The Club - Meeting 395 - Delay, Anticipation, Avoidance cont.

"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone." — Pablo Picasso

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our (more or less) weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.  I hope you all had a great week.

 

It wasn’t a great week, but it certainly was a momentous week in world events.  As anyone who has read this blog for a while knows, I’m a political and world affairs junkie.  I started the day on Thursday very down that it appeared the worlds democracies were once again going to roll over and play dead in the face of totalitarian aggression.  Yet, over the course of the next few days and as a result of watching millions of Ukrainians put their lives on the line to stand up the neighborhood bully, the rest of the world somehow managed to find its balls.

 

 

Inspiring stuff.  Though, I’m fascinated by the collective amnesia of the politicians and pundits who are criticizing the current U.S. administration for not being strong enough in supporting Ukraine, after those same politicians and pundits argued left and right that it was no big deal for Trump to get caught on a “perfect” phone call trying to extort Ukraine by delaying military aid until they coughed up dirt on his political opponent.  No, no big deal at all. Shameful.

 

Anyway. On to this week’s post.  It’s kind of an update on recent developments and an extension of last week’s discussion.  As I’ve related on here a couple of times, one of my resolutions for the new year was to do a better job self-reporting any behavioral problems.  Unlike most of my resolutions, I’ve actually done pretty well on this one.  Not perfect by any means; but, not too bad.  However, I’m finding that for every action there is, indeed, an equal and opposite reaction.  Although I’m acting to be tougher on myself on the reporting front, the perhaps inevitable reaction is I’m working harder to delay the anticipated consequences of that reporting.  And, unfortunately, February proved to be chockful of events that allowed me to wriggle out of those consequences.  There were visitors and a couple of physical health issues, holidays (Valentines Day) and personal events that (a) interfered with her ability to deliver a spanking immediately; (b) allowed me to display some offsetting good behavior that warmed her heart, i.e. gifts given to her on a couple of meaningful occasions; or (c) gave me an excuse to argue for a short delay, i.e. “Ah honey, it’s Valentines Day.  How about tomorrow?”

 

 

Now, as I’ve related a few times here, I’ve always been kind of bad about trying to get out of what I know I have coming, or at least very actively hoping that something would come along and interfere.  But, I do feel like that reaction intensified after I started reporting more.  I don’t really try to avoid it entirely.  Indeed, if that were the overt aim, the best means would probably be to just “forget” to self-report.  Yet, I haven’t been doing that. Instead, my reluctance to get spanked manifests as various subtle and not-so-subtle suggestions that maybe she could just put it off a day or two.

 

The problem is, justice delayed very often turns into justice denied.  I’ve talked before about the trade-offs between immediacy and anticipation.  I do believe that allowing a misbehaving husband to stew about it for a while does have its place.  But, so does immediacy, not least because the big problem with providing a lot of time for anticipation also lays the groundwork for it not happening at all.  As ZM noted:

 

When things get postponed, it is almost never because my wife wants to keep me anxious about it. Rather, things get in the way, or maybe sometimes she just doesn't feel like punishing me at the time. When things get postponed - for whatever reason - they become less and less likely to happen with each passing day.

 

 

I couldn’t agree more.  Alan offered further support for the value of immediacy and the problems with lengthy delays:

 

This discussion about delayed or postponed spankings remind me about the relatively few “on the spot” spankings I have received. But I remember every one of them, even those that occurred years ago – and with few exceptions I either never repeated the behavior that caused the spanking -- or didn’t repeat it for a very long time. What I am saying is that spanking in real time is probably much more natural and more effective than delay.

 

Those who have studied the factors that make a correction effective tell us that it should be “certain”, “severe” and “swift”. In the real adult world we all live in, these are challenging conditions to achieve. But for those who believe spankings can’t achieve real behavior modification, I say: try certain, severe and swift for a while and see if you still think spanking doesn’t work.

 

I agree that “certain, severe, and swift” is almost certainly the right recipe for effective correction.  Throughout our fifteen-plus years of doing DD, however, we’ve almost always been a mere one out of three.  Anne’s spankings have always been plenty severe.  However, “certain” and “swift” are ongoing problems.

 

I’m being honest when I say that my resolve around self-reporting was an effort to build more certainty into our disciplinary endeavors.  What I am finding, however, is that in the context of Domestic Discipline, certainty and swiftness are not wholly independent variables.  Without swiftness, certainty becomes far less . . . certain.

 

In thinking through what to do about my efforts to self-sabotage the painful discipline I know I deserve, it did occur to me even before Alan’s comment that reducing the time between a self-report and her taking up the paddle and doing something about it is probably a necessary first step.  I’m not sure it would even require a major adjustment.  What I see happening time and again is I self-report, then we aren’t around each other for a while, then as soon as we are, I go into my subtle and not-so-subtle efforts to delay.  Over the course of even a few hours, I can find arguments to delay the proceedings, or often things really will happen on her end to interfere. So, what if she started eliminating some of the time that I have to maneuver and that events have to intercede?

