Why domestic discipline is the hardest thing of all

It’s well known to anthropologists that props or devices facilitate special-occasion behaviour. People make a special time and place to do special activities, that often goes with special dress. In the world of kinky it works this way precisely. One puts on the black leathers, high boots, corset & lace, gets out the “toys,” dims the lights, has another sip of champagne, and becomes ready to immerse in an alternative reality. The process of transition from who we are and how we behave in the everyday to who we are in alternative reality is smoothed by adopting signals and codes of the alternative. We therein also keep it contained in its particular time and place.

Domestic discipline is typically done in everyday clothes, in everyday situations, in full light. There is no transitional “help”, nor containing devices. This is why it is, to me, the highest and purest of the spanking arts. It most clearly says: this is part of who we actually are, in the everyday, not just what identies we can inhabit in the dim half-light of alternative realities. It is authority integrated with the cups of tea and messy desks of real life. Because there is nowhere, psychologically, to “hide”, it is also the most psychologically risky thing to do. And therefore the most productive of real intimacy.

One can interpret pictures on many ways. To me these, below, tell the exact story. Picture credit: Kate’s Spanking World (defunct).