Saturday, September 12, 2009

Whispering the 'P' Word, Part 2


The preceding post surveyed various methods of “Punishment Lite”—none requiring the wife to lay a finger on her guy. “But what,” I asked in closing, “about the wifely right to bear arms?”

In wife-led marriages, some wives emphatically do (use corporal punishment), a lot or a little, some wives don’t at all, some are averse, some squeamish, some just a wee bit curious about it. I’ll include a few quotes from across that spectrum, from both wives and husbands.

Rationale for Reluctant-to-Punish Wives

Here are a few provocative exchanges between two wives, the first curious but hesitant, the second a confirmed believer in not sparing the rod. They are excerpted (with cyber-names removed) from the original Venus on Top Yahoo forum, precursor to the She Makes The Rules message board.

First Wife: “Recently he has been getting disobedient as if he is testing me and wants me to punish him… I have wondered if spanking might be an option worth trying? I'm not sure I could hurt him though… I believe having it as a threat rather than a regular thing would be enough after having done it once. Maybe also occasionally to show him who is in charge.”

Second Wife: “The major obstacle in my mind [to using corporal punishment] wasn't a fear of hurting him so much as a reluctance to treat my husband like a child. (After all, I already have four children. I don't want to "raise" my husband. I want him to be my partner.) However, I now consider it an invaluable tool in our FLR. I now use spanking not as a means of ‘teaching’ my husband so much as I do a means of expressing my own displeasure. When he steps out of line, he knows there is a price to pay and, consequently, thinks twice about his behavior. Spanking has produced wonderful results for us over the years.”

(Several days later)

First Wife (thanking Second Wife for her advice and encouragement): “I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be doing this [spanking] but I'm OK with it if it helps our relationship. He needs this. It feels strange at the moment but I'm sure I will get used to it.”

Second Wife: “I am so delighted that you have come to terms with the idea of correcting his behaviour. I fully appreciate that punishment is not part of everyone's relationship. However, where he feels that it is needed and you are comfortable with using it in order to correct behaviour, I think it can increase the bond between you. You are telling him how important he is to you. After all, you love him, your husband, enough to use a tool he wishes you to use to make him the person you want. He wants to be a better person for you and you are helping him. When he has behaved badly, you have not simply turned away from him in disappointment, you have engaged with him to make him better.
“You are discovering the joys of having your needs/wishes/views respected and satisfied. Consider that both you and your husband have agreed that these will be respected and satisfied and you are simply helping both of you achieve what you both want.
“Yes, it can be hard work but I find using my hand and alternating with something else can ease the work. And doing it more often can ease any physical tension you feel and help you build up a steady rhythm. However you decide to punish him, make sure he fully understands what he did wrong and how you feel about his disobedience and why you want to punish him in this way.”

Punishment as Catharsis

This has already been touched on. But, as is often the case, I think Fumika Misato makes the point most succinctly:

“Spanking can be very cathartic for both parties. Men are particularly fond of enduring physical pain in their devotion to love or in the service of an important cause. For men enduring physical pain can be a powerful symbol of manhood. All the more when that pain is at the request of their love.”

This husband seems wholeheartedly in accord: “What I find very hard is the grumpy not-talking-to you punishment. I would rather corporal punishment over that anytime, especially if it came with verbalization of the issue.”


“A prompt hard spanking can help restore harmony,” another husband remarks: “Reducing her husband to a sincerely remorseful, tearful boy is cathartic for her and, I believe, tends to bring out her natural maternal instincts. By that I mean, her tendency to want to forgive and express her love. ‘Honey, I had to punish you because of your behavior, not because I don't love you. I'll always love you, but I'll always correct you for misbehavior.’
“Her nurturing side comes out and this is satisfying for her. For the husband, he has ‘paid the price’ in a very obvious way. The price that has been determined by his wife as the cost of her forgiveness. He is off the hook as far as guilt goes which, at least to me and I'm sure many others, is extremely important. He should cry tears not only of pain but of emotional release. For the spanking to be truly cathartic, I believe those tears are necessary.”

This from another husband in SMTR: “My Princess spanks me when she feels it is necessary but it is very much a last resort after everything else has failed. I know I have upset her deeply when she says I am to be spanked and I take the punishment gladly because I know I deserve it and I feel terrible for disappointing her. Neither of us enjoys it but it draws a line under my disrespectful behavior and enables me to then refocus on pleasing her and making up for my misdemeanors. Afterwards we reaffirm our love for each other and move on.”

