The Club - Meeting 383 - Tears

"I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.” - Charles Dickens from Great Expectations

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couple’s 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 week.

 

 

Mine was pretty good, though not without some spanking-related angst. In my last post, I related a recent incident in which Anne spanked me for not locking doors and closing the dog door when I left the house.  As I discussed, I was sore for several days. Though, apparently, not quite sore enough to get the message across fully.   A couple of days after that spanking, I ended up having to leave the house unexpectedly for a quick overnight trip to cover something that neither Anne nor I had on our calendars.  I dropped whatever I was doing, packed an overnight bag, and headed out.  In doing so—I’m sure you all know where this is going—I forgot about the dog door, again.  When I got home, she sent me a text with picture of the open door. My heart jumped, because my ass really was very, very sore from the last session.  Well, as it turned out, I somehow avoided the spanking I was sure I had coming, though she did comment on it at least once during the week.  And, to cap it off, near the end of the week, I left in the middle of the day and left the front door unlocked.

 

 

Now, one could surmise that I just didn’t take the first spanking seriously, but that’s really not the case.  Sometimes, it just takes a while for an unwanted but somewhat unconscious behavior to become “front and center” in your conscious mind.  My favorite story on the DWC website is Even More, which describes a couple getting started with DD. The husband asks the wife to try such a relationship, they agree to a list of offenses, and he promptly forgets to comply with the rule against leaving the toilet seat up, resulting in his very first bare-bottomed disciplinary spanking. 

 

When his wife brings the offense to his attention and orders a spanking, his first reaction is to try to talk to his way out of it, objecting that he had been distracted and just forgot about the new rule. While understandable, she doesn’t let him off the hook. Honestly, that was kind of how I felt about both offenses this week, though the first was more defensible than the second.  The first really did involve something where I rushed out to cover something that neither of us saw coming, and I left only the dog door open, not the front door.  I really felt like I had rushed out to cover something that I hadn’t even known about, so the oversight was understandable.  But, on the other hand, it’s also simply a fact that she is plainly making this one of her priorities, and I am going to have to figure out a way to remember it or risk back-to-back spankings.

 

 

It’s one of those things that kind of brings home the reality of an FLR or “real” DD relationship.  I handed over authority to her. She is now starting to exercise it and doing so on an issue that is important to her but not to me.  But, I can either choose to get on board with her priorities or get a painful spanking until I do so.  I really do have a sense of my autonomy being curtailed in a significant way. And, it’s bringing to the fore the classic contradiction of DD from the disciplined husband’s perspective – I don’t really like being told what to do; I hate being spanked, and I really hate being spanked on an already sore bottom; but, her exercising her authority in a way that I’m not fully aligned with makes that exercise of pure power all the more erotic.

 

Anyway . . . on to this week’s topic.  It’s an offshoot of something ZM brought a couple of weeks ago, noting:

 

By the way, one of the most interesting things I have noticed is that we have had openness as a theme or at least a subtheme for quite a bit of the last year. It keeps coming back. Yet even so, we keep finding new angles on it, like last week it was kind of how it might affect the witnessing party. It makes we think we could take almost any topic, like tears, and go for a lot longer than you would expect before running out of new insights.

 

It is interesting just how often our discussion spins off into various tangents regarding openness and others knowing about our DD lifestyles.  It’s clearly a topic that holds a lot of fascination—morbid or otherwise—for our little group.  I don’t have anything else to say about it this week, though I did coincidentally come across this Paula Meadows drawing on the subject.  The look on recipient’s face is priceless!

 

 

But, while I’m happy to continue to talk about openness to the extent people have something new to say about it, instead of trying to come up with something new to say about it myself, I’d like to take up the other repeat topic that ZM called out – tears. 

 

As long-time readers know, this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart.  In fact, when I try to put my finger on what exactly it was about The Disciplinary Wives Club that hit me so hard, I’ve always thought it was the prevalence of tears in so much of the advice and in so many of the stories.  For example, in her Tips & Methods section, Aunt Kay advised:  

 

When handling discipline issues be firm but fair, strict, demanding, aloof and unyielding. Don't be afraid to degrade and humiliate, and above all, when that bare bottom is turned upside down across your knee waiting for the paddle or hairbrush, don't disappoint him. When you let him up, his eyes should be wet with tears, his knees should be quivering, and it should be obvious by looking at his bottom that he is displaying the marks left after a GOOD session.

 

Similarly, in the very first fiction story on the website, at the beginning of their very first disciplinary spanking the wife announces:

 

Now this is going to hurt more than you can imagine. I am going to give you a much longer and harder spanking than any you have ever had. I won't stop until you are crying, but don't worry. I won't stop when you start crying.

