A BRIEF HISTORY OF IMPACT PLAY

Impact play—the practice of striking the body (with pain) for erotic, psychological, or cathartic effect - is often seen as a modern kink. But its roots reach deep into human history, embedded in cultural rituals, religious ecstasy, punishment, and pleasure. To understand impact play today, it's worth taking a look at its journey through time.

The Cully Flaug'd by Marcellus Laroon II; c 1700 © The Trustees of the British Museum.

"Flagellation" comes from the Latin flagellum, meaning to "whip." It's the formal, historical term used in religious and medical texts for the act of whipping, especially as a form of discipline or ritual. The term flogging became the preferred term in British and American military and legal contexts in the 17th-19th century, and by the 20th century flogging evolved into a term within BDSM culture, referring to the act of consensually hitting someone with a flogger.

Ancient Rituals and Sacred Pain

The earliest documented uses of impact for transformative purposes were not sexual but spiritual, although not necesserily on the “good” side.

In ancient Greece and Rome, ritual flagellation was practiced during certain festivals. At the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia in Sparta adolescent boys were whipped in front of the goddess’s altar as a test of endurance, discipline, and devotion. In Rome, the Lupercalia festival included symbolic whipping to promote fertility. Similarly, in various Native American traditions, self-inflicted pain - including flogging - was used as a path to spiritual insight, communion with the divine, or the induction of altered states of consciousness.

Religious Flagellation in the Middle Ages

By the 13th century, self-flagellation became a widespread religious practice in Christian Europe. During the Flagellant Movement (especially particularly during times of plague) groups of devotees marched through towns whipping themselves in collective penance. Pain was believed to purify the soul and bring one closer to God. Interestingly, this was the time when the power of collective punishment was taken acknowledged - suffering together not only intensified the devotion but also provided mutual support among peers.

From Punishment to Pleasure: The Birth of Erotic Flagellation

By the 17th and 18th centuries, erotic flagellation emerged as a distinct genre in European literature and brothels. In Victorian England, “flogging schools” were rumored to offer corporal punishment for clients seeking more than moral re-alignment. The notorious book Fanny Hill (1748) contains early references to flagellation for arousal, and the underground market for erotic flagellation texts started growing —despite (or because of?) strict censorship.

At this point, impact had crossed over from ritual and punishment into pure sexual desire.

Psychology and Sadomasochism

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the term “sadomasochism” entered the scientific and cultural vocabulary, but it quickly gained a negative connotation. Alongside other non-traditional sexual behaviors, it was pathologized and morally condemned by figures such as Sigmund Freud. Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) was one of the first major texts to describe individuals who experienced erotic pleasure from giving or receiving whippings - but his perspective was medically judging and socially stigmatising.

It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that attitudes began to shift. Researchers like Alfred Kinsey, John Money, and later, contemporary sexologists, began to approach kink with greater neutrality, recognizing practices like impact play as natural expressions within the broad spectrum of human sexuality rather than signs of mental illness.

Modern BDSM and Consent Culture

In the 1970s and 80s, leather communities and the emerging kink scene began to organize more openly, particularly among queer and gay men. Impact play flourished in these communities, not just as sexual practice but as an art form - developing techniques, tools (like floggers, paddles, and canes), and shared codes of ethics around consent, safety and aftercare.

With recent research exploring the neuroscience of pleasure and pain, psychology of altered states, and trauma-informed kink, impact play is gaining recognition not just as taboo, but as meaningful and sometimes even therapeutic. Especially when delivered skillfully and lovingly.