The Forum - Vol. 194 - Use Your Words

A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That’s why they don’t get what they want. -
Madonna

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

I apologize for the delay in posting.  Darren responded that he hoped it resulted from being grounded from the internet after a hard disciplinary spanking.  Unfortunately, no.  I was just busy with something else.  Though, I do have a very bruised bottom but, interestingly, not from a spanking.  I used to worry that at some point I would go to a doctor with bruising from a spanking and wouldn't be believed if I lied and said I slipped and fell.  Because how could slipping and falling on your butt generate enough force to result in real bruising?  Well, I can now confirm that it can.  I had such a fall a few days ago, and I am now sporting a very angry bruise on one cheek.  And those threats from your wife to the effect of "You won't be able to sit for a week . . ."  -- I can confirm that a bruised bottom definitely can make sitting very uncomfortable.  My only comfort is I did have a hard spanking coming, but it may have to wait a few days until some of the current tenderness is gone.  Or not.

This week's topic is kind of related to that "You won't be able to sit for a week . . ." threat, though I will take a bit of a meandering trip to explain it.  A few weeks ago, my wife and I had a disagreement that resulted in her getting very angry and storming out of the room.  Those things happen, but it is a problem in the context of our marriage because we have agreed that when she is angry with me, she has the tools to take control and bring the argument to a screeching halt in a very concrete way.  We have been at this for over a decade, and yet vocalizing her unhappiness and saying exactly what she wants and expects is still a challenge for her sometimes.  I'm sure years of socialization are part of the problem, and there is that seemingly ever present female concern that straight talk will come off as bitchy.

It was shortly after this fight that Kathy over at http://femdom101.blogspot.com began a series of posts regarding the Netflix series "The Crown."  I decided to give it a try and ended up having a binge watching weekend.  I have absolutely no doubt that the director or someone on the writing staff have an FLR thing going on.  It is, in fact, a very interesting multi-part exploration of two people, Queen Elizabeth and her husband Phillip, learning to command and to submit respectively when neither came naturally to those roles.  Elizabeth must learn to lead after her father dies, and  unlike many future monarchs she had not been prepared for that from an early age because she was kind of an accidental ruler.  Her father became king only after her uncle Edward VIII (portrayed as a fairly effeminate and servile husband to a dominant wife) abdicated the throne, and she became monarch at a young age after her father died of cancer.  Her husband Phillip, a prince in his own right, is a strong and proud man who finds himself unexpectedly playing the role of consort to the newly minted Queen.  The dynamic between Elizabeth and Phillip is also fascinating, culminating in the issue of whether he must kneel at her coronation.  He asks to be released from that obligation, and she refuses.  He becomes very angry and proclaims that he wants to be married to his wife, not to a queen. She replies that she is both wife and Queen and that a strong man should be able to kneel to both.

It also is a study in learning to use power, and specifically that leadership skills can be taught and learned, though perhaps in small, incremental steps.  Some of the most intriguing segments are the exchanges between Elizabeth and Winston Churchill.  There is very explicit mentoring going on with respect to making decisions, and the necessity of really making and owning them.  While he gives her advice, he then presses her to both make the actual decision and to vocalize it.  He realizes and subtly impresses on her the necessity of learning to take ownership of her own power.

That is what this week's topic is about. Vocalizing. Commanding.  Expressing what she wants.  There is another scene in The Crown related to this theme that has an even more explicit FLR reference.  Churchill's health is failing and he suffers from two strokes, but he and certain cabinet ministers try to hide it from Elizabeth.  When she learns of their deception, she discusses it with her new tutor, a wizened professor who advises her that she must assert her authority and recommends bringing them in for "a good dressing down." She asks why men of such power and distinction would stand for it, and her tutor observes, "Because they're English, male and upper-class.  A good dressing down from nanny is what they want most in life."  She proceeds to bring them in and gives them just such a dressing down.  After it is over, she encounters her husband who observes that she looks "taller." He then proceeds to seduce her, plainly turned on by her newly acquired authoritative, regal bearing.

That is the long-winded introduction to this week's topic, which is about that "dressing down." Lecturing.  Vocalizing both her expectations and her dissatisfaction when those are not met.

This is something I really love about the artwork from the owner of the RedRump blog: http://redrump.blogspot.com.  While there is some lighthearted stuff with women having fun administering their butt blisterings, a majority of the drawings portray the woman as pissed off and letting it show. These are women who plainly are not to be trifled with, and when they are angry they express it.  With words.  With facial expressions. Their entire demeanor is congruent with their status as Head of the relationship, and when discipline is to be meted out their demeanor and words are part and parcel of the punishment process, designed to break down the ego of the offender as surely as the spanking itself.  It is both an expression of authority and a warning about what is about to happen.

Is strong lecturing and chastisement part of your DD and FLR relationship? Do you want it to be?  I have come to appreciate the extent to which the passion and authority with which I am directed and controlled is almost more important to the whole experience than the spanking itself.  It's not just about taking me to the woodshed.  It is about making me go there.  Telling me that it is going to happen and why.  Vocalizing what she is angry about and what she is going to do to me as a result of that anger.  Emphasizing through her words, her expression and her demeanor that it is absolutely inevitable that I am going to be punished. That I have no choice in the matter and, yes, that I very much should be afraid of it and how much it is going to hurt.  And, I do want her to express her anger.  In fact, just as Churchill would advise Elizabeth but then make her vocalize it as her own decision, even if I have advised something I want and need on the DD front, I need her to vocalize it to me as her order.  In short, I want her to use her words, and to use them to dominate, control and chastise me.

Do you share those desires?  If lecturing and verbal chastisement are part of your DD relationship, give us a few examples.  A while back we did a topic on spanking-related phrases, which I put below  for reference and for our female readers to consider working into their disciplinary vocabulary. But, please go beyond that and tell us about times when lecturing has been used to good effect in your relationship.

_______

Now.

I'll give you something to cry about.

Understood?

Did you hear what I said?

Not as sorry as you are going to be.

We will discuss this later.

Bring me the paddle.

I'm not going to stop until you are crying. 

I am going to blister your behind.

I am going to set your bottom on fire.

You are going to be much sorrier.

I bet you will be good - after I finish blistering your behind.

I sure hope you don't do it again. God help you if you do.

Stop? (with increduality) Oh no, dear, we're just getting started.

You really should be ashamed that I'm having to paddle your behind like this - will you ever grow up?

Of course it hurts - you should have remembered that before misbehaving again.

There are no limits on my authority to spank you, anytime, anyplace for any reason –got that?

You have a naughty little boy inside you and when he comes out it’s my job to teach him how to behave.

You are going to be severely punished.

Lose it. (referring to a pre-spanking erection)

Do you want me to take you upstairs and pull your pants down?

One more word and I will ...

You are going to get such a sore bottom when we get home.

You just carry on with that attitude, just carry on...

Really?  Really?

You're too big for your britches, and those britches are coming down.

Assume the position.

I promise this is going to be an ass blistering that you won't soon forget.

You'll be lucky if you can sit down for the next week.

Go cut me a switch.

Of course it hurts. It is supposed to hurt.

Our company should be here soon, dear. Time to bring me the paddle so we can make sure you remember to behave.

