Friday, February 4, 2011

People Don’t Know They Like To Watch Flogging

Our latest poll, “Strip It Off Or Rip It Off?”, is creating a lot of excitement on the blog (if we can measure excitement by the number of reader comments).  I’d like to thank everyone who has felt the need to make comments—audience participation is an important part of this blog.  All of the enthusiasm for the topic of how a man removes his shirt before flogging got me to thinking about what a friend said to me a few weeks ago.  After reading the blog, he said “you’re doing a public service”.

People don’t always know what they don’t know.  I think flogging as entertainment is one of those things:  Many people like it but don’t realize they like it. Most people don’t experience the intense rush that many of us on this blog get when we watch a man endure punishment.  We knew from a young age that watching floggings got our blood flowing, but for most people the pleasure of watching is created with the scene itself and becomes a passing fancy.  Like the scene where Casper Van Dien is flogged in “Starship Troopers”—they enjoy it during the scene, but forget it once the scene has changed away from a shirtless young man taking the lash on his bare back.

But that just means they don’t understand that flogging is a spectator sport.  They therefore need to be introduced to the idea of watching it for the pleasure of it:  The athleticism of the participants and the physical and mental endurance it requires.

So, I ask everyone to forward the URL for this blog to at least five friends to do your part in this public service.  We need to raise awareness and build the community so that more people will get involved by participating in this blog—maybe some will start filming their own floggings and uploading them to YouTube for all of us to enjoy.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Poll: Strip It Off or Rip It Off?

We have posted a new poll!  Many people have said that the dramatic element of shirt-removal is an important part of a flogging scene.  Which do you prefer?  Do you want to watch a man obediently remove his own shirt before submitting to a flogging, or should the shirt be ripped off his back after he’s tied up?  Cast your vote!

(The results of the previous poll have been moved to the bottom of the page, so you can see the results below).

Monday, January 31, 2011

Empires Built With The Lash

I was talking with a friend the other day about our WhippingDudes videos and explained how one of them was deleted by YouTube management due to containing “inappropriate” material.  He couldn’t understand how this non-sexual activity could be inappropriate when, as he put it, our country was built by whipping men’s backs. 
                               
Both of us being military veterans, I instinctively understood the historical context of what he meant, and so I thought I should make it a topic for the blog.  Many people will jump to the obvious reference to slavery, on which the Southern economy in the United States was based, but there is also the military aspect, which is what my friend was referring to.  

The American system of military discipline derived from how the British treated their soldiers.  Most of the American officers had served in the British Army before joining the War for Independence.  Their comfort level with, and application of, the lash was as strong as the British.  The British Empire sought to keep subject populations in control by using the force of their military, and their officers kept control of their soldiers through fear of the lash. And so it was with American officers.

After the founding, military flogging remained in force for decades.  Even Louis and Clark, who were military officers, resorted to flogging their soldiers during their extraordinary exploration of the vast and wondrous American interior (although the flogging is a rarely included—or noticed—footnote).

Using just these two obvious examples of the British Empire and the United States, we can show that flogging was an accepted foundation for military discipline, and those militaries, in-turn, were used to possess and exploit the resources and populations of conquered lands.  As time went on, societies developed, and subject populations became citizens, with a voice in their own governance.

But we cannot—and should not—forget the bloody backs of the men on which these civilizations were founded:  The men who labored, sweated, fought, and who unwillingly endured the lash for the profits of others.