CDD vs TTWD

[PrttyinPnk]

So, right off the bat...I was raised in a very conservative christian household.

I'm not a christian....because of the way I was raised. That said:

In my avid research of this lifestyle, I constantly come across these type of websites:
http://harpercrusade.blogspot.com/2010/ ... ne-or.html
http://www.christiandd.com/

and they drive me crazy. It makes me doubt myself, doubt my choices, doubt my desires.

I don't want to debate religion with anyone, but I was raised in a house where the bible was used to excuse abuse. It frustrates me that I have so many similarities with what I consider abusive relationships. I am bisexual, and just happened to have fallen in love with my husband when I was very, very young. That said, I do NOT believe that he is head of our household, or dominant, *because* he is a man. That is offensive to me. It implies that I am not capable of fulfilling the same role, which just isn't accurate. In a lot of ways, I think I could enjoy this more fully if I was in a relationship with a woman instead...because I am intrinsically a bottom. I can't help it. I worry that my own doubt will influence my honey's perception of himself...I think he is wonderful, I truly appreciate what he does for me...and it took a long time for him to be OK with this. But how can I express to him my own self doubts, my own concerns that it is too closely aligned to these abusive relationships, without raising doubts inside of him?

I really...I struggle with this. Its hard for me sometimes to seperate what we do from what *they* do. I mean, I CRY over this. I don't want to be associated with what I consider an abusive, miogynistic, religiously suppressive relationship dynamic.

If I'm offending ANYONE, please be aware that I don't intend it. I'm trying to communicate how I feel without revealing my history of abuse and neglect. It is impossible for me to seperate it from religion. I really am OK with christians, and I don't think they're all "bad" people.

[JigsawAnalogy]

That sounds like a hard place to be in, and it's something I've struggled with a bit over the years.

For me, the main difference comes in with the basic differences between kink/bdsm and abuse. Back in the '90s, I worked at a domestic violence shelter with a lot of very kink-friendly people, and one of the trainings we did was on the differences between kink and abuse. So, even before I was out to myself as someone who needed discipline, I had a strong grounding in the belief that there is a difference between this thing we do and abuse.

If nothing else, you've got the question of consent (although that gets murky with some of the "surrendered wife" things).

I'm going to try to respond more to this later, after I've had some more time to think. I hope other people will chime in with their thoughts as well.

[Desperate4Discipline]

Disclaimer: My experience is extremely limited, just keep that in mind.

I think you have to just focus on what you are doing and not what CDD couples are doing. If the head of household/top is never open to listening to the bottom's thoughts, concerns, problems etc., then I think it can easily become abusive. Especially if the bottom is afraid of the top. But if TTWD is done in a loving way where there is trust between the two partners, and the bottom trusts that the top will not cause serious harm, then it's still consensual even when the two may have differing opinions regarding a punishment. I hope I'm making sense.

[Lady Governess]

hi pretty in pink.

You have a lot of things going on here and it's not going to be possible for me to touch on all of them without writing a dissertation! But if you're ready to start dealing withn this whole set of issues, maybe you should start with trying to separate all the component parts of your experience.

for example, you speak about 'the Bibl'e, 'church' and 'religion' as if they were all the same thing. it is possible that from your experience they do amount to the same thing. but if you could find a way of seaprating them out, it might help you to clarify your feelings?

the Bible was written in a very different age when the idea of men dominating their household was sort of expected. the Bible was actually a step forward in most cases from the experience of people at the time. It was often quite revolutionary in raising the status of women from what had been the case beforehand. i know this seems impossible from our viewpoint in 2011, but changing domestic power relationships can take decades! so instead of seeing the Bible as a bad thing to be imposed on us today, a step back can help us see it as a good thing for women in the past and something for us to build on rather than be chained up by in the present day.

Church is another one. From Westboro Baptist Church (spew) to the most theologicall liberal churches (like MCC or even UU) there is a vast difference in practices, beliefs and perceptions of alternative lifestyles (like being an affirming church where people are accepted as they are rather than seeking radical conversion to a strict code of thought and practice). I'm sorry you had a bad experience, but it was an experience....not a display of how churches SHOULD be! churches are run by people (usually mainly men) and so are very very fallible.

Religion is nmuch broader than all of this and in its broadest sense just means a share group of beliefs and practices. in some sense, if we added 'must believe in some kind of spiritual entity' to the requirements for joining the board here, we COULD call ourselves a religion because we have a core value (TTWD) and a resultant shared set of beliefs (primarily that TTWD is valid and acceptable as a lifestyle choice). point is, it's not the concept of religion that has given you a bad experience - it's what was imposed of you under religion's banner.

my point is this: If we worry about what has been done in the past under the name of the Bible, church or religion, we'd all implode! because, let's face it, most of us have some sort of bad experience in one or more of those areas. but if we can decide, "I don'tlike church because I can't forgive what some church people did to me" then we can package that all up and leave it behind. that leaves us free to move on. We might decide we can appreciate the bible as a good book, literature, a good set of life lessons or whatever - then we can package up what people did with it in the past and leave that behind and start to move forward building a new relationship with the Bible.