 

As so often happens, I got to think about some of the inspiration we got early on from the Disciplinary Wives Club stories.  As I’ve said before, one of my favorites has always been the story Even More, written by our contributor Al.  It occurred that in that story, the wife calls the husband when she is on her way home from work and tells him to be ready for his spanking as soon as she gets home, after telling him earlier in the day that he was in for one.  That seems to me to be about the perfect amount of “anticipation” time.  He knows for a few hours that he is going to get one, then there is a short but powerful period in which he knows it is coming very soon.  In our case, there simply wouldn’t be much time for me to argue or maneuver if she were to call me on her way home from work to tell me I was getting my spanking as soon as she gets home.  It could also work in situations in which the husband is at work or otherwise away from the home.  She could call and order that he be home by a certain time and tell him to expect a spanking as soon as he gets home. 

 

The other thing about anticipation is I think wives may over-estimate its power.  I have a pretty short attention span, and I suspect other husbands do too.  If I know I have a spanking coming in the next hour, I will think of little else.  However, if the “anticipation” period is longer or more indeterminate, other thoughts naturally intercede.  Moreover, while soon after an offense I may feel a lot of contrition and a strong desire to be held accountable, those feelings have a pretty short half-life.

 

Finally, as Alan alluded to, when the delay becomes substantial, additional acts of bad behavior or “acting out” seem to become inevitable:

 

[F]or us there is a certain self-correcting mechanism that never lets her paddle gather too much dust. If it goes too long or she lets my behavior slip I begin to act out, in effect challenging her authority –and then she reminds me both of her authority and that I don’t want to challenge it.

 

 

Please let me know your thoughts about any of this.  I hope you all have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 394 - Paradoxical Disappointments and Emotional Rollercoasters

The desire to keep doing what we love supersedes the desire to penalize bad behavior. - Nell Scovell

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our (more or less) weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.  I hope you all had a great week.

 

Mine has been kind of up and down.  On the upside, after taking off more than a month thanks to the vacation from hell and then an extended bout of Covid, I finally got back into the gym for the first time in over a month. Though painful, it was good for me.  Kind of like the spanking Anne gave me last week.  I’ll use that spanking as the launch pad for this week’s discussion, while also following up on a few reader comments.

 

In response to the topic of what usually brings spankings to an end, some of you talked about the paradoxical feelings we sometimes get when a spanking we know we deserve ends “too soon.”  I suspect it is a feeling many of disciplined husbands can relate to, even if it seems counter-intuitive.  While we are in the middle of the spanking, we really truly want it to end. But, if it ends “too soon,” we may experience disappointment.  While it may seem illogical to some, I totally get it.  For me, so much of my desire around domestic discipline is tied up with a need to feel like I am being held accountable and that consequences are being imposed.  Even if I really want her to stop when she’s in the middle of whacking away at my upturned bottom, there is some disappointment there if I feel like the punishment wasn’t quite long enough to really clean the slate, and for me cleaning the slate requires a spanking that I am really, really challenged to take.  If she stops too soon, part of me is happy but another part likely will be disappointed.

 

 

I have a similar rollercoaster of conflicting emotions when it comes to avoiding a spanking entirely.  I am man enough to admit that the prospect of being spanked leads me to some very childish behavior in one respect; like any kid who knows he or she is in for a spanking, I almost always try to avoid getting the consequences that my behavior earned.  Even though I was the one who asked for this kind of relationship, as soon as I know I am likely to get a spanking, I start hoping that something will happen to interfere with her plans.  Sometimes, I will try to get her to put it off for a day or two. Sometimes I even have a legitimate reason for putting it off, but part of me is also hoping that justice delayed will end up being justice denied entirely.

 

Last week, I once again experienced that cycle of wanting imposed consequences then quickly not wanting them. On Sunday, I self-reported (as I resolved to start doing regularly), regarding some behavior and attitude issues.  She was well aware of the issues, particularly the attitude problem, but I had committed to self-reporting and I really am trying to make it a habit.  We weren’t together that evening and, therefore, she didn’t have the opportunity to take care of it that day. Then, I ended up with some back pain that was real, but I did use it as an excuse to ask her to give me a reprieve for a day or two.  Three days came and went, and I started to think that I might have once again managed to avoid one entirely.  But, as soon as I had that realization, I felt some disappointment.  I knew that I deserved a spanking, and the part of me that needs to be held accountable needed one.

 

Then, at dinner that night, she asked me told me to enjoy the time sitting down, because I wouldn’t be able to sit comfortably later that evening.  It took me by surprise, but I didn’t even try to put it off any longer.  Not that my feelings were unmixed or consistent.  On the one hand, I instantly no longer felt that nagging sense of unexpiated guilt and accompanying disappointment that I had felt when I thought I might have delayed my way out of a trip over her knee.  On the other hand, I was not looking forward to getting spanked, even though I knew I deserved it.

 

It did happen, and on a little faster schedule than I anticipated.  Although the scheduling varies, most of our spankings seem to happen around 9:00 or 9:30.  I had been hanging out in my home office watching television.  I wandered into our bedroom, where Anne generally works at night, at around 8:30, thinking it probably would be at least 30 minutes before she would let me know it was time.  Instead, as soon as I walked into the bedroom she asked if I was ready for my spanking. As has been the case in our three or four most recent sessions, it was OTK with the bath brush and hairbrush. 

