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Re: A logical flaw in D&D

Sun, 20 Feb 2000
Mr Fondman  7 October 2000

This is an edited version of something I contributed to the 1HouseholdDiscipline discussion list.

The list's homepage is here: 1hd/ .

© 1999 to 2000. Let me know if you would like to quote from this or if you can suggest any improvements.

(Some of this is a bit of a rant.  I was in an intensely analytical mode!)

Petruccio Supremo wrote of logic and proving that entire directions in
human endeavor (DD in this instance) are logically flawed, and I suppose
therefore doomed, not to be taken seriously or at least in need of
re-appraisal.   Its good to question and refine DD in this way - to
temper it with the luminous flame of enquiry and the rigorous hammer of
logic.

I have spent the last few days tangling with programmable logic devices,
the rigorous demands of an Akai sampler's memory system and the 32 meg
EDO SIMM I want to use in it, and have been reading data sheets
astutely, and adding up propagation delays in subsections of logic chips
to an accuracy of 0.1 nsec (the time it takes light to travel 1.2 inches
- and it goes round the Earth seven times a second . . . ) so I am in a
seriously logical frame of mind!   What's more, it is hot, and I have
just had a glass of Boags beer - which I understand (on authority of a
Christian friend) that God drinks.  So here goes:

The problematic nature of a "brat" manipulating her disciplinary man to
give her just what she wants has been discussed before.

IF    what she wants is a spanking, 

AND   the only punishment her man can administer is a spanking, 

AND   any spanking he gives her is in one sense or another, in the
      longer term, with all its other implications, a positive 
      experience, 

THEN  I agree, this notion of DD is flawed, at least for such "brats".

For the sake of the argument, lets confine discussion to the care of
brats, as defined above.  Although not all women are brats, a few are,
and what's more many others do have brattish tendencies which Petruccio
Supremo's scenario could arguably encourage.

At stake is the entire edifice on which DD stands.  If Petruccio
Supremo's arguments are valid, then it could be argued that DD's
pretense of absolute sincerity about improving the woman's conduct and
character, is not to be believed, except as a prop to the *players* for
whom it ultimately forms a key plot device in the game which gives the
brat - and hopefully her stern, disciplinary gentleman - such intense
thrills.

Just as a lot of the thrill of religion is how damn serious it is
(despite an outsider rating the chances of any one religion being the
true one out of thousands to be rather slim) so too could the apparently
sincere sentiments of DDers be seen to be delusional - simply constructs
in their own mind to paper the walls of their perceptible universe with
seemingly fundamental truths about noble motivation and long-term
benefits whilst perhaps remaining in denial about the short-term
pleasures.

However (I have been accused of overusing this word . . . ) the "brat
manipulating the punisher to get what she really wants" scenario is
provably invalid IF the punisher administers punishments which the brat
does not *enjoy* in the short or long term.

I am yet to here of a woman who thrills to the idea of writing *lines*,
who has dreamed of it since she was a little girl, or who uses this as a
scenario in her masturbatory or self-spanking activities.

I can't rule this out.  In a world where it is widely believed that
eroticism was the motivating factor in a man having his leg amputated in
England recently, arguments which depend on the limits of human
perversity/imagination/diversity have a short half-life.  

If my argument that DD is valid is to prevail, then the gentleman who
cares for such a line-ophile (as I will term a woman who enjoys spending
hours writing interminable sentences - such as you are reading now -
dozens and dozens of time) must invent another way of punishing her.

Here is the central proposition on which my argument rests:

   An intelligent, creative, caring gentleman can always think of 
   a practical, safe, effective form of punishment which the recipient
   woman in his care will not eroticise or come to enjoy.

There is a caveat on this "eroticise or come to enjoy" which I will come
to later.


If my above proposition is accepted as true, then Petruccio Supremo's
critique of DD must be admitted to be inoperative.