________

I hope you all have a great week. As always, if you're new to this Forum, please take a moment to stop by the Guestbook (tab above) and tell us a little about your DD or FLR relationship or aspirations.

The Forum - Late Posting This Week

I will be tied up (not in a good way) on another matter today  and likely won't be able to get to a new post until tomorrow.  Enjoy your Saturday.

The Forum - Vol. 193 - "Natural" Leaders and Submissives

It is much safer to obey than to rule. -- Thomas Kempis

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Forum -- Disciplined Husbands and Disciplinary Wives.  Our weekly gathering of men, women and couples who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships.  I hope you all had a great week.

Last week's topic didn't blow up in the way I was concerned it might, but it also didn't quite get off the ground, did it?  That itself probably indicates the extent to which it made some people squeamish.  I thought it was tailor made to get some thoughtful comments from some of our regulars, especially the women, but few of them commented at all.  And, some who did avoided the actual topic entirely, instead talking about things that seemed aimed more at the topic from two weeks ago.  (BTW, as referenced in one of my comments, KD Pierre has been having his own issues with non-responsive responses over on his blog, and dealing with it ways that are far more amusing than what I usually go with.  https://collectedsubs.blogspot.com/2017/02/non-sexquitur.html.)  However, we did get some very thoughtful responses from a few people, so it was something worth exploring.

I'm not really sure what I want to do this week.  Honestly, it's just one of those lazy weekends, and I'm feeling more than a little bored and uninspired.  So, it may be up to all of you to carry the conversation along this week.  We do have a poll we can talk about a little.  It dovetails a little with a couple of the comments we did get last week, but it's also a little disconcerting as it seems to point to a pretty large gap between this blogger and most of his audience.

Our poll was as follows:

I am a disciplined husband or interested in being one, and I am:

Naturally submissive	63 (68%)
Not naturally submissive	29 (31%)

Now, it is not often that these polls result in such a clear-cut split between one option and another (though possibly because I rarely offer such a binary choice).  Usually the results are a lot more muddled.  Here, a very clear majority sees themselves as naturally submissive.  Making it even more definitive is the phrasing of the two options.  I tried to stay away from describing the "not naturally submissive" option with any term that might have a more loaded or divisive connotation, like "Alpha" or "dominant."

This confirms a rather poorly constructed poll we did over a year ago, in which the options were: 

I am [Male or Female] and Outside the Home I prefer to: 

Female - Prefer to Follow   2 (2%) Female - Prefer to Lead   5 (5%) Male - Prefer to Follow   48 (55%) Male - Prefer to Lead   36 (41%)
A majority of those who are responding to these polls are clearly interested in doing what comes naturally to them.  They identify as naturally submissive or having a preference to follow rather than lead, and I assume they are attracted to DD and FLR because those fit their natural preference.  What intrigues me so much about this is that I come at this from the exact opposite angle, and my entire motivation for being in a Domestic Discipline relationship and wanting to explore a Female Led one is that I am not at all submissive in real life and strongly prefer to lead and really hate being led.  For me, this is like yin and yang:

My handy Wikipedia defines it as "The combination or fusion of the two cosmic forces.  A circle divided by an S-shaped line into a dark and a light segment, representing respectively yin and yang, each containing a 'seed' of the other.  Yin is characterized as slow, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, wet, and passive; and is associated with water, earth, the moon, femininity, and nighttime. Yang, by contrast, is fast, hard, solid, focused, hot, dry, and active; and is associated with fire, sky, the sun, masculinity and daytime." In my "real" life, I am all yang, all the time.  But, that is not a very healthy way to live.  J Girl touched on something like this in one of the more on-point comments last week: "It only makes sense that since most of us experience discipline -- or, in many cases, craved discipline -- from a loving parental or authority figure, that when we desire discipline from our significant other, there are somewhat parental overtones. Many in the DD community deny this vehemently, and I suspect the reasoning is because we are so adamantly opposed to disordered relationships, and so insistent that consensual discipline within a DD dynamic is healthy. However, the relationships by their very nature are different."  My response was, "DD fills some need that doesn't seem to be present in "normal" or "healthy" people. I tend to think of it more in terms of "unbalanced" than "disordered," but that may be a distinction without a difference." Intellectually at least, my attraction to DD lies in the fact that it requires me, a fairly unyielding and dominant person, to yield and submit.  I am attracted to it because it requires me to grow in a direction that is not natural to me and that makes me very uncomfortable.  For me, DD is about bringing some order to that disordered state that J. Girl references; bringing balance to a personality that is inherently unbalanced and way too much yang for its own good. Yet, this poll seems to indicate that most of this blog's readers are coming at things from the opposite perspective, attracted to something that fits where they naturally want to go anyway.  It also shows why I sometimes get into discussions where we are just talking past each other about the nature of submission and why husbands who don't always tow the line should be cut some slack.  Not in terms of not getting the punishment they have coming, but in terms of understanding why they may not instantly and consistently obey every rule.  Every few weeks I will get a comment from someone to the effect of, "You just need to submit."  And without exception those comments always irritate the hell out of me, because it's clear that the person just doesn't get that for a non-submissive person, submitting to someone else is a very hard thing to do.  It is not natural to them, and they must fight their natural tendency to fight and resist.  Conversely, if your natural temperament is geared toward submission, then isn't it awfully easy to advise "just submit"?  It's what you want to do anyway!  This also ties into a misunderstanding I had with one of our regular commenters, who I think may have misread or misunderstood where I was going with some comments about female leadership.  It was an example of comments I get every once in awhile that suggest I don't appreciate how hard it is is for wives to step into the leadership role.  To the contrary, I have no doubt at all about how hard it is to be a real leader, particularly for those who are stuck in yin to the same extent I am burdened by excessive yang.  Leading is hard!  Even for people who have strong leadership attributes, it takes thought and commitment and learning to be comfortable not just with a degree of confrontation but with actually initiating the confrontation.  And all that may cut against who that person has always been.  But, even if following is more natural to such a person, is it healthy? What do you miss out on by not leading, even if leading is hard?  Leading does not come easily to my wife.  Both by temperament and socialization, when confronted with an obstinate, unyielding husband, her first reaction is to retreat.  But, she is figuring out over time that she actually does like leading, likes being in charge and, yes, likes disciplining.  There are always just stray doubts in her mind about what reaction she will get when she does step up.  It's that ongoing conversation that Alan brought up a few weeks ago, in which she takes a step forward but is waiting for something from me showing that I am going to really accept that leadership.  Conversely, because following is so hard for me, my fantasy is that she will just take over and force me into submission, overcoming my will when I don't find it easy to do myself. My aversion to the concept of "topping from the bottom" also comes, to some extent, from the perspective that leadership is hard and must be developed, and the same with submission.  I do believe that there may be instances where a woman who has taken on the title of Head of Household may decide not to discipline or punish and actually has a good, well-considered reason for doing so.  In those instances, it may very well be that he needs to accept that and, in doing so, he is learning to be a better follower.  HOWEVER, I also think that not punishing or disciplining consistently when you have agreed to do that can just be poor leadership, reflecting that person retreating to their more "natural" or preferred state of passivity or submission.  Again, I have nothing but admiration for every Disciplinary Wife who struggles against socialization and temperament in order to become a better leader.  It is very, very hard work.  And because it is such hard work, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the position that the passivity of someone who has taken on the title but is NOT doing the work must be respected just because she has taken on the HoH title.  In the end, these are consensual agreements in which the parties have agreed to take on certain roles.  Saying, "I choose to lead by not leading" seems like sophistry, and "topping from the bottom" can be a convenient concept to fall back on when the designated "leader" isn't stepping up but doesn't want to be called on it. Well, now that I have proven beyond all doubt that I was being honest in saying I had no idea where this topic was going, do with it what you will.  I think it would be interesting to hear from those who are playing against their natural inclinations -- dominant personalities who are learning to submit or folks who aren't comfortable in the leadership role but are working hard to develop those skills.  For those who are playing to their natural state, I am interested in hearing how that works for you, whether it feels right to be more of what you are, or do you ever feel like it retards your ability to grow and develop in other directions? Have a great week.

