Whip it good

October 25, 2006 9:43 AM

Whipping cures depression. ”The whipping therapy becomes much more efficient when a patients receives the punishment from a person of the opposite sex. The effect is astounding: the patient starts seeing only bright colors in the surrounding world, the heartache disappears, although it will take a certain time for the buttocks to heal, of course,” Sergei Speransky told the Izvestia newspaper.
posted by cgs (68 comments total)

so jesus' blood.... or whipping
posted by cgs at 9:48 AM on October 25, 2006

My very first reaction, before using my frontal lobes at all, was that, well, yeah a (light) whipping from someone of the opposite sex would make me less depressed. Now, with my brain turned on: Pfffff. Give me some reproduceable, peer-reviewed research and I'll pay more attention.
posted by everichon at 9:57 AM on October 25, 2006

Is there a safe word for this depression cure?
posted by secret about box at 9:59 AM on October 25, 2006

Is there a safe word for this depression cure?

"I'm hap-hap-happy again..."

Pravda is the WWN of Russia.
posted by jimfl at 10:01 AM on October 25, 2006

Is there a safe word for this depression cure?

Prozac.
posted by danb at 10:02 AM on October 25, 2006

I might be kinky, but everichon has me beat.
posted by loquacious at 10:03 AM on October 25, 2006

"Doorbell".
posted by boo_radley at 10:04 AM on October 25, 2006

There's an Anglo-Saxon remedy to the same effect

"in case a man be mad, take the skin of a mere-swine, work it into a whip, and swinge the man with it: soon he will be well."
posted by Phanx at 10:05 AM on October 25, 2006

God bless the Russians.
posted by owenkun at 10:08 AM on October 25, 2006

yeah, ect also cures depression.
posted by lester's sock puppet at 10:14 AM on October 25, 2006

Swinge - archaic for swing? Or does it rhyme with hinge?

Thanx Phanx
posted by Mister_A at 10:15 AM on October 25, 2006

Doesn't Wilhelm Reich's "The Function of the Orgasm" talk about why this works?
posted by hermitosis at 10:16 AM on October 25, 2006

The beatings will continue until morale improves.
posted by scratch at 10:17 AM on October 25, 2006 [4 favorites]

How is this any different from the people for whom exercise improves their depression?

I would imagine that the whipping releases endorphins in much the same way.
posted by chimaera at 10:20 AM on October 25, 2006

I could have told you this. God I miss my first girlfriend.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 10:21 AM on October 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

If this method of treatment really does work, it could prove one of two things :

1) Whipping cures substance abuse.
2) Drug addicts are often closet masochists.

My money is on the latter.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:26 AM on October 25, 2006

Brimstone is apparently an archaic name for sulfur. Um...ow?
posted by everichon at 10:32 AM on October 25, 2006

So banging your head against a wall might be equally effective, because you feel so much better when you stop :-)
posted by clevershark at 10:32 AM on October 25, 2006

This makes some kind of weird sense.

Being addicted to something can be viewed as a 'sin' of sorts, to the addict, and without being punished for or absolved of those sins, they will be depressing the addicted person by adding to the guilt.

By punishing the addict, those 'sins' represent less and less guilt. By lessening the guilt, the depression also lessens, to a degree.

I mean, in theory.
posted by Monkey0nCrack at 10:45 AM on October 25, 2006

"It only sounds kinky at first, dear, plus it will help you with that depression."

Yup, you can certainly get endorphins from a flogging. You see that when a submissive starts to 'float'.
posted by jet_silver at 10:45 AM on October 25, 2006

Interesting, but keep in mind this is from the hard-hitting periodical that brought you Condoleezza Rice's anti-Russian stance based on sexual problems and Chinese teachers make students drink vodka and throw them out of windows
posted by the jam at 10:49 AM on October 25, 2006

They made injections of brimstone and peach oil mixture to inspire mentally unbalanced patience with a will to live. A patient would suffer from horrible pain in the body after such an injection, but he or she would change their attitude to life for the better afterwards.

