Out This Week

 Hi all. I hope you had a great weekend.  We're going to be out for several days this week. If I post at all, it will be late in the week.  

There was a discussion developing in this week's post regarding corner time.  Feel free to continue to explore that topic if you like. Otherwise, we'll talk next week.

The Club - Meeting 405 - Small Things, Lapses of Attention and Judgment

You learn a lot more from the lows because it makes you pay attention to what you're doing.” – John Elway

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.

 

I hope you had a great week.  Mine was pretty laid back, which was kind of what I needed after the preceding week’s adventures.  That week’s adventures were on my mind a lot, however.  Here’s why in a nutshell, as it was the impetus for this week’s topic.

 

It was a fun time, and it really was an adventure.  Like most adventures, it required quite a bit of preparation, including specialized equipment. I’d been on a somewhat similar excursion before and had some of the necessary equipment already.  But, I hadn’t done much recent maintenance on it and didn’t check it until a few days before the trip. As it turned out, some of it was worn and really should have been replaced.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get that done in time and decided to risk it.

 

While it was a genuine oversight, it was sloppy. It also wasn’t really excusable, as I’d booked the excursion months in advance and had plenty of time to prepare.  Worse, the group running the show sent out an extensive memo a couple of weeks before the trip, and it covered most of the needed preparations. Anne read it promptly and even asked the status of some of the things I needed to do.  I dawdled and let some of the prep time run out. 

 

In addition to not maintaining or replacing some key equipment, I neglected to bring some helpful gear with me.  I had put together a checklist, yet somehow I still managed to forget to pack some of it.  None of it was strictly necessary, but it definitely would have been helpful to have it.

 

While no catastrophe ensued because of any of these oversights, the failure to maintain or replace some gear did create some problems for me and also put one of the group’s coordinators to some extra work helping me remediate one of the deficiencies. 

 

Unfortunately, if I’m being honest, my sloppiness was probably par for the course.  I have a tendency to wing it, and I’ve never been very detail oriented. Anne even asked me recently how I can be so lackadaisical when my career actually required a lot of attention to detail. The simple answer is I had really good, detail-oriented people under me and around me.

 

Unlike many other times when my lack of preparation and planning has created problems, this time I really did get angry with myself.  In the past, I could excuse it to some extent on the basis that I was crushingly busy and couldn’t always stay on top of everything. Truth be told, however, that level of busyness was a reason to get more organized and systematic, not a good excuse for being less so.

 

When we first began experimenting with domestic discipline, our focus was on reducing “big ticket” bad behavior.  Like drinking too much or too often.  Disrespect.  Temper tantrums.  Although our general rule, from the beginning, was that she could spank for any reason, in reality, most of the focus has always been on (a) reducing or eliminating (b) bad habits and problematic behavior. There has never been much emphasis on (a) developing or fostering (b) good habits and productive behavior.

 

It's not like there has been no attention on “small” things like being more focused and attentive, but it’s been sporadic.  A few months ago, I posted about Anne getting mad about me failing to lock doors in the house before bed or before going out.  It’s not that I don’t recognize that it would be desirable to lock doors at night, even if I’m not quite as paranoid about it as she is.  But, given how many times it happened, it plainly was something I just wasn’t paying much attention to.

 

And, it’s not like I don’t see a value in being more focused, attentive and systematic in my approach to day-to-day stuff.  I definitely recognize that my tendency to wing it has cost me and others time and, in some cases, caused a fair amount of stress when things went wrong and might not have had I been paying more attention.  In fact, I suspect that one reason I got so interested in the whole Nexium “sex cult that preached empowerment” thing is because it seemed to focus on helping people create sufficient leverage—in the form of negative consequences—to develop better habits, work harder, hit performance goals, etc.

 

It's not hard to envision all sorts of “small” lapses in attention or failures to focus that can cause problems big and small:

 

• forgetting to pay a bill on time, thereby incurring a late fee or taking a hit to your credit score
• failing to balance your checking account 
• forgetting some minor commitment at work that made things harder for your boss or a co-worker 
• forgetting to lock the doors on your car, allowing someone to get in and take something 
• failing to get recalls on your car addressed, creating a potential safety hazard 
• forgetting to take full garbage cans to the curb on pickup day 
• didn’t adequately prepare for a presentation at work, causing some small but real hit to your reputation

 

It really could be anything.

