Taking Down Guestbook (temporarily?)

Not that it really matters to our regulars who introduced themselves long ago, but I am taking down the Guestbook.  The level of troll activity has gotten out of control.  There are commercial entities that keep trying to post to it, plus OCD boy "Sean" constantly trying to post about his mother-in-law, or getting spanked getting out of the shower or getting "leg locked."  Four tries on the last two days.  (It's just gotten very old, so Sean's stuff is just going to get deleted every single time he tries to post, whether on-topic or not.)  The reality is, virtually no one seems to be using it right now for the purpose for which it was intended, i.e. as a way for people to introduce themselves and/or leave short statements about their DD relationships.  So, since I am tired of having to police it all the time and delete spam, I am just going to take it down.

The Forum - Vol. 217 - Why DD?

"Be careful what you wish for.  There's always a catch." -- Laure Hale Anderson

Hello all. Welcome back to The Forum.  Our weekly gathering of men and women in, or wanting to be in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships.  I hope you had a good week.  Mine was not very eventful.  Other than a behavioral issue on Monday that she would have given me a very hard spanking for, were it not for some distractions that got in the way.  But, it still may be coming.

To those who joined in the discussion last week, thanks for contributing.  As I said, some repetition is inevitable, but I myself can never really get enough of "origin" stories when it comes to Domestic Discipline.  There are just so many variations on how people get into these relationship, it is endlessly fascinating to me.  But, then, I am kind of voyeuristic by nature.  One reason I like the participatory nature of doing this blog is I get to hear so many interesting stories.  It also tests my assumptions.  When I first started the blog, I definitely had some pre-conceived notions about how and why people get into those relationships.  I think in general some of those notions were grounded in reality, but only with respect to some segment of the DD community.  It's been an awakening experience to hear from so many people about what led them into this fairly unique lifestyle.  And, contrary to the views of some of our regular commenters, I do still believe these relationships are fairly uncommon.  Oh, I know, lots of couples are into spanking, but that is not the same thing as being into Domestic Discipline.  I have no way of knowing for sure, but I really don't think there are all that many people who are really into spanking as a true disciplinary tool.  Hell, even in the community of people who visit and comment on this blog, only some portion (and there are weeks it seems to be a small portion) are focused primarily on the disciplinary aspects of a spanking relationship as opposed to the "funishment" or erotic interest. 

Anyway, last week's topic was about how people first got into Domestic Discipline.  This week, let's talk about the "why."  What was it that made you ask for this?  And, most of you did ask for it.  While in fictional DD stories it is usually the wife who initiates it, in the "real world," the opposite seems to be true.  Far more often, it is the man who asks to be spanked for his transgressions that the wife who decides to impose that on him.

When you think about it, that really does seem pretty odd, right?  Most of us don't like pain.  Most of us also usually like getting our own way.  So, why is it that at some point in our lives, many of us end up asking our wives to spank us, and to do so very long and hard such that it is a real punishment?  And, why do some of us want those spanking to be part of turning over control of parts of our life to someone else?  Even those whose relationships are focused on Domestic Discipline without many of the "Female Led" elements are still handing over some fairly significant amount of power and giving up some degree of autonomy, since you are empowering her to punish you in an attempt to change your behavior.  At least where those behaviors are concerned, you have ceded control and done so knowing the consequences may be really, truly painful.

So, why do we want this and what motivations or desires does it meet?  What itch does it scratch?  Take a look at the poll near the top of the blog.  It is a variation on others I have posted.   It tries to get at this issue of what motivates us to not only take, but often initiate, a lifestyle in which we often have to submit ourselves to painful and humbling punishments?

For myself, despite being in one of these relationships for several years, and being a fairly self-aware person (at least I like to think so), I don't have a solid answer.  As I recounted last week, I was not a "spanko" in my younger years.  I had never once thought about adult spankings until well into my '30s.  Even when we started playing with erotic spanking, it wasn't wasn't all that interesting to me, let alone the kind of compelling fetish it clearly is to some.  Yet, when I stumbled on a website devoted to Domestic Discipline, it just hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. I literally couldn't sleep the night after I found it, and not much for a few days after that.  Something about it just grabbed me.  Looking back and trying to recall what the primary driver was, I know part of it was related to accountability and boundaries.  The stories of wives meting out punishment for real offenses were compelling, and it had something to do with being held truly accountable.  Which as I've said before is really an odd thing for me to be attracted to, because I am generally so anti-authoritarian.  But, part of me clearly wants it, even if I rebel against it.  But, I'm not sure that really gets at the heart of it either.  The stories that really got to me at my core all involved being brought to tears by a spanking.  But, when I say "got to me," I don't mean erotically.  At least not in any simplistic way. Frankly, those stories scared the shit out of me, but I also found them morbidly fascinating.  To say the prospect of being brought to tears by a spanking from my wife gave me "butterflies" is such an understatement.  It almost made me want to throw up -- the feeling was that powerful.  Yet, I undeniably wanted it. 

So, for me, there seem to be a lot of motivations at play.  I want to be held accountable. I crave imposed boundaries, even if in every aspect of my life I push against them.  I want the catharsis, and maybe even the embarrassment, of being brought to tears by my wife.  Part of me craves being lectured and treated with a very maternal strictness.  All of that is in there somewhere, and I have no idea why none of it came out until pretty late in life.  And, my decade-long interest in this lifestyles is not all emotionally motivated.  Part of it is just recognizing that I don't always have the willpower to behave in ways that help me be successful or that help me avoid the natural consequences of bad behavior.  So, the prospect of getting spanked can help with that. 

So, what motivated you to seek this out?  Or, if you are one of the few disciplined husbands on whom the lifestyle was imposed, or if you are a disciplinary wife who imposed it, what was the primary driver for that happening?  For you personally, what needs did you think the DD or FLR lifestyle would serve?

I hope you all have a great week.

