The Forum - Question of the Week #34

Welcome back all.  My last couple of posts generated some interesting discussion.  Some of it was even on topic.  ;-)

I am struggling a bit to characterize the topic I would like to raise this week.  In essence, it is: "What is the goal of Domestic Discipline, and how is it distinct from Femdom?"  But, it's a little deeper than that.  I want to get at, what purpose does DD serve in terms of our development as human beings?

It was, in fact, some of the recent comments that got me thinking about this.  Several have, to my way of thinking, really been focused on very traditional Femdom themes.   Forced chastity.  Humiliation scenes.  None of those necessarily have anything to do with domestic discipline, though some of them can if they are designed to meet some DD-oriented goal.   If it's just part of a desire on your part to humiliate your partner, then whatever it is, it's really not what I think of as DD. 

Now, one can ask, why does it matter?  I am pretty insistent that there not one "right" way to approach DD relationships and I also try very hard to respect other people's kinks, even if they do not necessarily appeal to me.  But with DD, here is why I think motivations and goals matter:  Because, to me the overarching goal in any intimate relationship is to leave the partners mentally and spiritually happier and stronger than where they started.  Dan Savage, in his wonderful Savage Love columns has made that point several times:  The one real "responsibility" we have when dealing with our partners, particularly ones that are vulnerable due to age, experience, emotional issues, etc., is to try to leave them healthier than we found them.

The danger I see with DD, and with anything involving dominance, is it can be used for good or ill.  And, I do believe there can be a very dark side to dominance-based relationships.  Ideally, a healthy relationship should be about empowering both parties to grow as people and to help them expand their capacities and personal power.  For my wife and I, that was our explicit goal for the very start.  She was not especially good at asserting herself and tended to let people walk on her, while I often got myself into trouble by being too aggressive, too assertive, and generally too Type A.  Our goal was, and is, to use DD to bring things into a better state of balance, with her becoming increasingly comfortable with wielding power and authority and me increasingly willing and able to submit to power and authority because I really do need some boundaries to feel secure, yet I generally suck at imposing them on myself.

Where I get concerned about the possible dangers of DD and other dominance-based relationships is when they seem to be taking unhealthy personal dynamics or attributes and emphasizing that already dysfunctional dynamic or trait.  If someone already lets the world treat them as a doormat, in my opinion we do them no favors by encouraging a relationship in which they are the submissive.   How does bossing around, disciplining, and possibly humiliating someone who already lets people walk all over them make them healthier?  And, if you already create problems in your life by being too pushy and antagonistic, is it really good for you to enter into a relationship in which your role is to be the dominant and bossy party? 

Our culture tends to emphasize "doing what comes natural," but I am just not convinced that such a philosophy makes any sense at all if our overall goal in life is to grow as human beings, overcoming our weaknesses and gaining new strengths.

Sorry if this sounds preachy, but the tone of a few of the recent comments made me feel it was important to clarify that what TTWD is, for me,  is about encouraging healthy relationships and personal growth.  If it is something else for you, that's perfectly fine, but it's not what I do, not my goal for myself or my relationship, and not the focus of this blog.

Thoughts?

Caning - Tips & Methods??

I usually do not do mid-week questions, but I had one that came to me as a result of recent DD session.  For reasons I will not go into, last night I received what was supposed to be a very bad disciplinary spanking, as retribution for some significantly bad behavior.  And, it was quite bad in most respects.  She lit into me with the Loopy Johnny, which is an implement that she loves and I hate, in equal measure.  She gave me hard strapping, and finished with a long session with the bath brush.  All of those hurt -- very much.  The issue is with the implement with which we began the session -- the cane.

We have tried caning several times, and it just doesn't seem to work.  By which I mean, it just does not hurt that much.  The same thing happened last night. I had bought some new canes, and we gave it yet another try.  She swears that she was swinging with a lot of force, but it just did not hurt very much.  Now, I contrast that with videos I have seen of the cane causing bruising with what seem to be not even full force strokes.  Given those videos and photos, and the numerous descriptions I've read, it would seem to be one of the most devastating instruments available.  But for us, it just is not like that?

