Discipline vs. Punishment

Discipline is often confused with punishment since the two can share physical expressions of submission such as today’s topic: spanking.

While discipline can be enjoyed at any time as an expression of dominant and submissive roles, punishment should obviously be spared for those times when submissives have blatantly disappointed their Dom.

Punishment is discipline delivered in such a way as to ensure it is not enjoyable.

Discipline, on the other hand, can be enjoyed 24/7 and is an integral part of what is often referred to  as ‘training’ for a submissive.

One of the things I love about spanking is the ritual that can be created around the practice of it. When I choose to discipline a wife in this manner or, as I often do, choose to have her husband disciplined in this manner, a series of events begins to take place in a proscribed manner.

Venue

The venue describes where this spanking will take place. Choices include ‘OTK’ or, over the knee, a bench built for the purpose of spanking and other play, or ordinary furniture such as the back of a couch, stuffed chair or coffee table.

Most often I personally prefer a venue where I can ensure her comfort for making this experience both prolonged and pleasurable.

Method

Spanking for some refers to only spankings applied by the bare hand, but it can also be a generic term for the application of force using a variety of implements besides the hand. This can include the back sides of hairbrushes, riding crops, floggers and paddles.

Preparation

The subject of the discipline is responsible for retrieving any gear to be used in their discipline. While that could be as simple as having him/her retrieve a paddle or riding crop for me, it could also include gear such as ball gags or spreader bars. Upon return, the subject should disrobe completely before continuing. If gear such as spreader bars or ball gags are to be used, I will most often have the spouse assist with the fitting of that gear. Once all gear has been fitted, the subject assumes a spanking position over my lap or over the furniture selected as they’ve been taught.

Application

Often assumed to be the ‘main course’ of the event, the application of the spanking, while enjoyable, is often more likely to be the foreplay to other types of D/s play or merely a prelude to intercourse. This is also an area where discipline diverges most from punishment. During the application phase of  a discipline sessions, I’m much more likely to tease/pleasure her body ensuring her arousal is heightened as her discipline continues whereas for punishment, she would know only discomfort.

Discipline is as much about an expression of trust as it is an expression of submission; and as spanking isn’t only limited to being applied to the subject’s bottom, the expression of trust this way is even higher for couples new to this experience.

Above we see a wife being lightly flogged between her open thighs while the riding crop that was used on her bottom previously rests just inside her. It’s quite possible for women to orgasm during such discipline when properly applied.

Aftercare

Aftercare is the followup to any sort of intense ‘scene’ within a D/s relationship. Aftercare should be exercised to calm the intense physical and emotional response, if nothing else, but it might also be physically necessary to soothe the reddened flesh of my subject – or it could sometimes be just an adjustment of current gear or introduction of other gear/toys before discipline continues in other directions.

Advanced Cuckolding

Being spanked can be very intimate, emotional experience to start with, but when you add in the cuckolding aspect and appreciate that it’s not the husband spanking the wife’s bare, upturned bottom, you can easily appreciate how cuckolding can create powerful intensity in an already intense experience.  For this reason, this is often what would be considered a more advanced stage of cuckolding and isn’t an experience a couple new to cuckolding would likely have unless with a very experienced Dom.

This goes both ways, too: not only is it incredibly intense for a wife to be spanked by her Dom in front of her husband, but I think it’s even more intense for a husband to witness this very physical form of submission. On more than one occasion, husbands witnessing their wife’s spanking discipline have spurted spontaneously without having touched their throbbing penis at all. This has happened more often in my own experience and among the experiences of others I’ve talked to than during the witnessing of intercourse.

Of course this does mean that the cuckold will have to be punished for spurting during play! In a case like this I will often offer the cuckold the choice of his punishment: submit to a physical punishment of having his ass paddled 40 times, or to have his balls lightly paddled 5 times – or, to give up being allowed to watch our couplings for the next month! Which would you choose..?