Lets look at some more interesting points he raises:

> If the brat feels insecure and believes she needs a spanking to curb 
> this feeling, she may provoke her partner into a spanking.  . . . 
> she has simply manipulated her partner into giving what she
> wants.  It may also, on another level be self-disqualifying since it
> may give her the uneasy feeling that she can get what she wants.
> Hence she becomes insecure again or even more insecure because she
> has demonstrated that she is out of control.  

A perfect example of this is Eloise's posts in the last week or two, in
which she was deeply disturbed that she was using her man and the
framework he thinks he is applying as a means of being spanked for fun.

> (There are problems even in this position because what she wants, she 
> also does not want on another level.  What pleases her, will, at least 
> at administration, displease her.)

Discipline and play spanking often involve radically different feelings
by the one person at different times.  To ask if a woman "likes to be
spanked" is not sufficient.  Does she like to be spanked damn hard in
the moments which follow, or does she like it in the longer term -
anticipating it and remembering it, with all the surrounding emotional,
sensual and relationship aspects included?  Often she will answer "Yes"
in the short term, and a key element leading to this long-term
appreciation is that she was forced, by her loving man, to endure
something she hated at the time.  (Also, as I discuss below, there is
the problem of the mind forgetting the bad bits and amplifying the good
- so memory is inaccurate and puts a bright, happy gloss on the past.)


> What follows logically, however is that any act of misbehaviour may
> be a type of manipulation because the brat does it knowing she will
> be punished ultimately.  Her misbehaviour, thus confers upon her a
> type of control.  She knows her actions will cause her partner to
> discipline her - but who really is in control?

Indeed.

I believe that both partners are in control, since either partner can
leave, and since the brat may behave or misbehave and the caring
gentleman may decide to punish or not to - and if so, how.

But Petruccio Supremo's point remains - that the often gushingly
expressed centrality of masculine control to DD is actually a sham if it
is admitted that the woman can and does act knowingly to make her man do
things, such as punish her.


Personally, I have never agreed with those excitedly delivered
statements - by men and women - about "power exchange", giving up power,
dominance, submission, and so on.  Sure, there is an established and
respected pattern of the man being in charge, in respect of misbehaviour
and resultant punishments at least.  But I have never argued that DD
involves the man being the sole one in control.


Petruccio Supremo's point goes to show that these gushing, emotionally
and erotically attractive absolute statements about *power* and
*control* are questionable.  I agree that they are.  I think they exist
for a number of reasons.  Firstly because some people have a simplistic
understanding of what really should be a sophisticated DD relationship.
Secondly, because it evidently gives people such a thrill to talk about
submitting to a higher power.  Exactly the same pattern can be seen with
the religions which involve all-powerful and typically male gods.  In
the Christian spanking literature, its not hard to find essays which
shows the writer is brimming with enthusiasm at submitting to both God
and her Husband.  (I also have correspondence from one non-religious
woman saying it is her highest dream to be spanked by God.)

Yes, these statements about totally giving up control are not what I
consider to be part of a healthy DD relationship between intelligent,
sensitive, caring, capable people.


> Alternatively, she may have no control over what she does.  This
> makes the notion of punishment problematic.  For whilst she may be
> re-assured at the time that she has been corrected, that her
> boundaries have been re-established, in fact nothing of the kind is
> happening. If she truly has no control, the punishment will not
> affect her behaviour in future.  How can it?  Instead of contrite or
> reformed, she is simply set to misbehave again.

I agree.  If the woman's conduct or character is not affected for the
better by ANY possible punishment or other corrective measure, then
certainly the notion of an effective DD framework for her is a
nonsense.   

If there are punishments and other corrective measures which the woman
*would* respond to, but her man only uses those which are ineffective,
then I agree, this is not working as a disciplinary arrangement either.

That does not mean that DD is a logical contradiction.

IF   The woman has some aspects of her behaviour or character which
     should be corrected (ideally, if she agrees, but potentially, 
     in the case of health and safety, which anyone who cares for her
     will insist on).