The Forum - Vol. 216 - Beginnings

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anais Nin

Hello all.  Welcome back to The Forum.  Our weekly gathering of women and men who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships.  I hope you had a good week.  Mine was insanely busy again.  I'm really hoping to get some downtime this weekend, though it's not looking promising.

As our regulars know, I've been struggling more than usual with coming up with new ideas and also with the structure of the blog.  I do like the topical format, but it feels more than a little random.  Some of that may be inherent to the format of a blog versus a website.  The latter is more like a book, with some kind of purpose and layout, arranged into discreet sections intended to accomplish some specific thing or make some specific information available.  The former is more like a weekly column in the Lifestyle section of the newspaper.  From this blog's inception, I've struggled with which of those I want it to be.  On the one hand, I want it to be a resource for people exploring this lifestyle.  On the other, I did start it because I am a communicative person and, within bounds, I do like talking about what is going on in my own life and my own DD marriage and having a community around that.  Though, I'm not sure the blog format really works that well for community building.  The topics are constraining and I'm always the initiator of the conversation.  I recently was invited to a Facebook group for DD folks. It's mainly M/f in orientation, but I do like the give-and-take aspect of it.  Though, it has its downsides, such as Facebook making it very hard to post anonymously.  Despite that "little" impediment, I am still pondering starting a group there.  If you would be interested, shoot me an email.  Depending on the interest level, I might give it a go.

Having something more interactive and more private, like a Facebook private group, solves only part of the problem, however, as I do still want something that is a more generally available resource and, again, something a little less random.  It occurred to me that this blog has explored damn near every conceivable topic related to Domestic Discipline, but it is spread out over four years of sequential entries.  So, I think what I am going to try for the next few months is imposing a little structure.  A little logical flow.  Something more like a book and less like a journal or weekly column.  It may or may not work, but I am just kind of tired of throwing out random topics every week.  It absolutely will mean repeating past topics and repeating some older content, which may get tiring for the regulars but, as I said, we have at one point or another covered pretty much every damn thing that it is possible to explore regarding these relationships.

So, if I were writing a book about Domestic Discipline, where would I start?  Well, probably with how I got into it in the first place.

 My story is below.  I hope you will share yours as well. 

Exploring Domestic Discipline was my idea, which might surprise you if you knew me in "real life."  Like many men who feel attracted to giving up control to a strong woman and being held accountable by her, I am not "naturally" submissive.  To the contrary, in every other aspect of my life, I tend to be a leader, not a follower.  In fact, I hate being told what to do and I've never been presented with a rule that I didn't promptly set out to break.  I also tend to be hard-charging and very goal focused.  I like performing at my best and feel a lot of guilt when I don't meet the standards I set for myself.  I have been like that most of my life, though my career really brought those controlling and performance-oriented tendencies to the forefront.  After a decade or so of living that way, I was materially successful but not particularly happy. Everything felt out of balance. I was always in charge. Always the person making the decisions. Which was overwhelming sometimes.

Our marriage was similarly out of balance. My wife was raised in a very traditional, male dominated family, and she brought that habitual mindset into our marriage. It wasn't that we had consciously created a male dominated marriage, but that was just sort of where our personalities naturally took us.
 
We had dabbled in erotic spanking, so that bridge already had been crossed. That "dabbling" came relatively late in our relationship.  We had been together for about 10 years.  From what I have since gathered from the conversations on this blog, my DD journey is a bit atypical because, while it was me who introduced spanking into our bedroom repertoire, I did not have any kind of early fascination with it.  I had, in fact, never even considered engaging in it, whether giving or receiving, as an adult.  That changed when I watched a "Real Sex" episode on HBO that had a segment on erotic spanking.  It was a turn-on, and some time after that, I bought a small leather paddle and asked my wife if she would try using it on me.  She did, but it was never very hard and always erotic in nature.

We incorporated some femdom scenarios into our play,  characterizing the spankings she was giving me as “punishment” for various things I had done wrong.  That began to create problems.  Some of my behaviors really were a problem and really were pissing my wife off.  But, because the spankings were relatively mild and always part of our sex play, she began to see them as more reward than punishment, and she was right about that.  She definitely was not interested in doing anything to reinforce my bad behavior, so she stopped the spankings entirely.  I didn't really care, and it didn't feel like much of a sacrifice.  I was still somewhat interested in spanking-related subjects, but while the idea of being spanked did excite me, it was not a big deal and not remotely close to a fetish or compulsion.  If I came across spanking-related content on the internet or in a magazine, I might read it or follow a link to other content, but it didn't really bother me at all that my wife was not interested in making spanking an ongoing part of our sex life.

That all changed when I somehow came across the Disciplinary Wives Club website.   I don't really remember how that came about, but I remember the effect it had on me like it was yesterday.  Unlike our previous erotic spankings, the spankings advocated by "Aunt Kay" were intended to be real punishment to correct real misbehavior.  Many of the fictional scenes and "Real Couples" letters involved wives imposing the DD relationship, or taking it far beyond what the husband envisioned when he first asked to experiment with it.  In other words, many of the scenarios involved "consensual non-consent" or the husband asking for it but "getting more than he bargained for."  In several of the stories, the wife announced that the spanking would not end until after her misbehaving husband was in tears.  That was what really got me.   Not the spanking per se, but the idea of submitting to someone's control so fully that I might have to accept the ultimate humiliation of being brought to tears over my wife's knee. For an admitted "control freak" like me,  that kind of loss of such control was truly terrifying. But, it also was, undeniably, fascinating, though morbidly so.

I spent two or three days in a state of near obsession.  I literally could think about little else and had trouble sleeping, distracted by thoughts about this lifestyle and what it might mean.  After a few days of that, I brought it to my wife's attention, initiating the discussion almost like I was conveying a funny joke. We were laying in bed together, and I initiated the conversation in some benign way, like "I found this funny website on the internet . . . "  I explained the premise.  Women taking control of the marriages and using real corporal punishment on their husbands.  I explained that unlike the situation of "rewarding" bad behavior with fake, erotic spankings that had led her to bring our previous spanking experimentation to a halt, these were real spankings, designed to punish and correct behavior.  She asked whether I was suggesting this as something we should actually try. I told her, very hesitantly, that I didn't really know but that it had been on my mind constantly since finding the website.  The hesitation was because, I knew very well that I was suggesting something that might prove to be incredibly painful and that my ego found immensely threatening. She told me that she would take a look at it.

