“I met an old lady
once, almost a hundred years old, and she told me, 'There are only two
questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How
much do you love me? And Who's in charge?” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
Hello all. Welcome back to
The Disciplinary Couple’s Club. Our
weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a
Domestic Discipline relationship. I hope
you all had a great week.
It was an interesting one, on
multiple levels. Belle’s question about
why an “alpha” male would want to be the recipient in a Domestic Relationship
ended up covering a lot of ground: young men and their ability to grow up,
or lack thereof; spanking fetishes versus balancing power and giving up
control; female empowerment and its possible impact on that female’s desire; Domestic
Discipline’s ability to “fix” problematic relationships or lack thereof;
preserving male “swagger” while punishing
arrogance; parenting philosophies as applied to 30 year-old daughters; and, of course, the need for a better label
than “Alpha” to identify men who with dominant or aggressive personality traits.
Lost in all that was an uptick in our number of female commenters, in addition to Belle. Liz, thanks for dropping by again. Lola and
Drew, welcome.
Coincidentally, as our
efforts to answer Belle’s questions about female empowerment in the context of bad experiences with an immature spouse were playing out here on the blog, a political
situation with some parallels was playing out in the press. Katie Hill, a Democratic congresswoman from California
and the first openly bisexual member of Congress resigned after someone, probably
her jealous ex-spouse, leaked naked pictures of Ms. Hill participating in a
threesome.
From the reports in the
press, it sounds like Ms. Hill’s high school boyfriend/spouse was upset that she
outgrew him, went on to bigger and better things, and became a very empowered young woman.
While he was living with mom and griping that his estranged wife wouldn’t pay him spousal
support, Ms. Hill was embracing her power, sleeping with staffers and casting votes
to impeach the most powerful man in the world.
So, estranged husband apparently got some revenge. Some of the same right-wing press that forgave non-consensual
grabbing of women by their pussies got very moralistic about consensual
relationships between a congressional candidate and her same-sex staffer. In the era of #MeToo, that was enough to sink
her career. In her parting speech, she
bemoaned the “double standard” applied to women in power. While I sympathize with her and really hope the
person who leaked the photos is prosecuted for “revenge porn,” I don’t think
the “double standard” label fits the facts.
Senator Al Franken was driven from office for conduct that was arguably
way less problematic than sex with a subordinate, so the Democratic leadership
actually couldn’t support Ms. Hill without engaging in the kind of double
standard she is now condemning. Their previous treatment of men in power kind of put them in a box. So, to
me the issue isn’t about “double standards.” Rather it’s about how far we take
a movement that has done good things but when applied blindly risks denying the
reality that human relationships always have, and probably always will, revolve
around sex and power.
Fortunately, here at the
Disciplinary Couples Club, we openly celebrate the complex blending of power
relationships and sexual attraction! If
that puts me at odds with our current puritanical bent and faux egalitarianism in
all aspects of our complicated lives, so be it.
Also, I'm struggling with one of the most obvious lessons of Ms. Hill’s plight, namely: “Don’t
let anyone photograph you naked.” Yet, at around the same time Ms. Hill was resigning
from Congress, I was posting on KD’s blog about how much I like pictures of
women “flashing” in public and how I wish I could entice my wife to join in.
Now, on to this week’s topic,
which I will try to keep a little tighter than last week’s meandering, as interesting
as some of it was. Near the end of last
week’s discussion, Belle, Alan and I got into some exchanges about the
mechanics of delivering a real disciplinary spanking, including the tools she should
use, what a hard adult spanking entails, etc.
In the course of that conversation, Alan observed:
“I don't know of your guy
has had a real spanking as an adult. If not, he is going to be shocked at how
much it hurts and how bad he wants it to stop. Be prepared for that and making
sure he has that experience and understand it is definitely part of DD. You
will see a pretty radical transformation just from that –and if he doesn’t
submit to it, you will know early that it’s not going to work. Tough love maybe
but very important.”
At around that same time, I
had an email exchange with Caged Lion, who suggested the following topic (here
in abbreviated form):
“I have an idea you may want
to use for a topic. It may not be quite whatyou like because it does tend
to attract the BDSM crowd, but it's an issue that's been bothering
both of us. My wife keeps expressing concern about how long and how hard a
spanking should be. I don't have any suggestion for her because I have no idea how
other people in disciplinary relationships manage this. Do spankings always
produce bruises? How long do they typically last? Like almost every other guy
in a DD relationship, you and I asked our wives to punish us. On your site any
mention of a spanking might include whether or not it ended in tears but
doesn't talk about how it was administered and for how long. I know would be
helpful to us if we could find out how other couples handle this.”
