The Punishment Book

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.

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.

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.

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?

Tears at Bedtime

What Happened: I got spanked at bedtime last night.  It wasn't especially hard (a bare-bottom, over the knee hand spanking) but it included scolding (I had stayed up later than I was supposed to, even after being reminded to go to bed) and went on long enough to hurt.  Not a lot, not like a hairbrushing, but enough so I started feeling very sorry (okay, mostly for myself rather than my actions) and telling, then begging Paul to stop.  

That doesn't work.  As I was reminded, I don't get to decide, just as it wasn't for me to decide that I didn't want this spanking.  I hadn't wanted it either -- by the time he took me otk, I was tired, even over-tired, and wanted to go sleep.  Plus it was late enough and quiet enough that I thought the spanking could be heard from the street.  Our window, you see, was open because I hadn't expected this. 

Then it happened, and not for the first time. My whiny frustration at not being able to get away, at the spanking that continued and I wanted stopped, at not ever feeling like there was enough time for anything rushed together with the frustrations of the day and guilt at being scolded and for ignoring Paul, I burst into racking sobs.

Blast from the past

I've been sick in bed for the last few days, which isn't fun at the best of times, but is particularly unfun when one is pregnant at the same time.  Not only is the list of approved medications limited, it's difficult to get comfortable with a bowling ball strapped to one's middle.  But I digress.  At one point last night, I was starting to feel a little bored (always a good sign), so I dug out old journals and settled in to read.

These are journals from late college and early adulthood, maybe 7-10 years ago.  In other words, just the period of time when I was figuring out my kink and coming to terms with it.  I was surprised (and sometimes amused) to read what I wrote and thought some of it might be interesting here.

This is the first entry where I addressed the issue head on, though there are other places where I alluded to it and even (bravely!) wrote the word spank in black and white.  But this entry comes about 10 months after breaking up with my college boyfriend, the first man I ever played with.  Also, bear in mind that this was from the very early days of internet (at least for me), so I had yet to find much of a real community or have any real conversation with anyone about the subject.

What is this obsession that drives me sexually?  Where on earth did it come from?  A year ago, I might have added: why me?

I am a spankophile.  I crave dominant men who will spank me sexually, spank me when I misbehave, and love this raw, unbidden part of my soul.  I want to brat my way into trouble and know that someone is there to enforce boundaries and love me no matter what.

When I first realized that this was sexual for me, I shied away, scared of what it meant.  Later, as I began to explore it and even share it with E [college boyfriend] I was embarrassed and shy about my desire while needing it nonetheless.  Now, while I would still never share the secret with anyone but the most intimate, I embrace it.  It gives me a deep, rich, dark, silty facet, a branch of my soul and being that only two people in this whole world know about and only one understands.  E never quite got it, but for a vanilla he certainly converted pretty well.

One of the most complicated parts about my spankophilia is the lack of control.  I want to submit, yet I have to find the right person to give that gift.  Someone I trust completely, who would never abuse the gift.  At the same time, though, there are men who look at me and make my insides liquid and make me want to obey.  K is that way sometimes--I can feel sparks fly when he's around because the air is so charged.  T's eyes do that too.  They pierce me and I feel like one stern look from him could make me come on the spot.  ...

But could I honestly sleep with either one of them?  No matter how much chemistry I wonder if there wouldn't be something to hold me back.  And that's only sex.  My deepest darkest fantasy is unthinkable until much after sex.

I find it interesting to see which elements are still the same for me and which have changed.  Obviously I no longer see spanking as something that must come "much after sex."  Grin.  That would make spanking parties tricky--or perhaps just more active.  And I'm not as secretive or selective about sharing this part of my identity.  I don't flaunt it (my profession and other relationships don't quite allow for that), but I'm more open about it with vanilla friends who are safe.  And I've found that the more open I am, the more I find like-minded people.

Still, there are more similarities than differences.  Though I had yet to experience a relationship with spanking at the core, my statements of identity and desire are still very true.  I do want a dominant man to spank me sexually and spank me for punishment.  I had no idea about the complexities of incorporating punishment into a long-term relationship when I wrote that, but those words are still at the heart of my kink.

