We Need More Than New Rules

Mrs. Lion told me about my new rule. It’s a little vague, and I’m unsure how she will enforce it. As I understand it, I’m not allowed to growl at or make disparaging remarks about game show contestants. That’s too bad. I get so few chances to growl without being spanked. OK, I understand the rule. I wonder if Mrs. Lion will enforce it.

This new rule falls into the subjective category of “things that annoy Mrs. Lion.” Unlike the binary rules of closing the shower door or setting up the coffee pot, this new rule requires interpretation. Is that sound I made during jeopardy spankable? If I call a contestant an idiot, will she pick up on it and spank me?

That’s the problem with rules like this. It’s easy to catch me not doing something I should. But when watching TV, Mrs. Lion is in bed playing with her iPad. She doesn’t want to do anything else. If she expects me to learn to suppress the growls, she must punish me every time I do it. We’ve learned that lesson from our years of domestic discipline. The rule won’t change my behavior if she doesn’t do that.

I think that’s one reason she’s avoided creating new rules. Mrs. Lion is a very effective disciplinarian. I hate her spankings. We’ve published pictures to show my bottom when she’s done . Click here to see the results of a recent spanking. It hurts every second she spanks me. The minimum length of a spanking is ten minutes. Mrs. Lion recently estimated that is at least 400 swats with a paddle. You get the point. I have to take a rule seriously if Mrs. Lion consistently enforces it.

New rules are a challenge for her. She has to teach herself to look for my offenses. Some people think that it is fine if she only punishes me when I annoy her enough to correct me consciously. That approach lets her express her annoyance and is useful in that sense. However, because she only gets to that point occasionally, I never really change. I may learn just how far I can go before I get spanked, but the negative behavior isn’t extinguished.

If the point of the rule is to punish me when I go too far, then there is a very good chance I will never be spanked for growling at the TV. I can count on one hand the number of spankings I’ve received for annoying Mrs. Lion. Each time I interrupt or act like a know-it-all, she rationalizes it, and no spanking results. Sometimes, she’s written here that I interrupted her and didn’t spank me.

We’ve reached the point that spanking me isn’t particularly difficult for Mrs. Lion. She doesn’t mind hurting my bottom. Setting up the spanking bench takes just a minute or two. She always spanks me if I forget the coffee pot or shower door. Maybe the problem is that I break those rules so infrequently that she’s gotten out of the practice of paddling me. Much as I hate to say it, maybe she needs practice so that the physical activity of spanking me becomes a routine part of her life.

I’m not sure exactly what that means. Maybe she should spank me every punishment day as well as every time I break a rule. I would get a minimum of three spankings a week for a while. My punishment days are Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. After a while, I imagine that she will feel comfortable enough to make spanking routine. Then, maybe cut back until she only punishes me when I break a rule. The challenge is on two levels. The first is to make spanking routine again. The second is to make catching me breaking subjective rules automatic.

If I’m going to be spanked three times a week anyway, it might be easier to observe and punish me for those subjective rules. I am not excited about Mrs. Lion’s adopting this suggestion. I just think we need to take action or lose out.