Does anyone have any thoughts on what we might be doing wrong?  Thoughts on how to deliver a truly nasty caning?

I know that for some it may seem odd to be requesting something even harsher than what I already get, but we really are trying to use spanking for discipline.  When I've done something wrong, the goal really is to make me pay for it in a way that makes me think more than twice about doing it again.  So, any thoughts from readers--the disciplined and disciplinarians alike--would be most appreciated.

Dan

The Forum - Question of the Week #37

Hi all,

I hope you had a good week.   I really thought we might get a little more interest in last week's topic regarding how to get started in a DD relationship, but I guess we are just leaving all those poor Disciplined Husbands in Waiting to their own devices.

I also hope the fall off in comments last week was not related to the changes I made to the design of the blog.  I wasn't sure about it myself when I first changed the color scheme, but it's growing on me.

This week's question involves consequences, and our all too human tendency to try to avoid them.  Have you ever tried to cover up your bad behavior in order to avoid being disciplined?  Lied about how much you had to drink with colleagues after work?  Forgot to tell your spouse about that speeding ticket?  You may not always confess to them, but please tell us all about it!

As always, please take a moment to visit the Guestbook or add a story (fictional or non-fictional) to the User Stories section.  They are accessible by the tabs at the top of this page.

Dan - Disciplined Hubby

The Forum - Question of the Week #36

Hi all.  Welcome to the Forum #36.  This week's question is one that has been explored a bit before, but it's worth talking about again now that we have a few more active participants.  This week's topic is, how do you get a Domestic Discipline relationship started?  How do you go about letting your significant other know of your interest in it?  How do you persuade them to give it a try? And, how do you progress from the beginning stage to make DD a real part of your day to day life?  I hope this topic gets the attention and responses it merits, because if the statistics in the poll I've posted for several months now are any indication of what is going on out there, we have a significant number of men who are interested in an F/m lifestyle, but far fewer women share that mindset.  Or, perhaps fewer of them spend significant time finding and reading DD-oriented blogs.  Or, maybe many women are so conditioned to being on the losing end of unequal power in society, that it just never occurs to them that they might be able to put their bad boy husbands over their knee. In any case, it seems to me that there are many men out there who very much want to try this lifestyle but are not sure how to make that happen. So, please share not only your tips, but also your stories.


As always, please take a moment to visit the Guestbook or add a story (fictional or non-fictional) to the User Stories section.  I finally learned how to us Blooger's tab feature, so those sections are now accessible from tabs at the top of the page.  I'm also playing a bit with the templates to try to find something a little less grey and dreary.  Let me know what you think about the new background and color.  Have a great week.

Dan - Disciplined Hubby

The Forum - Question of the Week #35

Welcome back everyone.  For those in the United States, I hope you are enjoying the start of your three-day weekend.

This week topic is "Oops!" moments.   By which I mean, moments when you realize you just did something that might have led to another person discovering your domestic discipline and/or spanking lifestyle.  Maybe you forgot to clear the browser history on your computer before someone else used it.  Maybe you accidentally used your real name in a blog post or email that you meant to be anonymous or you intended to use a pseudonym.  Maybe you went walking through the gym locker room naked, with stripes or bruises on your bottom, after you forgot too quickly about the previous night's disciplinary session.

As always, please leave a comment in the Guestbook (the post immediately below this one).  And, please consider contributing a fictional or non-fictional story.  You can access our user stories via the link in the Links section on the right side of this blog. 

Have a great weekend!

The Forum - Question of the Week #34

Welcome back to this week's Forum.  And, thanks for the flurry of responses to last week's question.  I don't think we've ever reached 20 comments before.   A small milestone, but a milestone nonetheless.  Of course, some of the increased activity seems to be the result of moving to a comment format that allows for posting replies to individual comments.   My blogging skills are basic, to say the least, and I hadn't realized how to change that setting until recently.

