Buying BDSM: Basics, How the Falls Make the Flogger

Buying a kinky Implement can be a daunting task, but it doesn't have to be. While there are many factors that can affect the feel of an Implement(they're not always thuddy!), this post will focus on the fall count and properties of a flogger. My goal with this series is to help you better understand some of the factors that can affect the feel of a Kink Implement, without having to actually feel it yourself. I’m going to break this post down into three smaller parts, amount of leather around, fall width, and tips.

I’m going to start with the amount of leather. Generally, the more leather on a flogger, the thuddier it is going to lean. You can figure out the amount of leather by (N*W) where “N” is the number of falls and “W” is the width of the falls, so If I have a flogger with 32 falls that are each ¾ “ wide I can go (32*.75) and see that I have two feet of leather wrapped around the handle. Most floggers sold at big box stores (Adam and Eve, Cindy’s, Zone d’ Erotica, etc...) have about 15 falls (Its labeled “dozens” but there’s barely any on there), these falls are anywhere between 6mm and ¼” wide. Aka: 9cm or 5” of “leather”. Notice how I said nothing about the number of falls and how they affect the feel. That’s because different falls will do different things, so fall count is not a good determining factor for the feel of a flogger.

Now to the width of the falls, a rule of thumb is that the wider the falls are, the stingier that the flogger is going to lean. This is due to the amount of surface area that the flogger has to transmit the energy of the swing through, with a larger surface area, the force gets distributed over more space leaning into more of a stingy/slappy feel as opposed to a thuddy/punchy feel.

Now I’m going to give y’all just the tip(s). There are generally 3 types of tips. Square tips are more middle of the road/neutral in terms of affecting feel. Rounded tips take the flogger in a thuddier direction. Any sort of tip with triangle(s) on it is going to lean the flogger into a much stingier direction.

This was a basic introduction to the falls and the role that they play in how a flogger feels. Next time we’re gonna talk about wood(no, not that kind of wood you pervert), and the different woods, and their properties.