Just Say No For No Particular Reason
Mrs. Lion and I discussed how we could help let her express her power. That’s not as easy to do as you might think. We have a great marriage. We are truly partners. Things flow smoothly nearly all the time. We have a peaceful, loving relationship. Oddly, that may be the problem with Mrs. Lion letting me know when I make her angry. Why disturb our tranquility?
My idea of adding domestic discipline was to provide an easy path to getting her to let me know when I piss her off. We decided that she needed training wheels. She needs opportunities to punish me for breaking a rule. So, she came up with some rules that I am almost certainly going to break. They include, punishing me for getting food on my shirt (I can be a slob) and eating before her. These rules are sensible and have no emotional loading for either of us.
They’ve worked in terms of punishment. Mrs. Lion has no problem giving me hard swats on my bare bottom for breaking them. So far, she is lenient. While every swat is painfully hard, she only gives me a few. It took quite a while for those swats to be hard enough to make me yelp. Lesson learned. She also gives me maintenance swats on occasion. They serve to remind me how it feels if I break a rule and keeps her ready and willing to punish me.
That’s the area we agree are successful. My post yesterday discussed where we aren’t doing as well. We’ve been trying to come up with ways to help Mrs. Lion use her punishments to respond to more serious infractions that actually make her angry. So far, we haven’t come up with anything. I had an idea this morning. Maybe it would help if Mrs. Lion said “no” more often.
She is a very fair person. When we have a meal and she wants to cut up food or do something else before she starts eating, she will always give me permission to eat first. If I ask if I can eat first, she always agrees I can. That’s only fair, after all. The problem is that Mrs. Lion isn’t reinforcing her power when she is fair to me. The essence of all the BDSM stories out there is that the stern mistress denies her submissive most everything. She says no to almost any request, and says no to herself when she is tempted to do something nice for him. That fantasy is fine for a limited BDSM session. As a lifestyle it’s intolerable to both of them. But you get the idea.
What I’m suggesting is for Mrs. Lion to disappoint me intentionally. When she does it, she should let me know that she is doing it because she can. Obviously, this is going to make me unhappy. Uh oh! Mrs. Lion does almost all of our power exchange to make me happy. What I’m suggesting is to intentionally make me unhappy. I won’t kid you; I’ll really hate this. This is not the way I want things to go. It won’t turn me on or feed my so-called submissive side. This is about real life, not BDSM play.
My theory is that by actually disappointing me and making me unhappy, Mrs. Lion will learn that there are no consequences she can’t handle. I won’t leave or have a tantrum. If I act like a toddler when she says no, she has experience spanking me for that. I will certainly be sad and perhaps, upset. It will be very hard for her to do this. But I think it will teach her that she truly has power.
This display of authority can be extended to some daily activities. She can order for me in restaurants. She can get me what I like, or something I wouldn’t select on my own. The idea isn’t to make me eat something I don’t want. That would just be cruel. But to order something that is clearly not my first choice. Doing that has real impact on me. But that’s not the point of doing it. The idea is to provide real life situations where by the sheer force of her power, she makes me unhappy.
I think that the main reason Mrs. Lion is unwilling to let me know I upset her is that over many years she has been conditioned by very negative reactions when she lets someone know they pissed her off. I know her first husband shut her down whenever she expressed her feelings. This is where all that spanking practice comes in as well. I’m not sure she can do it, but if I do react to her decision in an inappropriate way, instead of shutting down she can spank me to let me know she won’t stand for that behavior.
Hmm, I guess there is a lesson in this concept for me as well. I will learn to gracefully accept her decisions. I will learn to submit in a good way by gracefully giving her the opportunity to let her make the choices for both of us.
I’m don’t want to be disappointed. I truly like and expect to get my way. This will be very difficult for me, at least at first. I’m hoping that Mrs. Lion will quickly internalize her power and we can go back to a more balanced relationship. I strongly believe that this exercise will be really good for both of us. She isn’t the only one who needs to change. I reluctantly admit I do too.
Maybe part of the reason we have such a peaceful relationship is that Mrs. Lion is very accepting of what I want. There’s nothing wrong with that. But we clearly need to adjust things. This is the first time I’ve suggested such a fundamental change. I don’t know if Mrs. Lion will agree and how we will both react. If she agrees, we will all find out together.
Wishy Washy
Poor Lion always has to come up with new ways to help me. He even asked if I wanted to give up domestic discipline. I don’t. I just need a brain transplant to help me figure it out. One minute I’m ok with it and the next I’m not. This morning I realized I’m the same way with the amount of tasks I have to perform around here. Sometimes I’m fine when a few more are added at the last minute and sometimes I get overwhelmed. When other people are overwhelmed at work I’m fairly good at telling them they can only do what they can do. The rest will have to wait. I need to take my own advice.
This morning, Lion was itemizing the things that need to be done on the trailer before our first trip in a few weeks. Some of them are last minute things like stocking it with food. Other things can be done today. I didn’t feel overwhelmed with that. I may once we get doing it, but for now I’m confident we can get it done. This is the first time I’ll be doing some of the prep work. Lion can point and explain, but he can’t do most things yet. Of course, when we’re on the trip, I’ll be doing all of the hookups myself rather than just helping Lion. As long as he doesn’t start ordering me around, I don’t think I’ll have a problem.
