Here's the thing, for me. Everyone's mileage will vary, obviously. But for me, good D/s manners are very similar to good vanilla manners. In my vanilla marriage I never swore at my husband, and we rarely raised our voices. But we still fought and argued sometimes. The thing is, there are - or should be - ground rules for how to fight in ANY relationship. If you think that just because you're angry you can just say or do anything, it's very damaging to the relationship.

So I know that, whether I was right or wrong about the dispute, if I'd begun to swear at my husband during a fight, he would have stopped me. He wouldn't have spoken in Dom mode, but he would have stopped me. As I would have stopped him.

My master and I don't argue much, and I don't think we've ever had a "fight". I worry about it a bit, because all couples fight and I wonder what that will be like when we do. I don't think that being a sub will make me less able to express myself, though, or more likely to give in.

As to punishment, if I violate what you might call a D/s norm, he might impose a punishment. If I mess up in what you might think of as a more vanilla setting, I don't think he would punish me. As we move more toward 24/7 that might change, but I doubt it.