5/31/2010

Difference Between Floggers and Whips



As I was browsing some online fetish toys, I noticed a lot of toys that were called "whips" looked almost exactly like toys called "floggers." I started wondering, "What's the difference, anyway?" I turned to my hubby and asked him, but even though he's a bit of a know-it-all who likes to give me definitions even when they turn out wrong, even he didn't know. I started looking it up online, and I honestly haven't found a lot. But in case you've ever wondered, here is what I did find...




What is the difference between being whipped and flogged? Not much, really. They're both being hit with a long object with two parts: a handle and tethers. And whipmakers don't even really agree on the difference.




Sex toy shops like Eden's Fantasy and Good Vibrations, both of which I like because they have a large bondage and BDSM toy section, use the terms interchangeably. So that was no help. I found two websites by whipmakers that explained the difference, but their definitions didn't agree. According to the whipmakers at Leather Beaten, whips have braided tails and floggers have flat tails. Therefore, a whip will "sting" and a flogger will "thud." On the other hand, the whip makers at Iron Rose said that a whip is any instrument with a handle + tails, while a flogger is a specific type of whip that has multiple tails, usually 9 or more. Therefore, a whip would look like this:
while a flogger is a type of whip that looks more like this:
Either way, most online toys use them interchangeably, so I don't think it matters what you call it. But I'm inclined to say that, from the websites I've seen, a flogger is a whip with multiple tails. The most common flogger has nine tails and is called a Cat o' 9 Tails.
Conclusion: "Whip" is more generic, and "flogger" is a specific kind of whip.

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