 

How about you?  Are there things you know you don’t pay enough attention to?  Things you fail to prepare for adequately?  Maintenance and repairs that should be addressed but aren’t?  Other lapses in attention, diligence or care?

 

 

Are there things like that you get spanked for? Are there  things like that you aren’t spanked for but know you should be? Are there things like that you genuinely wish she would spank you for, because it would elevate your performance or save you or others from unnecessary work or stress?  Tell us all about it.

The Club - Meeting 406 - Post-Orgasm Spankings

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman is as bad as she dares. ~ Elbert Hubbard

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.

 

I hope you all had a great week.  Mine was exhilarating, frustrating, exciting, exhausting -- pretty much everything you want from an adventurous vacation.  I came back with a slight injury and a sunburn, but otherwise no worse for the wear.

I know many of you tried to keep the comments going but many were diverted to spam.  I’m sorry about that.  Unfortunately, most of the days I was out adventuring I was either off-grid or otherwise occupied.  Although I did have my phone with me, I think it is literally the first time in a couple of decades that I haven’t ventured onto a desktop computer, laptop or tablet for an entire week.

 

A couple of weeks ago, K and Alan had a series of exchanges focusing on post-orgasm spankings, also sometimes referred to as “milking.”  Here is a slightly condensed version of their comments:

 

K: J always has me climax before (rare) punishments and sometimes, but not always, before (more common) discipline/correction spankings (depending on how severe she wants to make the experience).

 

I absolutely hate it; It takes me completely out of the frame of mind where it's exciting and sexy, and the contrast between the "afterglow" feeling and the pain of the spanking is very stark. It's, I must admit, a very effective for her to make the spanking a real disciplinary event that I would NOT sign up for voluntarily.

 

But, interestingly, my MEMORY of those spankings are much more complex. I remember that my wife spanked me in a no-nonsense, definitely punitive way, and I find that to be a very erotic thing. So while it's not sexual in the moment at all, it reinforces something I find very erotic and and exciting.

 

I'm not RECOMMENDING it, but it does work for us in a way that's hard to explain.

 

Does that make sense?

 

I should also add: J isn't trying to make me miserable, quite the contrary, we want to make each other happy. But she feels that if she's going to discipline/punish me for something, it needs to be "real" and not something that I get pleasure or mixed signals from. And I have to agree, even if I hate it when she carries it out.

 

 

Alan: K WRITES: “But she feels that if she's going to discipline/punish me for something, it needs to be "real" and not something that I get pleasure or mixed signals from.”

 

It is hard to disagree with her feeling about the “realness” of punishment. Making a man “cum” before punishment leaves no doubt that it is real. But I look at post orgasm spankings as the “nuclear option” to be used when all else fails, but not every time. I have experienced post orgasm punishment a handful of times and I do know how powerful they can be.

 

But for us, my wife can make a punishment spanking very real without making me cum before while holding the post orgasm out as an implicit threat if she feels it is needed.

 

I am not criticizing your wife or any other couples who use post-orgasm spankings routinely. And apparently some couples do use them regularly. Every couple has to learn what works for them, and I have heard the argument that spanking a male after orgasm often produces a shorter spanking and leaves less damage to the bum despite the pain. So it is actually more “merciful.”

 

Those arguments may well be correct and I have been convinced that administering post-orgasm must be in a disciplinary wife’s arsenal. But I do think it’s better to use it sparingly because removing the erotic charge (for us anyway) reduces that strong emotional bonding post-spanking can that makes DD so powerful

 

BTW, the last time I addressed this topic a female commenter said I was ‘nuts” if I thought I should be immune to spanking if I had cum. I am not saying that at all. I am just saying that a very real spanking can be administered to a guy without making him cum before. And doing that keeps the threat of a post orgasm spanking a line he doesn’t want to cross.

 

 

Alan (responding to my comment that we have not done post-orgasm spankings and I kind of hope it stays that way): I agree with your sentiments with the caveat that if wife or girlfriend determines she wants it available, then it becomes a problem to make it a hard limit and still maintain a full D\D or FLR relationship. I don't believe it is necessary but both women I have had a disciplinary relationship have bristled at the notion their authority was limited as far as using it. I think you have been fortunate that Anne hasn't used it and frankly I think I have been lucky that both women in my life used it very infrequently and mainly to make a point. However as K and several others report it MAY not be uncommon in female led DD relationships.

