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AthenaSurrenders -> RE: Punishments (1/22/2013 12:23:44 AM)
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Whoa, where to start.
OK OP - first off, I want to say that I am in a punishment dynamic myself, and I started out with my dom when I was your age. I'm telling you this so you know I have been there.
You've raised a few issues here, I'm going to try and address them as much as possible but obviously there are a lot of unknowns.
First off, you've done something wrong. First question you need to ask yourself, is why. Were you being deliberately disobedient? Were you being thoughtless? Did you genuinely just forget? Were you unclear on what was expected of you? Because my answers are different depending on this.
When I first started out, I made a lot of mistakes, forgot a lot of instructions, and tested my boundaries more than I should. He had to figure out when I needed a tug on the leash and when I needed patience and time to get to grips with things. It's a hard balance, and it took a lot of honest communication. In a new relationship (I'm guessing it's new because of the dates on your profile) it takes a lot of working out to find a balance that works. It is unrealistic to expect you to be perfect and 'never forget' from day one. So you need to talk about whether this is a reasonable expectation. Some doms might think they have to punish for every minor infraction or else they will lose their power, but real power comes with the brains to see the difference between punishments that help the relationship and those that damage them. Some doms also like to find excuses to punish. This is asking for disaster in the long run.
If it it something you just forgot, you need to fix it. Creating new habits takes a long time. Use phone reminders, calendars, diaries, texts, whatever you need. Brainstorm how you can do it. Let's say he says 'never bite your nails' - it could be a rule that you always have a file in your purse, you wear bitter nail varnish, you put a coin in a jar whenever you catch yourself doing it - things that actually work on the problem.
If you didn't understand the order, you both need to work on your communication. Practice saying 'just to be clear, you want me to do x?' and 'What exactly do you mean when you say x?'
If it was something you did deliberately or tested the boundaries, you need to talk about why. Are you having problems with a certain rule? Is it making it hard to keep up with your life commitments or making you uncomfortable? You need to work together on this. Sometimes being the sub means sucking it up and doing things you don't like, but being a dom also means being responsible and making a judgment to make sure the order won't create more harm than good - if he's sending you to work with your boobs hanging out, for example, is that going to cause you to lose your job?
So assuming you've had all these nice sensible discussions, figured out the root of your problem (like grown ups, with proper thoughtful conversation) and there's still going to be a punishment, you next question is 'what is the goal of the punishment?' Are you making it up to him? Is it for catharsis? In my relationship the punishment is our way of symbolically drawing a line under the transgression and to help me get rid of any feelings of guilt or failure. It happens, then we make up and move on. It is NEVER held over my head once the punishment is over. This is important. If you didn't have this conversation at the beginning of the relationship, it's time to have it now. If you're not on the same page, you're working against each other and damaging the relationship.
What should the punishment be? Well others are right in saying you're supposed to not want it, it's not supposed to be fun. That said a hard limit is there for a reason and I would be distrustful of someone using it as a punishment. Hard limits stay hard limits, no matter how badly you've misbehaved. A hard limit is something you can't cope with, be it mentally or physically. It is something you feel would harm you on some level. How can you have been so bad you deserve that? Answer: you haven't. Is he just not thinking this through, or is he using this as an excuse to do something you've said you won't do? You need to voice this concern. Breaking a hard limit would be an extreme punishment (and an abusive one in my mind) and I doubt you've done anything deserving of extreme punishment - if you were that bad, he'd just leave.
I won't give him a hard time for telling you to suggest your own punishment. Some people do use it because they are clueless. I actually had this order once or twice early in the relationship and for us it was about figuring out what I considered reasonable for each offense. It was agony because it balances your natural urges to protect yourself from unpleasant things with your desire to please and show how sorry you are. We abandoned that particular trick early on but that was punishment in itself for me. Even so, it's YOUR order, do you think he'd be impressed that you're asking other people? How can he learn about you from your responses if they're actually MY responses?
Punishment is a tricky thing in any relationship. How long have you been together and how much of that has been face to face time? Because this can be pretty traumatic stuff if not handled properly and I wouldn't be impressed if I was getting serious punishments within a week of being together - that to me means we're not compatible since we can't possibly have a secure dynamic in place yet. Hell I know when we were in this situation, I had very little experience of adult relationships in general (because how much can you possibly have at 19?) and that takes a lot of working out too.
As a final thing - I'm a strong believer that a punishment should never be a sexual act. I have a sneaky suspicion that whatever this hard limit is, it's something sexual. For me, sex shouldn't have negative feelings attached. A punishment for me is to clear away the last of those negative feelings. I would hate to think of you performing a sexual act you strongly didn't want to do, whilst being told that you had to do it because you were bad and you didn't have a choice - that seems to come close to sexual assault to me and even if technically consensual, I think you could come out of it feeling used and dirty - not in a good way. Maybe an established couple with lots of trust and experience with each other could pull this off, for now I'd say just don't go there.
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