Cut­ting off Con­tact as Pun­ish­ment Method

This is my con­tri­bu­tion to the ensu­ing dis­cus­sion between dom­i­nants in response to the fol­low­ing ques­tion posed by Gen­tle­Spirit in the “Ask a Dom­i­nant Ques­tions” on FetLife.

Q: I have read a lot about Dom­i­nants who choose to cut off con­tact with their sub­mis­sive for a pro­longed (days, week or more) period of time as a pun­ish­ment. Per­son­ally I believe this to be emo­tion­ally abu­sive and cruel and unusual pun­ish­ment. Are there any cir­cum­stances that you feel war­rants this type of reac­tion, and if so, what would those cir­cum­stances be?

Oné of the fun­da­men­tal things in this, the thing that we do, is the pro­found and soul-​clenching inti­macy and close­ness and trust that we build together. Isn’t that what it is all about for us dom­i­nants? To reach into our sub­mis­sives’ hearts and souls, to shape their sen­sa­tions, their expe­ri­ence, their very feelings?

Many moons ago, I was taught, above all else, to leave my sub­mis­sive bet­ter than I found her. That means being a rock for her to hold on to when she’s thrown around in the storm, be it in her life or in her emo­tions. That means being the one con­stant thing she can always, always, count on. That means being the stew­ard of every­thing that she has sur­ren­dered to you.

Many say, “to each his own,” and, “every­thing in this lifestyle is a mat­ter of preference.”

Yes, to each his own, and yes, every­thing is a mat­ter of pref­er­ence. But not all pref­er­ences should be catered to.

I am a lazy bas­tard and I do have a pref­er­ence for skirt­ing unpleas­ant tasks. And real, effec­tive, con­struc­tive pun­ish­ment, as opposed to the play pun­ish­ments we all indulge in from time to time, is sin­cerely hard and some­times unpleas­ant work.

Yes, it’s hard. Being a dom­i­nant is hard. Make no mis­take about that; if it isn’t hard, you’re doing it wrong.

I’m sure that most of us can under­stand the occa­sional temp­ta­tion to some­times take the easy way out and impose a pun­ish­ment that requires noth­ing from us. I know of dom­i­nants that view it as a vaca­tion, even!

But a fun­da­men­tal respon­si­bil­ity for us, the dom­i­nants in our rela­tion­ships, is to exer­cise judg­ment and to do The Right Thing even if it might go against our own pref­er­ences. It is our priv­i­lege to use our sub­mis­sives but we are also called on to sac­ri­fice when nec­es­sary. And the hard­est part is that there is no arbiter telling us when to do so; we need to fig­ure that one out for ourselves.

Is cut­ting off con­tact really The Right Thing to do? Ever?

Cut­ting off con­tact for pro­longed peri­ods of time is detri­men­tal to the sub­mis­sive at a point in time when she needs lead­er­ship the most. Our sub­mis­sives deserve to know, and much more impor­tantly, need to know that we are not only their dom­i­nants on sunny days but espe­cially dur­ing those rainy days when it may not be that much fun being the dom­i­nant in the rela­tion­ship. How else can they ever feel safe with us? To feel safe enough to sur­ren­der everything?

Pun­ish­ment with­out the pur­pose of pro­mot­ing desired behav­ior is sim­ply revenge. I wouldn’t treat my dog like that, much less a beau­ti­ful, vibrant, com­plex, mag­nif­i­cent woman.

The rela­tion­ships we fos­ter are stronger, closer, more inti­mate than the ones we see in the vanilla world. They don’t get there with­out both part­ners being present in it and for each other. As dom­i­nants, it behooves us to know our sub­mis­sives bet­ter than they know them­selves; how can we truly know them if we remove our­selves from entire aspects of them?