Jillian Keenan on Domestic Discipline IRL

There's a spanking writer / youtuber named Jillian Keenan that I was somewhat aware of. She posted something the other day that hit home with me. It was an embarrassing (for her) youtube video where she speaks about her craving for Domestic Discipline.

She's cute when she blushes...

 She leads with:

"You know, I thought... I thought... that I had already humiliated myself on the Internet enough that I was totally immune to this emotion, and then I decided to make a video about... domestic discipline... Why am I so embarrassed right now???"

I know exactly how she feels! I'm in the same boat, constantly blogging about all these kinky things, yet I still become incredibly embarrassed blogging about a real spanking, for real reasons, given to me by my husband as part of our domestic discipline arrangement. Or even admitting out loud than I am subject to such discipline, and that I get so turned on by it... Oh blush!

Jillian adds a lot of humour into her videos and she has some great gestures and facial expressions throughout. She leads off the video with a mock "Therapy Me" where she pretends to be sitting in therapy telling us about things:

"So I guess we should start with feminism. I definitely think of myself as a feminist, but... I also recognize that my boyfriend spanks me when I misbehave, which, not everyone is 'gonna like that... the optics here are... not good."

I love that she does that while lounging on the couch, with her bare legs, in a bathrobe with perhaps nothing underneath? Not a "typical" therapy session, I imagine? She's one flipped-up bathrobe away from a good bare bottomed spanking. She's one belt-tug and an un-robing away from a fully naked spanking! Does she even realize she is doing that? The little minx. I approve.

Here is her video in full. We'll discuss after you view it.

Previous to this video I had perused some others, and while I thought they were all right on, I somehow felt they were all a little preachy? Know what I mean? This one was less preachy, and so dead on with what I beleive that I had to share.

She distinguishes what she calls "spankos" from practitioners of other types of activities, such as S&M and BDSM. I feel where she's coming from. By her definition, my husband and I are both spankos (not that we have not explored those other things as well). And she does "spanko" less as the act of spanking, but more in the Domestic Discipline sense. i.e. a "spanko" may get turned on be being scolded, or sent to the corner, in a disciplinary session.

I actively dislike the term "spanko" myself. So does Jillian's partner, so I guess I'm in good company. She says it's short for "spankophile": a lover of spanking (giving or receiving). The name just sounds so silly, almost as if it was an insult and is diminishing it.

There are people who just love giving and receiving spankings without the overlay of real or acted out Domestic Discipline, and I think Jillian means to include those as well in the "spanko" term, and exclude more of the leather-clad whips and chains crowd? I don't know.

My kink is definitely Domestic Discipline, preferably employing spanking as a primary disciplinary tool (I'd be disappointed if there was no spanking involved - and would not last long in the kink). But I'm also open to other forms of discipline (corner time, line writing, ginger up the bum, public exposure of the discipline, punitive anal sex, breast punishment, pussy punishment, forced holding of enemas, diapering, mouth soapings, ...). All of that stuff, in a disciplinary context (real or acted out), excites me to the point of distraction. I think Jillian and I may be alike in that (she keeps it mostly to spankings, but has referred to figging - ginger up the butt - as something that turns her on, and I would not at all be surprised if other things from my list are shared with Jillian).

In the video she refers to another video that features this cute couple:

The woman is speaking and says:

"The dominant sets rules and expectations for the submissive to live by and there are consequences for not following the rules or not meeting those expectations."

This woman looks embarrassed to be speaking about these matters: that pillow on the lap is a good sign of that, though you can hear it in her voice as well. Her embarrassment (mirroring mine), is exciting to me.

Jillian says they are cute couple and this is pretty standard stuff for people who are kinky (like her and me). Jillian starts cringing when the woman goes on to compare what they do to "BDSM". As she is doing this, she and her partner are holding a pair of her spanking implements.

"BDSM is different because in BDSM there's an enjoyment factor. Either you enjoy getting spanked, or you enjoy spanking somebody. I don't enjoy being spanked."

Ha ha! I have some readers who take the same position. They are into "real" spanking, and they claim it's not at all kinky for them. I have the same reaction as Jillian's:

"Do you, though?
I think maybe you do [enjoy it]..."

