The Punishment Book

...But What Have You Done For Me Lately?

Dear Readers, Please be patient with me as I hash out one of the age old questions of kinky people: What is the purpose of punishment? I am sure you've all seen articles and opinion pieces about this before, but I'm not asking it in general. I'm asking it for myself. Why do Master and I include punishment in our relationship?

Well, the obvious answer is because it's my kink. I've known from the time I was old enough to think about these things that I was oddly interested in punishment, especially spanking. When I went searching for someone to fulfill that fantasy with as an adult, I bumped into Master. Of course, I was not really looking for a Master/ slave relationship. I really just wanted someone to spank me. The fact that we were discussing my submissive mindset was a totally separate thing for me. It still sent shivers down my spine, though, the first time Master told me, "If I am not available to ask, and you use the tools available to you to do what you think I would want, you won't be in trouble." Woah. You mean, I *could* be in trouble? Yeah. Serious shivers.

Fast forward six years and I can tell you a few things about this kink of mine - 1. I'm not a masochist, and apparently needing to be spanked doesn't make me one. 2. I would do almost anything to avoid being punished at any given time. I will do everything in my power to argue my way out of it, because I am very afraid of the reality of punishment when it approaches. 3. I am still insanely turned on by the whole thing. That sure is a predicament.

Crashing into Natty

Crashing has a way of putting me in a very Natty mood. And last Wednesday, after a long Mother's Day, a longer ME/CFS Awareness Day, and a trip to the acupuncturist, I crashed. Every noise became too loud. Every light too bright. Television was painful. My cells felt like they were shaking as their vitality drained into oblivion.

All my haughtiness and dominance of the day before melted into dependency and submission. I wanted to be taken care of. Petted. Told what to do, especially as I was too exhausted to figure it out for myself.

Spank Me Till I Come & the non-sexual formal fellatio "thank you"

--- Noto Bene: This is a repost from my blog. I posted it over there first, because I wasn't sure it would be welcome over here, but I have been assured it's okay, so I'm delighted to share it here, which was the first place I thought of posting it! I hope all my fellow PB-ers and our dear readers enjoy it, and it provokes good thought and discussion. ---

I've been organizing the books in our apartment, as they are threatening to take over the place, and I found this gem among Papa Otter's erotica collection.

The cover is more funny than arousing (to me, anyway) but what is lovely and even in it's own way arousing is the innocence of the image. No worries about feminism, here, no angst about if spanking your wife is okay, no confusion about whether discipline should have sex involved (the author thinks it should, if you can't tell by the spanker's humongous erection!) -- these are some happy '60s swingers who explore their desires with an almost child-like innocence.

The book cheerfully merges domestic discipline with sex (and swinging, because once you find out the neighbours like spanking, too, the obvious next step is to spank and fuck the neighbour's wife, non?) in a way that is very heartening for me, because Papa Otter and I find they mingle very well indeed, and I was very surprised when I came across the DD [Domestic Discipline] community and found out that I wasn't supposed to want to mix those things!

My favourite example of this (and I really need to carry the URL for this site around with me, because when I tell people about it they just can't believe me) is this fabulous article, Thanking the HOH -- The "Formal Thank You" as a Non-Sexual Act. I don't know how I found it, but once I realized what I'd come across, I had a reaction that combined all the best aspects of shooting my drink out my nose and punching the air and shouting, "Yes!"

Why domestic discipline is not domestic violence

Last week (at least it was last week when I started this post) I read Jessica Wakeman's piece over at The Frisky about her first D/s relationship and was going to write about the similarities/differences with my own first spanking relationship. Except that within the essay was a link (that didn't work but I found eventually) to Amanda Marcotte's post at Pandagon about that article Jessica wrote for Bitch Magazine regarding domestic discipline two years ago featuring, among others, yours truly and my dear friends, Mija and Pablo (see this post for my thoughts on that article). Needless to say it rather distracted me from the post I intended to write.

I'm not sure how I missed Marcotte's post as I was reading Pandagon fairly regularly at the time (and would be now if I was awake more), but it was probably a good thing I did miss it as most likely I would have taken it quite personally ("these people are fucked the fuck up")*. Instead I shrugged off it and its comments as sort of like watching and listening to random people in a bar discuss an event they saw on TV in which you actually played an intimate part. Plus the idea of A. (or Pablo) as an ideologically-motivated pater familias or a misogynistic wife beater made me laugh.

