The Club - Meeting 355 - Before and After Thoughts

“Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things. They burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back.” - Alice Hoffman

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplined Husbands Forum. Our weekly gathering of men and women participating or interested in Domestic Discipline Relationships. I hope you had a good week.

 

Ours was really rough.  Every time I think this year just can’t possibly get any worse, somehow it does.  It wasn’t a great week for the country either.  Or at least for half of it.

 

 

I’m also sitting here on a pleasant Sunday feeling particularly bad about my own personal behavior.  Early in the week, I was really trying to turn a corner on getting some nagging health and behavior issues under control, yet with another weekend came another big fail.  It has me thinking again about “zero tolerance” policies, stern and strict discipline, etc.  But, the challenge is, of course, finding the right enforcement or incentive structure – something that has eluded me for years now.  I was thinking about some of this earlier in the week when watching the HBO series The Vow, which is about the Nxivm “personal empowerment” that billed itself as an “Executive Success Program,” that also had earmarks of a pyramid scheme, and had within it a small group of women that took personal power in a very Domestic Discipline direction.  As some of you may recall, I got intrigued this several months ago and about the philosophy of self-improvement described in this New York Time article. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/magazine/sex-cult-empowerment-nxivm-keith-raniere.html.  What really intrigued me was the whole thing sounded so . . . disciplinary.  It was all about finding sufficient leverage to overcome those self-limiting habits or establish better ones.  Apparently, I was right in intuiting a very DD-like connection.  In the most recent episode, a woman talked about the communications between her and the woman above her in the hierarchy and the kind of structure and discipline that was imposed.  The producers displayed a series of texts between them.  It isn’t clear from the exchange what the underlying behavior was.

 

 

But, it becomes VERY clear what the consequences of not complying with the rules would be.

 

 

So, I exit this week and enter a new one pondering whether there is some system or set of procedures I can put in place to finally get enough leverage over myself to put an end to some of the behaviors that have chronically caused problems for myself and others.  I’m mulling some options, though the linchpin has to really be execution and follow-up.  I’ll keep mulling and think and, hopefully, report back where we end up.

 

In the meantime, the events of this week left me pretty empty of when it came to topic ideas.  Thankfully, one of our commenters provided me with one.  A couple of weeks ago, Belle suggested the following:

 

I want to suggest a possible topic because I am curious about this and believe it is probably much more intense for other couples than it currently is for us: What are the thoughts and feelings that both husband and wife think and feel immediately before and immediately after punishment? Describe them in exquisite detail. Before punishment means from the time a spanking is announced until the first spank lands, so including getting implements, lecture, removal of clothing, positioning of the husband, etc. After punishment means from the moment the last spank lands until the couple is back to normal, including cornertime or any meditation time, putting clothing back on, talk about the punishment, cuddling, sex triggered by the punishment, etc.

 

 

For me, the most consistent aspect of my thought process is really the gap between what I am thinking immediately before a spanking is announced and what I am thinking right after the announcement.  Particularly when I am in a remorseful mood or angry at myself for some behavior failure, I’m often actively thinking about how I really deserve one, hoping she will order one, etc. Then, after she announces one is coming, all that just vanishes completely and I become laser focused on how much I do not want to be spanked.  Even when I know an announcement is likely coming, my stomach still jumps to my throat when it actually comes.

 

 

I suspect that for some husbands, there is a desire to just face the music and get it over with soon. That virtually never happens with me. From the moment one is announced, I switch into avoidance mode and begin hoping that something will happen that interferes with execution of the sentence.  It’s pretty rare that she tells me in advance exactly what time it will be carried out, so I often have an hour or to stew and think about what is coming, then at some point she will either come downstairs and announce it is time for me to come upstairs and get ready or she will send a text to that effect.  Regardless of the form of that communication, in that moment I go from a kind of low level dread to a kind of resigned “I really don’t want this, but here we go.  . . .” Our routine is so ritualized, from that point I’m kind of on auto-pilot.  Without being ordered to, I retrieve the suitcase in which we keep the implements, put it on the bed and open it.  I then pull a large ottoman into the center of the room and put a large cushion on top of it.  I then undress and wait for her to come out.  During that process, I’m usually thinking about nothing other than how much this is going to suck, though I sometimes try to make myself think about what I did to get myself into this situation.  It really stays that way until the first spank lands.

