On the St Andrew’s Cross
A slave is tied to a St Andrew’s Cross, his naked body exposed to the gaze of the master. His body trembles but not from cold but from anticipation. He knows he is about to be flogged because he plays regularly with this master, and even if this were the first time they’d played, the position he’s tied in pretty much defines the activity that will follow. The master takes his time selecting the flogger he’ll use. But before he makes his first pass on the sub’s back or butt, he wants to build up the tension and savor his own anticipation of flogging this well-muscled slave. Holding the handle in one hand and the end of the thongs in the other, he taps the slave’s back with the thongs, sometimes lightly, sometimes more strongly.
“Are you ready for your punishment, slave?” The master asks, teasing the slave with the thongs. Leaning onto the slave, pressing his bare chest into the slave’s back the master tells the slave how much he’s going to suffer during the flogging. “Thank you, Sir!” The slave replies gratefully. The master steps back and the slave prepares himself for the first pass of the flogger. He knows this master’s technique: How he starts by spinning the thongs at speed, barely touching the exposed skin with the tips of the thongs. At first, the sensation is almost pleasant, but it quickly escalates so that the slave writhes on the cross and starts to groan. But the master pulls back or changes from back to butt to give the slave the illusion of respite. After a few minutes, the slave’s back is a fiery red.
The master pauses to talk to the slave again, before continuing with the flogging. Heavy blows strike the slave’s back and butt cheeks, but as the thongs land dead on on the thick back muscles and glutes, rather than wrapping around the slave’s torso or legs, they just make a red bloom that on the skin that will be long gone well before the end of the session, when he has to go back to his vanilla boyfriend, who couldn’t even imagine that his mainly active partner is tied up at the mercy of a BDSM master, whom he calls “Sir” and “Master,” and gratefully thanks for his punishment.
As the master disciplines his slave, a screen in the playroom plays a series of gay BDSM video clips streamed over the Internet, featuring flogging and whipping scenes that provides a soundtrack of lashes, groans, and screams matching those of the real scene. The first is a slick production set in a cinematic dungeon, featuring two muscles studs––a leather-clad master and his professionally restrained slave. The master wields his flogger with professional ease, and while the slave’s reactions seem to indicate that he’s in pain, his back tells another story. The heavy leather flogger the master uses, while it makes an impressive noise on the slave’s back, barely causes the slave’ skin to redden. Although the flogger the master uses looks much heavier than the one used in the real scene, it’s broad, flat leather thongs are supple and soft and the punishment they deliver is noisy by mild. The punishment in this clip, like the impressive-looking dungeon, is definitely for show.
The premise of the second clip is that the hot young stud who is tied up naked facing the viewer has accepted to commute his prison term for corporal punishment––in his case, a whipping with a short bullwhip wielded by an equally attractive young master. While the plot is clearly a fantasy, the punishment seems real enough. The bullwhip leaves vivid red wheals on the sub’s skin and his screams do not sound simulated. Nevertheless, the scene has clear limits, and the sub’s reactions don’t always ring true. Released from his restraints, he falls to the floor in a faint from the agony of a punishment lasting no more than ten minutes––faint, or more likely, feint?
Most of the remaining clips are variations of the first two: some high-end productions of porn stars and hot subs who have volunteered to be punished as an endurance challenge, and other more amateur offerings, claiming that the victims are kidnapped straight boys being abused by brutal gay doms. What they have in common is a sexual subtext: Either the sub or dom, or both, are aroused. In some clips the victim is made to jerk off, in others, he is raped. A final clip purports to be the administration of a judicial punishment of the young inmate of a correctional facility for juvenile delinquents, which, from the clothing worn by the actors, is set in the late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century. The dom and sub are not aroused as they perform for the viewer’s sexual titillation.