 

Then, this interaction during the course of that first spanking:

 

"Now be a good boy and don't try to resist. It will be better for you if you don't. " Smack, whap, whack, the spanking continued, and I began to cry, I mean really cry; I had been begging for mercy for several minutes, but now I was in tears. "Good boy" I heard, "You are crying. I like that. " Becky continued to spank me, it seemed harder than before. I wasn't resisting anymore. I was lying over her knee, accepting what she felt must be given without movement or plea. I don't know how much later it was, perhaps two or three minutes of continuous spanks, until she finally stopped.

 

Then, there was this from the story titled Even More, written by our own regular commenter, Al:

 

David was lost to all but the searing, burning pain of the wood against his skin. He had tried to be strong and resist it, but it was too much. Finally he gave into it. Tears turned to sobs as the paddle continued its seemingly unending dance across his severely tormented bottom.

 

And as David began to sob, Susan decided he had learned what a real spanking was all about. She knew this had been his fantasy, and she also knew that he was surely shocked by the reality of what he had asked for. His bottom was a solid red, spotted with purple bruises. He had kicked and screamed, begged for her to stop, and now was sobbing openly. Certainly, he must have had no idea of the truth behind his fantasy.

 

Now, these stories appear under the Fiction section of the DWC website.  I don’t know how prevalent spanking is in “real life” but here are the stats I got in response to a question I put in a 2018 poll (before Blogger got rid of its polling feature) about commenters’ experiences with crying from a disciplinary spanking:

 

I have not but want to:                                            46%

I have not and do not want to:                                12%

I have but only a few tears:                                    17%

I have, including crying hard or sobbing:               22%

 

For the fifteen or so years that we have been doing Domestic Discipline, I have been among those 46% who have not cried but want to.  Or, at least, I think I want to.  As I said, I think the prospect of crying was probably the most significant driver of the emotional reaction I had when I first discovered the Disciplinary Wives Club. Although those stories undeniably did turn me on, it was WAY more than that and far more complicated.  Stories of men being brought to tears over their wives’ knees fascinated me, but it was morbid fascination.  Those stories left me with butterflies in my stomach, though that is a huge understatement.  I couldn't sleep.  I could think of little else. It really was an obsession, and one I felt like I had to act on.  And, the decision to bring it to her attention was one of the most nerve-wracking I’ve ever made because, as I said in response to a comment last week, unlike the character in the Even More story, I didn’t try to pass it off to my wife as just some titillating bit of kink I’d stumbled across.  While I’m sure my words wandered all over the place, I think I was reasonably clear that this was something I was asking her to seriously consider doing. In so doing, I was absolutely cognizant that I was asking for something that might result in a very humbling spanking, one that might involve breaking down into real tears.  In fact, I was naïve enough at the time to think that my spankings would be exactly like those fictional DWC spankings and that, once taken over her knee, I would at some point surrender to the pain and to her authority and dissolve into heaving sobs. It scared me like nothing else ever had, or has since.

 

Yet, here we are so many years later, and I still have not cried, even during spankings that plainly fall into the "severe" range.  So, while I think the intensity of the spanking matters, it’s just one piece of the puzzle. What are the other pieces? Here are a few thoughts. 

 

 

First, the last time we addressed tears as a topic ZM made the point that he got there after a spanking in which his wife more or less announced that she wanted to make it happen.  It does seem to me that it is far more likely to happen if the wife has announced that she wants it to.  Her verbalizing it may be important for a couple of reasons. First, if you’ve been conditioned for some time to accept her authority, I think you are more likely to cry in direct response to that authority being expressly aligned with the goal of bringing you to tears.  Second, I would think that her making some pronouncement about it in advance would relieve concerns you might have about whether seeing you cry might scare her off of the entire arrangement.

 

Second, and relatedly, is the role of embarrassment.  The above quote from Aunt Kay makes it clear that, in order to serve its purpose, a spanking probably should be embarrassing. Yet, I have no doubt that the prospect of being really embarrassed is one reason I resist crying.  I have to think that a wife announcing she wants you to cry has to take at least some of the edge off the prospect of embarrassment, or at least would make it subservient to the fact that she wants you to cry, even if that does entail wanting you to experience the embarrassment that goes along with having your bottom blistered for bad behavior.

 

 

Third, I have become more and more convinced over time that severity/intensity of the swats is probably a very distant second to duration when it comes to getting a husband to really surrender to the spanking and to the whole situation in a way that will open him up to tears.  As ZM related after the first time his wife brought him to tears:

 

I don't think she punished harder than usual, but certainly longer, and plus she had said before that the next punishment would certainly result in tears, so I think she set the stage for it and that helped me to get into the proper state of mind. Anyway, the tears took it to a whole new level of "real" feeling for us.

 

As I said, fifteen years into this DD relationship, I have never cried.  So, I don’t hold myself out as an expert on tears or how one might bring it about.  I also don’t have a more focused topic in mind than whatever thoughts any of you may have on crying and tears.

