Newbie Tuesday: Punishments, Masochism and How they Work

Editor Note:  We are away on vacation.  Comments are being moderated so please be patient as it might take several days to publish them all.  These posts were written well in advance and scheduled on Blogger, unless otherwise noted.  

Punishments Masochism and How it all Works Together 

It doesn't matter what type of dynamic you've got or what you call yourself (meaning you could be a submissive, slave, pet, or beginning a Domestic Discipline Dynamic), you've done your research and you've read all the blogs. You're reasonably sure this is what you want in a lifestyle.  It's true, some people don't do punishments at all or very rarely.  It isn't part of their usual vocabulary.  Other's engage in what mouse calls mock-punishment -- You've been naughty -- and you know where that goes.   Also, we're going to assume that the Dominant is someone to be trusted...Because without trust there isn't anything -- and only when there is great trust can the submissive let go of the control.  

Pain and the Masochist Mind

One of the common questions newbies usually during their gathering information stage who are uncertain if they're even a masochist will ask, 'you're a masochist right? So you like all pain?'  Pain is a physical response to something.  It tells your body something isn't right.  When you stub your toe, or bump into something, pain receptors travel across the body to the brain first to let you know to stop whatever it is your doing.  Then your body tries to correct the problem.  It will raise your heart rate so blood travels faster to the brain and heart to protect them.  

So no, a masochist doesn't go around getting into car accidents because they like pain.  If you stub your toe it hurts like the dickens because it's an unexpected pain.  Our bodies do a wonderful job of anticipating when something will be painful and sometimes we get that wrong too.  Something that appears painful isn't.  Your body learns from that experience, so the next time your body is confronted with a similar set of variables, the mental response is dulled.  Like taking a bandaid off quickly or slowly.  You know it will likely hurt.  

Everyone still has different tolerances to pain and that's important to keep in mind also.  Our evolutionary journey has told us to ignore small pain because it's a show of weakness or fear -- sometimes to our own detriment.  So pain is very complicated.  Add to that the fact that pain does trigger receptors that release endorphins and hormones that cause a synaptic reaction where pleasure is felt.  Breast feeding is a great example.  No woman in her right mind would allow a baby to nurse, if it wasn't for all those hormones that are released that trigger a pleasure response -- similar to let down.  In fact often, although mouse didn't write about it much, when Daddy would cause pain in some way, often she would leak milk and sometimes it would be a lot.  He rather enjoys that.  It's also why mouse has continued to produce milk (although the supply diminished greatly once the baby stopped nursing) and still pumps (and dumps) her breasts twice a day.  Like a cow needing to be milked.   

Punishment 

Often a new submissive feeling the first blush of their submission wants a lot of rules.  There are websites that offer help in designing what rules a submissive should have.  Daddy doesn't like the more objective word "Rule" and prefers the more subjective, "Expectations." We don't really exist in a black and white world, instead there is a lot of gray areas.  

Regardless of what you call them, you need to know that somehow they'll be enforced.  Sometimes people will refer to this as a "punishment dynamic." Otherwise the rule becomes meaningless.  An example might be traffic laws.  If no one ever got a ticket for speeding, what would be the point in maintaining the posted speed?  What is the point of a stop sign or school zone, if it's never enforced?

One of the biggest mistakes or missteps a newbie to the lifestyle is thinking one size fits all.  Daddy has carefully made up mouse's expectations and they're geared only for her.  He's actually kept records of different expectations he's had for slaves or subs over the years.  Each were specific to the sub in question and in some cases only applicable to them personally.  

Does punishment work? 

Honestly, mouse can only hold up her own example if it works or not, but she'd have to admit for her it did.  It's taken years but yes.  When Daddy truly began holding mouse accountable for her actions and administering a punishment on a regular basis eventually mouse began paying better attention to her errors -- and stopped making assumptions about what he wanted and began to ask him.  It takes a lot of energy on both sides of the power exchange to make that work. There needs to be measure of constancy that what is wrong today, will be wrong tomorrow and so forth and the punishment must be consistent with that.  The worst thing is to begin with a whole lot of rules or expectations, a new submissive with 25 rules for behavior is almost going to fail, likewise an inexperienced Dominant might like the idea of lots of rules but in the end, discovers there's only a few that are really important to him personally. The rest are things others feel he should be concerned with.  At the same time the Dominant is going to find it difficult to enforce a rule that they don't care about.

You also can't expect this lifestyle to fix flaws.  If you overeat, drink or smoke, the Dominant really can't make you stop doing those things.  You've got to decide that you really want to stop the behaviors and adhere to it.  They can and should hold you accountable but they can't force you to change in the long term.  Short term yes, they can effect a change but it's still up to you to continue.  You might be emboldened by positive changes but it's got to be enough to keep you going.

Punishing a Masochist

The other question that comes up frequently is if the masochist likes pain, how are they punished?  First, punishment is a different mindset.  It's about disappointing the other person.  You feel remorseful, because you've let them down.  If the Dominant suspects the submissive is acting out to receive a punishment, a clever Dom will change the punishment to something not as pleasant.  Daddy is often fond of embarrassing mouse in some way, because he knows that she hates that.  That's why he lectures her before the punishment is carried out.  He will talk at length about the need to be accountable and what mouse could have done to prevent the issues.

This, again for us, places mouse in the mental space where she knows this won't be fun and that she'll have to endure it.  If he's really frustrated the punishment can go on for a few days even.  He doesn't want to do things that will confuse mouse, but sends instead a very clear message that whatever she's done is not tolerated.

So, in short, a punishment dynamic can work, but it needs to be consistent and because people are human, we will make the same mistakes over and over.  It is very rare that someone is only punished once for something and never again.  You have to keep your expectations about it and what it can and can't do realistic.  It takes time, but in conjunction with trust and whole lot of other things it can work.