I was sitting at my desk at work the next day, when she called and said she had visited the DWC website.  "So, . . .?" I asked.

"Very interesting," she replied.  That was it. 

"So . . . what does that mean . . ." I probed.

"Well, I guess it means you need to go buy me a nice, high-quality wooden hairbrush.  When you get home, we can talk about how and when it is going to be used."

The rest is, as they say, history.  While she was game to give it a try, she was concerned that this could still reinforce bad behavior if the spanking became "fetishized."  Therefore, our foundational rule was that the spanking had to be "real" each and every time.   It had to be severe enough to constitute real punishment. And, that is what we have been doing ever since.

So, how did your own Domestic Discipline relationship get started? 

Have a great week.

The Forum - Vol. 215 - Resources

A woman in love will do almost anything for a man, except give up the desire to improve him.
Nathaniel Branden. (US psychologist)

Hello all.  Welcome back to The Forum.  Our weekly gathering of women and men who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships.  I hope you had a good week.  Mine was busy.  A little too busy, and it hasn't ended yet.  My business is project-oriented, and it can be feast or famine.  Just a few weeks ago I was whining that I didn't have much to do, and now I'm so busy I can't see straight.  Seldom is there a happy medium.  I've also been having some employee issues.  One in particular involves a very headstrong guy who has a lot of great qualities, maturing not being among them.  At forty years-old, he's still locked firmly in "Bro" culture, with one foot in the professional world and one firmly in the world of college frat boy culture.  He's one of those guys who could really profit from a steady relationship with a woman wielding a big paddle.  But, unless you happen to get "lucky" and end up with a woman who introduces you to such things, you need to have at least enough self-awareness to realize you need help with goals, boundaries, maturity, etc. and then you have to make the move to ask someone to help you attain those things.  Unfortunately, this guy is not remotely self-aware enough to even own up to the havoc his immaturity and judgment issues wreak on himself on those around him.  So, I suspect his life may become a series of very hard lessons.  Which is maybe an irony about these DD relationships versus something more vanilla.  Some may recoil from DD because it seems harsh or the consequences of breaking the rules are just too painful.  But, it is a pain with a finite start and end.  In contrast, an undisciplined lifestyle can result in all sorts of long-term pain and angst and negative personal and professional career impact. The same thing obviously applies to the overall relationship.  Lots of non-DD couples are living Thoreau's lives of "quiet desperation," grinding their way through simmering resentment and hurt feelings, while most who have tried DD report that one of the key benefits is problems are dealt with quickly, then the couple moves on.  So, do you want your pain now and all in one dose, or long and slow and grinding?

After that philosophical lead in, I'm going to go in the opposite direction for this week's topic and keep it very grounded.  TB brought up the issue of FM fiction and suggested a topic involving the best sources for it. I'll expand that a little.  Do you have favorite blogs, websites or books that have inspired or guided you when it comes to DD or FLR relationships?  I admit that most of the stuff I've found out there is pretty dreadful, to the point that I've thought about writing my own "how to" book, though I've never found the time to do it.  I don't spend a lot of time with DD-related fiction, because again I don't have a lot of free time, and I haven't found much out there that is worth the little time I have. But, I do think that  some of it can serve a purpose beyond entertainment.  I have sent a lot of DD-oriented journal entries to my wife over the years, but I've noticed that when I have sent along some DD-oriented fiction that seems to illustrate the severity or tone I wish for, she seems to respond more than when I just say it directly in a journal or even face-to-face.

Anyway, as I said, my own list is not extensive, but here are a few thoughts on resources I may not have referred to before or in awhile:

• The "real" DWC website:  www.auntkaysdwc.com
• Spanking Life:  http://www.spankinglife.com.  I recently ran across this.  The stories are a little repetitive and only some of it is DD or FLR themed, but there are a few I liked.
• The Hesitant Mistress (this book is probably the most realistic book I've found on setting up a real world FLR)
• The Good Wife's Guide to Taking Charge

What about you?  Are there particular blogs, websites or books that have been particularly helpful, or entertaining, for you or your spouse as you explore and experiment?

I hope you have a good week. 

The Forum - Vol. 214 - Before the Event - Anticipation and Attitude

"I am an old man and have experienced many troubles over my life, most of which never happened." - Mark Twain (or Seneca, or Thomas Jefferson or . . .)

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

Mine was one of those where I feel like I was going non-stop, yet I didn't get much done.  In some ways, I think I did accomplish some "big picture" things or at least laid the groundwork for them, but I didn't get around to a lot of the day-to-day work projects that I really need to get done.  So, another weekend may be spent catching up instead of recovering.  My own fault to some extent.

We had a good discussion last week, all extending from a fairly simple topic about spanking in front of a window.  I want to thank Tina for reminding us all that while being spanked in public may be arousing to the participants, it may not be to accidental observers.   It's a very good point that sometimes gets lost in this age of social media where everyone shares everything and just kind of assumes that others want to be exposed to it all.  While I do think my wife and I have been perhaps a little too guarded about our DD relationship, I think it is one thing to consider exposing your own family to knowledge of the fact of a DD relationship, and quite another to simply impose it on others in a very graphic and visual way.

Tina also offered several topic ideas, and Anna sent me another. Two of them kind of overlapped, focusing in one way or another on sex, eroticism or arousal in DD.  I do want to work those topics in from time to time, and this week's topic probably touches on them, but when I looked back at past topics, we had done some closely related topics fairly recently.  I do agree with the commenters who voiced supported for recycling content, but I do want to try to space things out at least a bit.  But, as I said I think this week's topic has the potential to work in those themes, as well as some bits and pieces of Tina's other suggestions.

