Christian Domestic Discipline: Old-Skool Romance Come to Life?

Bitchin' Blog Posts

by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | December 11, 2008 | Thursday at 11:25 am | 72 Comments

I’ve had these links open on my Firefox browser for a couple of days now, since Caitlyn sent them to me.

Honestly, I’m not sure what to think here. It’s like the scary answer to the question, what if you crossed BDSM with a thread of Fundamental Christian ideology and rhetoric, wherein spanking became God’s will?

According to the tenets of Christian Domestic Discipline, the husband is the head of the wife as “Christ is the head of the church,” and because of that, discipline in the form of spanking and related forms of corporal punishment are a necessary inclusion in a marriage. The site cautions that husbands should warm up with lighter, less intense spanking, though the explanation doesn’t seem to preclude any pain or injury to the woman:

After a sufficient warm up you will be able to spank her with great intensity and a longer period of time, hence enforcing a proper punishment and the tears that are sure to flow….

If you spank with fast, hard swats you will cause her to cry, that is true, but you have failed to take into account what is truly needed. She needs and desires to submit to you and your decisions as her HOH, and by taking time to slow down the spanking and thoroughly punishing her she will find solace and be happier.

So it’s not just spanking and physical contact, but enforcing a relationship of domination and submission within Christian precepts.

There are several individual accounts of couples who find this structure in their relationship to be a good thing, who enjoy exploring submission and domination within the rhetoric that doing so is God’s will.

As Caitlyn, who brought the links to my attention, pointed out to me, the position on whether this is punishment and domination or a form of erotic play is unclear. In some of the sections of the website, the woman is not at all meant to enjoy it, and should be crying at the end. The male section underscores the need for an “authoritative” man who dominates and leads through that domination. The store affiliated with the movement sells crotchless pants and historically-influenced undergarments with secret kinky spots.

The people writing in the guestbooks and on blogs for this movement all seem to be indicating that their participation is voluntary, making the arrangement, superficially speaking anyway, consensual. And hey, if this is what turns you on, more power to you.

What truly disturbs me is the insight provided by the fiction affiliated with the Christian Domestic Discipline store, specifically, the Christian Domestic Discipline Spanking Romance Short Story Collection by Leah Kelley.

Kelley writes in her Author bio that she was inspired by Woodiwiss, Lindsey, and Scott, and enjoys creating “stories with strong heroes teaching and leading their feminine heroines as set up in the Bible. Men were never meant to be the wimps the world and the church have taught them to be. They were meant to lead their families, not be a joke to them…. That’s why I believe he has the right to spank his wife if need be.”

So based on a platform of inspiration that includes old-skool romance, spanking included, also potentially rape of the heroine, Kelley has written several short stories inspired by or operating within the CDD world. I’ll let the review speak for itself:

This book is not your average “spanking” romance; it is not a normal romantic, erotic, or Christian product, though it attempts to be all three. What this book is about is no more or less than men dominating women and beating them into submission, both spiritually and often physically….

The author claims the spanking of the wife is not domestic abuse, but it’s actually one of the worst kinds I’ve seen because it’s methodical and, worst of all, cloaked in a false cape of Christianity. In fact, if a man lost his temper and hit his wife (not punched her, but hit her) because he honestly forgot himself in the heat of anger, I’d find this LESS abusive than a man who methodically hits his wife because she displeased him. This author claims that the heroes in this book have “that edge, but it’s tempered with the knowledge that they love the heroines and just want what’s best for them”.

Clearly, this isn’t romance as I and many other readers have come to define it. The idea that the hero/husband must dominate the wife/heroine into accepting his world view, because he knows best and operates with total and complete authority over her, leaving her no autonomy and self-actualization… that sounds like an old-skool romance come to life, dipped in the glittery justification of Christianity and a literal interpretation of the Bible, and sold wholesale as a marital aid. My discomfort is immeasurable.

Filed: General Bitching, Ranty McRant, The Link-O-Lator

Tagged: writing, store, heroines, heroes, bdsm

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Quizzabella said on 12.11.08 at 11:36 AM • [link]

From the author’s comments on the amazon page:
“Okay…this explains it all. These people don’t even believe God commanded wives to submit to their husbands. Instead, they have bought into the feminists’ attempt to justify their teachings. These people believe in the ‘Egalitarian Viewpoint’ of marriage. “
Yes. Yes I do.
ms bookjunkie said on 12.11.08 at 12:12 PM • [link]

Don’t look now but the Dark Ages are back!
ms bookjunkie said on 12.11.08 at 12:18 PM • [link]

You think the audience who enjoys Spanking Romance Short Stories overlaps with those who enjoy the Enema-Birthday-Spanking-Love-Story?!