 

 

She went for a few minutes and the bath brush was as hard to take as usual.  But, she stopped to inspect my butt and was plainly disappointed that parts of my bottom were starting to show what had to be very minor “spotting” of blood.  It was minor enough that I couldn’t find any evidence of it a few minutes later.  She was plainly disappointed that she couldn’t go longer, to the point that she told me I would be getting a second round the next day.  She said that she had not realized how angry she was about my recent attitude issues until she started spanking me.  It was clear that for her, the spanking she had just delivered was not enough to clean the slate.  I told her that it might need to wait a day, as I had (a legitimate) scheduling conflict the next day.  And, of course, you know what happened.  The second part never happened.

 

So, my spanking experience last week dovetailed very closely with a couple of comments by ZM and Glenmore.  ZM noted:

 

One of the best things about spanking is how it clears the slate, both for the spanker and the spankee. If she is spanking me out of feelings of hurt or anger, she should continue at least until those feelings been fully vented, at which point she will probably transition from feeling angry at me to feeling sorry for me. At the same time, if I reach the point of surrender, it will provide an emotional catharsis and purging of feelings of guilt for me as well. So, the spanking should end with a clean slate.

 

While the spanking she delivered actually did leave me pretty sore for at least three days and had purged most of my guilt, it plainly had not been sufficient to clean the slate from Anne’s perspective.

 

Glenmore raised another angle, asking: “I wonder if the length of the spanking is related to just how much is she enjoying it? The sense of power must be intoxicating for her and I notice her tone is not one of anger but almost amusement sometimes.”  I have experienced that, too. Anne plainly does enjoy her role as disciplinarian, though she seems to get off more on the pre-spanking activities than on the spanking itself.  She is very open about the fact that she likes it when I show signs of nervousness about either getting spanked or about her starting to exercise more authority. We talk pretty often about her becoming much more strict with me (though our follow-through has been pretty spotty so far) and exercising much more authority, going down more of an FLR path. When we have those talks, it turns me on but it also does make me feel more than a little nervous. It shows, and she plainly likes that it does.

 

She has also said that she enjoys telling me to get ready for a spanking or to get into position, and then watching me comply.  Over the last year, she’s also taken to being more vocal during the spanking itself, repeating her displeasure with my actions and asking rhetorical questions about whether she is getting through to me.  So, I do think she does enjoy delivering the spanking and that it is, as Glenmore suggested, all about the sense of power.

 

I don’t have a formal topic associated with any of the above but welcome any thoughts you may have.

The Club - Meeting 393 - Stopping

 

“What cannot be altered must be borne, not blamed.”- Thomas Fuller.

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our (more or less) weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.  I hope you all had a great week.

 

Remember how I said in my last post that one of my resolutions/aspirations was to make sure I didn’t backslide on some of the behavioral gains I made last year?  Well, it didn’t take me long to blow that resolution.  Though, technically I was probably a little behind schedule, since the second Friday of January is officially national “Quitters Day,” the day on which most New Years resolution makers are most likely to give up.  https://nationaltoday.com/ditch-new-years-resolution-day/  In this case, it probably earned me a spanking; the first of the new year.

 

 

My other resolutions are also off to a bad start, though getting off to a good start on those wasn’t entirely within my control.  I had hoped to back into the gym and into some new athletic endeavors and get the new year off to a strong start on at least that front.  I also wanted to start some volunteer work.  Unfortunately, it ended up taking me almost one full month to shake the Covid symptoms.  Fingers crossed, I think I’m finally ready to really get started on 2022, a full month late.

 

One thing that did seem to get off to a good start for the new year was the discussion here at the Disciplinary Couples Club.  We covered a lot of ground – resolutions; differences in “alpha” and “beta” (though I’m not wild about that term) male approaches to Female/male discipline; “hotwifing” categories; M/m spankings; how to accommodate DD with kids still at home . . . Good stuff. 

 

However, one thing we didn’t get a lot of was suggestions for future topics.  If you have thoughts about things that might be good for a group discussion, please let me know, either in a comment to this post or by email.

 

Glenmore did have a suggestion for a topic:

 

 

When a spanking should stop sounds like an interesting topic and linked to a subtopic of what is the objective of the spanking? To cause immediate pain, or to be feeling the effects for days after, or both. Very often if a spanking stops too soon the effects disappear very quickly, which is a source of frustration for her as she feels she did not do a good enough job.

 

We’ve talked in the past (multiple times) about how long spankings take, or “should” take.  Though, it never seemed to get much response.  But, Glenmore’s angle on it is slightly different; not so much about duration per se but about what exactly does, or should, bring one to an end. 

 

So, that is this week’s topic.  Is there something that usually brings a spanking to an end in your disciplinary routine, and does it depend on the objective the spanking?  I can think of many possibilities.  Perhaps she has a particular number of swats in mind? Or, maybe she uses a timer?

Maybe she’s going for a spanking that is long enough to make him sore for several days and knows from experience how long that takes?  Maybe he cries and that is the signal that the spanking should end, or that it should go on a bit longer but not too long?  Or, maybe her arm just gets tired?

 

For us, it seems to be the condition of my butt that most frequently brings a spanking to an end.  While I need to lose some bodyfat in other areas, I don’t have much on my ass, and I do a lot of leg and glute work in the gym. I think the skin, stretched tightly over my buns with little fat to absorb and distribute the force of the swats, contributes to small breaks in the skin, resulting in minor “spotting.”  Although it truly is minor, it often leads Anne to stop a spanking that I think she otherwise might have continued.

