Sabbatical in Slave Land: Finale - A Damn Good Whipping (and not 'Funishment') Part 1.

My wife is the World's Worst Service Top.

My wife is the World's
Worst Service Top

This doesn't normally matter, but on Thursday evening I'm approaching my well-deserved beating and feeling anxious - not about my 28 demerits, but about whether or not Xena will follow through.

Agony! This is the end of our longest Femdom Sabbatical, and I am terrified of disappointment.

Past experience hasn't exactly been inspiring. Typically she'll sit up in bed while I kneel on the floor. "Have you been a naughty slave? (Whack! Thwack!). OK that will do."

It's my fault. I've always treated corporal punishment as "funishment" - something that looks as if it fits the Mistress-Slave relationship, but is actually an erotic kick for me.

Xena simply isn't into funishment. She's fine at being in charge, fine at normal equality, but utterly rubbish at "sort of being in charge but not". She'll give it a go, but quickly gets bored. She's also emphatically not interested in messing around with ropes and bondage gear - if she is in charge, then everything has to be for her convenience.

I'm not interested in funishment either.

I want to be a slave. I want - need - the beating to be there in my slave world. I want to anticipate it with delicious fear, and look back on it with awe. This is simply not possible if I actually enjoy the experience.

Being whipped is a
scary prospect

Being whipped is a scary prospect. In the past, before I got into rough and extreme sports, I assumed that real punishment would, by definition, be too painful and damaging. Better to play out the fantasy rather than live it. The online world of BDSM seemed confirm this. There are doms who - quite rightly - treat whippings and spankings as a reward, to be withheld as punishment!

But.

Most of  BDSM is about liking what we don't want, enjoying what we don't like. There is no summation of urges and feelings, only competing chunks of grey matter with their own sets of brain chemicals. Why else people who get off on humiliation, or - like me - enjoy male chastity?

Meanwhile, historically, some people have embraced lives under discipline. The Medieval Rule of St Benedict - for monks -includes a good serving of corporal punishment:

but such as are not upright and are hard of heart, proud, and disobedient, let him chastise at the very first offense with stripes or other corporal punishments, knowing that it is written: "The fool is not corrected with words."

So I think it's entirely legitimate to want to have a Mistress-Slave relationship where real punishment takes place.

How do I know it's real? If I fear it, work hard to avoid it, if it makes me flinch, if I want it to stop, then it's punishment... even if the idea of it turns me on. In other words, if it helps Xena get what she wants, then it's punishment.

(A quick aside. Yes, there are arguably better and more modern ways of correcting a person's behavior than flogging them until they squirm. However, part of the cost of having a slave is that Xena is limited in what tools she can apply.)

Authenticity is the main
compensation for relinquishing specific fantasies

Communication is overrated. In the BDSM community, prospective partners must negotiate and establish expectations. However, those of us who are settled down with vanilla dominatrixes can only take what we can get. Authenticity is the main compensation for relinquishing specific fantasies. Over-communication can feel like topping from the bottom, and is more likely to destroy the Femdom rather than enhance it.

In this case, however, I needed to reverse the damage I'd done over the past decade or so. Earlier that week when we went to dinner, Xena got me talking about what I'd learned as her "compliant husband." I made sure I described the place of punishment in my mental eco system: my way of dealing with open ended guilt - retribution, catharsis, redemption.

Now tonight we're discussing plans for the evening. I mention there are outstanding demerits.

Xena scowls, irritated. "I know that, Giles! Right now I'm tired, I want to watch TV."
"Yes," I say. "Let me shower and set things up. You come through when you feel like it."
"Hmmm. OK."
I can't help it, I push; "May I give you some technical advice on the beating."
Xena sighs. "If you must. You're making me cross now."
"It's OK to be cross," I say. "It's not supposed to be erotic or pleasant. Hurt me. Be angry. Make me flinch."
Now Xena is cross. "You already told me that, Giles!"
I hold up my hands in a placating gesture. "You tend to forget things, though."
She laughs. "OK Now go away."

So I scurry off and get through the shower. Then I contemplate the bondage gear I'm planning to use. This is my one chance for a really good beating, but if I go too far, she might throw up her hands and call the whole thing off.

What should I do...?

While you're waiting to find out happened next, take a look at my Femdom self-help books for couples where the female partner is "vanilla".

EDIT: Part two is here.