Saturday, December 4, 2010

Take the Lash?

What drives a man to take the lash on his bare back so that the whole world can watch, like our Shirtless Muscle Dude?  For me, it’s the idea that men throughout the ages have been forced to endure the whip as a form of punishment.  No choice was given to the offender:  an officer or judge simply ordered it and the man was seized up and flogged in public—acting as both a form of punishment for his offense and as a warning to his peers.

As free men, we have a choice.  And as such, I choose to understand through personal experience how a man feels while hard strokes are laid to the skin of his back.  From those experiences, I find the most intriguing part to be the fear of it.  It’s not so much a test of pain endurance, it’s a test of fear tolerance.  For example, if a man is taking a flogging and shouts out an established safety phrase to end the beating, it’s not to stop the pain from the previous stroke (he’s already felt that), it’s to avoid the pain of the next one.  In essence, he fears the pain of another lash. The test is: how many does it take to force him to shout out for mercy?  How many can you take?!

Don’t criticize a man who cries out in pain and uses an available escape route.  The fact that the man had the courage to take off his shirt and put himself to this public test should be proof enough of his daring.  If he comes back for more, that’s further evidence of his personal bravery.   It is the man who stands ready to announce the number of lashes he will take, without the easy escape of a safety phrase, and doing it for the world to see, that is truly bold and deserving of respect.  

22 comments:

  1. Google Blogger says my comment is too long, so the thought will be split across two comments.

    I'm not sure I'd want to take the lash while being filmed. Photos have been and will be OK, as long as I can crop and edit them to make sure there are no identifying details. I wouldn't know how to edit video, and I've heard that with enough footage and processing power the images from individual frames can be combined and processed to undo most forms of blurring. On top of that, the voice would need to be obscured, which would destroy the important sounds made by the whip.

    On only one occasion have I had someone other than my whipper witness my being flogged, and his presence steeled my resolve to complete the sentence without calling for a stop. I think it was 60 lashes with a cat made from gas burner ignition wires (for safety, the insulation had been pushed back and the wire trimmed to prevent cuts). Really heavy rubber with a wire core made this a VERY effective instrument of punishment! I took it, because I couldn't imagine breaking in front of a third person. I suppose the same would apply to being filmed, only moreso because potentially the whole world could be witnesses.

    What it the appeal? I don't know. I suppose I'm fascinated by pain, wondering what I can take, how far I can go, like a man who hasn't been tested isn't really fully a man. It's also a chance to re-enact a bit of history that's fascinated me, a chance to see into the mind and character of those both justly and unjustly whipped, whether they took their lashes "like a man," or didn't, to experience what they experienced and live what they lived. I haven't been flogged in over a year, and long to feel it once again. Still, with all this, and having been under the lash before and longing for it again, it still seems foolhardy! Why should I desire this rude interruption of my soft life of ease? Pain? Isn't that something to be avoided?

    For me, the thrill and anticipation leading up to it, of knowing I will be challenged is a real high. I dread being whipped, but I also long to feel it once again. I still don't know why I find it appealing.

    Having experienced floggings with 4 improvised floggers, I'm really curious to experience more authentic recreations like 6 dozen lashes British Navy style at a grating with a replica cat (actually, to do it completely would require 4 sessions to compare regular and theives' cats, constructed in the later style from tarred codline or in the earlier style of rope), 100 lashes Australian-style at a triangle with a long cat, a real bullwhipping, and, my latest fascination (enhanced but not started by your recent video) various prison straps and tawses to the back.

    I've seen the critics of the Youtube vids you and newlatigazos recently posted, those who request, nay, demand more lashes, more intensity, a harsher whip, applied to a more sensitive spot, on and on and on almost ad infinitum, and I just have to wonder how many have actually, really tasted the lash, given the lash, or even been present for a flogging. I think not many, and maybe not any. So, just ignore that sort of critic. Their demands are 100% pure fantasy, with no grounding in real limits imposed by reality and a respect for the life of the pretend prisoner. Unless and until they step forward and offer their backs, they have no standing to disrespect anyone who has.

    END PART 1 of 2, continued in next comment.

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  2. START PART 2 of 2, please read earlier comment first.

