The Rodiad pt. III: The Nature of BDSM

This is the third and last part of the Rodiad, a vaguely pornographic poem on about being whipped, penned sometime in the 19^th Century. For some reason, this seems to be a stand out fixation of sexual deviancy in Victorian England. This was not just limited to men. Many women’s magazines and off-color books had spicy tales of women in bondage, whipped by men and women alike. The lesbian angle in Victorian literature was almost a universally presented in a master-slave context.

And, I believe there lies the crux in why flagellation was so popular in Victorian times. It’s the same reason why Fifty Shades of Grey is so popular today. It isn’t the whipping per se, it is the overall appeal of the bondage scene, the BDSM movement. Some love the feeling of power. Some love to be helpless, and have no responsibilities of their own.

The Rodiad pt. III

There, too, poor parents clear a little sum,

 

By letting out a child’s attractive bum

To any wealthy whipper who may come —

“Here, sir’s my Johnny — he’s the lad to squeak

He’s not had his allowance for a week.”

 

“Oh, sir, I ’m sure you ’ll like my William best —

 

I ’ve brought him here, sir, at the squire’s request ;

Who says he’s of a band of thieves the chief,

 

And must be flogged till his behind’s raw beef —

So work him well, and keep him in your power,

 

I ’m sure he ’s cheap at eighteenpence an hour ; ”

Their love in various stages intervenes,

And adds its raptures to these lively scenes ;

O’er bleeding bottoms hardest hearts relent,

And maiden arms impassioned youth content —

The Rod is cupid’s surest instrument.

 

Mid folks of high degree, the rod ’s astir —

At Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Westminster,

Six days in seven making due sensation

Among the best posteriors of the nation ;

 

At Winchester, aristocratic prigs

Are twigged without reserve by apple twigs.

But in the middle ranks, I ’m grieved to say,

 

The Rod scarce holds its honourable sway ; —

Tradesmen I know with many a blooming boy

Who scarce the privilege of the birch employ,

 

And for whole months, through innocence or pride,

Never discuss a prentice’s backside.

Saddlers and shoemakers have no excuse,

 

With tingling straps at hand for homely use,

If in their household reigns the least abuse,

In ropeyards arses pleasantly are flayed ;

But the whipmakeds is the lovely trade —

 

Each thong he fabricates he 's bound to see

That it performs its business properly ;

So its impression on the children tries,

 

Watching the weals how thick and red they rise

Till their exposed posteriors tell the tale,

 

Of every whip he keeps exposed for sale.

 

The Clergy, careless of the Word of God,

Too often “spoil the child and spare the rod;”

Unlike that old goat Solomon, who had

Pleasures enough to drive a fellow mad —

With scores of splendid wives before his eyes,

And all their offsprings’ bottoms to chastise ;

 

’Tis curious how he found the time to write,

Whipping and wenching all the day and night.

Time was — before the philanthropic trash —

 

When jails resounded with the hearty lash ;

 

When any morning some known rogue you ’d meet

At the cart’s-tail sent yelling through the street ;

While the delighted crowd with jovial cries,

Urged on the hangman’s boisterous exercise.

The West-end dainties paid a visit daily,

 

To see the strumpets whipped at the Old Bailey,

And made high bets which blubbering lass would bare

The finest bubbies to the public air;

 

But now to turn a crank or tread a wheel

Is all the pain our criminals must feel ;

 

And for all punishment each pilfering elf

Is shut up in a cell to have — himself;

 

In peace no drummer boy now fairly mangles

The ruffian rascals lashed to the triangles —

 

And only in the camp or bivouac

Is the black deed paid off by purple back.

Some merchant captain now and then at sea

Asserts the rope’s-end’s due authority,

And with tarred cat-o’-nine-tails strips the skin,

 

Sheer off the flesh — a famous discipline ;

While for his private and domestic fun,

He ties each youngster to his cabin gun,

 

And makes the “ sea-boy ” find a “ home more rude ’

Than even on the top-mast’s altitude.

Now for one instance, ere I close my song,

How this good habit helps a chap along :

 

A clerk, not twenty-eight, with charming wife,

And seven stout children to support in life,

Three boys besides whom, illegitimate,

A shipwrecked brother left to any fate —

Thus he sustains with unremitting toil,

And makes the pot in honest plenty boil;

 

 

Tells all his friends he is the happiest dog,

With such a wife to kiss — such lads to flog —

Saying he’d rather whip them at his ease,

Before his frugal meal of bread and cheese,

Than have the grandest supper in the land,

And be debarred from taking rod in hand.

