The Punishment Book

Where I am now

About a month ago, Mija wrote to the authors of the Punishment Book about several things, and one of the things was a suggestion that, since this is our "blogiversary," perhaps we could each write a post about where we are now, in life, and in regard to this thing we do in our relationships. I kept putting it off, but since February obliged me by having an extra day, we'll see if I can manage to get a post written and slide in under the deadline!

Out of Sorts

I’m in a pretty weird place today. Unfortunately I can’t go into all the details, but I can say I’ve been involved in a pretty big screwup. I’m one of those people who tends to be very hard on myself. I have a lot of ingrained guilt, and even when I haven’t screwed up big time I can usually find several examples of mistakes throughout a given day. If left to my own devices I could easily find a reason why I deserve punishment all the time.

My  Owner doesn’t view me the same way.  One of the earliest pieces of advice he ever gave me was, “Being a better submissive means learning to trust your Dominant to punish you when you need it and not do it to yourself.”  I’ve always taken that to heart, but I’m not terribly good at putting it into practice.  You can probably imagine that if I’m guilt ridden in general, I’m ridiculous when I have something specific to obsess about.

The Punishment Paradox

In her weekly brunch, Bonnie has asked readers this week a question that I think most of us here on the PB have discussed at one time or another (and for some of us, numerous times) on the soc.sexuality.spanking newsgroup. Namely, if we spankos actually enjoy being spanked, can punishment spankings even work? I left a short comment on Bonnie's blog but the more I thought about it, the more I decided I wanted to write more, especially as it coincides with something I've been thinking about for a few months.

This particular question is an interesting one for me as my partner and I switch but I alone get punished for real life transgressions. It's not because he's perfect and I'm not. Far from it (though not too far...::smile::). We are both equally human and fallible. Indeed, we even have a lot of the same bad habits. We both procrastinate. We both markedly underestimate how long a task will take. We can both be slightly impulsive shoppers. We are both extremely competitive (though I'm not sure that's necessarily a fault...)

Wrong Focus?

“Am I in trouble Sir?”

“You need to stop asking that question.  I will let you know if you are in trouble. If you are focused on that you’re focused on the wrong thing.”

Um… oh.

That was the conversation we had this morning. I’m really not even sure how to respond to it. I have a feeling he thinks I am in a different place than I am.  See, the reason I always ask if I am in trouble isn’t because I focus on punishment, or that I’m trying to do the minimum to avoid getting in trouble. I realize that part of being a slave is failing at times and that my focus should be on serving him the best I can rather than avoiding punishment.

So why do I ask, then? Well, because I need more processing time than he does.

My punishment book

It was December 2002 and A. was my ambiguously undefined cyber-guy. We had been chatting (and flirting) online for months and finally declared over Yahoo Messenger that we really cared about each other. That we were a couple – you know, in an ambiguously undefined way.

Even more ambiguously undefined was how we'd ever be a couple in a clear and defined way. I was in Oregon. He was in England. I was bedridden. He was on the dole. I was praying just to get on the dole.

One afternoon – at least afternoon on my side of the Atlantic – we were doing the Nick Cohen End of the Year quiz at the Observer website. A. told me not to cheat by looking down at the answers. Which meant, of course, that I totally had to cheat.

"You really need your backside tanned, young lady," A. typed.

"Nuh uh," I replied.

"Hrm...well luckily for you, and your bottom, I am a few thousand miles away."

I grinned at first. But that longing to be together quickly stole my smugness and replaced it with grim silence.