The Forum - Vol. 192 - Nurturing

"That was what he wanted. For somebody to tell him 'No.' To have somebody lay down the law, set the limits, give him something solid to stand on. That's what we all want, really.” ― S.E. Hinton

Hello all.  Welcome back to The Forum - Disciplined Husbands & Disciplinary Wives.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in Female Led Relationships or into Domestic Discipline. Thanks for joining us.

I decided to get an early start on this week's topic, as I may be off-line much of tomorrow.  Also, it felt like this week's topic had run out of gas, though I do want to thank everyone who participated in it.  We didn't succeed in getting a whole lot out on the table regarding what men can do to show their submission in order to encourage their wives to take charge, but there were some nuggets in there.  I'm also not sure whether I did a good enough job of explaining what I was looking for, which seemed fairly simple to me at the time: namely, whether men have ways of showing their willingness to be led before expecting her to just take a strong lead.  It was really about, what can we as disciplined men do to help build up our wives' confidence even if, in an ideal world, we would prefer that they take command and impose their will without us having to prod things along with things like suggesting a spanking might be appropriate or acting submissive such that she takes it as a cue to lead.  Anyhow . . . best laid plans.  

I will say that sometime in the near future, you can expect me to do a topic going off again on the whole "topping from the bottom" thing, as it once again came up and seemed to generate more heat than light.  I am more and more convinced that it is like one of those non-indigenous weeds or snakes that gets let loose in a new environment and wreaks havoc on the eco-system.  I'm obviously analogizing to what happens when we import concepts from one kink--in this case BDSM or Femdom--into something different (DD) that may not have the same goal or purpose.  I don't think there could possibly be anything more destructive to a budding DD relationships than the suggestion that there is something wrong about communicating what it is you need and what it is you are hoping DD will do for you, whether as the spanker or spankee or letting your partner know what is and is not working.  I know that "topping from the bottom" is not necessarily incompatible with open communication between couples, but it is just so easy to apply it in a way that shuts down communication, in the DD context it just seems to be way more trouble than it is worth.  Anyway, enough of that.  Onward.

During the course of last week's conversation, Marisa made the following point in response to a very thoughtful comment about confessing one's transgressions and failings:

"I am not Catholic ( Jay is) but I LOVE confession. I am not talking about the contrived " mommy I was naughty" version designed to get a spanking, but the sincere heartfelt admission of guilt and acceptance of penance. This is very hot for a dominant woman (maybe even a vanilla woman).  I believe it taps deeply into our nurturing nature as well as the penance giving role so natural to us."

I want to follow up on her "nurturing nature" and "penance giving role" comment.  Another word for what I think she may have been getting at is "mothering."  Now, I am coming at this topic with a lot of trepidation, because I absolutely do not want to open the door to a bunch of "I love it when Mommy puts me in diapers . . ." stuff from "Anonymous" in all his permutations.   While whatever people want to do in the privacy of their own bedroom is up to them, some of it is beyond the scope of this blog. (Though, I will admit some it reflects your blogger's personal comfort zones.   I read recently that Mike Pence refers to his wife as "Mother." Totally creeped me out.)  So, like I said, I hope I am not opening up a big can of worms here.  But, I actually have been thinking for some time about doing something here about whether "nurturing" and "mothering" are an aspect of DD and FLR relationships for some couples or are part of the mindset that makes or keeps either party interested in DD.  It has been on my list for awhile, though I did keep shying away from it. But, Marisa's comment seemed like a good opening to do some tasteful exploring.

In addition to Marisa's insights, I can think of two separate incidents that got me thinking about this.  First, several months ago I mentioned that I had listened to some lectures I found on-line from a professional disciplinarian who also promotes herself as a "spanking therapist" specializing in adults with spanking fetishes.  She opined that many adult men and women who crave real disciplinary "to tears" kind of spankings who grew up in chaotic homes with few rules, or where the rules were inconsistently enforced, and it left them feeling insecure, guilt-ridden, etc.  As adults, they crave the structure and boundary-setting, and consequences for misbehavior, that they did not experience growing up.  She referred to adult spanking in that context as almost a form of "re-parenting."  

Second, in my own DD relationship we had never, until recently, even alluded to any "mothering" aspect. And, honestly, if I had ever thought about it I probably would not have brought it up, because I suspect there are many women who might be open to DD but definitely do not want it to be associated with mothering or treating him as a "little boy" and I assumed my wife might have the same adverse reaction.  A few months ago, however, I said something about how I felt like her bringing a very strong and stern demeanor when she was in the course of ordering or delivering a spanking was important, because of the vulnerability and greater sense of genuine regret and accountability it fosters. I told her that I wanted to experience that "healthy fear" more often.  I gave her the example of a stern teacher, and she responded with something like, "Or, like a boy who is about to get a very sound spanking from his mother."  Since then, she has made a few comments along those lines -- that part of me wants to be disciplined in the same way it used to happen to misbehaving boys from a strict mom.  Instead of reacting negatively to the mothering metaphor, she seemed to gravitate toward it in some way.

It isn't all that easy for me to admit, but some of that imagery does resonate for me as well, though I do think it has more to do with wanting to be subject to control by a strong authority figure than with "mothering" per se.  A mother could fill that role, but so could a teacher, or a strict aunt (or uncle, for that matter).  But, I do think it does have something to do with someone having that kind of actual authority and sufficient physical or positional power, to make a spanking happen when a rule is broken.  

 For me, I'm not sure it is linked so much to the disciplinarian's age and accompanying authority, as to my lack thereof.  It is about the feeling of lacking the ability to resist that we felt if subject to corporal punishment growing up.  As an adult, I always kind of know that even if I have committed to being spanked whenever she orders it, if I wanted to resist, I could. It's not like that when we are younger, right? If punishment was ordered from an adult, whether at home or school, it was going to happen. That sense of inevitability -- that it is going to happen period and without any chance of getting out of it -- definitely is part of the morbid attraction DD had for me from the first moment I read about it.  And, I feel it now more than a decade later as I write this post.  It gets my butterflies going in a way that most other topics just don't. "Tears" being probably the only other one that has the same level of fascination all these years later, and I think the two are inextricably linked for me on some level.

