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.

Discipline

(I'm still working out my thoughts on this topic, so bare with me. I may well come back to edit it as I think things through a little more.)

Dominants set rules. Submissives obey them. If the Sub disobeys a rule, he may well be punished by the Dom.

Discipline in action. Simple.


Of course, that's ignoring the fact that the Sub also sets rules for the Dom. But those rules are generally called limits and if they are broken it's a whole different ball game, so we'll keep them for another time.


Rules can be anything. Big things, little things, petty things even.

For example, "You're not allowed to have sex with anyone but your master," is a pretty big rule - regardless of if you're kinky or not, monogamy is a big thing to a lot of people. The method of enforcing discipline that comes into play if the rule is broken would likely be correspondingly large. The punishment for breaking that rule may well be the end of the relationship in a lot of cases.

"You must address your dominant as sir," is a smaller rule to my mind (disowning someone for forgetting a title is somewhat over the top!) but one that could be considered very important. Some people see honerifics as vital for the head space, others see them as a sign of respect, still others see them as less important. The punishment could vary hugely depending on how someone sees the rule.

Which brings me neatly onto the how of the matter.

There are lots of methods of discipline and lots of methods of punishment. Technically they are two very different things. Discipline is the maintaining of a certain standard of conduct, punishment is a means by which those standards could be enforced, if you see what I mean, but a lot of people use the terms interchangeably.

Punishments can be anything, depending on the people involved and, in particular, on the limits of the submissive. (Punishments should always stay within limits.) The other thing that can have a huge effect on what the punishment is, is what the Sub enjoyes. If someone enjoys being spanked, a spanking isn't a punishment, lol.

Okay, common punishments -

Corporal Punishments. A physical punishment. Spanking, whipping, cane, flogger, etc.

Now, I don't write about these a lot. If one of my characters is spanking the other, then they're both probably enjoying themselves. But since I have written it a few times from a discipline point of view, here's how it goes in my stories in those cases.

It can never be about one person being bigger and stronger than the other and using the threat of or actual physical violence as a method of controling them. That's not kink, that's abuse. I'm not a fan of stories that can't tell the difference, even less so of people who can't.

One case from one of the stories I wrote a while ago springs to mind. In it the Dom spanks the Sub because he did something wrong (In this case, he did something that put himself in danger. His master wasn't pleased that he took so little care of himself.) He feels guilty and that he let his master down and can't get past that. His master spanks him. Sub doesn't enjoy it, but he finds it cathartic in a way - a way of paying pennance and showing his was sorry for his mistake. Sub got a lot more out of it than the Dom.

Other physical punishments. Standing in one place - possibly in a stress position, restriction on movements, anything that causes some sort of physical discomfort could be used. Cold shower anyone?

Again, I find when I use these in my stories, I find it's not about what's happening on the outside that's intersting - it's all about what happens inside the characters mind - about what each person gets out of the punishment. If there isn't a positive result at the end of it, then there isn't any point in it.

Other punishments can be as simple as writing out lines, doing chores, doing pointless but time consuming things just for the sake of it. Think - writing out lines in school or cleaning X with a toothbrush. Educational establishments and the military have a good stock of these sorts of punishments :)

The whole "you've been naughty and need to be punished, don't you?" thing does nothing for me. And I don't agree with setting a submissive up to fail, so in my stories a punishment is not play, and play is not punishment...

Okay, I have a lot more thoughts on this topic, but I'm going to have to stop short here.

It's midnight. I have work tomorrow and I'm knackered.

If I don't get time before, then I'll do Discipline part two as next weeks word of the week.

Sleep well everyone. Nos Da :)