Thanks to Thianna D. and Spanking Romance Reviews for hosting this round table. When I signed up, I expected this to be easier to write than it was; however I think that's more a comment on watching my very old dog as she's having a bad day, when we're starting to have the "will she get up again?" "Is it time to have her put to sleep?" conversation. Sighs, but she's in no pain that we can tell, so my Master just shakes His legs more in anxiety and I want to look at nothing but my computer screen, but frustratingly, I see anxious Master to the left and old, falling apart dog to the right.
For me, discipline is something that you
know you should do, that you don't need an order (whether from a
dominant/HoH as an adult submissive, from a parent to a child, from a
boss to an employee) to complete. More than the first order to do
something, that is. As a lifestyle submissive who lives a life looking muchly
like a housewife, discipline is what guides me as I do the laundry,
prepare meals, clean the dishes, etc. Punishment is one that I have a
harder time with. While I do use punishment in my writing, especially
as I tend to write things set at a medium BDSM protocol, I live at a
low level BDSM protocol. To explain to people unfamiliar with the
BDSM protocol levels, this means I tend to live with a less obvious
sort of rigidity than you might see in BDSM erotica/erotic romance.
Punishment isn't something I live with much. When I read DD/spanking
fiction, I find it confusing to see specific things (like swearing
for example) being worth so many spanks- a number of impacts (of
hand, implement etc) is just something that neither my Master nor I
have ever wanted.
Beyond the "not wanting," the
current struggles that my Master and I have been going through make
"punishment" an even harder thing for me to consider. It
seems punishment should be synonymous with "deterrent," but
the fact that I need implement play to help control my bipolar, to
feel more balanced... and my Master ISN'T, whether from depression or
illness or any of the dozens of other stressors currently
complicating our lives... just isn't doing them makes reading about
impact activities, whether spanking with a hand, a brush, a paddle,
ginger in the rectum, corner time, the dozens of other things used in
spanking, DD, BDSM fiction, as punishment difficult. I just don't get
it.
I actually prefer the word discipline,
as I've used it. As a way of approaching things. Of course, it's a
constant tension for me to run the house as my Master wants. My
mother-in-law can be rather old-fashioned in some things and she ran
a pretty tight house as He was growing up; unfortunately no matter
how many times I say "Master, I need something like Flylady to
help me because I simply didn't get the teaching that Your mother
did," He doesn't get it really. And the current infestation of
earwigs doesn't help- I spend all too much time in the midst of
things like "cleaning the kitchen" in killing earwigs- lol,
I may border on "hippie" as my Master likes to teach about
homemade shampoos and such, but earwigs will die. Icky things.
Well my neighbors on either side really
don't know much. Although I'm out as "not straight" and
polyamorous to the middle aged non-denominational Christian woman to
one side- it amuses her to have such an "out there" friend
:D. I'm out and I'm not to my parents- they will receive comments
like "I have to talk to Don about that"- but they happily,
firmly live in denial. I think online talking to friends, because in
this conservative hellhole in which I live, most of my friends are
online, I spend a lot of time explaining my reality. Because somehow
the fact that I live "Master/slave" equals "high
protocol"- if you'd like to read my most recent vent on assuming
what protocol I live based on my identity, click here. I'm not under
heavy bondage, discipline, or the threat of punishment constantly. If
anything, I'd love a little more of that type of stuff from my
Master- not so much in others' books, my books, my fantasies.
Abuse. Hm. You see that's the last
thing; I'm still debating the words to use. It's about consent so
much for me. Although it's not all that easy as that. I got into it
once with a BDSM friend who doesn't agree with Christian Domestic
Discipline- he doesn't see that the submissive is consenting
necessarily because of the (usually? some CDD person care to comment
if my usually is correct?) conservative Christian interpretation of
the bible that's used by CDD people. However, I think that the
submissive even in CDD can give her consent. Of course, I'm thinking
a bunch about edge play and consent (from what I shared in WIP it up
Wednesday two weeks ago in part; I enjoy quite a bit of edge play
IRL). What does it mean to withdraw one's consent? I'm not as sure as
I once was. In part it's because I've read more from people who enjoy
saying things like "no" and "stop" during BDSM
activity; again, not something my Master and I are into- if I
actually use either of those words during BDSM activity, my Master
takes them at their accepted meaning, not as roleplay.