The planets aligned again and we played last night. Lion was awake. Neither of us had headaches or stomach issues. When I teased my weenie, he responded. Then I suggested he might enjoy being sucked more. He agreed. I thought we were on our way to another orgasm. At the very least, I thought I was going to get him to the edge. We were motoring right along and then Lion said he didn’t think he was going to get any further. Buzz. I’m sorry but thank you for playing our game. The good news is that both of us enjoyed ourselves even if we didn’t get to the level we thought we would.

Now for the bad news. Lion wants me to humiliate him when I’m punishing him. How long has it taken me to get to a point that I can effectively leave him sore the next day? Years. How long does he think it will take me to get to a point that I can humiliate him? I’m guessing years – probably a lot more years than it took to spank him well. At this point, it’s difficult enough to keep going when he’s yowling. I mean, when he yowls because I’m really hurting him, not when I’m just hurting his pride. And I really just got to the point that I’ll talk to him during punishment.

The other thing that bothers me, and I usually say this tongue in cheek, is when is it ever enough? Punishment is so great and now we know how to do it right. But now we need to do X. And we do X, but now he’s discovered Y. I’m not saying we should become complacent. I’m just wondering why we can’t stop here for a while and enjoy the scenery before we move on to the next town. It took so long to get here. Why jump right back in the car when there’s a pretty view? Relax. Stop moving the target.

Yeah. I know. That’s not Lion’s way.

[Lion — You have a point. Obviously, you don’t need feedback about spanking. I’m still getting a twinge now and then from the last one. I agree that it might not be worth the effort to be verbal too. Sorry if I made you feel that you weren’t doing a good job. You are!]

Mrs. Lion seems proud of her ability to keep my bottom sore for three days so far. It is an accomplishment. She has moved up to lioness 4.0 when it comes to discipline. We’ve talked a bit about the verbal side of punishment. I wrote about it in this post. I think that requiring me to beg and verbally respond during the spanking will be almost as difficult for her as it is for me.

The sort of mid-spanking conversation is a technique used by disciplinarians from time immemorial. It greatly amplifies the punishment’s humiliation and underlines the fact that the activity is being performed for a reason. I think Mrs. Lion might be challenged for almost the same reason I resist this part of the punishment: it makes the disciplinary roles crystal clear. It also underlines the reason for the painful activity. It forces me to acknowledge my transgression and beg for forgiveness. The conversation might go like this:

[Mrs. Lion spanking hard and me yelping]

Mrs. Lion: “Why am I punishing you?”

Lion: “I didn’t set up the coffee pot.”

“Are you supposed to set it up every day?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I forgot.”

“You, what?”

“I forgot to set up the coffee pot.”

“Was that naughty?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Do you deserve your spanking?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Do you have something to say?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please stop…”

You get the idea. It forces me to focus on why I’m being punished and makes me humbly admit what I did and beg for forgiveness and for Mrs. Lion to end the spanking. Both of us have avoided this critical part of the punishment. Similarly, when Mrs. Lion inquires on the days after about whether it hurts to sit, she might want to ask me if I know why I have a sore bottom. This reinforces the lesson I am being taught.

aren’t there other rules?

As far as I can tell, the only rule being enforced is requiring me to set up the coffee pot. We need to review this topic. I know that I’m supposed to wait for Mrs. Lion to eat before I start. I do that consistently, so enforcement is either unnecessary or Mrs. Lion has stopped checking. Since I don’t wear shirts or anything else when we eat, the no-spilling-food-on-my-shirt rule is moot. Mrs. Lion doesn’t enforce the no-interrupting rule.

If we are going to get better at our disciplinary relationship, I probably need more opportunities to be punished. I know that Mrs. Lion likes catching me breaking the rules. We probably need to look at what behavioral changes she might like me to make. The only way we will advance to the enforcement of things that annoy her is to make the formal disciplinary process automatic. We’ve perfected catch-and-spank for the coffee pot. Now maybe we need catch-and-spank-and-scold for more things.

I am happy to report that Lion still has a sore butt. Only a few spots are tender but I’m counting that as a win. When he told me this morning, I answered with my customary “good” and he laughed. I told him maybe the lasting effects would help him remember the coffee pot. So far it has and I hope it will for some time. Eventually he’ll forget again and we’ll repeat the process.

I didn’t whomp him for taking over my trip plans. We talked about it and, once I got more information from my soon-to-be-daughter-in-law, we actually cut the trip down to the days Lion suggested. It’s still lot of money but it would have been more if we’d stayed as long as I’d originally planned. I hate flying. Not so much the flying aspect as the added security and what you can and can’t bring through security. It’s such a hassle. I get it. Safety. I wear a mask because of safety. That doesn’t mean I can’t complain about it.

Lion hasn’t really been interested in sex the past few nights. Last night he fell asleep as I was playing with him. It’s a good thing I don’t take that personally. It might give me a complex. He said he seems to be more tired after dinner. Now that I’m back at work, I really can’t do much about that. By the time I get home and get settled, it’s time to make dinner. Even if I take my shower later, it will still be after dinner before we get things going. On weekends we can certainly start earlier but Lion shouldn’t have to wait until the weekend for fun. We’ll have to put our heads together to figure it out.