It's also interesting for me to look back at the process of my becoming who I am today.  Sometimes I forget how hard-fought each step was.  But this entry was monumental: I was acknowledging the truth to myself in ink and I was no longer ashamed of it.  I also see elements of what was to be, in terms of noticing other dominant-type men around me and acknowledging my reaction to them.  Seeds of what was to come...

Technologies of Punishment: Mija's Electronic Leash

Technologies of Punishment --isn't that a great title? I can't claim any originality since it's inspired by a CFP (that's "Call For Papers" in the larger world) for a CUNY conference titled "The Poetics of Pain: Aesthetics, Ideology, and Representation" sent to my academic self. (I blogged this startle on el tercer ojo.) But it is an appropriate title. Given that we met via the wonders of usenet, technology, for better or worse, has been involved in Paul and my relationship, discipline and punishment included, since the beginning. Although some of the technology thankfully went away when our relationship went from long-distance to living-in-the-same-house, technology remains a significant part of both of our lives.

This is not going to be a discussion of how technology can assist those in long-distance relationships at "this thing we do." While it doesn't seem so long ago that most of my punishments were done via email or phone, really it's been more than seven years since Paul moved here, give or take an interruption or two. I think that counts as several lifetimes in the word of technology. Because of that, this probably isn't the right entry for anyone looking for long-distance discipline ideas. (Natty can probably give plenty of thoughts on that subject, but rumor has it she's a bit busy at present.) That said, ever since I got a new MacBook compete with webcam, I check in terror to make sure the green camera light isn't on every time Paul has me bent over my desk chair for a quick slippering to "focus" me on my work. This is crazy because I never actually use the webcam for anything so it's never on. **

Even though phones, webcams and Skype aren't part of discipline or punishment scenes and we're not long-distance anymore, technology in various forms plays an important role in our relationship. A role, which for me, has lately made me feel watched over in ways that, frankly, push a lot of good and powerful buttons. What works, both in the senses of being effective and attractive, is feeling I'm being watched over and held to specific expectations. The idea is that I'm seen --inside and out-- by someone who can't be fooled and holds me to account. That's both the fantasy and the ideal.

Not much to ask, is it?

Right.

It's a huge amount to ask of anyone and a near impossible task, especially with regard to me specifically. Yet I have asked for it and Paul and I have tried various ways of fulfilling this need / desire. Repeatedly, over a period of years.

Love Our Lurkers IV

Beloved and community minded Bonnie, over at My Bottom Smarts gives us a chance each year to remember we're not talking to ourselves -- that you're here reading too. And we all know that for every comment to the blog, there are hundreds of visitors who don't comment. We know you're there and it's always good to know there are readers, whether you choose to comment or not.  Yet it's so much more fun to write for a blog where there's lively discussion.

I know this blog has been quiet lately. This is partly due to many of us blogging elsewhere (see the list of our other blogs over to the right). It's also due to the PB blog having become less of a place to discuss the idea of punishment in a relationships and more of a place to record actual punishments received.  (Believe it or not, that we'd record our punishments here never occurred to me when we were first building the blog.)  Since most of us aren't punished very often, there ends up being long gaps between entries. Add to that my neglect in not realizing sooner that postings here were tapering off.

And yet you're still reading here -- even when the PB goes weeks and even months without new entries, our stats tell us that hundreds of people visit every day. So this is what I want to ask of you today -- keeping in mind the style of the blog (that is, this isn't going to suddenly become a place full of pictures of spanked bottoms, lovely though they might be and that we can't write about punishments that aren't happening -- give us some thoughts about what you'd like to find when you come here. What discussions would be useful or interesting?

Thank you in advance for your ideas. And as always, thank you for reading.

Fear and Tawsing in Los Angeles

I got tawsed tonight.  Not for discipline, not to remind me to be a good girl, but as a punishment for not doing what I'd promised to do today.  You see, after a week of cruising along, doing more work than I'd even needed to some days (this included working after coming home from a day working on campus), I was supposed to transition to the next stage of my work. This next stage is writing.  Not writing ideas of others, but laying out my own. 

Fear stalled me. Not fear of punishment, as some out there who don't think What It Is We Do is a good for me, but my ever-present fear of not being good enough. 