*feeling ill, must lie down*
Maggie said on 12.11.08 at 12:25 PM • [link]

Apparently this Leah woman has a different Bible than I do. In the Bible the norm was having more than one wife, and it was alright for a husband to beat their wife. I’m sorry but there’s nothing romantic about that. It’s abuse. And if my husband ever tried something like that to keep me in line to his view I’d probably hit him back. Sigh, people who use religion as an excuse to do something like this make me sad. Christianity is supposed to be about love, not control.
Midknyt said on 12.11.08 at 02:34 PM • [link]

What. The. Hell.

You know, I can think of a Lindsey novel at the top of my head that has the hero spank the heroine - Hearts Aflame. It only happened once, the heroine points out that he “made up for it afterward” wink wink, nudge nudge, and it was after she kicked him to prove a point to his younger sister that he wouldn’t hurt her, since she was afraid of him (the younger sister, in case that got confusing).

This is also a book set in around 900 or so, if I’m remembering correctly, and includes the heroine talking about how people die at their (Viking) celebrations from fighting and stuff.

I don’t know why anyone would see it as a problem relating to how you should treat your wife today and all. Do they mention anything about it being okay to force yourself on her, even if she says no, since she’s your property and all?

-rolls eyes-
Tabithaz said on 12.11.08 at 02:44 PM • [link]

Um . . . wow.

Basically, I think that if spanking and other forms of domination/submission turn you on, more power to you. Go for it. But if my husband/lover ever hit me because “the Bible told him to,” I’d remove his ability to procreate.

Huston Smith, a leader in the field of religious studies, once said that he thought one of the main problems with fundamentalist Christianity was insisting on reading the Bible as prose rather than poetry. I mean, honestly, polyester is forbidden by the Bible, and the Old Testament God is significantly different from the New Testament God.

And I really don’t care if you think the Bible tells you it’s okay. If you ignore your wife when she says “no,” that’s rape in my book, and there’s a special place in hell for people like that.
Caty M said on 12.11.08 at 03:01 PM • [link]

Much as I’d like to think that the people doing this are socially and biblically informed and freely consenting, such contact as I’ve had with the more fundamentalist end of Christianity suggests to me that it’s mostly otherwise. Methinks whoever is quoting ‘the husband in head of the wife just as Christ is head of the church’ (Ephesians 5:23 for the interested) as a pattern for Christian marriages throughout the ages ought to be reading the next few verses that speak about husbands loving their wives as Christ loved the church, with self-sacrifice and tender care. However that Bible passage is supposed to be interpreted (and that’s a whole ‘nother argument), it certainly precludes abusive domination.

I’m not sure whether I’m more annoyed about this as a woman or as a Christian - but as a Christian woman it makes me livid. What a husband and wife do in their own bedroom is up to them, but any attempt to present corporal punishment and sexual domination as a good or necessary part of a Christian marriage is just plain wrong.
lizziebee said on 12.11.08 at 03:11 PM • [link]

Errr…
Michele said on 12.11.08 at 03:18 PM • [link]

My first though when reading the posting was that is some seriously sick shit. BDSM is one thing- if it’s practiced between two consenting adults with set limits then I’m more than okay with it. But this just sounds like wholesale abuse because hitting till someone hurts/cries is just that: abuse.

And I never read any of the old-school historical romance classics because I could never get into them (too many pages of dense historical description is all I remember of those first attempts). Then when I heard about the rape in them I made a conscious decision not to read them. I was raised to believe rape is wrong no matter how it’s presented and that any attempt to cloak it is wrong too.
Tea said on 12.11.08 at 03:30 PM • [link]

Ohhhhhkay.

Yeah.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. So much of the lives of so many people who claim religious beliefs are thoroughly based on fear. This so has nothing to do with any aspect of the Divine.
Shiloh Walker said on 12.11.08 at 03:48 PM • [link]

Add me to the uncomfortable column. Both my husband and I are Christian, grew up in the church. And I can tell you that if he ever attempted to ‘discipline’ me, he’d learn a whole new world of hurt.

There’s a passage in the Bible about wives submitting themselves to their husbands-something that does make me uncomfortable, but then there’s also the passage that follows it:

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing[a] her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

If a man loves his wife as he loves himself, he’s going to put her above all, and he isn’t going to ‘discipline’ her for failing to please him.

Daggone it, Sarah, I was looking for something to make me laugh to start the day.

