I realized that I have not yet fully articulated the rules we’ve developed around discipline. I’ve obviously started this long series of posts on the rules (many more to go by the way), but there hasn’t been a very clear discussion of what happens when a rule is broken. I alluded to this a bit in this post on Rule 2.3 and 2.4. Like most of the things on this blog, our concept of how discipline should work has evolved over time.
It used to be that discipline and punishment were a bit…disorganized and capricious. There were rules, I’d make a mistake and then end up in some punishment situation determined by him. But very early on we started to wrestle with just what an appropriate punishment was. While we’re both pretty committed to this system we’ve put in place, there also is an acknowledgment that some of what I’m being asked to do is very invasive and prone to mistakes.
One of the rules we haven’t discussed yet is one about my behavior at bars and restaurants. The essence of the rule is I am not allowed to interact with restaurant (or bar) staff. He makes the decisions on what we eat and also deals with the staff. This sounds like it would be easy to adhere to, but you’d be surprised how ingrained a lot of social behavior at restaurants is. The interaction with the hostesses is the worst. They always smile brilliantly and ask, “Hi how are you? How many in your party?” It is very difficult not to acknowledge that question. So, is accidentally talking to a staff member worthy of the same level of punishment as, say for instance, violating Rule 2, and not asking permission before sex or masturbation?
The answer is clearly no. Simply falling into very ingrained behavior when you’re not paying attention is quite a bit different than the intention behind affirmatively deciding to ignore a rule.
Thus, the concept of Infractions vs. Tier 2’s was born.
An infraction is a violation of the rules that is willful. There are a collection of rules where any violation of those results in an infraction, which are typically more severe punishments. An example of an infraction punishment I recently completed was some very painful caning on my right thigh.
A Tier 2 (again referenced in that Rule 2 discussion previously posted), is a violation of the rules that is accidental. We’ve built Tier 2 language into the rules explicitly, so any rule that doesn’t mention that, carries with it the weight of the infraction penalties. An example of a tier 2 punishment is having to record a 15 minute recitation (repeating) of the violated rule. Another example of a tier 2 punishment is having to wear the punishment panties for a day.
I actually have a short list of tier 2 options that I can select from. So, I have a little bit of variability in these. As to specifics, here is the list:
| Punishment | Base Duration |
| Punishment panties ( between 7 am and 7 pm) | 480 |
| Crate time | 10 |
| Recorded resuscitation of broken rule (repeating) | 15 |
| Listen to an up-to-date rules recording (repeating) | 120 |
| Leave a toilet set up in a public restroom. | Single Instance |
| I cannot remove the panties that I was wearing at the time until I pee myself with them still on. | Single Instance |
| Move your mattress to the floor and sleep there overnight. | Single Instance |
By far, the worst of these is the 4th one down, listening to an up-to-date rules recording repeating over 2 hours. I sort of cringe when I get to that one. Recently I’ve been cycling through these once ever couple weeks. So, I don’t have to do it all that often, but it really is terrible.
I’m not sure there is much more analysis to do about this topic, and my intent was this post to be largely informative. Still, I can’t leave the topic without a bit of discussion. One of the questions you might ask is, do I like having this kind of structure in my life? It is on the one hand, super sexy. But on the other, patently ridiculous. However, I’ve found that following these rules really matters to me.
There was a week where both he and I relaxed a bit about some of the rules. We were stressed and not paying attention to them. It might seem that a week without strict adherence to the rules would be freeing. Like a vacation! Not true. It actually created this underlying stress that I didn’t realize was there until I got back on track. Once I started paying attention to my behavior at this level again I relaxed immediately. There was this nagging part of my life that just wasn’t working quite right and the intense relief I felt at getting back into the normal routine was palpable.
It is also worth noting how mundane our conversations about the punishment structure are. It honestly doesn’t even feel weird at all. It just IS how we operate. And in some ways, it isn’t even radically sexy in the moment. Sure, the concept is VERY VERY sexy. But, when I’m figuring out what Tier 2 to complete next or whether or not I’ve violated the rules, it is just this fundamental “normal” part of my life.
Weird Sexy Hijinks 