Choosing between whipping or this treatment is like choosing between cake or death.
posted by thecaddy at 11:16 AM on October 25, 2006

Heh. I just read a truly bizarre scene in Solzhenitsyn's November 1916; Arsenii Blagodaryov, a noncom in WWI, gets home leave and returns to his village and the wife he hasn't seen in a year. They're madly in love with each other and she drags him off to the bathhouse, where they start making out until she says "Aren't you going to thrash me with the birch twigs?" He laughs at first, but then "She looked up from under the twigs, waiting to see what he would do. Silently pleading—thrash me then, thrash me, lord and master." He gets the idea (as she intends) that she's been unfaithful, becomes furious, and tells her to get down on the floor. "Submissively, covering—and uncovering—herself, she sank to her knees, then lower until she was prone... Then—a searing sensation, this way, that way, a scorching pain... Again and again and again!... From hamstring to midriff she felt a burning, tearing pain—for offenses never committed, for others yet to come—or rather so that they wouldn't. For no fault at all. Humbling herself to her master. She wept and waited for him to stop, for his anger to pass. For mercy to prevail."

Finally he gets tired and demands to know who "he" was, and finally she tells him "There wasn't anybody, Senya love! I shut myself up all the time you were away." He's stupefied and asks why; she smiles and says "It's all right. You're my master. I know now I have to obey you." Then she starts kissing him and "he picked her up and carried her like a child" and "kissed better the place where the birch had hurt her" and they have hot Russian sex.

Yes, comrade, you in the West do not understand the sex relations!
posted by languagehat at 11:17 AM on October 25, 2006

Does insurance reimburse for this?
posted by caddis at 11:26 AM on October 25, 2006

Uh.... what if it makes the patient cry, and the crying is what is helping, but the whipping is getting the credit?
posted by chef_boyardee at 11:33 AM on October 25, 2006

Does insurance reimburse for this?

If so, please forward me the details on how to sign up with your agency. Dungeons are getting way too pricy and chic.
posted by loquacious at 11:34 AM on October 25, 2006

Choosing between whipping or this treatment is like choosing between cake or death.

"Uh uh uh, you'd said death!"

"Well I meant cake!"

"Oh, all right..."
posted by owenkun at 11:39 AM on October 25, 2006

This sounds like a therapy that can't be beat. Or something.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 12:14 PM on October 25, 2006

Fools! Did science learn nothing from the disastrous aftereffects of the University of Minnesota Spankological Protocol?
posted by gigawhat? at 12:29 PM on October 25, 2006

Ooh ooh! I'm game!

Ahem... I mean, I'm not a drug addict or depressed, but I will gladly sacrifice my buttocks for the greater good. Anyone want to... therapy me?
posted by arcticwoman at 12:40 PM on October 25, 2006

This is basically like self-mutilation to get high. Which works for some, but doesn't exactly solve the underlying reason that you want to escape and dissociate. If this works (a big if, given the lack of actual data here), they'll almost certainly discover that the addicts need "maintenance" whipping to prevent relapse.

Or, they could just use the cheaper and already demonstrably effective way of giving addicts opioid-based relief, methadone.

I'm also guessing you would see very different results if the people involved had been *forced* to get this "treatment"-- consensual s/m is pleasurable for some because the bottom has a way out and some sense of control or at very least, a trust that the top cares.

Whereas if you are forced into a situation in which you have no control over pain and stress being inflicted on you-- which is common in harsh addiction treatments like this-- you can produce PTSD, which is linked with a far-less good prognosis for recovery from addiction and is therefore completely counter-productive.

Control of the treatment by the client is critical to recovery-- nonconsensual abuse is just torture and demonstrably harmful.
posted by Maias at 12:49 PM on October 25, 2006

i'd offer to therapy you, articwoman, but you're too cold ...
posted by lester's sock puppet at 12:51 PM on October 25, 2006

Not any more, lester...
posted by arcticwoman at 12:53 PM on October 25, 2006

Man, wait till I tell my dominatrix friends that they're not just sexy women with fabulous taste in unusual leather items, but they're also therapists.