Instead of fighting through my fear and forcing myself to work, I let myself get caught up in the fun of the first day of fall on Twitter and the Mad4Plaid day some of us were having. (It was great fun, marred only by the gnawing guilt I occasionally (but only occasionally) experienced as thoughts of my neglected text passed through my mind. There was time for both, but I didn't want to do the work and it didn't get done.

That was all well and good until the clock chimed 6:00PM and Paul got home.  I looked like a good school girl in my plaid skirt and a pink oxford cloth shirt, but it quickly became clear as we talked about our respective days that I'd accomplished no school work today.  Paul spent a while talking to me, figuring out where the problem was.  It wasn't just, as I first declared, that I didn't do my work today. It was partly because I hadn't thought about what I'd promised (an outline) and had no idea where to start work on the task.

We broke the problem down, bit by bit, teasing out what was insecurity and what was confusion.  And of course, the over arching issue of why I'd stopped dead rather than try and work through any of it. The talk was exhausting -- any criticism of my academic work makes me defensive and cranky.  I know Paul must have to put on his best armor to talk to me about it.  We ended up curled up together on the sofa, my head in his lap.

And then he said something along the lines of "I think we need to go into the bedroom and talk about this."

Taking the new system for a test drive

W and I revised our system (rules, consequences, stuff like that) this week. This was a planned revamp, because we discovered things need to get tweaked on a regular basis, and we had hoped it would work better to plan to do this, rather than just waiting until things jam up and then fixing it when it's in a mess.

The title of the post is my face-saving way of saying that in spite of knowing that 1, W has gotten fairly consistent with enforcing the rules, and 2, that the new consequences could easily be far more severe than W would get on her own, I still felt the need to break rules this afternoon.

on safewords, flashbacks, and triggers

i've read a lot of debate about safewords. there are those who are of the opinion that having a safeword makes this thing we do emphatically "kink" rather than discipline. i don't agree with that, not in the least. in theory, i believe that safewords are what distinguishes this thing we do from abuse--that i have the power at any point to say, "hey, this is hurting me in the wrong way, i need it to stop or else i will not be safe."

and a lot of the time, i can do that. i don't formally safeword, but i communicate with w and let her know when something is going wrong. that is a major factor in her willingness to do this thing we do. and it's a responsibility that i have, just as much as i have a responsibility to be honest about whether i've followed the rules, just as much as w has a responsibility to be consistent with enforcing the rules.

about a month ago, that fell apart, on both sides.

In Sickness & In Health

Goodness, it's been a while for me, hasn't it?

The reason it's been so long is that I've been delightfully good and obscenely responsible.  No really, it's true.

Or it could be I've been remiss about a lot of things including blogging.  Lately though, spanking's been on my mind and I've been writing on my personal blog.   Paul and I have been having adventures, including a trip to Vegas for Shadow Lane.  This meant, among other things, that I got to spend time with fellow PB writers, Bridget and Iris (& M too).

Needless to say, this made me think about a lot of spanking and PB related things.

Kinks in my punishment kink: The ghost of abuse

It haunts every stroke, every word of a scolding, every moment anticipating a punishment. Years of being afraid and worse. Sometimes it seems so long ago, I start to wonder if it was really me all that stuff happened to. Sometimes the memories are still hot and raw, so much so that a year or two ago when I tried to write this post, I had to walk away lest it break the pieces I've spent years gluing back together.

While there hasn't been a lot of research on those who engage in What It Is We Do, research regarding BDSM in general suggests that child abuse is not the reason practitioners have the sexual orientation they do, even if those outside our community may think otherwise. In my own case, I started fantasizing about being spanked years before the abuse started and I am convinced that I'm a spanko despite the abuse.

oOo

Frantic Fondling

A few minutes of research indicates that I have been seriously absent here. Seriously. I've written 2 entries since this very day last year. Why, you ask? Because I'm a well-behaved (if wanton) girl. Usually.

Not today, though.

In the interest of complete transparency, I have been spanked frequently in the last year. And you might say that I've been in trouble once or twice. Generally, though, I think I've been fairly level-headed and emotionally stable this last year. All in all, there have been noticeably fewer days when I've been in a tantrum with Chris, fewer days when I'm so overwhelmed that I vacillate between distraction and depression, and many fewer days when the little things add up so dramatically that I break down in tears by bedtime.

