The Punishment Book

While none of us have used a post to specifically link to something else, I read one of the most articulate discussions of punishment spankings within an adult disciplinary relationship that I've ever read over at Patty's blog, A Creative Spanked Wife and thought that it was quite pertinent to our discussions here. What I love about Patty is that she talks about DD as it really is, with all the complex aspects that intertwine when two human beings are trying to define their relationship. This particular post of hers specifically addresses what happens -- or should happen -- when two healthy adults decide to enter into this kind of relationship. That there comes a point where you let go of fantasy and deal with the utter reality of real life.

"The fact of my real life though, is that my husband is not my parent and I am not his child. I have learned the lessons I need to learn and it is not my husband’s role to “teach me a lesson” or “make me behave.” In my opinion, stripping both of these, the legacy of the social meaning of spanking and its initial childish sexual framework from the adult spanking partnership is a significant challenge. I strongly believe that it is essential if there is going to be a healthy power exchange and discipline construct in the relationship. In sexual role play “age play” may be very satisfying for many, but in an adult partnership where there is real discipline, age play is probably not healthy and can’t help but create an exploitive and abusive power exchange. Both women and men have difficulty grasping the nuances that differentiate adult from juvenile punishment spanking. For Fred and I, it’s in the goal of the exercise and the relative accountability and roles of the parent & child versus those of the husband and wife. Teaching and molding proper behavior are laudable aims for parents who apply discipline for their misbehaving children, but mighty presumptuous of a husband who himself has yet to master his own shortcomings and bad habits. I could go into a long winded discourse on ‘transactional analysis,’ but really I believe most of us have an instinctive understanding of the differences in communication dynamics that occur between parent and child and husband and wife. There is nurturing, teaching and role modeling involved in both and there is annoyance, frustration and applying consequences involved in both as well; but the rules of engagement are different. Treating his wife the way he would treat a child is a slippery slope that is very hard to climb back up from. Most men feel ill equipped to parent their wives, and quite a few feel resentful when they are put in that position… not to mention insecure. Children are needy and for the most part, not good partners when it comes to facing stressors and shouldering adult responsibilities, especially not adults who have regressed into the role of child. "

Now, I know in my own realtionship with my partner, I can't say that there isn't an element of "age play" that occurs during punishment. Though, play is not really the right word as there is nothing pretend or fun about it. But there is a certain nurturing quality to it that would probably be associated with caring for a child that reflects a child-like part of me. Where I've found myself struggling in explaining to myself as an intelligent, compentent adult what I want in a disciplinary relationship is how much of that nurturing is healthy, both for me and my partner. I suspect the answer is whatever works for us.

"...the discipline scenario is not about fixing me, teaching me to be a better person or correcting me for being bad, it’s about using the catharsis of spanking to clean up stress."

I think this is probably the way spanking works on a punishment level for me. It cleans up the stress of having failed in some way. Yet, Patty suggests that reflects a very beginners approach.

"Most couples start out using peripheral things and making rules around them that are just not important to either of them, for us these are things like housework, and laundry...In the true sense of the word, though, these early ‘rules’ were ‘made’ to be broken. They’re spanking rules after all, and getting and giving spankings is part of the way couples develop DD. It’s hard to start out on the hard stuff though, so the fluff does serve for a while. Using them helps couples get the mechanics down, and talk over and work out what feels right and wrong with the nuts and bolts. From here tentative steps will be taken into the ‘real’ issues, and all the stuff listed and discussed up there."

Now, I'm not entirely sure that the rules that my partner and I set up are "just not important" or "fluff." They are usually things we both agree are valuable for one reason or another. However, I can't help but acknowledge that they do end up inevitably being broken at some point and so perhaps on some level they are set up to be broken. Because we've gone to the trouble of making a "rule" and setting up some correlating punishment, whatever should or should not be happening does increase or decrease however the case may be. But it doesn't ever completely end and so punishment ultimately occurs because of the rule being there. I think this is where I would go back to her comment about spanking cleaning up the stress. That the rule is going to get broken at some point and spanking is simply a way of cleaning up the stress that breaking it causes.

It's a lengthy essay, but I encourage you to read it. I'm still wrestling with a lot of it, but as Patty's been doing this for awhile, I think it deserves a bit of wrestling with.