Now, to figure out how to bill Blue Cross. I wonder what the deductible is for a good spanking.
posted by dejah420 at 1:09 PM on October 25, 2006

See also: Eli's Face Therapy.
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:18 PM on October 25, 2006

This sounds like a formalised method of self-mutilation. There are many people who use physical pain as a way to disassociate themselves from emotional/psychological pain. Hence the phenomenon of the growing number of people who cut themseleves - generally their arms and/or legs - as a way of dealing with emotional trauma.

By the way, if you, or someone you know, is considering cutting themselves (or using flaggelation for that matter) as a form of emotional release, consider using an alternative suggested by many social workers - holding a chunk of ice tightly in a closed hand instead. The intense cold causes a sensation of 'pain' over time, but without creating a wound.
posted by Inglesa Loquita at 1:20 PM on October 25, 2006

And, then, the oral sex!!!
posted by QIbHom at 1:40 PM on October 25, 2006

Anyone want to... therapy me?

Do you switch? All spanking and, err, no spanking makes Homer go something-something...

Hey, waitasec, your flickr profile says you're taken!
posted by loquacious at 1:56 PM on October 25, 2006

I am shocked and disgusted that you sick fuckers have chosen to turn this potentially life-saving therapy into fodder for your sick masturbation fantasies, just because it involves thrashing the bare bottom of a penitent, kneeling as if in a church pew, body quivering with fear and arousal, hot breathy syllables begging for the white-hot stinging salvation of the bullwhip...
posted by Mister_A at 2:18 PM on October 25, 2006 [2 favorites]

You're giving me the vapors, Mister_A.
posted by maryh at 2:33 PM on October 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

Was I the only one who read this as "Winnipeg Cures Depression"?
posted by chrominance at 2:44 PM on October 25, 2006

Whipping is not self mutilation. Now sticking a metal rod through your penis... that's self mutilation.

Whipping (and spanking and nipple torture and wax play, etc.) can indeed produce an endorphin high. But when the high wears off, there is often a corresponding dip in mood; a withdrawal, I guess you could call it. Practitioners of BDSM call this "sub drop" or just "drop." I've experienced it myself and it can be pretty dramatic. But there's an important difference between sub drop and, say, cocaine addiction. When you withdraw from your flagelation-induced endorphin high, you don't crave more of the hair of the dog. Instead, you crave... well... you see.. er... what you want is... that is to say, what makes you feel better....(oh, this is embarassing)...

Damnit, the cure for sub drop is cuddling!

There. I said it. Cuddling. Snuggly, cutesy, warm, profoundly unmasculine, I-feel-safe-now cuddling.

However, given a healthy sexual appetite, it will not be long - a few days, maybe, a week - before the bottom in question begins sniffing around for another session. One bottom I used to see spoke of "maintenance beatings."

In any case, whether any of the above applies to people in general or only to masochists, I really don't know. I suspect the latter, of course, but hey, maybe addicts are all closet masochists. Who knows?
posted by Clay201 at 2:57 PM on October 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

“In any case, whether any of the above applies to people in general or only to masochists,”

I’m not into mixing pain and sex m’self, but I do enjoy the good post-hard exertion pain and the post-fight pain, post-tourney (rugby) pain etc. Lotsa endorphins. I dig the pain/adrenaline rush. I haven’t experianced a drop though afterwards, just contentment. So it must be the sex mixed in. I suspect there are other brain chemicals involved.
Mmmmm....brain chemicals.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:39 PM on October 25, 2006

If these guys think whipping helps with depression they should try double blind face sitting trials.. nothing er.. beats it.
posted by econous at 3:56 PM on October 25, 2006

Mikey-San, there's algolagnia, or perhaps flagellophilia. Other possibilities:

Whipped: cream from a can(e)
Shock of the yew
My friend flicker
posted by rob511 at 4:25 PM on October 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

Addicts are not all closet masochists, many in fact are tops. But this would put a new twist on "one addict helping another."
posted by Maias at 4:42 PM on October 25, 2006

Do you switch? All spanking and, err, no spanking makes Homer go something-something...

Hey, waitasec, your flickr profile says you're taken!