 

 

Belle also asked about the thought process from the last swat onward until things are back to normal.  When she tells me it’s over, my first thought is usually just plain old relief, though every once in a while I feel disappointed if I feel like the behavior really deserved a longer spanking.  Since most of our spankings happen shortly before our usual bed time, and since we often but not always do have sex, I will often ask for her direction on whether we are having sex.  If so, I usually don’t undress.  I put away her tools, put the ottoman back in place at the foot of the bed, etc.  During that process, I’m generally not thinking about what just happened.  It really is like the slate has been cleaned.  When we get back in bed, however, we often do talk about the spanking she just delivered.  I’m usually feeling very loving and attracted to her in that moment.  There is something so very attractive about her willingness to exercise her power like that.  That period right after a spanking is probably the closest I ever get to feeling “submissive,” though the better word probably is “humbled.”  It’s like a lot of the male ego, stress, anxiety, etc. just vanishes.

 

How about you?  What are you gentlemen thinking about during that after a spanking has been announced but before it has been delivered?  What about immediately after?  

 

How about our Disciplinary Wives? What are you thinking about during the lead up to announcing a spanking?   What about when you are actually communicating your decision to give one?

 

 

Has it changed over time?  Have you gone from tentative to confident?

 

 

How about when you are ready to deliver?

 

How do you feel after you’ve taken care of business?  

  

I hope you all have a great week. 

No Post This Week & RIP to A Boyhood Crush

Hi all.  I'm sorry, but we have family stuff going on this weekend.  So, I won't be posting other than these tribute pics to Dame Diana Rigg who passed away earlier this week.  I'm a huge James Bond fan, and one of the few among such fans who rates On Her Majesty's Secret Service as one of the best Bond films.  I don't recall when I saw it or her for the first time, but I think it was back in high school. Whenever it was, I had a serious crush from that point on.  I wasn't very attuned to such things at the time, but I've always felt she had a remarkably kinky vibe. While a bit sheer, this first pic seems to be quite fitting for this Year of the Mask.

 

 

The Club - Meeting #354 - Jobs, Careers, Professions and DD

To be accountable means that we are willing to be responsible to another person for our behavior and it implies a level of submission to another's opinions and viewpoints." ― Wayde Goodall

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplined Husbands Forum. Our weekly gathering of men and women participating or interested in Domestic Discipline Relationships. I hope you had a good week.

 

For those of you in the U.S., I hope you are in the middle of an enjoyable, long Labor Day weekend.  Since Monday is a holiday devoted to laborers and workers, it is timely in relation to a tangent some of us went off on last week.  Spanked Cowboy noted that his wife is a former teacher, which led to these responses from Liz and Alan:

 

I think teachers and school officials are very likely to become spankers in their personal lives. Police officers and judges as well.

Liz

 

This is interesting, suggesting as you do that certain occupations are more likely to produce spankers, presumably linked to the authority their day jobs provide. ( although it is also possible people with a lot of everyday authority may be interested in the power exchange that spanking often produces. I don't know of any formal research bearing on the relationship between spanking and occupations. although there is some anecdotal evidence that spanking may be more common among police officers and military personnel, (in the former case ( cops) the interest in spanking might be more the spankee that the disciplinarian). None of this is very scientific although the question as you present it could be interesting to research. In my own limited personal experience people from the medical fields are attracted to spanking.

Alan

 

 

That led me to refer tack to a poll I did way back in 2014 (when Blogger still had a polling gadget) that asked about our readers’ professions.  The results were as follows:

 

 

Doctor/Medical Provider:                     2%

Lawyer:                                                 12%

Accountant:                                           3%

Teacher:                                                4%

Other Profession:                                 13%

Business Executive:                             11%

Business Non-Executive:                     4%

Engineer/Technology:                          15%

Business Owner:                                  14%

Other:                                                   16%

 

As I admitted at the time, this poll was about as unscientific as it possibly could have been, for reasons both within and outside by control. The potential sample size was limited to however many readers I had at that time.  Of those, only 107 responded to the poll.  So, both the overall pool and the number of respondents were small.  I also came up with the categories, which were obviously very under-inclusive. But, even with a sample of only 107 self-selected respondents, a few interesting points seemed to emerge.