 

 

I also used to believe there wasn’t much point in continuing a spanking after my butt got numb, which it almost inevitably did with heavier wooden paddles.  I’ve started rethinking that lately, however.  A few weeks ago someone pointed out that even once the butt goes on, a longer spanking may result in that “you aren’t going to be sitting comfortably for a week” deep soreness.

 

I’m genuinely not sure what would happen if Anne were to decree that a spanking would not end until I was crying real tears.  As I’ve said, it has never happened so far.  But, then, she has never given the “this spanking won’t stop until you are crying” approach a try.  I do think that because of the numbness issue, in probably would require multiple sessions with minutes of downtime to let the feeling return.

 

 

How about you? What typically brings your spankings to an end?  Does it depend on the objective of the spanking (punishment vs. maintenance vs. preventative, etc.)?  And, for the husbands, do you think the spankings stop too soon, not soon enough, or just right?  I'm not sure the answer to that one is all that obvious.  For example, some of us are perversely attracted to the idea of crying, and even if you really, really want a spanking to stop when it is in process, I don't think it is all that uncommon to feel some disappointment if it ends before tears or while he is still comfortably within the limits of what he can take without breaking down and really submitting or surrendering fully to her.

 

  

I hope you all have a good week.

The Club - New Years Edition 2022

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.” - Benjamin Franklin

 Hello all.  Welcome back to the first meeting of the Disciplinary Couples Club for 2022.

 As long-term readers know, my New Years posts tend to be both reflective and verbose.  So, hopefully those who have been here a while and who come for the camaraderie will bear with me. Those who are here just for the spanking porn may want to come back some other time.

 “Well, what a fucking year.” That’s how I began my traditional New Years post for 2021.  I thought (hoped, prayed, assumed) things couldn’t get any worse and that 2021 would yield a “v-shaped recovery” from the shitshow that was 2020. Although I do think the world recovered some of its collective footing after a very unbalanced and unbalancing 2020, it hardly was the major positive change I was hoping for.  If 2020 was a series of disasters, 2021 was like a long, slow grind.  Though, I guess at least the overall direction of the grind at least was upwards.  Sort of.

 For us, the old year ended on a very stressful note, and the new year got off to a very bad start.  I won’t go into details because it really would be a little bit too revealing, but our community dealt with a real tragedy near the end of the year. Then, I  contracted Covid and had to quarantine. While we were traveling in a foreign country.  Not fun. 

 If you live in the U.S., I encourage you to think twice before traveling internationally until the CDC lifts its current travel restrictions. They require a negative Covid test no more than 24 hours before flying back to the U.S. from a foreign country and, and that restriction applies no matter how long you might have quarantined after a positive test.  The problem is, the CDC itself notes that you can test positive for months after you are no longer contagious and aren’t experiencing any symptoms.  The only other option if you keep testing positive (which I did for several days after the CDC’s five-day quarantine period), is to get a signed letter from a doctor saying you had Covid but have now recovered.  Good luck finding a doctor in a foreign country who will examine you wherever you are quarantined, and who in addition to doing his job as a doctor will also be so kind as to write a letter for you containing whatever magic words your airline may require before they will let you onto a flight back to the U.S.  I’ve also heard that some airlines are unilaterally requiring longer quarantine periods than the five days the CDC currently suggests.  In short, there is a highly transmissible disease going around, and if you get it while traveling abroad it is all too easy to get stuck for some indeterminate period before you can come home.

 

  

Regarding the virus itself, I encourage you to keep taking steps to protect yourself.  The Omicron variant (which I assume is what I had, though I have no way of knowing for sure) has been characterized as “mild,” but that’s a relative term that is used mainly in comparison to Delta and the original Covid 19 variants, which have killed millions worldwide.  Based on my own experience and that of fully vaccinated friends and family, Omicron may not put you in the hospital or kill you, but then symptoms can still be pretty debilitating and can last a long time.  It was 12 days between when I first experienced symptoms and when I finally tested negative, and my symptoms—especially the more flu-like symptoms like exhaustion and “brain fog”—actually got worse after I tested negative.  It’s now been three weeks since I had the first symptoms, and I still can’t fully shake the cough, congestion and fatigue.  Friends who have contracted it recently experienced very bad fatigue and severe body aches, and severe fatigue.  Therefore, while I understand the hope that Omicron’s combination of high transmissibility and mild(er) symptoms might lead to herd immunity without maxing our hospital and morgue capacity in the process, based on my experience Omicron isn’t a joke. 

