As near as I can tell, DW has three primary ways of determining whether a remedial spanking has adequately achieved its purpose:

1. It must be sufficiently painful during the course of its delivery.
Based on a combination of the sound of its delivery and my reaction, with practice, DW has learnt to judge whether each stroke has proven effective for the particular instrument in use. For the hairbrush and Spencer paddle, DW knows that a well-delivered stroke makes a resounding report that echoes loudly throughout the room and beyond – whereas a stroke that produces only a dull thud has added little of value to the punishment.

In my experience, certain assumed positions and locations seem more conducive to the delivery of effective punishment strokes. Perhaps all too obviously, the most painful lessons have occurred when I am bent over the farthest, and when DW has had confident “swinging room” to deliver more fulsome strokes. In terms of sheer pain ‘value’, I’d have to rate being straddled over the side of the spa as perhaps the most memorable – something about that particular arrangement seems to put DW into stride and my memory of the last 100 rapid, perfectly delivered strokes from the hairbrush that I received in that position is still very fresh. A closely ranked second would be over the back of a captain’s chair at a hired cottage that provided just the right combination of height and reach – yeeouch!!

DW is also not in the custom of nominating beforehand the number of strokes that I am to receive – preferring, I believe, to rely on the progression of my responses and the visible state of my backside to deem what is sufficient, and quite often, that a punishment should be paused or even split over multiple days in order to maintain the effectiveness of each stroke. After all, there is not much point in continuing on immediately if it has become obvious that a spanking has reached a point of ‘diminished return’. An hour’s break usually seems sufficient to ensure a renewed effectiveness – and when they occasionally occur, on-the-hour repeat spankings over the course of a day are something to be reckoned with!

For more rapidly delivered strokes, the interval between them is kept pretty constant, allowing just sufficient time for any involuntary exclamatory response on my part, and to announce the count. Nevertheless, I feel sure there are times when DW is deliberately raising the rate to test the limits of my endurance, and so that my response and counting become intermingled.

I expect that as our inventory of spanking implements progressively grows, the role will become clear for a more leisurely rate of delivery from items such as a severe cane or large paddle – where I suspect that the progression of pain sensations from each individual stroke is an event in itself. That red ball gag in the drawer may then find a use in keeping my noise level below that of the spanking strokes themselves.

2. Its effects must be visibly apparent for several days after the event – as a minimum.
When DW has decreed a punishment spanking, I can be sure that it will continue either continuously or in stages, until she is convinced that I will carry the visible signs of it for an appropriate period of time. As this is often difficult to judge on the same day that a spanking has occurred, DW has made a frequent practice of inspecting my backside over the days following a punishment spanking to ensure that she has ‘left her mark’ on me. As the general redness of a spanking fades, DW is content only if she finds more lasting signs such as tell-tale dark red lines and/or more generalised bruises. We’ve also been somewhat surprised by the ability of a hot shower to restore that healthy glow to my butt for a week or more after the event.

If, contrary to expectations, the markings are not sufficiently persistent, repeat performances can be expected until such time as they are.

After one particularly punishing weekend, the blisters on my butt cheeks took a full 3 weeks to resolve themselves. This in itself gave rise to the codeword between us of ‘weekend’ – which when used by DW, can be translated as an extremely severe warning to cease any particularly bad behaviour on my part.

3. The pain should also persist for some days as an ongoing reminder .
As this can also be difficult to judge at the time of the spanking, DW has adopted more of a prescription approach based on her experience that a certain number of strokes from a specific implement will produce the right outcome. Whilst the hairbrush appears to be the most severely painful of our implements during the course a spanking, DW has found that the more solid Spencer paddle is best for producing those long term painful reminders of a spanking. Once the more immediate stinging subsides, I then find it is replaced by a duller but continuous reminder that is there even when seated on the most apparently comfortable seating.

The delicacy with which I adopt a sitting position over the following days, particularly on a hard chair, can provide DW with a good indication of the lingering after effects. Alternatively, she also can adopt the more direct method of unexpectedly grabbing a piece of my butt, and observing my reaction. I expect that the penalty for her detection of a faked response on my part would not be worth the attempt.