Whip It Good?

[going_boldly]

I have a character, who at the age of fourteen was given ten lashes with a single-flagellum whip. At the time, he was underweight and underfed, though not yet to the point of malnurishment. The person administering the whipping is as close to an officer of the law as you're going to get in that particular part of town, and has a great deal of

Comments

[eelpot]

Not a medical or historical professional in any way, but I have researched whipping for one of my own stories. The easy answer to your questions are "whatever you like it to be", or something close to it

[uozaki]

Not the OP, but this is so very helpful for me. Thanks!

[going_boldly]

This is extremely helpful- thank you!

[smillaraaq]

I'd second the suggestion to look into information aimed at BDSM folks -- you'll find lots of first-hand knowledge there about whip use, sensations, and dangers. This page can give you a start: http://www.bullwhip.org/faq/sm.html. You'll want to look for material on "singletail" whips in particular, also "bullwhips" or "signal whips" -- searching on floggers or flogging will tend to get you results leaning more towards whips with multiple falls.

As folks here have already noted, the results are going to be really really variable depending on both the style/material of the whip and the skill, and intentions, of the one doing the whipping. Someone who's sufficiently skilled can control where the whip cracks so it makes a lot of loud scary noise but lands harmlessly, or lands hard enough to raise a welt without breaking skin, or hard enough to slice flesh; so you can really justify whatever level of injury and scarring, or lack thereof, that you want to write.

[going_boldly]

Thanks for the link- yeah, this really is looking to be a "write what you need" type of thing. I just don't want to write a beating that should result in bruises and then have there still be visible scars twenty plus years down the line.

[smillaraaq]

Well, maybe it would help to turn it around and think about the character using the whip for a bit instead... Is there any reason he'd want to go easy on your character, give him a good scare and a little pain without any serious injury; or would he think that severe punishment is justified and deliberately go for maximum damage? Is a whip something he uses regularly, either as part of his law enforcement role or when dealing with animals? Everything I've ever read or heard about singletails says that they're tricky beasts and you can hurt yourself by swinging them around wildly if you don't know what you're doing; so if part of this guy's job is whipping lawbreakers, he'd need to have practiced enough to not be a danger to himself. But if there's no particular in-story reason to make him extremely skilled with a whip, he might be good enough to hit what he's aiming at but be a little inconsistent in how hard the blows land...

[naughtydolphin]

Definitely check out kink sites about whipping, particularly the 'edgier' players. There are plenty of people who deliberately break the skin when whipping, so you'll get lots of first hand advice from them.

Also, what's his pain tolerance going to be like? Is he someone who cries like a baby when he stubs his toe, or can he handle a lot? If the person doing the whipping is aiming to hurt and maim, then he's going to probably want someone to lean on to walk away. He can probably do it himself, but he'll probably be in a state of shock from the pain and experience.

[going_boldly]

I'd say he has a moderately better than average tolerance for pain at this point, though the majority of this tolerance is taken from getting into (and out of) scraps rather than any sort of natural ability.

Thanks for the heads up- the "don't do this to your sub" sections are proving especially helpful.

[naughtydolphin]

hah, yes, those sections will be the ones to go to for what you want to do to him :)