Jillian is sensitive to not judging others and says she can't be sure what's in their heads, but then cuts to different parts of the video and says,

"...that being said, I am skeptical. First of all, this is some kinky fucking shit."

"It takes one to know one.

[whispering] I see you..."

Indeed! I feel the same. I think you can reconcile both things. I think you can find Domestic Discipline super kinky and still need it and crave it and benefit from it for real. You can definitely not enjoy your spankings while they are going on, but still be turned on by the thought of them. In fact, it falls into the standard stereotype of the woman craving to be taken-in-hand by the strong father-figure man, and boy do I have that bad! In fact, I'll bet the woman in the video Jillian refers to is wet as anything after her spanking when she's required to bend over for her post-punishment fucking (and yes, post-punishment fucking is definitely a "thing" us domesticated women have to deal with from our big strong alpha men!).

Jillian then adds,

"I don't like getting punished either, at least not in the moment. The enjoyment factor comes later, when I masturbate. I definitely like the fact that I don't like it."

Oh my gosh. Jillian and me are twinsies! I've admitted the same (many masturbation sessions after a disciplinary spanking), and been mercilessly teased for it on my blog (and thank you for that, peeps!). This is the first time I've ever heard another woman admit it. I feel her. If I'm ashamed for needing to be spanked, and ashamed of being actually spanked, I'm even more ashamed to admit I cannot resist furiously chain-masturbating to memories of it afterwards! And being ashamed, and being made to intensely feel that shame, is a huge part of my kink. It's why I get so turned on when David casually tells my parents I've been spanked - oh the shame! Oh the masturbation to the shame afterwards!

I literally masturbate to imaginary thoughts of my Husband and my Father talking about my spankings. "Please, don't tell Daddy, don't tell Daddy," I imagine thinking to myself while in the room with them. And then he does tell Daddy. And Daddy chuckles (as he does). "I'm sure she's learned her lesson," Dad tells David, imagining me bare bum across my husband's knee, feet kicking, crying my eyes out, as my bottom turns a bright shade of red, 30 minutes bare bottomed corner time after. "And I'll bet she's randy as a wildcat in the sack afterwards,' I imagine Dad says and they have a great imaginary laugh at my expense as I come from my fingers furiously strumming my clit.

Jillian goes on to explore that concept of reconciling discipline with kink, which I appreciate as I have written about it and thought about it a lot as well.

Jillian talks about what Domestic Discipline is for her. She makes the point that it involves a whole lot less "real discipline" than the fantasy version might suggest. She says she's actually only been punished for something for real once in the last six months because... she's a grown-assed woman! YES! She says we can still get spankings that tap into that "yummy disciplinary space" without actually misbehaving. I totally agree. Those hold me over. But having "real discipline" in my life, living with that thought, having had it happen a few times, knowing it can happen again, fuels those between sessions. And those sessions are roleplay sessions, where I play the naughty wife, and him the displeased husband. And it might even be for a "real thing" that is not so important. It's not real discipline, but it has many of the same characteristics, and would not be as great if we didn't have the real thing lurking behind the scenes, in my opinion anyways, and apparently Jillian's also.

Jillian then explains boundaries, and how those are healthy in a DD relationship. Boundaries over what she can and can't be spanked for, mainly. My husband and I have not really discussed that much. we mainly get it right by feel, but I think I will give it some more thought after having listened to Jillian.

There then comes an absolutely delightful part where Jillian just cannot hide her blushing embarrassment at all. She's probably like me, and gets turned on by embarrassing herself. Her shame turns me on by association! She describes a real justified spanking from her man. After describing how she misbehaved, she says,

"Did I enjoy that punishment while it was happening? I can't say that I did, no. But have I enjoyed the memory every day since then? Yeah. Yeah I have. It was twenty minutes of unpleasantness in exchange for... a lifetime of orgasms!"

"So that's an example of the sort of thing I would, and did, get punished for in my own dynamic. It works because I don't think I've [engaged in the bad behavior] since, but I don't feel the need to delude myself that this memory isn't super erotic for both of us. It is. It's hot. It's extremely hot."

She ends with

"And I think a willingness to acknowledge that all of this is sexy as hell for people like us only proves that you have the self-awareness to handle this kind of thing."

Oh yes. Can't agree more.