As the title suggests, this week's topic is about what happens in our heads before the actual event of a disciplinary spanking.  To varying degrees, you all obviously have a fascination with the "idea" of a real disciplinary spanking--otherwise you wouldn't have come searching for this content or return here week after week--but what happens when the idea becomes reality in that most concrete of fashions, i.e. you did something wrong, she has ordered a spanking, and you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is going to happen? Is the excitement or arousal now replaced with dread?  If it's not, is that a sign that what is being delivered is not truly disciplinary or is not functioning as true punishment?  Is there also some resentment if you feel the punishment exceeds the crime, and is that a thought that would occur to you at all when you are just thinking about DD in the abstract?  In other words, don't we often say we want our Wives to be more strict, more severe, less forgiving, but then do those aspirations quickly dissipate as soon as she takes it there for real?

And what about our Disciplinary Wives?  Are they anticipating the event with some glee at the prospect of giving him what he has coming?

Or, is it more business-like?  Just rolling up her sleeves and taking care of a job that needs to be done? Or, to take that a step further and weave in another of Tina's questions, is it a somewhat annoying chore?

These themes are on my mind this morning, because last night after I got home from a business trip, she announced that I could expect a spanking some time today.  And, yes, as usual I have gone from wanting this lifestyle and wanting it more strict, more severe, more 24/7, to really wanting to avoid the whole thing.  And, that has been the entire history of our DD relationship, craving being a disciplined right up until that moment that is going to really happen.  The quote from Mark Twain above illustrates how a true DD relationship really is a little outside the norm, because while many men spend their lives worrying about all sorts of bad things that never end up happening,  we disciplined husbands may spend a good bit of time worrying about the prospect of painful events that are likely to become all too real!

I hope you all have a great week.  If you are new to this Forum, please take a moment to leave a comment in the Guestbook (tab above), telling us about your DD lifestyle or aspirations.

The Forum - Vol. 213 - Windows and Other Embarrassments

 Man is the only animal that blushes.  Or needs to.  -- Mark Twain

 Hello all.  Welcome back to the Forum.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships.  I hope you all had a great week.  Mine was filled with quite a bit of misbehavior.  Though, because of some family things, I doubt any of it will get the punishment it deserves.

And, once again, I'm not feeling particularly inspired.  I think at some point I'm going to have to concede that there really are only so many topics to explore when it comes to something like Domestic Discipline, and I'm going to have to either get comfortable with recycling them every week, or decide that the blog has run its natural course.  Though, some of this probably is just lack of inspiration and, honestly, laziness. But more the former than the latter, I think.  Inspiration can come and go in a flash.  This morning, I spent 30 minutes trying to come up with a topic.  Then another 30 trying to find a good quote for it. I failed in the latter, gave up, started to write, and then all of a sudden I remembered a quote I like that at least sort of fits.  Sometimes it works that way.

This week I borrowed some inspiration from one of last week's comments.  Spanked Cowboy talked about how his former disciplinarian believed firmly in spanking immediately after the offense.  If bad behavior happened in public, he was punished in public. 

Honestly, that's how it was for many of us growing up, right?  Misbehaving kids were taken out of church or parties or other gatherings where adults were present, ushered off to another room, and given enough swats to get his attention.  Everyone saw it happening.  At least when I was growing up, adults just didn't try at all to hide the fact that misbehavior led to spankings.  Teachers sent bad boys to the principal's office, and everyone knew what was happening.  Sometimes, they were just taken out of class and spanked in the hallway, where everyone could hear it going on.

Today as adults who are in consensual relationships involving corporal punishment, very few of us are subject to discipline as openly as Spanked Cowboy.  And, I wonder sometimes whether that reflects a certain lack of "reality" in the "discipline" part of DD.  If we were really trying to bring about real and lasting behavioral change, wouldn't the prospect of public humiliation be a pretty big weapon in Her disciplinary arsenal?  Wouldn't most of us be on our very best behavior every single time we were out with her in public if we knew the alternative might be to be ushered off to another room for a spanking that everyone could overhear?

But, what about something where the risk of someone overhearing is not 100%, but still enough to crank up the embarrassment and humiliation factor?  A few days ago, I was going through my collection of spanking-related art and "tagging" by subject or theme to make it more easily searchable by subject, and I started noticing just how prevalent the theme is of being spanked in front of an open window or door.

While some of the prevalence probably is attributable simply to the artistic choice to include a window in a bedroom scene, others definitely play up the semi-public nature of a spanking given at home but in front of a window or door that might allow someone else to see.  And, for at least some of the people who are into this lifestyle, the combination of domestic setting but openness to public exposure seemed to be part of the attraction. For example, the Disciplinary Wives Club's website displayed a drawing of a "peeping tom" witnessing a domestic spanking scene.

And, it's not like a full-blown spanking is required to raise the prospect of public or semi-public humiliation in an FLR relationship.  A lecture could be more than sufficient in displaying to the neighbors who is in charge.

Do those kinds of scenes play any role in your DD or FLR relationship?  Are you ever spanked in front of an open window or other semi-private place that still might allow a neighbor or curious passer-by to see what is going on?  If not a part of the reality of your DD or FLR relationship, should it be?  Would the threat make you more likely to behave?

I hope you all have a great week.  If you are new to this Forum, please take a moment to visit our Guestbook and tell us a little about yourself and your DD or FLR relationship.

The Club - Meeting 292 - First Times

“A woman in love will do almost anything for a man, except give up the desire to improve him.” - Nathaniel Branden

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline relationships.  I hope you had a good week.  Mine started off pretty well.  I felt like I was finally getting my feet under me in my new job role.  Then, it all deteriorated by week’s end.  But, I’ll take whatever progress I can get.  It’s, hopefully, a little like walking up a circular staircase; you come back to the same point over and over again but at a slightly higher elevation.  At least, that’s the hope.  I also developed a little physical ailment that may actually do a better job of slowing me down that Domestic Discipline has.  Getting old is not for wimps.