 

Personally I would like to see a fuller discussion of the practice: how many use it, how often, with what results, for what issues etc.

 

 

So, let’s give Alan that fuller discussion.  It’s not a discussion I can contribute much to, at least not based on any actual experience.  It is an activity we have not engaged in (yet), and I am pretty glad about that.  I do recognize, however, that this might be one of those things where the rubber really meets the road regarding behavior correction. I have no doubt that being completely relieved of the erotic or sexual tension and energy that may be bound up in the desire for DD leaves only pure punishment, and I can see it being option for very serious offenses if “lighter” forms of punishment haven’t worked. 

 

Also, it's just the nature of an orgasm to leave you feeling lazy and content -- about the last thing you would want after that is a long, hard spanking.  Of course, that is kind of the whole point of doing it that way.  I sometimes wonder whether removing all that energy would make it easier for me to get to real tears, but I kind of doubt it.  The two don’t seem connected, but I could be wrong. 

 

So, please let us know what your experiences have been, if any, with post-orgasm spankings.

The Club - Meeting 405 - Wanting It . . . Sort of.

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.

 

I'm headed off on a small adventure over the next week, with some of it off-grid and all of it with other people around all the time. So, I won't be posting or commenting much.  I had planned to just say I was taking the week off, but TG posted a comment on last week's topic that will serve well as the topic for this week.

"If this is an inappropriate post, please remove it. It has nothing to do with the current conversation but is more a suggestion for a future topic. I guess it could be summarized as “I know myself but I don’t understand myself.” I’d be interested to know if others have similar thoughts. First, some context: we’ve been in this DD lifestyle a long time - twenty years plus - and if I’m honest, I don’t receive discipline as often as I feel I should. Firstly I don’t understand craving that, as it is genuinely a painful experience. Certainly there is the element of washing away any feelings of guilt over whatever it was that I did, plus making her feel better by getting the anger out of her system, but that doesn’t explain it all. Anyway, a few weeks ago she told me to come to the room she was in and bring the cane, I had no idea why but did as I was told. Turned out yet there was a fairly small thing that I had been reminded to do many times and had forgotten once too often, and this time was caned for it. Of course (1) I was happy to take the punishment and (2) it was very painful and certainly not in any way pleasant at the time."

 

 

"So here’s my confusion, firstly let me say that I would never intentionally do anything that would get me disciplined - I think that would come under the heading of disappointing her to a much greater extent and would be out of the question for me. However I have not repeated this small transgression a single time in the last few weeks, even though I have had plenty of opportunities to do so and it wouldn’t look deliberate if I did. So the punishment really worked. I can’t reconcile my craving for discipline with the pain of actually getting it with my absolute reluctance deliberately to do even a small thing to earn it. Is this just me being even more weird than others, or do others have similar confusions ? TG"

 

I look forward to reading your responses but perhaps not until I get back.  I hope you all have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 404 - Origins

"If you don't ask, the answer is always no." -- Nora Roberts

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.

 

I hope you all had a great week.  Mine was pretty good, though when I said last week that I felt like I was turning a corner where some disappointing behavior was concerned, it proved to be a little too optimistic.  I got one spanking a few days ago and earned another yesterday.

 

 

I did manage to be fairly productive last week, at least by my standards.  Unfortunately, a few days of devoting myself to a home improvement project put me behind on getting out a blog post.  I did still want to get one out this week, though I’m cheating a little to make it happen.  The below is taken more or less verbatim from a post from about three years ago.  It’s on origins.  Although we do those fairly frequently, we have a few new commenters and this may be a way to get to know them better.  Hopefully the topic won’t strike longer-term commenters as too repetitive.

 

I always enjoy hearing how others got into this thing we do, because I still maintain that it is not a very common lifestyle and getting into it displays the kind of openness, courage, and mutual support that couples should be proud to share, encouraging others to ask for what they want and to be open to giving it even if it seems a little weird at first.

 

Let’s get right to the questions for the groups.

 

 

For the husbands who initiated DD:

 

• How exactly did you approach your wife/partner?

• What did you say?

• How did you work up the courage? How long did it take you?

• And what was her initial reaction? Did it change over time?

• After the initial conversation, how long was it until your first real spanking? Was it all you expected it to be?

 

    For the wives:

 

• Who initiated the DD relationship, you or him?

• If he approached you with the idea, what was your reaction?  If you initiated, how did he react?

