# Imposition > An imposition is a non-corporal consequence in adult discipline: a dull, time-consuming task set as a penalty. Lines, corner time and essays are typical. - Canonical URL: https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/imposition/ - Section: A–Z - Updated: November 2026 (2026-11-01) - Audience: consenting adults over 18 only. Everything on this site concerns consenting adults over 18. An old-fashioned word that makes most people wince slightly, which is part of why it works. What it describes is any consequence that costs you an evening instead of four minutes. --- ## In short - A consequence you have to *do*, rather than something done to you. - [Lines](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/lines/) are one kind of imposition. Corner time, essays and withdrawn privileges are others. - The mechanism is tedium. An imposition cannot be enjoyed, which is exactly what separates it from a spanking. - Set it and then check it. An imposition nobody follows up teaches both of you that the rules are decorative. Everything here concerns consenting adults over eighteen. ## What it means An imposition is a consequence that is not corporal. Something the person has to do, rather than something done to them. Writing lines. Standing in a corner. Five hundred words by Wednesday on why the rule exists. A privilege that belongs to the dynamic, withdrawn for a week. What all of those have in common is time. A spanking is over in four minutes. An imposition takes the evening you wanted for something else, and it has to be started, and then it has to be carried on with once the novelty has gone and there are still three hundred lines left. ## In practice I use these more than I use anything corporal, for a reason that is slightly awkward to say out loud. A spanking can be enjoyed. For a good proportion of people reading this, being put over someone's knee is the thing they wanted in the first place, which makes it a strange choice of penalty. Nobody has ever enjoyed line four hundred. The numbers I work to: a hundred lines is twenty to thirty minutes and is the standard weeknight unit. Two hundred is about an hour, and five hundred a whole evening. Corner time runs ten to twenty minutes and is much longer than it sounds from the outside. An essay is what I set when the breach involved a decision rather than a slip, because it requires thought instead of just hours. Whatever gets set, it gets checked. A photograph of the finished page, sent by an agreed deadline. That is the part that makes it real, and without it you are taking someone's word for their own punishment, which is an odd thing to rely on. ## Where the confusion comes from Scale, first. Someone sets a thousand lines in a burst of enthusiasm, the thousand lines never arrive, and now there is a hole in the arrangement that is worse than never having set anything. Then what gets withdrawn. Taking away something that belongs to the dynamic is clean: no scene this weekend, nothing until the essay is in. Taking away something that belongs to the person is not clean at all. Their phone, their money, their evening out, their contact with a friend. Those were never yours to grant, so they are not yours to remove. Impositions consume somebody's time, and control of a person's time is one of the quietest routes from a chosen arrangement into a controlling one. > **Watch the stacking.** A hundred lines on a Tuesday is a consequence. An imposition every evening for a fortnight is a schedule that somebody else now owns. The statutory guidance on section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 describes regulating a person's everyday behaviour as controlling behaviour, an offence in England and Wales, and no violence is required for it to apply. What makes any of this defensible is that it is chosen, revocable, and can be ended on a Wednesday by either person without owing anybody an explanation. ## Read next - [Lines, corner time and impositions](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/discipline/lines-and-impositions/) - [Lines](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/lines/) - [Punishment](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/punishment/) - [Accountability and check-ins](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/discipline/accountability/) > **Not legal advice.** Where this page mentions the law, it is general information written from an England and Wales position unless it says otherwise, and it is not legal advice. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own law. If your own legal position matters, speak to a solicitor. ## Common questions ### What is an imposition in discipline? An imposition is a non-corporal consequence: a task set as a penalty rather than something done to the body. Writing lines, corner time, a written essay or a withdrawn privilege are the usual forms. The defining feature is tedium over time, which is why many people find impositions more effective than a spanking. ### What is the difference between lines and an imposition? Lines are one kind of imposition. Imposition is the umbrella word for any non-corporal consequence, and lines, corner time, essays and withdrawn privileges all sit under it. So all lines are impositions, and most impositions are not lines.