Thursday, December 22, 2011

Cruelty at Sea

This will probably be the last post of 2011—but there will be much more new things to come in the new year! 

I was reading a post on the Under the Lash blog (because it’s a private blog I am not giving a link out of respect for the owner) that described a British sea captain who was despised by his officers and crew—and even by a colonial governor—for his “cruelty” in exercising his authority to flog his men:

He was notorious at Auckland, and the governor disapproved of his cruelty to his crew.  So Loring did not flog when in port there.  Every now and again, when sentences of punishment accumulated, he would go out to sea for a cruise of three or four days, in the Hauraki Gulf, to work off the arrears of flogging in “pace and comfort”.



I quote this for two reasons:  Think of it from the perspective of each party, the captain and the crew!  Can you imagine having the authority to sentence men to flogging, but letting the number of men with sentences accumulate and then—at your whim—set your ship to sail just for the purpose of disciplining their strong backs?  Just order a grating rigged and call a half dozen men every day to writhe in agony under your unquestioned authority!

And the crew:  They never have a choice on when the ship is going to leave port.  The men with floggings hanging over them dreaded the order to set sail, knowing that it was to get the ship out of port just to carry out punishments.  The anticipation itself must have been a form of agony—knowing that you can’t escape punishment, but having to wait for possibly weeks for the day to set sail, and then once at sea being forced to watch as whips whistle down across bare backs, the flogged men bleeding and screaming under the lash, until your name is called to step forward, strip off your shirt, and answer for your crime.

I like to add a touch of my own cruelty to this scenario:  If I were the captain, I would ensure that three or four malefactors would each be sentenced for more than one offense, and require them to take the flogging for each transgression separately.  This way, they would get to experience the lash, watch other men endure it, and then wait for the next assembly where they would be seized up again.  Each such offender would be flogged every day we were out at sea.  Imagine the fear in each man’s eyes when the lieutenant calls out his name to have his still-raw back helplessly exposed to another round of lawfully harsh military punishment.



On that note:  Happy Holidays from WhippingDudes!

14 comments:

  1. Happy holidays to you, too, Buddy. You have been a welcome commentator – a thoughtful mind, an excellent writer, and an imaginative leader.

    Now if only you and Cliff Meador could get together to collaborate, moving his brand of punishment from the backside to the bare back. What a show that would be.

    Have a great 2012. I look forward to your continuing ideas and perspective.

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  2. Thanks, Larry. I am not familiar with Cliff Meador's work. Can you provide a link or other reference?

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  3. Cliff Meador has a site called spankingcentral.com that does spanking videos (as you might guess from the name:)). He's done some that are very reminiscent of judicial flogging scenes, like with the victim tied to a triangle and whipped with a cat-o-nine... across the buttocks. I've talked to Cliff and found he's completely uninterested in branching out anatomically; he has a very specific idea of what he wants to do, and if a bare ass isn't involved, he's not into it, period. It's a little weird that he does these scenes that are so thoroughly and perfectly modeled on what we here would call real floggings, and yet absolutely loses interest when you make that one little change. But on the other hand we here (at least most of us) are equally inflexible on our preferred whip target, so I guess I get it at that level. On the other other hand, our recognition of the bare male back as the right and proper target for inflicting physical punishment is obviously the correct one, and it's Cliff who has a defective fetishistic fixation. :)

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  4. The reason I'm more interested in whipping on the back rather than on the ass is that it's more of a manly punishment - that spanking stuff is a childhood thing. Floggings are civilized dominance rituals, basically the equivalent of the alpha male beating the crap out of a misbehaving subordinate, but in a controlled and civilized way. The partial nudity is essential - the offender is forced into a submissive stance, restrained, and his bare skin exposed to the alpha for the sole purpose of infliction of pain. Stripping the offender shirtless is the perfect degree of nudity - it leaves him feeling exposed and on display, and fully exposes the punishment target area to the lash, but it's acceptable for men to be seen in public shirtless, so it doesn't take away his masculine dignity by stripping him naked.

    Buddy, great thoughts on drawing out the punishments for repeat offenders. It would give the worst miscreants more time to regret their offenses, knowing they'd be called up for punishment again the next day, and the next...

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  5. What happened to Starsstripes on multiply.com?

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  6. Unfortunately, multiply.com took it down. Peter, who had been running it, is so discouraged that he has no plans to bring it back. This has been the last of many services it has been shut down on, including Yahoo, and whatever Microsoft was calling it's service before they shut it down.

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  7. I am not at all familiar with multiply.com. What features did the Starsstripes page have? Maybe we can duplicate it over at iteratus.net (the place where I back up WhippingDudes). At least on there, we would know that no anti-consensual flogging prudes would be able to take it down.

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  8. Starsstripes had hundreds of video clips from mainstream, widely distributed, films and television shows (both from the U.S. and abroad)showing male back whippings and hundreds more stills from these and other sources. They were specifically non-sexual, other then by implication sometimes, and no genitals were ever shown. What the censorship is about is beyond me. If "Peter" still has the backup files, I can not believe there is nowhere to park them. Is it a money issue?

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    1. Chances are that they got DMCA'd.

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  9. I like the idea of a captain ordering up The Lash regularily and having the gratings rigged for Punishment at least three times a week to give his men their quota of "dozens". Another way to ensure severity is that he'd order fresh cat-o'-nine-tails to be strung up, the tails made of new wire-like tarred codline to give that desired extra "bite" and cut across the taut, sweaty sinewy bare backs. And employ two bosuns, right- and left-handed, to "well lay on with right and left cats" to ensure an even striping of the bare backs and a steady, rythmic lay of the lash, a delicous sounding whistle and crack of six dozens with cats on male bare backs.

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  10. Use knotted cats on their bare backs; nine knots per each of the nine tails give extra bite and cut.

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  11. Does make you wonder if one or two sailors might have been keen to often get in trouble for minor offences - just enough to get the cat whistling towards their back once again.

    There must have been some over the centuries who actively wanted the lash - and perhaps just had to find a way to wind-up the officers enough for the to oblige.

    Lucky gits.

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    1. Yes, I like to think of men who itched for a taste o' the cats across their bare backs and boned over the sight of the red baize bags with their beautiful, freshly strung-up cat-o'-nine-tails neatly coiled inside and keeping their backs and shoulders muscled up for the lash and be proud to strip to their waists at the gratings.

      A well-run ship would need to keep a good stock of the nine-tailed cats ready and the bosuns keep busy carefully and meticulously stringing them up from tarred codline and tieing all of the knots in each of the tails knowing someone would soon be baring his back for them and maybe itching for their swish and cut.

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  12. who has a grating to be spreadeagled against?? floggingman @ gmail . com

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