 

First, contrary to Alan’s observations about those in the medical profession, in this small poll it seemed that members of the medical community either were not very interested in domestic discipline, or did not visit domestic discipline or spanking oriented blogs very often, or were very shy when it comes to filling out polls.  I was a bit puzzled by that one, as I had always believed that DD seems to appeal guys with "control freak" tendencies or high-pressure jobs, and the medical profession seems to be chock full of those. And, maybe the egos in that profession might lead some of doctors' spouses to take up the paddle?

Second, I was a little surprised at how many engineers and technology professionals were represented, as I don't associate that group with the Alpha Male and "controller" archetypes that I usually associate with DD.  But, again, that may be no more than my own biases and limited experience shining through.  ZM was not one of our contributors at that time, so I hope he’ll weigh in on this once since he is into DD and has a very technical background. 

 

Third, one poll result did conform to my pre-existing biases and suppositions, namely that lawyers, business executives and business owners seemed to be over-represented among those who are into disciplinary spanking. 

 

Finally, "other" and "other professional" were, in combination, the largest block of respondents, which could indicate either that even back then we had a very diverse group of visitors to this blog or, less flattering, that I did a really poor job of selecting specific job categories and left out one or two large segments of the DD community.

 

Looking back, there was one other really big flaw in that poll:  It didn’t discriminate between spanker and spankees or between men and women.  At the time, I was really focused on blogging for men who were the disciplined parties in DD relationships, so my poll question really focused on whether there were discernible trends in the jobs and career choices of men in F/m-oriented DD relationships.  I didn’t focus at all on whether our Disciplinary Wives tended to come from any particular job or career background.

 

 

So, let's make jobs, professions and career choices, and their relationship to Domestic Discipline, the focus of this week's topic:  For those who are willing to share, what job, career or profession are YOU in, and what, if any, connection do you think there is between that job and your interest in DD?  Did the same personality factors that lead you into that career also influence your interest in DD?  For instance, if you are inclined to submit to your wife's authority, are you similarly submissive to authority at work?  Or, is the inverse true and you feel attracted to DD as a way of giving up the control you exercise on the job?  For our Disciplinary Wives, do you see any connection between your job and career choices and how readily you took to DD or how you approach being a disciplinarian at home?  I hope that some of our commenters who have more experience with a wide range of people in DD relationships, like Tomy and al, can tell us if they have noted any patterns regarding certain professions and careers that seem over-represented among DD participants on either end of the paddle?

 

I know that talking about jobs and professions may be sensitive for some, given that many do not want to reveal too much about themselves.  If there are sensitivities on that score (and there are for me), I would suggest posting your comment anonymously and not signing the name or pseudonym you usually use when participating in this blog.  

 

For spankers, teachers and principals are almost too easy (as evidenced in part by the sheer volume of spanking art representing school spankings).  I also wonder whether, even if the stereotype may once have had some basis in reality, does it today when corporal punishment in schools is not longer prevalent?  I could see how it might still have some validity, given that as Liz has pointed out husbands sometimes act like overgrown boys who need boundaries, and teachers have daily experience keeping such boys under control.  However, might having to exercise control like that in their day job make them averse to having to take on similar responsibilities at home?

 

I am in one of those professions that was over-represented in my 2014 poll.  This did not occur to me when I wrote that post back in 2014, but while I had been in my profession for several years when I discovered DD, it was at about that time that I had taken a big jump into real executive-level responsibility.  I’ve never been able to account for why I was so attracted to DD even though I did not have the pre-existing spanking interest that so many of our male commenters had, but it could be that for me it required a confluence of two elements, i.e. exposure and timing.  Until I discovered the Disciplinary Wives Club, I’d never really encountered the concept of adult disciplinary spanking.  Coincidentally, it was around that same time that I took on far more responsibility and stress in my career.  It very well may be that had I learned about DD earlier, when my career was less stressful and I felt less overwhelmed with responsibility, it would not have had as much appeal.  

