The Appropriate Flogging Equipment

When it comes to the wide range of flogging equipment out there, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with how things are going to feel before using them on your partner.

For example...

My orientation at the dungeon involved Velocity Chyaldd giving me a tour through each room while explaining the equipment to me. We stood in the middle of the “medical room” and she looked me over like a bad girl in a Linda Blair “women in prison” movie. She had Bettie Page-style black hair and her lips were carefully painted red. Her waist was cinched together with an intricate ribbon-laced bustier. How would I ever get into such complicated clothing? At the time, I’d never owned any fetish gear. About the only thing I ever laced were my Converse high-tops and even those were sloppily undone half the time.

“Have you ever been suspended?” she asked.

“No,” I answered, embarrassed by my lack of experience.

“You should try everything before you start. It’ll make you more comfortable.”

She motioned me toward the suspension bar.

I let her take my wrists and cuff them to the bar, which she raised using a nearby crank. Slowly I was elevated until my toes dangled off the ground.

She tickled me lightly.

“Do you know what a cane feels like?”

“No.” All I knew about canes is that they were used to severely punish graffitists and shoplifters in far-off lands.

“You don’t ever have to agree to be caned. Personally, I can only take five or six at a time, but if you can take it, you’ll get good tips.”

I took a deep breath as my ass involuntarily clenched in expectation of the cane.

“I won’t do it too hard,” she promised. “Relax.”

I tried to relax, but it was sort of like waiting for a shot at the doctor’s office.

I knew pain was on the horizon. She chose a cane from a basket of them and smacked my ass lightly with it. The sensation wasn’t a thump; it was a sting, like instantaneous sunburn. I kind of liked it and pretty soon I was earning extra tips for my ability to “take a caning.”

Canes are generally not used during light BDSM play. These bad boys, which are generally made of rattan, can cause excruciating pain (and pleasure) and are more for BDSM “heavy hitters.” One of the things partners should discuss before a session is whether it’s okay to leave marks on the sub’s body. Canes sometimes break, but they can also break skin and leave marks. When caning your partner, you ideally want to strike him or her with the section of cane starting at the tip and extending perhaps 6 to 8 inches toward the handle.

Incorrectly striking your partner with only the tip can leave marks that take weeks to heal. It’s a good idea to keep Bacitracin (a topical ointment used to prevent skin infections) in your BDSM disaster kit (in case skin does get broken). Some inventive kinksters have suggested massaging the ointment onto the buttocks before the caning even begins. (Arnica cream and vitamin K also help with healing damaged skin.)

With canes, it’s a good idea to pre-negotiate how many strokes the sub will take and to give him or her breathing room between each stroke since it takes a few seconds to absorb the shock of a cane. With canes be extremely careful about where and how you deliver each stroke. For the inexperienced caner, stick to the buttocks (far from the tailbone). Once you have some experience, you can move onto the upper thighs, the upper back (far from the spine), and even the soles of the feet, assuming you do it lightly.

So how do you cane someone without making a bloody mess? Firstly, practice, not on your partner, but on an inanimate object. One website suggested draping a towel over a chair and caning said chair. If, like me, you happen to have a mannequin you found on the sidewalk, use that! (But put some pants on it for padding so you don’t break your cane.) Now make sure there is some distance between you and that inanimate object, enough that you can deliver a whack with the flick of a wrist. Accuracy is important, so in the beginning, keep your elbow at your side and as you improve, you can start to add a little elbow.

How to take a caning? Lying face down, standing up, or (the most traditional position) standing and bent over a chair. However you position your body, make sure your ass cheeks are an easy target and make sure you breathe deeply throughout. That goes for all of the activities herein this tome—taking a spanking, a caning, or a flogging. As a sub, you always want to breathe into your lower belly and keep your body relaxed. Canes offer a sensation unlike anything else and they also mark unlike anything else, so if you happen to be married and cheating with a BDSM play partner, avoid them altogether lest you want your hubby or wifey to question the tiger stripes across your ass.

Starting the flagellation chapter with caning was not unlike starting an Introductory to Science textbook with quantum physics, so let’s move onto some other, easier to handle flogging devices.