Talk:Flagellation

To do

 * Mention the "English vice"
 * Discuss BDSM/kink flagellation practices — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.48.89.253 (talk) 22:09, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

(moved from the main article -- Timwi 15:11 19 Jun 2003 (UTC))

Judaism
Why does it say that Judaism has no history of flagellation yet earlier in the article it says "the Jews" used a standard 40 whips?


 * Ancient Judaism did have "40 lashes lacking one" (39) as the maximum number of times one can be flogged during biblical and rabbinic times, but hasn't been exercised for over a millenium. Judaism does have some sort of self-flaggelation, well, sorta: During the sixth prayer of the Daily Amidah, a Jew lightly beats his or her chest twice. In addition, during recitation of Selichot (penitential) prayers during the High Holidays and on fast days, each word of the Ashamnu and each verse of the Al Chet confessionals gets its own light breast-beating. I don't know if this fits the classical definition of flagellation, but I think it could be considered flagellation, albeit a less violent one. All of these flagellations have in common the theme of desiring atonement for sin. What does everyone else think? Should I include it?Valley2city 02:28, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Paraphilia
The section about the paraphilia seems to be rather incorrect. For one thing, floggers used for this use are not restricted to multi-tailed or broad whips; in my experience, these are more commonly used by people who only occasionally use it as a kink. Handling a single-tail requires great care or some amount of training to be safe, but is absolutely not uncommon. Also, it is quite possible to pierce the skin, even with the multi-tailed ones, even in the well-padded areas of the body; it depends on the force used. One might also want to mention the formation of endogenous opiates during flagellation, which may have profound effects on the recipient (cf. "sub space", etc.); this particular effect has also been employed by Russian psychiatrists to circumvent the limitations on the use of opiates in the treatment of depression. Could someone with a broader knowledge of these subjects chime in? Zuiram 02:18, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

40 minus 1
Also, in reference to the 40 minus one, I have never heard of the reasoning given (to be sure you didnot exceed the 40 limit) but I have heard that a person sentenced to 40 lashes was given "one less" as a sign of Gods Mercy. unfortunatly I cannot remember what time span that it applies to be it Middle ages, Oceanic times(on or off the high seas; as in the period of pirates), or bibical or I would have changed the article myself instead of wasting my time here where so few will see :\ --207.181.234.158 (talk) 04:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Photo of a flogged woman
I checked the source website of the photo of a woman's backside, and the alleged reason for her flogging is entirely different from what the caption in this article claims. Why would you just make up facts when the source website gives its own explanation? "This picture was sent to Dr. Homa Darabi from a woman in Iran.This picture was taken 20 days after she was lashed fifty times for being present at a family gathering where men other than her father and brother were present. Her crime? She is a single woman. It is forbidden for women to be present under the same roof with men other than their close relatives (father, brother and son) without proper hijab." |(source) Anyway, the Wikipedia editor's fiction has also propagated to the "Human rights in Iran" article (or vice versa), so I'm correcting that reference too.

How bad is it?
Can someone re-insert the lost ref. at the end of the section headed "Islam". It sounds informative. If I were expecting to be lashed by the state I lived in, or if I am trying to make a decision about how the practice of lashing compares with other forms of punishment (such as for example those meted out in the UK, where I currently live), then the main questions of interest to me are of the practical kind: "quantitative details" about severity: How hard is one hit; with what implement; can you be clothed; are painkillers permitted (after? before?); how long does the skin hurt for afterwards; is there a risk to long term physical health? How carefully and consistently is the level of severity of lashing controlled? If there is a longer term health risk, how great is that risk - what are the probabilities? What are the statistics about longer term complications (scarring, loss of skin tactile sensitivity, wounds and infection risk, damage to bone or internal organs......?). How do these risks compare with equivalent long terms risks in say UK (e.g. being beaten up while in prison, unemployment as a result of criminal record, family breakdown, suicide). These seem almost to be taboo questions, but I am sure that they are of real interest, to at least the actual recipients of punishment meted out by the criminal justice system, if not to the moralist who discuss these matters.

(corrected spelling above also) pain is subjective, while a hypersensitive person can yell and scream in agony from a skinned knee a masochist might laugh at the pain from a multiple fracture. so listing its quantity is hard if not impossible. and while all would agree that salt in a wound is more severe than the wound alone, trying to compare a broken digit to a broken leg has the difficulty of higher concentration of pain receptors in the digit while the thicker bone of the leg would require more force to break, I would be hard pressed to say it is worse than the broken finger or toe due to the increased pain and other problems (for instance, I have heard that you can walk on a led with a simple break but if both big toes are removed you need to learn how to walk again so I would assume that a broken big toe would greatly hamper the ability to walk, if it is possible at all)--207.181.234.158 (talk) 04:33, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

This entry seems confused
This entry seems like it's trying to be about the religious practice of flagellation, but leads with the paragraph "Typically, whipping is performed on unwilling subjects as a punishment; however, flagellation can also be submitted to willingly, or performed on oneself, in religious or sadomasochistic contexts." The opening paragraph seems to indicate broader coverage that the rest of the article doesn't quite deliver. Perhaps this article should confine itself to flagellation in the religious context and flogging and other forms of punitive whipping should be directed to another page? 66.57.229.78 (talk) 05:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

To further expand on this idea, I think erotic whipping, religious flagellation, and punitive whipping are three very different things with different contemporary practices and different histories. It doesn't seem appropriate for them to be together in the same article. Perhaps fold erotic whipping into the article on BDSM, punitive whipping into the article on torture, punishment, etc, and allow religious flagellation to stand alone in this article? or maybe split them into three articles with a disambiguation page?66.57.229.78 (talk) 05:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

While I understand your concern of ambiguity, I disagree that a disambiguous page pointing to sub sections of other articles should be used. I see this as one word/phrase that only means one thing... thus pointing to only one page for it's entire subject.... but sub divided for clarity on the points of reasons-for and maybe ever the severity (erotic versions can be mock in severity while punishment would never be less severe that the severity called for by the punishment.... the religious reasons would also have a level of severity in addition to the quantitative property mentioned so far)

The ability to sub-section to multiple levels, can and should be used in this context. Also, additional information is needed to meet your concern that this article is too weighted towards the religious aspects of the subject. Sub-sections would clarify what portions concern the subject in general (including the opening paragraph) and what information is more pertinent to specific applications.

