I don't personally have a hard time understanding how a woman can be Taken In Hand without being spanked. I don't see that a male-led relationship has to include spanking at all. Bramble, for instance, has explained very clearly how her relationship works without spanking. And the boss has described her grandparents relationship as Taken In Hand, but without any spanking. If you are turned on by the idea of being spanked then I think spanking can enhance a relationship, but if you don't find the idea appealing, then I don't see that it is at all necessary. A woman who gets pleasure out of having a man in charge doesn't necessarily need the threat of punishment to make her feel submissive. If she doesn't care for spanking, then it might have the opposite effect on her, and just piss her off.

I originally found this site through an interest in spanking, but discovered that other things can be just as interesting, possibly even more so. Spanking is, I think, an optional extra, not an essential ingredient of a Taken In Hand relationship. Being spanked never brings me into subjection, it's the mental exercise of authority that does it for me.

I have often wondered whether spanking is necessary or not in a Taken In Hand relationship. And while I look at it from every angle possible, I come up with two answers. Now when I first let Gary find out that spanking had been a long time fantasy for me, it took him no time at all to dig a bit deeper and find that I wanted much more than that. And we developed into our deep love of each other, with a very serious taken in hand lifestyle. And while spanking had a very strong place in our lives, it took me by complete surprise to find out that it was the spanking itself that penetrated like nothing else can. I remember clearly the first time while we were having an intimate chat, that I asked Gary politely to 'please get out of my head!'. We were connected. Deeply, passionately and profoundly. I adore that man. Yet despite all the attention, the affection and the loving he lavishes on me, it is those spankings that bond me in the strictest of ways.

Yes I listen to him, and hear as well on occasion..lol..and I respond deeply to his touch. Yet the times he spanks me. Be it in 'sending a message' to simply submitting, that sting, that control and vulnerability make words unnecessary. The bond becomes unbreakable. The feeling behind the relationship is more tangible than words could ever be.

I know that if we ever stopped spanking, Gary would never lose his position as our leader and we would remain a 'taken in hand' couple. Yet there are times when Gary speaks to me, lectures me...and he swears I am looking right at him but what I am hearing is 'blablabla-blabla'. I hear the tone, watch the features and I swear I am listening. But it's when he adds the element of a spanking, that I seem to self adjust. It becomes an added sense. It's more intense. More exciting somehow, more real. And I don't thinks it's a 'just me' sensation. It is for both of us. Yes, you can have a taken in had relationship without spanking. But there is great merit in the sting. The importance is quite real.

....Blush

I think it depends upon what perspective you view the issue. I am of course assuming consent in either case:

1. From one perspective if a couple has agreed that there relationship will include a disciplinary element if a spanking ONLY pisses her off you just aren't finished yet. It's okay for her to be angry, hopefully at herself for allowing her behavior to become so out of control that this was necessary, but you don't stop when she's angry, you stop when she's sorry and has convinced you that she is not eager to repeat the behavior.

2. From another perspective if a couple has agreed that their relationship will include spanking it may or may not be as a disciplinary element. It may be for the sake of connection, erotic purpose, discipline, any or all of the above and more. Even a woman who gives "blanket consent" may resent being spanked for something outside the agreement. People have stated here before that they don't allow their husbands to spank them because they feel he is always in the right. They allow/encourage/enjoy (whatever) it because it's what they want in their relationship. If there is a time that you don't want it in your relationship some may find the need to continuously re-evaluate it.

I think my relationship fits more into the first vision. I know my boyfriend isn't perfect, but I allow him to spank me for discipline because I feel I need it. This does not mean I will always agree with the reason for a spanking, but I usually have. A spanking re-centers me, and he is usually pretty good at figuring out when I need to be re-centered.

That being said, if a woman who doesn't usually get angry during a spanking starts to get angry I think it is really important to stop and evaluate why the mood has changed. If she's simply angry she's been caught and she really didn't feel like a spanking, tough...As my boyfriend said to me once when I complained that I didn't want to be spanked: "it will really be punishment then."

If she's angry because she doesn't feel it's fair, that needs to be discussed. If she's angry because she no longer wants a disciplinary element in the relationship, that needs to be discussed. I do feel though that as long as a woman wants a disciplinary element to her relationship and if she has given consent she needs to accept the fact that her man is not perfect, that she won't always agree, but that if her man loves her he will never really hurt her. And honestly, if the reason for the spanking is agreed upon, even if the woman doesn't want the spanking, I guess I feel that the more fuss I put up the harder it should be.

Spanking is something my husband has always done because he knows I like it. It never made any difference to how I felt about him though. Some things have changed between us since we started having a Taken In Hand relationship. I never used to feel like being spanked except when I was feeling sexually aroused. Now, however, since I seem to feel mildly sexually aroused all the time he is around I find I am ready to be spanked any time, just as I am ready for sex any time. The actual spanking though has nothing to do with why I feel like this all the time, it's the difference in mental attitude that has changed the way I feel about him. Spanking never made any difference to anything.

Being spanked seems to have a transforming effect on some people. Apparently some women who are upset, angry etc can be made to feel better by being spanked. This does not work for me. If I am upset about something, no amount of spanking will make any difference at all. If my husband spanked me when I was upset it would just make me more upset, I'd just think he wasn't taking me seriously. Some people seem to have great difficulty understanding that spanking does not have the same effect on everybody. I don't know why, it's not rocket science. Bill Wagner and cj both seem to feel that a woman who is upset should be spanked until she is 'sorry', well being spanked just doesn't make me feel sorry, if I don't feel sorry before I am spanked, no amount of spanking is going to produce this feeling in me. Emotions in me come from mental causes not physical ones.