Men want to be little boys too

Some of you might remember back to this spring when Bitch magazine had an article about domestic discipline that featured Mija and I. And that I, at least (I haven't talked with Mija so I can't speak for her), complained a bit that the article genderized the practice too much. That it considered a woman disciplining a man as merely "theoretical" when I knew that it was very much practiced (as is DD among lesbian couples).

About a month or so ago I was interviewed again about domestic discipline, and when I asked my interviewer if she was going to look at Femdom disciplinary arrangements, she said no because she couldn't distinguish that from traditional BDSM.

How to describe a long, hard punishment spanking

Chastened.

Repentant.

Broken.

Sore.

I keep wishing I knew how to put into words what a really long, hard punishment spanking feels like. I mean, obviously it hurts. The hairbrush, ping-pong paddle or even his hand stings so much that I whimper and squirm and kick and desperately wish it would end.

And while I might be cheeky and even a little impudent to start off with, by the end I'm usually penitent and chastened. Not to mention meek and obedient. And sore. Very sore.

But I'm also happy. Gratified. Serene.

I Like to Ask

Over the past several weeks, Chris has tried gamely to convince me to ask for a hairbrushing.

This, right now, I cannot do. I tried, really I did. I knew it would please him to take a piece of ebony or mahogany to my bottom until I was beyond whining. I knew it would please him in a convoluted way to end a punishment that has gone on much longer than either of us anticipated when he imposed it…

Maybe I should back up.

Who I Am

I've been wanting to write on this subject for some time now, but haven't really been able to find the words for it. I still don't think I am adequately expressing myself, but I'm going to make an attempt. I'm sorry for those of you who may be bored, but the subject I'm about to talk about is not really kinky. Instead I’m going to talk about something that is probably going to be boring for a lot of you. That’s right, I’m going to talk about religion. Feel free to surf somewhere else now if this is not your thing. I’ll be back to something kinky soon.

I’ve been on a very long spiritual journey considering that my life has been relatively short. I won’t bore you with all of those details, but I’ll tell you where it has taken me. I am a Christian. Really. There are plenty who think this is at odds with my chosen lifestyle. I’ll tell you a secret though. I think before I was aware of my nature as a submissive I was getting my needs for structure, dominance and obedience met through the Church. I was incredibly legalistic with it and followed all the rules and regulations very scrupulously.

Vulnerable inside and out

In one of the great posts linked at the first Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy, Greta Christina considers the appeal of punishment.

In a "pure abuse of power" scene, you have control over the victim's body. But in a punishment scene, you have power over their mind as well. You have power over their very sense of self. You don't just have the power to make their body suffer -- you have the power to make their conscience suffer, too. You have the power to make them feel, not just helpless and frightened and hurting, but ashamed...

Because it would make you feel that way inside as well as out. It would make you feel helpless and submissive, small and bent to someone else's will... not just on your skin and in your muscles and genitals, but in your heart.

And I suspect this is why it feels so dangerous, as well as so enticing.

I've often thought that the punishment kink (domestic discipline, WIIWD, etc.) is among the most vulnerable of practices within BDSM, and I love how Christina articulates why that is. It involves a sort of double jeopardy that is lacking in role play, and the potential for danger can make punishment intoxicating for the participants. The penitent's whole being is vulnerable, his or her "very sense of self" as Christina puts it.

Indeed I think that buzz I've mentioned a few times in relation to punishment spanking is really a sort of high that follows surviving a particularly dangerous act -- hence it only occurs with punishment and not with role play or erotic spanking. Two people plunging into the abyss of shame, guilt, and physical pain and finding their way out the other side still intact -- or, rather, even better and closer for the trip through momentary darkness.

Responding to Wakeman

Natty got several posts up about this before I managed to, but I'm not bitter or anything. ;) But since Natty got her posts up before me, I feel *totally* justified in focusing on the things that really bugged me about the article. There were some good sides to the piece, and for a moderately mainstream examination of DD, she did portray a couple of different viewpoints.

HOWEVER. Whether because she wound up writing for Bitch Magazine, or because of her own biases, the structure of the article, the framing of quotations from her sources, and her choice of sources she quoted at all really reinforces one end of the spectrum of domestic discipline.