During the video she referenced a book she wrote about her journey, which I did not previously know about, so I got myself a copy and read it.

Get it at amazon.com

Jillian is a professional Shakespeare nerd, did graduate work in it, and even had jobs acting as the Shakespeare expert for professional plays (there's a name for that job, and it's very nerdy, and I forgot what it is...). In her book she mixes in her love of Shakespeare with a memoir of the development of her spanking kink. Jillian has conversations in her head with characters from Shakespeare where she works things out, and that is described throughout.

Jillian describes how her fetish started in very early childhood. There was never a point where the thought of "spanking" did not elicit some sort of sexual feeling in her. It's one reason why she considers spanking a child to be tantamount to rape in the case the child is a spanko like her. It's an action that forcibly strikes to the center of her sexual being.

At age seventeen she meets her first love, John, who was 24 at the time and a law student drug dealer, while living on her own in Seville, Spain. John introduced her to drugs, but Jillian never got hooked and John later became more protective and insisted she not do any more. Their relationship was platonic for quite some time.

Once, when drinking with friends, John asked Jillian offhandedly, "Have you ever received a severe spanking?" Jillian says her heart stopped and she felt transparent. She had not admitted anything about her fetish to John, and was horribly embarrassed to do so. Next day she followed up, and John got the message that Jillian was likely into it, though Jillian tried hard to not admit it. They flirted around the topic without ever discussing it. Then, when they decided to finally "do it", without even discussing it in advance, John started by taking Jillian across his knee, lifting her dress, pulling down her panties, and spanking her. How romantic! (I mean that!!!!).

Jillian describes it:

If I'm honest, that first spanking, as cathartic as it was, was also a mild disappointment. It just didn't quite match my fantasies. [...] It didn't hurt as much as I wanted it to, for one. [...]. I was also disappointed that I didn't cry that night. [...] The biggest disappointment, though, was that I didn't bruise. Bruises are to kinky people - or, at least, bruises are to me - what I imagine hickeys are to vanilla teenagers. I wanted to bruise because I wanted physical proof that it had happened; I wanted confirmation that my deepest fantasy had come true.

Next morning, Jillian was so embarrassed that she couldn't bear to see John! But she got over it and they became confirmed boyfriend/girlfriend and increasingly got into a heavier D/s dynamic.

I adored it. The pain and ritual were a drug. Besides Shakespeare, kink was the only thing that could free me from the confines of my neurotic, self-conscious, insecure mind and release me into my body. Other details from the BDSM spectrum made guest appearances, but spanking was the fetish. It was the focus. And it was fun.

Spanking has some themes. Submission and dominance are two of them, of course, but there are others. Obedience. Discipline. Authority. Accountability. Respect. Punishment.

Those are good words. Someone out there, I promise you, is masturbating to that list of words right now. Wordplay is sex play. This is a verbal fetish.

Oh my gosh! I felt so exposed reading that!!!! As I was reading that list of words, before even going on to the next paragraph, I lingered on them, re-read them several times in fact, rolled them around in my brain, and felt myself starting to get wet. When I finally went on to the next paragraph I felt completely naked in public! Jillian saw into my soul...

"The harder I spank you the wetter you get," John told me once, when I was inelegantly draped over his knee.

I resemble that remark. That's another hyper-embarrassing thing about my spankings, that I actually get quite wet during them, and the harder the spanking the wetter I get. In my book, Julie's Spankings, I wrote a scene where I was spanked by my husband in front of strangers, and a young woman disdainfully pointed out to the others how wet I was... embarrassing fantasy fodder for me.

We found lines the wrong way: by crossing them. [...] My boyfriend had spanked me bloody [with a belt]. And I was thrilled. 

Of course now Jillian represents herself as the scion of safe, sane, consensual and all that, and seems awfully scoldy towards others who behaved exactly like herself. It crystalized for me that while I completely and totally agree with everything around safety and consent that Jillian preaches now, that I wish she would give it a bit of a rest, you know? Because sometimes being irresponsible is hot as hell.

We still weren't having sex, but every moment was sexual. To his credit, John almost never pressured or rushed me, despite the fact that our atypical relationship dynamic and the age difference between us empowered him to do so. He controlled when and how we played with pain; I controlled, for the most part, when and how we experimented with pleasure. And along the way, sex did happen: first I gave him my anal virginity [...]. We didn't have lube, so John made do with spit and sunscreen, and that was my first time.

