discipline

I hope you have been enjoying Rika’s Lair, my monthly column dedicated to thoughts and experiences regarding power dynamics in Service-Oriented D/s relationships. Look up “Ms. Rika” in the search box for links to all of my articles in KinkWeekly!

As we all know, one of the composite phrases in the acronym, BDSM, is B&D: Bondage and Discipline. In this context, discipline is defined as actions that are applied to the submissive, while the submissive is bound and incapable to resist. Discipline could be impact play, humiliation, chores, etc. Urban Dictionary has a reasonable definition for B&D: “used in reference to practices involving physical restraint and punishment”

Of course, “Discipline” has other meanings, both within, and outside of the context of B&D. The Oxford definition has several, two of which are particularly pertinent to this discussion. The first is also often thought of in a BDSM context: “The practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.” The second interpretation offered by Oxford hits home for me in a big way: “Training oneself to do something in a controlled and habitual way”.

In a sense, the subtle differences between these two definitions harken back to my discussion on the different viewpoints people have on submission: That submission is either the passive or active role. There are those who feel that submission is about having things done TO you by a dominant, whereas others (like myself) prefer to think of submission as being dedicated to doing things FOR a dominant that the dominant feels is FOR them. In the first, submission is passive: Things are done to you. In the second, submission is active: You are doing things for the dominant.

In this same way, the first definition of discipline is about doing TO the submissive. The submissive is the recipient of training; the recipient of punishment and adjustment. The goal of this discipline is obedience, as defined by the dominant. The dominant is the one doing the discipline…the sub is accepting it. This is what many people think of as submission. The goal of the submissive is to ACCEPT the discipline and adjust their behavior.

The second definition is focused on the submissives themselves. The submissive is structuring their own behavior to act in a specific way. They are providing and generating the energy required to enforce their own desired traits. They are motivated by an “ideal behavior”.

For those who have talked to me, read my books, or read my articles here in KinkWeekly, you already know that my preference is for subs to be self-disciplined. Self-discipline, in a power dynamic as a submissive, implies that the ideal behavior to which you are aspiring, is known to serve the dominant the way the dominant prefers to be served. The dominant sets and communications the ideal, the submissive works to achieve it.

This is very different than having discipline thrust upon you. When you are “trained to obey”, your behavior is motivated by the consequences of not obeying. The discipline is manifested in the form of punishment and behavior modification. Contrast this to self-discipline, in which the dominant communicates desired behavior and the submissive chooses to structure themselves to deliver against that specification, motivated by their desire to serve the dominant in the best way they can.

To me, this is fundamentally the difference between “Submission” and “Acquiescence”. Read my article on this subject, or my books, for more information about this distinction.

So, when a sub boasts about how much they can accept, absorb, or endure…when they talk about punishment and the need for restriction in order to remain focused on serving – I quickly lose interest. I have no interest in manipulating submission. My interest is in defining submission clearly, so that my submissives can provide the self-discipline needed to fulfill their need to submit to me.

A sub who demonstrates discipline is far more valuable to me than one who accepts discipline. If you’re a dominant and feel the same way, communicate that to your submissives. Change the way they think of submission. If you’re a submissive, consider that your dominant may prefer you to be more self disciplined…and may not have even thought it “proper” to ask it. I strongly recommend that you use these definitions as a discussion-point to help you further define your power dynamic with your partners. It’s one of many steps on the road to mutual fulfillment!

Ms. Rika is a lifestyle dominant, educator, and author; living in the suburbs of NYC with her husband/slave. She has written several popular books on her approach to adding Dominant-Centric, Service-Oriented D/s to relationships. You can find her books (in both print and eBook formats) at Lulu.com (http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/msrika), or at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iStore, Books-A Million, Kobo.com, or anywhere books are sold. Search for “Ms. Rika”. Write to me at Ms_Rika@hotmail.com

Training/Discipline vs Punishment

January 17, 2021 By SafferMaster 3 Comments

sexy submissive hair pulling toilet slut — via stock.adobe.com

My ideal relationship is a 24/7 TPE (Total Power Exchange) D/s Dynamic where I am fully in alignment with my submissive masochist who has chosen to serve me because that is exactly what she wants. She chooses me to kneel before as a new action each day. My orientation is to enroll her in what I am up to and for her to see the possibility of the dynamic that allows her to choose me to gift her submission to because she wants to serve me. Another way of saying this is that she does what I want her to do because she wants to do it.