Take it all, Bitch

As you might imagine, What It Is We Do can be a bewildering concept for both kinky and vanilla feminists alike. Hell, it's a bewildering concept for us feminists who engage in it, as the epic thread that followed my post from a little over a year ago at the Punishment Book can attest. In her article, "Slap Happy," in this month's issue of Bitch Magazine (Spring, No. 39) author Jessica Wakeman doesn't necessarily provide any answers to make it less bewildering, but she does give the reader plenty to think about.

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!

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.

All About Bridget!

Hi there everyone! As Mija mentioned already I did indeed write this intro recently in anticipation of being added to this site. I'm pretty excited to be here, so I hope I have something of value to add! Anyway, all the relevant details are bellow. I will wait nervously for your feedback!

I'm a young woman in my early twenties. I live in the middle of the USA with my family. My family consists of three children and three adults. No, we don't have grandma living with us. We have what is called a polyamorous relationship. Both myself and the other woman are involved with the same man. Are you scandalized? My parents are. This is an ongoing source of drama in my life. I'm sure you will hear about it again.

Most relevant to PB readers- what we have together is a Master/slave dynamic. In this instance He is the Master, and we are the slaves. In the most simple terms this means that He gets to control whatever he wants and we get to, well, obey.  When we fail at the obedience thing is when discipline comes into play. Yes, it's usually painful.

There are some external things that go with being a slave. We address Him as "Sir." We sleep on the floor.  We (read I) take care of most of the housework.  We usually don't get to watch what we want on TV.  Most of these things are actually more subtle than you might expect, though, and except for there being three of us we don't look that different from any of those sappy 1950s TV shows.

Introducing Bridget as Our Birthday Present

Three years ago today the first entries to the PB went up!  Woot!  And to celebrate, a present for our readers and ourselves.

It's my pleasure to introduce a new PB writer today.  She's both thoughtful and delightful and her name is Bridget.  I know my procrastination in getting her added has been long enough that she's already got her introduction written so you have that delight to look forward to -- if you can't wait, the link to her blog is here.  But I'll post a few of my own details about young Bridget just as a teaser.

Bridget is in her 20s, part of a poly family and in a Master / slave relationship.  There have been occasions where I've heard What It Is We Do contrasted with BDSM and specifically the M/s dynamic but from what I've seen we've got a great deal in common, specifically in the area of being held accountable to an external authority.  But anyway, I'm looking forward to Bridget's entries here and everyone's discussion of them.

Happy 2008 and happy birthday to us!

Domestic Discipline vs. What We Do

Dyke Grrl's explanation in the comments section of the last post regarding why the term "domestic discipline" doesn't work for her reminds me of a conversation A. and I were having a few months back. It was about my bedtime and there were a number of factors complicating what should be a fairly straightforward issue. "I'm just following your lead," A. said finally. "Let me know what you want me to do and I'll do it."

I remember chuckling to myself at the time and thinking you'd never hear that sort of thing on most domestic discipline sites. But then, I've never really considered our disciplinary arrangement "domestic discipline."

Kinks in Our Punishment Kink: Insecurity

One of the best things about the Punishment Book, in my opinion, is that among the eight of us authors, we have a lot of years of scene experience.  Some of us have been part of the online community from its earliest seeds.  Some of us are regular party-goers.  Some of us are well-respected authors.  All of us have spent years coming to terms with our kink: running from it, refining it, chiding ourselves, feeling the warm rush of acceptance (from ourselves and others), nurturing others, relishing it, and living with a strongly empowered sense of identity.

And after all those years of struggle?  Ta da!  We're all accomplished scene advisors.  We have individual web sites and all contribute to this highly respected blog.  Which must mean that we're all completely over the insecurities of this kinky identity, right?

The Repeat Offender

Certain misdeeds chase me like demons of doom: most of the time I get punished for things I had already done wrong before, and suffered the consequences for, possibly several times.

It would be tempting to say: "Well, obviously, spanking doesn't work if you re-offend," but it's not so simple.