Oh my gosh again, how crazy sexy romantic is that???? It is to me, anyways.

Domestic discipline was definitely part of their dynamic. When John was working as a 25-year-old para-legal and Jillian was an 18-year-old teenager who had a problem with tardiness.

"We're going home," he growled, as he dragged me down a busy Barcelona street [...]. "I'm going to spank you until you learn to be more considerate of my time."

Jillian admitted to being sometimes deliberately late to earn a spanking, but this time she had not planned it, and so the spanking was more disciplinary.

I argued, complained, bargained, negotiated, and did everything a submissive wasn't "supposed" to do. I couldn't help myself. Spankings hurt. I craved and fantasized about them, but I also feared them.

I felt so validated reading that. I feel exactly the same way, but I didn't think anybody ever beleived me. But it's true. See? Jillian says so too!

"Bend over the end of that sofa," he said. "And don't you dare test me on this one." Then he left the room [...].

While he was gone, I did what I'd been told. I bent over the arm of the sofa, rested my elbows and forearms on the cushion, and dropped into the arch of my back. I loved this position. It made me feel sexy.

John walked back into the room, rolling up his sleeves.

Oh my gosh! Talk about goosebumps?!? Jillian goes on to describe a very long and very intense punishment at John's hands. I masturbated to the thought of it... you NEED to buy this book!!!!!

As with most romances at such a young age, Jillian and John split up. Jillian found herself back in the states and in university, and found a new love interest, coincidentally, a David (my husband's name).

So when I returned to campus and ran into David, that handsome new guy in my Shakespeare club, outside the athletic center one afternoon, I knew exactly how I wanted to flirt with him.

"Nice belt," I teased, pointing at the red canvas accessory around his jeans.

"I have a leather one, too," David replied.

As it turns out, David is in fact not kinky. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. However, he became Jillian's great love nonetheless, and a lot of the rest of the book is about the ups and downs of them trying to reconcile that gap.

One of the more moving passages for me, was Jillian describing her love at first sight with David.

Aristophenes, in his theory of love from the Symposium, wrote that in the miraculous event that a person finds his or her other half -- the same half she was ripped away from when the gods split every essence into two bodies -- she knows it. "When one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself... that pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment," Aristophenes argued. "These are the people who pass their whole lives together, and yet they could not explain what they desire of one another."

So sweet. I feel that way with my David as well...

Jillian was still too embarrassed to broach her kink directly with David. She mentioned it instead to a mutual male friend in the expectation he would pass it on. How she thought that was any better...? At any rate, she was an utter disaster at communicating to David her wants and her needs, and she said it took her more than six years to really even broach the subject properly.

Jillian basically mostly hid her kink, but she eventually wrote a six-page letter to David "coming out" as a spanko. Jillian published her essay in the Modern Love column of the New York Times, with David's encouragement. The essay was called Finding the Courage to Reveal a Fetish. Here's an excerpt:

But David, it turned out, is “vanilla” — the word the spanking community uses to describe people who don’t share our quirk. I was disappointed, but it was too late: I had already fallen in love with him.

My dilemma was clear: how could I describe my desires to David when I could hardly confess them to myself? Spanking fetishists don’t have a tradition of coming out. The comparisons to child abuse and spousal battery are inevitable, upsetting and often impossible to dispel, so it’s easiest to keep our interest private.

Even popular books and movies link erotic spanking to severe psychological trauma. In “Fifty Shades of Grey,” Christian Grey’s passion for erotic pain is a result of extreme childhood abuse. The 2002 film “Secretary” suggests that the main character’s spanking obsession is merely a preferable alternative to self-mutilation.

So what is a nice girl (who also happens to love being spanked) supposed to think? More pressingly, what is she supposed to say to her brand-new boyfriend?

At 20, I confronted the situation indirectly; I went to a college party, steeled my nerves with cocktails, and breezily told David’s roommate that I was “kind of into S & M.” It worked. A few nights later, David asked, “Are you, like, into pain?”

“Um,” I said, blushing. “Yes?”

It wasn’t quite true. I’m not into pain; I’m into being spanked. But it seemed like a safe first step.

