Are there risks with whipping?

[sm8591]

I got into SM from my 22 and i'm now 49. In all these years i got whipped many times and never had problems unless the marks that take weeks to disappear.

Some months ago someone got upset in a discussion that hitting certain regions of the body would be dangerous and was not allowed in the club. She claimed it was impossible that i could have been whipped all over my body without getting into serious health problems. Word against word but i knew someone had made a video that clearly showed the hits on my body. Showing her this movie she claims this is irresponsible to do. i add two screenshots where she said it were forbidden areas to hit with a leash, the lower back and the pubes area. However got it applied many times and never had any problems. So i wonder what about others? Anyway experience with this?

http://myadultimage.com/images/51034250626787720342_thumb.jpg (http://myadultimage.com/viewer.php?file=51034250626787720342.jpg) http://myadultimage.com/images/36840334375701963767_thumb.jpg (http://myadultimage.com/viewer.php?file=36840334375701963767.jpg)

[VeniVidi]

The most common advice is to avoid above the shoulders; the kidney area; and places where you can easily feel bones under the skin such as the spine, sides of the hips, shins, etc. I guess that reaction may have been caused by the pictures of whipping your back near your kidneys (which are located just under your ribs if I remember my anatomy correctly), which risks damage so is obviously not in the interests of the bdsm community! I would be interested to know why the pubes area is particularly unsafe, as there are no internal organs there and the front of the pelvic bone is quite well protected - unless the objection was that "wrapping" could easily occur and risk damage against the sides of the pelvic bone.

VV

[sm8591]

Either i'm made of steel or the risk is rather limited and perhaps different from person to person. It is true that hits on bones make darker bruises and are more painful but i consider such hits as unavoidable if one exposes his/her body to whipping. So far i never got awareness of any damage, but the reaction and strong warning made me a bit uncomfortable. Trying to hit specific area's isn't easy and it is even more difficult to avoid some spots.

[ksst]

I have also heard that you have to be more careful with inflexible items such as wood paddles on the lower back/ bony areas than with whips.

[sm8591]

I have also heard that you have to be more careful with inflexible items such as wood paddles on the lower back/ bony areas than with whips.

Being hit with a bamboo stick or a willow branch is still flexible and hurts more on the skin than a leash that smashes in the skin. A leash leaves reddish strokes where the leather scratch some skin away, it looks impressive but is just at the surface. If i can choose i prefer the leather leash above spanking with a stick.

[VeniVidi]

Either i'm made of steel or the risk is rather limited and perhaps different from person to person. It is true that hits on bones make darker bruises and are more painful but i consider such hits as unavoidable if one exposes his/her body to whipping. So far i never got awareness of any damage, but the reaction and strong warning made me a bit uncomfortable. Trying to hit specific area's isn't easy and it is even more difficult to avoid some spots.

Well, getting back to trying to respond to the question "Are there risks with whipping?" the short answer is "Yes, there are" and I listed those that I am aware of.

I know that a person can become "hardened" to a whipping, i.e. be able to accept more and/or harder strokes, and it is almost certain that your have indeed become hardened yourself therefore more able to tolerate a whipping than when you first started. I also remember reading that people with more body fat tend to have more resilience, and it looks like your are built that way!

When you say "the risk is rather limited" that implies being able to quantify that risk - I would doubt (but may be wrong) that there is any definitive information such as "you are taking X percent risk of damage when whipped on this part of the body". I interpret risk warnings more to mean "for the average person the risk is unacceptably high", which is of course just an opinion as the definition of "unacceptably" may vary widely from person to person.

But as we also know, just because someone has managed to cross a busy road numerous times without actually getting hit by car doesn't eliminate the possibility that they will end up in hospital or the mortuary next time they try it!

Now you have received the strong warnings, you are evidently more "risk aware" than you were - in my own opinion that doesn't mean you need stop what you enjoy doing. The trouble with those videos (where the pictures came from) is the possibility of someone looking at them and thinking "wow that looks fun" and unless they are surrounded with warnings like "don't do this unless you really know what you are doing" someone could end up unnecessarily hurt.

Hoping this helps
VV

[sm8591]

People do say keep away from the kidney area especially when you are using a single tail, bull whip, lunge whip, carriage whip and floggers well i have been whipped numerous times with those toys around that area and i have never been injured in the kidney area.
now if you use a paddle, riding crop and cane around the kidney area that would be a different matter.

Nobody wants to film or photograph a whipping, one did in 2008 and i recently put the screenshots into an animation, the sound track at the details of the leash impacts is the sound it produced on my body. Here you can see which areas got hit and how many times. I uploaded it at: http://www.mediafire.com/?e0w7hbqe9qlei76

Never had any problems with my body after such whipping except for the marks that remain for weeks. Probably all is well protected with my fat layer :-)