The other day Mrs. Lion posed the question as the title of her post, Is He Looking for Another Spanking? She was referring to some things I said that bothered her. She appeared to be trying to figure out where the threshold is between a little snarky and spankable behavior. She wondered if I would earn a spanking two days in a row.
I appreciate her thoughtful approach. But I think at this early stage in disciplining me for behavior that upsets her, this may be a way to avoid the inevitable confrontation that punishing me creates. It’s not that I resist her demand that I get into position for a spanking. I don’t. I don’t even ask why she is spanking me. Usually, she tells me. Sometimes, she will tell me that I will be spanked but doesn’t explain why at that moment. I’m fine with that.
In the cold morning light, I think that if I do something that makes her wonder if it is sufficiently annoying to warrant punishment, almost by definition it is. At least in the beginning, it seems to me that if the thought of punishing me goes through her mind after I do something, that is sufficient grounds to spank me.
Mrs. Lion wants to be fair. Her strong desire to treat me fairly seems to be getting in the way of taking the next step in our disciplinary relationship. It’s not that she is unwilling to punish me for upsetting her. She demonstrated that last week. She bruised my buns to let me know she was unhappy with my behavior. That was a great start.
I think the next step is for Mrs. Lion to turn off that filter. If she starts thinking about whether or not something I’ve done deserves punishment, the filter is on. I’m proposing that for the foreseeable future, the simple act of asking herself that question automatically earns the answer, “Yes, he needs to be spanked.”
There is no doubt that for a while until I learn better communication skills, I might be getting several spankings a week. I certainly won’t like this. That’s not the point. We both agree that I need to be more careful in the way I speak to her. I need to think about what am about to say in terms of whether or not it might upset her. I don’t intentionally try to make her angry or sad. I can be thoughtless.
For example, Mrs. Lion gave me a haircut on Saturday. She’s getting quite good at it. However, she made a little slip in a very visible spot. I commented on it because I worried that people might see it and think I look silly. This hurt her feelings. After all, she worked hard to cut my hair and she rightly believed I should be grateful for her effort. She’s right. I’m very grateful that she does this for me. The fact that she didn’t do it perfectly doesn’t change my gratitude at all. I was thoughtless being critical.
Mrs. Lion was quiet after dinner on Saturday night. I finally asked her what was wrong. She told me that she felt badly about my comment regarding my haircut. Was that comment a spankable offense? The fact that she reacted so strongly and felt bad tells me it is.
I’m pretty sure that Mrs. Lion didn’t think spanking me would make her feel better about my thoughtless remark. She might be right. However, given our disciplinary relationship, I think I need to learn to be careful about saying things like that. We’ve established that consistent spankings for misbehavior of any sort condition me to behave the way she wants.
The challenge is for her to consciously decide to consistently respond to any thoughtlessness or other behaviors that cause her upset with punishment. Until she has developed the same level of consistency she has when I spill food on my shirt or forget to do a chore, it seems to me that she has to always err on the side of punishing for very minor offenses. It worked for us before in terms of chores and rules. It should work equally well for upsetting behavior.
I admire Mrs. Lion for her fairness filter. I just think it’s a little broken. That haircut comment was seriously upsetting. Based on our agreement, that certainly earned me a spanking. I know it’s going to be difficult for her to work through feeling bad and focus instead on educating me. I think she needs to turn the filter off for my sake.
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What a pretty bruise