Quote Originally Posted by Qmoq
Hehe. Sorry to disagree with a bit of what you said, because generally I agree with you Brosco... and you do seem to have far more experience than me. Subs like discipline, not punishment. But I had never thought of the "closure" thing being a desirable part of a D/s relationship.
Like all in the L/s there are no hard and fast rules. Discipline does seem to be a standard tho, whereas punishment may or maynot be liked. Take the wife in this thread, she says she likes punishment and even creates situations to receive it.

Some need the threat of punishment to help them not 'fail'.

Some need punishment because they associate punishment with being bad or failing.

And of course, Dom's feelings about punishment vary too. Some don't like to punish, others feel it is just a natural part of the relationship.

It does become a biggie for compatibility on the BDSM Limits Checklist. If the Dom likes to punish, but the subbie hates this aspect, we are now could get towards abuse. On the otherhand, if the sub feels the need to be punished, but the Dom hates to do this and avoids it, his control will slip away as she tries more 'tricks' to get the punishment she wants/needs.

The closure issue is not necessarily part of every relationship that includes punishment, but it is the way I (and subs I have used it with) view it. There was disobeydiance/failure, there was punishment - the matter is now closed - it didn't happen, the only way now is forward. It removes the sense of failure because the matter has been 100% dealt with.


Now, if we think about this and get back to the main thread here, we have a confused subbie (and I don't mean that as criticism of her, just highlighting again that she really needs to sort out what she really wants), she likes punishment and creates situations to get it, but then finds the punishment can be too much, but will still deliberately do something to receive more!!!!

Couple this with the invoking a safe word, but retracting it 15 minutes later, again she was finding what she was receiving was too much, but 15 minutes later wanted to receive it again!

Now, it doesn't matter how much information is provided in a post, the full understanding of a relationship can never be described, and so we have to work on what is said and draw our own conclusions about the meaning of some of the things being stated.

I get the feeling that the wife is a masochist, and does want to cope with whatever is dished out, but then gets herself confused (and probably disappointed with herself) when she can't handle basically what she asked for. Can you imagine how hard it is for the Dom in this situation to be able to get it right? In fact, it almost guarantees that he will 'fail'.

The wife has stated that they have talked and are working on the issues, so I get the feeling he does want to get it right, but until the wife understands what she really wants, he can't possibly succeed.

Brosco