Surrender, Crying, and Spankings You Really Don’t Want
Inevitability and Surrender in Domestic Discipline — FLR relationships
Recently, a reader on a blog I’m active in talked about how his domestic discipline fantasies are strongly connected to the kind of disciplined he received from his parents and how it impacts what he thinks he wants from his wife today.
“Spanking is a demonstrable and tangible way of expressing her level of concern. I relate that to how I was raised as a child. Knowing I had done wrong was one thing, but corporal punishment was the clearest message conveying what my parents thought about the misbehavior. There was no ambiguity, and no choice but to take whatever had led to the spanking as a dead serious issue that must be corrected.”
“As an adult, it is still about having been a bad boy and getting a spanking from a parental authority figure. The profound humility would change me psychologically regardless of any practical benefit.”
While focused on the parental discipline dynamic, his comments raise a more general point about “inevitability“ ”and our surrender to it. One reason parental spankings may still carry such force for some of us today is that there was an inevitability to them, and while we might have tried mightily to talk our way out of them, if the parent had decided it was going to happen, then it was going to happen.
The topic of surrender also was lurking behind the scenes in a topic another reader raised in that same blog post:
“On the subject of crying, I would love to hear from anyone else that was told that the spanking wouldn’t finish until he cried… and then she followed through.”
While his specific question was about crying, the scenario he presented entails a wife deciding that she wants a particular result, i.e. tears, and the husband can surrender to that decision . . . or else.
“Inevitability” and “surrender” in domestic discipline and Female Led Relationships
Then, there was this, from Aunt Kay in one of the old Disciplinary Wives Club publications:
“My goal is for you, the man in the relationship, to one day ask yourself, “Oh, NO! What did I get myself into?” as you await an upcoming spanking session that you desperately want to avoid. Yes, that’s right. I want you to be genuinely anxious and dreading an upcoming discipline session. Why? Because it means your wife has taken the role of disciplinarian seriously, has made a decision that you are going to get a good sound licking, and you have nothing to say about it.”
“You are going to get a sound licking, and you have nothing to say about it.” Something about that phrase, and ones like it, gives me butterflies in my stomach. Every time.
Again, it’s the idea of having to surrender yourself — physically and emotionally — to something you genuinely do not want to happen.
For me, “surrender” is a notion that covers a lot of ground. On a philosophical or spiritual basis, it means getting better at giving in and fully accepting what is — accepting the current state of affairs, accepting what will come — regardless of whether it reflects my own preferences and desires.
It’s about letting life come as it is because, really, what is the alternative?
In my work life, it should have meant accepting that, every once in a while, I might need to give in to the will of those above me in the pecking order. Though, in all honesty, I never came close to surrendering in that context.
Even in the very beginning of our domestic discipline experimentations, I think I had some understanding that I was proposing to permanently give up some of my autonomy and that she would have power of disciplinary decisions.
However, I think my understanding was very surface-level at that point. One could argue that it stayed that way until fairly recently.
Surrender, when it’s real, isn’t comfortable or sexy when it’s happening.
Ironically, I’ve internalized the “surrender” concept most deeply when my emotions were fighting it the hardest.
I’ve encountered it, and been challenged by it, most directly in those moments when I was being faced with that spanking Aunt Kay wished for me— one I really didn’t want — or when I received a punishment or a severe scolding in a situation where we didn’t entirely see eye-to-eye.
In those situations, I was faced with having to surrender to authority when I really didn’t want to.
Surrender inherently involves an ego hit.
We’ve been in a domestic discipline and, to a lesser extent, an FLR relationship for over 15 years. But, to be honest, it’s really only been in the last year or two that my wife has really stepped up her control.
As she has done so, the concept of “surrender” has been on my mind more and more. And, truthfully, I’ve really struggled with it at times .
A few months ago, she really ripped into me — verbally and later with a paddle over her lap — after we attended a dinner party, at which she thought I dominated the conversation and behaved boorishly.
That stern and tough scolding was very, very hard to take. My ego was bruised for weeks.
