Caning

What is caning?

Caning is striking with a thin, flexible cane, usually on the buttocks. Each blow is called a stroke. The pain comes late, the marks come later still, and that makes it one of the few acts where what you feel in the moment is a poor guide.

Why caning works differently than striking with the hand

With the hand you feel what you’re doing yourself, and you adjust without thinking. With caning there’s half a meter between you and the person receiving it, and that half meter costs you nearly all your feedback.

Then there’s the delay. The blow itself is almost nothing. The burning builds afterward and only peaks twenty to thirty seconds later. Anyone who keeps striking through that gap lands the fourth stroke while the first is still arriving. That’s how a session goes too far without anyone noticing.

The encyclopedic description of erotic spanking sticks to one hard rule, and it counts double here because the cane is so narrow. Great care must be taken to avoid the tailbone and the hip bones, especially when a tool is used.

What judicial practice shows

There’s a version of this act that has nothing to do with play, and it’s documented precisely. In Singapore, caning is a judicial punishment, and the description of it is clinical. A rattan cane no more than 12.7 millimeters thick and about 1.2 meters long, soaked in water overnight to keep it from splitting and leaving splinters in the wounds.

More from that same description: the strokes come at intervals of about thirty seconds, a doctor has to be present at every session, after three strokes the buttocks are covered in blood, and depending on the number of strokes the wounds need a week to a month to heal. The maximum is twenty-four strokes. Women and men over fifty are exempt.

That’s a different order of violence than what this page is about, and it would be unfair to equate the two. Two things are useful, though. The thirty-second interval is exactly the time the burning needs to arrive. And the upper limit shows what this tool can do: the difference between a stripe that’s gone in a week and a scar sits in the dosing, not in luck.

Why people do it anyway

The appeal is in the sharpness. A cane doesn’t give a dull, numbing feeling. It gives a line you can point to exactly.

• For the one receiving it, every stroke counts on its own. With a paddle everything blurs together. With caning you can count along, and that gives you something to hold on to.
• For the one giving it, the gain is in the aim. You pick a spot, you hit it, and within ten seconds you see whether you were right.
• For a couple, it’s appealing because it’s slow. Six strokes with pauses in between easily fill half an hour.

Caning isn’t the form to start with. The margin is small and the feedback comes late.

How people build it up

The usual route starts with warm skin. First the hand or something broad, until the buttocks are red, and only then the cane.

After that: one stroke, wait to a count of thirty, ask. That feels endless, and that’s exactly the point. Only once the receiver has felt what a single stroke does do you agree on how many will follow.

What separates careful from sloppy is the placement. The fleshy lower part of the buttock takes it best. Too high hits the tailbone, too far out and the cane curls around the hip, and that’s where the skin tears first.

Afterward the skin is warm and swollen. Thuisarts.nl advises cooling for about fifteen minutes as soon as a bruise forms, and repeating that after an hour if needed. A bruise like that is a broken blood vessel in the skin, and it usually fades within two weeks. If it’s still there after that, that’s a reason to see your doctor.

Misconceptions about caning

“If it doesn’t feel hard right away, it wasn’t hard.” Exactly backwards. The blow says little. The build-up after says everything. That delayed feeling is the reason people go further with caning than they meant to.

“Marks mean something went wrong.” A red line that’s gone within an hour is just blood flow. What you do read is the next day: a stripe that has spread out or scabbed over was too hard, or went too far toward the edge.

“A thinner cane is milder.” It spreads the same force over a narrower line, so it cuts sooner. Thicker is gentler.

What I see myself

Caning is the one part where I count out loud and lay my hand on the spot in between. Not as a gesture, but because with my hand I feel what my eyes can’t see yet.

Usually it’s haste. People ask for twelve strokes because twelve is a nice number, and after four they already know. Six with real pauses in between does more, and you regret it less the next day.

The agreement is always the same. After every stroke a number comes back, not a “you okay?”. Someone who says seven after the third stroke and nine after the fourth is telling me exactly what I need to know.

How I build a BDSM date with room for caning, we go over together beforehand: how many, what pace, and where your limit lies.

What you can do yourself

• Warm the skin up first with the hand or something broad. On cold skin the first cane stroke lands unnecessarily hard.
• Wait thirty seconds after the first stroke. That’s how long the burn needs to reach full strength.
• Agree on a number and count out loud, with a number coming back after every stroke.
• Stay on the fleshy lower part of the buttock. Too high is the tailbone, too far out is the hip.
• Cool for about fifteen minutes afterward and look again the next day. Tomorrow’s marks tell you more than tonight’s color.

More on caning

On this site, the explanation of the tool itself is on the page about the cane, and what is spanking covers the broader family that caning is the sharp end of. Why the same force lands differently in one spot than another is covered in the difference between hard and soft pain.

Off this site, the description of judicial practice in Singapore is the most sober thing there is to read about this tool.

Sources

• Caning in Singapore. Wikipedia. Provides the specification of the judicial rattan cane (no more than 12.7 millimeters thick, about 1.2 meters long, soaked overnight), the interval of about thirty seconds between strokes, the required presence of a doctor, the picture after three strokes, the healing time of a week to a month, the maximum of twenty-four strokes, and the exemptions.
• Ik heb een blauwe plek. Thuisarts.nl, the public platform of the Nederlands Huisartsen Genootschap. Provides the explanation that a bruise is a broken blood vessel in the skin, the advice to cool for about fifteen minutes as soon as possible and to repeat that after an hour, the usual recovery time of about two weeks, and the reasons to contact your doctor.
• Erotic spanking. Wikipedia. Provides the recommendation to take great care, when striking and certainly when using a tool, to avoid the tailbone and the hip bones.

Related terms

• Cane. The object this is done with: material, thickness, and why rattan.
• Bastinado. Also often done with a stick, but on the spot where the margin is smallest.
• Birch rod. The classic alternative that pricks the surface rather than drawing one line.
• Figging. The ginger root used with caning to punish clenching.
• Rietje. The Dutch word for the cane that caning is done with.
• Spanking. The same spot done with the hand and a much larger margin, and the broader act that caning is the sharpest form of.
• Impact play is the family that caning is the sharpest end of.
• Punishment. The reason a caning is sometimes counted and announced.