Why Spanking Matters

After experiencing such positive changes in our relationship through the use of Domestic Discipline (DD), my partner and I now find ourselves having to spend an extended time apart. And despite heroic and exhausting attempts on both sides at long distance discipline, our relationship is once again falling apart. And fast.

We've tried corner time (without the spanking beforehand), mouth soaping, scolding, essay writing and, yes, even self-spanking with him on the phone directing me. But none of it's working. I try. I do my best to participate fully in the discipline he gives me, but the truth is that all I'm doing is going through the motions.

Don't get me wrong. I love and respect him as much as ever. Couldn't imagine being with anyone else, even though I'm not doing a good job of showing it recently. But my ability to communciate those feelings to him is slipping away again, just like it did before we tried DD.

I think it's the lack of spanking.

Without the spanking part (self-spanking does not have the same effect at all), DD loses its power for me. It's like trying to dance with my shoelaces tied together or make love with my legs crossed. It's like applauding without the performance. It's like running a victory lap without the race. It's like... well, for me at least, it's impossible.

My partner is frustrated. He's articulated to me that, "If this DD stuff is so powerful, it ought to last while we're apart." I'm frustrated, because I feel like he's judging the benefits DD has on our relationship without the presence of the key element that makes it work for me.

I've never administered a spanking, but I suspect it's very different to give one than it is to receive one. I think there's probably some catharsis in spanking someone when you're angry at them, but it's probably mitigated a lot by having to stay in control and discipline responsibly. It's a person you're hitting after all, not a pinata -- you can't just wale away until you're not angry anymore.

I suspect the benefit of a spanking for the person giving it lies largely the effect the spanking has on the person receiving it, in that the person receiving the spanking becomes calmer, more loving and more reasonable. And from the point of view of the disciplinarian, well, discipline is discipline, right? I imagine (and this is conjecture on my part) that my partner feels like I ought to be responding to whatever discipline he gives me like I respond to a spanking. Or at least responding.

But that's like saying that all sexual activity should make me orgasm, or all jokes should make me laugh.

All discipline is not created equal. Spanking creates a primal, visceral response in me that nothing else does and without it, all those wonerful feelings of trust, love and safety that DD can bring disappear almost entirely for me.

For me, DD just doesn't work without spankings. I want it to, very much, but it doesn't. And given the heavy emphasis on spanking (primarily by women) on virtually all of the DD blogs and forums, I suspect I'm not alone in this.

But why? What separates spanking from other forms of discipline? It's not the most painful -- I'd rather take a serious spanking than a mouth soaping any day. It's not even the most embarrassing -- for a lot of us, bare-bottom corner time trumps spanking for embarrassment.

1. Spanking is physical contact with my partner. There have been lots of times in pre-DD days when my partner and I were arguing, and a little voice in my head said, 'You know, if he were to just hug me right now, I'd feel better able to see his point of view.' But that's not a realistic possibility in the middle of an argument. People generally don't want to hug someone when they're angry with them.

Spanking, however, is a very physically intimate act that doesn't require my partner to put aside his genuine feelings of anger to initiate. Like a hug, when he spanks me, I feel loved, cared for, appreciated and important. Connected. And it's all within the context of the emotions we're both feeling. Neither one of us has to set aside our genuine reactions to participate in a spanking.

2. Spanking is mind-clearing. It's the only discipline that is intense and instant enough to clear my mind of its endless chatter about why I'm right and he's wrong and yadda yadda -- all the stuff that gets in the way of two people working things out in a loving way. Yes, I think mouth soaping is more painful, but it's a slow burn that gives me way too much time to think. When a spanking is appropriately severe, it takes me immediately out of the moment, out of my emotional reaction, out of myself. It's a time-out from the whole world, in fact, which allows me to re-approach the situation and make room for his point of view alongside my own.

3. Spanking is sexual. Women in DD relationships, me included, spend a lot of time denying the presence of a sexual component in disciplinary spanking, but don't believe it for a second.

Yes, there is a difference between an erotic spanking and a disciplinary one, but there's no getting around the reality that both have strong sexual energy associated. We can rationalize all we want that our getting wet and aroused during a spanking is only because we are feeling our man's dominance, etc. and not because of the spanking (it's telling that that particular theory was put forward by a man, not a woman). But I call bullsh*t. Come on, most of us have been masturbating to spanking fantasies all our lives, so let's not pretend otherwise.

First of all, the buttocks are an erogenous zone. Particularly if he spanks in the "sit spot" (or "sweet spot," as it's commonly called), that yummy sexual jolt goes straight to just the right place. Second, women in DD relationships are usually spanked while naked, or at least with our bottoms -- and all the relevant sex parts -- exposed. We're also bent over and submissive -- in the same posture as we would be for rear-penetration sex, which most men (and many women) find highly erotic.

This is all good news, by the way. We spend so much time worrying about whether or not DD is really just kink in disguise, but on the level of, "if it works, who cares why," so what? Even if it is just a fetish (which I don't think is the case), what better way to defuse a conflict than by igniting a powerful current of sexual energy between partners?

4. Spanking is cathartic. It's the only discipline I know of that makes me cry, and especially for women, crying is an important release of tension and other intense emotions. A disciplinary session without spanking leaves me tense, irritable and still overwhelmed with all the swirling feelings that I had that caused the misbehavior in the first place (it should be said here that the majority of discipline I receive is for what my partner calls "expressing anger inappropriately"). If I have a safe way to cry those emotions out without having to defend my point of view at the same time, I can come back to the discussion in a more reasoned frame of mind.

5. Spanking is primal. Virtually every other disciplinary technique relies on higher brain functions to work. (Mouth soaping being the exception, but as discussed, it has other drawbacks). Corner time, writing lines, etc. work because they force me into a meditative state and/or because they're boring or tedious. But a dislike of boredom is a higher brain function, not a primitive response. If anything, for our primitive brain, boredom is good because it means no one's trying to kill and eat you.

But spanking is the immediate, shocking infliction of physical pain and it goes right to the center of that primitive "lizard brain" we have that responds only to intense, rudimentary stimuli. It bypasses all our reasoning skills and fancy higher function and goes straight to our nervous system.

Spanking is the equivalent of the lead dog in a pack nipping another dog that's gotten out of line -- like sex, it pushes intinctual buttons and sends signals that resonate with the core of our inner being. And because spanking reaches deeper than our conscious thought or civilized behavior can go, it has the power to evoke profound change in our attitudes and behavior.

So there is the dilemma. It doesn't seem likely that my partner and I will be together again anytime soon, as professional obligations keep us apart. But without spanking, the DD doesn't work, and without DD, the relationship doesn't work.

What I can't quite decide is whether ineffective discipline is better for the relationship than none at all. I'm tempted to suggest to him that we simply put a moratorium on DD until we're together again, given that it's not working anyway and is likely doing nothing but undermining his faith in the idea as a whole. But on the other hand, maybe it's better to go through the motions rather than abandon it altogether. After all, it's not completely ineffective. Just mostly.

I'm thinking that we need to spend less less thinking up creative (but ineffective) long distance discipline and more time figuring out how to spend more time in the same room with me bent over the bed and him holding the paddle.