Yesterday we really started cleaning the house for our guests this weekend. Normally I do most of the work myself. It’s silly. I really only need to clean the bird cages and do the things that stir up dust. Lion can help with things like cleaning the kitchen and bathroom. So he started on the kitchen and I started on the dusting. By the time we took a break we’d gotten pretty far. This morning I started on the kitchen floor and Lion started on the bathroom. All that needs to be done now is the bird cages and a good vacuuming. We do well when we work as a team.

I know it must sound corny but we really do go well together. There are very rare occasions when one of us can’t benefit from the other’s help. I think that’s why male chastity and our FLRD is still working. We trust each other implicitly. We may have our off days but we bounce back. Sometimes I may think Lion is trying to take over with all his suggestions, but I know if I just tell him I need time to digest the ideas he’ll settle down. He can’t help it. He gets excited.

Lion keeps his eye out for new techniques and ideas. The more he reads the more he gets excited. Sometimes he finds things that make absolute sense. I will be able to give him a longer punishment spanking if I start out slowly like a play spanking. Sometimes he finds a little tweak that makes things better. Announcing that punishment will now begin when I’ve been whomping on him for a while changes something for him. Maybe not really better, but different.

I can’t begin to understand how this all works in his mind. Why does he want to be spanked? Why does he want me in charge? Why does he want to be punished? It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to know. As long as I can do it for him I’m happy. And he’s happy.

What’s the difference between a BDSM play spanking and one administered as punishment? I’ve written that the difference is intensity; the punishment spanking is more painful. I’m not sure that’s correct. Plenty of play spankings, including ones I’ve given and received are harsher than the punishment spankings I’ve received from Mrs. Lion. I know others whose play spankings routinely bring tears. In fact, Mrs. Lion’s play spankings have been harsher than her punishments. We get feedback from some readers who are horrified that I get beaten for punishment. These same people support and enjoy play spankings.

I think that the reason play spankings can be harsher than punishment is intention. In a BDSM scene, both top and bottom want to play. The top knows that the bottom will enjoy her spanking. He has a safeword he can use if he wants her to stop. It’s fully consensual and under the control of the bottom. The top is performing a requested service for the bottom.

In our female led relationship with discipline, spanking is a punishment. It’s also something I get in BDSM play. The punishment spankings are different to both Mrs. Lion and I. Physically, the two spankings are almost identical. Mrs. Lion starts with lighter hits and works her way up to very hard ones. Interestingly, Mrs. Lion’s play spankings (at least up to now) tend to be harsher than the punishment variety.

There is a real difference. While both spankings are consensual — I agreed to our FLRD — the actual consent for the play spanking is given immediately before the scene begins. In the case of punishment, there is a very good chance I would not agree to being spanked when Mrs. Lion decides I need to be beaten. It doesn’t mean the spanking isn’t consensual. Punishment is part of our agreement to live a FLRD. However, at the time I don’t want to be paddled.

Mrs. Lion is acutely aware of this difference. I can be pissed off that she wants to spank me. I may glare at her during the beating. It’s abundantly clear that at the time I definitely don’t want to be paddled. That doesn’t mean I don’t consent to the spanking. Our agreement covers consent. I just don’t want to be punished at the time. Later, perhaps the next day, I may look back on the beating as a hot expression of Mrs. Lion’s control.

It’s taken her a long time to get where she is in terms of beating me. She’s definitely advanced to Lioness 2.0. But I know that it’s difficult for her to spank me when she knows I don’t want it. Even though she knows that at other times I would welcome the beating, administering it to an unhappy lion is very difficult.

Fixing this isn’t as simple as affirming that the punishment is fully consensual. She loves me and doesn’t want to make me unhappy. The old saying that this hurts me more than it hurts you, isn’t as silly as it sounds at first hearing. It does hurt to intentionally make someone you love unhappy. It’s incredibly difficult to do.

In the context of our power exchange, making me unhappy by punishing me is a very good thing. It’s exactly what I want. If I want to avoid this unpleasant experience, all I have to do is be obedient and follow my rules. In a very real sense, I’m responsible for the spanking. I realize that. Mrs. Lion is working on learning it too. Based on my recent experience, she’s learning very well.

Up until the past few punishment spankings Lion has had, I haven’t always done a good job. Yeah they’ve hurt to some extent but Lion keeps raising the bar. I was spanking too hard, too quickly. Better to start out slow. Then I was finishing too quickly. He didn’t really know he’d been punished. I’m lovingly calling this funishment. It wasn’t really fun but it wasn’t really punishment either. Lately, however, he knows he’s being punished.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. Two out of the last three spankings were maintenance spankings. There was one the other day for interrupting me. Boy was he pissed! I’m not really sure who he was pissed at. Was it me for daring to realize he’d broken a rule? The nerve! Or was it at himself for breaking the rule in the first place? I don’t know but he was not a happy boy.