Maybe tonight we can try for anal fun. I’m working from home because I had a video conference this morning. I still have to work in the afternoon but no one will know if I knock off a few minutes early. Plus, I won’t have the commute home so that saves time too. I shouldn’t be as worn out tonight either. It was a boring conference but I managed to stay awake. It’s so much nicer to work from home. Lion likes having me here too.

Occasionally some readers will accuse me of topping from the bottom. This accusation is based on the fact that I offer suggestions to Mrs. Lion about domestic discipline or other female-led relationship topics. In the beginning, I got annoyed when I got such feedback. Then I realized that there is a general misconception about how disciplinary relationships are born and nurtured. Most people believe that the disciplined husband initiates a disciplinary relationship simply by asking his spouse to punish him when needed.

The underlying assumption is that she will automatically know exactly how to do this. After all, the fantasy is that every wife will understand exactly how to perform domestic discipline. That certainly wasn’t true for us. When I asked Mrs. Lion to take me in hand, she had some experience spanking me in the BDSM context. Those spankings were a form of foreplay. I asked her to administer disciplinary spankings, which I expected to have no sexual value. In my mind, it seemed a simple transition. Just keep swatting.

That didn’t work. It’s taken years for Mrs. Lion to comfortably discipline me sufficiently. To get to this point, she needed feedback from me. She never experienced disciplinary spanking when she grew up. For that matter, neither did I. It’s been a discovery process. This process is what confuses some people. I suggest ways Mrs. Lion can improve her effectiveness. In the beginning, when I did that, she saw it as a criticism. More recently, she’s come to realize it’s useful feedback, not a review of how well she is doing.

It isn’t easy to figure out how serious the spanking needs to be in order to provide an effective punishment. The spanker, Mrs. Lion, would need some indication from me that would tell her I’m sufficiently chastised. There are two ways for her to get that: The least reliable is gauging my response as the beating goes on. I believe that my verbal reactions should be irrelevant. Yelps and screams, even crying are indications that Mrs. Lion is reaching me. It’s not a signal that she should stop. We have a safeword if I absolutely need her to.

The second and most useful feedback comes after the punishment. I’m not talking about immediately after, but the next day or later. That’s when both of us can be more analytical. For example, some time ago, I suggested that spankings need to take more time. I felt they were ending before I had really gotten the message. Mrs. Lion took that the heart this week and provided a fairly long spanking. She probably cut it a bit short because she was having trouble holding the paddle. My feedback is that she’s on the right track. While I will absolutely hate it, I believe she needs to go on even longer. Yesterday, I suggested that sincere begging might be a requirement before she even considers stopping. Please note that I didn’t say begging indicated it was time to stop. It isn’t.

phases of a disciplinary spanking

Based on my experience to date, a spanking seems to have several phases. The first one is the warm-up. This is when Mrs. Lion helps me become accustomed to receiving the paddle. Based on our experience, this can take several minutes. My suggestion is that when Mrs. Lion decides that warm-up is over, she tells me that this punishment will begin. This is useful because there’s a sense of desperation I feel when I suffer several minutes of spanking only to learn my punishment hasn’t begun. The next phase is the punishment. This is when the swats are much harder and designed for maximum discomfort. They have to build up in intensity to help me avoid trying to escape. This is an area that over-the-knee spankers have much more control over. I’m not restrained in any way.

The punishment phase evokes yelps and screams and probably produces bruises. In my opinion, this is the longest phase of spanking. It should feel endless. My last spanking certainly made me feel that way. At some point during the punishment phase, I think it’s important to bring me back into communication with Mrs. Lion while she is delivering some of her hardest swats. This is when she can teach me to beg. When I began sincerely begging, something I’ve never done, we are entering the submissive phase. This is when spanking goes from something to fight against and resist into resignation and acceptance.

The purpose of punishment is repentance

I don’t think that means silently receiving the blows. It does mean sincerely begging for the spanking to end and perhaps some tears. I’m not sure I’ll ever get that far, but I am sure that if Mrs. Lion persists, my sincerity will grow. During this phase, it makes sense to ask me some questions like, “Are you sorry that you forgot to set up the coffee pot?”

Of course, I’ll answer that I am. Mrs. Lion can then say, “I don’t think you really are,” and deliver several very hard swats. The idea is to encourage me to work hard to convince her that she’s made me very sorry for whatever it is I’ve done. We’ve left this out in the past. It’s something I really don’t want to do, but I think it’s actually the most useful and educational part of the punishment. I’m at my most vulnerable. There’s nothing I want more than for the pain to end. Mrs. Lion will have made it clear that’s not happening until she’s convinced I’ve repented.

After all, that’s the entire point of punishment — repentance. Sincere repentance. Before she even asks me if I’m sorry, she’s already made sure I’ve been thoroughly spanked. This is the icing that goes on top. It should be the worst part for me and the most useful one for her. Classic spanking literature suggests that a scolding is the overture to the punishment. It’s supposed to put the person being punished into the right frame of mind. I don’t think that would happen to me. It’s when the punishment has reached a crescendo and threatens to go on forever that I’m most likely to beg for forgiveness sincerely.

Is this topping from the bottom? It isn’t. It’s feedback designed to help us perfect domestic discipline in our household. I hope that Mrs. Lion adopts this model. It’s probably the best way to make me let go and accept my role as her disciplined husband. I think this is a true, pure form of punishment without the least trace of sexual excitement.