The Lure of the Lash

I have noticed that I have been referred to several times as “the author of this blog” or “site owner”, which tells me that I haven’t done a very good job of using my name.  I am not ashamed of what I am doing here, so I did post my name in the very first entry, but have neglected to do so in any others—I will mention it every so often from now on.  I am your humble moderator, Buddy Olive.  Please feel free to contact me via email at whippingdudes@yahoo.com.  I get a lot of spam to that account, so let’s have the readers of this blog us a code for the subject line:  write TAKE THE LASH in all caps. ;)

In a response to a comment made by Richie to the “Flogging As Entertainment” post (January 12), I asked readers to ask themselves this question—and respond with a comment:  "What draws you to flogging?"  Mark, a new member, wrote a fantastic response to the same post, so I encourage anyone who has a real interest in this to go back and read it.

I knew from a very young age that this excited me beyond words, but I always felt that I had to keep this interest to myself.  I was especially struck by how much I am in agreement with Mark’s succinct observation:

“I used to find it almost terrifying if a flogging came on the TV and my parents were there - I somehow thought they would sense I longed for it. I used to even forget to breathe and then suddenly have to fight hard not to take a huge intake of breath. REALLY intense interest which has never gone away. “

Since I have always thought of this as an endurance test—and indeed an often unwelcome form of punishment that is nonetheless enjoyable to watch—I have always felt that nudity was inappropriate and unnecessary for a flogging.  Mark is spot on with this:

                                                                                                                             

“A guy needs to test his mettle - or pay the price - with his back, bared from the shoulders to the waist. Nothing else need be naked. Just the bit that is going to be flogged, caned, lashed, belted or otherwise "tested". In other words, just his back.”

Thanks to the internet, we can now create a community—right here—of people who understand this very natural desire to test ourselves and watch others get tested.  But it still remains an “underground” pursuit.  Mark closed his comment by noting that he had joined the WhippingDudes FaceBook page, but felt that, since friends and family can see everything he does there, he had to remove his posts to the page.  I understand his concern and agree that FaceBook is probably not the best place to enhance this community, but I wanted to create a page there so that anyone who uses Facebook that likes flogging as a sport can more easily find this blog.

Flogging As Entertainment

I was excited to read that an Anonymous contributor was inspired by my YouTube videos to endure a flogging for himself for the first time; he noted on a comment to the Jan 1 post that, “…man it hurt but I will definitely do again!”  I believe this is evidence to support what I have understood through intuition for a long time:  Flogging is something many people enjoy—they either just don’t consciously know they like it or are afraid to acknowledge it (even to themselves).  I have always believed that most people just liked to watch floggings (mostly due to the extreme nature of this challenge and peoples’ natural voyeuristic tendencies), but this indicates that with the right inspiration, many people will jump to the challenge of an experience under the lash!

Further evidence that flogging is more generally accepted than most would expect comes from a movie review I read years ago about Starship Troopers when it first came out (I can’t find a link-reference to the article, so you’ll just have to take my word).  The author of the article said that the young-adult audience, which had been somewhat rowdy up to that point, went silent during the flogging scene.  He was particularly struck by the fact that this was the only part of the movie in which that happened.  Of course, Casper Van Dien is a good-looking muscular actor, and watching him tied up shirtless for a flogging is enough to give anyone pause.

As we continue to build this community and to spread awareness of this extreme challenge, I thought it would be appropriate to create a WhippingDudes FaceBook page.  Please visit and “Like” it—and recommend it to friends.

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.