect.  Admiration is another good word to describe it.  I felt proud of her for addressing a situation that was pissing her off  and doing it strongly and decisively.  My reaction was one indication I had that we might have approached a fork in the road, going from something purely DD to something more FLR-oriented, with her setting the tone and direction and taking action where she thought appropriate regardless of whether we had an agreed-upon rule that had been broken.

It speaks very well of my wife that in well over a decade in this lifestyle, I really can't think of an instance in which she was really "wrong" to spank me.  If anything, perhaps it indicates she is letting me get away with too much too often! And, I think that is a danger in trying to set all the rules up front.  It kind of happened to us recently.  We had a fairly structured discussion a few weeks ago about where to take things now that we are more or less empty nesters.  It was good, and the general direction was around her taking more control and exercising authority in more areas. But, I did tell her that I thought for too many years, alcohol-related offenses had been the “end all and be all” of our DD relationship.  I stressed that I wasn’t trying to question her authority to spank me for acts of excessive drinking, but “excessive” needed to be in reference to exceeding reasonable social limits or doing something that put myself or others in danger.  It shouldn’t just being exceeding some low but arbitrary limit in situations where others—often friens of hers at events she took me to—were drinking as much or more.  She agreed to that, which seemed great at the time. But, a couple of weeks later I did have a night where I did exceed what most would consider a reasonable limit, but she didn’t take action.  

I feel like by trying to define a rule that we both thought was reasonable, I still may have undermined her or made her second-guess herself. The bottomline for me is these relationships require common sense, and the "right" approach is seldom binary. Yet, I still wonder whether my effort to come to an agreement on a commonsense boundary around what was “spankable” may have made sense on one level yet been counterproductive on another?

 

It also would be more than a little disingenuous for me to get too upset about being punished for something I didn't deserve given that, as this week illustrates, on balance I have engaged in way more bad behavior that has gone unpunished that I should not have gotten away with.  So, being punished where not strictly deserved could be looked at as just a balancing of the accounts.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

No Post This Week

Hi all. I'm sorry, but I've had a busy weekend, and it's not looking like I'm going to have time today to come up with a topic.  Enjoy your week, and stay safe.  Wear those masks!

The Club - Meeting 349 - Witnesses

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 Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline relationships.

I hope you had a good week.  Mine was tiring.  Several very early morning meetings, back to back.  I’m rolling into the weekend pretty exhausted.  While my week was tiring but boring, for others it was a little more exciting.  Who in the world could have predicted stuff like this would be happening in real life:

   

Well, we shall continue to let 2020 play out as it will.  For this week, however, let’s get right to it.  Our discussion last week was about severity, but one of line of comments went off on the subject of humbling, and then became more focused on the issue of others knowing.  A light bulb apparently went on for ZM’s wife, and she seemed to understand a bit better about one of this fantasies – others knowing and possibly witnessing a spanking.  She even identified a mutual friend as the possible witness.  Now, at this point it sounds like they are just talking through one of his fantasies, but these things have a way of taking on a life of their own.  So, I hope he will keep us updated on that front.  In the meantime, the discussion led Liz to suggest this topic:

For both husbands and wives, if there WAS going to be a witness, with no getting out of it, who would you choose and why?

It’s a great question, and one permutation on it is who would be doing the choosing.  In looking back at some older posts where we talked about witnesses, I found this anonymous comment:

We have often discussed telling another woman about our spanking activities and this has been a very exciting fantasy for both of us. Recently, however, my wife has suggested that we take this fantasy and make it real. She has told me to choose among three women who will be told about my spankings. I must choose either her mother, her sister or her old college roommate who will be coming to visit for a month this summer.

I posted this issue as a question on a Yahoo forum last week and have gotten some interesting advice. (Too many thought all three should be told. That is not going to happen.) My wife wants to tell her sister because she hates keeping secrets from her. And she has pointed out that when her old friend visits for a month, it is possible that I will be spanked during that time and it might be easier if she knew ahead of time.

In my mind, I have ruled out her mother. (That just seems icky.) I find the thought of either of the other two knowing exciting (but that is still fantasy). My wife has insisted that this is going to happen. The only choice I have is which one gets told. I seem to recall that in your old guest book (that is now offline) many of your “guests” told stories not only of others knowing but of others actually getting involved. My wife and I used to really enjoy reading those comments (but of course we don’t know how many were just the guests’ own fantasies).

