i need help disassociating punishment spankings from sex.

[muchinspired]

owl might give me a round of spankings just for asking this question and not coming to her first-- i've been wanting to bring it up several times... but i just don't know how. i mean, to her. i feel like it's such an obvious thing. 'don't associate punishments with sex.' it's difficult because i can't help but get excited, and because we're long distance, the only thing i can do is listen to her when she tells me to dare not touch myself.

... which, of course, makes me feel even more... tempted. /groans

when i get spankings, i'm to do them myself and i usually take pictures. they're painful, of course, and still humiliating-- but how humiliating depends on whether or not i'm on the phone with owl or recording myself and sending her the video. but something about the humiliation and pain really gets to me. even if i'm crying and i can't sit down.

my question is... will more swats do the trick? or will i have to wait until this summer to be... 'broken', i guess you could say, by owl? it just worries me and scares me that i might not be taking punishments as seriously as i could. i am, i think i am, but subconsciously i'm not and i love the feeling of my ass burning after.

and then at the same time, other punishments don't work as well. if i have to spank myself, i'm not going to do it again because i would much rather prefer a ... more tender spanking... than an aggressive one. writing an essay is annoying and a little hard, but long, hard spankings are worse. i just don't know what to do. our sex life is supposed to be kept entirely separate from our regular, every day life. i'm a switch, mostly a sub, but it's still difficult dealing with these feelings. and it's easier to write them than to talk to my Top over the phone with. sometimes i'll be denied orgasms if i've been bad that week. which also confuses me, because those two separate parts of ourselves are supposed to be kept far apart. i don't want them to, but...

does anyone have any other punishment ideas that i can run by my Top and talk with her about? i can't keep rambling on like this.

[JigsawAnalogy]

I don't know that punishment spankings and sex necessarily have to be entirely separate. I think that if I were self-spanking, I would have a really hard time separating the two. Of course, some of that is probably because I have a strong association between self-spanking and sexual gratification.

I find that when W is giving me a punishment spanking, my body might react, but my mind is (generally) in a pretty different space. And so the problem is taken care of because the experience of the spanking is a lot less erotic.

How I've dealt with the physical response in myself is to accept that it happens, and sort of be okay with that. The main time W and I were pretty clear about separating spankings and sex was when I was in a much more unsettled state in regard to being multiple, which meant that the main ones getting spankings were younger parts, and so it was really inappropriate (and pretty triggering) to combine spankings and sex. When it's adult parts, that's been less of an issue.

So I guess my suggestion would be to accept that you'll have a lot of different levels of feeling about a spanking, and some of them might be sexual, and that might not be a bad thing. I know that even if I respond sexually to a punishment spanking, it doesn't make me likely to try to get another punishment spanking, because fun spankings are a lot more pleasurable.

[muchinspired]

we're on the same boat, but i think it just bothers me more than it should. i know that means a lot to my Top that we keep them separate because she wants our discipline to be a strictly loving, non-sexual sort of thing. i want to please her.

[Eayore]

I can only speak for myself - but I think I can identify with what you're describing, and my experience of self-punishment seems to coincide with what JA is saying.

Since the idea of receiving punishment from a loved one is inherently sexual for me, possibly the only way that the 2 can be dissociated is when I am getting a good spanking from P. At that moment, the pain takes all my attention and I can't have erotic thoughts... but I would have to say, these thoughts can come back again only minutes after the spanking is over!

Time-based punishments can sometimes work at long distance for me, without being 100% sexual - for example, no coffee or chocolate or alcohol or whatever, for a period of days (and not touching myself is another good one of these). That is not to say they are 0% sexual; it is hard to avoid getting an erotic charge occasionally when I realise why this is happening. However, most of the time they are just straight punishment, and pretty boring and therefore challenge me to think about the behaviour which led to them.

[LadyShriver1]

I have exactly the same experiences...for me, the concept is erotic and part of what makes it work for us. I've also played heavily with BDSM in a solely sexual way, and so the two will never be totally separate for me. But as JA and Eayore mentioned, while I'm receiving the spanking my body might be responding, but I'm not thinking "oh, yeah, baby, do it harder.." or anything. My mind is in the right place for the spanking, and therefore, it IS effective for me. We do not have sex after a spanking unless its a maintenance spanking, which helps some. However, if I were punishing myself, I think it would be harder.

I also agree with what JA said about accepting it... that was a huge piece for me because for many years, I wondered what was wrong with me that I was being turned on. I realized eventually that I wasn't judging others for their turn ons, so why was I judging myself? I think the bigger question than how can you stop being turn-ed on by it is if it matters that you are turned on by it. If that is stopping the discipline from being effective, than it does. If it isn't, than it doesn't.

I also got in the habit of asking for a "scene" or a good girl spanking when I find myself egging on a spanking for erotic reasons, so that I'm not responsible for intentionally blurring that line, and the discipline is really used for the reasons we want it to be.

[altbob]

Good luck to you. Do you think it might help to pause during the spanking if you feel yourself heating up too much? Give the sexual part a chance to cool, and your mind to focus on why it's happening. Then resume the spanking. I'm not sure how well that would work with your psychology, but it may allow you to recenter yourself and stay in the headspace you need to be.
Alternately, is there a type of pain you really don't like (I don't mean anything damaging, just something you find unpleasant with no sexual ovretones). When you feel yourself getting turned on, you could just inflict that on yourself as kind of a blast of cold water.
Once again, good luck.

