More Discipline

If you follow my blog, you will already have read my post on Discipline and Punishment and will know that punishment has never formed a big part of our dynamic. We did try it initially of course as we had read that was what you were supposed to do. It didn’t really work. We are not a couple who use punishment with our kids and prefer to sort things out by discussion so it seemed odd and uncomfortable not to that with each other too. We also found that when things went ‘wrong’ that usually we both had a part to play in it. I won’t say that we have never used punishment because we have, and I wrote about one occasion where it seemed necessary in my post Meltdown.

I think that one of the issues initially was that we had all of these ideas from other people about what punishments should be and what they shouldn’t be. When they should be used and when they shouldn’t be used.  Being newbies we soaked all of this up and ended up with something that just didn’t feel right and so we threw it away. Well times change, as does your dynamic, and the confidence you have to make alterations to the structure of The house that D/s built and experiment with a new colour scheme in some of the rooms grows and suddenly there you are wondering if, perhaps, you were a little too quick to dismiss something that could actually work for you.  And so – here we are!

Since chatting to others at The SafeworD/s Club I have been able to find out a lot more about DD, or Domestic Discipline. There is a close link between DD and D/s and many of the relationships that I have read about or we chat about have elements of both. As all D/s relationships are different to each other, so are DD relationships and really there is no set of rules other than the ones that you set up to follow yourself. Personally I had always associated DD with the completion of domestic chores but the other day I was speaking with a Dominant on chat who explained that for him and his sub, it was more about discipline in a domestic setting. They had used it to correct behaviours so that essentially the bad behaviours were  punished and the good were rewarded.

I did see the logic to this and thought about the way that it could fit into the dynamic that HisLordship and I have built. There are things that I should do but don’t, and other things that I try not to do but don’t get right all of the time. I think that to be able to make further changes and improvements to my behaviour and attitude it is something that I have wanted for a long time, but I have always been concerned that it would put even more pressure on Sir to keep watch and follow it up. I do find that if there is something that he has said that I should or shouldn’t do and then he doesn’t follow it up when I mess up, it stops me having value to that particular thing. Slowly it will fade from the front of my mind and I will stop trying to do whatever it is.

There seemed to be an answer for that too. Self-reporting. Now I was really thinking that this could work for us. If there was a structure that allowed me to self report at a particular point, then all Sir would have to do would be to remember to keep that structure there. Of course, he could correct my behaviour at any other time that he noticed an infraction, but it would mean that I was able to be accountable to him for my actions which, I thought, would not only reinforce the positive behaviours and actions, but also help us both to be in the right mindset.  We talked about it a little at that time and I explained that I thought that it might work for us, but obviously that would be for HisLordship to decide in his own time.

Actually it all happened far more quickly than I thought it would. Yesterday he sat me down and told me that he wanted to try it. We agreed on what the behaviours would be, and also on the sorts of punishments that might work as this is where I think that we have not always got it right before.  I have also read and spoken with others who have described how it works for them and have known sometimes that it would not be the right thing for me. I am purposely not going to include the details here for that reason as I think that what you do has to be fitting to whatever you did wrong, and it has to fit the people you are.  No doubt in time this will become more flexible, but I think that for us, it is better to start slowly and to feel our way with it.

I don’t really see these things we have agreed as punishments, although on day 1 I have not yet had to deal with one so that might all change. I feel that having spoken about it together, they are actually incentives to help me be to be the person that we both want me to be. They will certainly make me feel better about myself and I hope that Sir will feel the same.  I suppose that correction has a slightly different connotation than punishment or discipline so I am not sure which term what we are doing would really fall under. Whichever it is, I feel hopeful that these goals are achievable and that it will be a positive step for us and one which will shift us slightly further along the road that we are travelling together.