Top, bottom, boys, girls... hey, it's all friction. ;) And does it really say "taken?" Damn, it was supposed to say "shared."
posted by arcticwoman at 5:19 PM on October 25, 2006

Was I the only one who read this as "Winnipeg Cures Depression"?

Honey, Winnipeg causes depression.
posted by arcticwoman at 5:22 PM on October 25, 2006

Yes, comrade, you in the West do not understand the sex relations!

Can I get a witness?
posted by Wolof at 5:23 PM on October 25, 2006

Anyone want to... therapy me?
posted by arcticwoman at 2:40 PM CST on October 25

I wonder what the deductible is for a good spanking.
posted by dejah420 at 3:09 PM CST on October 25

You're giving me the vapors, Mister_A.
posted by maryh at 4:33 PM CST on October 25

And then, only at this late date, did Ynoxas realize he had been living his entire life wrong.
posted by Ynoxas at 6:03 PM on October 25, 2006

Don't worry, Ynoxas, there's still time. You'll just have to work extra hard, you bad boy.
posted by arcticwoman at 6:13 PM on October 25, 2006

yeah, i noticed ... but timezone's the problem now.
posted by lester's sock puppet at 6:21 PM on October 25, 2006

Alrighty then, I think we have enough doms. Let's set up shop as the MetaFilter Spanking and Spankee Brigade. We'll need Mister_A, that much is clear. Someone has to write the marketing material while we are...um...engaged.

I think just curing the depressed Mefites should keep us busy for a few months. Long enough for us to buy the MSSB Jet. So we can cure depression on the fly, as it were.

Then soon, we can set up our Swiss Chalet...franchises, our own line of signature whips and riding crops. Come with me, now is the time when we must go shop for boots.
posted by dejah420 at 6:47 PM on October 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

MetaSpank?
posted by clevershark at 6:50 PM on October 25, 2006

languagehat, I don't know if you know about this, but the whipping thing is traditional in Russian baths. You take a switch, usually made out of oak or birch branches, soak it for a while in hot water, then you use it to whip yourself or your companions while sitting in the sauna. Sometimes this is done very lightly, which doesn't hurt but makes you hotter by pressing the steaming air against your skin. Sometimes it's done a bit more vigorously, usually by somebody else (a treatment called a platza).

Russians are very serious about their banyas, which are themselves a testimony to how relaxing and refreshing physical discomfort can be. They consider them health treatments-- if done right, they're invigorating, but if done wrong, they can be bad for you. When I visited a banya in Brighton Beach they refused to sell me a platza, because I was new to the bath experience and they didn't think it would be good for me. I imagine this whole whipping-for-depression is related to the ethnomedical beliefs about the health benefits of a good birch-beating.

Also, I'm amazed that no one has yet asked whether this is malarky, or effective way.
posted by bookish at 6:51 PM on October 25, 2006

dejah420 writes "franchises, our own line of signature whips and riding crops."

Do they sell grayish-blue whips and crops now?
posted by clevershark at 6:51 PM on October 25, 2006

The beatings will continue until morale improves.
posted by SPrintF at 7:01 PM on October 25, 2006

”People might probably think of me as a masochist,” Dr. Speransky said.

Make that a sadist.
posted by semmi at 7:19 PM on October 25, 2006

In other news, Pravda reports an mind-bending discovery: the earth is round!

Did someone totally discredit Freudian catharsis? Seems to me a formula that could produce that release.

JFFisher: Thank you.
posted by Goofyy at 8:44 PM on October 25, 2006

Is this for real?

Why, yes it is.

I keep clicking on the links. I'm so *naughty*.
posted by kayalovesme at 9:49 PM on October 25, 2006

dejah420 writes "franchises, our own line of signature whips and riding crops."

clevershark responds: Do they sell grayish-blue whips and crops now?


The people who make the whips will make the whips in the colors I request, or I shall be forced to cure their depression.
posted by dejah420 at 10:15 PM on October 25, 2006

Or, they could just use the cheaper and already demonstrably effective way of giving addicts opioid-based relief, methadone.