    For first-timers, just agreeing to taste the lash is bravery. First, one risks exposure, and humiliation just trying to find a whipper to cooperate in the venture. Then, one must pull together the courage to show up for that first flogging. For me, I was to be lightly tied, and putting out my hands for tying was my real moment of truth, a "do I really, really trust this guy to stick to the agreement?" moment. After that, the first flogging, a relatively light one was a breeze, of no deterrent effect at all (My flogger, not knowing how I would react, recommended a dozen, while I, having seen photos and read first-person accounts, wanted more, and we agreed to compromise on a 25-lash sentence.) Once I was done, I wished I had convinced him to give me more.

    I do have to hand it to those very bravest of the few souls willing to take the lash, those very few who have a relationship with a trustworthy whipper so good that they are willing to simulate a real judicial sentence or real slavery by taking fixed, or even indeterminate flogging with full expectation that requests to stop will be ignored, or even punished by an increase in severity and/or count. The first flogging under such an arrangement must take immense trust and bravery, and each subsequent one still raises the question "can I still trust him?" Such an arrangement is only for the most trusting and trustworthy.

    I hadn't thought that not stopping was a test of fear tolerance, but you are right. You know your back is hurting. You know that the next lash, where it lands on untouched back will spread the pain, and where it lands over another will intensify the pain already there, and you fear that pain, and that is why you stop. That's a great insight.

    You ask "How many can you take?" I don't know that I'll ever know. The only true test would be agree to an indeterminate sentence with no ability to call a stop and then see when I cry out. I think I wouldn't take my best if given an indeterminate sentence with the power to stop at any time. I'd probably take more by setting a high goal for a fixed sentence than I would by saying "whip me until I say stop." In isolation beforehand, it's easy to set a goal higher than the previous best, then when tempted to stop, console oneself by either thinking "I've taken this many and more before", or later in the whipping, "just X more and it's done." But if the sentence is indeterminate, with no fixed goal to aspire to, the temptation to stop NOW would come too early.

    I think once or twice I've been near my limits, and I've been tempted to raise the possibility of a no-stop sentence set above those points. I'm not sure my whipper would agree to flog me under such conditions. It sure is a tempting thought.

    I hope it's not rude to write a comment that rivals or exceeds the original post in length. If it is, perhaps some discipline is in order :-).

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  3. My first experience with whips and a whipping happened when I was twenty three, working for a couple weeks on a ranch in southern Idaho.

    I'd always been fascinated with them. One day the dude I was working with were cleaning out stalls. He picked up an eight foot bullwhip, cracked it in my direction, and told me albeit jokingly to 'get to work'. I sorta laughed at him, and hoped he didn't see the hard on in my Levi's.

    The next thing I knew he wrapped the whip around my legs, pulling them out from under me. I fell atop the manure piled hay. I shouted at him to knock it off, which only served to urge him on. He must have cracked that whip fix or six times. I ducked and covered, lying flat on my stomach. Suddenly, I felt this sharp sting across the back of my Levi jacket.

    So he's standing there, coiling the bullwhip, and out of nowhere he dares me to take off my shirt and take a whipping like a man. For whatever reason, it was one of those situations where I couldn't back down. "C'mon, do it, ya little punk."

    Before I knew it, I stripped off my jacket and shirt, positioned myself in front of a stall, and grabbed hold of some iron bars. Whip crack. It was like someone had set my back on fire from just that one stroke, but I'll be damned if I was going to give him the satisfaction of hearing me holler. He hit me three more times with it, and each time he did, I wanted him to hit me harder.

    After that first episode, I could not get enough. I waited nearly a year before I felt the whip on my back again, and the craving was so intense, I could not believe it.

    This time, it wasn't an actual whip, but eight pieces of rawhide shoe laces, 72 inches long. After five lashes, my mouth took over. I insulted the guy, told him he wasn't worth crap, etc, all in an effort to have him whip me as hard as he could. When he finished, my back was welted and bleeding. It took weeks to heal.

    As has been previously stated, there has to be a trust level between you and the guy laying the whip on your back. You must know your limits. You must also realize that injury is just one lash away. While a lot of guys have fantasies about being whipped, the truth of the matter is there is one hell of a difference between fantasy and the real thing. A bullwhip can slice and dice your back into shreds if used improperly. Floggers have a tendency not to leave welts or marks, and just redden the back. Single tails can be just as lethal as a bullwhip, and caution must be used.

