What Most People Get Wrong About Punishment
People who follow @instructor144 or who hang around kink Tumblr long enough will inevitably run into “The Punisher”… You know the type: the domly dom who breaks sluts through the sheer domliness of his gaze and who just can’t wait to punish a sub so severely that they will never think to break a rule or show any disrespect ever again. Yeah, that guy.
The thing always struck me about these guys is the apparent glee in their voices as they imagine what they’re going to do to the poor sub who would dare violate one of their sacred edicts. The fact that someone would derive so much enjoyment out of inflicting high degrees of physical and emotional pain on another person, particularly in a situation where that person was already vulnerable to begin with, is terrifying and heartbreaking to me. In fact, I honestly can’t see these sorts of situations as anything other than abuse disguised as D/s or BDSM, and the “doms” in question as abusers hiding their behaviors in plain sight in an environment where impact play and punishments are nothing out of the ordinary.
What I think most people fail to understand about punishment (in a D/s context) is that the punishment isn’t there for the benefit of the Dom. The punishment isn’t something that is to be imposed in such a manner that the Dom benefits from its imposition, because then the Dom has an incentive for the Submissive to fail. The greater the incentive, the more likely it is that the Dom will create situations for the Submissive to fail or seek to manufacture other instances in which these “punishments” can be implemented. The eagerness you see being expressed is simply the anticipation of the fulfillment of a suppressed desire causing it to come bubbling up to the surface. In short, these are people who are just waiting for any sort of justification that will allow them to express their abusive desires in a way that they feel is more socially acceptable.
This abuse doesn’t always take the form of physical abuse. You see everything from, “Since you broke a rule, I get to violate one of your hard limits”, to “As punishment, I’m going to completely ignore you and disappear for a week or two to do God-only-knows-what” and everything else in between. Regardless of exactly what shape it takes, these “punishments” all seem to have one thing in common, and that is that the “dom” seems to have just been waiting for the chance to act out on these things.
Remember that D/s is about partnerships between the Dominant(s) and the Submissive(s). These partnerships are formed (ideally) for very specific reasons and they are crafted in such a way that they allow each party to express who they are within the relationship in a way that fosters trust, develops strength, and accentuates the unique talents and abilities that they each bring to the table, while working to mitigate their weaknesses through teamwork and structure. That is why we do what we do - it helps us to be better people because it works with our inherent natures instead of forcing us to try to behave like everyone else. It gives us an environment where we can drop the masks we are forced to wear out in the vanilla world and create a world that is more orderly and serene based on rules that make sense to us.
This begs the question, “If punishments are not intended to benefit the Dominant, why are they there? What purpose do they serve?” The answer is that they are there for the benefit of the Submissive in order to provide a path for atonement for the infraction they committed. It gives them a logical way to become absolved of the guilt and shame that they feel in order to allow them to put it all behind them and move forward.
In these scenarios, an infraction has occurred and it has either been confessed or it has been discovered. Now obviously it is far more desirable that an infraction be confessed in a timely manner alongside a sincere, heartfelt apology. The Submissive should (rightfully) feel a great deal of remorse for breaking the previously agreed-upon rule, and they owe it to their Dominant to explain what happened and allow the consequences follow, trusting that the consequences will be just and fair and adhere to the boundaries laid out in the formative days of the relationship. The Dominant should (rightfully) be proud that the Submissive brought this matter to their attention, even as they are dismayed at the prospect of being put in the position of imposing a sentence.
The punishment should fit the crime, as the saying goes, but it should not be so severe that it actually serves the purpose of discouraging the Submissive from confessing future infractions. It needs to be strict enough that the Submissive feels that they are doing their penance and providing a measure of reparation to the Dominant, yet it needs to be fair enough that the needs of the Submissive and the mitigating factors that contributed to the infraction are accounted for. For many Submissives, the mere act of confessing their infractions is, itself, inherently painful and humiliating. Admitting that they disrespected their Dominant and violated their rules can be extraordinarily hard on them because the fear of disappointing their Dominant makes voicing these acts nearly unbearable.
This is why you frequently see @instructor144 say that something like 25 lines should be enough of a punishment, much to the surprise of many a Dominant. It isn’t the punishment that keeps the Submissive in line, it’s the respect they have for the Dominant and for the dynamic that dissuades them from breaking rules whenever it suits them. The actual punishment is simply the act assigned that signifies the debt being paid in full, and should then be followed with a release from the associated guilt and shame the Submissive had been carrying around. There is no further obligation and the matter is forever put to rest; the Submissive is given a clean slate and a chance to do better next time.
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