[muchinspired]

thank you all very, very much for your thoughts. c: you've all helped a lot and i've talked to my Top about things.

[Louise]

I've never been able to dissacociate punishment from sex, and although in the beginning I imagined I might be going to experience the non erotic punishment spanking of which I had heard so much, I soon realised that the more serious the punishment the more of a thrill it was for me. I have just accepted this, because it is never going to change. I now regard it as something to be welcomed, and so does my husband. Giving me a good thrashing is quite likely to put him in the mood anyway.

Louise

[Eayore]

[mickey]

I'm glad that there's so much wisdom and experience on this board regarding this issue.

I remember a time when I used to feel deeply ashamed of the fact that I was turned on by the anticipation or remembrance of a punishment. At this point, I realize that me being turned on before or after really doesn't affect the punishment, because once I'm receiving the pain, it's really pure punishment.

I find dread itself to induce arousal in me -- that is, dread that another person is knowingly inflicting on me regarding a punishment. I also find that I get turned on by more "pedestrian" punishments -- For me, the fact that someone else is knowingly inflicting pain, discomfort, or even boredom, is a turn on! And this is even more true if that person isn't a sexual partner and has no potential of being one.

One thing -- And I don't know how to feel about this -- But the "vanilla" folks who have disciplined me have not been told about the erotic element of anticipation or remembrance. I kinda feel like it's nothing to do with the punishment itself, and like it would induce shame in me to tell them; it might evoke confusion in them --

and the real point of the punishments is not erotic; it's behavior modification.

They both do know, in a more general way, that a part of me would maybe like to have a relationship with some discipline elements that also has sex. But they're both clear that I'm not seeking that from them.

And they both have been very effective at giving me punishments that make me work very hard to not earn them again!!

But yeah, for me, the more effective the punishment, the more of a turn on it also is. the more aversive, the more unwanted, the more i fight -- the more it's a turn on later.

I think I'm rambling! But it's great to have a place to discuss this stuff without shame.

[Lady Governess]

Looks like we're all just slaves to that old dopamine!

If you do a google search for something like "pain and pleasure chemical responses" or similar you will find articles in places ranging from Wikipedia to the British Medical Journal about how dopamine is activated in our brains in pain situations like accidents, emotional stress, and obviously, spanking AND in pleasure situations ranging from substance abuse to sex to winning a tennis match.

Which is comforting for those of us who find some degree of arousal impossible to prevent in disciplinary situations.......but a bit worrying for those of us who are good at tennis!!!

[blackbird]

Mickey - I'm just curious - but what do the "vanilla" people disciplining you feel? I can't imagine someone inflicting a mouth-soaping on you without having some enjoyment in the sadism of the act. The only person who did that for me had a great deal of trouble understanding what was happening. Do they treat it as pseudo-parental control of you? Do they see it as a horrible thing that they will do for you because it helps you?

Blackbird

[mickey]

Blackbird,

What a good question!

I'm going to think out loud about this a bit, because I haven't discussed it much.

So my current disciplinarian gives some hints that he *does*, on some level, enjoy inflicting pain on me at times. He says that the reason that he acts like he enjoys it is because of the relief that he knows we'll both feel afterwards. But he'll say stuff like, "If you do this one more time, I think I'll almost look *forward* to spanking you," or he'll say, "I'm curious to find out how much more the paddle will hurt if I use it this way...."

So he does indeed seem to take some fun and perhaps sadistic interest in the effects of his "discipline." I remember thinking that, despite his alleged reluctance to spank me, once he got started looking for implements, he sure *did* seem to take a certain relish in it!

My other friend who disciplined me has had her life path take her in other directions for now -- but she too seemed to somewhat enjoy inflicting punishments at times. I remember seeing the smile on her face when she'd order me to the corner. I asked her about it, and she said that she felt kinda proud to have something she could do with me that would "work" to get me back into clarity.

So they both say that they don't enjoy the experience itself.

And that bears out some. My current disciplinarian started out being very reluctant to spank me, and I actually had to sorta sell him on the positive after effects of the thing. And he head to learn through experience that talking endlessly to me instead of just punishing actually made things worse in my world.

So does he take some sadistic pleasure in acts like mouth soaping and spanking? I think so. There are hints of that there.

At the same time, he talks about doing whatever he can to mitigate the intensity of pain or humiliation while still making the punishment effective.

I wonder if that sheds any more light on your question?

Would be curious to hear your thoughts on this. It's not something that I've had much chance to articulate or think over with others.

[splorange]

My boyfriend, who is back spanking me after a few months' separation, and who I believe is innately dominant but has never expressed it before me (so effectively vanilla all these years) just said that what he likes is his control over me, and my helplessness. I don't know how much of a factor that is for others. Is it his long-term vanilla side? Or is it his inner dom. Not sure!

[artlover]

When we are doing this, I think the feeling of control is part of what I like. But the submissiveness on the part of my wife in accepting the spanking is the most powerful part of having that control. Even in fantasy, I never think about over powering her. The thought of dragging her into position kicking and screaming is MUCH less erotic than her getting into position for me.