At least, initially I shrugged it off. But...it kept bugging me. As it's been two years since her post, it seemed just a bit late to write a post in response.  However the more I continued to think about it, the more I began to feel that a post addressing why domestic discipline is not domestic violence had a great deal of merit.

Someone Else's Fantasy

There are very few things about one's body that feel sexy when one is pregnant.  There are even fewer after delivery.  (Gi-normous breasts excepted.)

Actually, I had a fairly strong libido during pregnancy.  What we couldn't enact in real life got pushed into my head and I was able to get some satisfaction from vivid fantasies, close proximity to M, and a good vibrator.  In the three weeks since our son's birth, though, I haven't been able to orgasm once.  Part of this is due to the rigors of new parenting and the simple lack of opportunity.  But even when I have a few stolen moments to myself, or M and I have a rare minute together, I can't come.  The desire is there, but my body can't get on board. 

It has also been a loooong time since I've been spanked, for punishment or pleasure.  M has given me a few swats here and there, but intense physical play has been off the table for a while now and will be for a while to come (c-section incision has to heal first).  

But even though I can't play and I can't come, that doesn't mean my life is completely devoid of kink.  In fact, I've experienced lots of kinky things since becoming a mother.  None of them happen to correspond to anything I like, but in the spirit of making lemonade out of lemons, I'm trying to have a sense of humor about it.  Here are a few of them:

Our Wooden Valentine: 5 Years, 201 Posts, 1.6 Million Visitors

 In late 2004, after Paul opened an account for us on Typepad and, after I played with a personal blog and got the hang of it, I wrote to a few friends. These were women I'd met online in the previous decade, but also gotten to know on different levels in real life. We were very different, but had in common a love of writing and a fascination with the use of discipline and punishment in real life relationships. You see, I had an idea -- we could start a group blog (there weren't many then) as a place to discuss the nitty gritty of trying to make a discipline relationships work in our respective "real" worlds.  Because they're such good friends they claimed to be both excited and flattered and were sure it would be great fun.  From the start, I knew we should call it "The Punishment Book."

February 2005, the blog entry officially opening and explaining The Punishment Book read:

Punishment books were records kept by schools and reformatories recording punishments given. Records were kept of who punishments were given to, how much and why each punishment had been given. Most often, though not always, the punishments were corporal.

Though we took our banners from scans of historical punishment books, that history is not what this blog is about. There will be accounts of punishments here, of course. The punishment book dot org is about punishment, especially spanking, being used to correct real life behavior. This is something the authors of this site all have in common, the use of disciplinary punishments in our real lives to some degree or other. Not as role play, although some of us are role players (and in some cases real life can feed role play). Not as foreplay, though some of us are into erotic spanking, but as part of our real lives and relationships. We're all pretty funny (well, I mean, in so far as we amuse each other), but this isn't a game. The issues of discipline and punishment are something seriously important to each of us.

Submitting to Correction

Those of you who follow my blogging in other places (el tercer ojo and my new calligraphy blog) will know that I'm presently taking a calligraphy class studying the Gothic hand.  The mixed ability (some students have been studying calligraphy for years -- others like me are taking their first class) class meets once a week for three hours.  

Like most art classes, the teaching style is very structured. Anyone who imagines that most art courses are about creative free expression hasn't taken many.  This is even more true of calligraphy, and within calligraphy, with learning a historical hand.  While there is a vague sense other ways might exist, my instructor only wants to see one way -- the way she's teaching us.  As we're learning a medieval hand, the teacher also tends to mention life of early scribes and student scribes and their floggings.  This, of course, prompted me to do a little burst of research to discover what a "palmer" might look like (see links for the images I found).  

At the second class meeting I was delighted to discover that our homework was being collected.  When I got home, Paul was pleased for me too, especially when I told him it would be turned back marked. The following week my homework was returned, with red inked corrections, at class a week ago Monday.  Not all the comments were positive, as you can see in the included images. In fact, except for a closing "Good Work," every red mark was negative (or constructive criticism as I believe they say in the biz).  While I blushed to see my mistakes circled, it was great they weren't being glossed over with a banal "Good Effort" or the like.