 

So, give us the benefit of your observations and experiences with the role of our career and job choices play in  Domestic Discipline. And, have a fun, relaxing, and safe weekend. 

The Club - Meeting 353 - From Obligation to Enjoying Her Power

“There are no good girls gone wrong - just bad girls found out.” -  Mae West

 

Hello all.  Welcome bac to the Disciplined Husbands Forum. Our weekly gathering of men and women participating or interested in Domestic Discipline Relationships. I hope you had a good week.

 

Mine felt like – just another week in 2020.  Hurricanes.  Police killings leading to protests. Teenagers with AR-15s gunning down protesters. Quarantines and locking yourself up in your own home seem like pretty good ideas right now. I guess social distancing at least has led to some new and interesting fashion trends.

 

  

That was a good discussion last week.  Consent is, I think, one of the most difficult and nuanced issues that comes up in this group, and it always stimulates some interesting viewpoints.  While there were some great comments, I didn’t see a lot of hooks for a new topic this week.  So, I’ll set consent aside for now and, instead, go back to a comment from a few weeks ago.  In describing her own transition from an admittedly 1950s style wife to a swinger of a disciplinary paddle, Liz observed:

 

I do think I slipped into my disciplinarian role quite easily, but I assumed that was because spanking was so prevalent in my family that it was not considered a big deal. So it is interesting to hear that other women without my background also have been able to adopt the role easily. Maybe it is not that hard to act parental towards men who act childish!

 

A few years back, we had another regular female commenter, Marisa, who like Liz came to DD in an attempt to fix a problematic marriage.  But, unlike Liz, Marisa attributed her ability to adopt DD so readily in part to her naturally dominant personality.  As she put it: 

 

We found our way to DD through a crisis in our marriage, the next step would have been marriage counseling if we had not tried discipline. I am aggressive and take charge and that personality trait can't be taught.

 

In my own DD journey, Anne took to giving disciplinary spankings pretty easily, though unlike Liz she thought the whole thing was kind of weird.  At first, she probably was doing little more than accommodating my request that she give it a try. Over time, I think she came to see it as an outlet; a tool she could use to show to get a sense of “payback” or resolution when I got out of line. Today, she says she actually enjoys making me strip down and bend over the ottoman.  She has told me that it is really that pre-spanking exercise of power that she enjoys, but I think over time she has come to actually enjoy actually blistering my ass.  She actually seems disappointed these days when I’m not marked or bruised the next day.

 

 

How about for the rest of our Disciplinary Wives? How readily did you take to your role in the DD relationship?  Was it something you slid into pretty easily, as Liz did thanks to her pre-existing exposure to DD?  Or was it a slower or rockier transition?  Over the course of that journey, where have you ended up in terms of your approach to DD and how it makes you feel?

 

Is it basically just another chore or duty?

 

 

Or, is it something you’ve come to actually enjoy doing?  To the extent you do enjoy it, what is it that you like about it?   

 

 

Do you have any hints for how your fellow Disciplinary Wives who may have mixed feelings about it can come to actively enjoy the role, particularly given all the negative soclialization that women are subjected to where power and authority are concerned?

 

Have a great week.

The Club -- Meeting 352 - Consent, Non-Consent & Consensual Non-Consent

“The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.” - Vince Lombardi

 

Hi all. Welcome to the Disciplined Husbands Forum. Our weekly gathering of men and women participating or interested in Domestic Discipline Relationships. I hope you had a good week.