So, here we are again.  This week's question is about motivations for participating in this lifestyle, specifically, "What's in it for them?"   With "them" being the person in your DD relationship who has the disciplining role.  The HOH.  The "top," if you will.   Given that our focus in on F/m relationships, I'm usually referencing the woman as the discipliner, but I'm always interested in hearing from people in DD relationships of any sort.   So, what's in it for the party wielding the paddle in your relationship?  What is it that attracts them to the DD lifestyle, or at least makes them open to meeting your desires for one?  Is it a sense of power?  An erotic rush from wielding that power?  Does it satisfy their inner "control freak"?  Or, does it merely result in a better behaved partner and a more harmonious home?

As always, please take a moment to fill out the Guestbook, below, if you haven't done so before or have something new to talk about.  I've added a new question to allow people to give a few details about who they are, if they are comfortable doing that.   Also, please keep our "user generated story" feature in mind, which is accessible from the Links section to the right.  Please consider submitting one of your stories, real or fictional.

The Forum - Question of the Week #33

Hi all.  Welcome back, and welcome to 2014.  I begin the year with a sense of humility.  Something this blog has taught me is that I have absolutely no ability to predict which topics people may find interesting or worthy of a comment.  As I said in my last post, I'm big on resolutions and written goals.   Others out there -- apparently not so much, since the topic got only a handful of responses. Or, perhaps people were otherwise engaged with holiday activities?  In any event, for those of you who made resolutions for 2014, here is hoping you keep at least a few of them and that the upcoming year is fulfilling and productive.

This week's topic is somewhat related to my less than fully successful attempt to get a discussion going around 2014 goals and changes.  As I said in the last post,  I did set several DD and FLR resolutions for myself, one of which was to move a bit toward acting in public in a way that might suggest that She wears the pants in the family.  This would be much less than a public announcement that we are in an FLR relationship.  More like subtle hints that she is the one in charge.   What do people think about that?  Any hints on things we might do?  How open are you about your own FLR or DD relationship?

As always, please take a moment to put something in the Guestbook (see the post immediately below), and please think about submitting something for our user-generated story feature, which is accessible by a link to the right of this post. 

Happy 2014 everyone!

DH

The Forum - Question of the Week #32

Happy Holiday to you all.  For those of you who celebrate it, I hope you had a very Merry Christmas.  The Disciplined Hubby Family a good one and are enjoying some downtime before 2014 kicks off and the inevitable challenges and triumphs of a new year begin.


Speaking of New Years, our topic this week is simple:  What are your resolutions for the New Year with respect to your DD and spanking relationships?  Here are a few I am considering presenting to Disciplinary Wife to consider:

• Generally, more DOING sex and domestic discipline, and less blogging about it, reading about, etc.  
• Move about further along the spectrum from DD to FLR.   In other words, move from a relationship in which she spanks me for offenses to a more fully developed Female Led Relationship  
•  Without fully revealing our FLR relationship (neither of us is ready for that yet), make it a little more obvious to friends and family that she is the one who wears the pants in the family. 
• Explore more non-spanking forms of discipline, such as grounding 

So, what is in store for you in 2014?  What are your DD and FLR goals and hopes.  Tell us all about it!

On a different note, I am sad to note that Bonnie over at My Bottom Smarts is hanging it up after eight years.  She was an inspiration to a lot of us in the blogging community.   In my case, her blog suggested a format for dipping my toes into blogging.  Bonnie's blog suggested a collaborative format in which the readers are central, with the community providing most of the content.   So, while I am very sorry to see her go, her inspiration lives on, directly at the Hermione's Heart blog, and indirectly through other blogs she inspired, such as this Forum.

Holiday Wishes

HERE IS HOPING

EACH OF YOU

GETS EXACTLY WHAT YOU DESERVE

FOR CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR

WHETHER YOU'VE BEEN 

NAUGHTY

OR NICE !!!!