AND  There are safe punishments and corrective measures which are 
     effective - which means that she does not *enjoy* them, and more
     to the point hates them and strives to avoid any conduct which 
     will earn her such punishment or correction.

AND  Her man knows how to administer these punishments and corrective
     measures effectively, and in fact does so with both the
     intention and the result of long-term benefit for the woman at 
     least - and most likely the entire world as well.

THEN I argue that this is a successful DD arrangement.


But lets return to my caveat and the question of timeframes.  Lets
also consider Petruccio Supremo's query about how a DD arrangement does
not necessarily eradicate the objectionable conduct entirely, but rather
mutes it.  

For a DD arrangement to be successful in its own terms of improving
behaviour, then it needs to be shown that it is a better approach than
doing nothing, and ideally a better approach than any other alternative
- such as a good workout in the gym, a meditation course in the
Himalayas, or years of expensive psychoanalysis.

This is a case-by-case matter, but clearly, there are many couples who
are happier and more in love now than they have been for years or
decades, and they have tried various other approaches and found that a
DD arrangement has been remarkably successful.

Its horses-for-courses.  I don't claim that a DD arrangement is the best
thing for any problem in a relationship or in the conduct or character
of a person.

Now to my caveat on "eroticise or come to enjoy" in:

   An intelligent, creative, caring gentleman can always think of 
   a practical, safe, effective form of punishment which the recipient
   woman in his care will not eroticise or come to enjoy.


Lets consider an example in which a man uses one or more punishment or
correction techniques to successfully improve the conduct of his beloved
woman.  It may be just a look.  It may be something simple, like tapping
his belt, or mentioning the word "Hairbrush" when the woman is in need
of guidance or encouragement.  It could be a full-blown formal written
agreement, with schedules and harrowing corporal punishment and
lectures, corner time, *lines*, humiliation, deprivation of privileges
and so on.

Assume for the moment that all these warnings or corrective measures are
*not* enjoyed by the woman at the time, and that in the moderate term -
days, weeks and months, she does not think fondly of them.

Now, for argument's sake, consider a two year plus time-span.  She
realises that her man loves her, that he will do what it takes to keep
her happy and healthy, to improve her to be her true, finest self, and
to protect and enhance the relationship.

So the woman is contemplating a seriously romantic/erotic (who can tell
the difference?) constellation of events.  In reflecting on the details,
she is likely to come to think fondly of the stern look, the sharp slap
on her tail in public when she was getting into a bitchy-witchy mode, or
even the terrible distress and pain he had her endure as part of the
overwhelming punishment.  In all these cases, she looks back and thinks:
"Yes, my man knew what was best for me - despite me not knowing it
myself at the time.  Now I realise that he had the insight to know me
and help me attain a brighter future.  I realise that he had to work
hard and that of the many alternatives, he generally chose the most
effective - despite it being unpleasant for me and probably for him at
the time."

In this state of mind, she is likely to become very fond, romantically,
erotically and intellectually, of some or all elements which make up
this picture:  the man, his love, his insight, his strengths, his
skills, his effort, the disciplinary arrangement itself, the elements of
the arrangement, including punishments, warnings, talkings-to and the
way he furrows his brow, narrows his gaze and alters his tone of
voice.   She may think very positively about these things, and about her
own ultimately positive response to them.

Does that mean she likes being spanked?  In the short term no - but in
the long term, in the context, she sees its value.

To the extent that she thinks all this, then I believe she is thinking
fondly about the whole arrangement and is part in her happiness.  That
is proof that the DD arrangement was successful.

So as long as the "eroticise or come to enjoy" is based on the benefits
of the whole arrangement, and does not tempt her into behaving badly,
then I argue that this long-term enjoyment does not render a DD
arrangement invalid whatsoever.


However . . . there are exciting, erotic, endorphin- and
adreniline-related reasons why she may think very fondly about a
spanking and perhaps other corrective measures, such as lectures and
corner time (but not yet in my experience *lines* . . . ).

