By:
In: Domestic discipline

Probably the biggest misconception in the world of kinky sex is who is in charge. The general public assumes the so-called dominant partner calls the shots. After all, he or she — she in our case — makes the rules and holds the paddle. After all, it’s my bottom that gets spanked. Similarly, folks wonder how the poor man ended up with his penis locked in a cage. What horrible woman did this to him? Even some people who practice these things believe this. Well, not exactly; they convince themselves that the dominant partner is in charge.

Think about it for a minute, can that possibly be true? These oppressed creatures hold responsible jobs, travel freely in public, have bank accounts, and even vote, though some of them probably shouldn’t. That’s a different post. Obviously, unless their children are being held hostage, they aren’t compelled to live in degrading servitude. They want it.

Who do you think buys most of the paddles, whips, belts, restraints, and gags? Right, the people who they are used on. Men buy almost all male chastity devices, not the women who hold the keys. This all makes perfect sense. BDSM, male chastity and domestic discipline are all consensual activities. That means the lioness who bruises my poor, tender bottom does it with my permission. If I revoke that permission, it won’t hurt to sit down anymore.

Am I saying that Mrs. Lion has to ask me before she beats me? No, I’m not. Those of us who engage in these power exchanges aren’t that hypocritical. I am disciplined when I break a rule. I don’t want to be spanked when I do something wrong. Sometimes I want to be spanked when we are playing. After I break a rule, I promise you I don’t want to experience the retribution I have coming.

Didn’t you say it is consensual? If you don’t want a spanking, then Mrs. Lion doesn’t have your permission, right?

Ah-ha! It looks like you found a fallacy. If she needs my permission and I don’t want to be spanked, doesn’t that mean I didn’t agree? Nope. I don’t get to consent to each punishment. That’s not our agreement. I consented to let Mrs. Lion punish me when she thinks it is appropriate. I don’t even have to break a rule. She can also create any rule she wants me to follow and I have to obey or suffer the consequences.

What’s to prevent you from revoking your consent if you don’t like how you are being treated?

If I revoke my consent, the game stops. Mrs. Lion won’t be in charge. That’s no good. I asked her to take charge and punish me as needed. I may hate how much a spanking hurts. I may feel some of my rules are unfair. That’s too bad. If I want her to be in charge, I have to take the good with the bad. I can’t fine-tune my consent. This is true of most power exchanges. That’s where the true power of the dominant partner lies. It is all or nothing. Yes, I can withdraw my consent. If I do, the game is over.

By:
In: Domestic discipline, Spanking

There have been several studies asking people about sexual dreams and fantasies. It turns out that over 85% of both men and women dream about spanking. I’m not sure which end of the paddle they dream about, but I think it is probably about getting spanked. There are endless theories about why almost all of us dream about pain administered to our bare rear ends.

This subject is only second to genital sex in terms of our sexual dreams. Mrs. Lion paddling my bottom comes in second behind stimulating my penis. Relatively few people actually live out their spanking dreams. Let me correct myself about this. Most people who fantasize about being spanked probably experience some mild form of non-disciplinary spanking at one time or another. Many couples include it in foreplay.

This is Shilo and Merry, from their video, “Fun with Shilo“. Used with permission.

Domestic discipline is a form of consensual spanking that goes beyond foreplay. Because it involves punishment spankings, many people reject the very idea of it in real life. Yet, spanking fantasies are about being punished in a sexy way. Mrs. Lion and I practice domestic discipline. I asked her to be my disciplining wife. People who practice domestic discipline often seem very serious about it. After all, the spankings are real. They are meant to hurt.

I think that this appearance of seriousness, especially the way people write about it, puts off people who could enjoy the practice. I’m not trivializing our disciplinary marriage. Mrs. Lion is in charge and her spankings hurt and leave marks. I’ll get back to that later. Domestic Discipline (DD) is an adult game. It can be played in a lighthearted way or like any other game, it can be very seriously pursued.