 

Finally, one housekeeping matter.  Google must have implemented some technical change in its spam detection algorithms, and it seems to be more than a little klugy.  Some comments are being flagged as spam even though they are from identified commenters, and often with other comments from that same commenter let through with no problem.  There doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason for why a particular comment ends up in the spam folder, and Blogger doesn’t give any notice when a comment has been identified as spam and is in the folder awaiting review.  So, if you try to comment and it doesn’t post right away, chances are it was flagged as spam.  Hopefully, Blogger will fix the problem soon, but in the meantime I’ll try to check the spam folder more regularly.

 

 

The Club - Meeting 382 - Her Direction, FLR, etc.

Power is given only to him who dares to stoop and take it ... one must have the courage to dare.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couple’s 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 week.

 

Mine was pretty sedate compared to the preceding week. Of course, that one had both set a high bar and required some significant recovery time.  One thing did happen this week, however, that illustrates some points we talked about last time. 

  

Last week, I talked about a little solo adventure I went on earlier in the week,  Something I didn’t talk about was a text I got from my wife the night before.  As background, I had been in a little bit of a hurry the morning before my adventure, packing up and generally getting ready to take off to where I would be staying overnight. In the process, I forgot to lock the front door to our house. I took the dogs with me, but failed to shut the dog door to our backyard as well.  My wife had a work event that evening, so she came home to a dark house, with two unlocked points of potential entry, and no dogs around to guard the place.  She was furious and sent me a text saying she would be spanking me as soon as I got home from my adventure.

 

 

Now, she and I look at these home security issues from very different perspectives.  She sees her reaction as a matter of carefulness and prudence.  I see her caution about personal security as borderline paranoia.  Yet, given that she is the one wielding the paddle in our relationship, and having a virtually unlimited charter to do so for whatever offenses she chooses, in the end her view is the only one that really matters.

True to her word, shortly after I got home, she took down my pants, took me over her knee, and gave me a long, hard spanking with her new favorite bath brush, after lecturing me about locking the door whenever I leave the house.

 

This was a concrete example of the difference between a rules-based approach to DD and a relationship-based approach.  We’ve never really had a rule about locking doors or home security.  So, it is not true that I consented in advance to that particular offense being “spankable.”  Rather, from the beginning I’ve been clear that from my perspective, she has the authority to use her judgment and to, in effect, create rules on the fly.

 

 

It also illustrates an area in which I disagreed a bit with something in this comment from Danielle:

 

In the case of my husband, the fantasy is more than a tool. I don’t think DD would work with him in the absence of the fantasy. He accepts discipline that is “completely genuine and real” because he has a craving for the fantasy to BE real. I see the kind of DD that Dan talks about as quite different. If a man asks his wife to spank him in order to reach behavioral objectives he sets for himself, he isn’t “submitting” to discipline the same way my husband does. It’s more like self-discipline with the help of his wife. It seems to me that Dan’s concept of DD shouldn’t be that embarrassing if properly understood. But maybe some people would have difficulty understanding why spanking, which seems inherently humiliating, would be the preferred form of discipline if there is no sexual thrill involved.

 

My quibble with the quote was only to the extent it implied that my interest in DD is only about my own self-improvement goals and remedying my self-identified failures.  Yes, it is about that, but from the beginning she’s had a much wider charter.  She just hasn’t really chosen to use it much before now.  From the very beginning, I saw DD as addressing some recurring issues with my behavior, but also about equalizing power balance by empowering her and disempowering me.  It’s true that the main driver for me at first was probably around the idea of being held accountable, with real punishment for real offenses.  But, I didn’t give a lot of thought to who defined the offenses and that I might be held accountable for an offense that I didn’t really agree merited punishment.  It wasn’t that I thought our arrangement wouldn’t include those kinds of ad hoc rules that she determined on her own. Rather, things just kind of moved in a direction in which the things that got punished were things we both had agreed were problems.

 

Yet, I wonder now whether the idea of being punished for things I did not see as problems or priorities was always part of the attraction.  Over the years, when I thought about the Disciplinary Wives Club and how it inspired me, I did tend to think about it in terms of rules and punishments and accountability, but no so much as about role definitions and gender-based power structures.  Yet, when I looked back at some of the stories on it a few weeks ago, a significant number of them do have a very FLR-like vibe.  In fact, the first two stories in the Fiction Stories section have some very FLR-heavy themes.  In those two related stories, the wife imposes the disciplinary relationship on her husband. His first spanking comes after his wife decides to spank him for leering at a friend’s legs.  He isn’t given any choice (or not much of one beyond passive submission to her decision) about accepting the new form of relationship; he doesn’t play any role in deciding whether his conduct was punishable, and it’s clear he won’t be given much of one in the future; and, part of her authority includes letting him be spanked by other women if she so chooses.  A few excerpts: 

[From “Pretty Legs I and II” stories]

“Lowering myself across my wife's lap is one of the most difficult things I have ever done, especially since I knew that this would be the first of many spankings and that as of that evening, our relationship would be completely changed.  After I was over her knee, she began:’As I said before, I shall discipline you whenever and however I choose; when decisions are to be made, discussion will be permitted, but once I say that the discussion is over, you will be very well advised not to try to continue it. Do you understand?’ I heard myself saying, ‘Yes, honey’ and was told that during my punishment sessions I was to address her as ‘Ma'am. ‘Yes, Ma’am' I said.”