Anyway, let's explore this a little.  Does mothering or parenting or nurturing play any role in your DD or FLR lifestyle or in your motivations to give or receive discipline?  Or, perhaps some vulnerability we had growing up that we want to tap into again?  Or, her ability to make you feel weak in the knees, like a boy caught doing something especially bad, when she gives you an especially tough lecture?  For the wives, does the "mothering" or "nurturing" aspect of your personality play any role (positive or negative) in your desire or willingness to be a disciplinarian? Marisa also referred to "the penance giving role so natural to us."  Is that a natural and overlooked facet of many women and mothers?

I hope you all have a great week.  If you are new to this Forum, please take a moment to stop by the Guestbook (tab above) and tell us a little about yourself and your DD or FLR lifestyle or desires.

Dan

The Forum - Vol. 191 - If You Want to Be Led . . .

“Submission is not in the bowing of heads or knees but in the humbling of your whole being (spirit, soul and body)” - Ikechukwu Izuakor
Hello all. Welcome back to The Forum: Disciplined Husbands & Disciplinary Wives.  Our weekly gathering of men, women and couples who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships.

I hope you had a great week.  Mine was busy and filled with distractions, yet I also felt very unproductive.  I just can't seem to get motivated to take on 2017 and feel like I've kind of already frittered away one-twelfth of the year.  But, like I said, if you are going to stumble, do it early.  Just hope stumbling doesn't become lurching from one stumble to the next throughout the year.

For reasons I may go into in a future post, what I really want to talk about this week is undeserved punishment.  It is a subject that resonates strongly with me as I go into this weekend.  But, we have adone that one within the last year, and I also just need some objectivity before getting into it.  So, instead, this week's topic is an offshoot of some of last week's comments.  Darren brought up that his wife is starting to talk like a budding Disciplinarian, saying things like "You deserve to be paddled for that."  But, the follow-up isn't always there.  Anna suggested that at those times, he might respectfully ask whether he should get the paddle or remove his belt, or words to that effect.  That discussion led Alan to observe:

"I strongly agree with Anna's advice. At the beginning of my relationship with the woman who introduced DD, she would often make remarks like your wife does such as " you should be spanked for that" or " someone needs a spanking." Ultimately I realized it was sort of a negotiation conversation going on in which she was testing the waters to see if I would submit. Remember this was early and she was still uncertain (later that uncertainty goes away pretty fast). But think of it as a conversation asking a question and you supply the answer that encourages and reassures her. It might not guarantee a spanking this time but will greatly increase the chances one will be in the offing.Women who are not experienced disciplinarians want to know you will submit to their authority. Incidentally offering to bring her brush or simply answering " yes ma'am" to her was very effective in those situations"

As Disciplined Husbands or those who want to be in such a relationship, many of us crave accountability and strong female leadership. We want consequences for our actions, and it is important that they be imposed on us.  The more we have to ask, or suggest, or manipulate the situation to lead her to deliver some real punishment, the less it meets our need for real accountability and yielding to another person's will, because it is still really us controlling the situation. But, the reality is, while lots of stories in DD books and websites involve a strong woman getting fed up with her weak or ill-behaved husband to such an extent that she just suddenly takes over and blisters his bottom, in real life it doesn't seem to happen that way very often. Instead, far more often the dynamic involves the husband asking his wife to consider disciplining him, and she accommodates it but with some degree of trepidation, uncertainty and doubt.

So, while I always hope that budding Disciplinary Wives will be inspired by quotes like this,

the reality may be much closer to what Alan is describing -- a series of "testing the waters" exchanges, with her testing to see how serious he is about all this and trying to "level set" on how far he really wants her to take it.  In those cases, it may very well be that while we husbands really want the command to precede the obedience, the commands may start coming only after we demonstrate our willingness to obey.  While the fantasy is that dominance precedes submission, maybe in reality we have to do the opposite?

Is that the way it really does work?  If so, are there things you have done to demonstrate your real willingness to submit or to convince her that your desire is real and that the authority you are asking her to assume won't be taken back the first time she really steps up and tells you to do something you don't like or gives you that real disciplinary spanking that you say you want?  As I hope people saw from the last couple of postings, I am very into concrete steps, i.e. specific things we can say and do to move the ball forward in these nascent DD and FLR relationships.  So, let's get into the details on things you have done to demonstrate real commitment putting her in charge and accepting your role.  Ladies, how do you feel when your husband displays that submission or makes subtle, or not so subtle, suggestions that you carry through and spank him for something that he's done to deserve one?  Does it encourage you, or does it feel like he's trying to take over?  In an ideal world, how would you like him to demonstrate his willingness to submit to your commands or take a real disciplinary spanking from you? What would give you additional confidence in taking over or delivering the discipline he wants and deserves?

I hope you all have a great week.  If you are new to this Forum, please take a moment to visit our Guestbook (see tab above) and tell everyone a little about yourself and your Domestic Discipline lifestyle or aspirations.  Also, please note the poll posted in the upper-right corner of the blog and take a minute to vote.

The Forum - Vol. 190 - Growing Up With Rules

"Sometimes we have to step out of our comfort zones.  We have to break the rules.  And we have to discover the sensuality of fear.  We need to face it, challenge it, dance with it." -- Kyra Davis

Hello all.  Welcome back to The Forum: Disciplined Husbands and Disciplinary Wives.  Our weekly gathering of men and women practicing or positively interested in Domestic Discipline and Female Led Relationships.

You know, sometimes a topic that I see as pretty simple and straightforward just doesn't work.  Take last week as an example.  I really thought that it would be a fairly concrete topic yielding some actual guidance for what a Disciplinary Wife might consider doing if her spanking efforts didn't seem to be preventing repeat offenses. I like those "concrete" kinds of topics, because I get a surprising number of side-conversations going with either budding Disciplinary Wives and HoH's who want practical, concrete advice on how to handle certain situations or from men who are looking for similar ideas to help give their wives confidence as leaders and some real tools to use.  I don't believe that any of this stuff comes naturally, and it's not like there is some instruction manual they hand you when you decide to give a Domestic Discipline relationship a try, so I always have this hope that men, and particularly women, who are interested in these lifestyles can come here and get practical, concrete advice.  And, sometimes that works.  Other times, it seems to go off the rails.  Last week, it seemed to go way off the rails--my own comments included--covering pretty much everything under the sun other than my question about how to handle repeat offenses.

I have started to see a distinct pattern of conversations going off the rails precisely at the intersection of Domestic Discipline versus Dominance & submission or Femdom.  I will ask a question that focuses on what women can or should do to increase their leadership skills or confidence, or to take a stronger hand in enforcing the rules, and it tends to quickly take a hard right turn into a vary binary "She just needs to lead" or "He just needs to submit." Or both. And, both sexes can get pretty judgmental on this issue.  One of my favorite female bloggers has told me that she has experienced the same thing, where she asks for concrete tips on being a better or more consistent HoH and Leader, and she tends to get back very preachy and condescending responses from other female HoH's to the effect of: "You just need to lead."  I don't know why there is this tendency to think that being a "Leader" or "HoH"  or "Dominant" just magically happens in practice and becomes "real" immediately by virtue of two people deciding to confer those titles.  It's a skill like anything else, and skills generally aren't innate.  They come with practice and diligence and lots of trial and error.  That is the real world, and one reason I am pretty resistant to letting this blog drift over into the harder Femdom and Master/slave stuff is that so much of that is either not real or not something that many "real world" wives seem very interested in.  I want the blog to be about real relationships, and those are complex.  They involve real people with real feelings and real temperaments and real habits.  One reason I have so much admiration for real women who decide to take on the HoH and Disciplinary Wives role is that I am sure it is really, really hard.  You are constantly having to make judgments about what rules to make and, even harder, how rigorously to enforce them, when the rules keep colliding with the real world situation around you both.  It's why, as much as I have a hard time following, I admire the hell out of my wife for agreeing to lead, because of the two roles I have no doubt that it is the more difficult.