• How long was it between your initial conversation and his first spanking?

• What was that first spanking like? How did you feel?

 

 I am not going to go into my own origin story in detail, as I’ve told it here repeatedly, but here are my responses to the specific questions.

 

Here are my responses:

 

How did I approach her?  I did it after I found the DWC website and spent a weekend devouring it.  We were in bed, with the lights off, and I told her in general terms what the website was about.  I'm not sure I could have done it any other way, except maybe by email, because I was so embarrassed by the whole thing.

 

What exactly did I say?  A lot.  Much of it centered on how this was not kink, or not just kink but, rather, about giving her real power to dole out real punishment for real offenses.  I also told her that the spankings were so real that the expectation was the husband would end up crying. That one turned out to be more fantasy than reality, but I do remember making that point to her, because I was trying to show that I was not suggesting a continuation of the short stint of erotic play-acting that we had tried in the past and that she felt was actually encouraging bad behavior.

 

How did I work up the courage?  Well, I really felt like I didn't have much choice.  After I read the stories and other content on the DWC website, I was so overwhelmed by the whole thing that I couldn't think of anything else.  It was front and center in my mind all day and all night.  I  really couldn't NOT tell her about it.  It was truly an obsessive kind of thing, and as far as I can recall, the first time I had experienced anything like that.  I was aroused and scared at the same time.  And, to be clear, not scared that she wouldn't do it.  Scared that she would.  Yet, here I was asking for it.  It was all very paradoxical and perplexing, but the whole idea of it resonated so strongly for me that I had no real choice but to at least tell her about it and let the chips fall where they may.

 

How long did it take before the first spanking? I think it was only one day.  Definitely no more than two.

 

What was her initial reaction?  She didn't say very much the night I raised the subject with her.  She listened without saying very much. When I was through talking, she said she would check out the DWC website, and that was about it.  I would characterize her attitude as puzzled, curious, and noncommittal.   I recall going to sleep even more wired and on edge, because I had no idea what to expect.  Honestly, I thought the most likely scenario was she wouldn't follow up at all, or she would reject the idea as just more erotic spanking with the potential to encourage even more bad behavior.  However, she called me at work the next day. (She said she had looked at the website.  Her only initial comment was, "Very interesting."  She then said that if I was serious about it, I should go shopping for an appropriate hairbrush.

 

 

How long until the first spanking?   She gave me my first spanking that same night. 

 

Was it all that I expected?  In a word, no.  We had so little experience with this, I don’t think either of us had any understanding of how hard is hard. It took more experimentation with serious tools, including a wooden "fraternity"-style paddle, before it became very real.  I still recall the first time it really hit home that I might have asked for more than I had bargained for. We had instituted a system of assigning points to each type of offense, with each point representing one swat with the paddle.  While my spankings up to that point had averaged between 10 - 25 swats, I had an exceptionally bad week, and I gulped when I realized it added up to 60.  She had never given me anything close to that before. I said something about not being sure I could take that many, and without skipping a beat she told me that I was going to take that many and that if I hadn't wanted that many then I should have behaved better. 

 

So, tell us all about your own origin story.

 

I hope you all have a great week.

 

 

The Club - Meeting 403 - Anticipation

Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.” -- Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.

 

I hope you all had a great week.  Mine was pretty good.  Nothing major on the disciplinary or “real life” front.  I do feel like I may have at least started to turn a corner on a period of some disappointing behavior.  As usual, it seems like I have to make serious effort on every front in order to stay in line on any front.  After drifting on several fronts, last week I seemed to finally get dedicated to getting my shit together on several things at once, including alcohol, exercise and diet.  I had let the diet really slip, but I feel like I’m finally getting back on track where health and fitness are concerned.  That’s good, because at my age things can go downhill fast.

 

 

We had a good discussion last week, I think.  It was all about the participation level, not the number of viewers.  Participation was up, even though the number of daily views has stayed static or fallen.  I’m very OK with that.  It’s the number of participants that determines the quality of the conversation, not the number of viewers.

