Monday, January 10, 2011

Discipline of the Lash

Before I begin this post about flogging as a form of discipline, I would first like to thank everyone who participates in this blog by commenting, reading, and forwarding it.  For a long time, I thought I was alone in my quest to explore all facets of flogging, but through this—and the success of my YouTube videos—I have found that is not true.  We are a community, even if we didn’t realize it before.  And I am very proud to be someone who is helping to lead this community—and flogging—into the mainstream.

Mike had posted a statement: “Severe whipping is what we male animals need” to the Jan 1 post.  Richie responded to it in a comment to the Jan 3 post, asking, “…it would be cool to understand the psychological reasoning behind the statement itself. Is it because violence is the only thing men truly understand and discipline?

Since I am not a psychologist, I can’t really delve into what drives a statement like Mike’s, but nonetheless tend to agree with it.  I think we can all agree that young men need discipline.  Discipline can come from inside or outside the person.  A young man without discipline will either become rowdy or lazy—neither is beneficial to society.  And constructive discipline easily breaks down in uncontrolled crowds.  Therefore, the application of discipline is in order when dealing with groups of young men, such as in a military or prison setting.

The threat of punishment must be backed up with the application of it.  The question is:  to what degree?  And that must take into account the circumstances.  Many military officers, especially in the British military, had a zeal for applying the lash to the backs of their men, believing that their soldiers/sailors were merely drunkards or brutes understanding nothing but severe pain.  And Southern sheriffs in the United States have traditionally used the strap ruthlessly to keep their prisoners working hard on chain gangs. 

So, from an idealistic perspective, given that soldiers on the march before an enemy often need to have their resolve stiffened and that prisoners working at hard labor will shirk whenever possible, the lash seems to be an adequate—and appropriate solution:   An officer can’t have his men languishing in confinement when there is fighting to do (flogging gets the punishment out of the way quickly), and a prisoner laboring at public works will not be motivated by the threat of additional incarceration (solitary or not), but will jump at the thought of another application of the strap.

3 comments:

  1. Why do males deserve severe whippings, from my viewpoint it comes down to two things, behavior and a guys fascination with leather.

    For some reason, which only the teacher know's, in wood class (an elective in high school) when we walked in one day, there were piles of leather on a table. The teacher told us that we were going to have to make a wallet, belt, pair of gloves, and be graded on it. Most guys went for the belt, and for the first ten minutes of class either doubled the strip of leather in their hands making it snap or swatted each other on the rear end, bringing about laughter in some cases and anger in others. Just the sound of leather being snapped or cracked gets a guys immediate attention, and realizing the power, pain, and in some cases pleasure it constitutes, fascination.

    The behavior part, I for one, learned it the hard way. At 16 I snuck out of the house late one night, like most teenagers do, and met up with some friends for an underage drinking bash. I got caught. When I got home, my old man dragged me by my hair up to my room, took of his heavy leather belt and gave me one of the worst whippings I've ever encountered. The imprint of that belt went right through my jeans and that old saying about not sitting down for a week, I can testify to it. Behavior.

    As the author of this blog has noted several times, on YouTube, you see teens and young adults beating themselves or whipping a friend with all types of leather either testing themselves because they're curious what it actually feels like or in some cases on a dare. Fascination,

    At my place of employment, there's always talk about 'how much time did you spend in the woodshed?' A couple of dudes recall fondly the strap that was used on them recalling the painful lesson from not doing their chores, talking back, etc. Behavior.

    I'm not sure of the exact quote, but an Ancient Egyption saying was that a man's back is his third ear, the more it's beaten the more he learns to listen. Behavior.

    The other aspect is punishment, and for those followers here, the obvious instrument to provide that punishment is the whip.

    It had a variety of uses, shredding grain, herding animals, and there are studies that proved cracking a whip can provide incentive to men laboring, marching into battle, or even in a game of tug-of-war.

    But it's reputation has settled on being a instrument of punishment. The application of the whip to a bare back has been discussed in several places on this blog; Over zealous overseer's, naval floggings, chain gang discipline, etc.

    How many lashes have to be applied before the lesson is learned? Two dozen was commonplace in the navy. I'm not sure but I think it was up to the overseer's discretion on plantations and in chain gangs. It's the application of the whip that determines the effectiveness of the whipping. If it was laid on hard, the chances of the offender repeating his mistake was probably lessened. Again, it's behavior.

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  2. i was never strapped as a kid . it has left me with a jnterest in finding some man to punish me . my school male buddys got strapped regulary. i craved having a big hairy chested man calling me names and giving it to me good/.

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    Replies
    1. I agree you should be whipped and disciplined.

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