And so on and so on until you can drop some baggage and move forward. but it's all very individual and you may have done some of this or not be ready to do other parts.

Good luck with it whatever happens.

i'm pretty sure people around here will be supportive.

[PrttyinPnk]

I guess my concern in posting here originally is that...well...my father was just very emotionally/physically abusive. And he would quote bible verses while he did it and afterwards to justify it. He was also neglectful...if I didn't suit his picture of a perfect daughter he would often reject me...verbally, physically withdrawing from me (if I tried to hug him he would recoil) and...just...stuff that gets in my head. That's why I mention specifically the bible. The only time anyone in my life defended me was a nice man that called the cops...and then I was forced to lie to them, because I was told that if I told them the truth, I would never see my sister again, they would take me away.

The reason I don't want to debate religion is because I know, rationally, that christianity does not = abuse. But knowing that rationally and my gut reaction to articles and websites like the ones I posted are two different things. When I see...groups using bible verses to justify what I consider abuse it makes me...feel sick. And my concern is that those groups would approve of my relationship...and for the wrong reasons. Jeez, I'm not even sure at this point if I'm making sense or just whining. I don't really CARE if they approve or disapprove. Its just the idea that...their approval would make me feel like my relationship is a continuation of my abuse...and that would make something I love and feel good about generally a bad thing. It makes me question if I ever got out of the abuse, or if I just came to crave it as a normal expression of love. And that makes me feel like I should stop, because what I'm doing is intrinsically wrong and self destructive. I know myself, I've always sexualized spanking, always craved it, loved it...and I know it was illegal, but even at 13 I was looking up spanking porn. When I avoid thinking about it, I'm fine with my lifestyle. It's when I accidentally trip over these articles/websites that I feel...triggered. And then the feeling lasts for DAYS.

How do I explain what I'm realizing (just now, if you will believe it) is probably just...a place in my head that I avoid looking at to closely? These people have done nothing to me personally, their lifestyle does not affect me personally. Obviously, I enjoy a similar lifestyle. There is just *something* about it that makes me feel that darkness of my childhood overwhelming me when I think about it. That helpless, dark panic.

Forgive my language, but god he was a bastard. I hope he finds his hell. I can't really talk about this for very long...I need a break. I only mentioned those places on the internet in the first place because I recently had a few days of anxiety because I ran across one.

[JigsawAnalogy]

I only mentioned those places on the internet in the first place because I recently had a few days of anxiety because I ran across one.

You've got my sympathy on that one!

I don't have as much of an issue with the CDD sites, probably because my relationship is categorically unacceptable to them (what with there not being a male "HOH"). And, honestly, I spent a lot of time in therapy working through the notion that I wasn't a lesbian because of the abuse, and I was able to transfer that to understanding that I wasn't kinky because of the abuse.

But I do have a set of websites that can set up a whole cycle of doubt and anxiety for me--in my case, it's the ones about "false memory syndrome." On my good days, I know they're a load of garbage, but on my bad days, they tap into my fears and speak to those voices in my head that agree with them (not so much multiple personality voices as the voices everyone has that repeat the things we've been told all our lives--boy, it would be great if I could raise kids who had *good* voices stuck in their heads....)

One thing that works for me is paying attention to how I feel--if something makes me feel really bad about myself, it's probably not good for me, and if something makes me feel more whole and balanced, it probably *is* good for me.

It also kind of helps that I've spent some time explaining ttwd to therapists, and while I don't think they're entirely comfortable with the idea, they also seem to have accepted that it can be a healthy lifestyle choice.

Oh, and also, just because something has some surface similarities to something else doesn't mean they're the same thing. I use sex as the main example of this: consent is what makes the difference in whether or not it's abuse. The most vanilla sex in the world is rape if it's done without consent. And the kinkiest sex imaginable is fine if it's done safely, sanely, and consensually. The same thing goes for discipline--if there is consent (or consensual non-consent), then it's not abuse. Which means that we might have to accept that people can engage in Christian domestic discipline surrendered wife stuff consensually, even if we don't agree with the logic of it or the reasoning behind why they're doing what they're doing.

I think that in CDD as in a lot of other disciplinary relationships, it's often the bottom who initiates the whole process. I tend to read it as someone who's decided to use religion to justify something they would have wanted even without the religion.