[After his first spanking was over, his wife had a phone call with the friend he had leered at, who had been the one to recommend spanking for discipline]

“Oh, and in case you didn't hear my discussion with Glenda on the phone; when we go over there tomorrow evening for you to apologize, if she wishes to spank you too, you had better not object and embarrass me. As a DWC woman, and my friend, if she wants to punish you, she has my blessing.  On the way to the bedroom Becky said "I told you your life was going to change, and after tonight there are going to be a lot of changes. Honey, believe me this will be good for both of us and it will make our great relationship even stronger.”

 [As she is taking him to see the friend who he had leered at, a few days after his first spanking . . .]

We walked out to the car and Becky surprised me by walking to the driver's side. She waited with a frown on her face until it dawned on me that I had better open her door for her. Without a word, I went to the passenger's side. Becky smiled, ‘You learn very quickly, dear. From now on I shall do the driving and you will sit right where you are. I'm glad to see you are adjusting to seeing me as the boss, and as your disciplinarian. You do see it that way, don't you?’ Her clear blue eyes showed steely resolve. My mouth was dry as I replied ‘Yeah, Becky, you are the boss in our home.’ She chuckled, ‘And?' she asked. For an instant I did not know what she wanted, then I said, "And that is the way it should be." She raised an eyebrow, and I added, ‘And that is the way I want it.’ She put the car in gear as she said, ‘That's a good boy. When we get to Glenda's house she is going to punish you and I want you to cooperate well. Remember, whatever she decides to do, she has my blessing.’” 

Now, in real life, there are a lot of elements that, if conveyed by a new commenter here, would make me call “likely bullshit” on the story, including: (a) the wife initiating the DD relationship; (b) the wife moving quickly into the Head of Household status with little experience or learning process; and (c) the all-too-easy and cavalier bringing of others into the relationship.  Whenever a new commenter here starts telling tales that sound a lot like the above, my first reaction is there is a 99% chance they are full of shit.  But, like I said, on the DWC website the story is plainly labeled as fictional.  And, while I prefer other stories there like Even More, because I think they are more true to life, the fact is that many of the stories involve a bilateral process in which the husband is humbled and disempowered, while the woman discovers a previously unknown, or at least unrevealed, penchant for leadership.

 

The first night I told Anne about finding the DWC website, I specifically told her that I envisioned DD as a way of her gaining confidence and exploring her own power. Over the years, I think that did happen to a significant extent, but it’s really been only over the last year or so that it really seems to be taking on a life of its own.  Her punishing me last week for something that was an issue to her and not to me, is only one reflection of her moves in that direction, but it is a significant one and an instance of her really exploring her power and authority.

 

Have a great week.

 

The Club - Meeting 381 - Inevitability, Openness, Etc.

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." -- Lao Tzu

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couple’s 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 week.

 

Mine was an odd combination.  Grueling. Exhausting. Life affirming. Centering.  A little more on that later.

 

That was a great conversation last week.  I like it when our group gets into a genuine conversation and takes things in a lot of different directions.  Indeed, it’s kind of what I hoped for when I decided to try to become a little less topic focused.  The conversation just seems to work better when it’s more like riffing on a theme, just kind of throwing out some thoughts and seeing where it goes.

 

On the public aspect of punishment, Caged Lion noted that people are uncomfortable with just about any level of public punishment or even rebuke.

 

It's the act of disciplining someone. I think it is uncomfortable for people to witness scolding. No matter what your personal beliefs, watching punishment isn't necessarily comfortable for spectators. 

 

 

ZM didn’t disagree but he noted some of the benefits of public punishment, or at least public knowledge a punishment was or would be delivered.  He related this to school punishments, noting: ZM

 

Public punishment wasn't uncommon for much of recorded history, and at times it was even a source of morbid entertainment. Going back to the school punishments, I think that the whole system benefited from the discomfort that everyone felt when someone was sent to the office; even those who were amused were a little jarred by it knowing that it might be them next.

 

[As an aside, ZM and I both seem to be quite attracted to school punishments, even though (and perhaps because) we were more bystanders than participants.  Interestingly, I did get sent to the principals office a few times assuming that I would get paddled, only to go back to the classroom with an unspanked bottom. I guess I was good at talking my way out of consequences even back then.]

