BDSM Flogger Safety
If you want the easiest and safest impact play toy to start with, you want a paddle. Paddles move as you’d expect them to move (because they’re sturdy, rigid objects), and it’s much, much easier to control the speed at which you make contact.
A BDSM flogger, on the other hand, has a lot more variables. Your swing speed and arc with the flogger’s weight and material all make a drastic impact on how your BDSM flogger hit is going to land on your partner.
Because of this, every single freakin’ flogger you pick up is going to handle differently. You need to practice with every single flogger you own before you attempt to use them on a person to get a general idea of how they behave.
An easy BDSM flogger training solution: pick a pillow and aim for the same spot with every swing. When you’re learning, you’re bound to miss a few times, but we’re aiming to generally be in the same area every time.
This is important. The most common spots for flogger play are the butt and the back. Both of those areas are neighbors with the kidneys. A hard strike directly to the kidney area can cause contusion or laceration of the kidneys. You need to be able to control your flogger well enough that you can guarantee any off-aiming won’t be off enough that it gets near the kidneys.
(Helpful tip: If you’re worried or risk-averse like I am, you can specifically require your partner to dress in clothing that will offer an additional barrier for the kidneys. Like kidney armor, if you think of it that way. Corsets, folded-up skirts, or a sweatshirt tied around the hip area can give you another layer of protection and peace of mind. Nobody wants an ER visit just to do kinky shit.)
A soft, rabbit-fur flogger or something just as equally light is a great choice for beginners. When you’re new, you’re likely to make some mistakes – which is normal. Using a rabbit-fur flogger means you can really practice and get a feel for flogging someone with a toy that’s not going to do any damage. As an added bonus, your bottom gets a flogger-led massage while you’re doing it.
As with all types of BDSM play, everybody has consented to doing impact with floggers. In addition, everybody needs to consent to the exact floggers that are being used. Some floggers offer ouch-y, stingy sensations. Other floggers provide gentler, massaging sensations. Whoever is receiving the flogging should have a say in which floggers are used.
On that note, you also should discuss the sanitation status of those floggers. Do they have a material that allows them to be sanitized? If not, when was the last time they were used on a different person? Have those floggers ever been used in an area that had bodily fluid on it? (Blood, vaginal wetness, ejaculate, and even urine all count.)
Floggers can transmit bloodborn pathogens between people, and most floggers are not made from non-porous material that can be fully sanitized between quick uses on different people. For the lowest risk possible, the person receiving the flogging should provide their own floggers for the top to use on them. This way, the only pathogens you’ll be potentially transmitting are the ones that already belong to the bottom.
When you’re learning, impact play should only be done on the “meatiest” parts of the body. That is, focus your flogs on the jiggly parts of the butt, the backs (or fronts) of the thighs, and the broadest part of the back (up by the scapulas and through the rib cage). Never do impact play (this includes flogging!) on joints, the kidneys (area right under the ribs), the spine, or the face.
BDSM Flogger Terms to Know
Tails/Falls: You’ll see the long, stringy bits called the “tails” or the “falls” of the flogger. The tip of these is what we want to hit your partner when using a flogger.
Handle: A handle of the flogger is where you, quite literally, wrap your hand around the flogger in order to hold it.
Weighted Handle: Nice, high-end floggers offer weighted handles. Essentially, weight is added to the bottom of the handle (the side away from the tails) to off-set the weight of the tails. If you balance the mid-point of the handle on a finger, a weighted-handle flogger will not topple to the ground. The idea is that any flogger should be perfectly balanced in your hand. This reduces the fatigue of swinging it, and it provides better accuracy. People who are proficient in flogging will have a full collection floggers with weighted handles.
Wrap-Around: Wrap-around is what happens when you don’t hit your partner with the very tips of the “tails”. Let’s say you hit your partner with the middle of the tails. The rest of the stringy material isn’t just going to freeze mid-air and fall down. It will keep moving in the same trajectory that the material had been on. It gains even more momentum until the tips end up striking your partner. This is called “wrap around” because it often wraps around the person’s side, hip, or torso to strike somewhere you weren’t originally facing. Because the tails gained so much momentum, wrap-around strikes usually hurt a lot more than a correctly-laid flogger strike that hit with the tips.
Top: Someone who is handling/swinging the flogger.
Bottom: Someone who is being struck with the flogger.
Whip Vs Flogger
You might hear the term “whip” used interchangeably with “flogger” – mostly by people who aren’t familiar with impact play OR by manufacturers who mass-produce low-quality things.
A whip and a flogger are VERY different toys.
A whip is a long, single strand of material. Think Catgirl from Batman. They tend to be very long, but they don’t have to be. (There are a lot of types of whips, but that’s a very in-the-weeds discussion.) This is one example of a whip:
A flogger has a handle. At the “tip” of this handle, the flogger has multiple strands of material hanging from it. The number of strands hanging from that handle will vary, mostly by price (more material = more expensive), but it’s usually at least 15. This is a flogger:
Normally, I’m usually someone who brushes off arguments of semantics, but in this case, it’s actually important.
Whips are extremely difficult to handle, and they easily take off chunks of flesh. People who handle whips train for months upon months to proficiently use a whip on another human being.
Your average whip is also longer than your average flogger. At play parties, specific, multi-yard zones have to be roped off just for whip play. Otherwise, you’ll catch an unexpecting bystander in your whip’s backswing, potentially doing some serious harm to a random person.
Floggers, on the other hand, are easier to handle and much more compact. You can get the basic gist of how to aim a flogger in a general area within an hour. (You aren’t going to be a master, but it’ll get you started!) Since floggers aren’t built with a super thin tip (called a “cracker” on a whip), they don’t provide as pinpoint of a striking zone on a person.