He eventually chose his wife’s college friend. His story makes me feel some vicarious embarrassment just reading about it.  While having a witness seems inherently humbling or embarrassing, at least the first time, having to participate in choosing the witness seems even more so.  But, the torture wasn’t quite that simple, as his wife told him that she intended to tell her friend soon but refused to tell him when, leaving him with the possibility of talking to the friend without knowing whether she had been told yet and trying to figure it out for himself.  Evil women.  😈

Interestingly, while witnessed spankings are the exception for most of us in our adult DD relationships and the prospect seems very embarrassing, I'm guessing a fairly large number of us have experienced one in our youth. Witnesses were not uncommon at all when I was  growing up.  Indeed, adults had no hesitation to spanking in public, in front of adults or other kids.  

And, while being spanked with others knowing or witnessing was embarrassing, wasn’t it also titillating in some way to know that someone you knew was getting a spanking or about to be spanked?

  

And, as we discussed last week, even having someone in your life who knows about your spankings can be embarrassing even if unwitnessed.

So, who would I choose?  That’s really hard.  I honestly cannot envision it happening with any of my family.  Same with my wife’s.  It’s just not the kind of thing any of them would do.  Though, I do have one sister who has always kind of resented me, and I suspect that she might actually get off on watching me get spanked.  My wife really doesn’t like or respect her siblings, and hates her sister, so I think as a practical matter her family is out as well. 

That leaves friends, whether hers, mine or mutual.  I don’t know many of her friends all that well, but it’s hard for me to envision any of them who I know being into watching her husband get spanked.  Which leaves my friends or mutual friends.  As I’ve recounted before, to my knowledge, there are only two people who know who I am and that my wife gives me real disciplinary spankings.  One is a mutual friend (female) my wife and I have known for many years.  The original connection was through me, but she and my wife also got close over time.  I have been friends with this woman for many years.  One day we were having a few drinks at happy hour.  She asked how my wife was doing and how things were going for us, and I found myself blabbing to her about this new lifestyle we were exploring.  I can't say I wasn't embarrassed talking about it, though this friend is one of the least judgmental people I've ever known, so I was really more embarrassed by the kinky nature of the activity and my male reticence to talk about such things openly than out of fear that she would judge me for engaging in it.

The other person who knows me and knows that I am spanked is a female blogger in an FLR relationship. We started corresponding with each other through blog comments, then through emails, and over time we developed enough mutual trust that we were comfortable revealing who we are in "real life."

For me, either of these two women could be a candidate to witness a spanking.  I suspect my wife would prefer our mutual friend, if only because she is, in fact, a friend to both of us and one with whom we have a long relationship.  The issue I see with it is that, while she is very non-judgmental, she’s almost too much so. What do I mean by that? Well, I think KD hit it on the head last week regarding why it is more embarrassing when the person who knows is either in the lifestyle or actively believes we deserve what we’re getting:

These people aren't mistaking this talk of spanking for spicy conversation over some playful bedroom kinkiness that Rosa is revealing. They understand these are real spankings for actual issues. And while being on the receiving end of even a playful spanking is more embarrassing than being known as the person on the giving end, having someone know that the spankings are painfully real punishments is much worse.

And the second factor is their degree of support. We've opened up to some people who are 'accepting' of this quirk, but aren't overly in agreement that this is some ideal arrangement. It's more like they're OK with it, but that's kind of it. When people like that are let in on something, their knowledge is embarrassing, but not nearly as much for me as if the person is more enthusiastically in support of Rosa's authority. We are out to a lot of people and the vast majority fall into that accepting category, but there are a special handful that fall into the more supportive category.

Essentially the reason people like this knowing are more embarrassing than others is that they understand the spankings are real, AND think they're an appropriate outcome for me in particular. It's that combination that seals the deal.

Our mutual friend is very accepting, but she isn’t into disciplinary spankings herself, and I think she might actually be a little too forgiving of my faults, having experienced them first hand for many years.  If Anne were to spank me in front of her, I think her reaction might look something like this: 

On the other hand, my blogging friend checks a lot of boxes that might maximize the embarrassment.  She is very strict with her own husband, and I think it is unlikely that she would be looking askance or clutching her pearls at witnessing a spanking. She also would be pretty likely to actually encourage one if she thought I deserved it.  I think she’d be a lot like Tomy describes Aunt Kay at certain DWC functions where men were sentenced to be spanked for their transgressions then led away for it to happen.  She’s quite a bit younger than me, which makes it seem even more embarrassing.  Finally, we are in the same profession and actually do have some contact with each other in that context, which is always weird in the moment because I'm hyper-aware that she knows about my DD lifestyle and no one else in that context does.   