 

I agree that the openness of punishment growing up did seem to create a kind of collective deterrent effect in which the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. And, I can’t help but wonder whether we all are now are reaping what we’ve sown with our aversion to discipline in general and certainly to any kind of public shaming.  Fights breaking out on airplanes and in airports at unprecedent levels. Parents and patrons at stores feeling free to rip masks off the faces of teachers and employees.  Really unprecedented levels of public rudeness. I really do wonder how much of this can be traced back to a couple of generations in which unfettered freedom is emphasized over discipline and public decorum and where there is seldom any serious public shaming for bad behavior.

 

 

While I share the group’s ambivalence about openness and public shaming, it seems to be pretty hard to deny that it might be darned effective at actually changing behavior.  ZM noted how embarrassing it would be for acquaintances to know about our punishments:

 

For me the thought of guys knowing, especially friends, is generally harder than the thought of women knowing, but I am not sure exactly why that is. Also, it is interesting that in general I think it would be easier to tell guys that I was grounded (though she has never done that), and it would be easier to tell women that I was spanked. I am not sure why this is, and in fact only realized it as I was sitting here writing.

 

I think for me personally, it would be hard for both male and female friends to know about both spanking and grounding.  I suspect that knowing that Anne would, or even might, tell others about a particular punishment would give me a very big added incentive to behave. And, it wouldn’t even have to be people we were very close to.  

 

  

Al talked a bit this week about being spanked by others, and Tomy has talked a bit about times when Aunt Kay sent him to another woman to be spanked or other women sent their husbands to Aunt Kay for a session.  I admit that something about those stories turn me on, but they also really do scare the hell out of me. I think I would react to being sent to someone else to be spanked exactly the way I reacted when sent to the principals office, i.e. with a sense of dread that far outweighed the actual likely physical pain from the spanking.

 

For me, I think it’s not just the public nature of a spanking by someone else, or witnessed by someone else, that makes it particularly gut wrenching.  It’s also about inevitability.  That has always been a really big part of the mystique of corporal punishment for me.  If Anne sent me to be spanked by another woman (or man), I would know on the trip there that it was actually going to happen, period.  Something about that kind of inevitability – knowing that I can’t and won’t be able to avoid it -- causes a really powerful reaction in me.  Somehow, making it public that a spanking or grounding will happen makes it seem more inevitable, and making a past or current punishment public makes it seem, somehow, more real and—maybe surprisingly—less erotically motivated.

 

 

The power of inevitability hit me this week, in a context that had absolutely nothing to do with DD but perhaps did have a bit to do with self-discipline.  I took on a physical/athletic challenge that I knew was going to be hard, but in the end I discovered I had totally underestimated just how hard it would actually be.  There came a point where pulling out really wasn’t an option and even if there had been some way to quit, there was going to be a huge amount of effort and discomfort involved in getting back to where I started.  It was an odd feeling – wanting something to end so badly, yet having no way to avoid not just the current discomfort but a lot of discomfort to come. There was a point where it was really, really miserable.  Yet, I felt really odd when it was over.  On the one hand, there was some satisfaction in having gotten through it and in gutting it out, yet I also recognized that there had come that point at which I really made it through because there had been no other choice.  It wasn’t really pride or satisfaction but, rather, just a certain weird peace of mind in knowing that I got through something that had at some point become inevitable.  There was a strange sense of peace or freedom in being in a situation in which I had little control, particularly control when it came to quitting.

 

Right about the time I got through this ordeal, I found this meme that really sums up my ambivalence about motivation and extreme performance. I hope you find it as ironically amusing as I do.

 

 

I hope you have a good week.

The Club - Meeting 380 - Discretion, Openness, etc. and continued

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 Disciplinary Couple’s 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 week.

 

Mine was OK, if a little frustrating.  We had something go wrong at the house.  It wasn’t a huge catastrophe, but it required getting services from a few different vendors, and it all had to be coordinated.  I was really surprised, and more than a little pleased with myself, that it all seemed to come together miraculously, and suspiciously, easily. Then, it all kind of fell apart, with two of the initially responsive vendors more or less ghosting me for several days, which is kind of a common issue in our community.  It wasn’t a huge problem, but annoying nonetheless and frustrating to schedule around.  I guess I should have kept my expectations a little more reasonable.  

 

It also was a frustrating week on the health and fitness front. I talked last week about the behavioral fail that earned me a good, hard spanking (more on that in a bit).   

 

After that fail, I kind of got my shit together and had a really good week in terms of diet, working out and, at first, on weight loss.  I put in hard workouts every day, with the exception of one planned recovery day, and I stuck to my dietary plan pretty strictly.  I also added some additional cardio, even though I fucking hate cardio with a passion.  At first, it all seemed to be working. I got within striking distance of a soft weight loss goal I’ve had in mind for a while, and I was pretty excited about that. Then, all the progress just kind of stopped.  No matter how hard I worked out or how strict I was on the diet, I just couldn’t get the damn scale to move.  In fact, by the end of the week I was one pound heavier than the week before!  My reaction probably says something unflattering about my psychological makeup.  Instead of doubling down on the diet and exercise, I got pissed off and decided I was going to eat anything I fucking well pleased all weekend.  Not looking forward to getting on the scale tomorrow.