 

A hearty welcome back to both Alan and al.  One of al’s comments was the source of inspiration for this week’s post.  He discussed an incident in which his wife took her mom shopping but came back to take care of some business:

 

“Before she left I had done something to earn a spanking but the kids were still there, so she told me that would be back later after they left to take care of that. Well, a couple of hours later, I saw her car pull up, and her Mom in the car with her. I watched as she got out of the car, leaving the car running and her Mom in the car. She walked in the front door, ordered me to the bedroom and paddled me as her Mom waited in the car. My wife usually spanks briskly so she delivered the usual hundred in short order, and left me sniffling on the bed as she rejoined her Mom and left again. Later, she told me that she had told her Mom she had to stop by to go over a few things with me before I left for the afternoon - and that she would only be a couple of minutes.

 

Even though Mom apparently never left the car, I think I would have found it terrifying to get spanked knowing that my wife’s mother, or mine, was sitting in the car outside and could come wandering in at any time.

 

 

It also raised the issue of “anticipation” in two different respects. First, there was the anticipation following his wife’s declaration that he had earned a spanking and his wife would be back later to take care of it.  Second was the anticipation when she arrived back at the house unexpectedly to take care of it.

 

We’ve covered this topic several times before, but al’s comment put me in the mood to hit it again.

 

I go back and forth about the ideal role of anticipation.  On one hand, I do believe that immediate consequences are best when it comes to modifying behavior. 

 

Yet, I also believe there is value in giving us time to think about what we’ve done and really mull over the upcoming consequence.

 

I’m struck by the way the two time periods in al’s comment are somewhat similar to those in one of my favorite stories on the DWC website, Even More, which I understand al. wrote.  In that story, a husband rants to his wife on the phone about something, she gets fed up and tells him he is going to get spanked when she gets home from work that day.  Later that afternoon, she calls to tell him she is on the way and he needs to be ready for his spanking when she gets home.

 

For me, those two pronouncements reflect just the right amount of anticipation.  She orders a spanking that will happen that same day, reinforces it with a call shortly before it is to take place, and in between the two announcements are several hours for him to worry about what is going to happen to his behind when she arrives home.

 

The trade-off with anticipation is, of course, the immediacy of correcting something right after it happens. Yet, even then there is a short and probably intense period of anticipation, which I assume al. experienced when his wife pulled into the driveway unexpectedly and announced he was going to get it.

 

 

The anticipation of school spankings was also brief but intense.  While it wasn’t long, there was usually some substantial number of minutes between sentence and execution; plenty of time to worry about what was to come.

 

 

While I can think of dozens of instances of feeling butterflies in my stomach about an anticipated spanking, one that always comes to mind is when, early on in our DD experimentation, my wife ordered me to drive home for a spanking.  I swear, that was the longest 20-minute drive of my entire life.  I think I would have a similar reaction if she were to text or call to say she would be home in a few minutes to deliver a promised spanking. I can’t think of an example of that actually happening, and I think I would remember it.  Though, I’m prone to more “senior moments” these days, so perhaps it did happen once or twice that I don’t recall.

 

There also are a couple of forms of anticipation that do not work for me but might for others.  First, if a spanking is ordered but doesn’t happen for several days, by the time it actually does occur, it has lost most of its emotional force.  Accountability and penance are big parts of the driver of my need for discipline, and after a few days the connection between the crime and the punishment has weakened to the point that it loses most of its emotional and corrective force.

 

 

Second, there have been a few times when she has sent me up to the room to await a spanking then she’s taken a very long time to come up and take care of it.  For some reason, that form of anticipation has no positive impact.  Kind of the reverse. I get annoyed, which is basically the opposite of being humbled into submission. Somewhat similarly, corner time does nothing for me, before or after a spanking.  I’ve meditated for many years, and as soon as I go into the corner, my mind slips right into a meditative state and I feel more or less nothing.

 

 What is the ideal amount of anticipation for you? Does something like al’s example or the Even More story, in which there is a few hours of steady anticipation then a shorter period in which you’ve been told it is about to happen, change the emotional impact?

 

One thing I’m not sure we’ve ever really discussed is the effect of anticipation on the wives.  How long is their ideal?  If they were irritated or angered by the offense that earned the spanking, does that diminish or build as the duration of the anticipation increases?  

 

It would be great if people share their own best example of anticipation, whether when it really worked to amplify the experience, or when it didn't. How long did it last?  What did it do to you mentally and emotionally?  What state did it put you in?  Scared? Exited?  Contrite?  Annoyed? Do you have any particularly strong memories of anticipating a particular punishment?

 

I would also love to hear from the Disciplinary Wives on this one. What state does anticipating giving a spanking put you in?  Powerful?  Annoyed?  Turned on? All of the above?

