
We live in a discipline based dynamic (DD). In our relationship, I am the Dom, and my partner is my submissive masochist and 3-hole slut. She is collared. She belongs to me. I own her.
In all discipline-based dynamics there is a Dominant partner and a submissive partner. Here is an example of how that played out in our dynamic. Almost 6 months into our discipline based dynamic that started when I claimed her, it occurred to me that on the days following our High Protocol marking scenes (where she gets marked with a cane), which we hold during the weekend, she was in a much better mood than her baseline, she was unmistakably more loving, happier and more attentive. As the week wore on, she tended to get “out of sorts”. After seeing this play out for a few weeks in a row, I got to thinking about it, and I concluded that she should get a daily maintenance spanking to see if that altered her experience any. Well, I can report that it has dramatically altered both her experience and our relationship. The first time I gave her a daily spanking, we had great sex immediately following and now that ritual is part of our daily extremely hot sexual encounter that itself has opened a lot of doors for us in our pursuit of sexual nirvana. When I first told her that she was to get a daily maintenance spanking, because we live in a DD household, even though she bit her lip with both a bit of concern and a little trepidation, she immediately accepted my decision and made sure she was ready to get spanked every day. Even though she was worried about it at first, she trusted me to look out for her, and she gave her unconditional consent. All DD are based on consent. We live in what is called a 24/7 TPE or Total Power Exchange.
Now, regarding the daily maintenance spanking, just to be clear, she had done nothing wrong, she was simply being human, and so the spanking was not a punishment for a bad behavior, it was not a cause and effect spanking, It was not corporal punishment at all. The discipline in this instance is that she gets a daily spanking, which means that when she gets home from work, she goes to the bathroom and gets herself ready to be spanked and used. This is our protocol. In a DD dynamic, protocols are at play. Because she is an obedient submissive, we do not have a power struggle about this. I have told her what she needs to do to properly prepare herself to serve me and she does that joyfully, even to the point of putting out the flogger, lube and a towel before she kneels in her Nadu pose to wait for my attention.
The impact of incorporating this practice into our daily life is nothing short of amazing. It has dramatically improved our connectedness, our relatedness and the sense of closeness we have between us. We love each other more intensely today that we did when I introduced the practice more than 2 years ago.
This experience of being “much closer than ever” is a very common experience for a D/s couple who practice a domestic discipline lifestyle. Now adult DD relationships are varied. There are female led relationships (FLR) with a dominant woman and a submissive man. This is a very popular topic. The most downloaded episode of our podcast is the FLR pod (Season1 Episode 147). Some of these relationships are strictly discipline oriented where corporal punishment is a part of any punishment or transgression resolution, and some are asexual dynamics as well. In our dynamic the DD is intertwined without sexuality, but this is not always the case. A man who endures the over the knee (OTK) hairbrush spanking and then has to stand in the corner with his red ass exposed may have a “completely normal vanilla” sexual relationship with his partner where he is dominant in bed. It does not really need to be stated, but there are both gay and lesbian DD relationships as well as non-binary dynamics.
One of the more interesting DD dynamics is the Big/Little dynamic where an adult care giver is responsible for an adult little (or child persona) who needs to be disciplined in many ways from having their diaper checked or changed, to what and how much they eat etc. In truth, there are numerous forms of DD relationships which we refer to as “Power Exchange Relationships”, such as:
Master/sub/slave (M/s)
Mistress/sub/slave (M/s)
Mommy Dom/little boy/girl (MD/lg or MD/lb)
Daddy Dom/little boy/girl (DD/lb or DD/lg)
Domestic Discipline (DD)
Head of Household (HOH)
Taken in Hand (TIH)
Total Power Exchange (TPE
Absolute Power Exchange (APE)
By definition, a power exchange relationship (PER) is a relational dynamic in which one individual serves another in a consensual authority exchange structured relationship wherein a partners choose to either give up or get control of authority. Pet play is another power exchange dynamic as well.
There are many issues to deal with in a power exchange relationship. For example, imagine a DD couple where the primary discipline is an Over the Knee (OTK) spanking, and the couple has children? What are some of the concerns? From where I sit, there is never cause to spank a child, so that is not what I am promoting, I am asking strictly from the perspective that the HOH has determined that the sub is to get an OTK spanking, and the household has young or even teenage children. How should that be managed? If you read the message boards, the consensus is that the couple works to separate completely the DD activities from the parenting of their children. It is an adult behavior and not appropriate for the children to witness. To a person, the sub, males and females, will note that the spankings they get make them closer to their dominant. So, it is both needed and necessary, which requires that they find way to take their behavior out of the purview of their children. From the point of view of the children, all they see is a loving relationship between their parents.