[Meg]

So much going on lately....so little time.

Pretty in Pink,

I went through a great deal of the same soul searching that you are doing now, and for some reason the "let them do what they do, and I will do what I do" logic did not satisfy me either.

Of course, I was raised in a lesbian, feminist household...so the conservative male-dominated religious language was an anathema growing up, and then to discover reading DD message board and websites, and to discover that some of this stuff resonated with me created a great deal of cognitive dissonance.

One thing though, abuse not only runs the gamut of race, culture, socioeconomic status, etc., etc., abuse also runs the gamut of couple power dynamics. I have known so-called "egalitarian" relationships that were horribly abusive, and traditional, heterosexual, conservative, religious, male-dominated relationships that were beautiful and loving. There is nothing inherently abusive about a loving, consensual, power exchange, and despite conventional wisdom, egalitarianism has just as much potential to be abusive, violent, and unhealthy as a negotiated power exchange relationship. In fact, it *might* have even more potential, because in a TTWD relationship, there is a negotiated method of dealing with conflict. It is not full-proof by any means, as I, umm, demonstrated this week , but I know that Obsidian and I do a lot better now then we did before DD/TTWD.

It is hard though, and at times, I struggle with this, too. Less so, now, but it is still there.

[PrttyinPnk]

You guys have really made me feel so much better. It helps to know I'm not the only one that struggles with these things...and to know that my instincts that it isn't nearly the same are more accurate than my anxious thoughts.

[JigsawAnalogy]

and to know that my instincts that it isn't nearly the same are more accurate than my anxious thoughts.

That's the hardest, and most important, thing to hold onto: those sane instincts we have, as opposed to the anxious thoughts that run around in our brains.

Well, I'm speaking for myself, but I think it's a fairly universal thing.

There was something my therapist said to me (in relation to whether or not I'm multiple, but I've found it helpful in so many other areas!): consider whether your life is better or worse when you behave as though something is true, or when you choose to do particular things. In my case, acting as though I'm multiple (or as though the stuff I went through as a kid was bad, or using ttwd, or accepting that I've got a physical disability, or any of those things where the doubts crop up) means that things go a LOT more smoothly, and I feel better about myself, and I'm better able to manage the things I need to do. My relationships are healthier, I have fewer headaches, and I wind up getting more done.

With discipline in particular, I find that I feel more whole when it's working, and I feel depressed--in that mild, ignoring needs kind of way--when it's not happening.

So regardless of what the haters say, follow what works for you! As they say, Illegitimi non carborundum. (I'll leave you to look that one up if you don't already know it. It's summer, so we should be working our brains for fun, rather than work.)

[PrttyinPnk]

*delighted* I LOVE research...

Illegitimi non carborundum = Don't let the bastards grind you down.

[Ralphswife]

I am sorry that those forums/sites are upsetting to you. I used to be a moderator on a different one than those you named but they turned out to not be my friends like I thought that they were. I had even spent hours and days on the phone with many of them, we were VERY close. But it turned out that they were very flawed individuals (who isn't, right) who were EXTREMELY judgmental and I had to leave the forum because I became VERY hurt by them judging my best friend on the group. They kicked her out and I left with her. Several other people have since left and have turned to BD/SM or just regular DD sites to have a place to express themselves with like minded people. I have changed my user name to not be recognizable at all and it has taken me 2 1/2 years to even be able to post on another forum (this being my 1st since then).

I am rambling, my point is this.... Those people are truly miserable, please don't let them bother you. You are fine just the way that you are. It doesn't matter that your husband is a man, he loves you and does this to fulfill your need. Try to be happy with yourself. And as far as the Bible goes, an abuser will use any excuse for being abusive. But being in a TTWD relationship is nowhere near the same thing. I will be thinking positive thoughts for you. HUGS

[Ralphswife]

I forgot to mention that as a moderator I found out that all of those "traditional" marriages weren't really so much. A lot of the so called HOH (men) had actually been spanked by their wives, they only posted that in the HOH sections where the other women couldn't see, but being a Mod I could. One or two had never spanked their wife but had been spanked by her, and my guess is honestly they were the only ones to admit it. They are not all what they claim to be while judging others. I have never told anyone that, I only do now to hopefully help you.

[PrttyinPnk]

I used to be a moderator on a different one than those you named but they turned out to not be my friends like I thought that they were.

We'll be your friends. The people here aren't judgemental at all. Regardless of how you found us, I'm glad you're here!

[Ralphswife]

Me too, and thanks.

[JigsawAnalogy]

Welcome to the board.

The people here aren't judgemental at all.

Ehhhh, W and I are plenty judgmental, we just don't let it affect how we run the board.