From Issue 2.4 - February 1996


Dear Mother:

What is bastinado?

Dear Darling:

Bastinado means "beating the soles of the feet." Say it like this: bah-sti-nah-do. When I was a young and impressionable leatherdyke, someone told me that bastinado was the only form of beating/whipping that could not be eroticized. I repeated that in public more times than I am comfortable admitting. However, I can now say with assurance that it is not true.

Mind you, if the bottom in question always wears shoes and thus has tender feet, their feet will be more ticklish and otherwise sensitive than if they often go barefoot and have good calluses built up. And whipping would feel different than being beat with a truncheon. My experience is with the truncheon, and I suspect that whipping would hurt more. In any case, beating the soles of the feet can be -- and has been -- eroticized. Do be aware of the plethora of small, delicate bones in the foot. And don't catch your whip tails amongst the bottom's toes.