I also recognize that I have caused some of the messiness around this by moving this blog a bit more down the FLR path instead of keeping a tight focus on Domestic Discipline, and FLR concepts do have a way of bleeding together with Femdom and D/s.  All these acronyms and non-self defining terms! 

Anyway, enough of that.  For now.  I do fully intend to keep asking these questions involving concrete tips for working on developing leadership (and submission) skills and enforcing (and following) rules, and if the discussions continue to go off the rails, so be it.  In fact, since I feel the actual topic got so little consideration last week, I was sorely tempted this morning to just continue it to this week, but I reluctantly decided to move on.  For now.

Anna asked in one of the comments last week why I continue to go down this FLR road when I really hate the "service" aspects of it. I won't repeat my answer, as it is in the comments with more verbosity than it probably required.  But, my answer relates a little to this week's quote, above, and also has some connection to this week's topic.  I stumbled across the quote just this morning as I was looking for quotes on "rules."  I love the part about needing to discover "the sensuality of fear" that comes with rule breaking.  But, I think that same sensuality and fearfulness are involved when people who are not wired to follow rules are made to do so. In fact,  I think that phrase encapsulates elegantly many discussions we have had about how a Disciplined Husband can both crave and dread a real disciplinary spanking.  We want it precisely because it is hard and legitimately fear-inducing, but we dread it because there is a very good reason that it induces fear.

I feel similarly conflicted about rules.  I am one of the most anti-authoritarian guys you will ever meet.  If someone says, "go left" I just feel this natural compulsion to go right.   But, it gets me in trouble.  So, for practical reasons, I know I need to work on following rules.  I also want it precisely because it is hard for me to obey someone else.  But, I firmly believe that we only grow by getting outside our comfort zones, and even if doing so is scary and hard, there is something sensual and fulfilling about doing hard and scary things.

This week's topic is related to the above, but maybe a little narrower, and it focuses on two recent polls.  I asked everyone about their relationship to rules when they were growing up.  Here are the results:

In my home growing up there were:

Many rules                                   33 (42%)
Few rules                                     45 (57%)

In my home growing up, rules were:

Strictly enforced                          26 (32%)
Moderately enforced                   30 (37%)
Seldom enforced                         23 (29%)

Sometimes I have some firm ideas about what a poll is likely to show, though I'm often proven wrong.  This time, I really didn't have any firm pre-conceived notion, though I had a mild suspicion that DD might appeal more to men who grew up with few rules or where enforcement was lacking.  My basis for that was two-fold.  First, I had heard something by a "spanking therapist" who was of the opinion that spanking fetishists who want disciplinary-style spankings often grew up in chaotic or unstable environments, and as adults they crave rules and accountability precisely because they lacked them growing up. She even described the adult spanking process and the accountability that comes along with it as a form of "re-parenting."

Second, that therapeutic explanation resonated with me personally.  I did grow up in a pretty chaotic environment, and my parents set very few rules and enforced even fewer.  In fact, as I hit my teen-age years my father actually told me something to the effect of he wasn't going to set any rules unless I really screwed something up thereby proving that I needed them.  Now, that may sound like a teenage boy's wet dream, but it actually can lead to a lot of insecurity and sense of overwhelming personal responsibility, because when you are responsible for setting 100% of your own rules you also are responsible for 100% of the consequences.  I was never a "bad" kid in terms of things like bullying or engaging in wanton destruction, but it is fair to say that I engaged in a lot of pretty risky behavior.  I managed to get myself out of most scrapes, but I think I always felt more than a little out of control, because in fact no one really was controlling me.  That is hard enough as an adult, but as a kid it is a lot of responsibility to carry around.  So, I think that one reason I had such an incredibly strong reaction to Domestic Discipline the first time I read about it was because the idea of having rules and painful consequences imposed on me was deeply attractive and also deeply disturbing, both at the same time.

Now, the polls don't really seem to support my working hypothesis.  Yes, more respondents grew up with "few rules," but not by a big margin.  There also is a fairly even distribution between mild, moderate and strict enforcement.  So, I guess all the poll really does is reinforce my view that there is no "one size fits all" reason for our attraction to this stuff.

How about you?  What was your environment like growing up when it comes to rules and their enforcement?  Do you see any connection between how many rules you had to follow and how strictly you were required to observe them and your attitudes and desire for (or aversion to) rules and discipline today?

I hope you have a great week.  As always, if you are new to this Forum please tell us a little about yourself or your DD lifestyle by visiting our Guestbook (tab above).

The Forum - Vol. 189 - Am I Getting Through to You? Repeat Offenses

The events we bring upon ourselves, not matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go. -- Richard Bach

Hello everyone.  Welcome back to The Forum - Disciplined Husbands & Disciplinary Wives.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, a Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationship.  I hope you all had a good week.

Although we didn't set a record for the number of comments by any means, I thought last week's discussion on embarrassment and humiliation as potential DD tools was a good one to explore.  It's clear that the potential for being embarrassed by having our wives' authority demonstrated in public is disconcerting and threatening to many of us, particularly if it were to include a revelation that we get spanked for bad behavior.  And, it's not just in "public."  We are just as mortified about our kids or close relatives or friends finding out.  Maybe more so.  As I said in responding to a comment from Marisa, however, it's interesting that the likelihood of someone finding out about our spankings is kind of within our own control, since for those couples using spankings as real punishment for real offenses getting punished is, to a large extent, within his own control, because we could avoid it by behaving better.  It's also kind of interesting that one reason couples try so hard to avoid having their kids overhear a spanking is because of the embarrassment it would cause Dad, but in doing that they are really choosing to place an upper limit of sorts on the punishment he is subject to, by taking inter-family embarrassment off the table.

I was mulling this all a bit this morning while thinking about possible topics and looking for appropriate quotes.  During the course of that, I found this one from a book by Stephen King that would have been perfect as the headline quote for last week:

      "A man who can't bear to share his habits is a man who needs to quit them."
  
 Then there was this quote from Marisa:

"I am weary of punishing him repeatedly for the same behavior. I know especially if I spank him in front of another male or couple ( no couple now is available but a male is), Jay would do anything in his power to avoid a repeat. I am not suggesting anyone else try this and it is risky which is probably why I have not already used it. But sooner or later a wife gets tired of revisiting the same issues ( I hear some of this echoed in Anna's remarks above). I am not going to divorce him while spanking still works but I am going to find a way to beat his ass that lasts a long long time."