 

The lady every day fresh birches prepares

To hand her husband as he runs upstairs,

 

And finds the children to their night clothes stripped,

All ready to be sent to bed or whipped ;

 

Then he looks o’er the offences of the day —

The unsaid lesson or the truant play ;

 

The sulky looks, the fight, the pert reply —

If he’s in luck — some fault of deeper die;

And as the informant each misdeed asserts,

He daintily pins up the culprits’ shirts,

 

And does the needful as their size may be —

Across the bed or clasped upon his knee —

So be it with each English Family.

 

O ye who still hold flagellation dear,

Maintain it bravely each in his own sphere ;

Parents, schoolmasters, guardians do your best

Never to let the Rod in torpor rest —

 

Extend the practice, propagate the zest;

Flog at all times, in every novel mode,

Instruct your teachers in the Bushby Code ;

 

Shew how when gratified this appetite

Conduces to the comforts of the night;

And the wife’s favours you will soon enlist,

 

Who finds the more he flogs, the more she’s kissed.

Let every nurse have licence free and large,

To scarify her juveniles in charge;

 

And make each nursery, in its form and rule,

A real Preparatory Flogging School.

Let children take it as the natural thing,

Early to taste the birch’s simple sting;

 

While canes and cats, and various whips impart

Their own experiences of all kinds of smart ;

 

Till they find out that their behinds are made

To be kept always scarred and sometimes flayed —

And that all education means — educe

This way or that — the bottom’s purple juice.

 

Delightful sport ! whose never failing charm

Makes young blood tingle and keeps old blood warm

From you I have no fancy to repair

To where unbottomed. cherubs haunt the air ;

 

Rather, methinks, I could with better grace

Present myself at some inferior place —

There offer, without salary, to pursue,

 

The business that on earth I best could do —

Propose to scourge the diabolic flesh,

For ever tortured and for ever fresh ;

 

Cut up with red-hot wire adulterous Queens,

Man-burning Bishops, Sodomizing Deans ;

Punish with endless pain a moment’s crime,

And whip the wicked out of space and time

Xor if the “Eternal Schoolmaster” is stern,

And dooms me to correction in my turn,

Shall I complain? When better hope is past,

Flog and be flogged— is no bad fate at last.

 

FINIS

 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

The Rodiad pt. 2: Flagellation Made Fun!

The first part of this poem was in the article from last week, and now we are continuing out on with the rather long, semi-pornographic poem on the joys of being whipped. The authorship of the poem had been long contested. It was originally credited to George Coleman the Younger a playwright known for his comedies.

This has been disproven, and suspicion fell upon Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890). He was a jack-of-all-trades, while known for being an amateur poet, he was also an explorer and cartographer, diplomat and spy. He is the one who translated 1001 Nights into English, though he called it The Arabian Nights. He also hypothesized about a so-called Sotadic Zone. A geographic zone in which pederasty (romantic-sexual intimacy between a boy and a man) is prevalent and celebrated among the indigenous inhabitants. So make of that what you will.

 

He must be now superlatively sleek —

Not having tasted birch above a week;

But I’ve got fun enough before me here —

So I’ll reserve him for my evening cheer —

Then make an onslaught on the fatted fool,

And with a birch-rod slash him round the school.

 

So much for this day’s task. To-morrow’s levee

Will be more numerous, and my hand more heavy —

For there’s a fair this afternoon, I know,

 

To which my pupils are forbid to go;

But to which most will hasten all the same —

To my great profit in the flogging game.

 

Some pedagogues are only strict for books ;

 

My buttons blush for manners, words and looks —

Nothing a gentleman’s demeanour teaches

More than a graceful downfall of the breeches.

Does a boy giggle! birch him till he’s grave ;

Won’t sing! a rod will soon bring out a stave;

Won’t eat! excite him with some strong birch tea :

Is greedy! make his bum a fricassee ;

 

Wants purging! bleeding will relieve his guts ;

Breaks wind! just break his skin with fifty cuts;

Wants — or has — spirit! keep to the same plan —

Till the child learns the endurance of the man;

For the brave youth who owns the double grace,

 

A pouting bottom and a cheerful face —

And licks the milksop who, unused to pain,

Dares hardly raise his fist to strike again,

 

Wins from my favour many a pleasant boon

Refused to the insipid lean poltroon —

 

Whom I rejoice to see his comrade dogging,

To kick the hinder part I 've just been flogging.

 

But where ’s my orphan boy, my Portuguese

Whose olive arse all flagellants must please —

 

Its shape so handsome, and its tints so warm,

Nerve the pedant’s satiated arm.

 

George Coleman the Younger

In the school months, when native bums supply

My virgol muscles, he ’s a licensed boy ; -

But when no other lad at school remains,

 

I read his bill of “penalties and pains.”

