Flogging in BDSM - What is it?
Flogging - also known as whipping, flagellation, caning or birching - is probably the activity most associated with kink or BDSM, apart from bondage. Flogging is associated with punishment and pain, and has been assumed to be the exclusive domain of sadists and masochists. However, using a cane or crop on someone in an erotic scenario can be more symbolic than severe, signifying the psychological exchange of power between Master and Slave, or Top and Bottom.  | Being flogged for (sexual) pleasure is a contentious issue, and is likely to remain so … | |
Flogging has a long history of use both as corporal punishment and in a sensual context, connections with the spiritual, and is haunted by dark undercurrents of violence and the worst kind of sado-masochism.
For many people, flogging is seen as a terrible, vicious punishment, and they can't imagine how there could possibly be any sensual pleasure associated with it. For those who do eroticise whippings and beatings, there is a huge range of associated activities and implements that can be utilised to meet their needs.
Being flogged for (sexual) pleasure is a contentious issue, and is likely to remain so due to the association the physical acts have with violence, torture and terror. But the desire to be flogged, or to administer a whipping to someone at their request doesn't make anyone evil or even necessarily masochistic or sadistic.
What it is
Flogging involves administering repeated blows to someone's body (usually but not always their back) using a whip, flail, cane or other implement designed to sting or even cut the flesh. Erotic floggings are conducted between informed consenting adults and may form a part of lovemaking or may be conducted as a separate, inclusive sexually gratifying event.
Whipping has been around so long that the origins are lost in time, but it is certainly an ancient practice. In Sparta men were whipped by priestesses during a pagan ritual, and flagellation was also conducted by cults in Greece, Rome and Egypt as a way of attaining an altered state of consciousness.
Whipping has a long history in religious orders. Both Islamic and Christian religions advocated self-flagellation as a way of atoning for sins and for purifying oneself. There is an interesting irony in that self-flagellation (and, indeed, flagellation administered by someone else) was intended to repress or cure sexual longings. The thriving practice of modern erotic whipping is only the most recent proof that flagellation failed in that aim.
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when flogging became recognised as an erotic pleasure, but the first known account of sado-masochism, written in the 15th century by an Italian known as Pico della Mirandola contained an account of a man who couldn't be satisfied sexually unless he had been whipped.
By the 1700s flogging had gained sufficient popularity that 'flagellation brothels' sprung up all over Europe. In England the brothels that specialised in flogging were particularly successful, and the Puritanism that marked Victorian times had no apparent impact on their popularity. In recognition of this and other occurrences, like the publication of A Treatise on the Use of Flogging in 1718, whipping became known as 'the English vice', a perception that persists to this day, reinforced by the use of whipping as corporal punishment in English schools.
What it isn't
Whipping or flogging carried out in an erotic context is not an act of violence or abuse. It may be used as part of a Discipline scene, or in D/s or S/M, in which it can be used as a 'punishment' - although for the masochist, it is more likely to be used in the context of a reward.
| …there is a clear distinction between violent abusive acts and whipping in a sensual context. | |
Although whipping has a long tradition of being used for violence and torture, there is a clear distinction between violent abusive acts and whipping in a sensual context. Participants in sensual whipping give informed consent, and voluntarily undertake an activity with the objective of sexual gratification. People who are whipped or do the whipping are there by choice, in a quest for pleasure. It is interesting to note that many devotees of flogging or whipping (or their cousin, spanking) refuse to use any kind of corporal punishment on their children. This is in part because they consider it inappropriate for someone the size of an adult to physically strike a much smaller person in the form of a child, but mostly because they consider that these activities are erotic and therefore inappropriate for children. It is indicative of a very different way of thinking about the act of hitting someone; practitioners appear to associate these acts more strongly with sex, than with violence. Other Parts |  |