Which draws this approving feminine response: “I like particularly the point about it drawing a line under the matter. I think it is so much better than nagging. The matter is over, done, dealt with and the parties move on. As you say, afterwards you reaffirm your love for each other. For me spanking is all about restoring the balance in a FLR. If I am offended, upset, I need something that will reconcile me to my partner. I do not want to carry around my annoyance because I believe that this could mar the relationship.”

Then, weighing in on the topic decisively, come two of the authoritative leading ladies of She Makes The Rules:


Anne In Charge: “Imagine if [your wife] just let this anger brew over several weeks without addressing it. Then, one day you do something small that bothers her and she explodes. You stand there stunned with no clue as to why. This is what happens in many vanilla marriages where the husband is clueless and the wife is frustrated. Instead your amazing wife has resolved this conflict and you'll have completely moved past it within a few days. Thank her by completing your punishment and moving forward with a deeper love and respect for her.”

QueenBee: “Punishment really DOES work. It does clear the air and releases the stress from both of you.”

As parting shots on catharsis, let’s hear from two husbands, one who gets spanked, and one who only wishes he did:

Gets Punished: “My wife punishes me when I have done a stupid thing and when the punishment is over she feels better and there the anger or grudge is over.”

Wishes He Did: “There have been times when I wished she would just spank me to get it out of her system. And there have been times when I almost said that to her.”

Punishment as Attitude Adjustment:

Confession: I’m a typical won’t ask for directions guy, often refusing even when I’m obviously lost and directly ordered to do so by my exasperated wife. I find it easier to simply drive around endlessly, hoping to blunder into the right way.

One wife, driven far beyond exasperation when her husband refused to pull over at any number of motels, finally ordered him to pull over, took the wheel and stopped at the next lighted motel. Then…

“Once in our room, I lit into him and gave him a darn good spanking, surprising him and myself. I felt that he hadn't been listening and in refusing to stop, made for an unsafe and scary drive. Since then, I have a small flogger keychain in the car's glove box, and he knows when I take it out, that I'm putting him on notice about his driving habits.”

For a similar offense (and probably not a first offense), another husband lose his driving privileges for a time.

SMTR’s Anne in Charge explains this kind of wife-imposed attitude adjustment: “Sometimes, you guys need to be taken outside of your own little self-controlled comfort zones and be made to think about things.”

And for an apparently growing cohort of in-charge wives, spanking is the quickest way to accomplish that—taking hubby outside of his self-controlled comfort zone and making him think about things. Many other wives, of course, balk at the notion of putting palm or paddle to hubby’s nether regions.

How to cure such wifely squeamishness? The advice of a female supremacist calling herself Litia is short and to the point: “’Oh my God, just spank him! The wives who say they will never do that always end up eating their words after the 14th time they're getting ready for bed and the dinner dishes aren't done. When you start to see or hear him slack off and you begin to be required to do his chores, sooner or later it will come to you that all who came before you as women of loving authority knew what they were talking about. Spare the rod and you spoil it all.”

And, yes, for a militant minority of female authoritarians, the instrument of choice for attitude adjustment is not the hairbrush or paddle, but the whip. The mere threat of this fearsome punishment is usually sufficient to correct any recalcitrant husband, for example:

“Last night, we took a long walk to the grocery store instead of driving and my wife told me that she did not like my attitude and if I did not change it right now, she would adjust it with the whip when we got home. I reevaluated my attitude right then. I KNOW she would carry through on her threat and we are not talking about a sensual whipping.”


Another word for attitude adjustment, of course, is “training.” Hence, on many female-led websites you will see links to various books about how animal training techniques can be successfully employed on husbands and boyfriends. No-nonsense titles like these:

* How to Make Your Man Behave in 21 Days or Less Using the Secrets of Professional Dog Trainers by Karen Salmansohn
* The Boyfriend Training Kit by Tanya Sassoon
* Husband-ry 101, How to Train Your Husband to Be the Spouse You've Always Wanted Him to Be by Michael H. McCann

And the sagacious Fumika Misato, goes into considerable depth of behavioral or operant conditioning of the male on her seminal website, Real Women Don’t Do Housework.

Does this sort of wife-administered Pavlovian regimen work? You darn betcha, at least according to this guy: “It is strange that, while I don't really want the corporal punishment my wife delivers, at the same time I can't think of a better feedback mechanism to improve my general behavior and performance of my duties.”

This, of course, links to the topic of weekly performance evaluations, which were covered in an earlier two-part posting, “Weekend Update.”

Punishment as Revenge (and Therapy)

Every now and again, as you explore the online resources about loving female authority in all its manifestations, you will come across another category of female-to-male punishment. These are punishments administered by women, often strong feminists, as a kind of therapeutic “revenge by proxy”—using a boyfriend or husband, who may be faultless, as a kind of whipping boy or stand-in for the entire male population for years, decades, centuries or millenia of perceived masculine or patriarchal sins, i.e., “sins of the fathers.”

