Thinner the Cane, the More the Pain?

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Thinner the Cane, the More the Pain?

Post by web-ed »

Thought I'd try to get some discussion going on this forum, and since I haven't written an article on Canes yet to make a kind of matched set with my article on Paddles, let's examine an important characteristic of a cane - its thickness.

There is an old saying that many of you may have heard: "The thinner the cane, the more the pain." But is there any truth to this saying? The idea is probably that a thinner cane would be "whippier" (which is true), or have a kind of "cutting" effect. Of course, any actual cutting effect should be strictly avoided, but in any case, simple calculation shows that under certain reasonable assumptions, thicker canes are more severe than thin ones.

Briefly, these assumptions are (1) the two canes are applied at the same speed; (2) they are made of the same material; (3) they are the same length; and (4) the application surface (forward half) of each has the same shape (that is, semi-circular in cross-section). Let us imagine that one cane is twice the thickness of the other. It may be shown that for any unit of length (say 1 inch) the surface area being applied to the spankee will be twice as much for the thicker cane as it is for the thinner one. On the other hand, the cane's mass (weight) and therefore its energy, will be four times as much, which works out to 4/2 = 2 times as much energy per square unit.

This is why the infamous Judicial Caning in Singapore is carried out with a 1/2" thick cane. Believe me, the poor victims of this punishment would be much better off if the 1/2" model were traded in for a 1/4" one.

I didn't give the mathematical details here, although I'd be surprised to hear any complaints on that score! But please don't hesitate to ask questions, share your experiences, or offer your own opinions.
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Wolfie138
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Re: Thinner the Cane, the More the Pain?

Post by Wolfie138 »

interesting. i've only caned a girlie years back and never got into that kind of discussion.
one the one hand, i'd say the thinner cane would move faster and deliver impact on a smaller surface area. on the other hand, the thicker/heavier cane would have more kinetic energy. would the two aspects about even things out??
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Re: Thinner the Cane, the More the Pain?

Post by web-ed »

I didn't go into as much detail as I will when I eventually write the full-length article, but you'll note that one of my key assumptions was that the two canes are applied at the same speed. The basis for this assumption is that lighter cane is not being used with maximum force; with substantial muscular force left unused, enough power would be reserved so that more could be applied to the thicker, heavier cane to move it at the same speed as the lighter one. It's my guess that most caners would instinctively judge how much force to use by the speed of the cane; of course, I also assumed the caner to be committed to safe play. The cane is generally (depending on material, length, and thickness) so severe an implement that even female caners should not use full force (although I have seen them do so); males, with much stronger upper arms and shoulders, must never do so.

My assumption, then, was based on psychology and could be mistaken. Of course, we have to make some assumptions to carry out any calculations. Let's try the one you implicitly suggest, that the same force is applied to the two canes, so that the thinner one moves faster. Again, we shall suppose that the heavier cane is twice the weight of the thinner one. [Later note: this should have been four times the weight (twice the thickness). I did not rewrite the rest of this post because all the calculation must be redone anyway to correct for the time factor.] The acceleration of the thinner cane would be twice that of the heavier (neglecting air resistance, which is more reasonable with the cane than the paddle) giving it twice the velocity. (I have made another assumption here regarding time which is too complicated to go into now). My calculations show that under these conditions, the canes have the same momenta but the thinner one has twice the kinetic energy! So it would probably hurt more, and this would tend to support the old saying after all.

Of course, that doesn't explain why, presumably after years of experimentation, judicial canings would use thicker canes. I suspect that something I left out of my analyses, the mechanical limitations of the human arm, comes into play here. There must be some maximum speed the arm can move, no matter how light the object being thrown (or the cane being wielded). It seems likely that the official carrying out a judicial punishment can get almost as much speed out of a thicker cane as he could out of a thinner one.

So it looks like I'll be doing some more calculations before I write that article! v = at, so time is critical and I will have to recheck my assumption regarding it. This is turning out to be almost as complicated as the analysis I did (but have not yet posted) of paddles with holes vs. paddles without holes! Who'd have thought that spanking could be so complicated?

And for those who have no patience for all these involved calculations, here's some simple advice: a 33 - 36" long, 5/16" thick rattan cane will work fine in the majority of cases. Start out very lightly, and gradually increase the force until you find just the right amount to use with your partner.
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Recalculations Complete

Post by web-ed »

I'll try to get it right this time - the second cane is twice the thickness of the first, meaning it has twice the surface area and four times the mass, regardless of any other assumptions. If the same amount of force is applied to each cane, it turns out the heavier one has twice the momentum and exactly the same kinetic energy (KE). Since the same amount of KE is applied by the thinner cane to a smaller area, it might very well sting more. In the earlier post, I had made a simplifying assumption about the time that each cane undergoes an acceleration, but it introduced more error than I thought it would. Actually, we could have realized the KE's must be the same without doing any calculations, because the same force was applied to both canes and energy cannot be created or destroyed, so the two would have to wind up with the same energy.