    Many guys get off when being whipped. I've creamed my Levi's more than I care to admit, but the biggest mistake I made was when I encountered a no non-sense dude who warned me ahead of time that if I came before he was done whipping me, he'd lay it on harder until I came again. I don't remember how long I was tied to that whipping post, but I do remember it was the first time I'd ever came twice and wound up hanging by my wrists.

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    1. The author of the preceding post has written 5 blog entries telling the whole story: 1, 2, 3, 4, and the finale.

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  4. That is a GREAT story! Thanks for sharing.

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  5. Your video turned me on so much. I love being tied and flogged with the cat. The pain is great, and showing being able to take each lash is even better. I often think it is being tied that is the best part although feeling the pain of each lash is so wonderful. One needs to receive the full sentence and know at the end that one can take it.

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  6. @Anonymous (of 12/21, 10:57 AM), I loved your story. You were lucky to experience the lash at such a young age. I've wanted to taste the lash since I was a kid growing up in the Golden Age of TV whippings, the '60s. I waited until middle age to screw up the courage to actually ask a stranger, known only through the Internet, for a whipping. And it wasn't the thought of flogging that held me back, it was the need to discreeetly find someone and ask stranger to stranger.

    For various regrettable reasons, it's been well over a year since my last flogging, and I'm desperately longing for another. I've never been bullwhipped, but I crave that experience especially, although right now I'd settle for a light flogging of 100 lashes with my whipper's usual light 24-inch rawhide bootlace cat-of-eight. Of course, for exactly the reasons you cite, before taking a bullwhipping, the whipper would have to have good references, or demonstrate 10 times in a row successful precision bullwhip tricks (card cutting, candle snuffing, hit a velvet pillow within an inch of a drawn chalkline, etc.) with no errors.

    As I've said before, I've always been whipped under a "Saying stop means it stops" policy with a fixed planned endpoint (not my choice, my regular whipper wouldn't whip me under any other terms.) I think I'm ready for a "no mercy" policy, and "no mercy" coupled with an open-ended count really sounds exciting, but really requires a lot of trust. I'd really like to get to that level of trust with someone and see how much hurt I can take, and how much more I can be made to take after I think I can't take any more.

    Since you bring the topic up, I'm a bit curious about floggers. Most of what I've heard (mostly from people into serious punishment corporal punishment) has tried to lead me to believe that all floggers are just sex toys, not serious implements of pain or punishment. What's your experience: true or false?

    Of course, when I saw our host's first video, I knew that I had to have a good strapping. I want that almost as much as a good bullwhipping.

    As to reactions to flogging and whipping, my experience is opposite. The actual flogging seems to quench all reaction in me. Now, the anticipation the night before, or the warm glow on my back as I lie on my striped back and try to imagine how much more whipped I'd feel if only i'd screwed up the courage to ask for a longer sentence, ... Well, since Whippingdudes hasn't set the adult access only flag for this blog, we'll have to leave details to the imagination lest any children stumble upon this site.

    I hope whippingdudes won't mind a commercial plug, but every time I visit Adam and Gillian's web site (they sell straps, floggers, cats, etc.) I get overwhelmed. So many ways to experience the infliction of pain just waiting for us to experience them. I know someone who has several kinds of their historic reproduction cats, and I wish I could arrange a large number of visits to his vacation house to compare and contrast them.

    I'll echo what our host wrote in a later post: do register to post, even if under a psuedonym. Sorting out all the different anonymous postings is hard. Plus, it's a bit lonely being the only non-anonymous commenter on here besides our host/owner.

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  7. What a great story, Curious One. Thanks for sharing. In answer to your question, I don't think that how people label an item to be as important as how it is used. The cat and strap that we have so far used in our videos are serious instruments of punishment, but could also be lightly used in a sensual manner. I, of course, prefer to use them as they were intended: infliction and endurance of pain.

    I also enjoy visiting Adam and Gillian's whips site (www.aswgt.com); they have some quality items on there that really spark the imagination!

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  8. Great story about the barn bullwhipping. I can't forget my first encounter with a bullwhip. The man who used it on me was a Marine Sgt and he knew how to use it. I braced myself against a wall and I will never forget the way it slammed into me like a mack truck. The pain was actually less than I expected but the impact of it was incredible, the kind of thing that puts hair on your chest. It also left marks that lasted a long time, I wound up taking six.