 

Have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 402 - Embarrassment, Authority & Bitchiness

"I'm tough, I'm ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay." ―Madonna

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.

I hope you all had a good week.  

The discussion on the blog perked up a little.  I’m sure part of the reason that participation dropped in the first place was a lack of diligence on my part in posting regularly.  I recognize, by the way, the irony of griping from time to time about the ill effects of a lack of consistency in the application of discipline to our naughty bottoms, while not taking care to avoid the ill effects of inconsistency while trying to maintain participation here.  I’ll try to do better in the future. 

There was some good stuff in the comments last week.  Here are a few excerpts that seemed worthy of following up on.

MW: “Combining today’s topics, I wonder if a small real world community could be the next step for the blog, if there were a way to safely do it. I read somewhere that the DWC community would require a simple phone call to weed out problematic members. Just a thought.”

worth thinking about and, rest assured, I have thought about it.  I need to think through what that might look like, and I’m happy to do so. Also happy to take suggestions, either here in the comments or by email.

Several other commenters talked about their experiences or fantasies with various “openness” scenarios my post had asked about.

Alan: “Imagine a world where husband discipline was both common and open enough to allow that sort of sharing among wives. It is a 10 on my fantasy meter although in practice I would probably dread it. Consider what leverage a wife would have just threatening her husband to send him to X, known perhaps as an especially strict disciplinarian or just for the embarrassment of reporting to another women for discipline. 

It might be fun as an experience once or twice but beyond that I think it would turn the average DD husband into an angel to avoid it happening.

 Or imagine what Tomy must have felt when the husband of the woman who was going to spank him answered the door when he arrived (I believe he related an experience similar to this.) Just the trust and communication that would be necessary among couples to make this work is fascinating.”

 

ZM: “On the other hand, I was talking with my wife last night about how it was when we were kids - albeit from different cultures. At home, spankings were generally administered privately, but often others heard the spanking taking place. Plus there was the whole being taken out of the room and then the embarrassment of coming back into the room. And sometimes spankings in homes did happen in front of others, though rarely. But either way, we generally knew when our friends (and even more so those we didn’t like) were spanked, because people talked.”

T: “Although, she has a childhood friend that she talks to, who lives across the country, I overheard a conversation one day, and her friend was complaining about her husband, my wife’s response was, no way T would have done that. I would have beat his ass.”

There were a few things that struck me about these and other examples people provided.

First, each of these three excerpts got a reaction from me.  Butterfly feelings in my loins and/or gut.  A common theme uniting them all is embarrassment.  I have a similar feeling reaction to Alan’s reference to Tomy being greeted at the door by the husband of the woman who is going to spank him, to ZM’s observance about the embarrassment of coming back into the classroom after being spanked in the principal’s office, and to T’s overhearing his wife tell a friend about how she would have beat his ass had he misbehaved in the same way his friend did.

Second, I don’t seem to get that same reaction when it comes to discussions of group spankings.  There has to be some actual authority being exercised over the husband for the scene to give me any real emotional reaction.

Third, I seem not to be the only one for whom being subject to someone’s authority is more threatening to the ego than simply being spanked in front of witnesses.  Or, perhaps the issue is that some of the wives find it easier to spank in front of someone than to exercise verbal authority publicly. I noticed that multiple people had attended spanking parties or been involved in some kind of group spanking activity, yet those same people had not been subject to some overt show of authority.

 

For me, I think these two aspects of DD and FLR relationships—authority and embarrassment—are intimately connected.  While I don’t like seeing other people embarrassed, part of me clearly gravitates toward the prospect of being embarrassed by my wife showing authority over me. As I said to ZM in a comment, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of the few spanking dreams I have involve spankings that are about to be carried out in situations in which others know it is about to happen or involve others finding out that I’m a spanked husband.

Relatedly, while last week’s topic centered on various scenarios regarding “openness,” I think the reason I am attracted to openness is not so much a desire to communicate about DD but, rather, something more along the lines of this other excerpt from ZM’s comment:

“But either way, whether given publicly or privately, the one common factor in school spankings in both countries is EVERYONE knew about them, and there was enormous embarrassment and teasing (sometimes met with some arrogant pride) for the unfortunate recipient.