It's still true that heavier canes must be used with caution, since as I suggested the caner might instinctively use more force to get the same speed, resulting in a more severe stroke.
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Arbuthnot

Re: Thinner the Cane, the More the Pain?

Post by Arbuthnot »

Hi, Just found this discussion. Though I'm a long way from Chicago, I thought I might have a perspective which helps.

It starts from moving from Scotland to England at the age of 12 (in the late 1950s) and experiencing the shift at school from having my hands lashed with the tawse to having either hands or bottom caned. I still got the tawse used on my bare bottom at home but, contrary to mythology, school canings on the bottom were always given over clothing. Sometimes that might be only thin PE or football shorts, and you'd better hope they weren't wet! My adult perspective on the cane (and tawse) is, and has been for many years, exclusively on the other end when opportunity arises.

Anyway, we always believed the thin cane hurt more. I think the truth is that it does hurt more at the moment of impact and immediately afterwards, but a thicker cane hurts for longer and produces deeper bruising. You will find it more painful to sit on a caned bottom the next day if a thicker cane was used, I think. I also think a lash with a thinner cane penetrates clothing more effectively than a thicker cane does, though the difference may be negligible with thin clothing. A thin cane certainly seemed to get through school trousers more effectively than a thick one. I'm not really sure why this should be the case, except for....

Your calculations seem to miss out two factors:

1. The greater flexibility or whippiness of a thin cane must mean its end strikes with greater force. The surface area struck can't be the only consideration.

2. The difference in density. If we're talking (as I hope we are) about proper rattan canes rather than wooden sticks, the thin ones are usually kooboo, whereas the thicker ones are dragoon (or "dragon canes"), and they have much greater density.

The latter are universally regarded amongst spanking folk as more severe, which they certainly are due to their greater density. I think the differences between school in the past and adult CP are that we are usually thinking of bare bottoms, rather than penetrating trousers, and, on reflection, I don't think thin and thick canes at school were actually a different variant of rattan. They were all, I think, kooboo or something similar and some just happened to be thinner than others.

This may all be more interesting than useful, but I hope it was at least that.

I also hope it doesn't contravene your "nothing involving children rule", which I strongly agree with. There is no justification for hitting children ever, in my view.
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Re: Thinner the Cane, the More the Pain?

Post by web-ed »

We welcome your valuable input here, Arbuthnot - you're the only one of us (up to this point in the discussion) who has any first-hand experience of the cane in the context of actual school corporal punishment. Speaking of which, childhood recollections such as these do not contravene the "no children" policy, which is intended to prevent the depiction of child-spanking in an erotic fashion. Your descriptions of your own experiences are intended to shed some light on this rather involved subject.

I found your observation that "a thicker cane hurts for longer and produces deeper bruising" to be of particular interest since this agrees with my ideas about the thickness of a different implement, the paddle. As I wrote in "All About Paddles":
Through careful study and consideration, I believe that the amount of sting experienced by the Sub is related to the amount of kinetic energy (KE) dissipated near the surface the paddle is applied to, while the amount of thud is related to the total momentum possessed by the paddle. I will not give the precise definitions of KE and momentum here (see appendix or any textbook on physics), but I think everyone will agree that “more energy = more sting” is at least a plausible idea. My theory is that the amount of momentum determines how much pressure is actually applied to the buttocks; more momentum means more pressure and greater displacement, hence more “thud” and greater likelihood of bruising.
You also brought up two other points. First, the flexibility, or "whippiness" is often taken to mean that a more flexible cane will necessarily have more speed than a less flexible (identical mass) cane. This is only true if a two-part caning motion is used, first backward and then immediately forward, much in the same way as a fisherman uses the weight of his lure or sinker to flex his fishing rod on the back-cast, storing energy in the rod to gain more speed (hence distance) on the forward-cast. This consideration was moot under the two assumptions I considered (equal speed of the two canes, equal force applied to the two canes). I agree that flexibility could have some practical considerations if a two-part caning motion is used, but that was beyond the scope of the original discussion, which got complicated enough as it was!

Second, as to different densities: you are certainly correct that density is an important factor, and one I intended to mention in the context of the different materials available (bamboo, rattan, nylon, delrin, lexan) when I finally got around to writing that full-length article. [Note: the only one of these I can recommend wholeheartedly is rattan.] Again, one of my original simplifying assumptions was that the two canes were made of the same material, which of course implies the densities were also equal. I suppose that in light of the new information you have provided (that the thicker canes were made of denser material) I will have to add another set of calculations as to the effects of differing densities in the long-promised article.

Again, thanks for your useful contribution, and please keep reading (and posting) here. And watch for that full-length article in the Articles section - some day, I may actually get around to writing it!
-- Web-Ed
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