Crop

What is a crop?

Crop (Dutch: rijzweep, in English also riding crop or hunting crop) is a short whip with no lash, ending in a thin, flexible leather tongue. It comes from equestrian sport. The tongue makes a lot of noise for little force, and that makes it suited to precision work.

Why it sounds the way it does

The description of the implement is matter-of-fact: a crop is a short type of whip with no lash, used in horse riding. The shaft is fiberglass or cane and sits inside a layer of leather or fabric; the handle is the thickened end, sometimes with a loop or a knob so it does not slip out of the hand.

What the tongue is for is the interesting part. According to that same description, the tip is there precisely to keep the horse’s skin from being marked. So it is designed not to damage. That it still makes such an impression comes from the sound: the length is chosen so you can accelerate it with a short flick of the wrist, and that speed produces a smack that sounds much harder than it lands.

Equestrian sport itself has grown strict about it, by the way. The overview notes that using the crop as punishment does not work when training a horse and has serious consequences for animal welfare; it belongs alongside leg, seat and voice as an aid, no more.

What you can do with it

The crop is the calmest way to introduce something sharp. You can use it to point with, to slide across the skin, and to place a tap somewhere you would never get with a paddle.

It appears in the overview of implements in use among the things borrowed from elsewhere, next to the belt, the hairbrush and the wooden spoon. And the same limit applies: when striking, certainly with a tool, great care must be taken to avoid the tailbone and the hip bones.

What you watch for is the edge. The tongue has to land flat; if it comes down on its edge, all the force concentrates on a line a few millimeters wide and it cuts. That is the only way this friendly implement really does damage.

On my yes-list is impact play in light doses, and the crop is the calmest way in. How we build it up on a BDSM date, from pointing to a single tap, we agree on beforehand.

Sources

• Crop (implement). Wikipedia. Provides the definition as a short type of whip with no lash for horse riding, the build (a shaft of fiberglass or cane, wrapped in leather or fabric), the purpose of the keeper to keep the horse’s skin from being marked, the reason behind the length, and the finding that use as punishment does not work and has consequences for animal welfare.
• Erotic spanking. Wikipedia. Lists the riding crop among the implements borrowed from elsewhere, and provides the recommendation to avoid the tailbone and the hip bones.

Related terms

• Cane. The other narrow implement, but without a tongue and with much less margin.
• Spanking. The spot where the crop most often lands, and why that spot is chosen.
• Flogger. The instrument that spreads the blow out instead of bundling it.
• Riding whip. The loud neighbor: short handle, but with a braided lash instead of a tongue.
• Paddle. The broad implement the crop is set against above.
• Riding crop. The same implement covered from the equestrian side, with what the KNHS has laid down about it.
• Impact play is the family this crop is a tool of.