So, how do wives deal with repetitive bad behavior?  One possible solution that may, or may not, work is consistency, i.e. making sure that discipline actually is meted out consistently every time the problem behavior occurs.  I do think the lack of consistency has been a big problem for us over the years, because in the back of my mind I know that when it comes to certain bad habits and behaviors, the odds of escaping punishment are really kind of in my favor.

If consistency doesn't seem to work,  is it a matter of cranking up the severity?

Or, maybe one spanking for one offense just isn't enough for really deeply rooted behaviors?

Or, more to Marisa's point, if spankings are not working, does a true Disciplinary Wife need to take things to not just a new level, but in an entirely different direction?  In other words, does she in fact need to find something that he hates or fears even more than being spanked?  Like, taking him downstairs or upstairs for a hard paddling or strapping even if kids are in the house and might overhear? Or letting him know that if he does it again, she will tell a friend or relative that he gets spanked or, worse yet, do it in front of someone else?  Or, perhaps she starts grounding him or taking away privileges?

So, what happens, or should happen, if "normal" spankings don't seem to be getting the point across?  Any suggestions from experienced wives or from men whose wives finally cranked it up enough to really make him avoid the bad behavior?

I hope you all have a great week. And, if you are new to this Forum, please take a minute to go to the Guestbook (tab above) and tell us a little about yourself and your DD or FLR lifestyle or aspirations.

The Forum - Vol. 188 - Humiliation & Humbling

"Flaws would not only bring death but, far worse, humiliation." - William Goldman, The Princess Bride

Hi all.  Welcome back to The Forum - Disciplined Hubbies & Disciplinary Wives.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led relationships.

I hope you all had a great week.  Mine was a stumble right out of the gate.  I was pretty proud of myself on New Years Eve, having one drink at dinner then going to bed.  Of course, I have always been prone to see that particular evening as Amateur Night, and this isn't the first time I've decided to let the world get bombed while I get a good night's sleep.  But, still, I was reveling in my accomplishment and patting myself on the back right through most of New Years Day.  Then, I met a business contact for "a drink" and to watch a game.  As usual one led to another, and one day into the New Year I had violated my pledge to moderate.  But, if you are going to stumble, do it early, right?  Well, that was the theory.  I was good the rest of the week.  Then, as I was leaving work yesterday, there was a mixer of sorts going on at the office, and I had a beer, which became three, then a couple at dinner with the family, then a nightcap at home while watching a movie.  And, this came on top of a pretty serious self-created problem at work -- sort of an insubordination issue, but more complex than that.  By the end of the week it had sorted itself out for the most part, but only after hours and hours of time spent trying to fix a situation that my poor judgment had no small part in creating.  I think part of the underlying problem is work got off to a bit of a slow start this week, which is always when I am most prone to "acting out."  Idle hands are the devil's workshop . . .

Now, why go into all this detail?  Because I have decided to add a bit of leverage to my efforts at behavior modification in the form of public humiliation by being a lot more honest and open about my problem behaviors and also about the impact they have or the consequences that result.  To some extent, my wife put me on this track a few weeks ago.  I had lost my temper about something and gone off on something at work, including excoriating someone in a voicemail for some behavior that I probably misinterpreted.  Now, I'm not sure I would have done it were it not for the fact that this person is, in fact, kind of a prick and has a well-earned reputation for being one.   But, that led to a chain of somewhat opposing though complementary consequences.  First, the history and context probably did make me more inclined to interpret something he said in the worst possible light, thereby leading to me responding with a very nasty tirade that may not actually have been warranted.  Second, when I informed my wife about it, she blew her top because she is tired of these work-related temper incidents.  Since spankings have not been doing the job on this issue, she decided to crank things up a bit, forcing me to . . . apologize!  Worse, she told me that it had to be face-to-face or over the phone.  No email or other more distancing and insulating form of communication.  So, I spent the better part of the next day hemming and hawing and finding every excuse in the world to do something other than deliver that apology.  I finally called him near the end of the day and apologized, explaining that I probably misinterpreted what he said.  Thankfully, he didn't make me squirm too much, though it was still humiliating, particularly because in the context of the overall relationship he really is a jerk and I'm not the only one who feels that way.  Apologizing is hard enough, but having to do it to someone you genuinely dislike . . . very humbling.

Which brings us to this week's topic.  Does public humiliation or shaming play any role in your DD or FLR relationship?  Does your HoH or Disciplinarian use non-spanking methods to force you to take responsibility for your actions, particularly in some way that involves airing that bad behavior in public or acknowledging responsibility in some especially humbling way? This could conceivably involve letting others know that you have been or will be spanked or punished for something you did, but I want to broaden it to other forms of humbling and humiliation that serve as a punishment or a means of forcing those of us who misbehave to take real responsibility or ownership for our bad acts.

I hope you have a great week.  If you are new to this forum, please take a moment to stop by the Guestbook (tab above) and tell us a little about yourself and your DD or FLR lifestyle or aspirations.  Also, we have a couple of pending polls.  Please take a couple of seconds to vote.

Dan

The Forum - Vol. 186 - Chastity

Hi all.  I hope you had a great Christmas holiday, at least for those of you who celebrate it.  Ours was a little hectic trying to work in so much with friends and family.  But, it's all good.  I'm now trying really hard not to do much resembling real work.  It hasn't been an entirely successful effort, but I will keep trying.

We had another poll close recently.  It asked, "Does your DD or FLR relationship include enforced chastity or orgasm denial?"  Here are the results:
 

Yes             47 (52%) No             42 (47%)

As I believe Alan pointed out, the question was a little vague regarding whether just being told not to have an orgasm constitutes it being "enforced," and I followed up that for purposes of this poll it should be.  Hopefully the above "yes" votes include most situations in which a Disciplinary Wife or HoH dictates to her husband when or under what conditions he is allowed to have an orgasm, regardless of whether she takes other steps like a chastity device. 

As when I first raised this topic about two years ago, it is one I am going to have to throw to the group and hope they drive the conversation.  Chastity, enforced or otherwise, is not part of our relationship and it's something neither of us have had any real interest in pursuing.  If anything, we're frustrated at how often work and other commitments and the general busyness of life prevent us from having sex more often.  She has also never voiced any concern over any "solo" activity.  So, the first time I raised this topic I had absolutely no interest in it, but recognized that others did.  In fact, according to the above poll, slightly more than half of those who responded are practicing chastity or orgasm denial in some form or other.

I still have no actual experience regarding this topic, but I have been more open to it recently.  Part of the change in attitude is linked to our conscious effort to move our relationship further toward the FLR end of the spectrum as opposed to DD only.  If she had an interest in imposing chastity on me, I would try to comply.  I also just try to keep an open mind about things that may not appeal to me initially but that seem to do something for other people.   In fact, I could characterize the whole service aspect of FLR in that way -- it isn't something that comes naturally to me or that I enjoy per se, but I do see certain benefits to it.  Also with respect to chastity in particular, I have explored some books on Tantra, and orgasm denial or "semen retention" is recommended by some Tantra practitioners.  So, a few months ago I gave it a try in a very limited way, denying myself any kind of solo sexual activity.  The results were mixed.  I did feel an initial increase in my level of sexual or erotic energy, but that seemed to taper off pretty quickly.  But, it was a very limited experiment and I don't draw any real conclusions from it.

