The Library of Spanking Fiction: Wellred Weekly


Wellred Weekly
Volume 1, Number 10 : August 28, 2012
 
Articles
Items of interest regarding all things spanking

The Burdens of Being a Disciplinarian
by Vivian

My partner and I share a domestic discipline (DD) relationship with the added difficulty that, due to the nature of our work, we often spend a lot of time apart. Sometimes, after a prolonged absence, it can be difficult getting back into the disciplinary groove once again. On one particular occasion, after several spanking-free months, when the first well-deserved swat landed, my instinctive reaction was to promptly get up and indignantly protest this unexpectedly harsh assault on my person. Ultimately, I did manage to return, albeit not terribly submissively, to take the rest of my spanking, do my corner time, and proffer my apology. During subsequent discussions my partner admitted that while he was perfectly happy to discipline a willing woman, he had some serious concerns about disciplining an unwilling one. The lines of consent and non-consent suddenly became unclear and the question of whether spanking your partner when they say no constitutes abuse or assault came to mind.

This lack of attention to the dominant's emotional state is likely because the majority of those who write about DD tend to be women, and women tend to be on the receiving end of discipline. We tend to spend a lot of time thinking about our issues, our perspective, yes, our vision of how perfect we wish our not-perfect partner could be. Also, since women, and perhaps submissives as a group, tend to be more introspective than men, we're more likely to be motivated than our partners to analyze and communicate our thoughts and feelings about DD.

In the perfect world, of course, one's DD partner is all-knowing, all-strong, all-confident. He is the Indiana Jones of the DD world, spanking first, asking questions later, making heroic decisions with no hesitation or fear. This mythical view of our partner is a sacred cow for most of us and the idea of a disciplinarian who has serious doubts or insecurities is a bit of a buzz-kill for that "strong, handsome and totally in control" partner we all fantasize about.

But the dangers for the dominant partner are very real, and to have a fully realized, honest DD relationship, the dangers for both sides need to be constantly guarded against.

Some of the risks the dominant partner takes are as follows:

1. Legal liability
This is the big one, and it likely worries your partner more than you realize, especially if this is his first DD relationship. All it takes is one particularly nasty argument and all of a sudden, he's being reported to the authorities as an abusive spouse. And you've got the bruises to prove it.

This may sound far-fetched, and I keep telling my partner it would never happen, but in a culture with our rabid, zero-tolerance, ask no questions approach to domestic violence, it's a huge risk for any man to take. If the relationship turns sour and we want revenge, we have the power to send him to prison, ruin his career and reputation, humiliate him in front of his friends and family, and get the state to revoke custody of his children.

Yes, I know we're all sure this would never happen, but HE can never be 100% sure, and the truth is, neither can we -- because no one can be 100% sure of anything when it comes to intimate relationships. After all, consider that virtually all relationships start out full of love and the promise of trust, and then consider how many of them end vindictively in divorce court, or worse, violence. None of those couples thought it would end that way, either, but it does. All the time.

2. Emotional trauma
My partner is a decent, feeling, caring human being, and I'm assuming yours is, too. (If not, you probably shouldn't be in any kind of relationship with him, much less a relationship requiring the trust and control that DD does.) Decent, feeling, caring human beings aren't naturally inclined to want to hurt the people they love. Yes, of course our partner understands that we want and need those hard spankings -- he wouldn't give them to us if he didn't. But that doesn't mean it's always easy to spank us when we're sobbing in pain and remorse, or to ignore our pleas for mercy. Inflicting pain on another human being always carries an emotional price, no matter how consensual that pain is. And when it's not clearly consensual, that emotional price skyrockets.

3. Mental energy
Being an effective disciplinarian is hard work. (Just ask any good parent.) To discipline responsibly requires being focused, making good judgements, and staying present in the moment, constantly judging the level and appropriateness of the timing and degree of discipline being meted out. Disciplining another human being is a huge, stressful, often exhausting responsibility.

And since most of us demand consistency in our discipline, this requires a whole new level of alertness in keeping track of what our misbehavior is, how he disciplined for it last time, etc. Not to mention the effort required to respond to our misbehavior with appropriate discipline (and ideally some level of enthusiasm) even if he's sick, tired, distracted, in the middle of a big project at work, or just really looking forward to watching the game on TV. As hard as it is sometimes to accept discipline, his job is much harder than ours is.

4. Isolation
Yes, of course, DD is a powerful bonding experience on both sides, and in many ways, brings us closer to our partners than we could ever be in a more egalitarian relationship. But being a disciplinarian means being a leader, and being a leader is a lonely place to be. For a start, DD is likely not the sort of experience he can generally share with his buddies, so he often has nowhere to turn for advice, a sounding board or just to share his experiences with others in his situation.

He is also denied many of the benefits that we as submissives enjoy as a result of being disciplined. He has no structured outlet for his negative emotions. He has no formal way of clearing his conscience when he feels bad about something. He has no one to be accountable to for his missteps. We get the luxury of regressing and abdicating responsibility sometimes, particularly during our discipline. But he has to be an adult virtually all of the time - an adult that lives up to our shining ideal of what an adult should be. Yes, being adored and deferred to has its benefits, but that doesn't make the loneliness of leadership any less difficult.

The issues we have didn't disappear. In fact, I suspect they'll come up again and again as we struggle through this. But the key to a healthy DD lifestyle seems to lie in the willingness to accept each other's imperfections, to expect things to go wrong, and to be willing to live with the reality of how DD works in a real relationship, rather than expecting everything to go like it does in our daydreams. After all, perfection is what we have those lovely masturbatory fantasies for, right?


Vivian is the author of How to Get the Spanking You Want & How to Give a Spanking





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