Last week I was actually called out a bit in class for not having practiced more during the previous week (it was not a lack of desire, but sadly other unavoidable demands on my time). Nonetheless I felt totally abashed at her slight disappointment, but again also thrilled because she'd noticed and thought it worthy of remark. I made no excuses for my lack of practice but simply promised to do better during the two weeks we have between classes due to various holidays.

Listening & Leading (or sometimes, topping from the bottom is okay)

We were together on the bed not so long ago, doing what we do very well. Canoodling, I called it once, and Chris laughed at the word but agreed. Sometimes it is foreplay, and sometimes not. It is touching, often naked touching. Sometimes there is spanking.

It'd been about a week, because of one thing and another, and I'd sorely missed his time and attention. In addition to my own woes, I was under a work deadline (finished 2:30 this morning, yay!, waiting for feedback now). And I have a bit of a cold coupled with a nasty cough. Chris has just started another semester of graduate school and the subjects addressed in these courses promise to be of a pertinent and absorbing nature for him. He has a new toy and is busy getting iTunes behaving properly instead of me.

And, he'd been to the gym that evening.

You know, in and of itself, that's not a problem. Except his particular fitness facility is filled with college co-eds, most of whom have been worshiping at their own altars since puberty and are exceedingly conscious of how they look. Everywhere. I've seen them.

So he comes home and tweets this sentence while grilling dinner: "Saw a great pair of shorts at the gym today. Well, wasn't so much the shorts as what was in the shorts. Or rather partially in the shorts."

For some reason, it hit me the wrong way, you know? Now, I'm not a jealous person, normally, although I've had my moments, and my jealousy tends to focus on things rather than people (i.e. that video game, that volunteer opportunity that takes 40 hrs of your week outside of work, that iTouch you're playing with when I'm in the room trying to have a conversation with you, etc). And, as Chris pointed out later, I'm generally just as likely to point out that cute bum before he even notices it. Generally.

So we're canooding, and he's got me all tucked up against him.

Intending to confide, I told him that I'd been jealous about the girl whose bottom was half-displayed by her shorts, presumably intentionally.

He was honestly surprised, and why shouldn't he be? I'd normally not care a whit. But "I haven't felt very sexy lately," I reminded him, proceeding to cough up a lung into my pillow.

Chris gathered me up in his arms and muttered against my ear. "I should hairbrush you for that."

And here's why this blog entry is on Punishment Book... because if he had hairbrushed me, it wouldn't have been a nice little loving spanking with a hairbrush. No, it would have hurt. It would have felt like punishment, and he would have intended it to be painful. I don't think the momentary reaction of jealousy would have been included in why he wanted to hairbrush me then and there, but the feeling that caused the jealousy - the feeling and sense that I was undesirable - would have been what he was punishing.

He doesn't like it when I express self-doubt. I believe there is a standing rule around here that if I ever say "I'm a terrible mother" again, I'm headed straight over his lap with the ebony hairbrush, no ifs ands or buts. I know this and how he feels about my expressions of internal angst and self-loathing.

And yet, I need to be able to confide in him and tell him my fears and my hopes and my needs. If I can't confide in him and trust him to make it better, then who else is there to turn to? (Nobody, not like that, and my heart would break or ice over, and I would withdraw emotionally and probably sexually.) And if I can't confide in him and trust him with my whole heart and not just the stronger pieces of it, then are we really as strong as we believe us to be?

But, if he can't punish me for fear of breaking that trust, am I manipulating things to get my own way? And is, as he pointed out in very pertinent ways much later, my backside really his to do with as he pleases if he can't hairbrush me without risking a silly breakdown? Should I be repressing all of those feelings so that he can hurt me at will and way? Should he hurt me at will and way even if he risks those silly breakdowns, just to prove the point that he can and that he's unhappy with me?

