Punishment

A few months ago (it feels like a lifetime ago) I listened to an excellent Dominant expound on his feelings about discipline and punishment.  They are separate issues, to discipline and to punish.  Very often, a dom does not feel good about punishment, and yet he may easily perform almost the very same activity on his submissive in discipline and feel terrific about it.  (I beg my three readers to forgive my use of the default "Him" when referencing a Dominant, here.  I have a man in mind when I recall this moment.)  I would imagine the sentiment is simliar from a submissive's perspective -- or at least, I can imagine it would be the same for me.  To be spanked in punishment would feel differently, to me, than to be spanked for disciplining /  training / conditioning / pleasure.  Not 100% different, but different enough to derive less pleasure from the act.  I haven't given much thought to punishment since that moment when I listened to Sir Dwight talk about it.  I'm generally a person who neither seeks nor welcomes punishment because, frankly, I don't deserve it or ask for it.  I do not believe the mistakes that I have made, so far, merit punishing as much as they might merit correction, and by all means I welcome correction as I hope anybody would if there is unintentional inaccuracy or inconsistency.  (Protected Precious's sweet ass is not perfect!)  But it's come up a few times, now, today.  And I will defend punishment for one very good reason that I can think of, besides what Sir Dwight had said earlier.

At the D/s Academy in Second Life (which my mentor is a part of, incidentally) there is a notecard entitled LOG 201 sub's resp. - D/s academy LECTURE, back from 2010.  In it, the note details a very detailed lecture about the submissive's responsibilities.  And one of those responsibilities -- and this resonates with me big time -- is to know yourself so well that you know what it is in this life that brings pleasure and what it is that you would consider punishment.  The first is often easier than the second.  To know oneself so well that one can understand what would be considered punishment is a very powerful knowledge.  And to tell one's dom or Master that information renders one vulnerable as hell.  That is how one feels vulnerable:  to admit one's weakness before another.  Weakness in pleasure and weakness in punishment: a dom needs to know both, of course.  In my opinion, a submissive who does not share with her dom these two very important character traits of hers has not submitted.

One reason I believe in this so strongly is because there will inevitably come a time when a submissive makes a terrible mistake; a costly mistake, a mistake that causes undue pain.  And, to think the good of everyone first, such a mistake would certainly be accidental rather than deliberate.  When the full force of the mistake, and all of its effects, come home to the submissive and she finally begins to feel the dread, there is nothing she can do (perhaps) to make amends.  There is nothing she can do to "undo" that mistake.  That is a horrifying feeling to me, not being able to repair something.  So how does one forgive?  How does one get past it and move into the future together?  Punishment, genuine and true.  That which the submissive knows to be punishment -- not pleasure, not disguise, not half-heartedly meted out.  Punishment, I do believe, should be reserved for such instances: when nothing else will do.  When the forgiveness is too hard to come by, otherwise.  Because punishment is cleansing.  After enduring the sentence, the cleansing is complete.  Meting out the punishment is cleansing; and receiving the punishment is cleansing.  It is as symbolic as any other practice within the lifestyle, and it should not be abused or misunderstood.  (But what, pray, happens when the dom is at fault and finds it impossible to forgive himself?  Ooh.)