A while back I saw a tweet from the inestimable @WhoresOfYore and made a note of it at the time. If you’ve never followed her, I highly recommend that you do.
The tweet can be found here: 3 Types of Flagellants. The text reads:
According to “Venus Schoolmistress” (1788) there are 3 types of male flagellants.
- Those who liked to receive chastisement from the hand of a woman who took pleasure in wielding the rod.
- Those who like to apply the rod to a female.
- Those who like to watch.
That left me contemplating the voyeurs. What is their motivation ? Why do they not participate ? I’m guessing here, but does the voyeur have primarily a sexual or erotic motive ? Certainly, for those of us in the first category quite a percentage do not engage in any form of sex as part of the activity. In the second category, which I’d like to expand in this era to include male applying to male, my guess is that this percentage is lower, but some will still be doing it just for the activity.
Frankly, I have to assume that the voyeur category is about masturbation. It’s also probable that this is by far the largest segment. The category that the “Venus Schoolmistress” described will have meant a relatively small group of voyeurs who were physically present during the activity. However, in our times it will be interpreted as those who largely consume their fetish remotely from behind a computer screen.