 

Speaking of that spanking after last week’s fail, it was one I was feeling for a good long time.  That surprised me a little, since it was an OTK spanking with a brush, even if it was a bath brush. I’m not exaggerating when I say I was still feeling very tender four days later, and I could still feel some of the deeper soreness after a full week.   

 

 

Glen asked how I rate the effectiveness of Anne’s brushes. There’s not a simple answer.  If used very vigorously, I think the hairbrush hurts at least as much as the bath brush in the moment, probably because the business end is smaller, so the impact is more concentrated.  But, the bath brush unquestionably resulted in longer lasting, deeper soreness.  By the end of the spanking, the bath brush was causing some numbing, but in fairness it was a longer spanking than she has given me with the hairbrush.  Finally, Anne has also mentioned how much she likes a very nasty, short leather DWC “paddle” with holes.  I hate the thing. It is far more wicked than it looks, and its end has a way of finding the inside of the crack between my cheeks resulting in a really unique and excruciating sting. While she hasn’t done so, it is short enough that I’m sure she could use it OTK.

 

Thanks for last week’s discussion on disrespect, fairness and openness.  One theme emerged that I’d like to follow up on a bit. 

 

On the issue of fairness, Spanked Cowboy noted:

 

“At the onset, during agreement drafting time, it was agreed that she would have uncontested control over discipline. When she determines discipline is warranted there is no debate.”

 

It sounds like many of us have more or less the same agreement or understanding, i.e. that the wives have the discretion to spank for anything they think merits it, yet it also seems to be the case that many of them struggle to use that discretion.  They do fine with concrete things like spanking for missed chores (see Caged Lion’s comment) or when there is something like a checklist involved (see ZM’s comments about their bootcamp check-ins with clearly defined targets.  But, they seem to struggle more on judgment calls like whether a particular instance of disrespect or attitude crosses a line.  

 

 

For the wives, I’m curious, do you agree that being a disciplinarian is easier if there is less discretion involved and the spankable offenses aren’t subject to your interpretation or judgment? Or, are you more comfortable with discretion and calling it like you see it?  

 

 

On the issue of openness, by coincidence, I read an article this week on Medium about going to a kink party and how freeing it was for the author.  She talked about how society’s aversion to things like public displays of affection allows others to set the bar on our personal choices around sexual freedom, or at least when and how we express it.  In discussing where one draws the line, she drew a distinction that I thought was kind of interesting, contrasting to teenagers she saw making out on a train with a guy staring at her while masturbating.  In her mind, the distinction hinged on the extent to which she was being brought into a sexually explicit scenario without her consent.  As she put it, with respect to the guy masturbating, it made her feel “like a pawn in someone else’s exhibitionist fantasy. I don’t want to be part of someone else’s sexual experience without being asked if I’m okay with it first.” But, with respect to the teenagers making out, “I did not feel implicit in their experience — I was just a bystander. I did not feel I was part of the sexual act, being brought in against my will.”  https://medium.com/monogamish/we-went-to-our-first-kinky-party-and-it-felt-like-freedom-d066e22f58c4. 

 

I wonder whether an overheard spanking, or one seen through an open window shade, could be seen the same way?  If your neighbor just happens to overhear a spanking, they be uncomfortable, but you didn’t try to bring them into the act in any way or make them take part in something. Rather, you just weren’t particularly worried about their wounded sensibilities if they happened to overhear.  On the other hand, if you gave a spanking in the woods on a busy trail hoping that someone else would come along and witness your kink . . . . That does feel more manipulative, more intrusive somehow.

 

I also really liked ZM’s observations regarding the connection between openness and ego: 

 

I think that openness ties in perfectly for dealing with disrespect which comes from excessive ego. If too much ego is the problem, then the cure would not just be a bruised bottom, but also a bruised ego. I am not talking about being brutally humiliated, but rather being taken down a peg or two. And while this can happen in private, it would be much more effective if accompanied by the embarrassment of others knowing that it was happening, especially in those cases where the victims of the disrespect are the ones who hear about the consequences. It would be very impactful if others knew that my wife punishes me for things between us, but I can’t even imagine what it would feel like if I was being my usual loud, cocky self and suddenly my wife announced to the very people I was showing off to that I am going to be spanked.

