Pop Culture Thursday: I. Am. Traumatized.

So I was reading XOJane, because I like my procrastination sites to have feminist leanings, and I came across this article about Christian Domestic Discipline. Which, sadly, is not exactly bedroom bondage and discipline for Christian marriages. It's more like. . . um. . .men spanking and punishing their wives when they are "disrespectful" or "break the rules".

Now, I know there are some couples who take their bedroom dominant/submissive thing into all aspects of their lives. I know that there are women (and men, natch) who enjoy getting spanked and whatnot. I know there are couples who believe that the man is the Head of Household and the woman must submit to him. And as long as each person is a consenting adult, it's none of my business.

And yet. I think there's a difference between the husband making the final decisions and the husband spanking his wife when she does something he doesn't like. The women fear breaking the husband's "rules", fear the spankings - which are often done with implements to the point of bleeding, blisters and soreness - and then say how much it's helped their marriage. They claim it's based on Biblical teachings, but I seem to have missed the part of the Bible that tells men to treat their wives like recalcitrant children.

I'm not linking to any of the sites, because they are disturbing and I don't want to promote them. If you want to do your own research. . .make sure you have a free hour and some booze handy. It's 11am and the last time I wanted a drink this early in the day was when we went to the shore for my senior prom weekend.

Although I'm not sure that even a Bombay Sapphire and tonic could help me recover from reading horrors like this:

Maintenance discipline is a practice of giving your wife regular spankings to maintain her proper behavior and attitude.

So today's question is....why in the world am I craving a spanking? I dreamt about it last night and I can't get the thought of a spanking out of my mind today. To answer the obvious question: no, I have not done anything to earn one except for two really, really minor rule violations this morning.

I am 32. My husband Paul is 45. He spanks me when I do something I shouldn’t. He uses a strap, a paddle, a hairbrush and we are working up to the belt. He makes me remove my clothes and either lay across the bed, or he puts me over his lap. I am spanked until I am crying . I know I deserve the spankings he gives me. I get spanked by my husband when I do something which we deemed unacceptable. I am spanked OTK (Over The Knee), with a paddle or however he determines. I deserve the spankings, they need to be severe in order to break me of naughtiness or bad habits. I’m glad that at least some of my punishments are administered across my husband’s lap. That’s precisely where a I deserve to be put when my bottom requires disciplinary attention. It is quite painful and humiliating but sure is better than getting into arguments along with hours of silence.

There's another story, too long to repost here, where the husband punishes the wife for not having towels in the bathroom when he takes a shower. She runs to find one and he gets even more angry because she brings him one of the kids' Disney towels. He is too manly for Disney towels. Her commenters thought the story was cute. . .I guess because it mentioned Disney? 

When I told a horrified Hot Guy the story, he said he's going to start using our Disney towels from now on. Especially Ironflower's old princess and fairy ones. 

Apparently there's a lot of Christian Domestic Discipline erotic fiction out there, even though the major practitioners claim it's not a sexual thing, it's a have a Godly marriage thing. I would be way more comfortable if it was a sexual thing - and the women weren't complaining about how much pain they were in after. 

I get that it's between consenting adults. I just feel like when you bring the whole, "God says it should be this way" into it, the women aren't really empowered to consent or not. If you think you'll be a "bad" Christian who won't go to heaven if you don't agree to domestic discipline, are you really free to make a decision that's best for you? 

Besides which, these women believe they need to be punished when they make perfectly normal and reasonable "mistakes". As if they get spanked enough times, they'll never forget to go to the post office or raise their voices again. Too bad that spanking's been proven not to work on children. Or dogs. Or anyone, really - otherwise these women wouldn't keep making mistakes, would they?

I mean, it's not like everyone makes mistakes. . .oh wait.

I also feel like - as I read their claims of their happy marriages - that maybe they believe happiness means no arguments. But beatings - and I don't care if it's exclusively on the behind, when your intent is to make your wife cry, it's a beating - are okay. How do you hate yourself so much that you believe you deserve to get beaten instead of argue?

I know some domestic abuse survivors who could explain.

I feel bad for these Christian Domestic Discipline women. . .and I want to introduce them to all the Biblical scholars who would disagree with their interpretation of the Bible. I want to keep searching their blogs, hoping that some of them will realize this is crap, but I also want to forget that I ever read about any of it. I want to leave the above link on all of their sites. . .but I also want to forget their sites exist.