Why people choose PER’s is as complex as it is varied. In our case, we are both wired to be in a PER. We were both in unfulfilling marriages before we connected, and we both drifted to a TPE. I had advertised that that is what I was seeking, and she was drawn to my stated relationship intention. Now I want to make an especially important point. There is a massive difference between being dominant and being domineering. Being the HOH does not entitle me to be domineering. In fact, my partner was in a marriage with a domineering man whom she grew to despise. I cannot explain what makes me dominant or why she sensed my dominance even as we met for the first time. I do know that being dominant is my natural way of being and that having her as my submissive has allowed me my full self expression as a sexual being. The secret is to a successful DD is to keep the integrity of the dynamic intact. What do I mean by that? I mean that the relationship only works where consent is present, and it only works where agreements are kept. If, for example, I said, “if you do that again, I am going to spank you” and she does it again and I do not follow through and spank her, then she will begin to wonder if I am paying enough attention to her. This leads to space and space kills relationships. Instead, I enroll her into the dynamic ongoingly and register her willing participation by keeping it fun, and then we both take on making sure that we fulfill on our commitment to each other. PER’s require that both the Dom and the sub are 100% responsible for maintaining the relationship, All PER are consent based as I have noted, and the amount of power a submissive chooses to give up is subject to negotiation. Our dynamic is a Total Power Exchange. I say what goes, and yet, I insist that my sub has agency, and is fully self-expressed. We maintain a remarkably high degree of communication so that she can speak her mind without concern. For example, she might tell me that she is going for a run, she does not ask me if she can go for a run, and that occurs inside of the integrity of our broader dynamic where her fitness and health are a stated priority of ours. If there were an insurmountable issue, we have an agreement in place that we can set aside the DD for the purposes of talking as equals and resolving the issue. In other dynamics, HOH for example, there is an invitation for more discussion preceding decisions that the HOH then makes. In a Big/little dynamic, there is more enrollment that occurs, and discipline might involve punishing brattyness (disobedience designed to elicit a spanking or punishment) and that sort of play. So, as I like to say, there is no right way to be. The individuals need to negotiate a PER dynamic that works for each of them.
There is a really great tool we use to manage communication in our dynamic called WeMinder. As a tool designed for discipline based dynamics, it allows a Dom to assign tasks and reward or punish based on the agreements that have been negotiated. You can listen to the conversation we had with the founder here. (https://www.buzzsprout.com/962578/8559456)
WeMinder is inexpensive and perfect for partners in DD dynamics, including those who do not live in the same geography.
There are dynamics where corporal punishment is used to change behavior. We talked to a Disciplinarian who makes himself available using hard core corporal punishment on request of submissive women who even fly to see him from thousands of miles away to get brutal 12 or 24 or 50 stroke cold caning sessions. I once worked with a woman who wanted to lose weight and quit smoking, and she requested corporal punishment to motivate her to change her behavior. In both of these examples, the PER is asexual. The point is that PER’s occur in all sorts of ways where one partner chooses to give up power and one chooses to take power. The definition is even true in consent/non consent dynamics, which is more of a roll play dynamic. I am simply observing that DD’s occur in the realm of relationship, the realm of sexuality, and the realm where those are combined.
Regardless of the style of DD you choose, the best way to proceed is to be in communication, to negotiate, to make agreements and to stick to them. We choose to operate in a space where there is “nothing wrong”, and as we were developing our dynamic, there were times when we were required set the dynamic aside to speak as equals so as to confirm or clarify or renegotiate an agreement or negotiate a new one. That process occurred more at first while we worked out the limits in our dynamic.
There is tons of information out there in blogs, and on sites like fetlife where there are dozens of groups devoted to DD or PER with thousands of members who engage in conversations and who post their ideas and opinions.
My view is that a PER is a serious commitment. We both believe that we each need to be 100% responsible for maintaining the PER in the healthiest way possible. In the 3 years since we first met, we have seen our relationship and our dynamic grow closer and closer and we are more aligned now than ever before, and she has received a daily maintenance spanking every day for more than half of that time. The spanking she receives are not trivial, but are on the order of 500 lashes with a heavy bull hide flogger that turns her ass bright red. We used the spankings to explore her masochism, and she is now climaxing during her spanking that now occurs as part our ridiculously hot kinky sex. We found the key to unlock our dynamic when I made an observation about her behavior, thought about how to address it in the context of our PER, and came up with the daily maintenance spanking as an idea. Because we are in a rabbit hole, and because we have no idea about the twists and turns, and because new actions produce unpredictable outcomes, we are now closer, more aligned, more connected, more related and more in love, happiness and joy than ever before, and our PER is humming along perfectly.
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