 

While I know I would be mortified were Anne to actually do something like that, ZM is undoubtedly right that my disrespect issues do result from an abundance of ego, and the most effective solution probably would be aimed directly at that ego; at, as he put it, taking me down a peg or two.  It’s a possibility that I think my subconscious clearly gravitates to and is repulsed by. As I’ve discussed here before, I haven’t had spanking dreams very often, but when I have they have tended to involve things like being taken out of a social or work event, with everyone knowing I am to be spanked.  Or, my mother pulling over a car to the side of the road to spank me, where anyone driving by could see.  Whether anything like that will ever happen, I don’t know. But, it’s certainly food for Anne to think about.

 

As you may have noticed, I didn’t really assign a topic to any of the above.  I’ve obviously been struggling to come up with topics lately.  But, during those periods when I’m not feeling inspired by anything in particular, there often still are thing going on that I might feel like relating to others or mulling around collectively.  So, I may try free-forming it for a while and see where it leads. . .

 

Have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 379 - Disrespect, Unfair Punishments & Openness

“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 Couple’s 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 week.

 

As some of you may have intuited based on my relative lack of engagement with the blog, we’ve had a busy summer.  Unfortunately, for Anne the summer is more or less over, while I have far less structured demands on my time these days. I can’t say I’ve accomplished much with that additional free time, though that was kind of the point all along.  I’ve spent a fair amount of time puttering around playing on or with motorcycles, which remain my go-to distraction this summer, even if Sturgis is something I will have to table for yet another year.

 

 

I’ve also become fascinated with the idea of #van-life and customer camper vans.  I’ve spent hundreds of hours at this point researching vans, watching Youtube videos on vanlife, and generally fantasizing about owning such a $100k - $200k toy.  Thankfully for my bank account balance, the things are so damn popular right now, there is very little available inventory.  I’m finding all sorts of my more expensive toy fantasies are getting stymied these days by lack of supply.  I came back from a recent motorcycle event with a lengthy list of modifications I wanted to do on one of my motorcycles, only to find that virtually every part and piece of gear I wanted to buy was out of stock.  While inflation theoretically may be surging, I wonder how much impact it’s having on most families’ finances, given that while lots of things may be more expensive, they’re also mostly unavailable, so who cares what they cost? 

 

Given the state of things out there in the wider world, I’m glad I’ve had individualized distractions like motorcycles and road trips that have kept me away from the news to some extent.  So far, 2021 is giving 2020 a run for its money.

 

While I was distracted, you guys managed to keep a good conversation while I was out playing, particularly on the subject of openness.  As often seems to be the case, ZM did a good job of reflecting my own views and drives:

I have such torn feelings on the whole openness thing. On the one hand, I wish that spanking could just be a little more matter of fact, kind of like it was in the home and back in school, rather than having to be hidden. I guess I somewhat feel morbidly fascinated with the accompanying embarrassment that came with the very open discipline that was prevalent during my childhood.

 

I share some of that same morbid fascination. One reason trips to the principal’s office carried such emotional power, and why the memory does so today, is you knew what was going to happen when you got there . . . and so did everyone else!  If anything, the walk back from that office was worse than the walk to it, because on the return trip everyone knew what had happened to you, and you had to face their knowing stares.  Those teachers and principals back then knew how to concoct punishments that really stuck, didn’t they?

 

Danielle also had some great observations, including about why, even though for some us making the FLR or DD relationship more public is kind of a lurid fantasy, in reality it may make the relationship dynamic more real and less like an erotic game:

 

I think if our FLR was a totally secret thing we only did when we were alone, it would feel like an erotic game. Putting the power dynamic on display somehow takes it out of the bedroom and makes it feel more real. I love, for example, that when we have guests over for dinner, my husband is the one in the kitchen wearing an apron. If that aspect of our FLR was only practiced when we were alone, I would still benefit, but I would feel as though I wasn't really the head of the household. If it is real, it shouldn't have to be entirely hidden, should it? I guess the same thing applies to spanking. Disciplinary authority feels more real if it can be put on display.

 

Alan also emphasized how publicizing the husband’s status really brings home the reality of the whole thing:

 

Having a third party (first my former girlfriend’s best friend and later my wife’s sister) experience a spanking was like a quiet announcement to the world that I was under female authority and subject to discipline and that I accepted it. That moved DD from private where I could rationalize it was a form of kinky play to quasi-public where its reality was unavoidable and undeniable. So it altered my own self-perception from someone who could mark it all up to serious kinky play to a spanked boyfriend and later husband who was very much under female control. All of this was very healthy and brought me much closer to the core of who I am.

 

His comment about being brought closer to the core of who he really is resonated with me, though in my case it’s not a simple matter of bringing out who I really am, and I’m not sure whether there is a "real me" whose coming forth would be a good thing. . I’ll provide a little background so you can understand what I’m getting at.  It’s been a while since I wrote one of these weekly posts while sitting on a sore, swollen bottom, but that is the state of things today.  Anne recently bought a new bath brush, and this was the first time ever that she has bought something specifically with spanking in mind.  That seems like a big new step in her level of proactive interest in this thing we do, and it kind of is.  But, the reason for her employing it last night wasn’t new.  It was, as has often been the case, me over-indulging on alcohol after a party.  (Though, overall, my alchohol consumption has been way, way down over the last few months.)  What is just as telling as her buying her first implement on her own is what she didn’t use it for.  Again, some background.