Last week’s topic on “others” knowing didn’t get a huge volume of response, though it did strike a chord for Elizabeth and Frank in light of the dynamic going on with her sister and brother-in-law. I am very interested in hearing about their upcoming discussion, if they care to share it with us. I am more than a little envious that Frank could end up with someone he can talk to face-to-face about this thing they do, with someone on the same side of the paddle.  As I’ve recounted, only three people really know about our DD relationship, and only two of those are in-person relationships.  Of those two, one isn’t into DD and the other is on the other end of the paddle.  That’s not nothing, but it would still feel freeing to have the comradery of someone else who has these same needs.

I’m a little distracted this weekend, so this topic will be a little short, and not one I have a lot to speak about directly.  It is an extension of the theme on “asking for it.”  Our earlier polls and most of our discussions verify that it is usually the husband who asks for the DD relationship.  It seems to be the same with most M/f dynamics – it is the disciplined spouse who initiates the relationship.   This week’s topic is pretty simple: Was there a specific event that lead you or your spouse to ask for it – “it” being the DD relationship as a whole?  Was there some particular bit of bad behavior that preceded asking for it that first time?  Or maybe some particular low point in personal behavior that drove wanting the accountability? Or, was there a point where a pre-existing fascination became overpowering?

My own story doesn’t really follow any of those lines.  I didn’t have a pre-existing fascination with adult discipline, and there wasn’t any behavior-related precipitating event.  I encountered the Disciplinary Wives Club website, and it caused a reaction that was strong, I really had to ask for it.  I suspect I did have some deep and previously unrecognized need for enforced accountability that was triggered by that website, but even though I like to think I am a fairly self-aware person, I did not recognize that need in myself until I found a website that expressed it so openly.

How about you? Tell us about the precipitating event that led you to ask or be asked be in a disciplinary relationship.  Or, if you are in that rare DD relationship that was imposed by the disciplinarian, tell us about that.

The Forum - Vol. 212 - Decisions, Decisions

"He may have a second rate intellect, but he has a first class temperament." Oliver Wendell Holmes on Theodore Roosevelt

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

We didn't get a huge number of posts last week, but lack of volume is sometimes offset by depth of feeling. Whenever we touch on issues regarding public exposure or what our kids (adult or otherwise) should know, it seems to be bring out very firm opinions.  Me?  I'm still on the fence. But, it doesn't really matter.   If ours come to know, it will only be because my wife decides to tell them.  Or, because they already know and have, up until now, spared us the embarrassment of telling us about it.  Only time will tell.

Anna also made a comment about the constraints of talking about only one topic each week, and I don't disagree.  Having one particular topic--and having to be the guy coming up with it each week--is definitely constraining for all concerned.  Though, it's a problem I don't quite know how to solve, other than being flexible when people drift off into things that aren't precisely "on topic."  (I have made the decision, however, that I am not going to put up with it any more when a couple of OCD posters feel compelled to comment every week but have nothing at all to actually say, so they instead leave repetitive comments that are the communicative equivalents of a masturbatory fart.  I'm just taking those down, even if peripherally on-topic, because the commenters are playing this cute game where the first sentence may seem on-topic, then they launch right into their mother-in-law, spanked in front of her friends, facing the wall, leg-locked, little fantasy scenario.  Not putting up with that anymore.)  But, if someone has something truly communicative they want to talk about, I'll usually either let it go, or if it is way off-topic but would be a good one to explore, I'll suggest deferring to the following week, at which time I'll devote a full-blown topic to it.  Admittedly, that strategy is self-preservation at play, because it means I have one less thing to struggle over on Saturday morning as I look at a blank screen. But, I do sometimes get tired of the topical format in its entirety, and I do think about something like a Facebook group or a moderated discussion group for our more regular and productive commenters.  Something where anyone can post a topic and people can use a chat session to talk real-time, would probably be preferable, but I can't quite figure out the practicalities.  Something more like a "club" than a "forum." But, Facebook makes it very hard for people to post anonymously or even to post using accounts with pseudonym identities, and many of us just aren't willing to "out" ourselves to Facebook as a condition of using the service.  I also have been a member of a couple of on-line discussion groups, but running one usually requires some kind of payment for the software or hosting, which again leads to a loss of anonymity at least for the moderator.  So, I am open to all suggestions, but right now I can't come up with anything much better than the current format. 

Now, on to today's actual topic.  In addition to things regarding our family being in a bit of a state of flux, we've been dealing with some issues around life choices.  Nothing earth shattering yet, but we're coming up on that time of life when you may hit a fork in the road and need to make some conscious decisions about which one to walk down.  And, truth be told, currently we are not entirely on the same page.  That has me thinking a bit more than normal about decisions and how we make them in a DD or FLR relationship.  Now, I have never had much use for the notion of female supremacy.  I think some men are good leaders and make good decisions. Others, not so much.  The same is true of women.  I know some who are naturally good leaders who make great decisions for themselves and those around them. For others, it is a learned skill. And, some just kind of suck at it.  I don't think either gender has a monopoly on wisdom.  

I will now offend the female supremacists in the group to the core, by saying boldly that my wife is not a better decision-maker than I.  At least not consistently and in all respects.  If anything, I'm more rigorous and systematic in analyzing issues and coming to decisions on appropriate actions.  But, in some ways that's a result more of experience and confidence than aptitude.  Preparing for my career involved a lot of training in thinking things through in a very ordered way.  And, I have to make a lot of decisions every day.  It's kind of my stock-in-trade, as it were.  