I don't react well to being expected to reform once and for all after only one occasion. Whether there's a spanking involved or not, the "go forth and sin no more, EVER" approach only makes me resentful: if I *could* avoid certain undesirable behaviour for the rest of my life, then I would, punishment or no punishment. I expect to live for a long time, though, and I don't anticipate spending any part of my life as a saint - which would certainly be the implication if all my usual quirks and badnesses were corrected forever within the next few years.*

One of my pet hates is hearing the phrase "Obviously, last time I didn't punish you hard enough." I don't hate it in a love/hate way: it just irritates the hell out of me. I'm not receptive to punishment when I'm irritated.

On the other hand, the phrase "I let you off last time", said in a hurt, regretful tone shred me into tiny little pieces.

The Story-ness and the Remembering

Last week I was proofreading a news story for A. and remembered that I had a post here that I started several months ago but never finished. Now that I have my new laptop and have become a manic blogger again, it's time to dig up it up and finish it, especially as I really enjoyed what I remembered. Or rather, I enjoyed the remembering. The actual event remembered was not so enjoyable while it was happening. Indeed, it was rather painful.

Out of Whack

M and I got back from Shadow Lane a little over a week ago, and I've had lots to think about since then.  I had a wonderful time there: saw lots of old friends, met some new ones, and got to play with people I like very much.  This hasn't always been my preferred (ahem) position at parties.  For a long time I only went to socialize; I didn't want to play with anyone other than my primary partner.  That has to do with an experience from a long time ago that did not happen at a party but colored my opinion about public play.

Anyway, I've changed my tune and now very much enjoy playing with a few people at parties.

Navigating The Parent Trap

If it sounds like a rambling rant and looks like a rambling rant, it probably IS a rambling rant.

Now that you've been warned...

Chris and I are learning how our kink life and our family life fit together again. In April, he took a new job 350 miles from home, and went off to carve a new niche for us. A new home. Meanwhile, the princess and I stayed behind for awhile. It was crunch time for me professionally. The princess was in school and happy there. We had to get our house ready to put on the real estate market (yes, great timing, huh?). For 3 1/2 months we were together as a family only intermittently, and several of those times were in the midst of family gatherines, while traveling, and in less than optimal or normal circumstances.

In mid-July we packed up my car, the dog, Chris's truck, two car seats, ten boxes of toys and various other essentials and headed off. Our house is still for sale (surprise, surprise) so Chris had rented a condo for us that was big enough, but with no extra space. We had, like all couples just starting out or just starting over, a lot of catching up to do - and a lot of adjusting to do. All four of us - but especially Chris and I - have had to re-assess how and why we do what we do.

It’s been fantastic – but not necessarily easy.

Coming Out: I'm Not A Submissive

Yes, I'm still alive. And yes, Dave and I are still together, and still spankos. Now that we've gotten that out of the way ...

Recently we've been going though this sort of Relationship Identity Crisis, of sorts. Some of it has stemmed, I'm sure, from some insecurity about our future, and some of it has stemmed from the fact that he actively seeks out and spanks other girls -- which I've always been "ok" with, on the surface, but I'm somewhat bothered by in truth.

That said, I have a friend who is sort of my mentor in 'the scene,' and also one of my very best friends even though he lives very far away. We talk a lot and we've spoken about some of these issues and I told him, "Sometimes I feel like I'm not very submissive and it really makes me feel awful." That's when he really blew my mind ...

Consentual Nonconsent and Other Issues of Equality

Over on "My Bottom Smarts" Bonnie asks the questions:

1. Is it possible to be submissive and equal simultaneously?
2. Does the fact that you submit to spanking negatively impact your standing in your relationship?
3. Do you or your partner view you as the lesser member of the relationship, or are you equal in all things other than spanking?

Bonnie's answers are great -- I wasn't sure how much I had to add.  However, the issue of equality and inequality in discipline and punishment relationships comes up quite a bit so I thought maybe I could put a bit of a PB twist on the questions, so to speak.

Finding Your Someone

Over on her lovely blog, Ruby Red posted the other day about the problem of finding the right person.  You know, not just a playmate and / or spanking friend (though we love those too), but a life partner. 

She writes:

I'm so damned picky. Even then, I'll meet someone in a moment of weakness and continue to meet with them until that moment of clarity that says, "He's totally wrong for you, dummy!"