In the end, this is yet another reason why our relationship is not a simple Top/bottom arrangement, and why Chris must be (and is) a listening leader. It's a symbiosis ... and that's probably best. He didn't spank me, but listened to the tremors in my voice when I pointed out that hairbrushing me would discourage me from, in the future, telling him when I was upset. I did suggest he arrange for a hairbrushing on a different night. I even suggested (for more selfish reasons!) that he combine it with bondage. And the moment passed without tears or recriminations or the hard spanking he wanted to give me.

This morning, I'm still confused as to why I was jealous.

But...

Thank you, Chris, for not forcing the hairbrush. And thank you, for listening when I said to please not. I don't think it would have worked out quite the way you intended - then and there in that moment, I think it would have escalated it instead of purged it as you intended - but I know you could have. And you know I wouldn't have stopped you, if you'd insisted. So thank you.

Open Door - Juggling Kids, Honesty and Disclosure in a Kinky Household

Parenting kids in a kinky household really is different. I suppose everyone experiences parenthood differently, but I think kinksters definitely have unique challenges.

Our kids have been raised in a very non traditional environment.  I don't think that will really come as a shock to anyone who knows much about our family. First, they were exposed to polyamory from their earliest memories. There was always Mommy, Daddy, and, from the time they were 4 (almost 5) someone else. I wasn't the first person either of them had in their lives seriously, either. It has always been perfectly natural for them to see multiple people loving each other and sharing affection.

They also see evidence of our dynamic. Both CC and I always called him Sir, and I still do.  When they were very small they actually thought it was his name. We also slept on the floor, each with our own beds on the ground next to Daddy's. Again, I still do this.  They've never thought of it as sleeping on the floor of course, they think, "Daddy's bed and bridget's bed."

Yet, for all this openness we've always tried to be very careful about crossing age appropriate lines. They never see or hear us play. They aren't aware of the specific sexual dynamics that exist between us. In fact, when CC was pregnant with the little guy they told me they consider all three of us to be "married" and then hastened to add, "But you and Daddy don't have sex... right?" At the time I told them they really needed to talk to Mommy and Daddy about that.

Closure

I've had this plan for a while now to write about topics other than specific punishments. There are a lot of things that float around in my head and some day I will have some spare time and be able to actually sit down and write about some of them. I was just thinking this week that I needed to make time to write a post for the PB.

From now on I am not going to allow myself to think this thought. It clearly jinxed me. I fear this will be especially long winded story telling, but the back story really does lead up to the conclusion.

My old nemesis has returned, and it's name is toilet paper. Yeah, really. Running out of TP is Master's biggest pet peeve and it's gotten me into trouble in the past. In fact, it is the only offense I can ever recall being punished for more than once. Two nights ago mark the third time I've been punished for it.

This was especially hard for me because there was a guest in attendance. Master is dating someone right now. They've been seeing each other since October.  We'll call her J. She is wonderful and I hope to see great things from this relationship. However, last night her presence worked against me because she used the last of the toilet paper in the main bathroom and there was no spare under the sink.  Her natural response was to come out and say, "I am going to steal toilet paper from the other bathroom." Master's natural response was to give me the look of death.

From now on I am not going to allow myself to think this thought. It clearly jinxed me. I fear this will be especially long winded story telling, but the back story really does lead up to the conclusion.

My old nemesis has returned, and it's name is toilet paper. Yeah, really. Running out of TP is Master's biggest pet peeve and it's gotten me into trouble in the past. In fact, it is the only offense I can ever recall being punished for more than once. Two nights ago mark the third time I've been punished for it.

This was especially hard for me because there was a guest in attendance. Master is dating someone right now. They've been seeing each other since October.  We'll call her J. She is wonderful and I hope to see great things from this relationship. However, last night her presence worked against me because she used the last of the toilet paper in the main bathroom and there was no spare under the sink.  Her natural response was to come out and say, "I am going to steal toilet paper from the other bathroom." Master's natural response was to give me the look of death.

Unresolved: Establishing Authority

I wrote this to post over at This Thing We Do Forum, and then thought that it would be a useful post for the Punishment Book as well. I also want to encourage people--especially tops, we REALLY need some tops over there--to check out the forum and join in the discussions there, if they are so inclined. It's a pretty great place, or so the people who are members keep telling me. :)

W asked me to post about this, although I admit that I can't remember all of the specifics of what she wanted me to say. So I will go with my best memory, and add some things from my own perspective, and we'll see where that gets us.

