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D/s Dangers and Precautions

 

Canes and the Dangers Thereof

Canes are one of the oldest things people beat each other with. In my parlance, a cane can be anything from a tree twig to the big, heavy, two foot hunk of rattan that DommeZilla uses on Leatherbutt. There is a lot of information available on canes. Here are a few things I want you to think about BEFORE you start to use and buy canes.

The biggest area of trepidation for me is the idea that the sciatic nerve is relatively unprotected and runs through the buttock and hip area. PLEASE make sure that you understand where this nerve is and how to avoid damaging it. NERVES DO NOT REGENERATE OR THEY REGENERATE VERY SLOWLY!!!!!!!! I just heard a story of a novice sub who was beaten heavily on the buttocks with a heavy cane by a clueless dom and now has a permanent limp. I prefer to end my scenes without a trip to the emergency room. Your mileage may vary......but if so, make sure your sub knows what to expect. Heavy canes require a delicacy of touch and a lot of control. And they are NOT designed for full force blows.

Thin canes are not without their dangers, too. First of all, a blow with a thin cane can break skin. And the way that a cane connects with the skin and compresses it, makes a cane stroke a two fold blow. If your sub cannot be marked, find other toys to play with. Cane play is nearly impossible to perform without at least a few marks, and serious bruising, contusing and cuts can be the result of a heavy session. Canes should not be used by novice doms without actual instruction from someone who is practiced and and knowlegeable in their use. Canes are a precision tool. Light leather floggers are a lot more forgiving of ignorant, careless, and clueless users. If you insist on playing without real instruction, get a deerskin flogger and use THAT.

Most people start with using the rattan canes and bamboo stakes you can buy in your local garden shop as plant stakes. (Assuming they haven't switched to plastic coated metal rods like so many do these days. DON'T use these metal rods as canes.) Lightly sanded to remove imperfections and lumps and coated with marine varnish, they make nice, cheap, beginning implements, though they should be used with care and only by those who have been instructed in their use. You can straighten them in the bath tub with water and weights. They come in a range of sizes. You can have a whole array of canes in this material for almost nothing, which is good cause they quickly get brittle and break, bend, or the joints split. We are not talking about good quality products, here. Jer's canes are the cadillac version of these canes, made of first quality rattan, and are designed by a caning expert. Jer's first love is caning and he is a true artist with this implement. So much so, that he rarely uses other toys. A master of this art is a real joy to watch.

Canes should never be stored leaning in a corner. Lying flat or hanging from a handle is the best way to store them. IF you generally get blood on a cane or really leave welts, it is best to devote that cane to the use of ONE bottom/sub. Rattan, reed, and bamboo cannot be cleaned enough to remove all blood traces and we'd all rather be safe than sorry. Acrylic, nylon, and other non porous materials can be cleaned with bleach which is the best way to eliminate the possibility of the aids virus from play toys. Always be careful to clean your toys before you share them with others.

Reeds are toys that have a lot of sting, scratch, and sort of varied textures. NEVER use a reed on more than one bottom. Sorry, but they CANNOT be cleaned and they scratch if used with any force at all. (Domina is aware that there were no documented cases of contamination with Aids from sharing toys........but a medical professional DID tell her that the possibility of such contamination was an actual threat.) They are a fun toy, and are meant to be used lightly. Hard use just breaks the reed. If you want to have to replace them, then use them that way.

Man made materials are used for a varied assortment of canes. Domina and Feynman currently make a variety of acrylic toys, but there are all sorts of canes available out there in every imaginable material. Please note that the heavier the cane and the harder the material, the less sting it has and the more thud it has. We give some indications of the sting/thud rating on our products, but remember, these are subjective. They are guidelines, not absolutes. Feynman's butt and your butt may experience things differently.

Now, if you do know what to do with canes........we have a nice selection of reed canes, acrylic canes, and a description of tying a birch bundle is in the home manufacturing section. (Domina will make and send you a birch bundle for a price,   but after all.......why buy what you can make yourself so cheaply?)

 

down by one or more other girls. Most girls will enthusiastically undertake this office, and their energetic, sound-hearted English dislike of rebellion together with their good-natured acceptance both of the culprit and her punishment will help to instil in the rebellious girl (often a self-dramatising "victim" or "crusader for justice"), a sense of proportion and of normal values. If another girl is not available one may use a variety of methods including cords, straps or nylon stockings--the latter may seem delicate as they are so easily laddered, but even the sheerest, most gossamer-like modern ones are in fact virtually unbreakable, and, since they are always readily available in female establishments, have long been an excellent traditional standby.

Having positioned the girl one then undertakes the final preparation. The cane was introduced into English schools in the 19th century partly as a healthy progressive measure ensuring modesty (although its use is, in fact, of great antiquity, going back to classical times and beyond). Unlike the birch, it does not require substantial divestment of clothes (although the birch can be and is applied to girls without undue loss of decorum: see page 73). The cane can be very effectively applied over a tight skirt, and usually is in offices and other places of adult employment. Over a loose skirt it is not such a simple matter. If the skirt is reasonably thin, it may be tucked between the girl's upper thighs to keep it flat and taut. A caning may then be effectively administered in many cases. With thicker loose skirts or the pleated school skirt, only the heavier canes are really effective and it is not uncommon for the skirt to be raised. This in itself adds to the punishment another element of apprehension and shame. Having raised the skirt one is faced with the petticoat. This will normally be of a light cotton or nylon and would seem to present little impediment to the cane, however if it is loose it must be tucked firmly between the girl's upper thighs until it lies tightly across thighs and seat. The outline of the knickers and of the tops of the stockings should be visible through the material. If not, it will certainly diminish the stroke. The lightest, wispiest petticoat, if loose, can rob a stroke of its force by "catching" it in advance of its final impact: we speak from experience. This method of caning over the petticoat is probably the most usual, and in some schools and institutions is a compulsory minimum standard of modesty. Elsewhere it is allowable to raise the petticoat also, caning directly on the seat of the knickers and sometimes also the upper thighs. The removal or taking down of knickers is needless, indecent and, in all Government schools and institutions, forbidden. The practice of pulling up the leg apertures of the knickers very high in order to expose a large portion of the seat to the direct attentions ofthe cane is in our view unnecessary and undignified.

