Chain whip

What is a chain whip?

A chain whip is a whip whose falls are made of thin metal chains instead of leather strands or cord. Metal stays cool against the skin and weighs more than leather of the same length. In BDSM the tool belongs with the heavier impact gear. One warning on the name: in English, chain whip usually points to a Chinese weapon, not to this.

Why you won’t find this word anywhere

Because it is already taken in two languages.

Look up kettingzweep in the Dutch-language encyclopedia and you get the bike mechanic’s tool: a steel lever with a short piece of bicycle chain at the end, meant to hold the sprocket cassette in place while you loosen the lockring. Look up the English chain whip and you land on the soft whip from Chinese martial arts: metal rods joined with rings, a handle at one end and a metal point at the other.

For the impact instrument described here, there is no dictionary entry. Whatever you read about it is scene writing and sales copy, and that is the honest state of things.

What sets a chain whip apart from a cat or a flogger

The links sit loosely joined, and that is exactly the difference.

A flogger spreads the blow across dozens of soft strands, and a cat o’ nine tails instead gathers it into nine knotted cords. A chain whip needs neither. The weight is already in the metal.

Control is the real point. The description of the Chinese weapon says about this exact build that it is harder to handle than a leather whip, because the linked parts give looser hinges than one continuous piece. That holds for any instrument with links: the ends land later than your wrist expects, and they do not all arrive at once. So this is not beginner’s gear. Where to keep off the body during impact work is on the page about impact play.

Where this fits on this site

I bring whips, sharp and dull, and metal is one of them. In my piece on the metal whip I describe the contrast I like about it: leather warms against the skin while metal stays cool, and where leather softens the blow, metal gives a sharper, more precise sting. On the page about the BDSM date you’ll read how we agree beforehand on how far that goes.

Sources

• Kettingzweep. Wikipedia (Dutch-language). Gives the only lexicographic meaning the word has in Dutch: the bike mechanic’s tool, made of steel, with a short piece of chain at the end for grip on the sprocket, which uses the lever principle to hold the cassette so the lockring can come loose.
• Chain whip. Wikipedia (English-language). Gives the meaning of the English word: the wushu weapon, or soft whip, built from metal rods joined with rings into a flexible chain, with a handle on one side and a metal point on the other, plus the note that such a linked whip is harder to handle than a leather one or a bullwhip because the linked parts give looser hinges. The article has carried a notice since June 2013 that it needs more sources; the two facts above are both taken from the construction description.

Related terms

• Impact play. The family the chain whip is a tool of, with the spots you keep off.
• Chain. The same material, only to tie someone down with instead of to strike.
• Cat o’ nine tails. The closest neighbor in build: also several tails on one handle, only of knotted cord, and this is where that number of ends comes from.
• Flogger. The softest of the row, the one that spreads the blow as wide as it goes, with leather strips in place of metal.
• Riding whip. One braided fall in place of several linked strands.
• Bullwhip. The continuous piece of leather the loose links get measured against.
• Quirt. Also a short stock, but with two broad leather falls rather than metal links.
• Single tail. The family with one continuous strand that the chain whip’s loose links stand opposite.
• Whip. The umbrella name above it, with every type laid out in a row.