DD is a game with rules

It has basic rules: At any given time, one partner is in charge. In our case, it is Mrs. Lion. I have agreed to let her punish me as she sees fit. Many people write a DD contract that spells out the boundaries of control and the nature of punishments. This is similar to the male chastity contracts some couples create. The contracts spell out the rules for the couple. Our contract is understood. I’ve agreed that Mrs. Lion can punish me in any way she sees fit for any offense I commit. She has created rules I have to follow. If I break one, I get spanked. It’s that simple. What about the spankings?

In the beginning, Mrs. Lion barely stung my bottom. Punishment spankings were the same as the play spankings she gave me because it turns me on to be spanked. They hurt. I used to be hard when I got into position for a spanking. After less than a minute my erection was gone. Still, I was aroused when I thought about being spanked. Over time, the spankings became more severe. I learned to stay in position for much more painful punishment. I realized that the more severe the spanking, the more I got out of it. I continue to get aroused thinking about being spanked.

The fact that I get aroused thinking about getting a spanking that I will hate is confusing to people who haven’t experienced it. I can’t explain why I feel that way. I have also learned that if Mrs. Lion gives me a long, painful spanking, I feel more centered and grounded when she is done. I’m convinced that if she continues to improve the quality of my spankings, the benefits to me will grow. I think we will both know when she has reached the level beyond which it will be too much. We aren’t there yet.

It’s not just spanking, two have to play

DD is a game for two. I am not just the recipient of punishment, a victim; I’m an active participant. DD is a service to me as much as it is a way of giving Mrs. Lion authority. As she has written, punishing me doesn’t make her feel she is wiping the slate clean. She said that she gets that feeling from growling at me. She spanks me because it helps me. Aside from any sexual value, it lets me avoid feeling guilty. It also actually trains me.

I never expected this, but when Mrs. Lion consistently punishes me for breaking a rule, no matter what that rule is, I break it less often. There are two examples that surprised me: I have a rule that I am to not start eating until Mrs. Lion begins or tells me I can begin. This is the first rule she enforced with absolute consistency. If I take one bite before her, I get spanked. As a result, I almost never eat before her. I didn’t obey consciously. I was conditioned to wait for her. Once in a while I forget or think I see her start. She gives me a smile that says I am dumb to earn a spanking. Later, I get spanked. More recently, when I forget, the spankings have been rather mild. I think Mrs. Lion feels the offense is minor and so takes it easy.

The same is true of another early rule: I am not to spill food on my shirt. When she made the rule, I was pretty sloppy. I would get spanked several times a week. Those were the days of very mild swats. As Mrs. Lion increased her severity, incidents of me spilling on my shirt became less frequent. Now, I can’t remember the last time I broke that rule.

keeping it fresh

Since DD is a game, we need to keep things interesting. The rules, even the trivial ones, all improve me in one way or another. Some areas I need to improve are very difficult for Mrs. Lion to help me. These are things I do that annoy her. She hasn’t been able to consistently punish me when I upset her. She knows I want her to spank me when I do, but she is having difficulty doing it.

That’s fine. We both need to be comfortable with what we do. While I would like to correct my behavior in that area, it isn’t horrible if we can’t apply DD to fix it. Maybe Mrs. Lion can come up with less difficult to enforce rules.  She’s been thinking about it, but so far we have not come up with any.

Mrs. Lion is far from gentle now as you can see. I actually want her to be more severe.

That brings me to some apparent contradictions. If you look at DD as a lifestyle, the ultimate goal is never to need to punish your spouse. I don’t like that idea at all. I like the game; so does Mrs. Lion. You might be thinking that I could get myself spanked if I purposely break a rule. Yes, I could, but it would be wrong. It would be cheating. I have to earn punishment, not force it.

Another area that even confuses Mrs. Lion is severity. I want her to be more severe. I’ve learned that a truly serious disciplinary spanking works best for me. Right now, she gives me very painful spankings. I rarely feel them the day after, but they hurt like hell when she paddles me. In the interest of research, I am asking her to keep making her spankings longer and harder. If I’m right, I will benefit more. If I’m wrong, I will learn to change even more quickly. It’s a win-win.

