The Rational for Special Clothing in the Submission Ritual

I don’t consider myself a cross dresser, but our spanking ritual is embellished with “punishment panties.” I wear feminine panties prior to and during my spanking and afterward around my knees for corner time (assuming I get corner time afterward). Now, this seems to be a fairly common ritual in the F/M spanking community. As many as thirty percent of the F/M spanking bloggers mention the use of panties in their rituals, and it is very common to see mention in the F/M groups.

I, for one, have always had an interest in women’s underwear and I think this is not an uncommon interest among men. As examples of this interest, consider college panty raids and the great popularity of Victoria’s Secret fashion shows among males.

I can trace my interest in women’s underwear to a very early age. In the fifties everyone had a Sears and Roebuck catalogue, and I had an interest in three sections of the book: the toys section, the home health aids section and the women’s and girl’s underwear section. This was not exactly a Victoria’s Secret catalogue but there were models, women and girls, in their underwear. I knew, perhaps instinctively, that girl’s panties covered something quite different from what my underwear covered and I was fascinated by what it might be. I also felt that I should not be looking at that section of the catalogue and that I would be quite embarrassed if my mother found me out. There was guilt associated with having prurient interest in women’s underwear. I was very young, maybe five or six when I started doing this.

When I was about the same age, I taught myself a crude form of masturbation. People seem to doubt that fact, but it is true. When I would masturbate, I would fantasize about Cynthia in nothing but panties. I would fantasize about what those panties covered. I didn’t know. Believe it or not, if I was lucky, I would have a little tickling orgasm while fantasizing about Cynthia. At six, I was in love with Cynthia and, in my fantasies, her panties.

I grew up, and went to college. In the sixties college boys engaged in a pastime that, in the south, we called “shooting squirrels.” The term referred to catching a sneak peak up a woman’s skirt to see her panties and then fantasizing about the delicious part of her anatomy that the panties covered. In those days all college women were required to wear dresses in public by male chauvinist college administrators and their persimmon lipped matron minions, usually deans of women students. The squirrel-shooting activity was often best accomplished in the library where, on the pretense of studying, one would take a seat at a library table facing a girl one table over. Skirts were getting shorter in the sixties, and if one were lucky, one could get a good view of a lovely pair of panties covering the object of all men’s desire. Occasionally, the young woman would accommodate you by opening her legs a bit, giving you and enhanced view. I loved this activity and I always wondered what it would feel like to be encased in a pair of those lacy or satiny under things.

I had a very unconventional roommate in college. He was extremely heterosexual, masculine and girls loved him, but in many ways he was on the fringe; he still is. He loved silk, and somewhere he found out how to order silk underwear. These were silk briefs and bikini briefs in fuchsia, pink, burgundy and baby blue. He wore them without compunction, and I chided him for being a bit strange. Secretly, I really wanted to wear them myself, but my twenty year old macho personality wouldn’t allow it at the time.

I eventually married a lovely woman who was tall and slender and beautiful and looked wonderful in lingerie. She is still my wife today. I loved to sneak into her lingerie drawers and I eventually got up the nerve to go into lingerie stores and buy her panties and nightgowns and things. If the sales staff thought I was a cross dresser, they didn’t say anything and generally were quite helpful. I don't think I was a cross dresser, but occasionally, if my wife went out of town on business I would try on a pair of her lace or satin panties. They felt great. However, I didn’t risk wearing them too long and there was always the risk of stretching them. When I did wear them, I felt extremely naughty in a delicious sort of way, rather like I felt when I would look at the girl models in their panties in the Sears and Roebuck catalogue. The old guilt feelings were there as well.

All this time my interest in spanking was developing and growing stronger. One day I came across a paperback book in one of the large chain bookstores titled “Submissions” by Grant Andrews. It was simply in with the fiction books. At the time, I don’t think the large bookstores had erotic or pornographic sections. The book was a fairly well written Femdom novel about one man’s submission to a group of dominant women that he had assembled in a special secluded home he built in order to live a 24/7 Femdom lifestyle. In that novel, I was introduced to the concept of “punishment panties” and it fascinated and titillated me. The protagonist was made to wear special punishment panties for all of his frequent punishments.

As the web developed and more F/M spanking forums and blogs came on line I began to realize that the concept of punishment panties was not uncommon among F/M males, or female dominants for that matter. I incorporated the idea into my spanking fantasies.

When I finally came out to my wife about my interest in having her discipline me, it was incumbent on me to develop a spanking ritual (she would have had no concept of a spanking ritual). I had a pair of punishment panties available in the form of a black male thong that my wife and daughters had bought me one year as a gag gift for Christmas. I explained to her that when she disciplined me, she should make me wear nothing but the punishment panties, do corner time, etc, etc. My wife took all this in, but with a look of great disbelief. Then I made the first great error in my planned adventure into spanko life. I told my wife that, really, my punishment panties should be a pair of her panties, and that I had occasionally tried some of them on when she went out of town.