It all adds up to a scenario that theoretically could happen (though I think it highly unlikely that Anne actually would spank me in front of this person or anyone else), which makes me feel embarrassed just thinking about it. And, isn’t embarrassment the point?  This isn’t something I want to happen, but if it did, and if it were to have a disciplinary goal, it would have to be embarrassing or humbling to have that, right?  For that reason, I'm not sure something like hiring a pro to witness a spanking would have much emotional impact.  I think that kind of impact really would require the participation of someone I either know fairly well or am likely to encounter in vanilla settings.   I doubt I would be that embarrassed in front of some stranger I’d never see again. Though, I could be wrong.

Of course, things might look different from Anne’s perspective. I could see her gravitating toward someone she knows very well, like our mutual friend.  Or, one of her other friends who might be more open to something like this than I know.  I can see how that might really unleash something in her.  Alan has observed that his wife’s spankings in front of a witness tend be even harder than his unwitnessed spankings.  It’s almost like the wife is showing off, or declaring her power and authority to deliver a real spanking.  

Would it ever happen?  As I said, I really doubt it.  But, who knows?  She definitely is more comfortable in her power these days, and for all I know she might get off on displaying it. In fact, I'm not sure that wasn't the case more than a decade ago when I told our mutual friend that Anne spanks me. They later had a very frank conversation about it over drinks at a football game, then called me from their car and Anne told me over the speaker phone that she and our friend had talked all about how I am spanked and why.  She capped it off by announcing that I would be getting one that night.  So, it’s not quite as big a leap as it seems now, when we've settled into certain patterns and left openness still mostly unexplored. 

Although, perhaps a witnessed spanking is not likely in the cards for you, if it were who would you choose to be the witness if, once chosen, there was no getting out of it?  Why?  How do you think that person would react?  For the wives, how do you think it would make you feel to spank your husband in front of someone?  Or, if that is too big a stretch, what about just telling someone that you spank your husband? Is that something you have done?  Is it something you can see yourself doing in the future?  If so, who would you tell?  For the men, do you have a desire for others to know you are spanked?  How about taking the next step and being subjected to a spanking with a witness?  How do you think that would make you feel?

Have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 348 - Severity Revisited

A person who is knowingly bent on bad behavior, gets upset when better behavior is expected of them. - Jane Austen

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 relationships.

I hope you all had a great week. Mine was fairly frustrating. Lots of work drama, much of it set off by my recent announcement that I’d like to start transitioning out of my current roles. It’s becoming apparent that this transition is not going to be pain free and may end up taking a few more months than I’d hoped. And, in the meantime, a return to the office any time soon doesn’t seem very likely given the current Covid trends.  What a screwed up year, and I’m starting to get a little concerned that 2021 may end up looking a lot like 2020.

I liked last week’s discussion, even if I didn’t participate in a lot of it.  It doesn’t really surprise me very much that most of the people answered KD’s question affirmatively regarding whether DD would likely continue in some form even if one’s behavior was suddenly perfect. There were a small number of us who said it might not. It surprised me a little bit more that the women who responded seemed to be unanimous in admitting they kind of enjoy holding the power and might have a hard time giving it up. I’m not surprised they feel that way, but I am a little surprised they all admitted it.  I feel like I might have gotten a different answer back when I first started the blog; it seems like there is an increasing openness among some women when it comes to declaring that they like being in charge.

This week’s topic extends from a comment Belle passed along a couple of weeks ago from her Jimmy.  When asked what he likes and dislikes about DD, his dislike centered on this: 

"I wish she didn't spank quite so hard. I think I would still get the message." (Belle, I found this picture in my collection – it reminded me of how you've described the relationship between you and Jimmy.)

