Taken In Hand is about male leadership not spanking

Many think that a Taken In Hand relationship is one in which a husband spanks a naughty wife, but actually, Taken In Hand has nothing to do with spanking. Let me give a few reasons why I think this from my own personal experiences.

Mike and I love spanking. We primarily spank for fun, for no reason at all. Sometimes we spank more seriously, for no reason at all, and sometimes we spank for a reason and sometimes my husband takes me in hand but does not spank me at all.

Although for Mike and me spanking is an important part of our Taken In Hand relationship we tried spanking before Mike started to be the head of the household and take me in hand. At that time we did not even consider that discipline was more than just role play. It did not in my wildest dreams – well, OK, maybe only in my wildest dreams – occur to me that a husband would take his wife in hand. The very idea of a male head of a modern home was not even considered. I was born in the early 1970's in Canada and believe me this was not even entertained as an option. So we tried spanking. It was ridiculous; we got nothing out of it except a few laughs and a sore butt. It had its fun side but it had no profound effect on me or Mike at all.

Knowing something was missing I started looking for more information about spanking and came across information on male-led relationships. It set off fireworks for me. Here were people doing what I had always really wanted, but never considered a possibility. I had always wanted a strong, no-nonsense man with convictions in my relationship. Once Mike took the lead in our relationship and started taking me hand, spanking took on a whole new dimension for us.

Spanking is an important part of our Taken In Hand relationship, and Mike does spank me when he is displeased with me. But that is not what makes us Taken In Hand. What makes us Taken In Hand is the whole dynamic of Mike leading our relationship. It has a lot to do with Mike's attitude about his place in our marriage, and how I react to that. It has a lot to do with how Mike now just knows he is responsible to lead us, take care of us. It is his easy, comfortable demeanour and how he never questions who is the leader. He knows I will submit to his will, so there he need not worry about that. Even though we do use spanking, his leadership has nothing to do with spanking.

Now we love to use spanking for fun, he spanks me often. Since we changed the dynamic of our relationship this has taken on more meaning, even if we are just fooling around. For us Taken In Hand is about Mike's leadership, and my submission to that leadership. Spanking is a fringe benefit, one that Mike can choose to use however he wants!

Tevemer

Take the Taken In Hand tour

Have you seen the following articles?
I don't want to be a servant or slave
How can you submit when you feel frustrated?
Never do without sex again
Taken In Hand means different things to different people
Communication
Taken In Hand by an ardent feminist
Knights earn the name
What does the man get out of it? Many things!
Give new love a chance
Is this really consensual?

2005 May 25 - 16:56 | add new comment | latest article | previous article | next article |

That describes perfectly the

That describes perfectly the way my husband and I use spanking. Certainly, if we decided for whatever reason to discontinue spanking it would not change the fact that he is head of the household and that my will is to be submissive to him. Even if such an arrangement did not "set off fireworks" for me (though it does!), the change that the arrangement has made in his demeanor and leadership ability is reason enough to continue. Charlotte

by Charlotte on 2005 May 25 - 20:04 | reply to this comment

A Little Spanking Goes a Long Way

Actually, when compared to relationships based on spanking, there is probably very little actual spanking that occurs in taken in hand relationships. What makes the taken in hand relationships different is that the participants do not go out of their way to avoid spanking with it is needed to improve the marriage.

by Noone on 2005 May 26 - 13:17 | reply to this comment

Very little spanking?

That wouldn't do for me, I like lots and lots of spanking, but as far as I am concerned it has nothing to do with being Taken In Hand.

by Louise C on 2005 May 26 - 16:13 | reply to this comment

Not based on spanking

Noone,

I still can not agree with you on the whole spanking thing. My relationship is not based on spanking. How much you do or do not spank has nothing whatever to do with whether you are taken in hand or not. Some couples who spank all the time are Taken In Hand and some are not. Some couples who only spank when the moon is full are Taken In Hand, some are not. Some couples who never spank are Taken In Hand and some are not. Being Taken In Hand for me is about the leadership and control my husband has in our marriage. If he spanked me every 10 minutes we would still be Taken In Hand. He would still be in charge. If he never spanked me we would still be Taken In Hand. Surely the leadership in a relationship must go beyond the spanking of the wife; I know my husband's does.