 I didn’t really expect to start the new year with a rant, but there you go. I also need to try to keep a wider and more positive perspective on the year as a whole.  I spent a good part of the year recuperating and rebuilding from a surgery to fix a chronic health problem that had limited my physical activity for two years.  It wasn’t an easy or painless rehab, but by mid-year I was taking on some physical challenges that, in my humble opinion, were fairly impressive for an aging guy such as myself.  For the first time ever, my proclivity for social binging on alcohol dropped like a rock.  I also finally let go of a career that, although lucrative and fairly good at serving my ego needs, had not been serving me well from a mental/spiritual/bodily health perspective for many years.  The end-of-year tragedy I spoke of above, and the lack of inquires about our welfare by a lot of people I worked with for many years served to reinforce that I probably should have moved on long before I actually pulled the trigger.  In past years, I’ve posted this meme, which reflected some real frustration about my chronic lack of yearly progress:

 

 

But, this year I can say that in some areas I actually did become a better, healthier, more energetic person.  The goal now needs to be to carry forward and not lose ground.  On that note, my Covid quarantine and the year-end drama our community went through did lead to one epiphany that I think and hope will have an impact on how I approach 2022.  I left my career without any real plans for a second act, and I’ve never had any obsessive hobbies or compelling interests to keep me busy post-career.  In combination with the necessary process of rehabilitating my body, my lack of concrete post-career goals led me into a months-long process of decompression and recuperation consisting mainly of a lot of dog walks, daily gym workouts, reading, and a lot of Netflix binging.  While I genuinely need some time to just decompress after burning the candle at both ends for way too many years and almost ruining my health in the process, I realized that my daily routine while quarantined in a hotel room was not all that different from the way I had been approaching retirement, i.e. whole days drifted away with me sitting around the house doing little other than surfing the internet, reading books and streaming series and documentaries on Netflix.  A life comprised of consuming media and entertainment content isn’t much of a life.  So, whatever plans I put in place for 2022 need to involve a conscious effort to overcome inertia and do some exploring and serving. 

What about the DD/FLR/kink front?  Well, it was another up and down year.  I continue to be surprised that as we have progressed further and more solidly into empty-nester status, things haven’t progressed that much in terms of DD or Anne taking charge.  There is a complicated mix of reasons.  First, my physical recovery imposed some hard limits on physical discipline for several months. Second, and relatedly, it’s hard to get any momentum going after a long break.  Third, although I “retired” mid-way through the year, Anne is still working. Therefore, while I had fewer distractions to get in the way of DD consistency, she did not. Fourth, for much of the year my behavior was, in fact, much better than it was when I was neck deep in work pressure and work-related socializing and travel. Finally, there was one time near the holidays that I did something that I know undermined her authority and, unfortunately, it went unaddressed. 

But, there were bright spots on the DD front that could foreshadow changes and real progress this year. For the first time in more than 15 years in this lifestyle, without any prompting from me Anne searched for and bought a spanking instrument.  (Unfortunately for my bottom, it was a bath brush. I hate those damn things.)  Further, she started leaving it and the heavy ebony hairbrush on display together in our bathroom, in a way that indicates to me that she’s getting much more comfortable with our kids potentially figuring out that someone in our house gets spanked.  

 

So, with 2021 in the rearview mirror, what do I want to accomplish in 2022?  Unlike in the past when I would set out some very specific goals for the upcoming year, this year’s list is a little more “thematic” and includes:

• Solidify the progress I made last year on reducing the number of excessive drinking incidents.
• Renew and energize some friendships that I let drift away over the last few years when I was too focused on career.
• Volunteer on some effort that has a real and substantial impact on the lives of vulnerable or powerless people.
• Take at least three long road trips with Anne and the dogs.
• Complete drafts of two books I’ve wanted to write for some time but never seem to get around to.
• Multiple multi-state motorcycle trips.
• Take up some sport or demanding fitness activity that doesn’t take place in a gym.
• Reverse the recent losses in our investment portfolio.

On the DD front, my aspirations include:

•  Weekly reporting of any misbehavior.  I started this one last year but my consistency was dismal. 
• Inject some additional kink into our disciplinary relationship.  I don’t have anything really firm in mind for this one, but maybe something like being spanked outdoors or in a car.
• Finally, after 15+ years, cry from a spanking.

I haven’t asked Anne what her resolutions might be, but here are a few she might consider that do reflect what I see as particularly relevant to our relationship:

 

How about you? Do you have any specific goals or aspirations for the new year, whether related to domestic discipline or more vanilla aspects of your life or relationship?  Anything that you particularly want to achieve?  Any specific bad behaviors you’d like conquer?   

I hope you have a great 2022. The bar is set awfully low for this to be a better year, but let’s all try to do our part.  Of course, I said the exact same thing last year, and look how that turned out.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays 2021

Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection. - Winston Churchill

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our (mostly)m weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.  I hope you all had a great week.

Thanks for joining me for what is likely to be the final post of 2021, as we’ll be traveling and spending time with family through the first week of the new year.

 

I don’t quite know how to describe this year and whether to label it “good” or “bad.” We all probably hoped to put 2020 in the rearview mirror but, unfortunately, 2021 brought us more of the worst from 2020 including pandemic deaths and disruption, political dysfunction and divisiveness, and here where I live our warm, brown, snow-free Christmas seems to portend the arrival of climate change that even the former skeptics are having a hard time denying. Yet, despite the challenges things seemed at least a little more normal.  While things never got exactly “good,” at least it wasn’t things getting progressively worse continuously throughout the year.  If 2020 was a long, slow downward grind, 2021 felt like a bad habit you’ve gotten into and can’t quite muster the energy discipline to break just yet.