Elise Sutton, while clearly condoning this kind of vicarious exercise, does suggests that it does not meet the standards of Loving Female Authority:

“Once you enter into a relationship with a man that you care for, discipline and corporal punishment will become less about taking revenge on the male gender who mistreated you and more about loving female authority… That is not to say that you still cannot express your aggressive side and take out some of life's frustrations as you dominate the man you love, but it will take on a different dynamic… You may desire that the man you love stand in proxy for other men who have mistreated you, but your love and compassion as a woman will temper your discipline as you combine strict discipline with nurturing.”

Have I exhausted the no-longer-verboten topic? Not quite. I think I have just about enough for one more posting.


End Part Two
(To be continued)

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

While I find the idea of LFA intriging, I must admit that I balk at the idea of corporeal punishment against husbands for the same reason that I balk at male supremists within certain Judeo-Christian or Islamic communities using that same practice against women.

But, hey. If two consenting adults enjoy it and find that it enhances their relationship, that's cool with me. As a straight-up, fair-is-fair feminist type, though, I probably wouldn't be able to do it. Then again, I wouldn't have really gone for LFA at all if my boyfriend hadn't pointed me in the direction of your blog, the Addisons', and Lady Misato's.

I'm still new to all this stuff, but I must say that your blog has made the LFA philosophy seem really appealing, and relatable to the average Joe (or Jane:). Even as a so-called liberal grad student of the Y-generation, I have to admit that some of the heavier stuff has squicked me out.

Mark Remond said...

Anonymous, my wife would agree with you, which is why I've avoided the topic pretty much till now. I decided to go ahead, and was interested in some of the rationales for punishment that I presented. But my own wife chooses not to coerce my compliance or follow-through on what I've promised or she has "asked" me to do. It's up to me to follow if I truly want to honor her as my leader, and I do, so I do. Pretty much. Failed on several things today, though.

Anonymous said...

I can't imagine how difficult LFA is to sustain in marriage. My boyfriend and I have only been practicing it for six months, and I recently left the state for school, so the issue of "discipline" has never really come up.

It may later. Or he may express an interest in it later. If so, I might (eventually) warm up to it the same way I warmed up to LFA's rudimentary concepts. Gradually.

When my boyfriend introduced me to LFA, he gave me your book along with the Addisons', and yours was the one that really sold me on the idea. It's certainly a great alternative to Dr. Laura. And, if these ideas ever become mainstream, you guys could easily blow her out of the water!

Anonymous said...

I too don't spank my husband, I raised 2 children and am not looking to raise a third. But I will not allow him to get off with nothing after he does something that I don't like. Making him do extra housework (he does all of it now), for example, cleaning the floors the day after he had done them , this all after his regular cleaning days, only this time on his hands and knees. And if he really needs some good discipline, I make him do them a second or third time the same day so his entire day is spent cleaning. I once made him clean my bathroom three times, and I must say I loved how it looked and smelled by late afternoon. I feel it's better to make him do plenty of housework instead of standing him in a corner for several hours. I make him do it all while he is naked also, this adds to his frustration. I dress sexy so I try to distract him, but if he's been naughty, he may not see me nude., maybe for weeks. . Also, I do agree that the best punishment is not letting your husband have an orgasm for maybe four to eight weeks, depending what he did. But you must have a mutual consent where he has promised not to take care of it himself. And any wife could tell if her husband did it without her permission, their attitude changes immediately for days afterward. Always looking for new ideas!!!!

HORNYHUBBY said...

About 3 years ago my wife and I agreed that I should wear a chastity device 24/7 to prevent unauthorized orgasms. It was my idea since I felt my willpower might not be as strong after 4 weeks and maybe 3 or 4 weeks to go. She wasn't to quick to say yes, but she did seem to like the control it gave her. When it arrived and we gave it a trial run for a week to make sure ring and spacer adjustments were fine, she did love to "click" the little brass lock shut once we made it full time. Recently though she has started to feel that the chastity device is an artifical way of controlling the penis she owns. She wants to go without it, and base keeping me very horny on the trust we have in eachother, giving her my word that I will not masturbate no matter how many weeks she makes me wait. She will remove it this weekend after 5 weeks of denial and 1 more to go. Although after the 1 more week she will probably add some additional time because as she puts it "I can if I want, it's mine and you have no say". She is going to read this before I send it so I'm sure now I'll have to wait longer. Well, I do feel she is 100% correct., but the device did make it very easy for me not to masturbate .It will be more difficult for me, the temptation will be there, but she is right. I will give her my word to stay horny, we have such a great WLR that of course what she says I will do. I could never lie to her, that's how great we are together. I do agree that having your wife control orgasms is the most dominating thing she can do to you. Of course she doesn't wait, she is satisfied at least once a week by me orally and with some toys. Good luck to me after this weekend.