In this context, training my submissive to please me is as simple as making simple tweaks or suggestions to her behavior to guide her as she reaches for perfection in her service. It is high order for her to achieve her goal of pleasing me ongoingly.

Let me offer one example. It pleases me a great deal that she kneels for me to put herself forward to be used. In so doing, she invites me to take her, and to use her as I see fit. She is offering herself by gifting her body and mind to me. Her presentation is particular. Before we played for the very first time, we talked for months in detail about our perfect dynamic ideas, and what it would take for it to succeed in creating it, and we talked about how to begin our total power exchange. I invited her to give me her consent by putting herself forward to be claimed. We also talked about how during her claiming ceremony she would be marked inside with piss and outside with a cane. The time came to begin when she ended her marriage, and a space was created to start something new. We talked in detail over months during which time my desire crystalized, and I shared with her my particular preference to have her present herself in the Nadu pose.

The first time she offered herself to me was the day she put herself forward to be claimed. Because it was the first time, when she knelt for me, I noticed a few ways that she could improve her posture to please me and recognized an opportunity to coach her. I gently corrected and adjusted her posture to assume the perfect Nadu pose. Knees apart, back straight, head lowered, hands resting in a relaxed position, palms up, on her thighs. Perfect to my eye. Only one time since then, more than two years ago, was I promoted to make a correction. I gently turned her hands over to perfect her pose. Now when she kneels for me, and she offers herself to be used every single day, she assumes the pose perfectly and she pleases me. With this simple action, she creates me.

Part of her training includes taking on a new context for her life as she moved from an abusive marriage where her context was one of survival, to our dynamic where she was being trained to live with freedom and power and full self-expression. Naturally, that is a big lift in the best of circumstances.

On occasion, because we live together in our 24/7 TPE dynamic, she would let her mind run away with her as she reverted to the ordinary way of being. Because she was in an abusive marriage before we met, something would come up between us, some issue or other that she would make meaning about. This would inevitably create an upset or space between us. This is something we had agreed not to allow. At the same time, I observed that this sort of upset tended to occur predictably when we had not engaged in impact play for more than a few days. I thought about it, and it occurred to me that she experienced total clarity for days after we engaged in intense impact play, and I made the determination that what she really needed was my daily attention as her Dom. I implemented a daily “maintenance spanking” protocol which she agreed to, reluctantly at first, worrying about being what it would mean to be spanked by her sadist every day.

New actions lead to unexpected outcomes. What happened for her, is that she is now crystal clear about how this new action has opened her exploration of her experience as a masochist and now she looks forward to her spanking because in addition to fully expressing herself as a masochist, the spankings lead to hot, hot sex and she experiences multiple orgasms every day. One result of our daily spanking routine is a daily scene where her pussy, ass and mouth are used in addition to her having her ass spanked red. It’s a very erotic and sexy daily experience and has furthered our dynamic bringing us closer together.

She is trained to serve me during every waking hour and even in bed, where she cups my balls as we share a daily gratitude practice, we often find that her nightly stroking of my cock turns into her gibing me head, and she falls asleep with my taste on her lips after we roll over to spoon, falling asleep with my hand holding her breast.

Training my slut to please me is an ongoing process of enrolling her in being the submissive I want her to be. Here is the important thing. There is never anything wrong. She never needs punishment because she is a service slut who strives to please and if she fails, she punishes herself harder than anything I could do. Remember, she is a masochist, so if I use impact to punish her, am I really punishing her? My view is that a 24/7 dynamic training is ongoing as she strives to please me without fail. Given that she is in an ongoing training paradigm, which is to gently prompt and coach required behaviors, the question remains as to why, when and how I would choose to punish my submissive?

