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Birch
From Spanking Art
Birch is the name of any tree of the genus Betula. These are generally small to medium-size trees or shrubs, mostly of northern temperate climates.
The spanking implement called birch or birch rod (see also rod) is a bundle of twigs cut from a tree, normally the birch tree. Freshly cut or dried out and with twigs and leaves removed, it has been long used as a means of corporal punishment called "birching".
In French, the implement is called verges (from the Latin virga). In German it is known as Birkenrute or just Rute (rod), in Dutch tuchtroede.
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[edit] History of birching
In the UK birching was an available legal punishment until 1948, and has been retained as such by the Isle of Man till 1975, as the European Court of Human Rights declared it a "cruel and unusual punishment".
The application of the birch to children in British schools has an equally long history. Our modern image of the birch is principally of the judicial birch. However, the birch rod used traditionally in many families was very different, and compares to the judicial birches as the heavy canes used for adult caning in Singapore compare to the canes used in primary school.
A normal birch used on children was small, light and no more than a handful of short birch twigs; it stung a great deal at the time and left little marks. It was regarded as a safe and mild implement, generally used OTK, although loathed by children for its stinging properties. As children grew up, the twigs chosen became longer and heavier.
The birch was kept in many homes in Western and Northern Europe till the second world war, although its use was declining. In the twenties, it was a rare punishment reserved for serious misdeeds only. In turn of the century European children’s picture books, can often be found to contain images of a birch rod.
The birch was replaced by the cane at school in Victorian England, as the spankee needs to be bare bottomed: birch rods are only painful if used on the bare skin. In the British Upper Class this was (and still is) considered indecent.
True birch twigs are very flexible, knotty and gnarled. For judicial corporal punishment, the executioner would use the heavy birch like a whip, drawing the twigs over the skin. The knots and gnarls, whipped in the skin, will cut it and make the blood flow. It was considered a mild, but degrading judicial punishment often reserved for children and women, particularly “prostitutes” (being pregnant without a man claiming paternity was enough to qualify). In the “Low Lands” (Netherlands, Belgium, Low Germany) a typical punishment for “whoring” consisted in “being stripped to the skin and whipped forty times with a sharp birch till the blood is flowing”. It was executed in public at the whipping pole on the market square that can still be found back in many places there.
Many historical pictures and paintings are to be found on the net.
[edit] Effect
The pain produced by a birch begins surprisingly mild but increases cumulatively with the number of strokes. The birching will first leave a criss-cross of thin red lines and dots and slight grazes on the skin. If these are hit again, the pain will intensify till a very wicked stinging over a large surface.
Part of its popularity came undoubtedly from the wide range of sensations a birch could provide: from a mild punishment given to a naughty toddler to a severe flogging of a rebellious adolescent.
As erotic instrument for sadomasochistic play, the birch allows for a wide range of sensations, from an intense, but little painful glow to the feeling of being skinned alive (which actually happens during a severe birching).
Birches can be soaked in brine before use, which adds to their sting and durability.
[edit] Quotes
| “ | There is nothing, I am convinced by several years' experience, so good for a girl as a thorough good flogging administered upon her bare bottom with an elastic birch, she having been compelled to take off her own drawers herself. | ” |
| — from chapter 1 of the spanking novel The Yellow Room (1891) |
| “ | Being birched feels like being stung simultaneously by an entire swarm of angry insects. | ” |
| — Lady Green in The Compleat Spanker (1996) |