And reading thru the comments just now, I see that Caty M said what I wanted much more efficiently. So ditto on Caty M.
Teddypig said on 12.11.08 at 04:03 PM • [link]

This does not sound like any “real” BDSM scene. Please quit using that word just because beating someone is involved here. I do not see anything safe or sane and the consensual part is highly questionable.

There is no enjoyment presented in any of this for either party and they do not seem to promote anything but duty and responsibility.

The authors are getting off on the BDSM dynamics sure but this is just whack. This is geared more towards some type of clinical abuse and fantasy creation not an “exchange of power” because they are not even admitting the woman have any power to begin with!
tracykitn said on 12.11.08 at 04:03 PM • [link]

Oh, puh-leeez!!!! (aside: html makes it hard to type what I’m thinking, but I like the end result….)

I’m hoping the only way women buy into this is if they’re vastly undereducated compared to their husbands. I personally have much more education than mine, and he knows that there’s lots of stuff I know more about than he does. And it’s not just us—my mom has a PhD and my dad just a BS.

*grrrrr* I’m voting for involuntary sterilization for all these people—especially that “author.”
GrowlyCub said on 12.11.08 at 04:04 PM • [link]

I think the author is referring to Lindsey’s three abominations (futuristic ‘romance’) in which the ‘heroes’ spank and sexually torture the women ‘for their own good’.

I knew of two, and on a thread here a few months ago found out that she actually wrote a 3rd one in the universe.

I was in my early twenties when I read those two books and I can remember being nearly incoherent with rage and thinking ‘what about the young women who read this who think it’s okay to be treated like an object rather than a human being?’, ‘who might end up staying with an abusive boyfriend or later husband because this ‘romance’ novel said it was okay and for their ‘own good’.

I really wanted to write Lindsey how irresponsible I found the viewpoint portrayed there, but after the second book I decided it wasn’t worth my mental energy. I read Lindsey for a little while after that, but she went on the do-notbuy list a couple of years after, not in small part due to those horrid books.

As for the site, I did not even go look for myself. Just the bits and pieces quoted and commented on make me sick to my stomach and since I have a preemie kitten that I’ve been feeding every hour or so and a momcat with mastitits I don’t need to be upset. Baby’s still alive on day 2, but unless he start gaining we’ll lose him. We could use some good vibes this way, please. :(
Joanne said on 12.11.08 at 04:14 PM • [link]

Bullshit by any other name is still bullshit.

And Thank you Shiloh, that is the perfect answer to a whole lotta’ crap just to sell a few books and toys.

BUT:

historically-influenced undergarments with secret kinky spots

hmmmmmm….... what that? what? what they do? the spots move? where they do it? on who/whom/which one? are batteries included? they activate on command? ...... always more and more questions here in romancelandia.
Sarah Frantz said on 12.11.08 at 04:30 PM • [link]

Rather obviously to my mind, part of the problem is that they’re BDSM-inclined (because it’s as much a sexual orientation for some as being gay or straight is), but that’s kinky and perverted and wrong and sinful, so they can’t admit to it, just as they couldn’t admit to being gay. So they force it through this in-its-own-way perversion of the Bible and its message of domination/submission that has nothing to do with natural inclinations and everything to do, potentially, with force and non-consent.

On the other end of the scale, you’ve got Elise Sutton and her female superiority delusions. Yes, you might be a femdom, dear, but that doesn’t mean that there are females who are just as happy to be submissive and to “worship” their male dominants. Don’t try to force your kink on me, kthxbye.

I find both of them equally reprehensible.
SB Sarah said on 12.11.08 at 04:33 PM • [link]

This does not sound like any “real” BDSM scene. Please quit using that word just because beating someone is involved here.

Hey Teddy: You’re right, and I mean absolutely no disparagement to the folks who enjoy their BD with a side order of SM. When I drew the comparison, I was operating from the point of view that ostensibly CDD is about two individuals consenting to a dominant/submissive relationship with Christian subtexts. Like folks above said, if it’s in your bedroom, and you’re not hurting anyone, I don’t care what you do.

But the more I read the more divergent the two ideas, CDD and D/S sexual play, became, because within BDSM there is (as I understand it) a deliberate and acknowledged balance of power within that consent, with the added element of safety, boundaries, limits and respect for both parties.

The more I read about the CDD idea, the more I saw little respect and more punishment without limitation.

So, long, uncaffeinated story short, initially I thought it was a comparison; it’s so, soooo not. Which makes CDD all the more disturbing to me, and reminiscent of the more rapetastic elements of old-skool “I know better get your fanny over here” romance.
Sarah Frantz said on 12.11.08 at 04:57 PM • [link]

Michele, hitting till someone hurts/cries is just that: abuse. ....unless it’s consensual. It is perfectly okay to do this in a previously negotiated scene. IMO.

