More Discipline

Okay, I ran out of time to put down all my thoughts about discipline last week, so I'm having another go at it.

In hindsight, there are two main things I want to discuss in particular.

1. What exactly is discipline?

I've been working with a character who is a self labelled disciplinearian lately, so I've been getting my - and his - thoughts into a more logical order. Here's how it works for him.

Discipline is the establishment, maintainence and enforcement of a specific level conduct.

Rules exist so the submissive knows exactly what is expected of him.

Punishments exist to correct behaviours, enforce rules and to give closure to a submissive who regrets breaking a rule.

For this character in particular, the goal is to reach a point where no punishments ever need to be issued. Punishments mean the system has broken down at some point - they represent a failure on the part of the dominant as well as the submissive.

As I said last week, in my stories, I like to keep punishments as punishments and play as play. I like the submissive in the scene to know what's going on and mind games that mix the punishment with the play and vice versa make my submissives uneasy.

On to the other point I should have mentioned.

2. Sex and punishment.

If having sex with your master is a punishment, I think something has gone very, very wrong in that relationship.

That doesn't mean certain punishments can't have a sexual component. If the dominants in my stories want to punish their subissive they may well do that by denying them permission to come for a certain length of time.

That may mean that they use certain sexual acts as part of the punishment. For example, they may say they'll only have oral sex. The sub is allowed to go down on his master, but it's important that going down on him isn't the punishment - the frustration of being allowed to service his master without getting his own release should be the punishment.

It's what he's not allowed to do that's the punishment, not what he still gets to do with his master, if you see what I mean. Sex with his master is still a positive thing.

Withdrawl of privilages in general seem to be what my dominants prefer when it comes to punishments. But never withdrawl of affection or love - I think it's an important to make that distinction. If the sub thinks that his master stops loving him every time he does the slightest thing wrong, it doesn't make for a healthy relationship.

Right, what else did I forget to tell you last week?

Nothing springs to mind right now (although I'm sure it will once I press publish post).

Next week I think I may tackle a smaller word - big ideas are interesting to muse over, but they take a heck of a lot of thinking about to get anything like sense written down about them!

.....

Other news:

Editing - *Touch wood* not going badly at the moment. Should be able to print my anthology sub out this weekend if it keeps going this way, and maybe sub it this weekend too.

Writing - my third lust bite story is about half way through on the first draft. Not entirely sure if it will be successful or not. It turning out to be quite a sad little story in places. Might not be what people are looking for in a story that length.