We have been struggling for a while with W establishing her authority. I am frustrated. I feel like either I'm making myself follow the rules and behave--which undermines my perception of W's authority, because I feel like I'm the one in control of what happens, and whether or not we get into fights. Or else I'm breaking the rules, and causing W to respond to my behavior--that kind of topping-from-the-bottom thing, which makes me feel like I'm still the one in control of the situation.

W, on the other hand, is frustrated because she feels like she *is* establishing her authority. From her viewpoint, either I'm following the rules, or I am breaking the rules, and she is enforcing them. And then she'll get feedback from me, usually afterward, that says, "Well, but I felt like I was the one in charge of that situation." Which, frankly, undermines her confidence in her authority.

A First Punishment…

No, it won’t be the first (nor, I think I can safely say, last) punishment, in my 4 plus years with my Master. But, it was a first time for this sort of punishment (sadly, also probably not the last), and my first time writing for The Punishment Book, which makes enough firsts to inform the title, I say!

In my last post on my blog, “New World Order,” I wrote about the new arrangement my Master and I have come to, regarding discipline and punishment and how they will fit in our lives. In it, I discuss the dubious joys of Cod Liver Oil....

Well, now I’ve had a taste of it, and let me tell you, no “spoonful of sugar” is gonna help that medicine go down!

But before I get to that, I should discuss why this sort of thing is going to be happening to me at all.

I blame Tom & Jerry. It was after seeing the cartoon “Baby Puss,” as a wee girl that I became obsessed with the idea of “Castor Oil” as a punishment. (Of course, the reason I’d paid such attention to the cartoon in the first place was that it starts with the threat of a spanking with a hairbrush! It also left me with some other interesting ideas, but that’s a post for another time!)

Uncyclopedia humorously states: “Castor Oil is one of the oldest forms of punishment for children, with use going back to the Neolithic era. Until the early 1980s parents found it almost as effective as spanking, although it has, along with lynching, suffered a downturn in recent years due to political correctness.”

Continuing in the humour, this time unintentional, The New York Times published an article called “Subsitutions” on April 4, 1884, which includes this jewel: “So great is the juvenile horror of castor-oil that all parents know that not even the threat of a severe flogging can induce a small-boy [sic] to swallow the nauseous dose ... It follows that castor-oil as a punishment in schools is far more to be dreaded than flogging, and should it be generally adopted, small-boys will everywhere petition for the restoration of the rod.” (For any spanko, it’s worth reading the whole thing!)

And from the wonderful CorPun website, we get the “Home Office internal memorandum, 14 June 1923 Knowle Hill (Kenilworth, Warwickshire) Training School for Girls Notes by Miss Wall.” After an “Outbreak Of Insubordination” (whee!):

“Miss Langley then spoke of Ethel Milton, 13-5/12, who had had 12 strokes of the tawse on the seat. She said that a few days after this Ethel started bouncing a ball in the passage and knocking it against the office door on purpose. She did not feel that Ethel had sufficiently recovered from corporal punishment on the seat for her to administer another whipping, so she said she was to have one tablespoonful of castor oil. This she refused, so she was given two, which she took.”

Discrection and Compartments

I've been lucky in many ways. For almost my entire adult life I've had the luxury of being "out" to everyone close to me. Although it wasn't by choice, my parents found out all the gory details of my relationship pretty early on. When you live in a family comprised of one man and two women, the neighbors notice. We even came out to the school. I've never held a job where it mattered one way or the other if people figured out what was going on at home. I couldn't afford to. Having an unorthodox living arrangement and having appeared in adult films come together to make things not worth hiding.

So why don't I have this same luxury now? Basically, because our wife left us.

Welcoming Zille: Changes to the PB

A quick look at the right sidebar will tell you the basics -- we've added another author to the PB -- something not done often or lightly.  This puts our number at nine, which the science (and here I use the word science quite wrongly) of numerology says represents the beginning and end of all human experience. 

Great, so no pressure on the new girl.  

Who is this new author?  

::drum roll::

It's Zille Defeu.  (Zille is pronounced as rhyming with "Jill" -- not "silly" or "file".)