As I read that I cringe inside. My husband took years to announce to me his spanking fetish. When he finally did, I tried it, and it turned out I was into it as well. But I'm not a vanilla (obvi!) so I think it's different. It must be so tough, like trying to explain colours to a colourblind person.

So when David heard I was “kind of into S & M,” he interpreted the code exactly how I had expected: from time to time, he spanked me during sex.

This was a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t the whole story. While there is a strong erotic element to my kink, sex is merely a side dish to the more absorbing entree of the spanking itself.

Jillian attempted to explain herself. Explain this kink to her David, but found little success, even with the essay, which failed to be properly prescriptive in my opinion (suitable for the NYT article, not so much for guiding your partner). It did not help that they were in a long distance relationship, and he was extremely busy and constantly tired from his medical career.

For a while, Jillian flirted openly with the idea of getting a spanking from an online friend. In the end she held back and tried again to make it work with David.

With encouragement from a girlfriend, Jillian finally decided to attempt to teach David what he needed to know very explicitly. She gave him his first lesson, about the pain scale, pain tolerance, her limits, and where she needed to be taken, while in the shower. She hints that at the end of his lesson, he received a blowjob, with no more than the following:

I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth.

"Thanks Jilly," David breathed happily. "Your turn!"

He picked me up off my knees and dropped me on the bed.

Ha ha! She is never so crass as to mention the actual act that is implied.

I shook my head.

"Nope," I teased. "I don't want sex. You know what I want."

David rolled his eyes.

"We can do both," he pointed out.

I shook my head again.

"Nope, nope, nope," I insisted. "Spanking isn't a side dish to sex for me. I want you to really understand that it satisfies me fully. And today, it's all I want."

I rolled onto my stomach. David started spanking me.

"This is really all you need?" David asked. "It's enough?"

"Mmmmm-hmm," I murmured into the pillow.

"But you come so easily," he mused.

I turned my head to the side to make eye contact with him.

"And what do you think I'm thinking about during every orgasm?"

David laughed.

I didn't. I was dead serious.

David raised his eyebrows.

"Every time?" he asked.

"Every. Single. Time."

Such an important point. I feel the same way. I am always thinking of something in the Dominant/Submissive realm when I am receiving or giving sex, and I think it may well be the only way I can orgasm nowadays.

Jillian goes on to teach him to use implements and instruct him better on her pain threshold.

"Ow!" I laughed into a pillow, weeks later. (We spread these "seminars" out over a period of months.) David had just hit me hard - very hard - with a wooden hairbrush.

"What number was that?" he asked.

"A six?" I suggested. We were measuring the intesity of different strokes with scientific meticulousness: it could only have been David's idea.

"Okay," David noted, with professionalism. "So this one hurts more than the belt."

I nodded.

"Yes," I confirmed.

"You have a crazy pain tolerance, Jilly," he observed. "How do I push you past a six?"

I giggled over a flutter of nerves.

"Hit me that hard, but don't stop," I admitted. "Just lay into me."

David nodded.

"Got it," he said. Soon after, we achieved a nine.

After that, Jillian introduced David to the concept of scolding her, and mixing that in with her spankings. Jillian eventually showed David the type of literary porn she was into: nerdy fan fiction type stuff that he laughed at. He showed her his video porn, which was a girl doing a guy while another guy watched. Jillian thought it very mainstream. David had to explain,

"No, you don't understand," he said. "That means the man she's with right now isn't her husband."

I squeezed David's hand.

"It's a fantasy, honey," I reassured him.

He squinted at the screen.

"But I like this type of scenario," he said, in a tone of voice I recognized. "I really like it."

I blinked.

"David," i asked. "What are you...?"

He scrunched his lips together.

"I'm not sure," David said, his eyes fixed on his screen. "But the truth is, I find the thought of you over someone else's knee incredibly..."

We turned to look at each other.

"...hot."

Soon after, David learned to spank Jillian for real when she misbehaved. And soon after that, they were married. From that last passage I quoted, I am imagining that Jillian is trying to tell us, in her understated way, that she is now being spanked by more than just her husband? I have no confirmation of this, but I hope so!

Do go check out Jillian's youtube videos, buy her book, and subscribe to her Patreon. And let me know what you think of Jillian's work!