SEASONS GREETINGS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS

FROM MR. AND MRS. DISCIPLINED HUBBY

TO YOU AND YOURS

The Forum: Question of the Week #31

Hi all. Welcome back.  I hope you had a great week and are going to be able to take some time off for the holidays.  This week's Forum topic comes from one of our readers, who asked:

 "Sometimes it is the stuff that revolves around the actual spanking itself that is more memorable - corner time, scolding, stripping of pants or underpants, etc."

Do you have rituals or processes that you tend to follow before or after a spanking?   Tell us all about it!  My own observations on the topic are in the first comment.  

As always, if you are new to the Forum or having something new you want to tell us about, please take a moment to fill out the Guestbook, which is posted below this post.  Also, please consider submitting something for our new User Stories section, which you can reach at one of the links to the right of this post.

DH

The Forum - Question of the Week #30

Welcome to the Forum. I hope you all had a good week.

Before we get to this week's question, a reminder about our new "User Stories" feature.   If you have the time and inclination, please share a fun or interesting story about your domestic discipline activities, or share a bit of DD-oriented fiction.   To share a story, either add a comment to the most recent post, or send me an email with your submission.

Now, on to this week's topic, in which I am inviting people to wax a little philosophical.   Last week, we talked a little about encouraging more participation from women in DD relationships, and about some of the reasons that women either do not participate as much in on-line DD and spanking discussions, or perhaps do not participate as much in F/m oriented DD activities as many men out there might like.  While we were having these discussions, I was also reading a book about Tantra.  The book (which I won't identify because, on balance, it was a pretty bad read) posited that practitioners of Tantra believe that within each of us there are elements of the opposite gender, and that one goal of Tantric practice is to bring out, to develop, the inner woman within each man and the inner man within each woman.

So, my question is:  to what extent is that part of what is happening with F/m domestic discipline and Female Led Relationships?  In your own relationship, does submitting to a spanking involve some reshaping of your male gender role and allowing some more feminine element come to the fore?  Conversely, if you are a female disciplinarian, does giving a spanking or taking control of the relationship involving some channeling of your inner man?  To what extent is switching up the gender roles a bit an explicit goal in your DD relationship?

As always, please take a moment to enter something in the Guestbook.

DH

The Forum - Question of the Week #29

Hi all. Welcome back to the Forum.  I love the holiday season, hence the drawing.

This week's question stems from the following reader comment:

 "Future Forum topics? I would like to hear much more of the woman’s perspective on domestic discipline. Men seem to dominate these groups and what they say is valuable but we are missing much of the whole other side. I would like to hear more about how women deal with the family side of it (if your mother is your best friend do you tell her or not ... I did finally) How do other women deal with repeat behavior problems and frankly how hard do you punish him. I spank very hard because it gets results and sometimes I wonder if I should. Or what other women do about that and so many other things that come up with domestic discipline."

I couldn't agree more, and I would truly like to figure out a way to foster more participation by Disciplinary Wives.  So far, however, I have not had a lot of luck with that, and I am not sure why.  I suspect that some of it comes down to one simple factor: women may not spend as much time online looking at spanking and other "naughty" websites.   But, I also can't help but wonder if there just are not that many women out there who are into the F/m variant of the DD lifestyle.  M/f-oriented DD blogs are out there in abundance, and F/m spanking blogs, such as the wonderful blogs by Hermione and Bonnie, do not lack for posting by women who are into spanking, but into receiving, not giving.  On the other hand, the poll I posted several months ago is interesting on this score, because while the ratio of disciplined men to disciplinary women is "skewed" to say the least--like 20:1 skewed--someone is obviously doling out the punishment to those 600+ men who say they are disciplined.

So, here is the question.  Actually, a question and an invitation.

The Question:  Is there anything I can do with this blog, including re-purposing or renaming it if necessary, to encourage more participation from women who are either in F/m domestic discipline relationships or are interested in them? 

The Invitation:  Speak up ladies!  Touching on some of the questions from the comment above, tell us about your interests in DD.  How did you get started?  Have you told others that you spank your significant other?  If you have children, do they know about your relationship? How hard do you spank?  Do you use any non-spanking discipline methods?

I hope you all have a great week.

DH

Disciplinary Wives Club status?