In fact, because flogger tails travel as a bundle due to physics, you get a much-wider striking zone, spreading out the sensation. Not only does this feel much less ouchy, but it’s also much-less-likely to draw blood.
This makes floggers an acceptable impact play toy for beginners. Whips ARE VERY DANGEROUS in the hands of beginners.
What BDSM Flogger Should I Buy?
Before you start trying to purchase a BDSM flogger, it’s important to understand one big thing: flogger sensations generally fall into a spectrum. They’re either “stingy” or “thuddy”. These two sensations are opposite sides of a spectrum.
“Stingy” sensations feel painful. They may feel sharp, and they elicit an “ow!” response. They can feel a bit like being slapped or pinched over large parts of your body.
On the other hand, “Thuddy” sensations feel massaging. They can feel a bit like being hit by a heavy piece of cardboard over and over. You’re technically being hit, but it just feels like a large presense is beating up against your skin, over and over.
Makes no sense? For an easy self-test while seated, use a super-flat, open palm, hitting yourself on the broadest part of your thigh, aiming to make the most contact with the center of your palm. It probably doesn’t feel particularly painful. Just like a sensation happened. Now, using only the very-tips of your fingers, I want you to forcefully strike your forearm. This probably had more of an “ow!”, stingy response. (In both cases, the body will respond by drawing blood to the surface, leaving a fun little red patch.)
As a top, this distinction between “thuddy” and “stingy” may not be at the top of your list, but for your bottom, I promise that it is.
(Sidenote: As a top, you should actually care a bit about this too. Most people have a very set limit for how much stingy, ouchy sensations they can tolerate. Those same people likely do not have a set limit on how much thuddy massaging they’ll enjoy.)
If you take a look around the internet, BDSM floggers are made of every different material possible. Personally, I own a rubber, duct tape, suede, faux fur, and leather flogger. They also make them out of cowhide, horse hair, deer skin, doeskin, bullhide, elk, goat, kangaroo, lamb, moose and virtually anything else you can think of. I’ve actually seen a flogger made completely of rubber chickens. (I wish I could find the link.)
The basic rule of thumb being: Pay attention to the weight and the tails. The heavier the flogger, the more it tends to leave a “thud” than a “sting”. When it’s lighter, it normally stings. It all depends on what kind of sensation you are going for. Thuddy sensations can feel more like a massage and are generally pleasurable for a submissive to receive. Stingy feels more like a slap on the butt with multiple little hands, so it tends to be a little more painful. Of course, floggers can also be scratchy but those are usually floggers to avoid. Honestly, I recommend at least one thuddy flogger and possibly one stingy one. You can make a great session just out of a thuddy flogger but having only a singular stingy one is a bit more difficult. They also compliment each other well – a thuddy flogging makes for a great warm-up for a stingy-flogging.
The ends of the tails are also particularly important. If they are cut straight, they won’t hurt as much. Any angle in the tails tends to make it sting more, and anything in the “snake bite” fashion ( |\/| ) makes it hurt even more. Snake bite tails usually make for the most stingy flogger.
A suede, deerskin, or soft leather flogger usually makes for the best “massage”/thuddy feel. As long as they are used in a rhythmic pattern, you can easily lapse into a relaxed mental state. However, the rubber, rough leather, or any specialty flogger can end up being stingy or possible scratching the skin. Of course, how hard you use it will make a big difference in how it feels. For something that can be felt but isn’t too massaging, I recommend a light flogger like a rabbit fur or a faux fur flogger.
Remember that many floggers will have a high price tag. To start off, you may want to avoid the higher price tags by staying away from “personally”-made floggers since the amount of time and love gone into them usually brings up the price. Ebay usually has some pretty good deals on floggers as well as other general sex toy stores. For a beginner, I actually recommend the Fluffy Flogger from Eden Fantasys. The rubber floggers carry a tiny price tag, but they also can be pretty stingy and may put you off from a future flogger purchase. As with every toy, what you think will work best for you is the most important aspect.
How to Use a Flogger for BDSM
I’m gonna be honest: using a flogger is simple in theory and annoyingly difficult to master.
To use a flogger, you, quite literally, just swing it. You want the very tips of the tails to hit the spot you were aiming for. You do NOT want the flogger to hit in the middle of the flogger’s tails; this causes wrap-around.
As you can guess, it’s harder than it looks – sorta like how “how to shoot a basket in basketball” is heavily technique and practice driven despite being one simple step.
Different Ways to Use Floggers
Floggers work for a variety of uses during a scene or during sex. During sex, you will want to choose a light flogger that doesn’t cause any sting; it will increase the power exchange but won’t distract from the sex. During a scene, you can use multiple floggers to help enhance your scene. Most people choose to start off with a heavier, thuddy flogger for a warm-up and to slowly move up to stingier floggers with a thuddy flogger sometimes thrown in to help manage the pain.
There are two different ways a beginner will usually yield a flogger for scene use. For bedroom use, much technique is not involved. For scene use, there is a figure eight pattern and a side-to-side sweeping motion. For a figure-eight pattern, you will want to strike your target in the “middle” of the figure-eight. The figure-eight will be done on a horizontal plane, and you’ll end up getting in two hits for each stroke you take. The side-to-side just consists of swinging your arm from one side to the other with one hit in the middle of the stroke. After your hit, the tails will wrap around your own body then you repeat by going back to the other side.
Overall, the biggest use is just to have fun with your partner. If you enjoy playing with a flogger and its safe, go ahead and do it. If you enjoy your flogging, have fun collecting all the different types of floggers. Enjoy yourself!
Updated: April 2026, October 2025, May 2025.