Now, my wife has always known that I’m a little kinky, but this apparently went over the line. She told me that under no circumstances was she going to put me in her panties, and that I was to absolutely stay away from her underwear. Furthermore, she thought this whole thing was nuts! End of spanking adventure.

A number of months went by and my desire to be spanked by my wife did not subside. I had always wished that the spanking ritual would come naturally to her, but it didn’t and probably never would.

We live in the Northeast and one weekend we were driving through Vermont and came upon the Vermont Country Store. This is a very large store that sells mostly “retro” everything. I was aware of the store because several spanking bloggers have mentioned the Vermont Country Store bath brush as a spanking implement, and even pictured in their blog. I had checked the Vermont Country Store web site several times but no bath brush was listed for sale. It had apparently been discontinued. However, walking through the store I saw one hanging on the wall. I showed my wife and asked her if I could buy it. She just rolled her eyes, but said I could. She knew exactly what I was thinking. The store clerk probably knew what I was thinking, as well. She had a little smirk on her face when we checked out. My guess is that that brush is rarely used as a bath brush, and the Vermont Country Store people know it. In any case, the purchase gave a not-so-subtle hint to my wife that my interest in having her spank me was alive and well.

Panties were still an undercurrent in my spanking fantasies. I searched the web for something suitable and initially came upon a site for men that sold rather nice underwear. The underwear was distinctively male but had a lingerie look to it. It was also very expensive Italian lingerie. I bought a few pairs and showed them to my wife explaining that this underwear was essentially lingerie for men (note the fuller cut), and we could use these as “punishment panties” (hint, hint). She looked at me as if to say “You are crazy!” But, I think I had beaten her down and she agreed to spank me on Saturday morning in my new “punishment panties.” She stuck to her promise and carried out the ritual as best she could. Saturday morning she told me to dress in my punishment panties, and do some corner time. Then she put me over her lap, bared my bottom and gave me a tentative spanking with the bath brush (Actually that bath brush does hurt!). We were on our way, or so I hoped.

Since that time I have found several sites that sell men’s panties, and much less expensively than the Italian site. I have quite a collection now, but they are seldom used. I had hoped my wife would make me wear them all day in anticipation of a spanking, but she doesn’t seem to want to do that. (What if you were in a car wreck?). I find that my desire to wear the panties increases as my desire for a spanking intensifies. And, occasionally I do sneak them on and wear them all day. My hope is that my wife will catch me wearing them without her permission and give me a spanking.

So, why my obsession with panties and what is the relationship to spanking? For me, panties increase the naughtiness factor by at least a factor of two. I have always had a prurient interest in panties, and I feel very naughty in sort of a delicious when I wear them.

Some women object to the idea of forced feminization of the male for humiliation with the argument, “Why should being feminine be humiliating?” I don’t view wearing panties as primarily a humiliation ritual (although, there is a bit of humiliation present for reasons I’ll discuss below), but value the practice for its symbolic nature. As a symbol during a spanking, my wife “making” me wear panties says to me, “For the duration of this ritual, my femininity trumps your masculinity and I am in control. It’s like the scissors-cloth-stones game we played as children, where scissors trump, or cut cloth, cloth trumps, or covers stones and stones trump, or break scissors. Her feminine cloth trumps my stones, so to speak. It might be better if they were her panties, but the symbol is there, and I have to do the best I can.

Finally, because my wife thinks that wearing panties, even male Italian lingerie, is a bit silly, wearing them does throw a little humiliation into the mix. The humiliation exists by virtue of my wife’s attitude, not because she or I view femininity to be a lesser quality than masculinity. I find that on the occasions that I do wear them all day, I try to avoid her having knowledge of it. I put them on out of her sight and I undress out of her sight. Even though I know she knows I have them and wear them occasionally, I’m slightly embarrassed by the fact.

I had suggested to her that I should ask her permission to wear them, but she has never been too interested in that game. I know, if I wear them secretly, that she will find them in the laundry basket latter in the week, and I continue to hope she will use it as a foil for a spanking. “Throck! I see you wore your punishment panties without my permission. You can just go put these right back on and go to the corner. You’re going to get a sound spanking with my bath brush!” That is the fantasy I have while wearing them anyway.

There is a very fine line that one walks in using special clothing in a submission ritual. In no way should the ritual become perverse in the mind of either participant. The participants must be aware of the symbolism of the clothing and although there may be elements of humiliation for the duration of the ritual, the mutual respect the participants have for each other should not be compromised. So this is a bit of a dilemma with me and punishment panties, but so far C has, I think, accepted it for what it is.

In any case, I believe using special clothing in the submission ritual enhances the “naughtiness” factor significantly. This, I believe, is true regardless of the gender of the spankee. I have read about female spankees desiring to wear special “little girl” pajamas or schoolgirl uniforms. Since with many spanking couples, the reasons for a spanking, even a discipline spanking, are contrived, I believe anything that can be done to enhance the naughtiness factor and the symbolism within the ritual, ultimately adds value to the spanking.

Well, the above long-winded ramble is my rationalization for wearing punishment panties. But, who knows, maybe I’m just a cross dresser.