I think this is what I really want and crave, though can of course never fully experience. I want spanking to be common and acceptable enough, at least within a small, selected group of people - or even one person - around me, that when a spanking occurs, it can be openly talked about and laughed about, with all the surrounding feelings, embarrassment, shame, and teasing. But on a wider scale, I kind of want DD to remain a shared naughty secret.”

 

For me, I think the prospect of “openness” does cause embarrassment, but for the embarrassment to have that perverse attraction ZM is getting at, it has to be in the context of some kind of show of authority.  A group spanking scenario seems more like playacting or like a BDSM scene. For me, the embarrassment around the prospect of “openness” comes from someone exercising their authority over me, or someone witnessing or knowing about that imposition of authority, not from the spanking itself.  (I’m speaking theoretically, since I haven’t been spanked in front of anyone else.)  

Further, someone else knowing about it doesn’t have the emotional force if I’m the one doing the disclosing.  T’s scenario, on the other hand, does have some emotional force for me, even though it didn’t involve any real spanking at all and, instead, only a statement from his wife to a friend that his wife would have spanked him under certain conditions. The conversation was itself a demonstration of authority.

 

So, for me, embarrassment that stimulates an edgy reaction seems to require both some openness about having been spanked or the prospect of being spanked plus some expression or communication about it that reflects my wife’s authority.  Alan’s reference to Tomy being sent to another wife for a spanking really hits me, because it involves such an open show of authority by both wives.

In addition to the power exchange involved, I think these instances of what I guess you could call “imposed openness” involves wives who seem to have no shortage of confidence. They impose these instances of openness because they are so supremely self-confident that they have the authority to do so.  Exercising that level of self-assuredness is, to me, incredibly sexy.

 

As I was thinking about this, I thought about a topic I think I’ve covered only once, back in 2015, namely “bitchiness.” I think many women struggle with overt displays of authority, because they have concerns about being perceived as bitchy.  Yet, I think getting over that concern is probably necessary to really taking the reins, whether in a marriage or a career.  Here is a slightly edited version of part of the post from 2015:

“A few weeks ago, I was at a happy hour with a group of younger members of my office. A discussion ensued in which a couple of our high potential, but somewhat junior, female leaders bemoaned the fact their male subordinates treated them with less respect than they showed to male superiors, including not doing their work in as timely a manner, reacting badly to constructive feedback, and not prioritizing their work assignments.

 I asked what seemed to me to be a fairly logical follow-up question: "Why do you let them get away with it?  If you repeatedly let them treat you with disrespect, don't you share some of the blame for letting that power dynamic fester?" 

An awkward silence followed.  So, I pressed forward a bit, pointing out that it isn't like they don't have tools at their disposal to slap someone down if they are ignoring orders, not responding quickly, etc.  Pull them into your office for a stern lecture, don't put them on key projects, give them a lousy annual review, etc.  If these guys weren't showing appropriate respect to female superiors, then why weren't those superiors making them pay a price for it?

After another uncomfortable silence, one of them offered up a very honest answer: "Because they will see me as a bitch and call me one when I'm not around."  To which I answered, "So?"  Another awkward silence.

"Seriously," I said, "do you think that a male superior would put up with that shit? And, after that male superior slaps a subordinate down, do you think that subordinate doesn't call him a dick, or an asshole, or some similar derogatory word, under the subordinate’s breath as he’s scurrying out of the office with his tail between his legs?" 

They continued to insist it just isn't the same thing, and I continued to ask why, without getting much more than, "It just is."  It was one of those discussions where the perspectives of the people on opposing sides of the conversation were just so different that there plainly wasn't enough common ground for us to really get anywhere.  So, we dropped it and went back to talking about whatever.” 

 

I do think that women generally worry way more about being perceived as bitches than they should.  Certainly way more than most men worry about being called “dicks” or “assholes.”  Or, at least men seem to be more willing to get past their concerns to get the job done.  Am I right about that? 

I hope we’ll get a few wives joining in for this discussion.  Is the prospect of being seen as a "bitch" or being overly assertive an impediment to taking on a DD or FLR leadership role?  Do you hold back in ordering discipline or in making decisions in your relationship because you are, deep down inside, concerned about being seen as "bitchy" or overly aggressive? Do you have those feelings even if he has told you he wants you to be more stern and strict? Do you think that maybe, given his desires to be in a DD or FLR relationship, he might actually get off on overt, stern, aggressive displays of authority?

I hope you all have a great week.