Rules
The standing agreements that carry a discipline arrangement through the ordinary week. Most people write far too many, enforce a third of them, and quietly abandon the rest. A short list you actually keep is worth more than a document.
Consenting adults only. Everything on this page is about adults over 18 who have freely agreed to it.
In short
- Rules are what applies between sessions. That is what separates a discipline dynamic from a scene.
- Three to five specific, checkable rules work. Long lists collapse and make enforcement arbitrary.
- A rule should be something the person wants help with, not something invented to manufacture offences.
- Review them out loud on a set schedule, and delete the ones nobody has thought about.
Everything on this page concerns consenting adults over 18. There is a fuller treatment on rules and agreements.
What it means
A rule is a standing expectation agreed in advance, which applies when the two of you are not in a room together. That is the whole distinction between a discipline dynamic and a series of scenes. In a scene the structure lasts an evening. Rules make it last a week.
Common ones are dull, which is a good sign. Stop working by seven on weeknights. Send a message at nine. Do the thing you have been avoiding for a month and report when it is done. Say when something is bothering you rather than sitting on it for a fortnight.
In practice
The test I apply is whether the rule would improve the person's life if the dynamic vanished tomorrow. If yes, it is probably a good rule. If it only makes sense as raw material for a punishment, it is a trap, and traps corrode the whole arrangement because both people can feel the artificiality.
Write them down. Not for ceremony, but because memory is self-serving in both directions and a written list settles arguments before they start. Three to five. I have never seen a list of fifteen survive a month.
Make them checkable. "Be more respectful" is not a rule, because two people will disagree about whether it was kept and the disagreement will go badly. "Do not interrupt me when I am telling you something difficult" is a rule. You can point at it afterwards.
Review on a schedule rather than when something has gone wrong. Once a month is plenty. Add, cut, and be honest about the ones that have quietly lapsed. An abandoned rule teaches both of you that rules are optional, which is more damaging than never having had it.
What people get wrong
Writing a constitution in week one. The impulse is understandable and it produces a list nobody can keep, followed by a fortnight of either enforcement theatre or embarrassed silence. Start with two.
Rules that reach into things they have no business reaching into. Money, contact with friends and family, work, medical decisions, and who someone is allowed to speak to. That is not discipline. Under the Serious Crime Act 2015 section 76 it can be controlling or coercive behaviour, which is a criminal offence in England and Wales, and the fact that it was written down and agreed does not change that.
Rules you did not agree to, that keep expanding, that cut you off from people, or that you are punished for questioning are not a dynamic. See consent and coercive control. National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000 247, free, 24 hours. Men's Advice Line 0808 8010 327. Samaritans 116 123.
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 kind of rules do people have in a discipline dynamic?
Usually a short list of specific, checkable expectations that sit between sessions: a cut-off for working late, a message at a set time, a task that keeps getting put off, an agreement to raise problems rather than sit on them. The best rules are things the person actually wants help doing. The worst are things invented to generate offences.
Is it better to have a few rules or a lot?
Around three to five. Long lists fail because nobody can hold them in mind, which turns every week into a scramble to remember what was agreed and makes enforcement arbitrary. A rule you have not thought about in a month is a leftover, and it should be removed rather than quietly ignored.