The point is that domestic discipline is what you want it to be. It is a game played by two. No matter how seriously you play it, it is still a game. We will be playing it as long as we live.

By:
In: Domestic discipline, Mrs Lion Comments

Lion wonders if I notice that domestic discipline works. I do. He rarely spills food on his shirt anymore. He’s learned to ask if I’ve eaten or he waits for me to tell him it’s okay to eat before he does. He tries very hard to avoid swats. I just don’t know if I see the value in it for everything, or maybe just for me.

I may not find punishing him as distasteful as I did at first, but I don’t breathe a sigh of relief once it’s over. I mean, it doesn’t wipe the slate clean as Lion has suggested. From my point of view, the act of telling him he interrupted me is enough. If I can muster the strength, for want of a better word, to tell him he’s wronged me in some way, I consider that a victory. Apparently swatting is what does it for him. For that reason, I guess spanking is all for him.

Regardless of whether or not I need to spank him for the punishment to be completed, I’ll keep doing it. He doesn’t get value from my growling at him. For this to keep working, we both need to get something from it. If I wanted sex, but never got an orgasm, I wouldn’t consider my needs met. Obviously, I wouldn’t need an orgasm every time necessarily, but I’d feel cheated over time. If I only yell at him and call it good, he won’t reap the benefits.

We’re all about teamwork. I growl and feel better. Lion gets swatted and feels better (about the slate being wiped clean, not about having a sore butt). It sounds like a beneficial compromise to me.

For the record, when I catch him breaking the easy rules, I don’t growl. I wipe the slate clean by catching him and shaking my head that he broke such a simple rule again. I mean, really? [Lion comments — For the record, she still spanks me every time, headshake or not.]

By:
In: Domestic discipline, Lion's Journal

The long weekend is nearly over. Mrs. Lion will return to her office tomorrow. She will be working from home on Tuesday. I miss her when she is away. I’ve had no trouble remembering to set up the coffeepot for the next day. Apparently, being spanked for missing a day helped my memory. Even though we have been doing this for years, I’m still surprised that it works so well.

I don’t know the reason, but Mrs. Lion doesn’t have much to say about the value of domestic discipline in our lives. I’m not sure she believes it is effective in changing my behavior. I’ve always had the feeling that she does it because I want it, not because it has any serious value in our marriage. It’s true that I want it. I believe that over the years it’s proven effective in helping me change. Admittedly, the changes aren’t momentous, but they are real nonetheless.

For example, when we began, I managed to spill food on my shirt at least several times a week. I was a messy eater. When it became a spankable offense to do this, getting food on my shirt became a very rare event. Yes, I must have received dozens of spankings before the change, but the evidence is irrefutable. The same thing is true of me eating before Mrs. Lion. After it became a rule that she was to always begin eating first, before long I almost never slipped.

Just because DD helped me make these rather trivial behavioral changes doesn’t mean I think more serious issues can be cured with a spanking paddle. Fortunately, most disciplined husbands don’t need addictions cured. There are less serious issues that, if uncorrected, can hurt a marriage. I know that when I interrupt Mrs. Lion, it upsets her. She also hates it when I act like a know-it-all.

Obviously, I don’t try to do those things. They are negative habits; behaviors that should be extinguished. Punishment, like spanking, can facilitate this. It isn’t that the spanking is so horrible that I fear offending again so much I watch every word. The spanking forces me to recognize what I did. It’s unpleasant enough to help condition me to avoid what prompted it. DD is solid behavioral psychology.

At its most basic level, DD is Pavlovian; interrupt, get a sore bottom. The conditioning stimulus is spanking. As we discovered, it works. I didn’t set out to keep food off my shirt. I was conditioned to do it. It turns out that DD is an effective behavioral tool for non-addictive behaviors. I wonder if Mrs. Lion realizes this.