Allow me to offer an example of a situation that occurred where punishment was required even though she was in training. Early on she had made an agreement with me to not perve (access or read) my messages without my permission. She broke her word and was out of integrity with me by accessing my Fetlife account one morning when I was still sleeping. She then spent the day making meaning out of a few message exchanges she had read bits and pieces of. Because I leave my computer screens open and often step away from my office (I work at home), we made the agreement requiring her to avoid taking advantage of the access, and to be sure, it required some degree of self-discipline on her part not to immediately revert to old familiar behavior out of a natural tendency to be suspicious. She did, after all, live for decades with an abusive husband who repeatedly stepped out on her.

While I understood her motivations, she had, nevertheless, indeed broken her agreement with me. A break in integrity demands a consequence. In this case the strategy was to first teach her how to restore her integrity with me. Restoring integrity is a necessary part of the process. First she had to identify and state what action she took to break the agreement and fall out of integrity – she perved my messages – then what the impact of that was for me – a lack of trust, a feeling of being let down, disappointment, etc, and for her, a feeling of letting me down, being untrustworthy, of knowing herself as someone untrustworthy, and so forth, including how it made her feel to know herself as someone who breaks agreements, and then she had to state what structure she would put in place to not have the broken agreement occur again in the future – she made a commitment to not access my computer again – , and finally there had to be a consequence. It is important to note that punishment never comes from a place of anger. It comes from a place of love. So I chose a punishment that would get her attention and be limited in its scope and one that would give her time to assess her behavior. Figging. She was required to go to the store and select a stem of ginger. Then she would come home, peel it and rough it up with a fork to make it juicy. Then she would present it to me and request that I insert it for her and then she tool a position kneeling on all fours as she repeated the request that I “place the ginger into her ass for 30 minutes so that she could contemplate her behavior.”

Afterwards we talked with her kneeling at my feet, and she tearfully expressed thankfulness that she was able to restore her Integrity. It was also the first time that she had ever been given a chance to restore her integrity and she was very relieved that we could let the situation go completely with her integrity restored.

Is corporal punishment ever legitimate as a routine way to interact with a submissive? Putting aside masochists who choose hard impact play as their preferred kink, there is one consideration where corporal punishment is legitimate in my mind. That is where a submissive has requested corporal punishment as motivation for achieving a difficult discipline. For example, I had a submissive request hard corporal punishment for failing to stay on course in the program I designed for her to improve her health and fitness, modify her diet and reduce her alcohol intake. In this situation she agreed that she would be on an escalating punishment schedule for each breach of agreement. Now keep in mind, we used the integrity model, so she had to deal with restoring her integrity as well, BUT each transgression escalated her punishment by 3 cane strokes. She was to present herself to be caned each week. Initially we started with 3 strokes. So she got 3 strokes the first week and the second week, but by the third week she started to revert to her old habits. So she got 6 strokes and when she failed to live up to her agreement, 9 and so on. The idea was that there would be a level of weekly punishment where she would choose to be her word rather than get additional punishment. In her case that number of strokes was 15. Being caned 15x by a sadist with a heavy cane on her bare unprepared bottom while counting out loud and holding her posture as she thanked me for each stroke was intense. She preferred not to have more punishment than that. She was caned and then, she was required to kneel before me to make a new agreement. As you can imagine, this was highly motivating for her. She would come to be punished each week in order to motivate her, and 15 strokes kept her on track for better health.

So, to summarize, training is a process without any negative input that is more akin to coaching. As a coach of a team sport, you would not berate your players for small errors of not understanding, you would teach them and coach them to perform. With a submissive, it’s the same thing, the difference is that you are seeking an intimate partner who you want to be all in. You are seeking complete alignment.

Be a coach.

Punishment is only warranted when agreements are broken and it’s important that the punishment fit the crime. A small break in integrity does not deserve the same punishment as a major transgression. But most important, there must be resolution. It is important that punishment does not result in resentment or space between you. Discipline using corporal punishment is a negotiated agreement. You are really being the accountability buddy by using corporal punishment to enforce agreements. Both the Dom and the sub must be on the same page. This is coaching at a very high level where in addition to the coaching guidance you offer your submissive, you are also responsible for her motivation and also for holding her accountable.

