Flogger

Flogger with purple handle.

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A flogger is a multi-tailed scourge, that is typically made of leather, however can be made of almost any material, including PVC, fabric and even in some cases, metal.

Use in BDSM

In BDSM, a flogger is often used as an implement during impact play, and is generally used in a similar way to how it was used historically - It may be used as an alternative to the hand when admistering a punishment where a more severe affect is needed. It can also be used due to the varying intensity levels that are acheivable with a flogger to give the person receiving a flogging the type of sensation they need to reach the headspace they wish to be in.

History

The flogger (or scourge) are the two symbols of power and domination depicted in the hands of Osiris in Egyptian monuments. The shape of the flogger has remained largely unchanged during it's history.

According to the Gospel of John, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, ordered Jesus to be scourged. Early in the fifth century it is mentioned by Palladius of Galatia in the Historia Lausiaca, and Socrates Scholasticus tells us that, instead of being excommunicated, offending young monks were flogged. Its use as a punishment extended in the seventh century in all monasteries of the severe Columban rule. As late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it appears in ecclesiastical legislation as a punishment for blasphemy, concubinage and simony.

The practice was, of course, capable of abuse, as demonstrated in the thirteenth century by the rise of the fanatical sect of the Flagellants, though in the same period we meet with the private use of the "discipline" by such saintly persons as King Louis IX of France and Elisabeth of Hungary.