Not Just A Red Bottom

heart paddle on lion butt
Spanking me is an expression of Mrs. Lion’s love. She knows that I want and need to be spanked. Because she loves me she learned how to do it.
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We’ve been at this for almost 6 years. Some of our readers have been with us the entire time. Mrs. Lion and I have changed significantly through this part of our lives. We’ve had the opportunity to make endless mistakes and course corrections as we navigated enforced male chastity and our Female Led Relationship with Discipline (FLRD).

It’s absolutely normal for us to shape what we do to fit into the way we want to live. As a blogger, I am a little concerned that new readers will expect to be able to apply what they read about our lives now. I’m not claiming that we are very advanced or better than other people doing the same thing. We’re not. In many ways we may be slower to adopt these practices. What you read here is the result of nearly 6 years of learning.

For us, at least, we had to complete many steps to get where we are now. I started thinking about this because we received an email (you can always send us private email simply by clicking contact us at the top of the page) written by a woman whose husband wants her to be his disciplining wife. She expressed concern that she couldn’t spank him with the ferocity he expects. He pointed to our blog is a good source of information. Reading it heightened her anxiety. She couldn’t see herself disciplining her husband the way Mrs. Lion disciplines me.

When I first started this blog I wondered if, as time went by, it wouldn’t turn into something suitable only for people with at least as much experiences as us. That’s the reason I created our static pages. You can find links to these pages in the top header of each page of the blog. My thought was that by supplying basic information, we could help beginners while still journaling our evolution.

Mrs. Lion recently wrote about some spankings she gave me as punishment for forgetting to let her know a Saturday was punishment day. She didn’t consider this a very serious issue. In fact, she made Saturday a punishment day just so I might forget and slip up and earn some spanking. We both agree that regular spankings are good for me.

Anyway, her description of the spankings revealed that she wields her paddle with enthusiasm. Frequently, she’ll draw a little blood. I think that’s just an issue with my skin since she almost never gives me a black and blue mark. When we got the contact email from a novice spanker, I realized that reading our posts  might set up unreasonable expectations on the part of newly disciplined husbands and their wives.

It’s taken almost the entire time we’ve been together — over 15 years — for Mrs. Lion to have evolved into an effective disciplinary spanker. Her progress has been slow and steady. I’ve also made progress. Spanking takes two. It isn’t as simple as baring my butt and presenting it to be beaten. I have to be able to handle the impact. Even if she tied me down, the spanking would still have to be within my limits. So even if Mrs. Lion was a ferocious lioness from day one, I wouldn’t have been able to accept her beatings without considerable practice.

This is a primary example of how disciplinary spankings are misunderstood. I’ve been lucky enough to communicate with several women who are very severe spankers. Every single one started off very much like Mrs. Lion. Each husband had to be prepared over time to manage a strong spanking. Most surprising to me, was that even though the spankings are meant as punishment, the disciplining wives spend time with milder blows to warm up their husbands’ bottoms. Turns out that a disciplinary spanking isn’t very different from a BDSM scene. The biggest difference is that there is a reason for the disciplinary spanking. The BDSM spanking is at the request of the man being spanked.

It’s all about intention, not action. My fantasies were always much more robust than my bottom’s ability to take a strong spanking. Even though I asked Mrs. Lion for strong punishment spankings, I couldn’t handle them. I thought it was necessary for me to be spanked until I produced tears. After all this time I still haven’t cried. I now know that it is completely unnecessary. It’s just another case of the fantasy getting in the way of a terrific reality.

This led me to wonder how I would know if a spanking is effective. I think there are several criteria:

1. Did the punishment correct the behavior that provoked it? That’s not to say that a single spanking will cure a bad habit. It won’t. At the least it will send a strong enough message so that the infraction isn’t repeated too soon. After a while, the behavior may in fact be extinguished. This happened with my two initial rules. They were that I would be punished if I spilled food on my shirt and I would be punished if I began eating before Mrs. Lion. To both of our surprise I stopped spilling on my shirt and I always wait for her to eat first. Yes, occasionally I make a bit of a mess and I get punished for it. But the evidence is clear; consistent spankings changed me.

2. Did the spanker feel she got her message across? A spanking is a form of communication. It’s not just swatting some hapless behind. It’s a way for the spanker to express frustration and displeasure in such a way that she feels she made a point.

3. Did the disciplined husband feel he paid for his crime? Punishment is a form of atonement. The sinner (me) wants to feel that he’s paid for his crime. The pain and humiliation of his punishment atones for the infraction. Obviously, open and transparent communication is required so that the disciplining wife can get feedback to help her understand how her husband benefits from her punishment.

4. Are the spankings frequent enough and strong enough to help fuel his libido (hers too)? This is the secret benefit of spanking and other corporal punishments. Since all of these activities are completely consensual, there is almost certainly a sexual component to spanking and other punishments. The disciplined husband is very unlikely to want to admit that one layer of his desire for spanking is sexual. Obviously it is. Almost all guys are erect before being spanked. His disciplining wife should be aware of this sexual value. The so-called “maintenance” spanking is a way to make sure that he gets his proper dose of stimulation.

It’s obvious that adult spanking, at least in the context of FLRD isn’t simple discipline. To an outside observer it may look like Mrs. Lion is punishing me to correct a behavioral problem. The observer might imagine she’s being excessively strict for a minor offense. This observer might even imagine she’s a sadistic woman who enjoys inflicting pain.

I imagine that a fairly large number of guys who want to be disciplined husbands, want to imagine themselves being punished to correct a problem. They certainly don’t want to think about the sexual and social value that goes along with their paddling. It doesn’t matter. The experience is an important social transaction between loving partners. I am very grateful that Mrs. Lion has worked so hard to perfect her role. I will continue to work hard to perfect mine.

It’s possible for a disciplined husband to live in the fantasy bubble of crime and punishment. His disciplining wife doesn’t have that luxury. She’s controlling a very rich experience that benefits both of them if approached with knowledge, love, sense of humor, and understanding. In our house, behind every red, painful bottom is a happy lion.