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  9. I forgot to add that nobody who has experienced what a real whipping is like, would comment adversely about your reaction to the lashes. I respect you as a man.

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  10. Mike brings up some really good points that anyone who wants to encounter a bullwhipping should adhere to. Find someone who know's what the hell he's doing. Dude, I can totally identify with your comment about how the bullwhip slams into your back. There was a lot of intrepidation cascading through me when I grabbed those iron bars inside that southern Idaho barn, but it was time to cowboy up. When I heard that whirring sound of that bullwhip, yah, I closed my frickin' eyes and gritted my teeth. But, I wouldn't have traded the experience for anything, well, maybe for the lottery numbers.

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  11. I can also vouch for the quality of Adam And Gillian's products, I bought their Newgate cat, soft handled naval cat and another one which I cannot recall the name of but had VERY unusual round (x-section) leather tails - a little like a roman flagrum but happily without the nails and broken glass :).

    A&G are not the cheapest implement makers around but excellent quality and no problems or hassles with imports.

    I bought a bullwhip from a guy called Bernie in Australia - beautifully made but still not found anyone in the UK who is able to show me what it feels like. Have had a couple of folks offer to "have a go" and "learn as they went along" but that didn't seem quite such a plan.

    With regard to the comment about floggers being more sex-toys than implements of a severe flogging, I think that truly depends loads.

    A flogger with 100 fluffy tails (or even suede) is indeed a sensual thing which although might wind you slightly if thrown at full force, is unlikely to do too much more than feel relaxing and "thuddy".

    On the other hand, one made with about 20 strips of thick rubber (think sliced up rubber car mats), can approach the power of heavy straps / tawse etc. Very high on thud - but surprisingly high on sting too.

    Flogger or cat, call it what you will but if you have thick rubber tresses swung with a will across your bare back, you are unlikely to regard it as a toy - wonderful thought it may be :)

    One little word of caution I will offer to those who might be tempted to try the THICK leather paddles over their back, although almost impossible to cut (unless poor quality and a bad edge finish), if swung with something approaching a full power swing from a powerful man, you DO risk something a bit odd - skin delamination. On the basis I like to "test myself" rather than sustain lasting damage, that concerneed me a bit - but it ended up healing exactly as a regular blister from a burn etc would. Nonethless having a flat object at room temperature make a "top layer" of skin come detached from that below was a disconcerting (though fascinating) event. It has never happened with ANY other implement - even ones which can easily cause the odd "shaving nick" type mark.

    Be very interested to hear what other folks have taken across their backs - a tawse is something I can suggest is a bit different to try if not had a go before.

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  12. Where the heck are all these Idaho barns you guys are whipped at? I live in Idaho and could really use a good whipping.

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  13. Matt - Man, ya got it all wrong. I mean, this wasn't some kind of barn where ya walk in, take a number, and wait for your whipping. It was two dudes messing with one another while cleaning horse pucky out of ten freakin' stalls. Nothing more.

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  14. Yeah, I figured it was something like that. I was just envious, that's all.

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  15. Whippings in leathers?? any guys here into taking whippings in full leather motorbike kombi, heavy wraps, spreadeagled, for long long long sessions, its a GREAT pretext to a bared back flogging, anyone up for it?? mail whipsadism @ gmail.com

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  16. Last summer I went to Seattle to have an authentic whipping session with a bud. He tied me spread eagle and administered 200 lashes with a knotted cat!! It left my back bloody and marked! It was awesome!! Got it on video!! I plan to return this September when he is planning to tied me suspended from a joist and administer 25-30 lashes across my back with a heavy single tail whip...leaving my back scarred and bloody!! I cannot wait!!

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  17. Randy, have you uploaded your video to anywhere on the web where we can see it? If so, we'd all love to have the link. If you are looking for a place to put it, gaytube and/or xtube don't seem to have a problem with keeping floggings available.

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  18. Thanks for the info Whippingdude! I will upload it and post the link here so you guys can check it out! I would also love to find some closer administrators looking to meet up ...I live in west texas

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  19. You want a real bull whipping by a real cowboy come to Texas. I have been both branded and bull whipped so i know what both feel like and i know how to do both.

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    1. Hey man...talk to me about your branding!!! Lashem.

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  20. Branded too??? Great, man!!!! You've shown your strength, bravery, and manhood!

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