Is punishment in a Femdom relationship meant to be fun?
Consent and preference
A 24/7 Femdom relationship should be based on a mutual understanding of and respect for the boundaries – which distinguishes it from abuse. The slave consents to submitting to his Mistress. Such consent, at least in a sane and healthy relationship, has limits. I will talk about limits and taboos in another posting. What’s important to understand in the context of this series is that there is a fundamental difference between consent and preference. While consent sets the hard boundaries (although in many cases they might actually be not well-defined and evolving), preference is about the wishes of the slave.
I generally consent to eating ice cream of any flavor, but I prefer chocolate over vanilla (obviously). Likewise, your slave might prefer a flogger over a cane, or hard bondage over a cold shower. Nevertheless, whenever you decide that it is time for punishment, such preferences do not matter much. What matters is whether the punishment is effective.
Pleasure or displeasure
As mentioned earlier, punishments can serve different purposes, and there is a wide range of physical and non-physical torments.
Punishments can be pleasurable – what is sometimes called “funishment”. After all, your slave will likely be somewhere between slightly and heavily masochistic. Other punishments, however, can be an actual nuisance, a displeasure.
Shall you engage in displeasing punishment? Well, your guidance is the range of consent. As a Mistress, it is your prerogative to chose from the entire menu, depending on what you seem fit, as long as their is no violation of consent.
This is why communication is important – you need to know the limits of your slave. You need to be able to trust that your slave can and will articulate them (beware of slaves who claim not to have any limits!), and the slave must be able to trust you that you respect them.
In the previous post of this series, I mentioned how one purpose is to improve your slave’s behavior and how costly change is to people. That’s why I believe that while one aspect of punishment can be to just be fun (that is, a reward in itself), a Femdom relationship that aims at meeting the needs of the Mistress will require punishments that are costly to the slave, something they will endeavor to avoid, not seek.
When is punishment effective?
For punishment to be effective as a means not to please the slave, but actually improve their behavior, you have to keep some aspects in mind.
The punishment has to fit the crime. Think about the proportionality of your reaction to the offending deeds. A minor disobedience shouldn’t be punished at the same severity than a major one.
The punishment has to fall within the slave’s limits and relate to his personality. In other words, it has to be personal. It has to find your slave’s pain point. The advantage of living a 24/7 Femdom relationship in which you explore these dynamics on a regular basis is that you will quickly know them very well.
Once again, communication is important: A punishment will only be effective if the slave truly understands what his misbehavior was. It has to be a moment of teaching and learning. While this is a duty on the Mistress, it is equally important the slave really wants to adjust behavior, that is, that he is a true submissive.
With these two posts as a prelude to my collection of punishments, we can now move on to a couple of non-physical-impact ways of improving your slave’s behavior. And the collection starts with the mind, the psychological chastisements.
Continue reading:
- Series: Punishments – III. Psychological punishments