 

 

Anne and I went on a road trip together recently.  Now, although I like travel, I will admit I am not the world’s most happy traveler, and my track record on road trips is kind of bad.  After a few days of long drives and poor hotel sleep, I can get pretty grumpy, and that happened a few times on our trip.  There was one point where I directed some of that ill-temper at her, and she basically said that I was lucky she didn’t have her new brush with her on the trip, because if she had she would have used it on me right then and there.  But, nothing prevented her from giving me a thorough butt blistering for disrespect when we got home.  Yet, she didn't. Instead, a week went by and then she gave me one for drinking too much -- in the evening ,at home, by myself.  And, sort of for disobedience because at one point she told me I should go to bed soon, and after she went herself, I ignored the instruction and stayed up late. But, it was really the over-indulging that led to me draping myself over her knees for a very long and hard spanking. 

 

Although I am glad she took me in hand, I see a potential problem in how things played out with respect to two separate events, either one of which could have led to a spanking but only one did.  When I say that I’m not sure that me getting closer to the core of who I am would be a good thing, I’m referring to the fact that part of who I am is someone who arrogantly loses his temper and directs that anger at others.  My temperament seems to be very close to our regular commenter, Arthur, who is spanked prophylactically once a week to keep his temper under control.  I have some of those same tendencies toward arrogance, sarcasm and aggression that Arthur and Liz have described here, and those tendencies can manifest in shows of disrespect to Anne.  We’ve talked about how it isn’t acceptable, and it really shouldn’t be. Yet, it has been very rare that she’s taken the logical step and spanked me for it.  Her seeming reluctance to spank me for disrespect while doing so for drinking seems backwards -- the former goes unpunished even though she is too often the subject of the bad behavior, while the latter frequently earns a spanking even though me staying up late and feeling like crap the next day really has very little direct impact on her.

 

 

We talked about it a little last night, and I told her that I thought it was a problem that we keep talking 

about her spanking more for disrespect, but it never really seems to happen.  She recognizes the problem, and she says that sometimes she just can’t decide whether a given instance of snark or attitude really rises to the level of deserving a spanking.  We talked about the fact that it really shouldn’t matter whether I think it’s “fair” in a given instance.  If it was enough to make her feel mad or hurt, then she should spank first and talk about fairness later, if at all. As we’ve talked about before, for me there is something stirring about her deciding whether any specific spanking is fair, me having nothing to say about, and if she gets it “wrong,” well, too bad for my ass.

 

For me, this also kind of gets wrapped up in the talk about openness.  I really don’t know whether I act disrespectfully because that’s who I really am, or is that aggressive personality something overlays something deeper and more genuine.  If she really decided to get to the root of the problem through some combination of very consistent discipline, along with more open shows of authority that emphasized my place in the pecking order, would that chip away at some of the haughtiness and allow more humility to come to the surface?  I feel like there is a lot of truth for me in the combination of Alan and ZM’s comments, i.e. and that being more openly subject to her authority and discipline would be humbling in a way that would be both morbidly fascinating and also really a genuine and positive growth experience. And, as Danielle said, it certainly would make the dynamic seem more real if she were more open about it.

 

There may or may not be an actual topic in any of the above, but feel free to weigh in on anything that resonates with you about thinks like disrespect, “unfair” discipline, open shows of authority, road trips or camper vans. 

 

I hope you have a great week.

Sorry, but . . .

I warned you that my posting schedule might get looser than usual over the summer.  That's obviously turned out to be the case.  Anne and I got back safely from our little mini-vacation, but I now have some other things I'm trying to get done as the summer winds down, so I probably won't get to a post this week either.  There also hasn't been any DD action for us in several weeks, so I don't have much to report on and it hasn't been on my mind that much lately.  So, sorry for the long-ish summer pause.  I guess I should enjoy it now, since who knows what the fall is going to look like with respect to our ability to socialize and congregate, though I can't keep from seeing the whole thing as Darwin at work.

The summer really is winding down, isn't it?  We were in a mountainous area for our vacation, and I thought I detected hints of fall in the air. Then, when walking the dogs this morning I saw groups of kids plodding along to what must be their first day of school for the fall semester.  I distinctly remember that when I was growing up, summer vacation included the month of August.  Not anymore.  

Have a good week.  I will consider posting later this week if anything worth posting arises.

Out This Week

Happy Sunday to you all.  Anne and I are going to be on the road this week, and I won't have time to post. So, have a great week.