So, let's explore it a bit more.  Is enforced chastity or orgasm denial part of your relationship?  If so,  how does it work?  What do you and your partner get out of it?  If it's not currently part of your relationship, would you like it to be?  If so, why?  If it is part of your relationship, which of you asked for or imposed it.

I have also posted a couple of new polls, both going to my never-ending fascination with how we came to be interested in these kind of relationships.  These two try to get at whether our need today for rules and structures relates to the extent to which we had those when we were kids.  We'll make that the topic of a future discussion once the polls close.

I hope you all have a great New Years!  Be safe out there!

Dan

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

Hello all. Welcome back on this Christmas Eve.  I thought about doing a topic today but decided to focus on those things I hope all of you are enjoying -- family, friends (whether the in-person or Internet variety), searching for that final "just right" gift, or just hanging out and enjoying the time off.  I will probably post a real topic on Monday.  Until then . . .

MR. AND MRS. DISCIPLINED HUBBY 

HOPE YOU ALL

AND

 

AND THAT SANTA, IN WHATEVER FORM 

YOU LIKE

 

BRINGS YOU WHAT YOU RICHLY DESERVE

 

WHETHER YOU HAVE BEEN

 GOOD

 OR BAD

OR A BIT OF BOTH

AND REGARDLESS OF WHICH SIDE OF THE PADDLE 

YOU MAY PREFER TO BE ON

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to each and every one of you.  Thank you to all of our regulars for your participation and friendship over this year.  Be merry and safe.  

The Forum - Vol. 185 - All I Want for Christmas . . .

Hello all. Welcome back to the Forum -- our weekly gathering of men and women participating or interested in Domestic Discipline and Female Led Relationships.  I hope you had a great week. 

Personally, I think I have officially run out of gas for 2016.  Work has finally slowed down a little, but only after a crescendo of travel that included flying from coast to coast and up and down one coast over the course of a single week. And every place I went was gray, rainy and cold.  The one bright spot also turned into a mixed bag, and I'm relating this only because it bears a little on last week's topic. 

A couple of weeks ago, I set a new goal for myself, which was to give up drinking wine.  I've noticed that when I have a night that gets a little out of control where imbibing is concerned, or when I wake up feeling like crap even when I didn't have all that much to drink, 9 times out of 10 wine was the drink of choice or a very significant part of the mix.  It's just too easy to drink too much of it, and it seems to hit my system so fast that I go right from stone cold sober to very buzzed without a chance to moderate.  So, I decided to just stop drinking it.  And, I did so for about two weeks, avoiding it even at a work-related dinner where every other person was drinking wine.  I instead sipped a couple of beers and let everyone else think whatever they thought about my relative level of sophistication.  So, I was feeling pretty good about myself, tracking my day-to-day progress on an app I use to track various habits and goals and congratulating myself as I saw the number of consecutive days without wine growing and growing.  Then, at the tail-end of my travels, I went out to dinner with a business contact, and I was again good, sticking to beer, though we had three or four.  The problem happened when I went back to the hotel.  It is a small place and very into creating a "home like" ambiance for their guests, which usually includes a couple of open bottles of wine at the front desk.  The clerk offered me a glass as I was checking in, and without thinking about it at all, I had one!  We chatted for awhile, and she refilled my glass again and I took it up to my room, and it was only as I was finishing the second glass that I remembered my "no wine" pledge.  It literally did not occur to me once as I was consuming those glasses, even though just the day before I had been patting myself on the back about the self-discipline I was showing!  I was really, truly furious with myself for once again not even thinking about a rule before I broke it!  Now, this rule had been self-imposed, but my wife had in fact imposed a variant of it by banning me from a particular type of wine that seems to do particularly bad things to me.  But, it illustrated perfectly the problem we talked about last week of blazing right past a rule without even making the conscious decision to break it.  Damn, damn, damn. 

Well, on to more pleasant topics.  As I said last week in one of the comments, I am a Christmas junkie.  Despite usually being totally worn out and more than a little overwhelmed by the social commitments, I do love this time of year.  I love watching the old animated Christmas movies and It's a Wonderful Life.  I love coming home and seeing the lights on the houses and all the lawn decorations adorning the yards on our block.  I even like walking through the mall trying to find that perfect gift for each particular someone on my list.  Which brings us to this week's topic:

What if, if anything, would you like to get or give for Christmas or for the new year that is FLR or DD related?  A new paddle or strap, perhaps?  Maybe some naughty little DD or FLR accessory?  Or, maybe it's not a thing you want or need at all, but better or different behavior or some new DD or FLR practice? 

For us, there are a couple of things that come to mind. I did get her a new custom-made paddle.  I wanted something that was unique to her, so she'll be getting that as a stocking stuffer.  On the less material front, we have been talking a while about doing a DD and FLR "boot camp" and things were just so busy this year that it never happened.  I would like to remedy that in the near future, if not this month then early in 2017.

How about you? What do you want Santa to bring you, or what do you want to give your partner to celebrate the season or get 2017 off on the right FLR or DD footing. If you are planning a DD or FLR present, can you let people know where you got it?  I've tried to stay away from recommending commercial sites on this blog, to avoid the appearance I might be endorsing them and, frankly, to avoid disclosing personally identifiable information, but it is also good to direct newcomers to places where they can find high-quality or unique DD implements and accessories.

I hope you all have a great week.  I do think I will be blogging next weekend, but just in case there is a holiday interruption, if we don't talk, have a great holiday! 

If you are new to this Forum, please take a minute to fill out our Guestbook (tab above) and tell us a little about yourself and your DD or FLR relationship or aspirations. 

The Forum - Vol. 184 - Preventative Spankings

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

Hello all. Welcome back to The Forum - Disciplined Husbands and Disciplinary Wives, our weekly gathering of men and women who are participating in or interested in being in a Domestic Discipline or FLR relationship.  I hope you had a good week.

Our own DD and FLR momentum continues to be checked by the irresistible force of these nasty cold/flu bugs that are going around.  I've had mine for 13 days and, while feeling slightly better, it is still holding on tenaciously.  My wife has also been pummeled by it, so we are coughing, sniffling, not very pleasant to see or hear mess right now, and neither of us has the slightest interest in anything FRL related right now.  Being sick also tends to slow me down a bit on the bad behavior front, and I managed to make it through a lengthy business trip with colleagues without over-indulging or committing any other work-related bad acts.  Though, if we were keeping a strict tally, I am still owed some major discipline from a week ago, thanks to my workplace's annual holiday party, which for reasons unknown set a new bar this year for people toasting the season in high spirits.

Preventing such party-related bad behavior is part of this week's topic.  Last week, Alan brought up the topic of "preventative spankings," characterizing and illustrating their effect as follows:

"These are spankings administered before parties or events in which historically my behavior had earned me a spanking after the fact. Her reasoning was that if she was going to have to spank me eventually, she would prefer to avoid the behavior and get it done before rather than afterward. Most preventatives are done several hours before a party or we get into the car to travel and designed to give me a warm bottom that reminds me what could happen. With one unforgettable exception this does work to prevent really bad public behavior. It does not always make my behavior perfect but I am careful enough that she is satisfied.There are now three or four of these scheduled before holiday events and they have become so routine she actually often puts them on the calendar.This gets to your point about that second ( or third) drink just pushing the reality of future punishment out of your mind.) The reality of punishment is very much on your mind after a recent spanking ( For me that feeling lasts at least two or three days) So sipping your drinks, avoiding family confrontations and boorish behavior is much easier.'