FOR INSTANCE: a cat-o-nine-tails is a very severe punitive measure (compared to the switch, aka ROD) but erotically it is used almost to a playful tickling application in most applications.... the exception being the article on BDSM that you suggest its erotic use be relegated; where a [i]"cat"[/i] of punitive strength is very severe, tearing of flesh is a virtual must for this description, but is seldom used due to it's severity opting for welts rather than bleeding tears. Conversely, the Self-Flagellation application in Christianity has many times, though mostly in the Middle Ages, been as severe as the punitive application. Christianity requires the switch as punishment (KJV calls it a ROD in Psalm 23 and various Proverb admonitions) while other religions (and countries) have other forms of rod and "cat" uses (China use a rod often and didn't understand the uproar in the United States  when it was applied in a well publicised case of vandalistic graffiti and the cat is still used in the middle east)

my suggestions in these three preceding paragraphs are complex but when implemented should avoid the above editor's fears on this needing a disambiguous page--207.181.234.158 (talk) 04:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Many months have elapsed and nobody seems to have done much about the above concerns. I incline to the view that different contexts should have separate articles. In fact there is now a separate Judicial corporal punishment article, which is more or less all about flogging, if you include caning in your definition of flogging, which seems to be slightly moot. There is also a separate Cat-o'-nine-tails article and a separate Birching article and a separate Caning article, not to mention a Caning in Singapore article and a Caning in Malaysia article, as well as the overarching Corporal punishment article. So I think this one should probably concentrate on the military and religious stuff, with pointers to all those other articles where appropriate. As for the BDSM/erotic bit, I agree that that needs to be shifted to the "erotic spanking" article or some other BDSM place. If nobody objects, I will aim to tackle all this accordingly. Alarics (talk) 06:16, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Reference issue?
While cleaning up the reference list and attempting to find an ISBN for Tomasson & Buist's Battles of the '45, I observed that the 1974 Pan Books edition is conspicuously absent from WorldCat. It may be beneficial to obtain a reference from an edition of established provenance. Afelah (talk) 02:29, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Contemporary Catholic attitudes about flagellation
I made an edit to the Christianity section to clarify how much this formerly common practice (more commonly with a "discipline" of knotted cords, rather than chain with spikes) has fallen out of favor within Catholic religious orders, and why this is so. There were serious theological and human problems which have been resolved by almost entirely giving up the practice of self-flagellation. It would be inaccurate for this article to represent self-flagellation as a common and well accepted practice today in most monasteries, or anywhere else except perhaps certain locales where it has remained a part of the culture. And specifically it's no longer a common practice of the Carmelites. Since many people editing this article are probably enthusiasts of this practice, I feel it's important to include this truth that it's no longer a common practice, and that although some still defend it as having (at least potential) value, many arguments have been made against it as a religious practice. --Elizdelphi (talk) 16:04, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

abolition
In 1939 UK Parliament instructed the legal services to introduce legislation that would finally abolish flogging in the British armed forces.

According to the RINA the last known person to have actually witnessed a flogging was by a Midshipman who died as a Rear Admiral in 1922.

By the time of the abolition it seems that there was no longer anybody alive who had actually witnessed such a punishment.AT Kunene (talk) 10:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

improve image placement
the graphics are physically divorced from the text on the same subject. In particular, the photo of the slave needs to move up, the woodcut of the flagellants (a Christian term) needs to move down. 4.248.222.243 (talk) 17:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

"lesbian, gay and bisexual"
Is it really necessary to write it like that? Why not merely "gay and bisexual" or "homo- and bisexual" or something along those lines? Or, of course, you could instead exclusively refer to the acts instead of the people, in which "homosexual" and its variants will be the most logical choiced for a word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:C440:20:1116:E953:818A:61C9:44B (talk) 23:14, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Possible copyright problem
This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. Diannaa (talk) 01:27, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Source attribution
Please note that some of the text in this article has been adapted from material taken from the BDSM article. This notice is provided purely to satisfy Wikipedia's licensing requirement for source attribution. -- The Anome (talk) 06:04, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

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Title Change
Does anybody else think that we should change the title to something the general populace would know better? For example, should we change the title to "Flogging" or "Lashing", and then change which searches redirect to the page?

—TetanicRain7592 — Preceding unsigned comment added by TetanicRain7592 (talk • contribs) 21:32, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Nah. Flogging and Lashings (plural) already redirect here, as do Whipping and Lashes and a few others, so anyone searching on those terms get here. Lashing (singular) redirects to Lash, a disambiguation page that includes an entry here; and someone searching on "Lashing" may indeed want Lashing (ropework) anyway.
 * I can't think of anything you could rename this article to that wouldn't potentially misnavigate someone looking for a similarly-titled subject, so there'd have to be a bunch of hatnoting.
 * It's fine. Redirects work. TJRC (talk) 21:56, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this though, Whipping needs to be changed to a disambiguation page: as well as the related whipping boy and whipping post there is a whole gamut of different whippings used in ropework, let alone a couple of bands. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:50, 12 March 2020 (UTC)