KOTW: Punishment (the real kind)

So, this Kink of the Week post is blatantly late. I don't know if it will even get posted up on the KOTW page, as it's technically Tuesday of the new week now, but I wanted to write about this topic anyway, so I think it'll be a worthwhile post even if it "doesn't count" in the end.

This week's topic is "real" (as opposed to "play") punishment. Discipline and punishment are things which I've always been open about as existing in my life. They're a huge portion of what I get out of TTWD, yet I've only written about disciplinary scenes a handful of times over the course of the past two years. Usually, I've included the story when what I did wrong can be retold in a way which is comical, like this post from a long time ago or my recent "Target Incident." This is because I find actual punishment to be very private, personal and intimate. I used to feel very uncomfortable sharing this aspect of my life with the general public. Now, I feel a lot more comfortable with it, although I sometimes don't want to talk about the things that I've done to require the punishment. So this shall be my first post ever which is explicitly about this.

Spanking first entered my consciousness at an incredibly early age. I remember no inciting incident, simply a burning obsession to know more about it and a feeling of secrecy and shame about my ever developing "interest." All of the thoughts I had and the fantasies that I made up were about disciplinary spankings, as was the entirety of the media that I encountered that had spanking in it, although that was extremely sparse. In my mind, spanking was a very, very serious thing. It was a severe punishment, the ultimate sanction, the consequence of the worst behavior. As I became a teenager, I craved guidance, structure and discipline in my life, longing for the feeling of being loved and taken care of that I imagined would accompany those things. Spanking as part of  sexual activity didn't occur to me at that time. Spanking as something fun and enjoyable seemed like a weird and alien idea. This contributed to my early confusion about my desires. I characterized this activity as something entirely unenjoyable, but desired nothing more than to experience it for myself.

When I turned eighteen and I *did* get my first spanking, it was for demonstrative and introductory purposes. After that, my relationship with SF (my first Top) was entirely disciplinary. It allowed for a lot of space, which is to say that he never policed me. I simply came to him and self-reported about the things which I had done which were against the standards which we had mutually agreed upon and he punished me for them. The relationship was very sterile and austere, with an understanding of affection and caring between us which was rarely expressed. We were kind of an odd pair, me and SF because he's Forever The Most Serious Man Ever (SF stands for 'Serious Face") and I'm patently ridiculous, but he had a pretty decent amount of patience for my antics and I enjoyed his stern nature. It was really, at the time, everything that I wanted because it was everything that I had ever imagined that a spanking relationship could be. I did my best to be good. I sometimes was not, and when that happened, I was soundly corrected.

For the first five years (I think) that I was getting spanked, it was only by SF. After he went back to England and, a little later,  I moved to Los Angeles for the first time, I started to venture into the scene there. When I did, I had trouble with my identity and I struggled to identify what I actually wanted. At first, I attempted to find someone to replace SF, which I found tremendously disappointing. Everyone wanted something different from spanking. Some people wanted dominance. Some people wanted sexuality. Some people wanted to embrace and explore the younger, more vulnerable side of me. Some people wanted to do complicated roleplay. Some people just liked smacking a girl's bottom without any reason for it. It was during this time that I realized that needing to be punished and needing to be spanked weren't the same thing. Both were real and valid needs, but spanking could be a variety of other things. With my play-partner, J, I explored playing "just for fun" and did my first forays into roleplay. I explored arbitrary and enjoyable spankings with a variety of friends that I met in the local scene, many of whom weren't spankos, and therefore had a vastly different attitude towards playing than that which I was used to. Eventually, I met Malignus and began to question whether or not I was actually interested in submission. I determined that I was and began the process of exploring that with him.

While punishment was a fairly significant part of my first D/s dynamic, I'm not going to go into the details of how it worked between Malignus and I. At the time that I started blogging, Malignus and I discussed what parts of our relationship he was comfortable with me posting about and we decided that the details of my punishments were too personal to be written about, although I sometimes asked if it was alright for me to post about a particular scene (like the post I linked to earlier) and he always agreed. Although our relationship has ended, I am going to continue to honor this agreement because I feel that it would be disrespectful and "the wrong thing to do" not to. It's not like there was anything secretive or mysterious about this aspect of our relationship that others shouldn't know about. That's just what we decided at the time, so I'm sticking to it. Punishment certainly wasn't the center of our relationship, though, and I'd say that it was probably the least common reason for me to be spanked, as the most frequent spankings were arbitrary, goal-based or D/s centric, reaffirmative scenes. This was a huge change from where I'd started out, but it was a positive difference, as I had expanded my options for what a spanking could mean.

Fast forward to the present time: I'm extremely comfortable with my role as a submissive, and as I continue to grow in the my spanko identity, I've branched out to embrace forms of play, atmospheres and additional kinks that I would have never thought I'd love so much when I was first starting out in my exploration. In my relationship with Paul, punishment is both something that we play with for mutual enjoyment and something that can be as serious as can be. Playing with lighthearted punishments for silly things by no means dilutes the actual act, and it's just as important to me now as it was when it was just a daydream.

Sometimes, punishments happen immediately after the punishable behavior takes place (like in the "Target" story). Other times this isn't possible, and I'm punished later that evening (usually right before bed) if that's an option. If not, the offense and the requisite discipline are entered into a notebook entitled "Alex's Behavioral Record" and the punishment is meted out at a later date. The "book method" of dealing with things was the only way that punishment was delivered when we were in a long distance relationship: things got recorded and then, when we saw each other, those things were addressed. I really, really like the fact that things don't get forgotten just because "too much" time has passed since the original behavior. It's obviously more effective for me to be punished as quickly thereafter as possible, but the inevitability of knowing that at some point, no matter what, I'm going to get corrected for the things that I do that I shouldn't gives me a marvelous sense of security.

Basically all of my punishments are corporal, ranging from OTK spankings to a series of hard smacks on the insides of my thighs to strappings and canings. Since all these activities are also part of our "for fun" play, the only differences are atmosphere, tone and mood. Being punished makes me feel very vulnerable, and Paul takes a very stern approach towards punishing me (which I like very much). Often times just the scolding brings me to tears, and when I'm in that headspace, there's very little pleasant about the spanking that follows. I say "very little" instead of "nothing" because being punished makes me feel particularly loved and taken care of, and I do enjoy that feeling, even as it's happening. Being disciplined almost always makes me cry, and afterwards the seriousness of the actual punishment quickly melts away and I climb onto Paul's lap, sometimes continuing to cry for a bit as he tenderly comforts me and assures me that I'm a good girl again. Everything is right in the world during those moments, and I couldn't feel safer.

Amoni Jones took this candid photo at the end of a spanking shoot. It's not post-punishment, but it captures the same sort of moment. 

As much as I enjoy "for fun" "play" punishment, and as ultimately positive and edifying as the experience of being discipline is for me, at the end of the day, I want to be a good girl. I want Paul to be proud of me, and I do my best to avoid getting into real trouble. It's intricate, the way that something which is so enjoyable in a different setting can be made truly punitive, but it's not a novel idea, nor is it a particularly rare phenomenon.

I hope that this is at least somewhat articulate: I've just recovered from having been ill, and I'm struggling to get caught up, so I wasn't able to really draft this the way I usually do for posts that are this wordy, and I was getting really tired by the time I was finishing it. I'll be posting more about other aspects of this topic in the future, so stay tuned. ♥