A few weeks later, she tore me a new one again. I got over it a little more quickly, but it still was hard.
One thing that made the scoldings so hard to take was I was not entirely on board with her assessment of the situations that got me in trouble.
But, she made it clear that my views simply did not matter in terms of the expectations she had decided to set.
Surrender begins where your sense of control ends.
I have been spanked dozens of times over the course of our relationship, and usually as soon as the spanking is over, the slate is clean and I’m emotionally over it.
But, not always. Sometimes, something about a particular punishment drives home the fact that I am not longer in control. She is.
A few years ago, my wife decided I needed a spanking after I (repeatedly) failed to clean a rice cooker after dinner. (In our relationship, she cooks, and I clean up.) While getting spanked for not doing my assigned job was foreseeable, I anticipated a fairly moderate spanking for a fairly moderate (to my thinking) offense.
Instead, she gave me a very, very hard spanking, which she delivered with a bit of real anger and exasperation. She finished with a warning that the next time it would be even worse.
I still recall pulling up my pants when it was over, feeling — perhaps for the first time — a bit of resentment at the end of a spanking, even though I knew I had deserved it. It wasn’t so much that I’d gotten that “good sound licking” Aunt Kay referred to. Rather, it was that part about having “nothing to say about it.” She decided that a repeated minor offense deserved a very sound licking, and that was that.
I remember feeling a real, deep sense of disquiet that for the first time in a very long time I had received a consequence that I didn’t want and had no control over. There was undeniably something very parental about her demeanor and, particularly, her determination and decision-making power.
Loss of control is scary, even when we’ve asked for it.
I think the reason I was left so disquieted by that incident is the stirrings of a “healthy fear” where my wife’s willingness to use her authority were concerned.
It’s true that in the vast majority of disciplinary FLR relationships, the man asked for that arrangement. So, on some level we want what is coming to us. But, even the act of asking for the relationship is a form of taking control, right?
When I talk about surrender, it’s about that turning point in the domestic discipline or FKR relationship where what you think you should be spanked for may not be what you actually get spanked for. It’s about being given an order that you do something you genuinely do not want to do. It’s about your preferences having less and less weight. Your views on what should happen increasingly have less influence over what actually does.
A spanking you really don’t want. An order you don’t want to obey. A scolding that leaves you not turned on but, rather, resentful or truly chastened.
For me, from the very beginning, I knew that really “surrendering” — giving up control in some deep, fundamental way — was at the seductively terrifying core of what I was proposing in asking my wife to enter this kind of relationship.
But, it’s one of those things that you may be attracted to conceptually without having any clue what the reality will be.
Crying: the ultimate act of surrender?
For me, sobbing while my wife paddles me would be the ultimate surrender. But, it’s a level of surrender I’ve yet to achieve.
I think that’s why the reader’s question about a wife issuing a decree that a spanking will not end without real tears kind of scares the living hell out of me.
At some point during such a spanking, I would have to make the conscious choice that I was going to really, truly, finally surrender to my wife’s authority, including the authority to dictate that I need to go through the embarrassment of crying while she spanks me.
Will that ever happen? I’m not sure.
My wife became very comfortable with giving very hard spankings from almost the very beginning of our DD experimentation. She simply doesn’t get very concerned about subjecting me to very hard corporal punishment.
When I’ve asked her about how she might react to tears, however, there seems to be some hesitation even when she says she would be fine with it. I think she doesn’t really know how she would react.
Yet, I think to get over the emotional hurdle that kind of embarrassment represents, I would need at least a statement from her immediately before or during the spanking that she is fine with me crying and possibly something more along the lines of the express threat that the spanking will not end until I endure the embarrassment of real tears.
If you would like to discuss these issues directly but don’t feel comfortable leaving a public comment, feel free to reach out to me directly at dwc_husband@proton.me. You can also use Medium to leave me a private note. Just highlight part of the article, which brings up the box with bold, italics, etc. Click on the box that shows a comment/quote bubble with a little lock inside. It allows you to send a private note that will be visible to me but not to the public.