 

It was kind of an interesting week where DD was concerned, even though no spanking happened.  The fact that one didn’t happen was both noteworthy and kind of expected given our track record where consistency is concerned.  What was noteworthy was that what got me into deserving a spanking was also kind of what got me out of it.  The short story in terms of what got me in trouble was I was surly with my wife.  Twice in one morning.  The slightly longer story is, I was feeling pretty lousy that morning, which has been a problem for a week or more.  I’m not sure what is going on.  I even wondered briefly whether I might have Covid, though I am now pretty sure I don’t.  Whether it was the flu or some other virus, I’m not sure.  I just felt extremely tired and achy, which made me surly.  There isn’t any real doubt that I did mouth off and it was very inappropriate and unwarranted.  She didn’t do anything at the time because she was leaving for work. But, when she got home that day, she told me I was going to get spanked.  There was some interruption that night, however.  I kept expecting it all week, but she kept having “mercy” on me for various reasons, including that I was watching the Democratic National Convention, and I’m a political junkie.  But, I think much of it came down to, she knew I was still feeling lousy, so she let me off the hook.  As usual, I have mixed feelings about that.  This was one of the few times in recent history that she ordered a spanking specifically because of me showing a lack of respect, which is something we keep saying she should do more often.  But, as is too often the case, I managed to delay, finally delaying so long that I wonder now how much immediate connection I would feel to the underlying offense were she to spank me for it now. I guess it’s just another one of those situations I have to write off to reality interfering with our best laid plans.

 

What a great discussion last week!  It meandered quite a bit, but that was what made it interesting and engaging.  Somehow in one week we touched on maintenance spanking, preventative spankings, consent, psychological control and dominance overcoming non-consent, empty nesting, post-orgasm spankings, and family histories of spanking and discipline.  There were a couple of months of topics flying around in one week!  I do plan to hit on several of these in the near future, but for this week I tried to narrow it down to one. I’m a little concerned we might have exhausted it last week, but hopefully others will weigh in and maybe those who talked last week will have things to add.

 

I narrowed this week’s topic to consent: its necessity, its frustrations, its limitations, the fantasy of not having it, its boundaries, its limits, etc.  In a nutshell, my question is, what role does consent play in your DD relationship, what are its limits, and is it desirable or, perhaps, something you wish wasn’t as inevitable as it kind of is?   

 

 

 

This topic suggests a pretty big range of subtopics:

 

·      Was your DD relationship "imposed" on you in some way?  For example, did your wife finally get fed up with your behavior and tell you that she was going to spank you? 

·      If there was no such express lack of consent, was there a situation like Liz and Art’s where spanking became kind of a quid pro quo for staying together after his behavior almost brought the relationship to and end?

·      Even though you (the husband) probably consented to the DD relationship as a whole, have you had spankings that you consented to only under some kind of coercion or threat (ending the relationship, perhaps) employed to get you to comply?

·      If you wanted to withdraw consent now, would she let you?  Ladies, if he said he’d like to drop the DD aspect of your relationship, i.e. withdraw his consent, what would your reaction be?

·      Even though you may as a practical matter always have the ability to withdraw consent and resist, has her authority or dominance become such that as a practical matter you won’t or even feel like you can’t?

·      For the men, do you actually like that DD is consensual, or do you kind of want something like parental discipline where there really isn’t a choice? In other words, is part of the attraction to DD or FLR that that there is an involuntary element to it?  Does part of you need that element of "non-consent" in order for it to feel like you really are being controlled or dominated?

·      For the women, do you have any views or feelings about the role consent does or does not play?  Does it make you feel more powerful the more you feel like discipline is something you are imposing whether he likes it or not? Or, conversely, is it important to you that you feel he is consenting on an ongoing basis?

 

These and other aspects of the consent issue were raised by several of last week’s comments, including:

 

Al:  Regardless of how much we want to the spankings to be "real punishment" - in which the husband has to accept whenever the wife decides, with no questions asked - ultimately, there is always consent involved at some level. In that regard, it is never truly like a parent spanking a child - where the child has no say about it all - it is never truly involuntarily punishment. Even though the husband may not have to "consent" to any given spanking, he has given a blanket consent by agreeing to enter the DWC contract. And, really, he can walk away or refuse to be spanked at any time. So whether the spanking is for a specific punishment, preventative, or maintenance there is always underlying consent.