Rex said...

Mark,

I'm right there with you in that my wife is unwilling to use corporal punishment. My larger concern is how unwilling she is to point out any displeasure she has with me or my service to her.

I agree with second wife: that "I think it can increase the bond between you. You are telling him how important he is to you. After all, you love him, your husband, enough to..."

Corporal punishment would be an overt validation of our WLM. I try to live by the precepts of wife worship for its own sake but without any feedback from my wife I am too often subject to my fickle will.

Mark Remond said...

I'm enjoying all the comments immensely. As for "hornyhubby," if I could cure my lifelong habit of "self-abuse," and I did almost immediately upon my conversion to "wife worship," I'm convinced any guy can. Not that I wouldn't accept a chastity device, but okay, I'm glad that wasn't required.
And Rex, again thanks for pointing people in this direction. May I suggest you start a list of "half-full" accomplishments in your Wife-Led Marriage so far, rather than fixing too much on the "half-empty" part of the glass? Just a suggestion, but you may, as I was, be surprised and encouraged as to how far you've traveled down this memorable path.

HORNYHUBBY said...

I sent in a post 2 weeks ago at the request of my wife. My chastity device has been removed, but I had to wait longer than the 1additional week I had remaining. My wife likes our relationship of WLR so much more without the chastity device, she told me last weekend that she is adding 2 more weeks (making it 7 weeks), because she wants to see how much she can trust me without it on. I have given her my word and a promise that I will NEVER masturbate again. It is her cock and balls to do with as she pleases, she owns them, as well as me. Yes, I am very sensitive and the horny feeling is really getting to me. But if she is testing my devotion to her, I will show her how completely devoted I am to her. I do get teased every day, sometimes just a little, but this week it has been just short of the point of no return. She plays with me at bedtime, then she says "that's all, lets go to sleep". I am allowed to use an ice pack and sometimes fall asleep with it still applied. I have another week to go, my behavior is perfect, so hopefully she won't add more time.

Mark Remond said...

hornyhubby, I have occasionally boasted about how I kicked a typical lifelong masturbation habit "cold turkey" after taking a wife-worship pledge, so completely that I don't even think I can do it. It's not even a temptation. But your comment made me realize that it might not be so easy if my wife had made a practice of teasing and denial, as yours does. That is one aspect of a wife-led marriage that I have proposed to her, but which she never adopted. Would I be so self-controlled if I were taken to the brink on a daily or nightly basis and left hanging there? Might I not be at least tempted to succumb to a ready-to-hand solution? So... yes, I salute you.

Anonymous said...

I used to spank my boyfriend all the time. He's a little too tall for it now, I think, but I use other methods. He is not naturally "submissive" I would say, neither is he particularly aggressive, but I have mastered him over time. He is gentle, that is true, and a people-pleaser, I would say. I met him when we were much younger, and I think discipline is absolutely necessary. Spank him, smack his butt, as often as possible, so he knows who is boss. He is there for pleasure, labor, and my comfort and affection. If you don't like corporal punishment there are other things you could try. Sometimes I make mine sleep on the floor until he begs to be let back into bed. At first he was proud and did not want to beg. He would try to "reason", but I made it clear it was not up for discussion. I told him I would let him back in when I thought he learned his lesson. I got an instant change in attitude. I have also used my shoe to discipline him, and have taken away his music time - locked up all instruments and music playing devices - for a week or so until he succumbed and started being a good boy. Also taking his clothes and locking them up is a good choice. Tell him when he behaves you will give them back to him. We don't even "discuss" things anymore. I get this sad, resigned little expression when he knows he's been bad, and when we were younger he would just bend over. By this point I have a wonderful, peaceful household with all the obedience I could wish for.

Mark Remond said...

Anonymous just above - perhaps you would be inerested in sharing some of your FLR scenes with your boyfriend in a blog post. You write very well indeed, and you certainly know what you are doing when it comes to leading your boyfriend!

Anonymous said...

Mr Remond,

Wow, I would love to. I would be happy to help any woman toward more effective discipline of her home. Thanks

Mark Remond said...

Anonymous, That would be so great! I would be honored to publish any guest posts from you. If you would, please email them to me: markremond@yahoo.com