 

My personal life in 2021 reflected some of the “stuckness” of 2020’s continuing influence. I finally quit a career that had seemed more or less toxic for the last few years, yet I haven’t really replaced it with anything yet. I keep thinking some new hobby or compelling interest will present itself, but so far it’s been a lot of book reading and Netflix binging.  Though, maybe that’s a phase I have to go through before getting on to something different and better.  Though, the last few months have reinforced to me that inertia is a powerful force and that things can and will just drift along absent a deliberate, focused application of energy in some different direction.  Thankfully, our wives are fully capable of deliberate, focused application of energy.

I’ve also discovered that stepping away from a career while the other spouse is still working is a mixed bag.  I have more time on my hands and am no longer feeling chronically stressed. However, a lot of that newly discovered free time is spent doing the chores and errands that we used to split a bit more equitably (though, I suspect Anne’s view is it was split inequitably before, just in the opposite direction).  But, again, maybe that is a phase—and a form of humbling—that I need to go through before moving on to something better.   

Early in 2021, I’ll probably go through my usual process of goal setting and resolution making, and more of it than usual may revolve around humbling and discipline.  We really have no excuse for not exploring that more deeply and diligently given our empty nester status, and through a lot 2022 we both will be more or less retired (unless some new job-like interest does arise for me), and then there really will be no excuse for not shoving through and past some of the inertia.

 

Still, as I said at the end of last year, I can give thanks for a few simple things.  We didn’t lose any immediate or close extended family members or close friends this year, though I did lose a couple of people who were big influences on me in high school and college.  Most of our family and friends are in pretty good health, though one extended family member did have a very bad health event.  And, while I honestly missed some of the hustle and bustle of business travel and the office environment, my better office friendships remained intact, and my health is sooooooo much better now that I’m not living on airplanes. 

 

In fact, while I probably deserved to be spanked more often than I was in 2021, the fact is I am leaving it in much better physical and emotional health than has been the case in several years.  After literally hobbling my way through 2019 and 2020, this year I was out climbing very tall mountains, getting one of my motorcycles out into some very challenging dirt riding, and I was no longer on a first name basis with the bartenders in airport lounges on both sides of the continent.  So, while far from perfect, all in all there was some forward momentum.

 

 

One down note for 2021 is the blog has been more than a little stagnant, and I need to think about what can be done, if anything, about that it 2022.  Yet, I’ve also once again deepened a few friendships that began here and that I think would survive even if the blog were to stop entirely.

So, as I said last year, as we all run around buying those last-minute gifts, let's think a little about what a blessing it is to have people in our lives to buy those gifts for. Maybe try to do something nice for a friend, family member or stranger who may not be as lucky. 

Until next year, I hope you all have a restful, peaceful, fulfilling holiday season.  

 

 

The Club - Meeting 391 - Linguistic Masturbation and Consent/Non-Consent

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 (usually though not always) 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 has been pretty relaxed, to a large extent because for the first time in recent history, I finished almost all my Christmas shopping a good two weeks ahead of time and even have most of my wrapping done.  While a wrapping party such as the one below would have been a lot of fun, I did it all myself (thankfully, I have nice relatives who will undoubtedly forgive my sometimes laughably inept effort; hopefully, it is the thought that counts), while binge watching various streaming series on Netflix and HBO.  Is it just me, or is there a huge amount of great content out there right now.  I’m pretty sure I have never watched as much TV in my life as I have in the last couple of months, and I really don’t regret a minute of it.

 

Ironically, while I am as prepared for Christmas as I’ve ever been by this point in the season, the weather is really not cooperating when it comes to imbuing me with the Christmas spirit.  We are in the middle of a drought and haven’t seen measurable snow in a very, very long time.  It’s kind of pissing me off.  Last year, Covid ruined the social aspects of Christmas.  This year, global warming is ruining much of the aesthetic and atmospheric elements I’m used to.  I guess none of this in our near future . . .

I originally thought I might not post this week, as I wasn’t feeling inspired, but then I couldn’t help mulling some of the responses to a post by Hermione over at https://hermionesheart.blogspot.com/ regarding consent or, more specifically, non-consent.  The way she phrased her topic was:

 

While it’s all consensual, some of us like to pretend that spanking or being spanked is not. Is that the case for you? If so, how do you work this out?

 

Language is a funny thing, and context is very often critical.  I had an acting class back in college, and we were required to engage in improv skits, which I found excruciating.  Improv can work well with fluid, flexible actors who are willing and able to take conversational cues.  In fact, the first rule of improv is to always begin by agreeing with the proposition your partner has offered, extending and going off on close tangents from there.  Things can break down in a serious way if one partner simply refuses to engage with the initial proposition, either denying the initial proposed setting or insisting on a one-sided flow.  Tina Fey offers this example: “So if we’re improvising and I say, “Freeze, I have a gun,” and you say, “That’s not a gun. It’s your finger. You’re pointing your finger at me,” our improvised scene has ground to a halt.”

 

Workable (and enjoyable) conversations are kind of like that.  They work well if there is a natural give and take, which often requires assuming that each person kind of knows the gist of what the other person is talking about.  Things can break down very quickly if there isn’t some baseline acceptance of what is being talked about or if one conversational partner insists on an overly literal or idiosyncratic use of terms that are important to the conversation. Or, if conversing with them requires mutually agreeing, in excruciating detail, to the precise meaning of every term under discussion.   