FWIW, Teddypig, Sarah didn’t use BDSM. IMO, she was very careful NOT to labe this anything you or I would recognize as BDSM, and for that I am thankful.
Sarah Frantz said on 12.11.08 at 04:58 PM • [link]

Oops, okay, sorry. Missed that bit at the beginning in my reread. Silly Sarah.
SB Sarah said on 12.11.08 at 05:05 PM • [link]

When I started reading that site, my reaction was similar to your comment, along the lines of, “Huh. I wonder, to presume motivations for a moment, if this is one way that people who are kinky, but not at all comfortable with their kinkiness, can comfortably explore that side of themselves?”

Then I kept reading and the, “Oh, no no no” continued.

So yeah, not that at all. Verrrrry verrrry different.
Teddypig said on 12.11.08 at 05:05 PM • [link]

I am not one for sugar coating crap.

I was raised Four Square Ministry so I know Religious Whack Jobs when I see them and I have been involved in BDSM for a while and there are Whack Jobs running around there too.

This is one of those “your chocolate in my peanut butter” groups that is such a prime example of screaming RUN, RUN FAR AWAY!
Deb Kinnard said on 12.11.08 at 05:08 PM • [link]

This is just junk “dipped in Christian glitter (good phrase).” I’ve been a Christian since childhood and I’ve never heard this idea taught or condoned. I’m offended by its use of the Name in such a context.

Please…if someone uses the “C” word when the content isn’t consonant with what you know of Christians’ beliefs and worldview, just take it as paint on the harlot and move on. Anybody can attach any word to anything, but that doesn’t make it so.
Jennie said on 12.11.08 at 05:13 PM • [link]

Was it good for you?

Um, well, no it most certainly wasn’t.
Teddypig said on 12.11.08 at 05:14 PM • [link]

if this is one way that people who are kinky, but not at all comfortable with their kinkiness, can comfortably explore that side of themselves?

Gor For Dummies?
Lynne Connolly said on 12.11.08 at 05:25 PM • [link]

Either it’s a weird marketing campaign, or they really think that. Either way it’s disgusting.
I agree with Teddy - it has absolutely nothing to do with BDSM. That’s consensual.
Also, what bothers me is the drawing of the line between fact and fiction. A writer of fiction can set his or her own rules and has agenda to pursue, that’s fair game, and it’s my choice to read it or not. But when it’s advocated as a lifestyle, that’s well and truly crossing the line.
Julie Leto said on 12.11.08 at 05:31 PM • [link]

Thank you, Shiloh, for quoting the WHOLE of the biblical text.

This story made me sick to my stomach.
amy lane said on 12.11.08 at 05:39 PM • [link]

uhm, ick? I’m gonna file that right next to ‘Quiverfull’ and Proposition 8 under my list of religious things that make my stomach hurt. (spamword—hes27. I’m to icked out to even make a joke about that!)
DS said on 12.11.08 at 05:57 PM • [link]

Raised fundamentalist—but this isn’t anything that the church I attended as a kid would have recognized.

However, I have run into some hell fire and brimstone types who would take to this like a duck to water. That and the “Spare the Rod, spoil the child” types who want to beat their children—I’m cynical enough to wonder why these types particularly find girls from 10 to 16 particularly needing of physical discipline involving beating with a belt.
SamG said on 12.11.08 at 06:06 PM • [link]

I read something about this a while ago (at least it tickles my memory bank). I was just as ‘oh hell no’ then as I am now. Sorry, I wasn’t even ‘live and let live’. I was judgmental and thought ‘those stupid women, falling for that line of BS’, and ‘shame on those assholes, beating their wives’. But, as I told someone (a mean, gossipy old biddy of a ‘christian’) years ago ‘when did I claim to be Christian?’.

OT: The one thing I found funny was the HOH (head of household in that story). I just remembered that my husband wrote ‘caution HOH’ on the water bottles in chemistry in high school. So, as I read that my first thought was , as her water?? what?
CATTB said on 12.11.08 at 06:19 PM • [link]

“Mercy from you (the husband) should be a rare treat that is to be savored and appreciated.”