Does anyone know whether the Disciplinary Wives Club is finally gone for good?  It was replaced a couple of weeks ago with a notice saying its registration had expired.  As many of you know, I credit that website for getting my wife and I started in DD, and I know many others have had the same experience.  I hope it has not been taken down permanently, but the last time this happened it was down for only a day or two.  It has now been gone at least two weeks.

The Forum - Question of the Week #28

Hi all.  I'm sorry that I missed a couple of weeks without dropping a note in advance.  I took a couple of weeks off to get away. From work.  From the internet.  Breaks are a good thing now and then, even from blogging about the DD lifestyle.

For those readers in the United States, I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.

On to this week's question, which comes from  a reader suggestion:  Have you ever had someone witness a spanking you gave or received?  Or, have you ever witnessed someone else get a spanking?  If not, do you have desire to witness or be witnessed?  If so, did it turn out to be a good idea?  Were there any negative consequences?

Thanks for your thoughts on the matter.  As always, please take a moment to sign the Guestbook and tell us a little about yourself.  Or, give us a new entry if you have something new to say or a new experience to share.

The Forum - Question of the Week No. 27

Hello all,

I hope you all had a good week.  Sorry for the delay in posting this week's question.  One of those days.  More like one of those weeks. On to this week's question, which was a suggestion from one of our Forum members:

Have you ever been spanked in a semi-public situation so that others might have seen or heard the spanking, such as a public restroom, motel room, in the car, beside the car, in the woods, etc.?

Speaking for myself, we have not been particularly inventive in this area.  The riskiest venue, DW has spanked me in was a hotel room, during a vacation.

I hope you all have a good week.  As always, please take a moment to fill in the Guestbook, below.

DH

The Forum - Question of the Week 26

Hello all.  Welcome to this week's Forum.  Last week we talked a little bit about how, and why, otherwise dominant men become the disciplined party in a DD relationship.  A few of the comments seemed to to say, expressly or implicitly, that once their significant other got into the swing of things--so to speak--it may have become a bit more than they bargained for.   I do not mean just the spanking itself. Rather, the entire commitment to submit to someone else.

The question I am getting at is, once you commit to submitting to being disciplined, does it ever seem too hard?  "It" may be the spankings themselves or, more broadly, the effort and vulnerability inherent in submitting to another's authority.  I have always seen this--the extent to which you do not really want to give in to another's will or take a spanking even when you do not think you deserve one--as one way to assess whether what you are doing is really about "discipline" versus something that is more sexual in terms of its driving force or motivation.

What are your thoughts?  Does it ever just become too much?  Do you ever regret the decision to subject yourself to a full DD lifestyle?

As always, please take a few moments to sign the Guestbook (below). 

The Forum - Question of the Week 25

Hi all,

I hope you had a productive week and didn't do anything too "naughty" that would earn you a good beating this weekend.  Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for myself.  Definitely a fairly naughty week. On to this week's question:

A common theme in F/m domestic relationships is that the man often is NOT a natural submissive, particularly out there in the day to day work world.  In fact, it seems that many participants in this lifestyle are very "Type A" personalities who often turn to DD to balance things out.  So, my question is this: If you are naturally domineering, how do you go about fostering a more submissive approach with your significant other?  If you are used to domineering others, how do you develop an inner sense of vulnerability that allows you to accept discipline and use it to effect actual change?

Thanks for participating and, as always, please sign the Guestbook if you have not done so already or just have something new to say!

DH

The Forum - Questions of the Week #24

Happy Saturday to you all.  For some reason, it seemed like a really long week, even though it began with an official holiday that does not actually seem to result in anyone taking a day off.

Note the title: We are going to do a bonus question this week.   Yes, two questions.  One of them a conventional spanking question.  One a bit silly.