 

An example: If someone asks me what I had for dinner last night and I say, “I went to this great Mexican restaurant. The food was really good,” nine times out of ten the other will respond with something that helps the conversation flow, like: “That’s great.  Where was it? Do they have good margs?”  But, I have this one friend who is from Mexico City.  God forbid the subject of Mexican food comes up around him, because the conversation always seems to go something like this:

 

Him: What did you have do for dinner last night? 

Me: I had Mexican.  It was really good.

Him:  “Oh, did you? Really? Well, as you know I am from Mexico, and most of what you Americans call Mexican isn’t Mexican at all. You tell me what you had, then I’ll tell you whether what you had was Mexican.”

 

Now, the net result is this guy finds himself uninvited anytime a crowd from work decides to go Mexican for lunch.  It’s just too fucking difficult dealing with him on that particular issue, so on Mexican food days he ends up eating alone.

There also are times that people are using the same words but with slightly different, but related, meanings.  There’s even a word for it – polysemy. One example would be the word “man,” which could mean (from Wikipedia):

 

• The human species (i.e., man vs. other organisms) 
• Males of the human species (i.e., man vs. woman 
• Adult males of the human species (i.e., man vs. boy)

 

There’s a related concept called “predicate transfer,” which Wikipedia discusses thusly: 

Another clarification of polysemy is the idea of predicate transfer[18]—the reassignment of a property to an object that would not otherwise inherently have that property. Thus, the expression "I am parked out back" conveys the meaning of "parked" from "car" to the property of "I possess a car." This avoids incorrect polysemous interpretations of "parked": that "people can be parked", or that "I am pretending to be a car", or that "I am something that can be parked". This is supported by the morphology: "We are parked out back" does not mean that there are multiple cars; rather, that there are multiple passengers (having the property of being in possession of a car).

 

Now, in the real world we avoid confusion when using such terms based on people taking cues from the context of the conversation. Further, they don’t violate the context by insisting that their preferred, particular use of a word or phrase is the one and only way to possibly use it even if it isn't how people are likely using it in the actual context of the conversation.  Thus, if I make a general point about "man" as a species and as a whole, it’s going to work fine unless the person I’m talking to insists that I’m being sexist for using the word man to include both males and females or that he or she can’t understand what I’m saying at all unless I first separate the two out and clarify that I am talking about either man as males or, rather, to man in the generic sense. And, the conversation is going to get tedious very quickly if I tell him "I am parked in back" and he keeps insisting that my car may be parked in back but I am right here in front of him and am "pretending" if I think otherwise.

 

What’s any of that have to do with Hermione’s post?  Well, I think the way it was reacted to depended a lot on (a) one’s interpretation of the word “pretend” and how closely that interpretation matched Hermione’s intention in using it, and (b) how literal and exhaustive one insists one’s own definition of “non-consent” must be in order for there to be an intelligent conversation about its possible uses, boundaries and complications.

 

Regarding the former, “pretend” could be used benignly or pejoratively.  In the benign or positive sense, it could entail fantasy, imagination and role play.  For people who are into spanking as a fun, recreational activity, or who use it as “funishment,” asking to what extent you like to pretend that it is non-consensual is benign and seems to be the equivalent of asking to what extent that particular playful element is incorporated into your overall spanking play. That's how I assume Hermione meant it, particularly since her blog is devoted to non-disciplinary, fully consensual spanking play.

 

But, someone could also use "pretend" in a more pejorative sense, equating it with self-deception or living in denial, as in: “Any of you who say your relationship is based on ‘consensual’ non-consent are just pretending or fooling yourself because consent is an absolute, up or down, binary thing and you can always consent on some level.”  Used in that way, "pretend" sounds more like an attack.

 

Now, Hermione has always stated that her blog is about “fun” spankings, even if they may often hurt quite a bit, in all their various forms.  She’s generally not talking about real disciplinary spankings and, when she has had a topic regarding discipline, she’s called it out as such.  She's also a great host who never deliberately excludes any spanking enthusiast or sets out to offend anyone (other than perhaps with her periodic pictures of Walmart shoppers). So, I have no doubt that when she phrased her topic in terms of “pretending,” it was in the context of her usual emphasis on fun spankings that include all sorts of fun elements, including role play or other  imaginative situations in which one or both parties pretend a given spanking wasn’t consensual, either to each other or just in their own minds. Nothing pejorative about it, and I don't think most of it took it any other way. 

 

But, I think there were a couple of comments and further postings that seemed to object to, or ridicule, the concept of wanting something to feel non-consensual and, to the extent possible, to have non-consensual or imposed attributes.  

 

Those who talk about consensual non-consent in the DD context are, I believe, using that concept in a very different context than I think Hermione was using in talking about "pretending" not to consent.  She was talking about fantasy in the context of a relationship in which spanking is an erotic form of play. Those in DD who say their goal is something like "consensual non-consent" or imposed discipline, however, aren’t pretending that there is literal non-consent. 

 

Rather, I think they are talking about genuinely wishing their dynamic could be, to one degree or another, imposed without their consent to the extent practical.  In some ways, I think they are being very genuine and authentic about the motivations underlying their dynamic. They candidly admit what it is they want and then try to adapt their reality to fit that desire, but doing so within the confines of the objective reality of an adult relationship.  (In fact, in eight years of doing this blog, I can think of only one time in which someone seemed to be suggesting that there really was some element of [financial and emotional] force taking place, and I strongly advised them that they needed to seek professional help.)

