Evolutionary Punishment Spanking

As Mrs. Lion wrote in her post yesterday, she’s dialed up the intensity of my spanking. For the record, I absolutely don’t enjoy it. She poses questions that deserve answers, but I’m not sure that I have them. We’re talking about a disciplinary situation. That’s what complicates things. If spanking me was part of the scene, it would be easy for me to suggest intensity and duration. The scene, after all, is for the benefit of the bottom as well as fun for the top. But we aren’t doing this for BDSM. This is intended to be punishment. Since neither of us has any experience with corporal punishment as children, we don’t have any guidelines as to what constitutes a disciplinary spanking.

I think it’s obvious that a punishment spanking has to hurt and not even resemble what would happen in a BDSM scene. That sounds good, but it doesn’t supply any concrete information. My go-to authority on spanking is Julie of Strict Julie Spanks. Here is what she says about intensity and duration of a spanking:

I personally like beating him until I see some bruising. Red is not even in question: he should be deep red. Beat him until you see him really sweating. If he is not stinky and sweating, you are not going hard enough. There should also be tears in his eyes. It’s not that he cries exactly, it’s more like the pain is just so great that the tears leak out on their own.

For a proper beating, keep at it for at least thirty minutes, something around 300 strokes or so should get the message across.

You need to get him past the first 100 or so, after that he numbs up a bit and can take the strokes easier, but that is where the strokes that will cause him the deeper, longer lasting soreness will be doled out, so don’t skimp on these if you would like to see him in discomfort for the rest of the day, and maybe well into the next, which is fun.

Julie is right in that when something gets seriously intense, there will be sweating and perhaps a change in smell of the person’s body. I’ve seen that many times when I’ve watched BDSM intense spanking. Julie’s husband sheds tears when a spanking has become extremely painful. Julie suggests that he’s not crying so much as having a physical reaction to the beating. I’ve never shed tears in any BDSM situation. I do think that her advice is good as to duration and intensity. The quote comes from a piece she wrote called “Beating Your Man Properly“.

The technique she writes about evolved over a long period of time spanking her husband. Like us, Julie and her husband don’t have long experience as children being spanked. If Julie’s description seems cruel or excessive, it’s important to understand that it really isn’t. Over time, she discovered what works for her husband. I believe that she’s absolutely right in terms of intensity and the signs that a spanking has been successfully completed. I think Mrs. Lion can apply this information.

In her piece, Julie talks about a very important stage in a spanking. After a while, the butt becomes a bit numb. You can judge when this happens when the male reacts less to swats of the same intensity that provoked loud protests earlier. At that point, he’s starting to get desensitized. This offers a very important opportunity, as Julie suggested. Now the swats can be significantly harder and faster. Trust me, he will feel them. However, the advantage of these later swats is that they produce longer-lasting pain. People who have a history of disciplinary spanking understand this almost intuitively. People like us have to learn and evolve.

Mrs. Lion and I have been evolving in terms of spanking for quite a while. I think she’ll agree that we’re at the point that she can get closer to what Julie suggests is a complete spanking. Don’t get me wrong, Mrs. Lion’s spankings are very painful. My Sunday night spanking left my bottom sore all day Monday. There are spots it really hurts to sit on. It is uncomfortable. The spanking wasn’t fun. Of course, that’s the whole idea.

It feels odd to me to be encouraging Mrs. Lion to push further when she punishes me. I hope that she will evolve on her own. I think that Julie gives a very realistic perspective on the signs that indicate the spanking is complete. I will point out that just because I am sweating and possibly shedding tears, doesn’t mean she has to stop. I know for a fact that Julie doesn’t.

The objective of a punishment spanking is to facilitate change. The problem that a disciplinary wife faces is that we adult males are relatively difficult to punish effectively. There is a lot of resistance and pride that have to be removed with a paddle. Just because I remain still and accept the punishment doesn’t mean the spanking has penetrated my pride and resistance.

I think that’s the key. If I can get through the punishment maintaining my dignity, it means that the spanking hadn’t reached a point where my control was truly gone. The sweating indicates physical stress. It’s a sign that the body is having trouble accepting what’s going on. It’s not risky to go past that point. The tears, if they come, are a sure sign that pride and dignity are gone. Without the tears it’s a little more difficult. I don’t know what to tell Mrs. Lion the signal is that she’s finally gotten past my pride and stripped me of that dignity. I guess she’ll know when she sees it. I think the trick is to keep pushing harder and harder. It’s really not up to me to decide when I’ve had enough. I’m the wrong person to look to. All I can say is that Julie’s advice is good. It’s definitely not aimed at beginners.

Our approach to disciplinary spanking is very different from many people practicing domestic discipline. Some, who come from a background of childhood spankings, don’t take an evolutionary view of punishment. The very first time the male needs a spanking it’s administered at full force in many cases drawing tears. You might say that that first spanking is at least as severe as the one Julie describes. My guess is that about half of the people who practice this started out at full force. I think that the reason those folks begin this practice is that the male has some behavioral problems serious enough to cause damage to himself or his family. I know that at least one guy asked to be punished to help them stop binge drinking. The very first spanking his wife delivered had him in tears. Even though it’s slower, our evolutionary approach will end up in exactly the same place.

Because up to now Mrs. Lion has been spanking me for relatively trivial offenses. That is, offenses that don’t damage us or cause her to feel badly, evolving spanking from a play level to a disciplinary level is a reasonable course of action. However, now that Mrs. Lion has resolved to punish me for things I do that hurt her, it’s more important to make the spanking a meaningful, disciplinary experience.

I’ve never been spanked that way. While I am punished, it isn’t a very serious event. After all, the rule I broke is almost always that I got food on my shirt. That doesn’t do much except cause us to spray some spot remover on it before we wash it. So it isn’t unreasonable that while the spanking is serious, Mrs. Lion isn’t. We both know that the current rules were designed to provide opportunities for punishment so that we could both learn how to be in a serious, disciplinary relationship.

After Sunday’s spanking, I think we are approaching a truly disciplinary punishment. I think there’s an attitude shift needed. Up until now, Mrs. Lion has been mostly concerned with my reaction to her spanking. Was it intense enough? How did I feel about it after was done? She’s been gauging her actions on my basically intellectual reactions. That makes sense in the current context. She considers that she’s doing the spanking for me instead of to me. After all, nobody gets very upset about getting food on a shirt.

If we are to advance to our goal of the truly disciplinary spanking, how I feel about it is no longer relevant. My intellectual reaction is absolutely beside the point. Instead of getting my feedback verbally, she can get it by the physical manifestations of my reaction. If she’s gone far enough, I will be angry about it. Anger is one of the stages of a spanking. It’s the last line of resistance before surrender. One reason we have been evolving in intensity is that without being restrained, I had to learn to control my emotional reactions.

Unrestrained, I want to roll over and get away. I’m pissed off that she’s hurting me. This is natural and instinctive. Using the evolutionary approach, I learned to be mostly still even though I’m unhappy with what’s happening. In over the knee spanking, the spanker often clamps the male’s legs between hers making it more difficult for him to squirm. The position over her lap is difficult to escape. This is sufficient in most cases.

I am bent over the bed with my weight on the bed and my legs dangling to the floor when I’m spanked. It’s relatively easy for me to move away. It’s not as easy as it was when I was flat on the bed. The over-the-side-of-the-bed position can be increased in security if the spanker straddles and sits on my back. This also gives her very good access for spanking. I don’t think Mrs. Lion wants to do this. I don’t know if it will become necessary, but it is possible since the next phase of my learning involves pushing me much harder. I don’t know how I will react. I guess we’ll find out in the near future.