Is This Really Kink?

First the news. Mrs. Lion had me in a diaper from Thursday evening through last night when I took my shower. Not long after the diaper was off, she painted all ten of my toenails an annoying purple with glitter in it. She thinks it’s very funny. I think it is absolutely stupid looking. I know she is doing it because she can. That doesn’t make it any more pleasant. I suppose a more submissive guy would like that it pleases his dominant partner. Nope, that’s not me. I allow it because I surrendered control to her and I have to do what she wishes; like it or not. For the record, this is definitely a “not.” Now, back to the post.

People seem to need to legitimize what they do and call others “weird”. This is particularly true in enforced chastity and FLR. Some people go to great pains to tell everyone in a forum or readers of their blogs that they are into “blah” but not into “blah blah”. The veiled assumption is that their kink is acceptable, but we’re not sure about those other guys. My lioness and I started out living and writing about enforced chastity. Then, we seemed to veer off into FLR / FLM^*. I’m sure that to some it means our blog has drifted from its original purpose. I have been thinking about this. Have we drifted away into a new kink? Are we now deeper into the subterranean world of perversion? What’s really happening? The more I think about it, the more it seems apparent that both enforced chastity and FLR are formalizations of things a lot of couples do without labeling their activities. In fact, these people practice non-consensual enforced chastity and FLR.

How many marriages are organized with the woman paying the bills and making the day-to-day decisions for the family? How many wives also plan vacations and have the last word on large purchases? I suspect that more than half actually do that. How many men only have sex when their wives let them? “I have a headache, dear,” is not just a punch line. The simple fact is that in America, at least, many women do have the deciding vote in the marriage. They routinely manage their relationships and their spouse’s sexual releases. No one would look twice at them for doing that. It’s a completely acceptable. However, when people formalize these practices and label them enforced chastity and FLR, they become kinky and “alternate lifestyles.”

I’m not trying to claim that what we do is “normal”. It isn’t, not in the sense most people do it. But I would claim that what we do is not the kinky part (well, chastity devices are kinky, more about that later). The kinky part is that we formalize the arrangements. In the vanilla world it is fine for the woman to be the functional head of household. But it isn’t ok for her to formalize that role. In FLR, both partners explicitly agree on the power exchange. No longer is it, “I have to ask the wife. She’s the boss,” wink, wink. Now it is, “My wife makes the decisions in our marriage.” The FLR couple has a clear, clean view of the power exchange.

In the 70’s when women’s lib and alternative lifestyles were front-of-mind, non-kinky couples actually made conscious agreements on division of power and work. When my kids were little, parents of one of their friends invited us to their apartment. On the kitchen wall was a large, 24 by 48-inch, chart. Going down the left side was an excruciatingly detailed list of all the chores needed to keep the family running. It included, taking out the garbage, buying diapers, setting the table, etc. Across the top was days of the week. In each box, one of their name’s appeared. They had taken the time to enumerate every single thing they had to do (sex wasn’t on the chart) and assigned it on a rotating basis to one of them each day. They were very proud of this document and informed us that it made their relationship run smoothly. We rolled our eyes.

Actually, they were doing something important. They had explicitly agreed on division of labor. They created a two-person democracy. Granted, their implementation was silly, but the point they unconsciously made was that in their home, power exchange was conscious and agreed upon. I thought all that equality was much more trouble than it was worth. It seemed very restrictive to me. But silly as it was, it did make it  clear who had to do what. In addition, they debated and had to reach consensus on every decision they had to make from bedtime for the kids to what to eat for dinner tomorrow.

FLR is the same thing, just without the silly chart and without voting on every little thing. This couple formalized the power structure of their marriage. They chose equality and then took it to an extreme. Isn’t enforced chastity the same thing? In most relationships, one partner takes the sexual lead. The other partner tacitly accepts the decisions of the leader. In many, if not most relationships, it is the woman making those decisions. The men accept their choices. Many men sneak off and masturbate, so they do have some sexual release. I can say from my experience, it isn’t very satisfactory at all. Enforced chastity formalizes the role of the woman in deciding if and when her partner gets release. In many cases, this power is enforced with chastity devices. In some, there is no device, but the control remains. Almost every man who wears a chastity device, does so because he decided he wanted to be physically restrained from any release. His partner didn’t demand this of him.

My point is that both enforced chastity and FLR are not really that kinky at all. They are just formalization of roles that a great many vanilla couples implicitly play. There is one practice that many FLR and some enforced chastity couples perform that their vanilla counterparts don’t: discipline. Since both FLR and enforced chastity require explicit agreement between partners, it often includes consequences for failing to follow the agreement. That’s true in our house. I have agreed to allow Mrs. Lion to punish me as she sees fit. So, there are painful consequences if I skip a chore or forget a rule. Vanilla husbands don’t suffer explicit punishment, but suffer they do. On the vanilla side of the fence, failure to perform a chore or breaking an implicit rule will result in the silent treatment, withholding of sex, and other passive aggressive behavior on the part of the wife.

Which is worse, an expected punishment or shunning and loss of sexual access? I think that explicit consequences are much more constructive to the relationship. I know the rules. I am aware of what is expected of me. I also know that I will suffer punishment if I fall down on what I am expected to do. More importantly, I know that once the punishment is done, I am forgiven and my happy life will continue. That’s worth a lot to me.

I’ve been trying to understand why our sex life is so much better since we began enforced chastity and FLR. I think it is because we both have explicitly agreed on how it works. I know that I can’t even get an erection without Mrs. Lion’s explicit consent (she has to unlock me). She knows that I am totally dependent on her for any release. Since I have given her full control and she knows I enjoy teasing (at least at some level!), she can be guilt free when she withholds release. It’s part of the game and it’s expected. No guilt on her part, no anger on mine; we both agreed on the rules and remind each other as needed.

I’m not advocating that everyone practice FLR and enforced chastity. That’s silly. What I am saying is that those of us who do this have learned a very valuable lesson: when the power exchange is explicit, regardless of what it is, both people are able to function happily and without guilt. The best thing about domestic discipline is that once an infraction has been punished, there are no lingering bad feelings. Everything is out in the open and handled on a conscious level. I love what this has done for our relationship.

^*FLR  Female Led Relationship, FLM Female Led marriage.