 

Those holidays are ticklish days for him —

 

He is the butt of all my wrath and whim ;

His schooling — now above five quarters due —

I pay myself in red, and black, and blue ;

Coined, without guardian’s or relation’s stint,

From his rich bottom’s and my fancy’s mint ;

Whene’er I ’ve the misfortune to be randy,

 

In some nice attitude he ’s always handy.

By flagellation to work off the itch,

I else had wasted on some graceless bitch.

With a bad dinner, or small appetite,

 

Five minutes’ flogging always puts me right

And when I’m costive, if I scourge the dunce

Severely — often I ’m relieved at once.

 

On rainy days, with nothing else to do,

I birch him tightly for an hour or two ;

 

He travels with me, and at all delays

I whip him at the inn or in the chaise.

When from the play enchanted I return,

 

My nervous fingers with excitement burn — ■

So, realizing Kemble’s ardent strain,

I act the bloody drama o’er again ;

While poor Sebastian takes the sufferer’s parts,

 

Mingled with tears and prayers — sometimes with farts

So, by the time the holidays are over,

 

My Portuguese has something to recover;

And contemplates with no unnatural zest,

His playmates’ trouble and his own fair rest.

 

A parish ’prentice too remains to share

With brown Sebastian my particular care —

 

A vulgar Saxon — pink and white, and plump —

A perfect contrast both in head and rump.

 

Sometimes to save my southern from more skinnings,

On this uncouth backside I take an innings ;

 

But my desire for equal rights to shew,

I mainly leave him to the gods below —

 

Who, for his sake, have leave to use my trees,

And cut as many birches as they please ;

 

His bottom thus became the natural end

To which the household faults or failures tend —

Breakages, blunders, losses, great and small,

Upon his baseborn tail are sure to fall —

Sir Richard Francis Burton

 

The whipping boy’s responsible for all.

Whatever man his master’s scoldings rile,

Vents upon Billy’s arse his bitter bile;

Whatever maid her mistress calls a fool,

 

Punches and spanks him till her rage is cool,

Odd men and charwomen about the place

Punish his buttocks for their own disgrace.

 

“What’s all that row down stairs?” I often cry.

“We’re whipping Work’us, Sir,” ’s the safe reply.

All right — the more the merrier, says I.

 

The butler whips him when he’s full of ale;

 

The footman whips him when the beer is stale ;

The housemaids whip him, their hot lust to slake

The porter whips him to keep himself awake.

There’s not a groom nor horse-boy in the stable,

But has a cut at Work’us when he ’s able ;

 

The gardener from his window I can see

Whipping him now beneath the old birch tree —

 

I almost wonder — how of friends bereft —

The blackguard’s got an inch of bottom left :

 

Cuffed till his large splay ears with crimson glow ;

Kicked till he knows the taste of every toe ;

He ’s licked for breakfast in the pantry small ;

He's thrashed for dinner in the servants’ hall;

 

The supper time’s more beating time than all; —

And yet he’s chubby, cheery, strong, and well —

Bids every Jack among them go to hell;

 

With lads of equal vigour keeps his own ;

 

Shews all the girls how much his manhood’s grown

And proves that if a lad’s of the right stuff,

We really can’t pitch into him enough.

 

 

So live the Rod ! Let Spartan Dion rule

Cottage and hall, the parlour and the school.

 

The rudest boor who labours late and hard

To feed his children finds his just reward

When he corrects them royally at night,

 

His honest face transparent with delight;

No nice scholastic rod can he display,

 

But picks up something on his homeward way —

Lithe willow, supple birch, or budded beech —

Always enough to make the culprits screech ;

 

Or else he smacks them with his homy hands,

While the good cart-whip in the corner stands;

Which, in his cups, he sometimes makes them feel,

And cuts out bits it takes a month to heal;

 

When bailiffs bully, and when landlords press,

 

He hides the “young uns” rather more than less —

And from their basted flesh imbibes a store

Of juicy vigour to engender more.

 

In towns and hamlets whipping clubs are formed

Where hearts and bottoms can alike be warmed ;

Their families their infant felons bring,

 

And publicly administer the sting,

Mixing the titillation with their tea,

And mid the sobbing gossip fair and free —

 

‘Just to please you, as you’ve come late, my cousin

I ’ll give my Emily another dozen.”

 

“As George’s bottom’s all I’ve got this week,

Suppose we share it — taking each a cheek ;

 

We’ll lay him down betwixt us on his belly —

 

I ’ll bring first blood upon my cheek, I tell ye.”

There comes the besom maker, and his right

Is to select a bottom for the night,

 

On whose white skin he lavishes at will

His birchen bouquet, and enjoys his fill.

 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.