Take care,
Tevemer

by Tevemer on 2005 May 26 - 21:09 | reply to this comment

Tevemer - Taken In Hand and spanking

Dear Tevemer,

You said that being Taken In Hand has nothing to do with spanking. Forgive me; I must disagree.

You also say that spanking is a fringe benefit from being Taken in Hand. May I suggest you are confusing two issues here. Being spanked for fun as love-play is one thing. Being spanked when being Taken in Hand is another. They are quite separate. One willingly accepts spanking for fun. One does not willingly accept a spanking for punishment. It is given whether you like it or not.

Being Taken in Hand implies control, and in my view control involves rewards and punishments. The purpose of being Taken in Hand, as far as I'm concerned, is to change attitudes and behaviour. When behaviour is as it is desired by the controller then rewards are handed out. Equally so, when behaviour is unacceptable by the leader then punishment is appropriate. It reinforces the lesson that needs to be learned.

When I was in school I behaved badly. I was a brat. I was frequently scolded, and lectured. I remained indifferent and recalcitrant. My parents were consulted and appealed to. But their scolding had no effect; nothing worked; I remained a brat. At last the headmistress lost her patience with me and my parents, and she made it quite clear that I needed to be taken in hand. She outlined her proposed course of action and reluctantly my parents agreed. It was simple. I was told very clearly what I must not do, and it was made clear that if I did those unacceptable things I would be punished. And I was. The punishment was short and sharp. For each misdemeanour I was caned.

I am now married, thankfully to a forceful man and a skilled and authoritative leader. There have been a few occasions when I stepped out of line (and when I did I knew it deep down). And when I do transgress then I get spanked. But this spanking is a punishment. It hurts. Fortunately, such spankings are seldom necessary. But we also have a wonderful sex life, and he often spanks me for fun. But this is merely sex-play and a kind of foreplay leading to passionate sex. But it is quite clear in my mind that there is a very great difference between being spanked for punishment and being spanked for fun. And it is not simply the severity of the spanking. Our fun spankings are often quite painful. The difference is the mood, the atmosphere, the attitude.

by advoca on 2005 Jun 21 - 01:31 | reply to this comment

Spanking

Spanking can mean many different things to many different people. Until I discovered the Interent, I literally had no idea that there were adult couples who used spanking for anything other than erotic arousal. It came as a great surprise to me that there were couples where the man spanked the woman for genuine 'punishment'.

Evidently for some people the 'punishment' thing works. Apparently it does for you. It is not, however, essential that you have punishment as part of a Taken In Hand relationship. There are couples on here who don't use spanking or any kind of punishment as part of their relationship. Being Taken In Hand is about being in a male-led relationship because you find that pleasurable, it does not have to involve punishment. A relationship between a man and a woman does not have to be a straightforward one of reward and punishment, wer're talking about a long-term relationship here, not obedience training for a dog.

As for myself, spanking for me is always erotic, and much more so when it is 'real' punishment, which I find much more exciting than 'erotic' spanking. The prospect of being spanked has no effect on my behaviour in itself, I try not to do things that I know are seriously going to annoy my husband because I want our life together to be more harmonious than it has been in the past, not because I'm afraid of being spanked. Spanking as aversion therapy works for some people, but it does nothing for me at all.

It's nice if 'reward and punishment' works for you, but for some people it doesn't, and for me not at all, I do not find it at all satisfying to think of my husband as a substitute for a strict headmistress,! You may have a clearly defined difference between 'play' and 'punishment', but I have no such boundary in my mind, the two merge together completely to make a satisfying whole.

by Louise C on 2005 Jun 21 - 05:10 | reply to this comment

Not confused

Advoca,

I appreciate your comments. What you write might be right for you but it is not true for everyone. I am not confusing things at all. My husband uses what some people here would call punishment spankings, this is true. If Mike is displeased with me he will spank me. I would like to say that I willingly accept those spankings. I might protest, but in the end I willingly accept them. The point of my post was to say that spanking is not what makes my relationship Taken In Hand. It is the authority of my husband, and how he exercises that authority. He need not spank me to do that, he can but he can take me in hand quite effectively without spanking me.