WTF??? Are you guys sure that’s a real website?
Silver James said on 12.11.08 at 06:21 PM • [link]

Caty M and Shiloh? Yesyesyesyes! Some time ago, the Southern Baptist Conference sent out a…dictum(?) (I was raised Episcopalian, what do I know?) that relied on that passage. Too many interpreted it to mean that the husband was the head of the house and had control over all things in the family - discipline of wife and kids, checkbook, all decisions. I thought it was complete and utter crap at the time. The furor eventually died down and went away. Everybody in the media and beyond jumped on the that particular passage. As has been pointed out, MOST people do not read beyond the initial “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife…” because for men on a power trip, THAT’S all the justification they need and for radical feminists, that proves that all men want to subjugate them.
SandyW said on 12.11.08 at 06:37 PM • [link]

Wow. Now that is some serious crazy. Other folks have already defined some of the problems with this from a Christian point of view, for which I am grateful. I really don’t want to go look at that web-site. The whole ‘slap a thin layer of pseudo-Christianity over the top of our insanity so we can justify it’ just infuriates me.

However, I couldn’t resist looking at the underwear. I’ve done living history and historical costuming for years; I periodically hear people who just got their first look at an original pair of ‘crotch-less’ drawers and think they’ve discovered some secret Victorian kink. Actually, the open seam on Victorian drawers (pantaloons) has a practical purpose. Drawers for women first became common in the early 1800’s, when most women wore corsets. The usual order of getting dressed is: drawers, chemise, corset, etc. The corset goes from the bust to the hip, effectively covering the waist of the drawers. So, the only practical way for a woman to go to the bathroom is to leave the crotch seam on the drawers open. Otherwise, you have to practically get undressed to pee. Not good, as this takes a while. The open seam is about practicality.

The kink possibilities are just a happy side-effect.
Jennifer Armintrout said on 12.11.08 at 06:42 PM • [link]

There are several individual accounts of couples who find this structure in their relationship to be a good thing, who enjoy exploring submission and domination within the rhetoric that doing so is God’s will.

Oh ho, I bet they do.
robinjn said on 12.11.08 at 06:44 PM • [link]

I read the post with my mouth, literally, hanging open. I think it’s outrageous. And sick. And unfortunately true.

I was raised moderate Christian. Unfortunately that species seems to be going slowly extinct. Fundamentalist whack-jobs have taken over Christianity to the point where I don’t recognize it any more and have left it all together. This is just another datapoint.

Ugh.
rebyj said on 12.11.08 at 06:50 PM • [link]

I was very curious as to who in the heck owned this website.
at who is .com it shows it as “domain by proxy” and private. no way to know who owns it or what their personal agendas are.
They REALLY don’t want anyone to know who they are.

And the site really is dangerous. Blame the woman for men’s dirty minds!

quote:
What some are calling “the third wave of feminism” has ushered in what is probably the
most immodest clothing of all time. Young men can scarcely even go to church nowadays
without being confronted with a scantily clad young lady. Of course the Bible tells him it
is a sin for him to even look upon a woman with lust in his heart (Matthew 5:28), so what
is he to do? Go about with blinders on?

Our culture has told women the lie that it is a compliment for a man to look upon her with
lust in his heart, when in fact it is a sin to him, and I believe, also to her if she has dressed
in a manner to entice him. Any woman who feels it is not her responsibility to dress
modestly in order to save a man from sin should study 1 Timothy 2:9

Blame the woman!! Ugh this site is nauseating.
Darlene Marshall said on 12.11.08 at 06:53 PM • [link]

Gor for Dummies?

Heh. Right up there with the classic “Slave Boys of Gor”.
Angela said on 12.11.08 at 07:06 PM • [link]

Once upon a time before the Protestant Reformation, there existed only the Catholic Church and it had this snazzy idea that only Priests could perform sacraments or interpret the Bible since 1) most of the population couldn’t read 2) they sure couldn’t read Greek and Hebrew and 3) they wouldn’t understand what they were reading even if they could. Reading this corruption of Biblical text makes me think that perhaps there was a point to all that. Perhaps there are people out there who, for some reason based on lack of education or innate cruelty or raging stupidity, shouldn’t be allowed near the Bible lest they start interpreting Biblical passages willy-nilly without thinking about things like context or Gosh, I don’t know, what Jesus said? Cause you know [voice dripping with sarcasm] Jesus was all about punishment and purity.
Vyc said on 12.11.08 at 07:20 PM • [link]

I first saw this site a year ago, actually. I’ve seen it tagged as a spoof site, which I really, really hope is true, but I honestly don’t know (there’s sure a lot of effort put into it for being a spoof…). That said, the fact that it’s impossible to tell whether the site is real or not says quite a bit about fundamentalist Christianity these days—not to mention I can’t help but worry some fundamentalist Christians are going to find this and think it’s a grand idea. Ugh.
Jeaniene Frost said on 12.11.08 at 07:26 PM • [link]

