Bastinado

1. Bastinado by any other name... Bastinado, falanga, madda, or falaqa, it all means the same thing: beating the bottoms of the feet. The term bastinado dates back to the 1500s and seems to be the most popular term for the activity.

2. The pain is unique. The toughest skin on our bodies resides on our hands and feet, so the feet can take a lot of punishment—at least physically. The feet also contain an incredible amount of nerve endings, as anyone with ticklish feet can tell you. It's this combination of intense sensation with little physical damage that renders bastinado such an effective infliction of pain. For these reasons, bastinado is often an “endurance” punishment: each strike in itself is not outrageous, but as the skin becomes sensitized and eventually sore, the cumulative effect is significant.

3. Bastinado can preserve modesty...or destroy it. In some schools in the Middle East, corporal punishment such as the caning of the buttocks is replaced by bastinado for female students to minimize the removal of clothing—although in many Arab countries, exposing the soles of the feet is demeaning. In BDSM culture, bastinado has received a reputation as often embarrassment-provoking. Being ordered to remove one's shoes and socks, or having one's shoes and socks forcibly removed, can sometimes arouse a sense of humiliation even amongst practitioners well-versed in dropping their drawers.

4. It's a long-standing tradition. Bastinado was popular during the Ottoman Empire. A British colonial officer is said to have employed the tactic in the 1930s in Jerusalem. Even Shakespeare and Mozart referenced bastinado in their works. Bastinado continues to be used today as a punishment for prisoners in many Middle Eastern countries, and serves as an excellent example of how the BDSM community regularly appropriates methods of torture for entirely consensual and enjoyable purposes. (Think being inspired by a lion to adopt a housecat – you'd be scared shitless to go anywhere near a lion, but now that you've seen one, having a feline on a much smaller scale holds some allure.)

5. Bastinado: It's not just for bastons anymore! Although bastinado is derived from the term for the stick traditionally employed in the activity, the word has come to mean any percussive activity on the foot, particularly for the BDSM crowd. Belts and canes are the most popular choices for recreational bastinado; floggers, rubber hoses, and rulers lend nice variety depending on the scene. Even the electrical-toy crowd has begun to experiment with bastinado via toys that “zap” on contact. Clearly, there's more to explore in this ancient and evolving activity. In fact, you could say that in bastinado, you can go just as far as your feet will take you.