Martinet

What is a martinet?

Martinet is a short whip with a wooden handle and about ten equally long, thin strands. The strands are usually leather, sometimes rope stiffened with soap. It is originally a French disciplinary tool for children, and in BDSM a light striking tool within impact play.

Where the word martinet comes from

From French, and only late. The Trésor de la langue française first records the meaning “sorte de fouet formé de lanières de cuir” in 1743, in the Dictionnaire de Trévoux, and describes the object as “petit fouet formé d’un manche auquel sont fixées des lanières, destiné à corriger, à punir quelqu’un”. That same dictionary derives the whip meaning from martinet the bird, the swift, after the spread shape of its tail; Bloch and Wartburg put it on Martin in the sense of “stick”, as in Martin-bâton.

So the story that the martinet is named after Colonel Jean Martinet does not hold up as the main explanation. Frans Debrabandere lists it in his Flemish etymological dictionaries pointedly as what is claimed “according to others”, alongside the same dating of 1743 and the same derivation from the first name Martin.

What those dictionaries do add: in Antwerp, Brabant and Flanders the martinet was simply the child’s whip, “with which children were still being disciplined in the first half of the 20th century”. In France the same picture. Victor Hugo has the woman Thénardier take the martinet off the hook in Les Misérables (1862), and Émile Zola describes in Nouveaux contes à Ninon (1874) an aunt who deals out a hiding with one.

Why a martinet is in the playroom

Because it makes a big impression and does little damage. The strands are light, so the strike stays in the skin instead of landing in the tissue beneath it: stinging on bare skin, without the depth of a paddle or a riding whip.

That makes it good for building up with. I often use it early in a session, when the skin is not used to anything yet, and it gets the most out of rhythm rather than force.

Where this fits on this site

If you want to feel once what a light tool does without starting straight in on the heavy stuff, that is what a BDSM date opens with. There you can also read how we set out beforehand how far it goes that evening.

Sources

• MARTINET2, subst. masc.. Trésor de la langue française informatisé, Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales (CNRS/ATILF). The French national dictionary authority, and so the right source for a French loanword. Gives the description “petit fouet formé d’un manche auquel sont fixées des lanières, destiné à corriger, à punir quelqu’un”, the first dating 1743 with the Dictionnaire de Trévoux as the citation, the derivation of the whip meaning from martinet “bird” after the spread tail shape, the alternative from Bloch and Wartburg via Martin “stick” (Martin-bâton), and the quotes from Hugo (Les Misérables, 1862) and Zola (Nouveaux contes à Ninon, 1874).
• martinet. Frans Debrabandere, Brabants etymologisch woordenboek (2010), Oost-Vlaams en Zeeuws-Vlaams etymologisch woordenboek (2005) and West-Vlaams etymologisch woordenboek (2002), made available through Etymologiebank of the Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal. The only lexicographic source that treats the word as Dutch usage. Gives the meaning “whip, child’s whip (with which children were still being disciplined in the first half of the 20th century), disciplinary rod”, the dialect forms martenee, martinei, mertenei and mattenei, the dating 1743 for the transferred meaning, the fourteenth-century meaning “throwing device (in siege warfare)”, and the mention that the whip was, “according to others”, invented in the seventeenth century by a colonel Martinet.
• Martinet. Wikipedia. Gives the sizing (wooden handle of about 25 cm, roughly ten equally long short strands), the material leather or rope stiffened with soap, the French name fouet d’enfant, the finding that the light strands sting on bare skin without causing injury, and the note that the English martinet for a stickler is said to come from Jean Martinet and that the link with the word’s older meaning is coincidental.

Related terms

A martinet is the lightest tool within impact play, and the only one from that family that became known in Europe mainly as a household object.

• Flogger. The instrument the martinet comes closest to, with more and heavier tails.
• Riding whip. The single-tailed counterpart, where the same swing lands on one point.
• Birch rod. The other disciplinary tool from school history, of wood instead of leather.
• Cat o’ nine tails. The same build in the heaviest format, from seafaring instead of the kitchen.
• Corporal punishment. The frame a martinet was once used in, and that it sometimes returns to in BDSM.