Algolagnia
The paradox that we encounter in the scene above, as in so many other aspects of gay BDSM, is that for from being “punished” or “disciplined” against his will, the sub has not only consented to being punished, he has actively sought out a dom who can administer exactly the kind of punishment that he “enjoys.” I use quote marks around the verb enjoys as this has to be further explained. There are subs who get off on physical pain. Psychiatrists call these subs masochists (see “The Invention of Gay BDSM,” January 10, 2017). Sigmund Freud believed that BDSM was all about pain, and his term for sadomasochism was algolagnia––sexual gratification through the receipt or infliction of pain. But gay BDSMers who get off on the pain alone are, in my experience, the exception rather than the rule. Even when that is the case, a pain-loving sub will not feel sexually aroused by a headache or toothache––it has to be a certain kind of pain, applied to a specific part of the body, under certain conditions that gets them off. In that case, can we say that it is ever just about the pain? Maybe if we look at it in percentage terms: For the pain-sub, the actual sensation of pain is more than fifty percent of the pleasure he finds in a scene. The same can be said about pain-doms: How much of the pleasure they derive from a scene is about the pain itself rather than the context, recipient, etc.?For many subs, however, pain in itself is not a particularly attractive part of a scene. I often come across newbie profiles that state that they are “not into pain.” But they are thinking of headaches and toothache, not the type of pain they are likely to encounter in a gay BDSM session. If you replaced the words “pain, punishment, and discipline” by “intense physical sensation or stimulation,” you might be closer to what subs experience in a scene, but unless you’ve experienced the extraordinary mix of mental and psychological stimuli that a good dom can provide, those words elicit little more than a confused “Huh?” As a dom with a strong interest in B&D––bondage and discipline––I have to use the words pain, punishment, and discipline, even though they put off as many subs as they attract. Unfortunately, we are stuck with the vocabulary of gay BDSM, so rather than change it, the best I can do is explain what pain, punishment, and discipline mean in the gay BDSM context.
Whipping Boys
Flagellation––whipping or flogging with a variety of instruments for sexual gratification––is as old as civilization itself. A wall painting discovered in the ruins of the first-century BCE Roman town of Pompeii shows a flagellation scene in one of the city’s brothels. As a sexual practice, it long predates the invention of gay BDSM. It differs from whipping, which was used as a means to punish and discipline slaves during the same period, because of its sexual context and meaning. For centuries, far from being seen as a punishment, it was seen by its many fans––older men, in particular––as a means of quickening “the circulation of their sluggish juices.” This description from the pornographic novel
Fanny Hill
(1748) by John Cleland, set in the brothels of eighteenth-century London, reveals that flagellation was long thought of as a pre-modern form of Viagra.Punishment or Endurance?
But the novice-sub shouldn’t be fooled, flogging, caning, whipping, even spanking, can be made to be extremely painful if that’s what the dom really wants to do. However, many doms use discipline, like bondage and role play, as a physical expression of their control over a sub. The pain can be incidental to the psychological aspects of giving and receiving discipline. A common sub-dom role play is for the sub to resist a dom’s orders until he is made to do so by some form of discipline. But in this scenario, who determines how much punishment the sub will receive? The sub, of course, as he can give in when he wants and stops any punishment. The game only works as long as the sub is willing to resist the dom and take his punishment. This is not so much as the dom imposing discipline as the sub agreeing to an endurance challenge.
But the dom can do what he wants, you might point out. The sub is tied up at his mercy and cannot resist. The dom could whip, cane, paddle, or flog the shit out of the sub if he really wanted to. Sure, if he didn’t mind, at best, never seeing that sub again, or, at worst, risking a charge of assault and battery. The paradox of discipline is that a sub can only be punished or disciplined with his consent and for his own sexual gratification. I shall return to this paradox of gay BDSM in the next edition of this blog.