On the other hand, I tend to get in trouble because while I am analytical, I also am temperamental and stubborn, and those qualities can overcome my better judgment.  And, I just do dumb and dangerous things sometimes.  For those reasons, it still makes a lot of sense for my wife to be at the top of our chain-of-command, at least in a lot of areas.  Because, she has a better temperament than I, and one that is less prone to doing dumb shit.  But, we both recognize that when it comes to actually stepping up and taking the lead on making decisions for us,  she needs practice.  While she kind of likes the feel of being in charge once she does it, she doesn't always like thinking about that decision being hers to make. The conditioned need to get buy-in from me and others gets in the way of decisive leadership.  And, there no doubt are some conventional social roles at play.  Especially on "big ticket" issues. So, I have from time to time kind of forced her down that learning curve.  

A year or so ago, about the time we started really exploring FLR, she needed a new car.  Now, I am guessing it is fair to say that buying cars is still seen as the man's job in many, many families.  We get the pain of wrangling with the dealer over price, and just as we are patting ourselves on the back for striking a great deal, we get shuffled off to the finance guy who somehow hypnotizes us into buying the upgraded floor mats and that super-special undercoating.  It's an inherently competitive, adversarial, zero-sum game in many ways.  Well, this time, I decided it was her car, and she should get the experience of choosing and negotiating it all by herself, and if she was going to claim to be the Head of the Household, she needed to learn to get a little more comfortable with confrontation.  She was fairly pissed at me for refusing to weigh in on any part of the process, but she did a great job. In fact, she drove a hell of a lot harder bargain than I would have!

We both also have areas we like handling and others we don't.  So, my wife handles most of our bank accounts, but I handle most of our investments.  She pays the credit card bills, while I make most of the decisions on things like household repairs.  We both kind of like it this way, and even after DD and FLR we never really came to any formal allocation of decision-making roles, instead just kind of drifting into areas where we each have more interest and competence.  Even on kid issues, we tend to divide and conquer.  She makes a lot of the decisions involving day-to-day kid issues, while I handle how we manage their college funds, and I'm pretty active in helping advise them on how to succeed in school.  And, most big decisions are made jointly to one extent or another.  

If anything has changed since implementing DD and experimenting with an FLR, it is really the "chain of command" concept.  It an effective chain of command, the person at the top does not make every decision, but they are the final decision-maker.  They get to break ties.  If there is a dispute, they win.  We aren't perfectly consistent in applying the concept, but it is what we are aiming for.

How about you?  Does your DD or FLR relationship involve some actual allocation of decision-making authority?  Does she take on more of the decisions than she did before you went down this path?  If there is a tie, who wins?  If she has taken on more decision-making authority, has that proven to be a a relief or a burden? 

And, when it comes to discipline and punishment, is there any discussion about if, when and how it will take place, or is that totally up to her to decide?

I hope you have a great week.  Be safe out there on this long holiday weekend. 

The Forum - Vol. 211 - Passing It On

“The more a daughter knows the details of her mother's life [...] the stronger the daughter.” - Anita Diamant, The Red Tent.

Hello all.  Welcome back to The Forum - our weekly gathering of men and women in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships.  I hope you had a good week.  Mine was involuntarily restful.  Meaning we are slow at work, which is never a good thing for my mental and emotional health.  While I may be a "bottom" in my relationship with my wife, in the rest of my life I am a top (warning, bad pun about to be explained).  Not in the DD or D/s sense.  Rather, I'm thinking of the child's toy top that spins and spins.  It stays upright and in position as long as momentum keeps it spinning. But, once it slows down, it falls down.  So far this week, I have merely slowed but not fallen. Here's hoping things stay that way.  However, my track record is not good when it comes to staying well-behaved in the midst of a work slowdown.  I get restless, bored and anxious.  But, my wife has learned that pattern well and hopefully will nip it in the bud.

I was hoping that a week off from blogging would yield a flood of new topic ideas.  By that measure, the week was a failure.  But, the family commitment that led me to take a little pause did get me to thinking about at least one Domestic Discipline topic.  It's probably not new, strictly speaking, but I don't recall addressing this particular angle.

We've talked more than once about kids.  Whether they should know.  How to best ensure they don't.  How to work around their presence in the home when trying to maintain a Domestic Discipline or FLR dynamic.  In all of these discussions, it does seem like there has been a pretty strong, though not unanimous, consensus that the DD aspect of our relationships is something best kept to ourselves.  That is what my wife and I have done.  As I have said, however, if we had it to do all over again, I might push my wife to be more open about it.  Especially about her authority and power, because I think it sets a good example and would help her be a great role model.  But, in fairness to our decision making process, it was only recently that her authority started become more pervasive, i.e. something more than the authority to carry out a spanking.  And, it has only been over the last year or so as we have explored a deeper power exchange that I have come to appreciate how hard it is is to grow a real FLR if you are intent on keeping it secret.  An FLR is, by its very nature, more constant, more pervasive, and more outwardly visible than is necessarily the case for DD.  Spankings can be conducted in private, and while keeping them private may be inconvenient, the desire to keep that side of the relationship secret can be accommodated.  That is because spanking is more an "event" than an ongoing process or state of being.  Bad behavior happens, it is addressed, and the partners then go back to their regular roles.  Not so with an FLR.  If the goal is for one partner to be firmly in charge of the other and to be at the top of the familial chain-of-command, then that is much harder to keep secret from the troops.  You can try to keep it from them, but leadership takes communication and practice.  Keeping it secret is tough, and doing so risks inhibiting the HoH partner's ability to really grow into the role and the other partner's ability to become more demonstrably deferential.

But, the impact on the couple isn't really what I want to focus on this week.  Instead, my question is, does the desire to maintain the secrecy of the DD or FLR aspects of your relationship change once the kids grow up and become adults themselves?  More to the point, should it?  Particularly if both parties feel that DD or FLR has been a benefit to their own marriage, isn't that the kind of helpful hint you might want to pass along to your progeny as they go out into the world and face their own marriage and relationship challenges?  And, I'm not limiting the possibility of such communication to moms passing on a bit of relationship advice to their daughters.  While most of the art that I've found on this topic depicts mothers advising their daughters on the benefits of being a spanking wife in a DD relationship, if you had an adult child who was challenged when it comes to personal behavior, or one who might profit from some enforced boundaries, wouldn't you want to pass that along?  Many of the men in these relationships took an honest look at their own behavior and decided to ask their wives to use DD to help them improve. While I don't think I have ever once seen a DD story or drawing with this as the context, it is not hard for me to imagine a caring parent taking their misbehaving adult son aside to counsel him that perhaps he could profit from a strong wifely hand?

