Which hits you deeper?

[Mistress Lovely]

1 hour ago, Karl said:

Thanks, franknot, that’s a very interesting Substack piece.

 

The author discusses three aspects of punishment.  I didn’t understand the distinction between the first two: training and teaching. In the context of Mistress Lovely’s question, both of these would seem to be earned, in that the Mistress is inflicting punishment for some specific purpose of behavior modification.

 

Whether they’re considered together or separately, though, that idea doesn’t resonate with me. The author mentions classroom discipline as an analogy. The unruly schoolchildren want to talk in class. They also want to be free to leave at the end of the day. They have to weigh the current unhappiness of keeping quiet versus the future unhappiness of getting detention. Because of the threat of punishment, they may reluctantly decide to obey the order to keep quiet.

 

That just doesn’t resonate with me. In a session, my obedience to the Mistress would not be reluctant. I would obey because she ordered it, not because I want to avoid punishment.

 

The author’s third category is punishment “as a raw expression of power, devoid of reason or lesson.” That’s how I understood “[p]unishment you don’t deserve” in Mistress Lovely’s question. The author’s paragraph on that aspect explains, better than I have, why this is what hits me more deeply.

 

 

Yes! 

Obedience borne of intention rather than avoidance is the axis of these dynamics. 

I want you to think about why a mistress might make use of rules.

Given, of course, that she needs no justification to exercise her power- what purpose do failure conditions serve in a scene?