Except Methadone doesn't get you high and has worse effects on your health than taking heroin. Oh, and is also more addictive than heroin too! You see, getting high is bad, but we need to give addicts something to tide them over and under our control while we try to sort them out. So we give them something that satisfies the craving for heroin, but also fucks them up in the process in much the same way! It's much better this way!

(Honestly, we might as well just supply them with controlled doses of Heroin, it would really make very little difference, or possibly even be better since Heroin makes you feel fuzzy and warm, like being beaten to death with a cloud.)
posted by public at 12:05 AM on October 26, 2006

Was I the only one who read this as "Winnipeg Cures Depression"?

Honey, Winnipeg causes depression.

That's funny, cause there's an awful lot of whipping going on in Winnipeg, or at least there was.

Yup, you can certainly get endorphins from a flogging. You see that when a submissive starts to 'float'.

That person knows of what they speak.
posted by dreamsign at 1:49 AM on October 26, 2006

Actually, methadone *can* get you high, like any opioid-- the reason most methadone maintenance pts aren't high is because of tolerance, which would happen with a steady dose of any opioid. The longer-acting ones are simply preferable for maintenance because you have to take them less often and there's a general principle in addiction that the *shorter* a drug acts for, the greater the likelihood of addictive behavior.

See cocaine snorted v. crack, and nicotine: the shortest-acting and most addictive drug.

And methadone doesn't have worse health effects than heroin-- another myth: I'd like to see you cite an actual study to support this. [Hint: waste of time]

And, not more addictive (see above). The withdrawal can be more protracted because it is longer-acting, but length of time suffering withdrawal doesn't have anything to do with relapse rates. And since methadone users are generally people with a long history of opioid use and length of history of opioid use is related with protractedness of withdrawal, it's actually very difficult to tell if the difficulty some people have coming off of methadone is due to the drug or the personal history.

Supplying addicts with heroin is another option and is effective as well [See Swiss and Dutch and British data, yes, you'll find much of it published] but for those who want to be functional, methadone is actually often preferred where injectable forms are available.

--google me if you want to know how I know.
posted by Maias at 5:43 AM on October 26, 2006 [2 favorites]

I did google you, Maia Szalavitz. Thank you for contributing in this thread, I think we get an awful lot of misinformation presented as facts - especially on the topic of drugs.
posted by arcticwoman at 11:34 AM on October 26, 2006

I've long been of the mind that Freud was onto something and depression often has a lot to do with sexual frustration. This seems like an excellent solution.
posted by es_de_bah at 12:32 PM on October 26, 2006

I've long been of the mind that Freud was onto something and depression often has a lot to do with sexual frustration.

I can think of 15 people without even trying hard that this is precisely the case. Freud critics... yeah... whatever. The man was right more than he was wrong.
posted by Ynoxas at 12:58 PM on October 26, 2006

Thanks Arctic. Re the Freud supporters, however, I have to disagree.

As someone famous said far better, where he was original, he was not correct, and where he was correct, he was not original.

Correct: sex drives most everything. See: Darwin.

Incorrect: People wanting to have sex with their parents? Not in any evolved mammal that stuck around long enough to leave offspring. See also, Darwin.

Unconscious drives us: see the Greeks.

Unconscious is purposeful and uses things like forcing us to get on a train that stalls in the station and makes us late for therapy to undermine our progress-- absurd.

Toilet-training has deep effects on personality/causes OCD.. even more so.

Memories of sexual abuse are actually fantasies of it? Not likely, unless a therapist is involved in pushing and shaping the recall in the first place. [Though to be fair, he did have this right at first, but then changed his mind].

The unfalsiability of most Freudian notions built into his system (if you agree with my interpretation, you're right; if you don't, you're "in denial") was and remains a major roadblock to the scientific psychology he claimed to want.

Depression may have to do with sexual frustration inasmuch as being prevented from reaching an evolutionary goal is not rewarding for any animal-- but evolutionary views offer a much better explanation, for example, by explaining at how status losses and bullying and stress can cause depression.
posted by Maias at 2:21 PM on October 26, 2006 [1 favorite]