After the other day’s plant watering fiasco, I still wasn’t sure if I was going to punish him or not. When I chose a paddle and said it was time for maintenance swats, Lion said I don’t really have to do maintenance every night. (We had skipped a night, but I guess he was just trying to be helpful.) I told him we could skip the maintenance swats, but there was the matter of the plant punishment. (If he can be helpful, so can I.) I think I gave him only six or eight hard swats. Just enough to get his cheeks a lovely rosy shade. He said he couldn’t take any more. I bet he could have. I bet he would have if I had decided to whomp him more.
I’m not sure it was the punishment swats that got him all excited or if he was just genuinely horny, but he was hard almost immediately when we started to snuggle. [Lion — Mrs. Lion gave me permission to take a Cialis. That’s what did it.] I was only going to edge him. He’d had me read an article about ruined orgasms that proposed that ruined orgasms were actually a way of prolonging sex and therefore should not be considered “ruined” at all. So I was jerking Lion off wondering if I should edge him, go for a ruined orgasm or go for a full orgasm. He hasn’t been edged and left hanging in a long time. It’s been even longer since his last ruined orgasm. Still, I’m trying to get a good ejaculation out of him. Part of me thinks edging him and making him wait will be a good way to stockpile semen for a nice orgasm. Another part of me can’t wait that long. Guess which one won last night. [Lion — I’m still taking pain relieving drugs on an “as needed” basis. I think that when I take more, semen disappears.]
Yup. I can’t make up my mind about anything. I’m working on it though. And Lion is helping me.
Crossroads
Guys have a lot of different reasons for asking their partners to dominate them. Male chastity and domestic discipline both put the male into a submissive position to his partner. It’s safe to say that part of his reason for wanting this is sexual. It’s hot, at least for me, to feel control. At least that’s true in my fantasies. Some guys are naturally submissive and discovering enforced chastity and perhaps domestic discipline satisfies them on a very deep level.
That’s not me. I spent most of my adult life as an active BDSM dominant. I like power and know how to use it effectively. I do that, in a vanilla, non-sexual way for a living. Deep down, I’ve always been turned on by the thought of being spanked, tied up, and sexually controlled. That’s not unusual. Most of the tops I have known enjoy bottoming now and then. So, sometimes I bottomed to a friend. It was fun, but I never seriously considered permanently switching.
Well then, how did I end up in full-time enforced chastity and at the receiving end of domestic discipline? It wasn’t because I woke up one morning and decided I have been a closet submissive. It’s much more complicated than that.
My desire to experience enforced chastity came out of the pleasure I got when tied up. It turned me on and the thought of being sexually controlled remains a big turn on. Mrs. Lion discovered she likes the effect this form of power exchange has on our marriage. It transformed us from a nearly sexless relationship into one filled with sexual activity. We committed to continue this practice permanently.
Domestic discipline is another story entirely. I realized that I enjoy sexual control. I love the effect on our relationship. I wondered if a power exchange of another sort could help us in another, much more important area of our lives: Mrs. Lion’s inability to even consider any form of confrontation. I’m not talking out of school. In her post yesterday, she referred to it herself.
I reasoned that if she would accept broader control that includes concrete retribution for infractions, perhaps she would feel able to punish me if I did things that upset her. You know, things like interrupting her (post about that) or making choices for her that she doesn’t like. My thought was that if she learned she could punish me for breaking simple rules, she would be freed to express displeasure when I pissed her off.
I have a fear that if she keeps things I do bottled up, eventually she will fall out of love and want to leave. Sooner or later the dam will break with disastrous results. Over the years I’ve expressed this concern and she has promised to let me know when I upset her. But she hasn’t. I figured that she needs practice. There must have been a lot of negative experiences in her life that makes her this way.
So, I asked her to be my disciplining wife. We made some rules, most almost impossible for me not to break and off we went. There are lots of posts about how this has worked. Mrs. Lion has become a very effective spanker. I truly dread having to lie on my stomach on the bed and receiving very painful swats. She has steadily improved her ability to spot infractions and swat me for them.
But she still silently accepts things I do that upset her. Not only doesn’t the paddle come out, she doesn’t tell me she is upset. Her post yesterday cites two events in a single day that upset her. In one case, when I mentioned plants were dying, she actually thought to herself that I should be paddled. But I wasn’t. No feelings were expressed.
After I read her post, we talked about this. While she has become effective at spanking, It hasn’t freed her as I had hoped to use her authority and her ability to punish me to let me know when I upset her. This is not a problem with her role as disciplining wife. It’s evidence that my plan to use domestic discipline to help free her isn’t working. That’s not her fault. She isn’t failing. My simplistic plan to help her isn’t working.
Domestic discipline is more of a game. It’s limited to a small set of rules I have to follow. I admit that I like playing; at least until the paddle comes out. From what I’ve read, that’s pretty much how it works for most guys. The idea is that the game aspect keeps us submitting, and our wives can then use our desire to play to help us modify our behavior.
