Thoughts on Punishment

I was reading rivka's blog tonight and she was talking about consistency, and, her reactions when her Master would punish her.

Which has got Me thinking about punishment.

Some principles up front.

1. Obviously, the goal is to NEVER have to punish. I do not mean to never use pain . . . I mean that the goal is that My slaves never disappoint Me to the extent that I feel puinishment is warranted.

2. I always keep the punishment close, in time, to the offense. I feel that one of the worst things a Dominant can do is let the offense linger. It's confusing for the slave and creates needless potenital animosity on both parts.

3. The punishment must always be measured, and appropriate to the "scene of the crime." Meaning, a private trangression results in a private punishment, a public one in a public punishment.

4. Once it's over, it's over. Mistake made, correction applied, lesson learned, is My approach. No negative feelings linger.

5. Punishment is always the same thing, applied in more or less the same way. There is no confusion between "play pain" and punishment.

The above expresses what I strive for . . . the consisent approach I hope I always use. No one's perfect but in general I do pretty well with that.

Of course, My three fantastic slaves . . . make that easy. The number of times I've had to punish them is very small.

What do I (or would I) punish for? Well . . .

A. Repeat mistakes. The first mistake is always "free." Occaisionally, the second one is. Never the third (and there have been almost no third mistakes).

B. Obviously, outright disrespect, straight-out disobeidence, and the like would result in punishment. Again, the instances of those . . . are so rare as to be almost not worth considering for Me.

C. I do as rule give the benefit of the doubt, also. I never want to punish based on what could have legitimately been a misunderstanding. Often, We Dominants think we are being totally clear, but further discussion and thought will reveal that We weren't being quite as clear as We first thought.

Thankfully, I have never had to deal with any of them "acting out" in order to provoke a punishment. That is topping from the bottom . . . and that's poison to any relationship that strives to be a meaningful D/s relationship.

If a submissive of Mine . . . every did try that, she'd find herself in a truly horrible position: having to endure a long, probing conversation about why she was acting the way she was. For an "act out" type submissive, there are few more unpleasant things.