Up to this point, I've been more open than my wife is to letting our kids in on the DD aspects of our life, whether my telling them about or or just being more open in her displays of control.  While there have been flashes of such openness here and there, as a whole she has not been very open to it. But,  we and our kids are points in our respective lives where nothing we do is very likely to damage a developing and largely unformed psyche.  And, my wife is very close to our kids. It really wouldn't surprise me if, at some point in the future, one of them might be facing a relationship or personal behavior challenge, and she might decide to impart some words of maternal wisdom.  Or, mothers and daughters sharing in the way they often do, maybe someday a few years from now they are out having a nice lunch and a couple of glasses of wine later she decides to spill the beans.  Stranger things have happened.

What do you think?  Can you see yourself telling one of your adult children about your DD or FLR lifestyle?  Why or why not?  What would your reaction be if your wife did so on her own?

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

No New Post This Week

Hi all.  I hope you have had a good week and are getting an early start on your weekend.  I have a commitment that is going to keep me away from the computer tomorrow and Sunday, and I don't have anything canned to post today.  So, let's catch up next Saturday.  Have a great weekend. 

The Forum - Vol. 210 - DD and Stress

If you don't get enough time-outs as a child, you get them as a grownup. ~Andrew Bonifacio

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

Some of the exchanges on the blog got a little interesting last week.  I wonder sometimes why I let myself get drawn into exchanges with trolls.  Part of it is definitely my own combativeness, which gets me in trouble from time to time.  But, I also have become convinced that ignoring them often just doesn't work, as many of them are remarkably persistent.  I also just have a big problem with ignoring bullies.  I have never once met a bully who responds to being ignored by going away.  They go away when someone pops them in the nose.  And, while I have taken those comments down because they detract from the topic at hand, the conversation was, in fact, kind of fun.  I don't think I've ever been accused on the same day of being both a redneck sadist-lover and a liberal wuss!

It was kind of a stressful week, though not because of trolls.  We are going through a family transition.  One of those inevitable things that every family goes through and that is a good thing in the big picture scheme of things, but that doesn't make it less stressful while it is happening.  So, emotions are running high and everyone is more than little stressed out.  

My reaction to stress is mixed where DD is concerned.  If it's the kind of ordinary, low-level, daily grind kind of stress that leads to bad behavior, it helps for her to be firm and consistent.  However, if the stress involves feeling like I have too much to do and too little time, I do tend to want to put everything else on hold.  I also find that crises tend to make it even harder for me to submit to anyone.  My response to a crisis is generally to take command, and that can spill over into every aspect of my life.

How does stress impact your Domestic Discipline or FLR relationship?  When outside events are stressing you out or keeping you on edge, do you want your Disciplinary Wife to step up her firmness and control?  

Or, does the DD and FLR aspect of your relationship tend to fall by the wayside in times of crisis?  Do you want it to?  How about you Disciplinary Wives?  When you are stressed out, does it help to be more assertive, controlling and dominant, or do you go in the opposite direction? 

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

The Forum - Vol. 209 - Soften But Not Weaken

"Are your convictions so fragile that mine cannot stand in opposition to them? Is your God so illusory that the presence of my Devil reveals his insufficiency?” - Marquis de Sade

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Forum.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationships.  I hope you had a good week.  Mine was good, though eventful in a lot of ways.  I had one special project I have been working on for a long time that is sort of work-related but not directly.  I don't want to say what it was, because it would reveal a lot more about what I do than I am willing to share at this point, so let's just call it "community service."  But, it was something where t if I succeeded it could have a very important positive impact on another person, but if I failed--and I was highly likely to fail--the consequences would be pretty dire.  Somehow the proverbial rabbit was pulled out of the hat.  It was a team effort, and I could not possibly be prouder of them and what was accomplished.  It has me feeling all warm and fuzzy and has left me incentivized to try to do more along those lines, i.e. looking for ways to help others in situations that don't reward me at all, other than making me feel good.  I say that during a week in which we all witnessed the terrible tragedy that befell two Good Samaritans in Portland.  It reinforces that doing the right thing isn't always easy or consequence free, but I pray that doesn't dissuade anyone from doing it. And, can we all make a pact to stop using the term "Alt-Right"?  These people are White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis and racists.  Let's not water that down by allowing ourselves to be co-opted into using the more benign label they want to hide behind.

It was also an eventful week when it came to observing power exchanges in action, or the consequences of a lack thereof.  I had a major conflagration with someone involving another work-related interaction.  It got pretty nasty, to some extent because we had diametrically opposing interests, and neither of us were willing to give ground.  In this case it involved someone outside my own organization, and there was a competitive aspect to it, but I've seen this happen in more collegial circumstances, too.  There is someone I work with who I consider to be a good friend.  But, every once in a while we butt heads over an issue that is touchy for both of us.  For all intents and purposes, we are peers and that creates a problem when we are on a common project and disagree on something.  There is no tie-breaking mechanism, and no chain-of-command that dictates who wins.  His view is he has more seniority, so in the event of a tie, he wins.  My view is, no, the person who will bear most of the consequences of the decision or be held most directly responsible for it chooses.  The problem is, we both are totally convinced we are right and since the issue is all about who wins in such a situation, we come to a very heated stalemate.  I'm going into this only because it got me to thinking about a point a female HoH made to me some time ago. Her view is that purely equal relationships don't really work in practice, to the extent they actually exist at all.  In most situations, there really does need to be someone who gets to make the final decision. Something that distinguishes D/s and FLR relationships is that instead of drifting through a never-ending series of arguments ending either in stalemate or bruised egos and hurt feelings, the couple has come to an explicit agreement about who makes certain decisions and about what the consequences will be of ignoring the agreed-upon rules.

