When discussing wife spanking in its various forms, someone always asks whether this is the same kind of thing as BDSM, which most people recognize as the whips n’ chains thing. How is this differentiated from the well-known persona of the leather world, or dungeons, or people who sign slave contracts? To tell you the truth, I don’t think it should be too hard to tell the difference between a husband calling his lovely wife into the bedroom, turning her over his knee and spanking her and the often outside-of-marriage, highly sexualized world of BDSM. It is just a normal marriage in which the wife is spanked. It does not involve someone dressed in special theatrical outfits yelling at another or treating the other like a dog. I sincerely believe that in over 90% of the instances, an average viewer could tell the difference easily.
However, it is also clear that there are practices which cross over between the two disciplines, if you will. They both use corporal punishment. So there’s that big umbrella to cover the two practices. They both involve SOME form of formal authority and submission. They both include rules. A session of either one will usually include quite a bit of crying, if not shrieks from the unfortunate person being punished. Naturally this overlap leads to some questions about whether they are the same, despite their outward differences. If they are different, then how so?
While there may be no answer which satisfies everyone, I find their differences are strong enough to qualify them as separate practices, and I would encourage those who desire discipline to learn from good domestic discipline sites, rather than BDSM or S/M. One clear difference is that BDSM ventures often, if not most of the time, into more extreme forms of punishment. This includes punishments that are more severely painful, and some which are much more damaging to the body. This spectrum includes harming people in ways they invented the term — get medieval on you — to describe. I cannot imagine that world being a safe place to learn about discipline or practice it.
The BDSM world is also more likely to have a fixation on pain, meaning on increasing it. Outside of the right context of loving discipline in marriage, people need to find other meaning in the punishment experience. One of these is the importance of pain. This is not merely making a punishment painful enough to be a deterrent, but specifically aiming for extremely high pain, often increasing the level. This is why “safe words” are common in the BDSM world, as it gives a special word the submissive can use to end an extremely painful experience. But isn’t giving your wife a spanking painful anyway? Sure it is, but the focus is not on height of pain or increasing it. The focus is on deterrent, reminder, and improvement of behavior. You’re not out to set records in pain.
The BDSM world also comes across as having only a loose hold on what really makes headship, and what really makes discipline. This can be seen in so many ways. Beyond the extremes it goes with punishment and pain, there is also a heavier emphasis on sex and sexuality. Fashion also takes hold, as many who practice BDSM regularly like to have the trendy gear, outfits, and other clothing. This steers a couple far away from the core purpose of discipline as well. Most people who simply spank their wives also find there is a sexual element, but it is not nearly as boldly present as it is with BDSM, nor is it often portrayed publicly. The BDSM world oozes sexuality, and it does so in an open and public way. Many turn sex itself into an SM act, and find pain during sex now becomes normal.
As far as public presentation, it can’t be ignored that it’s not uncommon in BDSM to practice it with others outside of the marriage, making what is meant to be private and special to the couple a group experience instead. This element, by itself, makes the leather culture a poor place to investigate or learn about discipline. It is not rooted in what is good, but is an imbalanced combination of things, which are in part discipline, and in part a complete mockery of it. Leadership and submission get taken to the extreme of master and slave, punishment becomes more about pain and damage than loving discipline. Some practices are simply dangerous to the body. It is — though I realize there is some variety within the culture — a complete circus.
I have known people in the past who lived out BDSM for years. I realize that some of them do actually get married, and others do at least have affectionate long-term relationships. However, be that as it may, the form of discipline practiced is not rooted in love, and is imbalanced in its elements. Simple wife spanking within a loving marriage is a very different practice, and should not be classified the same. Before being different because of any unique characteristic, it is different because it is rooted in what is good, strong, and stable; that is marriage, love within godly bounds, and discipline with the betterment of the wife and the home as a goal. To put it in other words, wife spanking has different characteristics because its heart is different. Its foundation is different. No amount if similarities will change that, and with few exceptions, the average person can tell the difference.
That said, there are those within the world of “domestic discipline” who seem to masquerade as a part of the safer DD world, but in actuality practice what is easily recognizable as BDSM. They are not hard to find out. However, you will see if you spend time reading or interacting with the DD crowd, that they recognize those people as being aberrant, if not imposters. They do not represent the norm at all, and I would say are just being dishonest by portraying themselves as DD.
Differences in brief:
Wife spanking (DD)
Founded on a lifelong loving marriage
Practiced within the bounds of not causing injury
Relatively little “gear” beyond spanking instruments
Spanking is done on the bottom, or occasionally the spot just below it
No particular fashion (other than the wife being undressed)
Is typically done privately
Is for the purpose of bettering the wife and improving the home
No particular emphasis on achieving higher levels of pain
BDSM
Practiced in all kinds of relationships, including outside of marriage
Not uncommonly uses forms of punishment that cause more than surface injury
Commonly uses gear, such as bondage gear, collars, etc.
Spanking is done on many areas besides the bottom, including back, legs, front, breasts, genitals
Often comes with fashions, leather outfits, special clothing
Not uncommonly is done publicly before other BDSM practitioners
Sometimes is for the purpose of bettering a loved one, other times simply for punishment, pain, or sex
Often seeks to reach higher levels of pain, to see what can be given and what can be taken
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