About bruising (marks) and other local damage
Many people love the marks (typically bruises) that a spanking can leave. This comment on a bondage.com user's profile is typical:
The marks that I get on my bottom to me just show me that I am loved more. Actually it gets me excited to turn around in the mirror and see my marked bottom. Makes me feel naughty, but makes me feel proud too that I can carry these marks of love.
It’s not dangerous to be spanked till you are bruised, but it can be disconcerting and there are some special angles you should be aware of. So read on, whether you find this interesting and informative or simply a topic of morbid fascination.
Here's Doc's rule of bruising: everyone bruises either too much or too little.
People who don’t want to bruise but who are paddled (or spanked, of course) with even moderate force often bruise, sometimes a lot, and are horrified by this. Perhaps they associate bruising with abuse, I can understand that. Or perhaps they just worry that bruising is an indication of serious harm. It isn’t. Nonetheless they feel they bruise too much.
Many subs love to be bruised. For the next couple of days after the spanking they twist and turn (or use suitably placed mirrors) to admire these indications that they’ve been well spanked. These are the folks who bruise too little.
Trish talks about the soreness that follows a spanking (and yes, she was bruised), as follows:
I am sitting right now in a conference room, and have been for the last several hours, with tremendous but marvelous discomfort. Even slight movement is painful; still it's a delicious, warm and connected feeling, one I am savoring and hope will linger for days
Talking about her bruising, Trish adds,
I look forward to watching my personal mural transform over the next few days, like colors in a lava lamp, and am sure that I will experience a sense of loss when the last vestige of your talents disappears.
People who welcome bruising find that with repeated punishment their asses become tougher by degrees until even quite intense paddling leaves only transient redness and perhaps some low-grade torn up skin, but no bruising. Those who love to be bruised are horrified by this, of course, but there’s nothing to be done. Well, they could refrain from being paddled until their bottoms recover their original tender and vulnerable condition; but nobody that I know of has the faintest interest in waiting that long.
Avoiding bruising
When you don’t want to be marked, or don’t want the marks to be visible in public . . .
Any spanking can leave bruises. Even if your spankee has no bruises at the end of the spanking, they may develop over the next day or so. If you whack less hard and less long, bruises are less likely, but there are no guarantees. If bruises must absolutely be avoided, turn to some other form of play.
People promote various home remedies to reduce bruising (apply ice immediately afterward, treat the skin with arnica, etc.). Since bruising is caused by small blood vessels being popped open, which happens during the paddling and won’t be undone by ice or skin treatments, I have trouble seeing how this sort of treatment would make much difference. Still there’s no harm in trying. I’d like to see an experiment in which both ass cheeks were punished equally and one was then treated to reduce bruising and the other wasn’t. If you’re interested in undertaking this research, let me know and we can talk about the methodological issues involved and how best to measure the results.
Bruises travel
Some people have no problem being bruised but want the bruised areas to be covered by shorts or a swim suit. There’s a trap here. Remember that bruising is caused when tiny blood vessels are torn open, releasing blood under the skin. That blood isn’t held in place and over the next few days it can and will respond to the pull of gravity. That means that if you give your beloved a hard paddling just before she leaves on a Sierra Club backpacking trip through the Rockies, in which she spends most of every day hiking, that the blood under the skin of her ass will migrate down, resulting in spectacular bruises that are visible well below her shorts.
Medication and bruising--and coumadin/warfarin in particular
Some medications make bruising more likely. Aspirin and the nonsteroidal inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen and naprosyn are the most commonly used nonprescription medications that have this effect.
Prescription blood thinners like warfarin (Coumadin) can make you much more likely to bruise. If you're taking warfarin you can still have fun with spanking, but you should definitely take small steps. Natty has experience with warfarin and she has a terrific discussion of warfarin on her blog. Another web site, www.ptinr.com, has information for both patients and professionals; my guess is that it's sponsored by a company that manufactures home PT/INR monitors, but if the information is useful to you, that's not necessarily a problem so long as you're aware of their commercial bias.
Bleeding
Blood carries significant risk of infectious diseases. It’s easy to cause bleeding if you use thin, whippy implements like switches or canes; but even ordinary paddling can result in bleeding. This is particularly true if your sub’s bottom has a vulnerable spot like a mole.
I’m not going to give a full discussion of blood safety here. Suffice it to say that the top should avoid getting the bottom’s blood on his or her skin, and that any implements that have contact with blood should be carefully cleaned and then either sterilized or, better, dedicated to use only on that lucky bottom.
Skin damage
Hard spanking with implements will sooner or later cause skin damage. Welts are not a problem, but if the skin becomes torn, bleeds, or is just plain paddled partly away, it’s wise to stop while there is still some skin left. Major skin damage can lead to permanently weak spots that bleed easily when whacked in the future; this is a result you do not want to be responsible for. If the punishment session just has to last longer, find something else creative and enjoyable.
If you are spanked hard enough, long enough, and often enough, not only will you stop bruising, your skin will become thicker and tougher. It’s just like the calluses you develop on your fingers when you play the guitar, or on your hands if you work as a mechanic or stevedore. Some people say that applying lotion after a spanking reduces this skin thickening, but I’m a man and I wouldn’t know about lotion. The skin thickening is not something I welcome, but it’s all part of the game.
Seeing a doctor for your injuries (not)
Newcomers are often afraid that after a hard spanking, the bruises and abrasions, or the infections that result, will require a doctor visit. I can't say that this scenario is impossible, but I have never heard of this happening. The sort of injuries that result from a really hard spanking invariably heal with time, and the butt resists infection. It's true that boils on the butt are a relatively common problem, but this is unrelated to being spanked. I have never heard of an infection of the ass resulting from a spanking, let alone one that required medical attention.