Zille has her own website and blog with a lovely "about" page in case you want to get ahead of things.  She will, no doubt, be introducing herself in the coming days.  

Several of us have gotten to know her over the past year and then discovered that, of course, we have mutual friends.  In my case, I started reading Zille's Twitter feed at about the same time she started reading mine.  Tweets turned to emails and some phone calls before we met at Shadow Lane this past September and ended up talking about life, the universe and spanking.  

There's a lot I like about Zille and what she brings to the scene and 'net.  I want to go into some detail here, but keep deleting everything I put down because I don't want to force her hand in what she writes about or when she writes.  I'll stick with teasing -- there's a lot she can say here and I'm excited just thinking about her saying it.   When will be up to her.  So stay tuned.

Most importantly though, welcome Zille.  Nine is a great number and we're very glad to have you here. 

---

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Maintenance Fail...

I can't remember the last time I was actually punished for something. Honestly.

It's not that I'm perfect, but that I'm not spanked for being imperfect. We're all imperfect. So fouling up Chris's lunch or forgetting to get the car washed or not doing the laundry do not garner punishments. Chris gets serious if it affects the family's health, the family's safety or putting shredded paper in the canister without bagging it first. Otherwise, he's just as likely to indulge me as not.

I'm perfectly happy with that.

The thing is, discipline - punishment - has been part of my quirky head for as long as I've had it. A variety of fantasies have provided me with dream fodder for decades now, and I'm not ashamed to say that in the days that preceded a real, live disciplinary agreement, the whole notion of being punished was a lot more rosy than reality. In my dreams, I'd misbehave a lot more and get spanked a lot. In reality, I misbehave very little and get spanked a lot.

So for a few months now, I've been pondering ... and I think I have to conclude that mock punishments and maintenance ('just because') spankings are no longer enough of a substitute for discipline. And, I have to say, I'm not entirely happy about that. It doesn't seem quite right that I should be jonesing for punishment, simply to satisfy some sulky petulant corner of my brain. It doesn't seem fair to me or to Chris, and as really pushing his buttons means needlessly endangering someone or something, it really isn't fair to our home and family.

Add in 4-6 days of enforced neglect from regular reinforcing intimacy and I have been ripe for challenging Chris in the last two evenings.

So last night I took our daughter's 50-cent disk shooter off the bureau, where I'd left it after confiscating it from her, and shot it just past his head. It hit the wall behind him, but he did stop talking mid-sentence, grabbed me, and dragged me over his knee for 5 minutes of hard spanking. I remember dimly hearing the words "You're asking for it, aren't you?" I don't really remember answering.

Tonight, after he studiously and deliberately ignored my three hints that he might want to do the dishes, I took an ice cube from the freezer and put it in the back of his shirt. I'm sure I had a good reason - maybe to get him to pay attention, as he kept ignoring me. Or maybe to get him to pay attention to me? In any event, when he very clearly told me to remove it from the back of his shirt and said he'd had enough, I did remove it.

And then pushed it down his pants so it slipped between his ass cheeks.

Of course I got spanked for it, later. When the princess was asleep and the house quiet, there was a paddle and a strap. Perhaps the playfulness of it all has gotten to me too, because I didn't have to fight off any guilt. Pain, yes. Guilt, no. Not even much repentance, honestly.

I've never really been a brat. I doubt I've bratted like this since well before the princess was born. Even Chris asked me what had gotten into me. I'm worried that I'm trying yet a new way to get what I want from him on a nearly constant basis - his dedicated, focused, energized attention.

I suppose this is one of the problems of taking a fetish and turning it into a working, living relationship. There's no question that discipline helped me master the concept of locking the doors to our house, or taking care in the sun. I'm more careful about what I do with a cell phone in the car, too. There's also little question that I pursued a disciplinary arrangement with Chris because I thought it would help me prioritize his needs and desires more, and I think that it still mostly has that effect. But I can't and won't deny that I also found the whole concept of a disciplinary relationship sizzling hot. It pushes nearly every power-exchange fantasy in my head and feeds my sexuality with instantaneous arousal.

I'm afraid that spanking me 'just because' isn't a preventing sort of spanking anymore. But if it doesn't work, what will stop me from pushing again and again and again?