These days, I am kind of there with Jimmy. From the beginning, we have taken Domestic Discipline seriously.  Though it clearly has erotic overtones, it isn't part of a kinky game for us.  The goal really did remain to make me pay a price for bad behavior such that I would be less likely to do it again.  My earliest exposure to Domestic Discipline reinforced that the starting place should be to err on the side of severity. Aunt Kay of the Disciplinary Wives Club advised: "The harder you spank him, the more he will love you for it."  And, I still believe there is a lot of truth in that. I also believe that if it isn't really hard, and designed to push him not only to his limits but somewhat beyond them, then is it really punishment?  If it's something you can easily take, then how are you really being punished? And, over the course of the first few years, I was definitely the one fixated on "hard" spankings.

 

As time goes by, however, I’ve had more doubts about the "harder is better" premise.  Over the years, I followed the “more severe is better” path into experimenting with scarier and scarier tools. We ended up getting rid of several of them, including rubber straps that we found did way too much damage. I’ve also found over the last couple of years that many of our wooden paddles seem to hurt much worse than they used to. I really don’t know whether my butt has gotten more sensitive over time or if Anne is swinging harder. Yet, even as the spankings have come to feel more severe over the years, I’m hard pressed to say they are more “effective.” For example, after about 15 years of being in this lifestyle, I’ve never once gotten to a point of tears, even with extremely painful implements, like those rubber straps.  After a certain point of severity, I just cannot give into the process and reach any point of actual submission or surrender when she is strapping me with them.  My mind becomes so singly fixated on just trying to get through it, there is no way for me to give in.  I not only do not surrender, I become more resistant to surrendering.  

Now, one could argue that tears are more my goal than hers, and if she is delivering an incredibly hard spanking, then I am being well and truly punished and am surely less likely to commit that same offense in the future. But, I’m finding that isn’t really true either.  Instead, I think the way it really works is I just get less inclined to self-report, and I find myself trying to create distractions or excuses so she either forgets about her intent to give a spanking or ends up showing mercy when she probably shouldn’t. 

The plain fact is, even though we are basically empty nesters these days, over the last years the frequency of spankings has dropped, not gone up, and I have to be honest about the fact that part of that is because I am finding ways to delay or avoid.  And, of course, all that defeats the entire purpose of acting for discipline and accountability.  It’s kind of like KD’s observation about pickpockets engaging in their trade during public hangings – severity by itself may not deter the crime though it may make the culprit more careful or sneakier. .  

I am more and more convinced that frequency and consistency are more effective than really severe pain, and that severity may work against frequency and consistency. Honestly, I really believe she might have better luck really changing my behavior if she stuck with two or three effective but not over-the-top instruments and spanked way more often but with each session being less of a long, staged event.  In one of his comments last week, Alan observed:

The more authority a woman feels, the more likely she is to use it to shape her husband’s behavior beyond the issues that led them to adopt a DD lifestyle. A wife often discovers or becomes aware of additional behaviors that she decides to correct. In effect as a relationship matures, discipline becomes stricter and standards are increased.

It hasn’t really worked that way for us, but I think it is what Anne should be aiming for – setting higher standards, being stricter and more quick to punish, but with the caveat that really long and severe sessions be reserved for really exceptional conduct. I still believe that a disciplinary spanking should be an event to remember and that a certain amount of severity is required. But, I also think it’s more about frequency and duration than “hardness” per se.  For me, there seems to be some sweet spot where it hurts a lot, but not so much that my defenses become impossible to surmount. I also think that focusing more on being strict and punishing frequently but less severely could actually reinforce her own feelings of power and control, because she would be exercising her authority more often and being more “bossy” more consistently.

I also find myself really wanting spankings that feel more parental, which in my mind is associated with things like being taken over her knee and spanked with a smaller paddle, which we have almost never done in the past because of concerns the position wasn't very good for delivering a really hard spanking.  Yet, while other positions may produce more pain, being disciplined for me is also about being humbled, and being made to put myself over her knee just seems more humbling than laying over an inanimate object like our bedroom ottoman. Other spanking positions that in my mind are associated with parental or school discipline include being told to bend over a desk or table. So, if she wasn't in the OTK mood or wanted a more immediate spanking, she could take me to her office for a quick paddling. I truly believe that 10 or 20 paddle swats that happened more frequently might get my attention just as effectively as our longer sessions, and might render avoidance less likely.

Any thoughts on this?  Is harder necessarily “more effective”?  Is strictness about being willing to give really hard spankings, or is it more about consistency and frequency?  For those like Alan and ZM who report their wives have gotten stricter over time, can you explain that more in the context of severity, consistency, duration, etc.?

I hope you have a great week.