Friday, January 28, 2011

Putting on a Good Show

We are really starting to get the conversation going here on WhippingDudes Flogging Blog!  I appreciate everyone’s willingness to open up and share their views on and experiences under the lash.  This is a topic that has had me itching for most of my life and I am glad to find others have the same fascination.  I am especially grateful to those that express their personal understandings of the touch of the whip to their bare backs.  The comments are ranging all over the blog—being made on older posts—so to help you find them, I have added a feature to the left-hand side of the screen (just under the poll) which shows the most recent 15 user comments.

Toughpaul writes about taking the whip stoically, in silence, to prove his personal endurance.  I congratulate him on his achievement.  For me, as I have stated before, I find that I strip off my shirt for the fear.  I crave the lash, but I do fear the pain.  Once I have been securely tied and there is nothing I can do to stop the punishment, I always wonder “why am I doing this?”  It doesn’t matter to me so much if I cry out, I take it as I take it (of course, the more I am flogged the more lashes I can take without crying out). 

The answer to why I do this is twofold:
1.  I want to experience the fear and helplessness that military and judicial prisoners felt when they were flogged for their offenses; to know what it is like to be the object of official punishment which cannot—and will not—end until the sentence is complete, no matter how painful.  Once I have agreed to it, I’m stuck—which creates the helplessness.  In short, the courage to willingly face that which countless men were forced to endure throughout the centuries.
2.  To put on a good show.  Through my years of watching movies that contained floggings, I have come to desire certain elements in flogging scenes, but I rarely find them.  I want to create the perfect flogging scene for me.

The perfect scene for me will not be the perfect scene for other people.  Some want to watch a man stoically take the lash and others want to watch the reactions on his face.  Some want to see a man tied to an outdoor post and others want to watch a prisoner writhe against interior prison bars.  I like all those ideas:  A variety of scenes is needed to create a good collection and I am working on creating that variety (that’s why in my scenes I wear different pants and we use different whips).  I also want to watch a variety of men endure the whip, so it can’t just be me up there.  I encourage everyone to film their flogging sessions and post them to YouTube—we can bring endurance flogging into the mainstream by force of numbers!

If you haven’t already voted, make sure to cast your ballot on this week’s poll before it closes!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

WhippingDudes Poll

I have added poll feature on the blog so that people can vote on various aspects of flogging.  I will post a new survey every week.  I will gladly take suggestions for questions to post (remember to include possible answers).  Please participate in this week’s poll (“Which is the best whip to be laid across a shirtless back?”).  You can check multiple responses.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Flogging: A Guilty Pleasure

For many of us, telling people about our fondness for flogging is like coming out of some closet:  It’s not something you would talk about in polite society because we fear they will find it shocking.  Many comments prove that people are very careful when trying to find that first friend to share this with.  But times change.  Twenty years ago, cage fighting was unheard of as a legitimate sport—but now it’s mainstream.  Because of this social attitude shift toward casual violence, I believe the time is ripe to turn endurance flogging into a mainstream topic of conversation.

Because of my goal of making this mainstream, I tried to steer the blog way from what I felt was an integral, but not essential, element:  the “sexual” nature of flogging.  But it is obvious that there is a strong element of sensuality to this topic that just cannot be ignored.  I have to thank Toughpaul for being the first to openly broach this subject.  Because I want to turn flogging mainstream, we have to understand what makes us like it so that we can make others come to understand—and enjoy—it, too.  Therefore, I encourage everyone to make comments about any aspect of flogging that appeals to you—even if you have to delve briefly into the red-light district to do it.  We have all experienced enough self-censorship on this topic, let’s make this a place where you don’t have to worry about that. 

Nothing is off the table on this blog.  As long as comments pertain to the very broad topic of whips applied to shirtless male backs, they are all welcome (and it doesn’t really matter which posting you choose to attach your comment).  If I have to eventually mark this blog as for adults, I am willing to do that.  (What are your thoughts on that, BTW?)  This blog can become (and is becoming) a place where we can share the experiences we have had (or the fantasies we indulge in), and express the intense personal desire we have to pursue floggings (either to actively participate or just to watch). 

As I look back on this part of my life, I was always afraid to share my desire for flogging with anyone, for fear of them labeling me a freak (probably because I recognized that they would recognize the erotic nature of it).  For me, it was always the punishment aspect that made me seek out movies that involved flogging—that power that an officer or warden had over a prisoner to enforce discipline.  As time marched on, I wanted to experience and understand the fear and powerlessness that grips a prisoner as he endures punishment.  It almost seemed like it would be easier to explain a BDSM fetish than that—and would be more socially acceptable.  But I know better now.  So!  Let’s get it out in the open.