The severity of a caning is influenced by many factors. In the case of punishment on the buttocks, important variables include how securely the recipient is positioned, how far they are required to bend over, and whether the tip of the cane strikes the target area. Similarly, when caning is administered to the hand, factors such as whether the wrist is restrained, whether the arm is free to move, and whether the stroke lands across the palm or near the base of the fingers can significantly affect the experience.
Pain perception is a complex subject, involving far more than the physical impact of the stroke itself. Most people have experienced how the body adapts to repeated sensations. For example, when walking barefoot during a holiday, the feet may initially feel highly sensitive, but over time the skin and nerve endings become accustomed to the sensation and discomfort diminishes.
The buttocks, by contrast, are usually covered by clothing and rarely exposed to strong sensory stimulation beyond contact with a chair or seat. For this reason, they may be more sensitive to intense, pain-producing stimuli than the hands, which are constantly exposed to everyday physical activity and contact with the environment.
When considering corporal punishment, it is also important to distinguish between pain threshold and pain tolerance. Pain threshold refers to the point at which a sensation is first perceived as painful. Research suggests that this threshold varies relatively little between individuals and remains fairly stable over time. Pain tolerance, however, is the amount of pain a person can endure before reacting. This can be influenced by many factors, including culture, previous experiences, physical and emotional condition, expectations, and personal attitudes.
Factors such as apprehension, fear, anxiety, fatigue, anger, and a perceived loss of control can all reduce pain tolerance. In my own experience, the position required for caning on the buttocks contributed significantly to the ordeal. Being forced to bend over felt humiliating and submissive in a way that holding out a hand never did.
Although both forms of punishment produced anxiety and apprehension, these feelings were much stronger when awaiting strokes on the buttocks. Once bent over, I could not see behind me. I had no way of judging when the cane would strike, where it would land, or how much force would be used. This uncertainty increased my sense of helplessness. My attention became completely focused on the anticipated pain, which magnified the emotional impact of the punishment.
By comparison, hand caning allowed at least a small degree of dignity and control. Even though it was painful, I remained upright, aware of my surroundings, and able to watch the punishment being administered.
The hands contain a particularly high concentration of nociceptors, especially in the fingertips. Nevertheless, I often felt that a hard first stroke across the palm created a shock-like effect that dulled the sensation of subsequent strokes. Later strokes felt more like heavy impacts than sharp pain. However, others who received punishments such as the strap across the hands have reported a very different experience, describing the pain as cumulative and increasingly severe with each stroke.
Because hands are constantly used and exposed to physical contact, they may become less susceptible to certain forms of stimulation than more protected areas of the body. People who regularly play sports such as cricket, for example, become accustomed to impacts on the hands when catching a ball. Such blows are often more painful when they strike other parts of the body.
The circumstances surrounding a punishment can also influence how it is experienced. At my school, hand canings were often administered immediately for classroom misdemeanours. They came unexpectedly, with little time to prepare mentally, and were frequently delivered by an irritated teacher. Canings on the buttocks, by contrast, were usually formal punishments carried out in the headmaster’s or deputy headmaster’s study. Although more severe, they were planned events, giving the recipient time to anticipate what was coming. This difference in expectation may have affected how each punishment was perceived.
An interesting observation from medical research suggests that people often experience greater discomfort from an injection when they deliberately look away rather than watch the needle entering the skin. If this finding is accurate, it raises the possibility that seeing a cane strike the hand might lessen the perceived intensity of the pain compared with not being able to see a stroke delivered to the buttocks.
One incident from my schooldays remains particularly vivid. At a London grammar school, I was accused of fighting during an art class. In reality, another boy had attacked me and I merely defended myself. Nevertheless, the art master instructed me to report to Room Six during break time.
When I arrived, he was waiting with a thin cane and the punishment book. I attempted to explain the circumstances, but he refused to listen. His decision had already been made.
“I shall have to cane you,” he said. “Now turn round and bend over.”
I complied, but apparently not far enough.
“I can’t cane you like that, boy,” he remarked, tapping my buttocks lightly with the cane. “Get down further.”
I bent lower and rested my hands on my knees.
“Oh yes,” he replied with satisfaction. “That will be fine.”
He lifted my blazer and positioned the cane.
The first stroke landed with a sharp swish. For a brief moment I felt nothing, and then an intense burning pain surged through me. The second stroke followed immediately, bringing an even greater level of discomfort.
“All over. Get up, boy.”
I staggered from the room and hurried downstairs.
My own experiences of hand caning during junior school support the idea that the first hard stroke could sometimes dull the pain of those that followed, particularly when the strokes landed across the palm rather than the fingertips. A skilled disciplinarian could increase the overall severity by progressively increasing the force of each stroke, creating a cumulative effect that intensified the total pain experienced.
At grammar school, the headmaster occasionally varied the punishment by directing one or two strokes across the upper thighs. These were, in my experience, considerably more painful than strokes delivered to the buttocks alone and could dramatically increase the severity of the caning.