It might be a bit confusing because my post was actually a reply to another post where someone said that if you spank frequently you are not in a Taken In Hand relationship. I was saying that in my relationship we spank quite frequently, but we are still taken in hand. Louise is quite right when she says that some people do not spank at all and they are still taken in hand. You can check out Bramble's article on a relationship which is taken in hand but does not include spanking at http://www.takeninhand.com/node/610.

My husband can take me in hand without spanking. We were packing up to go somewhere the other day and I was getting a little stressed. I snapped at him when he put my hat under a bunch of stuff, squishing it. He could have spanked me I suppose. Instead he came over gave me a very tight hug and whispered in my ear, "Calm down now." Three simple words said with meaning. It worked. I snapped out the mood I was in and we went on with our day. I would say that our relationship has many more of these moments than spanking as discipline kind of moments.

We do not really use the rewards and punishment system, although some people do and it seems to work very well for them. We too have many different kinds of spankings and you are quite right that there is a big emotional difference between the different ones. I still would contend however if your husband spanked you every night that you would likely still consider yourself taken in hand. How MUCH you husband spanks you does not really change the fact that you are taken in hand, or not. What would happen if your husband could not spank you anymore at all, say for medical reasons, would you still follow his lead? Would you still be taken in hand?

Take care,
Tev

by Tevemer on 2005 Jun 21 - 13:58 | reply to this comment

Bravo

~~~What would happen if your husband could not spank you anymore at all, say for medical reasons, would you still follow his lead? Would you still be taken in hand?~~~

Trevemer thanks so much for saying this. We belong to a DD forum where is seems spanking is an every day, find a reason for thing. That's great if it works for you. This question you asked actually came up and my husband and I were floored by the answers. You have no idea how many people said they could NOT live with their husbands if they could or would not spank! To me, this is not Taken In Hand, that is more a fetish need.

I love my husband with all my heart. He spanks sometime but most times not. He is still the leader. I am not opposed to spanking but I fully agree that you can have a very wonderful male led marriage/relationship without the spanking. It's the love, respect and communication that make it work in my opinion.

by Woman_In_Love on 2006 Jan 3 - 05:04 | reply to this comment

My husband prefers to lead without spanking me

My husband has such ways of leading that spanking is unnecessary (though he did spank me on one occasion).

I've realized after reading this and some of the other articles, that my husband is really good at causing me to follow his lead. I don't quite know how he does it, but I know that he means what he says, when he says he is going to do something.

He is also very caring and respectful to me to, and I willingly am that way back. We communicate, though I know and understand that he has the final say so.

I'd say that yes it is possible for a taken in hand relationship to work without spankings. As I understand it, many Taken In Hand relationships do not involve any spanking. I definitely agree that it is the overall love, respect, and communication that make a good marraige.

by darewife on 2010 Feb 13 - 02:10 | reply to this comment

Excuse me, but...

I can't help but think this is a rose by any other name. Tev says, "Instead he came over gave me a very tight hug and whispered in my ear, 'Calm down now.' Three simple words said with meaning."

And what was that meaning? I postulate that the meaning was in what he *didn't* say, not in what he *did* say. "Calm down now....OR ELSE." And we know what that unspoken "or else" really means, don't we? Did he say, "calm down," in a gentle, patting-your-hands kind of way, or did he say, "Calm down...NOW," in that commanding kind of way? The first way is not Taken In Hand -- it is just a polite suggestion that anyone might make. The second way is, IMO, definitely Taken In Hand and shows authority -- the kind of authority we give our husbands that is backed by a very real threat of consequences if one does *not* "calm down."

by Adjel on 2010 Jul 6 - 15:36 | reply to this comment

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