Caty M and Shiloh - thanks for saying it for me.
hen said on 12.11.08 at 07:32 PM • [link]

There is a line on the website about how wives will behave after they have been whipped (implying the wives will be so-o-o obedient.) I can only imagine that I would be plotting mayhem. Knives, poison, blunt objects while the big bully was asleep, maybe a gun…
Definitely I would hate someone who hurt me and I don’t want stupid people to try to convince me that I should not hate someone who would hurt me.
factorial said on 12.11.08 at 07:46 PM • [link]

Am I really the only person who thinks this site is not for real? It was linked from Savage Love a few weeks back, and it just smacks of bizarre spoof to me. Or viral marketing ploy gone awry, or one person’s kink (recall daffodils and enemas) that they just HAD to share. Somehow I just can’t buy that there’s this whole teeming underworld of Christian spankers. Christian wankers, now that I’ll believe…

OMG, my spam word is “values73”. I… I have nothing to say.
Lisa Hendrix said on 12.11.08 at 08:11 PM • [link]

There is a line on the website about how wives will behave after they have been whipped (implying the wives will be so-o-o obedient.) I can only imagine that I would be plotting mayhem. Knives, poison, blunt objects while the big bully was asleep, maybe a gun…

Don’t know about these “good Christian” women, but I had a girlfriend who, after her dh knocked her around, got him drunk till he passed out, pinned him to the bed using a quilt and her kid’s diaper pins, and took a cast iron skillet to him, head to toe. Then she took the gun and every penny she could find and moved to the other side of town. Only after he attended counseling did she even consider getting back with him. He started to raise his hand just once, and she dead-eyed him and said “I still have that gun.”

It’s amazing the amount of self-control a sentence like that can inspire in a man.
rebyj said on 12.11.08 at 08:32 PM • [link]

I hope it’s a spoof. Nothing can make a woman go atheist faster than religion saying it’s ok for a man to strike his wife in the name of da lawd.
Brandi said on 12.11.08 at 08:39 PM • [link]

I mean obviously this is just a specific Christian group that is into a little spanking, but justifying this as a Christian right traps young men and women raised by these believers into thinking that women are subservient to men.
I am beyond angry.
This is exactly the type of twisting of the Christian philosophy that keeps women from becoming leaders in many Christian faiths. Regardless of how far we come, certain passages from the Bible will always keep us at the bottom.
I am sickened.
KimberlyD said on 12.11.08 at 08:49 PM • [link]

I’m a little disturbed by those of you who think the women that stay with these men are stupid. When you are brainwashed into a certain belief all our life, its damn hard to believe the complete opposite and leave the faith. Look at women in cults. Religious fanatics (men as well as women) believe whatever bullshit is fed to them by their own religion. If its hard enough for a non-fanatic woman to leave an abusive spouse, think how much harder it is when your God is telling you that only by submitting to the abuse will you get into Heaven. We are all so enlightened these days that some blame the victims for not getting help. Just keep your compassion and remember-you aren’t in their shoes.
JaneyD said on 12.11.08 at 08:58 PM • [link]

I am glad to see that so many here are clear that this bunch does not represent the greater population of Christians in the world.

Every group has its batshit insane whack jobs. This one apparently takes the whacking part more literally than most, twisting selected bits of the scriptures to further an agenda.

Somewhere in that swamp there is a guy who couldn’t get his dick up without hurting someone, and somehow he found a partner to go along with him on it.

Trouble is, he decided to “share.”

Squick.
Wendy said on 12.11.08 at 09:10 PM • [link]

I came across these weirdos last year sometime and am still boggling about it. Every part of me screams “wrong, so wrong!” I mean, hey, do whatever you wanna do in the privacy of your own home, as long as it’s all consensual, but when you bring it out into the light of day, slap a sign on it and call it “God’s Will”, you’ve taken it beyond kink.
azteclady said on 12.11.08 at 09:15 PM • [link]

I was going to spew all over the comment thread, but Cathy said it all:
What a husband and wife do in their own bedroom is up to them, but any attempt to present corporal punishment and sexual domination as a good or necessary part of a Christian marriage is just plain wrong.

