Pain and punishment

I am actually working flat chat right now with no time to spare, but a couple of migraine headaches in the past week has forced me to slow down and thus I found myself having a read of new blog posts on my blog roll this evening for a bit of light entertainment. I happened to notice Pygar’s ‘pain and punishment’ and had a good ole read there. Why is that topic so endlessly fascinating to me, I’d like to know?! I left Pygar a comment – thoughts on the top of my head and the tip of my tongue - and then I thought it might be fun to elaborate on them a bit here.

A good many submissives have an innate understanding, perhaps learned through experience that the Dominant is often not just playing around. He really does want the submissive to learn to do things his way and if she doesn’t do things his way, she may well find herself being corrected in a way that will be memorable and unpleasant. Even in the most relaxed of situations, and I think of my husband and I as fairly relaxed about D/s in the sense that there are very few ‘rules’ per se, he expects that I will behave in a way that accepts that we have a certain dynamic and when push comes to shove, he’s the boss.

This dynamic is always there but I think there is just something or other in the makeup of the submissive mind that feels obliged to test out the Dominant from time to time. For example, my husband had been away for 5 weeks when he arrived home last Friday night and proceeded to have his way with me. It is what I wanted. Desperately. And yet, there came a moment when I said, “I’m not sure that this is appropriate. Shouldn’t we just cuddle a while?”

If he’d ‘wimped out’ on me I would have been a mess but true to form he upped the tempo and therein he assured me that he was the boss and that I had better just toe the line; fast! Perfect. That is just how I needed it to go. I wasn’t manipulating him. I didn’t plan it to be that way but my mind simply had to know if he was still up to the task of being the guy I needed. In this way, I think women sometimes misbehave because they need to see the outcome of the misbehaviour and if that is pain and punishment, so be it.

However one plays out ‘pain and punishment’ it seems to come down to issues of the dynamic between the two people. I made the comment on Pygar’s page that I dance with the Dom according to well learned steps. Once that dynamic is well in place, there seems less and less need to try to alter those steps. One can perhaps move in different ways but if it is a tango, it is a tango and if it is a waltz, it’s a waltz. One can move around the dance floor as the mood takes one, but one still has to use the appropriate steps.

My dynamic with my mentor, as an example, is clear. There is a degree of respect inbuilt into the dynamic and we never deviate from that. Well, I did once, unwittingly. It was one of those moments in life when one of my buttons had been pressed and I reacted fast and furious. My reply dripped with sarcasm but I was too busy being incensed to even take that in. I soon learned that sarcasm was completely and utterly unacceptable to him.

Did I learn because I was corrected or because he was so very clearly upset with me? Well, I’d say it was both. Bottom line, I recognized that my behaviour should never, ever be repeated and I have not had the slightest desire to ever put that to the test. It was a step I was unsure about. We stopped. He intervened, taught me the step in slow motion such that I would always have that step down and we moved on. I must say that I approve of this method. I like learning how to dance well. It is comforting and reassuring to walk out on that dance floor and have the confidence to dance well.

Over time, my husband and I have done all sorts of things; a few daily swats, a weekly correction, punishment for misbehaviour and fairly long bouts where our dynamic has no punishment or real pain at all. They have all had their place in our lives as we evolve. But I think most of all, I want to be thought of as “good”; as knowing what he wants and fitting snugly into my place underneath his wing. I just want to be loved; turned on; aroused, pleasing.

Sometimes, that means there is pain and sometimes that even means there is some form of punishment; or both. But, at the end of the day it is about getting that feeling of ownership that reminds me that I am one of the lucky ones: owned; cherished; much loved.