Tools of the Trade
As in the previous edition of this blog, “B is for Bondage,” the list of discipline equipment given here is not meant to be exhaustive, but features those most commonly used that a novice sub is likely to encounter, and that a novice dom might want to use.Flogger
If a good pair of leather wrist restraints is my must-have piece of bondage kit, a flogger is its discipline equivalent. When I started out I made do with a cheap Micky Mouse version that only had a dozen or so thongs but was good enough to learn and practise with––meaning that I couldn’t do too much damage with it. I later invested in a flogger with much thinner, harder square thongs with which I could administer a much more serious punishment. But if you wrap the thongs of this type of flogger around the sub’s body or legs rather than hitting flat on the thick muscles of the torso or butt, you can make some rather nasty marks where the tips of the thongs catch the skin as they flick around. I then acquired a much more professional looking heavy flogger, with dozens of soft, flat leather thongs, but while it looks and sounds the business, it’s actually a lot less painful than either of my first two floggers. It’s the type often used in professional gay BDSM porn because it makes an impressive smacking sound on the skin but it doesn’t cause any damage or even very much actual pain unless you really hit hard enough to break a sweat.
Whip
These come in short and full-length bullwhip varieties. I wouldn’t recommend either for the novice. The full-size Indiana Jones bullwhip is not only difficult to handle properly, it also requires quite a lot of space to wield it effectively. Think of that scene in
Starship Troopers
when the hero is whipped for disobeying orders. It can cut into the skin making quite a lot of damage, so handle with care. A shorter fetish version, often made of a softer material, is a better alternative, but it, too, can make marks that can take some time to heal.Crop
If you don’t feel confident enough to use a flogger, you can always use a riding crop. You can aim it and control its power much more easily than with a flogger. Crops come in many designs, but the fetish version often has a plastic shaft covered in leather or synthetic fiber and a some kind of flat attachment at the end. You can use the shaft as a cane, and the attachment as a paddle, so it’s pretty versatile. Hit hard enough with the shaft and you can make temporary marks and bruises. The rule is
If it’s hard, it’ll mark
Cane
I’ve never invested in a British school cane, though I have occasionally used lengths of bamboo meant to stake out plants as makeshift canes. I associate the Victorian-style cane too much with schoolboy CP scenes, which are not my thing. In terms of their use, same applies as for hitting with the shaft of a crop: Hit hard with a cane and you will leave some impressive welts on a sub’s butt, which might not always be welcome if the sub has to go back to his vanilla boyfriend.
Paddle
These come in two main varieties: the wooden collegiate wielded by fraternity brothers and the leather fetish variety. The wooden one, following the “If it’s hard” rule, can create some multicolored bruising or cut the skin. The leather version is kinder but it also can bruise depending on its rigidity and how hard you hit with it.
Odds and End
The palm of your hand, of course, is the most basic instrument to discipline a sub, and if you’re really going to go for it, spanking-wise, I’d recommend using leather gloves. Spanking stings both ways. An over-the-knee spanking with its childhood connotations is not to every sub’s taste, however. When I didn’t have any discipline equipment, I experimented with belts (see the second edition of this blog (January 10, 2017) for my less-than-glorious first gay BDSM scene that involved a studded belt), inch rulers, as well as random pieces of kitchen equipment, and lengths of timber and bamboo. A good wooden kitchen spatula is pretty close to a wooden paddle at the fraction of the cost. And a flexible plastic inch ruler makes a very effective tool for CBT.
Targets
The obvious targets for discipline are the heavily muscled areas of the body: back, butt, chest, and abs, as the muscles protect internal structures such as blood vessels, nerves, bones, and organs. Many subs who enjoy flogging that goes deep into the muscles don’t necessarily enjoy discipline with harder equipment that stings and marks the surface of the skin. Apart from bruising, when hitting the skin you may cause a hematoma, which is a localized pooling of the blood under the skin. These can occur anywhere on the body, and clear up in a few hours or a day or two at most (see inset illustration). If you use a cane or crop on an erect cock shaft, you’re likely to cause a hematoma, because there are so many blood vessels in the skin of the penis. In my experience these usually clear up in a few hours.
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