Which brings me to the other power exchange-ish happening of my week; the little spat that developed with the persistent troll.   Where he and I can't see eye to eye on a very fundamental level is this: I just don't get why another couple's D/s arrangement is any of his business, as long as it is consensual.  He throws around the word "sadist" as if it some kind of sexual epithet, but as long as that couple is OK with their dynamic, why does he or anyone else care whether she enjoys being in charge and doling out punishment or, conversely, does so with great reluctance and self-sacrifice? Is the latter somehow morally superior, or is it just more disingenuous? You know the classic, "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you" and similar platitudes that many of us heard growing up and all knew to be pretty much complete bullshit.

I don't have any problem with the concept that my wife might come to enjoy her role, and I certainly don't want to be married to a martyr who engages in this lifestyle only reluctantly and as a form of "sacrifice" for the relationship.  On the other hand, if that is how other couples approach it, I'm fine with that too.  The problem I have with this particular troll is he cannot or will not explain why he thinks he gets to choose how these women should feel, what kind of emotions are "acceptable" for a female HoH to have, and how others should react to it. At bottom, I don't really understand people who think they get to dictate how other people's relationships must work, or even why they care.  As I said in one of my retorts to him yesterday, I have enough problems managing my own relationships without worrying about how everyone else runs theirs. Moreover, I really don't want everyone to adopt my way of acting and thinking and feeling, because I kind of like the "kinkiness" involved in these power-exchange relationships, and if they were to become the norm they wouldn't be kinky.  Finally, I don't have any problem with people having competing likes and dislikes, including the possibility that someone might like something that I find distasteful.  Hence, the quote above from de Sade, which seemed a particularly apropos retort to someone who insists on having his own way on matters of personal behavior, who has a problem with sadism in particular, and who likes throwing around religious quotes.

Well, enough of that.  One of our new commenters (who didn't provide a name) asked me to expand upon a comment I left on JGirl's Taming of the Shrew blog:  http://ashrewtamed.blogspot.com.  She has just had a week of travel that took her away from her HoH and not having him around to make decisions had left her overwhelmed.  Her post explored the issue of co-dependence--or I guess it could more accurately be called just plain old dependence--in these relationships where one person has voluntarily given up some amount of control or power to another person. My comment on her topic was as follows:

Your posting strikes some chords with me regarding concerns I've had about our Female-led form of power exchange. Submission is really difficult for me sometimes, and part of the difficulty lies in my concerns about whether submitting to someone in one part of my life could have blowback in other parts, including my professional life. I've succeeded in my career to some extent because I impose a lot of control and assume a lot of responsibility. So, if I empower someone else to make big decisions for me in my life and if deferring to someone else's judgment becomes my new normal, will it make me less effective in those professional areas that require taking control and making the decisions.

In practice, it hasn't been a big concern, but that could be because while you and Jason are in Stage 3, we are somewhere in the early part of Stage 2. I don't know whether my concerns might start to have some reality if we were in the stage you are.

Do you think there is any way that you could build independence in some areas into your D/s relationship, such that one of the goals Jason gives you or rules he sets could be about taking control or being independent in certain areas? That way he would be setting the direction and the overall behavior he expects, but that could involve him requiring you to take control and exercise independent judgment in some areas?  Or, it very well may be that Stage 3 does cause some co-dependence that may have negative consequences, but that those are outweighed by the benefits you get out of it. That's a judgment only you and Jason are in a place to make.

FYI, the references to Stage 2 and Stage 3 are to a hierarchy of submission that JGirl uses to describe the phases her relationship has gone through, with Stage 3 being a pretty deep and fundamental submission or surrender of authority to the other partner.  The issue she was raising was basically whether giving up control in that way can have negative consequences for our ability to take control and manage other areas of our lives.  I was in turn raising the possibility that maybe the HoH could order the submissive party to take control and make decisions in certain areas.

As I stated, I have had some concerns about whether being on the receiving end of a DD relationship, and increasingly a Female Led one in which I turn over the reins to her more and more in certain areas could have a negative impact in others.  Particularly at work.  I run teams and am expected to lead, so could the conscious decision to surrender authority at home make me less effective as a leader in other areas? So far, if anything it has been the opposite, and in ways I would not have anticipated.  It's not that DD or FLR has "softened" me.  In some ways it has done the opposite.  I often get really frustrated with people who can't make decisions or do their work without a lot of guidance.  In the past, my way of dealing with them tended to be to get more than a little passive-aggressive, forcing them to make decisions on their own or taking the first opportunity to move them out of the group.  What I did not do very well was just tell them what I expected them to do.  While I am kind of naturally "combative" I am not naturally bossy.  I have a genuine aversion to giving orders.  Being the designated "follower" and watching as my wife works to become the designated Leader has illustrated to me in concrete form how hard it really is to give orders, but how things just work better when the Leader says what he or she wants and expects, without all the pussyfooting around.  It is a challenge for my wife to do that, i.e. to just give me a direct order and make it stick, but she has stepped up  to do it, and watching her do so has helped me learn to do the same.

It also reflects a concept I have come to appreciate more over time: chain-of-command.  In the military, people are expected to be both leaders and followers.  The Colonel bosses around the Captain but is in turned bossed around by the General. And, that works pretty well.  Being subject to direction from above not only does not diminish that person's own leadership, it can enhance it and can make the whole organization work better.

So, with that very long introduction, I'm not quite sure how to describe this topic, but maybe something along the lines of does being a disciplined spouse or being the "submissive" party in a relationship result in a negative co-dependence or otherwise "weaken" that party?  If so, are there things you have done to counteract it?

I hope you have a great week.  If you are new to this Forum, please take a minute to leave a comment in the Guestbook (tab above).