Word.
Ulrike said on 12.11.08 at 09:48 PM • [link]

Crystal Lutton wrote an article about the history of spanking & the church that some of you might find interesting: http://aolff.com/?p=121

Quote: In fact, the well-known saying “spare the rod, spoil the child” is not the wording found in any of the “rod verses” in the Bible. Instead it is a line from the Samuel Butler satirical poem “Hudibras” that ridicules the Victorian lifestyle. The very line today used to condone and even endorse the modern practice of spanking was originally penned to criticize and ridicule that same practice.
Vyc said on 12.11.08 at 10:02 PM • [link]

KimberlyD, thank you. I wasn’t quite sure how to articulate what I was thinking, and you did a great job of doing it for me.

When you’re trapped in a situation like this and you can’t let yourself listen to other opinions because they’ll “lead you to the devil” and thus you’ll be condemned to burn for all eternity…then anything, up to and including being beaten by your husband, is tolerable if it means you’ll be saved. These women shouldn’t be blamed for being trapped in a miserable life of fear, knowing nothing else, and they shouldn’t be considered stupid, either.
Denise said on 12.11.08 at 10:35 PM • [link]

Ewww. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth after reading that.

Sorry, but that just sounds like outright subjugation and abuse to me. What makes it doubly repulsive is its wrapped up in religious ribbon that basically says “God wants me to beat the crap out of you, dear. It’s the right thing, the Christian thing to do.”
Leah said on 12.11.08 at 10:38 PM • [link]

Our church is about as conservative as it gets (I have friends who homeschool, wear head coverings, etc.) but I can’t imagine anyone would think of this as being God’s will—or having anything to do with a husband’s being head of the household. What spouses do for fun is up to them, but in all my years of hearing about how a Christian family is supposed to operate, not once have I heard that a husband is supposed to “discipline” his wife. This is utterly bizarre.
Brandi said on 12.11.08 at 11:11 PM • [link]

I’d just love to see these people and Gorean lifestylers mix it up. Real Encyclopedia Dramatica material, it’d be.
SamG said on 12.11.08 at 11:43 PM • [link]

I appear to be the one to have thrown out the word ‘stupid’. I can see KimberlyD and Vyc’s point. Those ladies are raised to be subservient and to fear God, their father and then their spouse and His (their) retribution. I can see where that would make it hard to leave or challenge (because you’d get beat for that too).

When I looked at that site the first time (it is blocked on my computer right now because my 13 y/o son has discovered porn) it had interviews with the ladies that were being spanked. They rationalized it. I’m sorry, but my visceral reaction to that was my coarse ‘stupid’.

In more rational times, I understand that they are victims of their upbringing, previous abuse or religion. That does not change my very first reaction.
Kaitlin/Bridget Locke said on 12.12.08 at 02:42 AM • [link]

When I read stuff like this, it makes anything to do with Christianity embarrassing. Why do people feel the need to take the Bible and screw with it, thereby making it come across as something it was NEVER meant to be?

And after reading that super sweet post from the guy trying to impress his new girlfriend on a shoestring budget…I just want to throw up.
TracyS said on 12.12.08 at 03:13 AM • [link]

What Caty M and Shiloh said.

It’s called taking a Bible verse out of context. That verse was never meant to say anything near what these people are saying it says. I’ll save you the Bible School theology lesson *smiles* but let me just say that my hubby has a B.A. in Biblical Studies and he wouldn’t hit me EVER. He wouldn’t even think of it.

Ugh. I hate it when people use the name of Christianity to justify their craziness.
Shiloh Walker said on 12.12.08 at 03:44 AM • [link]

When I read stuff like this, it makes anything to do with Christianity embarrassing.

It doesn’t from where I’m sitting. I’m not going to feel embarrassed or ashamed because a bunch of fools going make claims that are nothing but nonsense.
Willa said on 12.12.08 at 04:53 AM • [link]

When you’re trapped in a situation like this and you can’t let yourself listen to other opinions because they’ll “lead you to the devil” and thus you’ll be condemned to burn for all eternity…then anything, up to and including being beaten by your husband, is tolerable if it means you’ll be saved. These women shouldn’t be blamed for being trapped in a miserable life of fear, knowing nothing else, and they shouldn’t be considered stupid, either.

This is very interesting. I kind of have a question, and hopefully someone can explain this to me, because it’s really bugging me.

