Whipping the Nun – Spanking Blog

“Whipping the Nun” sounds like it should be some kind of sexual euphemism, but in this case, it’s literal. An Italian auction site that the painting is being sold through calls it “Sexy scene of nun being whipped by monk” Or “erotic scene of a nun being whipped by a monk,” which seems straightforward enough.

At first I thought the whips that looked like furry animal tails were an ancient convention to show the whip tail blurred by movement, but then I noticed spare whips hanging from the poles, painted in the same way. So I wondered if this was still just an artistic convention, or perhaps a lack of painting skills. Even more interesting is that the whips used for this kind of religious discipline may indeed be as soft as a furry rabbit in order to perform a penitential ritual that involved humiliation or shame but no real pain. This doesn’t sound like any historical version of Christianity I’ve ever heard of, but the church is large and has a long history, which leaves room for all kinds of unexpected practices.

The painting is said to be “of the 18th century French school,” and I’m not good enough at art history to argue that.

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