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In: Punishment

Lion always tells me he wants punishment swats. He may not want them at the time they happen, but he wants them. He doesn’t want diapers, but he wants me to tell him to wear diapers. He says it’s good for him to do these things. I guess it’s like me and vegetables. I know I should eat them. They’re good for me. But do I really want to go out of my way to eat them? You establish rules for your kids because the world has rules and they need to get in the habit of following them. They may say it’s not fair and you’ll likely tell them that life isn’t fair. Some people call this tough love. Kids certainly don’t want your rules. Lion wants my rules.

I’ve never been much of a rule maker. As Lion says, the rules I made him at first were silly made up rules. Nothing of any consequence. So what if he dropped ice cubes. Really? That’s a rule? Not so much anymore. He suggested being naked because before we moved in together he thought it was important that he was ready for me when I arrived. That morphed into always being naked. The other rules we have are mostly out of necessity. Lion is a messy eater. To try to clean him up a bit I made the rule about dropping food on himself. Waiting to eat until I have eaten just seems like good manners. And the interrupting thing came out of a pet peeve. He would constantly interrupt me, usually saying the exact thing I was just about to say. And, of course, I can punish him if he annoys me.

I think the hardest part about punishing Lion is when he complains about it. Not that I don’t expect him to complain. I’m not saying that. A certain amount is to be expected. I don’t think he should be happy that I’m about to make his butt burn. But I still get hung up on the fact that I’m about to hurt him. 1.0 is definitely still out there trying to be nice to him. Once 2.0 shows up, there’s no problem. She can laugh at him. Really? Don’t want your butt whomped? Then why did you do X? Really? Does your butt still sting? Huh. I guess you shouldn’t have done Y.

The good thing (bad for Lion) is that 2.0 seems to be showing up more often. I think she’s here to stay. Until she morphs into 3.0. Who knows what she’ll be like.

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In: Female led relationship with discipline, Lion's Journal, Punishment

Mrs. Lion’s post yesterday shows how completely both enforced chastity and FLR are integrated into our relationship. She described a problem we had Sunday night. I won’t go into it again. You can read about it in her post. I had misbehaved; not in the classic BDSM-like way, but in a real-life,  grumpy lion way. In many marriages an incident like this would have turned into a fight or bad feelings that would extend over days.

Even though we aren’t very advanced in FLR, we are far enough along that instead of the silent treatment or hours of passive aggressive anger, the problem was managed with a penny. Yesterday, punishment day, she informed me that I had a penny in my naughty-lion bank. I would be spanked for my grumpy behavior Sunday night.

That may not sound like a big deal, but it is. The incident in question was completely unrelated to enforced chastity or any rules I have to follow. Instead, it was a marital bump caused by the different ways we handle unexpected things. The fact that Mrs. Lion was very accepting of a more-than-an-hour wait for the friend to show up was annoying, not to mention the fact we sat in the car outside a hotel for that hour. When the friend finally sent a text that she was there but couldn’t find us, we learned that we were at the wrong hotel. We spent another twenty minutes going to the correct one.

I was very angry. Mrs. Lion wasn’t. In her mind, shit happens. In mine, it was thoughtlessness on the part of the friend combined with bad planning. Sound like a situation that would bring on a fight? It didn’t. I was grumpy for a while. I learned the consequence for that the next morning.

It doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong. Mrs. Lion recognizes that very well. I upset her and that is all that counts. I didn’t try to argue with her. I would have in the past. I’ve learned that she has the last word on everything; even things I am sure I am right about. I kept my mouth shut. I just fumed silently. That fuming earned me a sore bottom last night.

I agree that I deserved it. FLR is about real-life surrender to my disciplining wife. Before this incident I privately wondered if either of us had internalized our power exchange. Apparently we are starting to do it now. If we were more advanced, Mrs. Lion would have told me to stop acting like a baby and suck it up and would have spanked me right there on the spot. That’s the next step, I think.

At some point we will figure out how to make punishment come closer to the event that earned it. For the time being, we have punishment nights. They are effective to me and work for her. Power exchanges are a funny thing; once they start to take root, they grow faster and faster and often go in directions neither person expected. Stay tuned.

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In: Female led relationship with discipline, Lion's Journal, Punishment

I’ve been thinking about how my surrendering my sexual satisfaction and authority in our relationship can improve the way Mrs. Lion and I relate. We started with a happy marriage and now, thanks to enforced chastity and FLR, have an even happier one. The classic explanation for this improvement is that I am a submissive lion who finally gets to give up control, or Mrs. Lion was a closet dominant who is now able to rule the den.

Both of those explanations are too glib. They assume there are hidden personality traits that finally have been allowed to express themselves, thus making us happier. That isn’t the case. Before we started enforced chastity, we had a sexual problem. Mrs. Lion was angry that I didn’t initiate sex and I felt guilty I couldn’t. We rarely discussed this issue and never came up with a workable solution. We had a sexual power vacuum. Mrs. Lion wanted me to fill it and I wanted the same from her.

