When Punishment is Necessary

This week’s deep dive is on punishment.

This writing is about punishments as they exist in any kind of power exchange relationships. This can mean Dominant/submissive, Master/slave, Caregiver/little, etc. It is written from my point of view- that of a submissive woman in a committed Dominant/submissive relationship. As with everything I write, some things may not apply to you as they may cause actual harm to you. I encourage you to practice self-care and self-awareness as you read.

For some in the kink community, punishment is used interchangeably with activities that are meant to stimulate arousal, funishments. If a bottom brats a little, even with someone casual, they could earn a funishment scene. While that my look like scolding and punishment to outside viewers, the scene does not change behavior or over all attitudes, nor is it meant to.

According to Oxford Languages, punishment is defined as the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense. Punishments inside of an established Dominant/submissive are meant to modify the behaviors or attitudes of the submissive in the relationship. They can also be used as a method of contrition when the submissive has negative feelings about a wrongdoing and feels the need to be “cleansed.”

There are many different ways to punish someone. I will go into detail about some of them later in this post, but there is something more important than what you are doing. It is important to understand how your submissive thinks and…