We have never engaged in this kind of preventative discipline, and I used to think it was not very consistent with Domestic Discipline, since it involved punishing before anything had even happened.  But, Alan's comment has me rethinking it.  (Something I love about this blog,  by the way.  My assumptions and predilections often get challenged and I'm forced to rethink some of my shoot-from-the-hip reactions.) As I explained in last week's post, even after a decade of Domestic Discipline it is not uncommon for me to just kind of blaze right through the behavior limits she has set without even thinking about the possible consequences.  Socially-induced amnesia of a sort.  But, I can see how a spanking before the event could serve as an ongoing reminder of the much more severe one that might be coming if I misbehave.

I can foresee some practical problems, however.  For example, because we both have substantial commutes from work to home, and social events are often scheduled near work or at colleagues homes, one or both of us often go directly from work to the event, so we often arrive separately at holiday parties and work-related events, without first having time alone at home.  For those occasions, a preventative spanking would probably need to happen the night before the event, and I don't know if that would still be effective. Or, it might have to be a full-blown punishment spanking sufficient to leave me sore enough the next day to still serve as an ongoing reminder during the party.

So, for this week's topic, have you used preventative spankings?  Have they worked to prevent problem behaviors?  What are the logistical challenges and how have you overcome them?  If you haven't used them, do you think they might be worth trying?

Also, if you haven't filled out our pending poll on whether chastity and orgasm denial is a part of your DD or FLR relationship, please take a minute to do so.  As Alan pointed out, the reference to "enforced" chastity is potentially confusing, and my intent was that it cover things like chastity devices but also simply being ordered not to masturbate or otherwise told not to have an orgasm.

I hope you have a great week.  If your are new to this Forum, please take a few minutes to visit our Guestbook (tab above) and tell us a bit about your DD or FLR relationship or aspirations.

The Forum - Vol. 183 - "Worth it" and Political Recap

“Every time you break the law you pay, and every time you obey the law you pay.” -- John Gardner

Hi all.  Welcome back to The Forum - Disciplined Husbands & Disciplinary Wives.  I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  I was hoping to come back from our break and vacation a little better rested and rejuvenated.  I also hoped to use the break to get back on track with some of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year and on which I've made little or no progress thanks to not doing much other than work.  I thought I accomplished all that and was hoping to get back and hit the gym with more vigor, hit my job with more enthusiasm, and get my butt hit by my wife harder and more frequently if I didn't do those things, then we both got pummeled with some nasty bug. Seems to be shaping up to be another bad cold and flu season, but I guess I can be thankful for getting mine out of the way relatively early.

So, it's certainly been an interesting few weeks.  Regardless of how you personally feel about the U.S. election, we are where we are.  Based on our poll results, it may be that a majority of our readers are happier than others.  The results were:

Democrat	27 (28%)
Republican	38 (39%)
Independent	21 (21%)
Libertarian	6 (6%)
Green	4 (4%)
Other	0 (0%)

 But, people did not exactly vote the party-line this time.  Instead, here are how folks actually voted:

Republican	44 (45%)
Democrat	40 (41%)
Libertarian	5 (5%)
Green	3 (3%)
Other	3 (3%)
Didn't vote	2 (2%)

Now, one observation on the actual vote tally is our readership is either more politically inclined than the general population, or they lie like a rug, because a hell of a lot more than 2% of the population didn't vote at all.

Regarding party affiliation, the results are not wildly different from those in a similar poll I ran a year ago, but it is interesting to me that once again, a year later and with greater participation in the poll (96 vs. 60), the readership for this blog again does not mirror the electorate as a whole.  According a Gallup poll taken in October of this year, 27% of respondents identified as Republican,  36% are Independents, and 32% identify as Democrats. Our readers, on the other hand, trend more heavily Republican, and Independents are wildly under-represented compared to their presence in the population at large.  Without getting into wild speculation about whether Republican men just like being spanked and dominated more than those with more Democratic and Independent leanings, I still suspect that a lot of this skewing of the political affiliation really reflects the skewing of the age demographic.  The last poll I did on that topic showed that this blog's readership skews heavily toward those over age 50, and Republicans are a larger portion of that age group, and older voters also are more likely to identify with one of the two major parties as opposed to Independent or unaffiliated.  Anyway, I'm sure many of you don't have the slightest interest in this, but as I have freely admitted, I am a bit of a political junkie.

On to other things.  In addition to this nasty illness I've picked up, I am suffering through a somewhat well-deserved hangover following our first holiday party of the season.  Particularly given that I was already feeling lousy, I planned to limit my alcohol consumption but, as usual, "best laid plans . . ." and all that.  I stayed at the party later than my wife, and got away with that only by pledging not to drink more, which I of course promptly broke.  It was not a "party like a rock star" kind of night, but still enough to leave me cranky and tired.  And, this comes after we had just agreed that she would amp up the severity and the number of spankings for this particular kind of infraction.  And, I knew that going into the party, and yet did it anyway.

Therefore, this week's topic relates to the above quote.  For those of us in DD relationships, there is a price to be paid for misbehavior.  But, the simple fact is that we often engage in that misbehavior because it is, well, fun.  We like doing something, and not doing it comes at a certain price in missed fun, etc.  So, are there things you like so much, or maybe habits that are just so hard to break, that you consciously decide to do it even though you know doing so will probably get you spanked, because part of you thinks the activity is "worth it" -- worth taking a good hard spanking?

Now, speaking for myself, that isn't really how it works.  The #1 thing I do that results in me draped over the bed or ottoman with her applying the paddle or strap to my naked bottom is over-indulging with alcohol.  Part of it is just habit.  I grew up in a community that drank a lot, my college experience was like something out of Animal House, and my profession is notoriously boozy.  But, the plain fact is I also just enjoy it, particularly the social aspect.  

I like hanging out and talking to friends and colleagues over beers.  Sometimes several of them. But, I can't say that I ever really consciously think, "I am going to have that third drink, even if she spanks me for it."   Instead, I tend to just not think about the prospect of a spanking at all.  I have the first beer, and then all thought of future punishment just vanishes from my head.

Speaking of being draped over the bed or ottoman, I do want to report that while our DD and FLR hit a lull while on vacation and hasn't recovered much due to our illnesses, prior to leaving for vacation our new system of bi-weekly check-ins was resulting in me getting away with way less and my behavior actually was improving. So, ladies, consistency in application really does seem to be the key to going from punishment to actual discipline that results in some behavior change.  It's also proving that where FLR is concerned, practice does make perfect.  At our party last night, we were talking to another couple, and my wife handed me her wine glass and said very directly, "Go get me another."  It was very pointedly NOT phrased as a question or a request.  That would never have happened a year ago.

Finally, in honor of finally putting up our tree today, along with some lights on the house (why do I feel like we are constantly behind . . .)

Have a great week.  If you are new to this Forum, please take a minute to stop by the Guestbook (tab above) and tell us a little about yourself and your DD or FLR relationship or aspirations.