I think a lot of couples have similar power vacuums. They may not be sexual. These vacuums could be about finances, child rearing, decisions about social activities, etc. They can also be more subtle. I tend to interrupt Mrs. Lion when she is speaking. In the past she let me and held back on the anger my interruptions caused. There are other situations where I just disregarded her feelings as well. Her anger would build up and eventually come out in a way not appropriate to the triggering situation. The same is true with me as well. I would be afraid to upset her by asking her to take better care of something at home. My bottled-up feelings would build until I became sullen and grumpy.

When we decided to take up enforced male chastity, sexual initiation was part of the power I surrendered to Mrs. Lion. Early on, she decided to “assign” initiation to me as part of the power exchange. We tried it. It didn’t work for her. But it was a fair use of her power. Over the last couple of years we’ve tried lots of things. I’ve suggested many of them, but I couldn’t implement them. I don’t have the power. Mrs. Lion decides what we do or don’t do. We agreed to extend her power to our relationship in general. She has the last word on everything, including my behavior. She punishes me for disobedience or failing to follow a rule.

This, like enforced chastity, sounds very BDSM. In some ways it is. But that’s not what has made our marriage better. I think it is the fact that we have no more power vacuums. In our case, I surrendered power to my lioness and she accepted. Over time she has exercised her power more and more. I haven’t stopped doing my share. I still pay the bills and do the other things I’ve always done. But  now I have to ask permission before taking any action. Mrs. Lion is learning to accept that she can veto any decision I want to make.

All of this is happening slowly. Over time she has incorporated her power into our relationship. She is capable of painfully spanking me when I break a rule. It isn’t sex play.It’s real punishment and we both think of it that way. Every so often we make a small leap. Each one reduces my autonomy and increases her self confidence. I know that she feels that she is just improvising as she goes along. That’s partially true. But each time an improvisation works and makes things better for us, she remembers it and it becomes part of our day-to-day lives.

I still make lots of suggestions on how our power exchange could work. She tries many of them. The ones that work, she keeps. Ironically, the ones that work often make my life more difficult or my butt redder. That’s too bad. She has learned that it is up to her if I am punished. I have no vote. My chastity device stays on whether or not I get tired of it and want it off. The power vacuum is gone. Mrs. Lion has it all.

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In: Lion's Journal, Punishment

One thing that turns me on is when Mrs. Lion is strict with me. In terms of a power exchange, the concept of strictness can be a slippery slope. For a top to be strict, there is an implicit assumption she is paying close attention to the behavior of her bottom. That takes a lot of time and energy on the part of the top. To some, it means micromanaging the bottom. That’s the problem for Mrs. Lion.

Fortunately, there are creative ways to provide strict management without an excessive investment of time. My long experience as a top allowed me to discover some, and talks with other tops taught me others. The first thing to consider if you are the top, is that you want your bottom to feel that he is under strict control. The conversation is not what you have to do to provide strict management, even though that’s what it appears to be. It’s about what will make your partner feel that you are a strict top.

Let’s look at it from my perspective as a caged, disciplined male. I define “strict” as close control of my behavior with consequences for any deviation from what my lioness expects. How the deviations are discovered is not part of my definition. That means Mrs. Lion doesn’t necessarily have to watch  my every move to be my strict lioness.

As an honorable partner, I should report my own transgressions if not observed by my partner. I should be mature enough not to wait to be “caught” in order to be corrected. That doesn’t mean Mrs. Lion can avoid noting offenses. Her input is invaluable since I may completely “forget” a rule and therefore not self report.

Even more important than observing my transgressions is the need for consequences. Making exceptions is not a kindness in my case. If I break a rule, then punishment is earned. We have a system to relieve Mrs. Lion of the need to remember my infractions. If she observes one, she can put a penny in the lion punishment bank. On punishment days she can count the pennies and punish accordingly. The idea is to make it easy for her to enforce rules and impossible for me to avoid consequences. That, to me, is the essence of strict lion management.

This goes against her good nature. She is very willing to allow me slack.  For example, I didn’t wear my collar all weekend. She decided to forgive me. That may appear a kindness, but the kinder thing for me is to punish me. It’s my job to remember to wear it. Even if Mrs. Lion doesn’t remind me if I forget, I didn’t do what I was told. To me, the key to being strict is allowing few, if any, exceptions.

There is one other, very easy technique: making a transgression impossible. The chastity device makes sexual touching impossible. So, all Mrs. Lion has to do in order to assure I won’t be playing with my weenie is to keep it locked up any time she isn’t actively interacting with it. Simple and not much work at all.

I never fail to do something I should because I want to provoke a punishment. I fail because I get lazy or distracted. I don’t want to be either. I also don’t want Mrs. Lion to feel pressured to find every little infraction. She may need to find some because I didn’t notice my own misdeed. But I owe her diligence observing my own transgressions. To help me learn to be better at that, she could notice but not mention some and then wait for me to report them. If I fail, then I can be reminded of the fact I didn’t tell her and earn a punishment for the infraction and another for failure to report it. That way I will learn to take on a lot of the reporting needed to provide strict lion management. At least, that’s my current thinking. What do you think, 2.0?