 

That said, many disciplined husbands (myself included), reach a point where they are psychologically almost incapable of refusing a spanking once their wife has decided that they have one coming. It is an acceptance of her disciplinary prerogative that, to me, is far more of a submission than any involuntary discipline. Even though I recognize that I have a desire to be a spanked husband, I also know when my wife tells me to assume the position (for punishment, maintenance, preventative) - that the spanking is going to be genuinely painful - that she will set my ass on fire with that damn bathbrush (or whatever implement she chooses). Crossing her lap anyway and accepting that pain is the real submission (hot and sexy thought before and after the spanking, not so much during the spanking).

 

Alan: This is something I sometimes ponder in the context of blanket consensual spanking ( a concept that captures the real dynamic of consent) Some while ago with a former girlfriend, we were having a conversation about what would happen if I rebelled or just refused to take a spanking. Her answer was that she was in complete control "when we were together" (meaning in physical proximity versus over the phone) and she was very confident that I couldn't and wouldn't disobey her about a spanking. Another time she told me that I had given her disciplinary authority and I couldn't "take it away" There were the first times I realized I really could not stop or resist for long a spanking she had decided upon. In addition to consenting to her spanking I had taught her how to push all my "spanko buttons" and she had learned well. She never relay abused her authority and my wife never has but it is sobering sometimes to realize the bridges I burned behind me when I consented. It is not a power lightly given or easily withdrawn. I don't consider that a negative of any kind and in fact it makes DD much more authentic. But in the early days I got through some pretty severe spankings telling myself I could stop it if I wanted. That was an illusion and it would be now too if I deluded myself about it. It's not that physically I couldn't stop it but psychologically probably not.

 

ZM: And on the consent issue, yes I physically could stop any punishment in theory, but submission feeds continued submission, so even though I have the strength and the right to stop things, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Plus since we don’t have per-punishment consent, but rather only blanket consent, while I could withdraw consent at any time, it would be the blanket consent I would be withdrawing, which might well lead to a life of frustration without the imposed discipline I so want and need.  So in the end, I may consent to it, but I am easily controlled by my own desires and would not and could not withdraw that consent.

 

You can definitely count me among those who recognizes that I consented to, and continue to consent to, our DD relationship. I am, in fact, all too aware of it.  I am one of those whose attraction to DD really hinges on it being as close to involuntary as is practically possible and that is attracted to the maternal aspects of DD, and to stories and art involving school spankings, precisely because those were not voluntary. That non-consensual aspect was definitely part of what both fascinated and terrified me about DD, and that has not changed that much even today.

 

So, tell us all about what roleconsent or "consensual non-consent" play in your DD relationship. 

 

Also, I want to thank Art, Al and others who commented on the value of this blog brings when it’s at its best. It’s gratifying to read such comments, and while I don’t over-estimate the importance of this thing we do in the overall scheme or our lives and marriages, I do hop the blog plays some concrete positive role for a few of you.

 

I hope you have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 351 - Maintenance Spankings

“We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.” - Samuel Butler

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline relationships.  I hope you all had a great weekend.

This was one of those weeks that leave me wondering how I can have little to do and still get nothing done.  This is by far the longest really dry spell I’ve had at work.  I keep telling myself that it’s the universes way of preparing me for a glide path into retirement or a significant change of direction, but it’s still really frustrating in the moment.  And, it’s not just work.  Between an injury I was recovering from, the Covid shutdown, and now sporadic and inconvenient gym access, I’ve pretty much let myself go physically, too.  Funny how that can happen to the best of us, whether disciplined or undisciplined.

I also find myself failing in getting us back on track where DD is concerned, even though I undoubtedly could profit form it.  I do think that the talk Anne and I had about amping up her control but scaling it back in some areas did, in fact, make her less inclined to take me to task on my binge drinking challenges, even after incidents that were pretty plainly excessive.  That had me thinking all weekend about simply suggesting she take care of business.  Yet, in the end, I didn’t.  To a big extent, it was because Saturday I was really beaten up physically by some work around the house. The kind of work that six months ago I would have handled with ease but now left me sore and stiff all over.  But, I think deep down inside it was because I have been talking a good game about knowing I need to get back on track, yet it’s hard to actually ask to be spanked, right?

