Review: Cat o' Nine Tails whip from Passion Craft Store

Imagine that a flog­ger and a whip had a baby. That's the cat o' nine tails.

As with whips, the cats' claim to fame is their thick, woven tress­es. But instead of a sin­gle lash, a cat o' nine tails tra­di­tion­al­ly has — as the name sug­gests — nine.

"This real leather whip can inflict par­al­lel wounds," says Passion Craft Store's cat o' nine tails descrip­tion. "Just like the claws of a cat’s paw."

Historically, the Royal Navy and British Army used cat o' nine tail flails for pun­ish­ing adult men in the 18th and ear­ly 19th cen­turies. For boys, there was also a milder ver­sion with five lash­es, some­times called the "boy's pussy," accord­ing to Wikipedia. I'm not about to Google that exact search term, though.

While cat o' nine tails and BDSM flog­gers look sim­i­lar on the sur­face, some key fea­tures make a cat a cat.

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Difference between cat o' nine tails and floggers and whips

Floggers remind me of dry­ing brush­es at the auto­mat­ic car wash — boun­ti­ful, flow­ing, flat rib­bons that whisk at the sur­face. Their falls tend to be thin strips of leather, resem­bling fet­tuc­cine pas­ta. And so many strands that you'd need more than a glance to count them. Furthermore, the lighter con­struc­tion is designed not to break the skin.

In con­trast, cat o' nine tails resem­ble braids or dreads — you can eas­i­ly spot each lock. And though they're thin­ner than sin­gle tail whips, they still have some heft to them. With enough repeat­ed lash­ings on the same spot, a cat o' nine tails can poten­tial­ly lac­er­ate. In ear­li­er eras, open wounds could mean a fatal infec­tion. Add "mod­ern med­i­cine and anti­sep­tic" to your grat­i­tude journal.

Unlike single-​lash whips and rid­ing crops, though, cat o' nine tail flails were invent­ed with human pun­ish­ment in mind. They also don't tend to be as thick.

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What does a cat o' nine tails feel like in use?

(…and how does the sen­sa­tion com­pare to oth­er leather impact toys?)

A cat o' nine tails has a stingy, poten­tial­ly pierc­ing, and spread-​out qual­i­ty in use. It's slight­ly hap­haz­ard since you don't have exact con­trol of where the tails land.

While soft­er, thin­ner flog­gers are also on the stingy end of the spec­trum, they tend to feel more like surface-​level burn­ing due to their lighter strands.

I'd say that a cat o' nine tails is more advanced than a rid­ing crop — but less so than a sin­gle tail whip. Cats lack the lev­el of con­trol that rid­ing crops' firmer, boun­cy cores offer. However, they don't demand a big and bold swing radius as a whip does. (Some of the lash­es at Passion Craft Store are upwards of 7 feet — about 220 cm!)

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Passion Craft Store Cat o' Nine Tails measurements

Passion Craft Store makes a wide vari­ety of cus­tom leather impact toys. Here's how the cat o' nine tails that they sent me mea­sures up:

Tails

• Nine tails with flat, teardrop-​shaped "stingers" at the ends
• Each tail is about 22" (55 cm) long and 1/​4" (7 mm) across

Handle

• 8" (20 cm) long × 1.25" (3.2 cm) wide handle
• 1.8" (4.6 cm) wide beads on either end

Etc.

• Wrist/​storage loop around the handle
• Mostly red leather with black accents

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Custom-made leather cat o' nine tails

Red and black with nine tails is just what I got, though. A major perk of leather impact toys made to order is that you can cus­tomize your cat o' nine tails! Just get in touch with the mak­ers and let them know what you had in mind.

Will you get clas­sic black or a bold and bright palette? Nine tails or five? Or eleven? The aes­thet­ic is up to you!

Disclaimers

Hey! Passion Craft Store spon­sored this post and sent me this hand­made leather cat o' nine tails of charge for a review. The thoughts writ­ten here are mine and freely expressed.

I also can’t empha­size safe­ty enough. Stick to impact play on body parts with ample mus­cle or fat, such as the butt and thighs. Avoid joints, bony areas, and the abdomen. Please.