The same as quoted above can be said for the man, too, who beats the wife. He’s been taught that he has to be strong, he has to be the head of the house, he has to administer the discipline, or he’s not a man/not doing right by his wife/not following God’s Law. Is he also, then, not to be blamed? Because the idea really bothers me, of that being the case.
KimberlyD said on 12.12.08 at 05:31 AM • [link]

Honestly Willa, I do see the men as being victims of their upbringing. Do I see them as being the same kind of victims as the women? No. Causing someone pain should set off all kinds of warning bells in a man’s head. But those men are products of the hate sown by their priests and fathers (or whomever taught them this behavior). I think they should have some moral compass inside that points to “WRONG!” but I do also pity them their childhoods if this was all they experienced.
Sarah Frantz said on 12.12.08 at 06:05 AM • [link]

Ulrike, I’m not sure where that site is getting its information from, but there’s no way that Samuel Butler could have been talking about the Victorians in Hudibras, considering he lived in the 18th century, not the 19th. So, I like the point, I guess, but that mistake….just, OMG ::sigh::
Jen said on 12.12.08 at 06:22 AM • [link]

Every story belongs to both author and reader. Once it is gone from the author’s hands, the author has little control as to how the reader reads it. This is equally true for the Christian Bible.

In more charitable moments, I pity these folk, trapped in such a twisted reality that they are so easily tortured by either their own sexuality or their religious leaders’ sexuality that they end up twisting their lives around justifying it.

In less charitable moments, I remember that these kinds of people almost always actively recruit, and in some cases have *very* organized hierarchies that seem to have a gift for funneling extensive quantities of money into the pockets of their leaders, which then goes towards twisting more of the outside world to fit their warped worldview, invariably trampling my rights as a citizen and a human being who owns her own damn hangups and is perfectly fine with her own damn kinks…and my charitable feelings fly out the window.

Quite frankly, I’d rather hang out with furries than “Christian” Domestic Discipliners.
AndySqueaks said on 12.12.08 at 06:30 AM • [link]

You had me at spanking, lost me at punishment, and completely lost me at christian. I’m not religious, but obviously these people are using their religion to give reason for their sick fantasies. Hopefully they live a sad and lonely life where any woman with a lick of sense (christian or no) would stay at least a hundred yards away from them. I’m hoping the testimonials are about as truthful as the penthouse letters.

I’m trying to think of non-religious romance (specifically geared to the non-religious), and now I kinda want to see a Church of FSM romance with the wife spanking the husband because she’s making him conform to her world view where when you dress like a pirate, the hook is just silly…
Erin said on 12.12.08 at 07:03 AM • [link]

D:<

That is all.
ev said on 12.12.08 at 07:16 AM • [link]

I haven’t had a chance to read through all the comments, but I think from what I have seen we all seem to agree it’s just plain wrong.

I was raised in a Catholic household, but baptized in the Episcopal Church, much to my Baptist Great-grandfather’s dismay. Which probably goes a long way to explain why I no longer practice any faith. This like this enforce that even more for me.

I respect anyone’s right to practice whatever faith they believe in- but I do not respect any religion that says hitting, spanking, raping or anything along those lines.

And if my husband ever tried something like that to keep me in line to his view I’d probably hit him back.

I did. Felt great although he had a hard time explaining the broken jaw to his commander.
Ulrike said on 12.12.08 at 08:41 AM • [link]

Sarah, if you have a few minutes, you should e-mail Lutton about it.
Glynis said on 12.12.08 at 01:21 PM • [link]

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. - Susan B. Anthony

This quote leapt to mind when I looked at the CDD.

Eek.

Though we recognize by its very nature this subject can be erotic, we will keep this website as clean and wholesome as possible. However, we will not seek to deny the erotic nature of some CDD marriages as we believe it is a natural consequence of following God’s plan. After all, He created eroticism to be enjoyed inside a Christian marriage.

Shared this site with a very close friend who has way more experience in the BDSM world than I do. He said it looked like a fetish site more than a Christian site. I don’t know—and would be interested to know if it’s for real or it’s a satire before I get all huffy.
Glynis said on 12.12.08 at 01:23 PM • [link]

My bad—that quote is from the CDD site—near the end of a long list of disclaimers.
Trix said on 12.14.08 at 10:59 AM • [link]

part of the problem is that they’re BDSM-inclined (because it’s as much a sexual orientation for some as being gay or straight is), but that’s kinky and perverted and wrong and sinful, so they can’t admit to it, just as they couldn’t admit to being gay.

Right on, SarahF. That’s exactly what their problem is. Yeah, I don’t have a problem with the “spanking until she cries” thing, because plenty of women get off on it in a consensual scene. But this is not about consent.

I loathe it when people don’t take responsibility for their own choices (because acting on any unusual sexual preference is a choice, when it comes right down to it), and try to offload the responsibility onto God, how their mother treated them when they were are child, or any other bullshit reason. Because if you don’t take responsibility, you can’t be responsible - are these people going to learn about concepts like Safe, Sane, Consensual? Like those who go through abstinence “sex education”, I’m sure the levels of ignorance and potential damage are huge. For both parties.