The fact is, we’ve been out of the habit for so many weeks now, it’s just hard to get started again.  I got to thinking about that in relation to a few comments last week about maintenance spankings.  Brett brought them up as a category of “undeserved” spanking.  KD and I saw them as spankings that really aren’t about deserving or not deserving but, rather, serve some different purpose entirely.  KD saw them as “preventative” in nature:

Maintenance is a behavioral tool that can't really be defined by 'deserved' or 'undeserved' but rather whether it is effective as a preventative. As such, if it is an agreed-upon tactic, the underlying reason is valid even without an actual offense. The only thing that would make maintenance unfair would be if the behavior was not so deeply rooted that maintenance was necessary, and as such, the recipient didn't feel it was needed for good behavior to continue. However, it seems to me that most folks who practice maintenance do so because both parties find it effective and beneficial.

 

 I came at them from a slightly different angle (while acknowledging we don’t really do them, seeing them as primarily about role enforcement, i.e. reinforcing her role as disciplinarian and his role in submitting to her decisions where discipline is concerned.  I also see them having a role in just getting her used to thinking about spanking and discipline if it isn’t a firmly rooted habit yet. 

It’s both interesting and a little depressing that the last time I did a topic on this was back in 2016, and or much the same reason I’m thinking about it now.  What I said then was: 

I have been concerned recently that despite some changes in our circumstances that should have opened up opportunities for making discipline more spontaneous and regular, that really has not been happening, despite both of us talking a lot about being committed to really amping up the FLR aspect of our relationship.  Our best intentions notwithstanding, real life just keeps getting in the way. I also feel that while my wife is genuinely interested in taking on a much stronger FLR and HoH role, it just does not come naturally to her and having to constantly make decisions about whether to spank can lead to it not happening even when we both know it should.

 

As the situation became more frustrating, I thought back to some of the ways in which we established Domestic Discipline early on, when it was unnatural to both of us.  One thing we did was to establish some formal structure and practices.  Early on, we came up with a list of offenses, each of which had a presumptive minimum number of swats with the paddle associated with it.  This served two purposes.  First, it took away some of her concerns about how long or hard to spank or whether it might be too much, by setting an agreed upon floor.  It also meant that if I had a bad week, with lots of bad behavior, the number of swats could get pretty scary, which would hopefully deter some of the behavior before it started.  I had to give her a journal every week tracking the offenses and tallying the swats.  And, it worked to a large extent.  I think setting the minimum number of swats helped her get comfortable with delivering a real disciplinary spanking, by removing just a bit of the discretion.

Do you use maintenance spankings in your relationship, or other means of turning Domestic Discipline or her exercise of her authority into a habit?  This obviously may not be an issue for those women who are naturally dominant and who exercise authority easily and naturally.  But, I do think that incremental steps help to make authority and leadership a habit, and coming up with those incremental steps can require some thought and creativity.

By the way.  We have a new potential Vice President here in the U.S.  Doesn't she look like someone who might be capable of swinging a mean paddle.

 

And, also, thanks to all the kind words some of you left as we neared the end of the week.  It's always appreciated. I hope you all have a great week!

The Club - Meeting 350 - Arbitrary Orders & Undeserved Punishment

Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline. - Barbara W. Tuchman

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 all had a great weekend.

Mine was interesting.  First business trip since the Covid lockdown.  It was interesting comparing how two different areas of the country are complying with Covid shutdowns and mask requirements.  I thought our area was pretty good when it came to masks, but the city I travelled to was much better. It didn’t surprise me that we are seeing a substantial uptick where we live but the city I traveled to isn’t.  It’s also interesting how masks have become part of some people’s everyday routine.  I’ve actually gotten pretty good at eating and drinking with one. 

This is one of those weeks that I’m not getting much in the way of inspiration for a new topic.  I was looking through some old ones and came across the topic of  “undeserved punishment,” and also saw the above quote.  For some reason, a topic related to giving in to orders you chafe against, or taking a spanking you personally don’t think you deserve, resonated with me this week.  I think maybe it is because there was a dispute going on at work, and I was firmly in one of two competing camps.  I was hopeful that the powers-that-be would get to the right decision, but I did spend a fair amount of time thinking about what I’d do if they didn’t.  So, maybe that context was in my mind when I saw the above quote and thought about the times we’ve talked about “undeserved” punishment.  In any event, it’s been about two years since we talked about those topics, so let’s give it a go again.