This excitement can build and she may remember happily the various
sensations and context.  While she intellectually knows it damn-well
hurt, this can be a secondary matter to the thrill she remembers about
the whole episode.  Furthermore, the intellectual knowledge that it
dann-well hurt, and he endorphin release of contemplating the experience
can make it very pleasant and even addictive to contemplate repeating
the experience.

To the extent that a women romanticises and eroticises a punishment
which was (and probably will be again) effective because she damn-well
hated it at the time, then "eroticise or come to enjoy" now means that
she may be tempted to misbehave in order to once again experience the
now fondly remembered corrective measures.

In this scenario, thinking positively about being punished certainly
does weaken the DD arrangement and so lead to misconduct, drama and the
need for more inventive punishments!


This is a real tendency, but it does not mean that DD is an invalid
concept.

What it means is that a woman given to eroticising and thinking fondly
of spankings (and many do) needs to have additional arrangements in her
life which reduce her tendency to behave badly to get this punishment
again.

One approach is to ensure that any apparently deliberate misbehaviour is
punished by some means which she is very unlikely to enjoy at the time,
or think of fondly later.

A second approach is to have arrangements whereby she can easily and
happily experience whatever it is which thrills her, without actually
behaving badly and upsetting herself, her man or others.   This is why I
advocate gentle and intense "play" and "therapeutic" spankings be
available in a way which suits both partners.   There's a lot of scope
for creativity in this!  The "play" spankings could be seriously like a
punishment, if that is what she wanted - even to the point of
play-acting the hurtful behaviour by which she earned her spanking,
strapping or whatever.  This could go beyond spanking.  Women with a
curiosity or penchant for being stood in the corner, being made to wear
particular modes of dress and undress, or writing lines can easily have
their desires accommodated in a "play" setting, without the need for her
to be destructive or hurtful.

But what of the woman, who for some innate reason or because of
deliberate choice, is unsatisfied with a life composed of nothing but:

1 - Normal uneventful good behaviour.

2 - Occasional mistakes and weaknesses leading to punishment.

3 - Play and therapeutic spankings, including play, non-hurtful
    antics which closely resemble bad and bitchy behaviour and 
    consequent punishment. 

?

This brings us back to discussing the BRAT!!

A woman who is only truly happy when she is in fact causing distress to
her man, and getting punished for it, is for the purposes of this email
a BRAT.  (Those who revel in this mayhem and don't accept punishment are
congenital bitches or drama-queens - and any decent man should give them
a wide berth.  Those who love drama and are not happy with safe corporal
punishment, but who are only stable when the man responds with dangrous
domestic violence - punching, kicking, emotional and financial abuse
etc. . . . I don't know what they are called, but they should be avoided
like the plague.)

While it may be that many woman are occasionally bratty, I have no
intention of living my life with a woman who is consistently or
frequently in BRAT mode.

Other men may put up with this sort of thing, because of the woman's
other fine qualities - that's their decision.  DD is still important to
minimise the misconduct, and the man has his work cut out with
frequently needing to be policeman, judge, jury, and constantly
inventive punisher.  

Maybe there are women who get their thrills out of provoking their men
into the further and further extremes of bizarre and imaginative
punishment!  Sheesh!!


A genuine BRAT is a challenge to DD.  She actually does not (in the long
term) want to live peacefully and respectfully.  So applying a DD
framework to her is not going to be fully effective at taming her
unpleasant and hurtful ways.

Men are on their own with this type - I can't help them.

Some men report being attracted to brattiness in women.  They are on
their own as well as far as I am concerned.  

A brat and a bratophile would make fine partners (irrespective of the
sex of the individuals) - if each accepted the genuine upset which would
be part of their life.  To some extent a DD arrangement would be a valid
approach to minimising this upset and drama.  But it would also be a
kind of prop or script which sustained the central theme in the
relationship - being a BRAT and being a BRAT-punisher.  To this extent,
I agree with Petruccio Supremo that DD would be invalid.


Now, I have a recalcitrant memory board design to return to . . . 

 - Mr Fondman

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