Question 1:  Our first question extends a bit from last week's, or at least from the responses to last week's question.  The response rate to our first Ladies Night was not the complete flop I feared it might be.  We did get a few of the ladies posting comments, and I appreciate every one of them. What struck me was that many of spanking relationships depicted in those posts seemed to be of a pronounced FemDom variety.  Although we are experimenting with that a little more these days, it is still at the soft end of the spectrum.  I want her to take more control, be in charge more often and, frankly, be more bossy and domineering.  I do not, however, have a lot of interest in the whole leather and chains scene, humiliation, etc.  In fact, other than the occasional discipline session, our relationship is pretty "normal."

All this got me thinking about the range of spanking and DD relationships out there.  On the very soft end, I learned a new term recently: "funishment."  I really like that.  "Punishment," but of the fun, sort of playacting variety.  On other end, you have FemDom and hardcore domination with all the trappings.   We are somewhere in the middle.  We decided early on that we would not be doing "funishment" (though we had no such word for it back then), because we didn't want to create a situation in which bad conduct was rewarded.  Where are you on the spectrum?  More importantly, where would you like to be?

Question #2:  What is in a name?  In my case, not much.  Not much at all.  Until now, I have been the anonymous Disciplined Hubby.  I'm not altogether uncomfortable with anonymity.  But, it also seems a little impersonal.  I envy Bonnie and Hermione and others who have adopted at least a nom de plume.  But, I'm not all that inventive myself, and I see this forum as about you, not me.  So, what should my name be?  If you got to pick the name of person you told about your spanking experiences, what would it be?  I'm not promising I will pick among the suggestions, but I will give them all my full consideration.

Have a great weekend! And, as always, please take a moment to say something in the Guestbook.

The Forum - Ladies Night

Hello all.  I hope you had a good week.

First, I want to experiment with highlighting particularly interesting topic responses.  Last week's question was about contracts.  I thought this anonymous post was particularly insightful and interesting:

"A contract works for some couples some of the time especially in the beginning of DD. But I think of them now as “training wheels” useful at the start of DD to define roles and give necessary structure. But if a contact is carried on too far or too long it keeps the relationship from growing and adapting. We did use an oral contract in the beginning but within a few months found it to be artificial and not in the real spirit of DD. It’s a kind of crutch you use to get started but should grow out of. For us the only contract now is that my wife is in total authority and decides when where and how discipline is administered for any reason she finds necessary using any instrument she thinks appropriate. She is adamant in stressing no limits on her authority to spank and nothing gets me in trouble faster that when she thinks I am challenging her authority. None of that would work if we tried to live by a formal contract."

I also wanted to try something a little different for this week's Forum.   Let's hear something, anything from the Ladies.  Tell us something about your DD relationship, whether you are the Head of Household or the Disciplined Wife.  If you're not in a DD relationship, tell us why you're interested in the lifestyle (assuming you are).  What does DD do for you?  How did you get into it? What more would you like to explore?  Gentlemen, please beg and plead with the Disciplinarian in your life to take a few minutes to tell us what she likes about putting you over her knee!

I put this topic out there, knowing that it could be a total flop, given that the statistics in the ongoing poll on this blog indicate that the rate of male to female visitors is probably at least 10:1.  But, let's give it a shot.

The Forum: Question of the Week #22

Hi all.  Sorry for the slow start.  The weekend got off to a busy start.  Real life sometimes trumps the best intentions.  

This week's question comes from one of the Forum's members:

"Are written contracts a good idea? We tried it twice but it didn’t work for us but know another couple who use contracts successfully and read about many others. Contracts made us self-conscious and my wife (who went to law school) thinks they are inappropriate for discipline so we use a anytime any place for any reason system which works well for us."

To kick things off, we have never used a formal contract, but in the beginning we did set down a list of rules I was to be subject to, and we included a presumptive minimum number of paddle or strap strokes for each offense.  It did have the benefit of building some structure and regularity into what was for us a very new lifestyle choice.  I also think it had the benefit of relieving my wife of any qualms she had about delivering a hard and long spanking, because we had agreed in advance to the consequences for each offense.  If my behavior created a situation in which I faced an extraordinarily large number of strokes with a scary implement like our large fraternity paddle, whose fault was that?

Thanks for your participation, and please take a few minutes to enter something in the Guestbook.

DH