I actually disagree about
whether we’ve addressed “how long and how hard” on this blog. I’ve posted some variation on that question
multiple times. But, it never really
seems to draw much in the way of helpful, concrete responses. And, it often isn’t participation by the BDSM
crew that cuts off the discussion but, rather, those who weigh in strongly against
any kind of formula or slogan, including any along the lines of this one:
In order to avoid that sideshow
this time, and recognizing that we do all have differing pain thresholds and different abilities for absorbing well-earned lessons, let’s
focus on the more concrete question of how long your own spankings typically take,
whether measured in time or number of swats or some other metric.
I don’t have a lot of guidance
to give on this one, because when I am being spanked I typically am looking at
the floor and not at a clock. And, time spent in that position is, well, a bit
relative. When I am bent over the chair
or ottoman and taking a very hard paddling or strapping, it seems to take
forever. But, in reality I am sure the
whole thing takes well under 10 minutes.
Probably more like six or seven minutes.
For the most part, I haven't timed them. We did inject a time element into a few
spankings earlier this year, however.
Following up on a suggestion from Helen or Elizabeth (I forget which), I
suggested that my wife ensure that each offense is dealt with separately. My thinking was that by separating each
spanking into a separate mini-session, I would always have an incentive to
behave better even if I had already earned a spanking that week. So, the plan we came up with is that each
offense would get at least 5 minutes of actual spanking time, as measured with
an hourglass, with intervening sessions of corner time to let my butt recover
and to get rid of most of the numbness. We only used that approach two or three
times, with the longest resulting in about 15 minutes of actual spanking time.
When we were first getting
into Domestic Discipline, we implemented a system that focused more on the
number of swats than the temporal duration of the spanking. Under our system, each agreed-upon offense
was assigned a certain minimum number of swats. I don’t recall the details at
this point, but it went something like this:
We had agreed the binge drinking was a problem that needed to be
addressed. We set a limit on the total
number of drinks I was allowed to have (two or three, as I recall). Exceeding that limit resulted in a baseline
of 10 swats with a heavy “school”-style paddle plus five swats for each
drink over the agreed-upon limit. So,
even one drink over the limit resulted in 15 hard swats. There were other
offenses too, most with presumptive swats in the range of 5 to 10. I still recall vividly a session during our first few
months of DD in which I had been particularly bad. When I tallied up the number
of swats, it came to 65. Now, today, that is a fairly small fraction of the number
of swats she gives me during a robust session, but at the time it was far more
than I had ever taken. I told her that I
wasn’t sure I should take that many. Without
skipping a beat, she told me, “Then, I guess you should have behaved better. You’re getting 65.” Thus, a true Disciplinary Wife was born.
Over the last few years, I
have become convinced that my lack of tears will never be solved by increasing
severity, in terms of the kind of implement or the strength of the swat. If anything, it works the opposite. If the tool is just “too much” (thick rubber
straps and some paddles qualify), I cannot prevent myself from going into “resistance
mode” in which I can’t avoid just trying to gut it out. But, I’m not as sure that the same thing
holds with respect to duration. I have always wondered whether a longer
spanking would result in me finally breaking down, if it just kept going on and
on with no relief in sight. I’m hoping ZM
will weigh in on this one in particular, as he did reach a point of real tears
last year and I recall him saying it was because his wife basically decided it
would keep going until he did. I would
love to hear more details about what that actually looked like.
So, for the group, how long do your spankings
usually take? Have you ever timed
one? Is there a goal for it to last
a certain amount of time? Does that vary depending on the offense? Or, Ladies, are you looking for some particular indication (tears, begging, etc.)
By the way, regarding Caged Lion's specific question about bruising, I used to bruise regularly and fairly easily. After the first couple of tries after we discovered DD and after she laid down the hairbrush in favor of an actual paddle, I bruised pretty much every time. Now it is the reverse; regardless of the severity of the spanking, I very seldom bruise. One exception was a few months ago when she experimented with some synthetic cane. One of them wrapped around my butt and left very nasty bruises on my hips. Honestly, I do miss bruising. It was concrete evidence for her of a spanking well-given, and the need to cover up in the gym made the whole thing seem a bit more edgy.