Whether it's differences in politics, religion, familial ties... or if it's completely spanko-centric, there are a lot of reasons why people might be incompatible. It's not enough to share an interest in spanking. We all know how faceted the world o' spanking is... There's domestic discipline, roleplaying, erotic, bondage, BDSM, hardcore spanking, light spanking, good girl, daddy/daughter, M/F, F/F, F/M, M/M... there's spanking for fun, spanking for punishment, spanking for the hell of it. There's costume choices, implement purchases...decisions, decisions, decisions! It's all about finding the partner that comes closest to what you're actually interested in.

Ruby isn't the only one to bring this up -- we get email from a lot of women (and men!) looking for partners.  I know some of us have mentioned stuff in passing, but the question of how one gets into a relationship with discipline / punishment is maybe worth addressing in an entry of its own.

(Besides, I'm having trouble getting my comments to stick on blogger today.)

Examining My Conscience

quia peccavi
nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere:
mea culpa,
mea culpa,
mea maxima culpa.

(Okay, this starts out like an account of a play scene, but isn't. If you're looking for that you're going to be disappointed.  Fair warning)

Here I'm going to digress just a little bit.  I'm Roman Catholic -- have been since birth.  My first 13 years of education were in Catholic schools, mostly taught by nuns.  In my own weird way I'm quite religious.  I'm not very spiritual however -- in fact I have almost no faith in God.  It's the ritual that attracts and comforts me.  I've been away from the Church for a while -- the typical lapsed Catholic. There are a number of reasons I've absented myself -- disagreement with RC politics and my own personal choices (marrying after a divorce and outside the Church being chief among them).  Being away and not attending Mass or joining my local parish have been my doing and I mostly don't feel inclined to return.  But right now it's May and the roses are blooming.  There are alters to Mary all around. 

Right now I miss my religion*.

The Power of the Book

W. and I have a book, in which we have been writing down the various rules and "systems" we've been trying to set up, in which we record punishments, where the lines parts write are kept, and where we keep notes of what works, what doesn't, and why.

I guess you would call it our personal "punishment book."

Upping the Ante

Most of us have inner children.  Some of us have inner teenagers.  With dissociative identity disorder (D.I.D.), those inner teenagers are a little more complicated to deal with.  They are more than that impulse inside, where someone can have a feeling, recognize it, and do something to make that feeling resolve, while still understanding the world in adult terms.  So when my inner 14 year old is active, she has all the reasoning and coping skills of an actual 14 year old.  You might think this would be challenging, and it is.  Or, as W. would say, "Boy, howdy."

Safewords: In Answer to Bonnie's Brunch Question

Every Sunday on her blog "My Bottom Smarts" Bonnie asks a Brunch question and invites her readers to post their replies. This week her question was about safewords. I started to reply there, but my response got so long that I realized it was a blog entry in and of itself.

Bonnie's question:

There are a variety of opinions about safewords. Many spankos believe they are absolutely indispensible and spanking without one is hazardous. On the opposite side, other spankos claim that invoking a safeword constitutes "topping from the bottom." From this perspective, granting control to the spankee during a discipline session interferes with the lesson being delivered. Between these two divergent views, there are many shades of grey.

Do you and your partner employ a safeword? If so, how and when is it used? If not, why not?

My response is going to be after the break, but I also want to invite everyone to offer their own opinion. As you may have guessed from our other entries, the authors here don't tend to hold with the idea of there being such a thing as "One Trew Way."

Limit Testing

Right.  So the other day I said things were getting "back to normal."

They are getting back to normal, but with some bumps.  I wrote about the first day on el tercer ojo (my blog).  My plan was/is to blog each day this month about how things are going.  But of course I'm already two days behind.  This too was supposed to be written up yesterday, but again, I've fallen behind.

What I've realized though is that being away from things -- my work, spanking, uniforms and accountability in general -- has made it a little difficult for me just to step back into life as a disciplined girl (or woman, whatever).

As it says on my blog, the first day went pretty well.  I didn't get any work done, but Pab and I had already talked about that and decided I didn't need to start my school work yet.  Everything else got done that day and the bedtime spanking was a sweet good girl one that hurt, but not too much.  I went to bed feeling very smug.  Clearly we have this discipline relationship thing down, right?  And can slide back into this like a pair of comfy jeans.  Right.

