Marital Bliss

I like to read “The Disciplined Couples Club“. It’s a blog that invites discussion on various aspects of relationships where the husband is physically disciplined. Each week it introduces a topic relating to this. Visitors are encouraged to comment and add their own perspectives. Naturally, this is of interest to me.

Obviously, it’s impossible to know how many of the comments are factual. The host of the blog is a disciplined male like me. The reason I’m singling him out from others I also read is because the combination of the weekly post and many of the comments have given me a lot of insights into disciplinary relationships. I certainly don’t intend to put down other disciplined male blogs. For example, Michael’s fascinating blog, “Collared Michael“, offers insights into his life as he explores enforced male chastity and discipline. However, like me, he writes about his adventures rather than a more topical approach.

I realize that the way Mrs. Lion and I conduct our marriage is more of a subject for fantasy then something very many people actually do. Most who read about men being spanked find it a very erotic fantasy. They can’t imagine themselves in my position. The vast majority of our readers, I’m sure, fall into the category of people who are curious and interested but have no intention of actually pursuing our interests.

In a lot of ways, the Internet is the worst enemy of insight and understanding. The most prolific writers tend to be people who want to either prove a point or glorify themselves in the purity of some belief. Before the Internet became the ultimate destination for people interested in BDSM, we went to meetings of organizations of people with similar interests. The focus of the meetings and parties was to learn about and practice BDSM.

From its earliest days of newsgroups, the Internet attracted people who were much more interested in creating labels and definitions than actual practice. For example, over at least a decade the debate raged about how you would define a “Dom”. In fact, some people thought there was also a “true dom”. The idea was that the only people who were really into BDSM were exclusively dominant or submissive. Dom’s and subs still remain a focus for many.

Discussions of female led relationships often focus on the fact that the husband is a “sub”. His wife, of course, is a “dom”. This polarization completely misrepresents what’s really going on. Sure there are a lot of men who like to submit and women who like to be dominant. When they get together it’s not surprising that most of the men end up getting spanked by the women. In a Female Led Relationship with Discipline (FLRD), the women spank the men. That doesn’t mean they are the same as the people practicing BDSM.

Even people like me, who enjoy BDSM spanking, sometimes confuse the erotic spankings we have gotten with the disciplinary ones we earn now. Our disciplining wives don’t mind that because our pre-spanking erections make it much easier to get us in position for punishment. They know our erections will be gone very soon after the spanking begins.

Mrs. Lion, I imagine, like most of the other disciplining wives, doesn’t identify as dominant. If anything, she identifies as being in a standard, vanilla loving relationship. The fact that she disciplines her husband has nothing to do with dominance or submission. She adopted a disciplinary lifestyle because her husband asked for help. It’s as simple as that.

In some cases, the husband has an obvious problem like drinking too much. He’s come across material that discusses using physical punishment as a way to correct his behavior. His wife agrees to try. There is no decision to bring out the whips and chains and practice BDSM. One partner expressed a need, a very clear need, and she agreed to fulfill it.

The request while simple on the surface, is actually quite complex and challenging to both partners. If he is lucky enough to have a wife who grew up in a family that practiced corporal punishment, his wife will understand what he needs. Otherwise, there is a steep learning curve for a new disciplinary wife.

It doesn’t help that almost anywhere she turns on the Internet, she will find erotic fantasies involving spanking. Chances are very good that this sort of reading will turn her off and probably have her reject her husband’s request. While he may get turned on reading about male spankings, the odds are very good that the opposite will be true for her. No wonder there are so few of us in disciplinary relationships.

There’s another problem. Even wives who come from families that practiced spanking will consider physical punishment either childish or a sign of weakness in a man who accepts it. After all, would a real man allow his wife to spank him like a little boy? The flip side of that coin is that she might worry she might make him angry and then he might attack her. If this isn’t bad enough, there is the politically correct argument that hitting your spouse is domestic abuse. Is it any wonder that FLRD has such a small following?

Somehow, Mrs. Lion got past all that and agreed to become my disciplining wife. She had absolutely no idea how to spank me. She is not inclined to do Internet research on subjects like this. If she had, the odds were good she wouldn’t discover the few websites that might be helpful. However, I don’t think it would matter if she found wonderful online resources. She had to wrap her mind around the idea that the entire point of punishing me with spanking was to hurt me as much as possible without injury.

She has no desire to hurt me. She loves me. As my disciplining wife, she had to learn how to make me very sorry when I break a rule or disobey her. Remember, this isn’t a BDSM game. It’s a serious attempt to modify my behavior.

Mrs. Lion has taken years to grow as a disciplinarian. While I’m sure I’m going to regret saying this, she still has a way to go in the spanking department. She generally stops considerably sooner than I think she should to make the impression necessary. I’m not saying that her spankings aren’t painful. They are. Just at the point when I am seriously sorry I am being spanked, she generally ends it.

Feedback like this has helped her develop. It’s also makes a lot of our readers shake their heads and wonder why I am making things worse for myself. I don’t want to make things worse but I do want things to work as well as they possibly can. Ironically, as Mrs. Lion has become a stronger spanker, I’ve become better at receiving. I have no doubt that the current level of spanking I’m getting would have been intolerable six months ago. Now, they feel like the beginning of something rather than the whole punishment. It’s not that they hurt less, it’s more that I’m conditioned to expect it and manage it.

I bring this up only as an example. In a very real sense Mrs. Lion and I are partners in our disciplinary relationship. If we are going to be effective, I have to let her know when I feel that more intensity is needed. My objective is not to get away with something. It’s to help her find her way as she grows as a disciplinarian.

She and I both think that if I can feel my spanking a day later, I will be reminded much more effectively to not make that mistake again. So far that hasn’t happened very often. To reinforce her point, Mrs. Lion has introduced serial spankings, one a day until I satisfy my sentence. This is helpful, but it still doesn’t replace giving me a more lasting reminder of my punishment.

Another very peculiar aspect of our disciplinary relationship is the fact that I can contribute to helping her become more effective. That doesn’t come out of some masochistic desire to get hurt more. It comes out of my sense of partnership. The more effective Mrs. Lion becomes at disciplining me, the better I will be as her husband.

Obviously, this isn’t for everyone. But it is for us and I know we are both committed to making it work as well as possible.