Many guys have an erection when their wives signal that they will be spanked. That’s the sexy game aspect. It doesn’t take many swats for the erection to disappear and be forgotten.Disciplining wives know what they are doing. Once in position and on the receiving end of a spanking, it’s too late to back out. Part of the training process is learning to accept very unpleasant punishments. I’m a slow learner, but getting there.
Anyway, we had a talk yesterday. We discussed Mrs. Lion’s post. I asked what we could do to help her learn that is ok for her to express anger and assert what she wants. Her response was that she said she would try harder. That’s not fair to her. This is a tough problem and resolve alone isn’t enough. Our experience has proven that.
Domestic discipline has turned out to provide tools to be used once the issue is resolved. On its own it hasn’t worked. We haven’t figure out if there is some way we can make the changes to put the tools to use. One thought I had after our talk is that maybe she should punish me when she becomes aware I did something that annoyed her. For example, even though she didn’t spank me on Friday when I upset her, perhaps she should punish me when she processes her feelings. When I commented on the houseplant and she thought I should be spanked for it and then didn’t act, maybe she should punish me appropriately at a later time when she feels less emotionally wrapped up by the feelings.
If the issue is due to past experiences when she reacted in the moment, perhaps reacting a day or two later would be manageable. From the perspective of a disciplinarian, retribution is supposed to be close to the offense. But in this case, retribution can occur any time. In this case, the purpose of punishing me is not to train me to fix my behavior. It’s to train Mrs. Lion to express her feelings. That means I may end up with a mouth soaping and a spanking a week after I upset her by something I said. When you are learning something new, it’s better late than never. She is being trained, not me.
Maybe domestic discipline isn’t going to work. It hasn’t helped Mrs. Lion get out her feelings. Unlike enforced chastity, at least up to now, it hasn’t improved our marriage. I may have been way off base suggesting it. We need, no, Mrs. Lion needs to decide what happens next. Do we continue with domestic discipline as a realization of the sexy game I like to play? Do we just give it up? Or, can Mrs. Lion find a way to use it to help her learn to express how she feels?
I’m the Broken One
Lion has postulated that perhaps I don’t let myself enjoy punishing him. In a few conversations I told him I don’t consciously keep myself from enjoying it. He thinks maybe I feel it’s wrong to punish him. Again, I don’t think so. But then this morning I was thinking of a few recent incidents.
During one of our rare snowstorms, I noticed the truck didn’t seem to be tracking well. It has over 50,000 miles on it so it stands to reason the tires are worn. I mentioned it to Lion. He said we’d get new tires. At my last oil change the tires were getting into the yellow. I mentioned it to Lion. He said we’d get new tires. The other day, when it was raining, I stopped for gas and just happened to think about the tires again. Not that they’re bald, but at least one is very close to the wear bar. It makes sense to get them since we’re about to tow the summer home around for a few trips. I started looking for tires.
Knowing that we play a game of slip and slide on the lawn getting the trailer in and out, I thought we needed beefier tread. The tread would help in the snow too. When I looked for tires, I was basing it on tread and price. Lion preferred the brand that came with the truck. All I know about tires is that off road is louder on a highway than on road tires, off road tires tend to wear faster, and the tires on the truck right now are all terrain. Yesterday morning, Lion said he ordered tires for me. He checked the ratings. They are the brand that came with the truck. They are mud and snow. They look like car tires. I was less than enthusiastic about them. He knew I wanted beefier tread. So what did I do? I agreed to the tires. The thing is, when I got in the truck to head home, I noticed that my tires are very similar to the tires he picked out. They may be all terrain but the terrain is not true off road. I already knew I didn’t want true off road tires anyway.
Yesterday afternoon, Lion noticed that his plants needed water. One of them was wilted. He was upset that I hadn’t watered them and I must not have because one was wilted. I had watered them. Not possible. It was wilted. And the conversation quickly morphed into something else. Well I had watered them. That plant was wilted before it ever needed watering. I didn’t tell Lion because he was in pain/sleeping/recuperating from surgery. I was hurt that he jumped to conclusions and thought, absently, that he should be punished for it.
So what’s the big deal? Who cares what tires I get? Why does it matter that Lion was upset about a plant? They have one thing in common. I didn’t stand up for myself. If I want the tires I want, I should put my foot down. Why didn’t I? It boils down to not wanting to be wrong. If I get the beefier tires and they’re noisier on the highway, Lion will comment about the noisy tires. If I get beefier tires and they don’t last as long, Lion will say they didn’t last long because they were the wrong tires. If I don’t get the beefier tires and we play slip and slide across the lawn with the trailer, I’m less likely to point out that we got the wrong tires. No backbone. When Lion yelled about the plant that I knew I watered, I had the same affliction.
In my mind this had more to do with why I don’t enjoy punishment when I started writing. I think the bottom line is that I’m afraid to be wrong. About everything. I don’t like to stick my neck out for fear it will be chopped off. It’s not Lion’s fault. It all stems from upbringing and my ex. Even after all these years I have trouble getting past that. It turns out that Lion is not the broken one.