Tuesday?  Not good.

What's the difference?

I've been reading lots of posts lately, from Haron, from Mija, from Ree, and from Chris, and I've been wondering:

What makes a punishment a punishment?

10 Years Ago Today on alt.sex.spanking

I delurked with a story and a very few details about myself, given the name Mija by Bea, who, at the time, was a regular poster.  Usenet was very mysterious to me, as Ron McIngle discovered to his pain as he tried to explain to me where I was and how I got there.  I didn't have web access -- I'd found alt.sex.spanking via crosspostings from a Los Angeles personals newsgroup.  The spam was very heavy -- probably at least 95% of the group's content at the time.  But the community, in the midst of planning the creation of this group, shone through.  That it existed at all seemed more amazing then I could bear.

At the time I was 29, in the middle of the first year of my MA program and floundering in an unhappy marriage that had taken my 20s and left me feeling far older than I was.  My (now) ex husband saw my interest in spanking as "outside any idea" he could have about me.  I'd buried my desires deep, only to have them reappear, triggered by writings of feminist Dorothy Allison.

Kinks in My Punishment Kink: The Bad Girl

As I return to my punishment kink, I'm running into a problem that's been there since I first started getting spanked as an adult: getting punished. Yes, I know. Getting punished is sorta the point, right? And a part of me really likes the getting punished part -- or at least the before and after. But for another part of me it feels profoundly unhealthy as it heightens my primeval fear of being bad.

What now?

Have you ever felt like you just had to be spanked or you would burst?  Like you wanted to fling yourself over the lap of the nearest toppy person (creepy neighbors excluded) and beg them to spank you soundly?  Or like you wanted to throw a tantrum in the middle of the street just so that someone would grab your ear and drag you off to be spanked?

Um, I have.

Want vs. Need

W. and I had a long conversation tonight; one of the main topics was me trying to express how I need more structured rules in my life, with both punishment and rewards as part of the system.  And as I was talking about the areas where I particularly need help, I had to wonder: am I really, seriously asking to be punished for these things?  Do I want to be punished for things I'm nearly certain to do (or, more to the point, do I want to be punished for not doing things I'm nearly certain not to do)?

And the answer is, "No, of course I don't WANT to be punished for these things."

Which leads to the next question: will punishments work to help me change my behaviors?  And there, I think, is the answer.

Kinks in My Punishment Kink: The Feminist Question

As I've mentioned a few times both here and on my personal blog, this last year found me struggling a great deal with my punishment kink. Some of the concerns have been lingering beneath the surface since I first started exploring my spanking fetish. Others have developed more recently. In the end, however, it all came down to four little words: but I miss it. There's a certain buzz I get from the profound vulnerability that comes with the punishment kink and the intimacy that vulnerability produces is nothing less than amazing.

I started chipping away at all these issues in one post but eventually realized that, even if I managed to write said post (which kept feeling more and more unwieldly), nobody would ever actually read it because it would be too damn long. ;) So, I finally decided that it would be more manageable to write and read if I broke it up into a series of posts.

The first issue is one that has been a more recent question as the beginning of the year found me connecting with my inner Appalled Feminist.

Spanko Calendar

I was just researching dates for a rather unusual calendar that I'm giving someone for Christmas (you can personalize it with anything you want) and I discovered some dates for 2007 that might be of general interest to this group.

February 10: National (International?) Plimsoll Day  --  And I know just how to celebrate!

April 30 (USA): National Spank Out Day  --  No idea what this is, but it sounds delightful.  It also happens to be National Honesty Day, which might not be as good for some people.

These are the ones I found so far.  Anyone else have any fun ones to add?

Doubts

Sometimes, the title is the hardest part.  I wrote this post over at Breathing In and Breathing Out.  It's about the intersection between being a survivor of childhood abuse and the role of discipline/spanking in my adult life.

I had wondered whether I should post it here, or on my own blog, and decided to put it there because it's not entirely on-topic, or something like that.  I guess it was the easiest way to break through my difficulties with writing, by having a space where I felt less of an obligation to offer at least slightly polished prose.

But when Natty commented that she also thought it might fit over here, I figured that perhaps it was less off-topic than I'd feared, so I thought I'd mention it.