Last night’s spanking was a maintenance one but we decided it should mimic a punishment. He needs the practice taking and I need the practice giving. Win-win. Ha! He still loses. I know it was very difficult for him to stay still. He was yelping into the bed and telling me we should be done. When he says that I know we need to keep going. 1.0 would have stopped. 2.something doesn’t. We’ll never get anywhere if I keep giving in.

From time to time Lion makes mention of the fact that spanking is my go-to punishment. It’s true. I never really thought about it until just now, but how can I move on from spanking when I haven’t perfected it? I like to play games on my iPad. The games either give you goals to accomplish or you earn a certain number of stars for each level you beat. If I’ve been getting three stars on all levels and suddenly I can only get one star it pisses me off. I keep trying until I can get at least another star. Stupid level! You can’t beat me! So it makes sense to keep trying to spank Lion’s butt until I get it right.

Enforced Male Chastity’s popularity doesn’t seem to be growing. Maybe it’s the name. Chastity” after all, conjures images of virginal young women. Over time, it acquired a decidedly female connotation. The actual definition is to refrain from extramarital sex, or have no sex at all. It’s clearly the wrong word for what we practice. Male chastity got it’s name from people who wanted to build chastity belts for guys. They thought it was a cool, new form of BDSM play. As far as I can tell, it began after World War 2.

There is no historical record of medieval female chastity belts. Actually, the first documented, widespread use was in Victorian times. It was believed that male masturbation led to insanity. Devices, most of them very cruel and painful, were invented to prevent young men from masturbating. There are thousands of U.S. patents for these devices.

Fast forward to the 1990’s. A small group of men built and wore chastity belts of all designs. Once they locked themselves in, their job was to escape. More and more complex devices were created to prevent escape.. In the late 90’s an inexpensive ball-capture device was offered for sale: the CB2000. It wasn’t very secure, but it was inexpensive and did the job if you didn’t try hard to escape. It was designed as a sex toy for a couple (or a single guy). It prevented erection and ejaculation, mostly.

The thing is that none of these devices going back all the way to Victorian days wereln’t really for chastity. They were and remain as devices to control a male’s ability to experience sexual arousal and orgasm. The term “male chastity” and later, “enforced male chastity” gained popularity among people who practice it. The problem that I see is the name itself doesn’t clearly communicate exactly what practitioners do. In fact, I think it may be offputting to people when they first hear it.

What if we called it “male sexual control”. It’s not very catchy, but it is self-explanatory. You buy a male sexual control device. That’s really what we wear. The reason this makes a lot of sense to me is that it’s really what we do. Mrs. Lion isn’t preventing me from having sex with other women so much as preventing e from having sex; period.

BDSM is now mainstream. Fifty Shades of Grey turned bondage, safe words, and all sorts of BDSM fun into topics discussed and maybe tried by millions. Our vanilla friends might be surprised to learn that Mrs. Lion spanks me, but chances are they won’t run away in horror. BDSM information is disseminated by mainstream magazines.

For a while, interest in enforced male chastity seemed to be growing alongside other BDSM practices. At least many of us who do it thought so. Blogs like ours appeared regularly. Even amazon.com offered male chastity devices (via 3rd party sellers. Our readership grew steadily as well. Yes, male chastity looked like it would also join the kinky mainstream. But it didn’t.

From what I see, growth of this kink is essentially flat. Enough new people come in to offset those who drop out. Five years ago you could count the serious, custom chastity cage makers on one hand. That number hasn’t changed. Asian off-the-shelf cage makers are plentiful. But I can’t see any way to track North American consumption. My experience with Chinese retailing is that a large number of one-person “shops” offer the same merchandise. Volume is not indexed by number of sellers.

Chastity forums and discussion groups seem less active to me than they were five years ago. Topics are less newbie focused than they were in the past. Our readership is growing more slowly than in earlier years. By these informal measures, enforced male chastity is remaining a small corner of the kink world.

On the other hand, interest in female domination is strong. Of course, it’s always been a top interest of many men. Thanks, I think, to the Internet, more and more women are appearing in blogs and conversations who either practice or want to practice female domination. Conversations about this topic are everywhere. As you probably know, Mrs. Lion dominates me. We practice our own version of a female led relationship.

If our kink had a better name, I think it would be much more popular. Maybe it’s time we give changing our name a try. How does Male Sexual Control Journal sound to you? I like it!