SafferMaster and Lady Petra offer Kink Relationship Coaching with online, group, and personal coaching options.

You can access the coaching services offered by Lady Petra Playground by reaching out for an initial conversation- LadyPetraPlaground@gmail.com

The Patreon is also a way to sign up: https://www.patreon.com/LadyPetrasPlayground

Lady Petra and SafferMaster also produce the Kinky cocktail Hour podcast available on all podcast platforms

The Punishment Dilemma

June 11, 2018 By Baadmaster 8 Comments

Dirk Hooper Professional Photography-http://www.DirkHooper.com

Last week I answered a submitted question. It proved popular so I will answer another BDSM question – this one from a discussion at the legendary Los Angeles dungeon, the Lair deSade.

“I am a new Domme and have been trying to learn as much as possible. One thing truly baffles me. If I find a submissive who likes pain, and it seems that most do, how do I punish him? If he likes flogging, for example, I can’t really flog him as punishment, can I? How should I approach this dilemma?

This is a very common question; I wondered the same thing when I started my BDSM journey. It is only natural to contemplate how you punish a submissive who loves pain with pain. In my opinion, there are three distinct responses to your query.

The first one addresses the use of punishment in the training of a submissive. Who says you have to actually punish a slave to maintain discipline? There are many slaves to whom the Master’s displeasure is more than enough to keep them in line. They rarely, if ever, require physical punishment. After all, did you need bodily punishment in school to get you to do your homework? The disapproval of your parents or peers was usually enough. It can be argued that to achieve lasting behavior modification, no matter how minimal, that the desire to do so trumps any exercise in reprimand. With a “self-correcting slave,” to coin a phrase, the mere look of dissatisfaction by the Master or Mistress will suffice; this slave will adjust his/her behavior to please the Dom/me, punishment or no punishment. This “self-correcting slave,” of course, doesn’t imply that “Mistress never works.” If you find a slave who fits this mold, you must still be firm, demanding and consistent in explaining what your requirements are. This slave needs as much guidance as a submissive who has to be physically punished. Don’t think you can just “sleep all day” and you will have the perfect slave. Basically, you must “discipline” her/him; but you are using a look of disapproval, a verbal reprimand or a word of guidance instead of physical castigation. It requires the same dedication to the task of training that the “punishment system” does.

The second analysis concerns the way pain registers in the brain. It can be argued that a spanking administered at a dungeon play party would invariably register as “pleasure” in the slave’s brain. Whereas a spanking given with a harsh look, under corporal conditions (“How did slave disappoint Mistress?” “I did not obey Her orders.”) would be perceived as pain — or even worse. Basically, the setup for the spanking will determine whether it is pleasurable or painful. Think of it like this. If you were spun upside down in a chair, you might consider it torture. Ride an amusement park ride that is similar to the upside down spinning chair and you will think of it as fun! Same stimuli, dissimilar mindsets, different results. Thus, you can discipline your “painslut”, if that is your desire, by setting up the punishment scene differently than a pleasure scene. The sub must know it is punishment to perceive it as such. Make sure you avoid the “spank me I’m a bad girl/boy” scenario because a painslut will eat this role-play alive. In this case, spank for fun. Not because she is a “bad submssive.”

Finally, not even the “King (or Queen) of Painsluts” has an affinity for every tool of torment. He/she might love the flogger but hate the paddle. Or a sub might worship the whip but despise the cane; or adore the crop but loathe tight bondage. Part of the fun of BDSM is experimentation. You should try every toy you can on your slave and find out those the submissive loves and those she/he hates. The key is to find at least one activity that the slave abhors. This might take some doing; you might have to live at the toyshop. But once you find that magical punishment implement, you are set. Remember, all you need is one!

About the Author:

After a ten year run as head writer for the legendary bondage.com, and an equally long run as the host of the hit internet show “Baadmaster’s Dungeon,” we are pleased to welcome the one and only Baadmaster to KinkWeekly. His thoughts about all things BDSM will now appear regularly on these pages. From the mental aspects of D/s to the nuts and bolts of S&M play, Baadmaster will cover every facet of this ever expanding lifestyle.