 

This is where my examples about how improv, and ordinary conversation, fit in. Within the context of the conversations among people practicing DD, I think I generally know what people mean by consensual non-consent or by consenting to the whole relationship but agreeing not to withdraw consent to particular spankings. I also totally get the desire to have discipline imposed, even if there is always some practical ability to resist or refuse. I don't need them to spell out all those qualifiers and implicit presumptions and, in fact, the conversation would get real annoying real quick if they had to do so in order for us to have the conversation at all.  It would look something like:

“I would really like to experience discipline that is non-consensual. By which I mean, it is imposed.  I don’t have to agree to it every time and, in fact, it’s closest to what I want when it is something I really don’t want and would actually really like get out of.  By which I mean, that’s the way it was when I was a kid, and I’d like to experience that again. To be sure, I know that I can’t really do that, because I’m full grown now and could physically resist in a way I couldn’t as a kid.  Yes, I am aware that because I am bigger and stronger than her, on some level I always have the literal ability to object and say no, but to the extent practicable I’m going to try not to that, because it would undermine the dynamic we’d agree to. In fact, she might give up on the dynamic entirely. While I recognize that reality, I don’t really like it and it’s frustrating, but that doesn't mean I'm pretending it doesn't exist.  The best I can come up with is to consent once and then there would be no option of resisting. Yes, I am aware that real life doesn’t work that way, so the best I can do is to agree in advance not to object and do my best to actually keep my work on that.  In our DD community, we refer to that as “consensual non-consent.” 

 

Blah, blah, blah.  Yes, we could laboriously add all that context and qualification, but what the hell would be the point? In this community and context, we all mostly know what someone means when they say they consent to the nature of the spanking relationships but would very much like the spankings to be non-consensual while recognizing, implicitly, the practical real world limitations. Thankfully, there is a form of linguistic common ground that unites those of us in this context that we all recognize, and it works just fine, right up until someone insists on their single, unitary, exclusive, ultra-specific definition.

  

 

Yes, in the real world, it simply isn’t possible to have an irrevocable contract. Although that concept very much exists in the law, what it really means isn’t that there is some force that prevents a party from walking away under any circumstance but, rather, that there will be very unpalatable consequences if the party attempts to revoke and refuses to perform as agreed.  They can always choose not to perform, but the other party can sue them. Then, the court might order them to perform and, if they don’t, they could be held in contempt of court and sent to jail.  It's not that the party can't renege, but rather that there will be hell to pay if they do.  Hell, even in the non-real world it's hard to think of a promise that literally cannot be revoked.  One might use the example of the "unbreakable vow" from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  But, it wasn't that the unbreakable vow literally could not be broken.Rather, if the vow maker breaks his word, he’ll die. It's about consequences, not literal lack of the ability to choose not to live up to your word. In the real adult world, that's probably about as far as we can go with non-consent.

  

I think we all agree that being physically overpowered and forced to submit is not what anyone means by non-consent in the DD context, and I don't think that needs to be spelled out in excruciating detail every time this subject of consensual non-consent or "pre-consent" comes up.  Some may take things so far as to fantasize about actual coercion, but that probably is an outlier and, whether it is or not, it doesn't make people's attempts to engineer something that feels more imposed some kind of pretense or self-delusion. 

 I do think that some genuinely wish that the disciplinary relationship they have agreed to can be as free from ongoing, tacit consent as possible. I don't think it's an accident that many DD stories, such as many of those on the DWC website, involve the wife initiating the DD relationship with getting any sort of tacit approval from the husband.  In the real world, the best one so inclined can probably do is to approximate truly imposed discipline, but that isn't "pretending." Rather, it is living with what you can get and bending your desires to reality.

 

  

Thankfully, most conversations we have around this stuff are like what happened with respect to most of the comments in response to Hermione’s blog topic.  A couple of us who were in DD dynamics talked about our spin on the issue within our particular dynamic, with neither taking any apparent offense at, or reading anything pejorative into, the particular phrasing she used in describing her topic, including use of the word “pretend.” We got that she was phrasing things as most would within her dynamic (fun or non-disciplinary spanking) and that if we were responding in some idiosyncratic or overly literal way, it was really on us to call that out.   

 

Thankfully, few conversations around this stuff end up with situations like my exchanges with my Mexican friend in which I can’t talk to him about the quality of a particular Mexican food experience unless and until he first insists on defining for me how I am allowed to use the term “Mexican food.” Thankfully, all the other patrons and most potential patrons of that particular category of restaurants know what I’m talking about and we can communicate meaningfully about it.

 

I don’t have any particular topic question in mind for this, so react or not as you please.  I recognize that the whole post probably feels a lot like linguistic masturbation.  Frankly, it probably is, but I was in that kind of mood, probably from streaming too much Sex Education on Netflix, which has loads of real masturbation, among other activities.  If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.  I don’t rank it quite as high as Ted Lasso, but it’s in the same “feel good” space, and I’m trying to consume more of that and less dark and depressing moody stuff. Seems like the right time of year for “peace on earth, good will to men,” with “men” meaning used in the non-gender specific sense of all humankind.  Snow or no snow.