Final preliminaries may include a few "practice" cuts in the air, emitting a frightening swish, and perhaps some preliminary "aim-taking" taps on the seat of the knickers. These are both designed to heighten the sense of dread anticipation and are valuable in getting hand and eye "in" for the administration of the most effective caning. Some mistresses, however, consider it "cleaner" and more accomplished-seeming to go straight into the strokes proper without these exercises.

It is important to understand that a caning is in the nature of a ritual. All schoolchildren instinctively understand it as such and surround it with an almost mythic air. Despite the much greater rootedness and cohesion of the modern world as opposed to that of a generation or two ago, we still live in a civilisation that is ritually impoverished, and the ritual of a serious punishment is one of the few that occur naturally in a largely laicised world. Its pain and fear only serve to heighten its intensity and depth and to add richness to the experience (a thing that can be more easily understood now that we have passed the "consumerist" stage of considering mere comfort and animal pleasure as the sole aims of life). The mistress should be aware of this and treat the occasion with both solemnity and "form". Her commands and actions should follow a pattern that have about them a dignified air of inevitability and even of timelessness. The preliminary lecture, the flexing of the cane. The terrible words which signal that the Moment is at hand: "Stand up, Rachael. Step forward. Turn. Bend over the desk." The measured and deliberate raising of the skirt and perhaps the petticoat. The final words of admonition and then, at last, the Rite itself.

 

THE FEMALE DISCIPLINARY MANUAL

A COMPLETE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF THE CORRECTION OF THE FAIR SEX

THE FEMALE DISCIPLINARY MANUAL is just what its name suggests: a complete guide to the correction and chastisement of young ladies. Nearly a hundred sections deal with every variety of punishment.

The art of spanking is taught in loving detail; the use of the cane expounded to a depth never before attempted in print. The intricacies of the strap are laid before the reader in all their charm and severity.

The division on non-corporal punishment is subtler but perhaps even more powerful than that on physical chastisement. The refinements of disciplinary suffering that lie in expertly administered detentions and impositions will be a revelation to most readers.

The book is written by ladies who have long practical experience of the disciplinary arts. What Mrs. Beeton did for household management, they have done for the gentle craft of punishment.

Every paragraph is alive with a sensual aestheticism -- with the tingling sensibility of feminine discipline at its most elegantly severe.

The celebrated introduction to the book, despite its fantasy setting, is a seminal essay on the philosophy of discipline which shows that the authoresses of the book mean what they say very seriously. Far from regarding themselves as part of the "perverted" sado-masochist fringe, they feel that genuine discipline is the only way forward for a decaying civilisation.

A fascinating afterword tells how the book came into being; -- originally written as a series of occasional papers writen by disciplinariennes within an all-female disciplinary society for private circulation to other members who wished to learn about such things as administering a sound, never-to-be-forgotten caning or setting a truly tear-inducingly tedious and frustrating imposition for the benefit of the young ladies in their charge. The story of how these private papers grew into the definitive how-to book on the subject of feminine discipline is a delightful bonus to this handsome new clothbound edition.

Daring, intelligent, unremittingly strict, and yet profoundly compassionate, wedo not hesitate to say that this is one of the two or three really great bookson the subject of discipline.

 

SOME PRESS REACTIONS TO THE FEMALE DISCIPLINARY MANUAL "Miss Martindale has been having a bit of a week. She gave two press conferences earlier, she's on Greater London Radio this afternoon and the phone never seems to stop ringing. The reason? A treatise called The Female Disciplinary Manual--`The most detailed instructions ever published on the arts of caning, spanking, the use of the strap and most other disciplinary implements' -- a hard-hitting hardback that instils new meaning in the phrase `a punishing rigime'. . . "
- The Observer

"Miss Martindale clears her throat. This book, she announces, is `not the work of armchair disciplinarians' far from it Everything in this handbook of hard-hitting home punishments `has been practised in all earnestness and usually on many occasions by those who have written it'. Well, that's all right then, Scholarly rumps have been rigorously road-tested. Our bottoms are in safe hands. The punishments described range from the artful to the a**e-ironing, from gentle rebuffs to six of the best. There are no men involved, the book is just girl-on-girl action, or `the correction of females by females' to give it its formal sub-title. . ."
- Time Out

"Written in the clipped tones of a classic Fifties schoolbook, the Manualdiscusses variations on `old-fashioned discipline'. Want to know how long the disciplinary cane is? Compound punishments? The use of the strap? Turn to page 80 . . .
- The Independent

THE FEMALE DISCIPLINARY MANUAL: A COMPLETE ENCYCLOPfDIA OF THE CORRECTION OF THE FAIR SEX


(I'm not sure, but I think this is a work of fiction.
Domina)