No Morning Coffee? Ouch!

lion flat on tummy
Guess who?

We slept a little late yesterday. Mrs. Lion went into the kitchen to start the coffee pot. When she returned to the bedroom, she said, “I guess you decided that you want a punishment spanking today.” Mrs. Lion had planned on giving me a “play” spanking.

I was a little startled. I said, “I did?”

“Yup. You didn’t set up the coffeepot.”

“Oh shit,” I said softly. I forgot. There was nothing left to say. I wasn’t looking forward to being punished.

Unsurprisingly, after breakfast and after I checked in at work, I went to the kitchen and set up the coffeepot for today. I guess it’s true that building a habit requires reinforcement. It doesn’t make sense to give me a reward to reinforce doing the coffeepot. That’s silly. It makes good sense to punish me if I forget. That’s the thing about domestic discipline. It’s extremely good at building new habits.

Behavioral psychologists teach us that rewards for good behavior are more effective than punishments for bad behavior. I don’t think that’s true for me. I can’t think of anything I could get every day for successfully remembering to set up the coffee that would be a sensible reward. The obvious possibility is providing me with some sexual stimulation. However, Mrs. Lion decided a long time ago that sex and discipline don’t belong together. I think she’s right. Also, getting a reward every day for doing something doesn’t feel like a good incentive for me. I realize that monkeys and dogs are different in that a bit of food is a definite incentive. I can feed myself, so some food is not going to make me want to do something.

In the artificial universe of the psychology lab, rewards can be devised for experiments. But in the real world, where each of us has a complex set of activities to do each day, simple rewards will get drowned out by the noise of daily life. Skinner and his experiments by necessity had to filter out all this other stuff.

A punishment spanking hurts. More importantly, it hurts for an extended period of time. A good one does no serious damage, but hurts like hell to get and sends lasting messages every time I sit down. I think that the most important thing about this sort of punishment has very little to do with the sensations inflicted. There is no doubt, based on my experience with Mrs. Lion, that the intensity of sensation has to be strong. Otherwise, it can be ignored or chalked off to being a sexual experience.

The key for me, at least, is that I have to expose my bare bottom to her and hold still, as long as she wants to spank me. Almost from the very start, I instinctively want to run. It hurts every time that paddle hits me. I can make her stop, but I won’t. No matter how much it hurts. I know that she is in charge and I did something wrong. I also know that if I avoid repeating the offense, I won’t have to endure this again.

The activity gives me a strong incentive to be obedient and do what I’m supposed to do. Sometimes I forget. I am always reminded to remember by a repeat session with Mrs. Lion’s paddle. Eventually, I hope I will stop forgetting. I have a strong incentive to remember.

That’s what this is all about. It isn’t some D/S scenario where the spanking is a physical manifestation of my submission. Yes, I am submitting to it. However, it isn’t because I want to be submissive to Mrs. Lion. It’s because I did something I shouldn’t. The fact that she makes the rules is a part of an agreement we have. I’m still an independent person. I agreed to let her make any rule she wants and I will be punished for failing to follow it.

This is domestic discipline. It’s effective because we’ve both made an important commitment: I am committed to obeying Mrs. Lion, and accepting punishment when I commit an offense. She’s committed to diligently observing my behavior and consistently punishing me effectively when it’s needed.

The keywords are, “consistently” and “effectively”. None of this works unless each and every time I commit an offense I’m punished. The punishment has to be strong enough so that it is an incentive to avoid repeating the offense. It took a long time for Mrs. Lion to spank me strongly enough to make that impression. Now that she does, and she is diligent about observing and punishing my slip-ups, I make fewer and fewer “mistakes”.

It’s odd that my ability to remember to do something seems to fade over time. It’s as though I can’t retain the memory of how unhappy I was being punished for doing something wrong. I seem to need periodic reminders. Maintenance spanking does not replace this. Maintenance spanking has a special function in our marriage. They serve as a physical reminder of our power exchange.

It’s a way to remind me that at any time, Mrs. Lion can and will spank me. That may seem silly at first. It’s not. If we go several weeks without a punishment, on some level I forget that I am always only one command away from a bottom-blistering paddling. On some level, it’s important for me to get that reminder. Yesterday, Mrs. Lion had planned to give me a “play”/maintenance spanking. It turned out she didn’t have to. I managed to earn a much more unpleasant sort.

My ego and blogging
I go through bursts of feeling intensely competitive. I want our blog to be the most popular in the world! Then I think about it. I don’t want to turn my posts into clickbait. I’m not really looking for random guys who want to masturbate to my writing. That’s not why we write. I want to believe that our readers are our friends. We share some common interests.

I have the unhealthy habit of frequently checking our site statistics. When I see our visitor count is going down, it makes me sad. I have no idea why. Intellectually, I realize that there is no gain other than ego-stroking when more people visit us. Sometimes I actually consider spending the money to get a consultant to improve our search engine performance. And I wonder why the hell I would want to do that. We don’t sell anything. The Journal is expensive. If our readership goes way up. It will cost us more to publish.

Mrs. Lion and I keep discovering surprising benefits in things we do. For example, we like to read each other’s posts. Sometimes, Mrs. Lion takes to heart what I write. If I write about being unhappy because of something she is doing or not doing, she will work to improve the situation for me. The same is true when I read her posts. My number one priority is to make her happy. I suppose if the reader count drops to just one, and that one is her, I will consider myself successful as a blogger, except on those days when my ego cuts in.