How I Became A Disciplinarian … And Why It’s Great

As you know, Sparkle and I have a good friend who goes by the name of Iris. We met Iris and her then-boyfriend M back in May through our long-time friends Mija (also of PB) and Paul. Since that time, Iris has become one of our closest friends and spends a fair amount of time at our house. Aside from the fact that she’s a funny, intelligent and sweet person, a big reason for this is the fact that she’s a recent California transplant, and happens to live a few miles from us. She doesn’t know many people out here and we’ve basically adopted her into our family. Even while she was with M (who lives a good distance from here), she’d come over at least one night a week for dinner. She’s babysat for the princess several times, and she and Sparkle go shopping when their schedules mesh.

A few months ago, she and M broke up, so since that time, she’s spent even more time over here, which has been great for all three of us (actually, all four counting the princess, who absolutely adores her). We know how hard it’s been for her, and we’ve tried to be as supportive as we can of her during this difficult time.

And, more recently, I’ve become her disciplinarian as well.

Iris just posted an excellent and detailed entry about this situation on PB, so I’ll not rehash what she’s said, except to say that basically, I’ve been helping her try to get control over an unhealthy habit of hers. This was, of course, at her request when she realized that she needed a little additional help with it. She’d already asked me to be a “safety net” for her a few weeks prior; to watch out for especially dangerous behavior on her part. I had somewhat noticed this habit developing as a result of that, and had planned on discussing it with her, but it wasn’t until she brought it up to me that I realized the severity of it and the need for me to step in and start holding her accountable for her behavior. Sparkle immediately agreed (to both the need and to my involvement) when we explained the situation to her, just as she had when Iris had asked if I could be her safety net.

This has been a very interesting (and good) experience for both of us. Iris discussed her feelings a bit in her PB entry, and mine mirror hers more or less.

The most interesting thing to me is really a combination of two things that are closely related.

The first part of that is that this is the first time I’ve ever filled a disciplinarian role for someone that I wasn’t involved in a serious relationship with. Serious isn’t really the right word, because my friendship with Iris is very serious and important to me. But, I am of course married, so that friendship is simply that and is not, as Iris puts it, a “primary” relationship. Before Iris, I’d only been a disciplinarian to two people . One, of course, is Sparkle, and that aspect of our relationship only started a couple of years after we got married. The other was a partner (prior to Sparkle) with whom I was involved in a serious play relationship for about 4 years, and again, the disciplinary aspects didn’t start until well into that relationship. Similarly, this is the first time I’ve been a disciplinarian to more than one person at a time, which is also interesting.

The second, related aspect is the fact that Iris’ first punishment spanking from me was, in fact, her first spanking from me.

Ever. I’d not even swatted her backside until the conversation we had where she asked me to take on this disciplinary role. We’d talked briefly about playing back around the time that she and M broke up, but after that happened, she wasn’t ready to start playing again right away. I, of course, respected that and didn’t ever push the issue, even though I think we both knew that we still wanted to play with each other and that we probably would when the time was right. Neither of us, however, expected that time to be for disciplinary reasons.

The combination of those two issues made her first punishment from me all the more challenging. I don’t think I’ve ever mentally agonized over a spanking as much as I did that time. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but there was definitely a lot of thought put into it. When I spank Sparkle, it’s usually a fairly immediate situation and I don’t go through any sort of detailed “pre-plan” for it…I just spank her. Not the case with this first spanking for Iris, especially given the fact that there was an unfortunate delay between the initial discussion and the actual spanking. She asked for my help on a Friday night right before leaving on a weekend trip, so the spanking didn’t get to happen until Sunday night, leaving me a bit over two days to consider how I was going to spank her.

I knew, of course, about Iris’ tolerance, so I knew the spanking would have to be long and hard in order to make an impact, so to speak. However, not having played with her before (and in fact not ever even having seen her play), that was something of a difficult concern to address. I knew from talking to her in general over the months prior which types of implements were most effective for punishment as opposed to play, and I was able to re-read some of her earlier PB entries from when she was still with M, but that was still a far cry from having a hands-on (forgive the pun) familiarity to base the punishment on.

Another aspect that made it unique was the fact that she’s a very different person than Sparkle, and as such, the punishment was very different as well.

Truth be told, I don’t have to spank Sparkle very hard at all when punishing her. For her, the mental aspect of simply being punished is, in essence, the real punishment, and the spanking is more or less an adjunct. I also rarely scold Sparkle when I’m punishing her, as she doesn’t react well to scolding and it actually makes the whole punishment less effective.

With Iris, scolding seems to be a big part of the punishment, coupled with hard spanking. That was something of a challenge for me on both aspects. While I’m certainly capable of spanking hard, I think I tend to be more gentle most of the time, so I had to really work at being what I’d consider severe. I also don’t think I’m the world’s best scolder. It is easier when there’s something to actually scold for (I’m more or less helpless at role-play scolding), but it’s again not something that comes naturally to me, so I have to work at it.

That all being said, even though it was a bit more difficult for me, I think I was effective.

Iris did go home with a sore bottom, and was even sore the next morning (something that surprised the both of us). Some of that may have been due to the fact that she’d not been spanked in a couple of months, but only somewhat. As for the scolding, well, Iris assures me that I’m quite effective at that too.

We’re still continuing to grow into this new aspect of our friendship. It’s a first for both of us and much different than anything we’ve experienced in the past. It does seem to be working, however, and that’s the important part.

I’ll probably have more to write about this in the future, but for now, I think that willl do.