Have you ever been given a disciplinary spanking for something you felt you didn't deserve?  Perhaps you were seemingly "caught" doing something you really didn't do? Or, perhaps something bad did happen but someone else was the real offender? Or, maybe you did something that wasn't contrary to any clearly set rule, but it was something that annoyed or aggravated your HoH, so they disciplined you for it unexpectedly?  In those circumstances, how did you react?  How did it make you feel?  Humbled?  Resentful?  Respectful?  If you are on the giving end of the spanking, have you ever imposed a punishment that maybe in retrospect wasn't really earned or was more severe than maybe he deserved?  

And, for those of you in an FLR, what about giving and taking orders?  Do you follow only those orders you think are “reasonable”?  Or, is it sometimes a turn-on to be subject to an order precisely because it is one you do not agree with?  Remember when we were kids objecting to an order that seemingly came out of nowhere and mom’s response was “Because I said so!”  For those of us for whom the maternal vibe is a strong component of our attraction to DD, is that seemingly arbitrary or capricious imposition of ad hoc authority part of the attraction? 

I can't think of a circumstance where I have been punished for something I really didn't do or something that I didn't know was a problem for her.  The closest I can think of is a situation where I repeatedly left a chore undone, or done half-assed, and she finally had enough, ordered a spanking, and delivered a very, very hard one that evening.  It was not that it was "undeserved" per se, but this chore was not so much something assigned to me under some express rule, but something I have just always done.  Moreover, giving  a very hard spanking for not doing a chore was not a direction either of us had taken things in up until that point.  So, perhaps the right word is "unexpected" as opposed to "undeserved."  There was also one time when I expected a fairly light "maintenance" session, but what I got was a full-blown punishment spanking.In both cases, there was perhaps some resentment as I pulled my pants up over my very sore bottom that night, but there was also an offsetting respect.  Admiration is another good word to describe it.  I felt proud of her for addressing a situation that was pissing her off  and doing it strongly and decisively.  My reaction was one indication I had that we might have approached a fork in the road, going from something purely DD to something more FLR-oriented, with her setting the tone and direction and taking action where she thought appropriate regardless of whether we had an agreed-upon rule that had been broken.

It speaks very well of my wife that in well over a decade in this lifestyle, I really can't think of an instance in which she was really "wrong" to spank me.  If anything, perhaps it indicates she is letting me get away with too much too often! And, I think that is a danger in trying to set all the rules up front.  It kind of happened to us recently.  We had a fairly structured discussion a few weeks ago about where to take things now that we are more or less empty nesters.  It was good, and the general direction was around her taking more control and exercising authority in more areas. But, I did tell her that I thought for too many years, alcohol-related offenses had been the “end all and be all” of our DD relationship.  I stressed that I wasn’t trying to question her authority to spank me for acts of excessive drinking, but “excessive” needed to be in reference to exceeding reasonable social limits or doing something that put myself or others in danger.  It shouldn’t just being exceeding some low but arbitrary limit in situations where others—often friens of hers at events she took me to—were drinking as much or more.  She agreed to that, which seemed great at the time. But, a couple of weeks later I did have a night where I did exceed what most would consider a reasonable limit, but she didn’t take action.  

I feel like by trying to define a rule that we both thought was reasonable, I still may have undermined her or made her second-guess herself. The bottomline for me is these relationships require common sense, and the "right" approach is seldom binary. Yet, I still wonder whether my effort to come to an agreement on a commonsense boundary around what was “spankable” may have made sense on one level yet been counterproductive on another?

 

It also would be more than a little disingenuous for me to get too upset about being punished for something I didn't deserve given that, as this week illustrates, on balance I have engaged in way more bad behavior that has gone unpunished that I should not have gotten away with.  So, being punished where not strictly deserved could be looked at as just a balancing of the accounts.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

No Post This Week

Hi all. I'm sorry, but I've had a busy weekend, and it's not looking like I'm going to have time today to come up with a topic.  Enjoy your week, and stay safe.  Wear those masks!