On September 26, 2004 I was flogged outdoors in San Francisco, CA 
by Al (Leatherback) at the Folsom Street Fair.

Though I was flogged publicly at a street fair once before, I 
felt more anxiety this time.  Both because I am normally a
fairly private person and secondly because I don't like crowds. 
Folsom Street in many places on this day was nearly impossible
to navigate due to the crowds.  Even finding Al was difficult as
one could not see across the street due to all the people.  At 
first I was hesitant to be tied up as I wanted to get away from
the crowds.  

I was stripped to the waist and my hands were tied to a lamp post
used in this case as a whipping post.  This was on 9th Street,
near Folsom.

First, I was given 80 lashes with an oil-tanned leather flogger.  
Next a cat made of 9 boot laces as tails was used on me and with
that I received 50.  Following that a cat with 9 nylon tails was
used to give me 30.  Then a similarly looking cat was used but this 
one has a longer handle and slightly longer tails.  Two dozen were
given with this cat.  Despite the similarity with the first one,
this cat was noticeably more painful to take.  The finale was
delivered with a brand new cat.  This one has a nice wooden handle
and tails of nylon, but knotted with blood knots.  Since this one
was expected to be considerably more severe than the last one,
Al said he'd only give me a dozen.  True, it lived up to 
expectations, and I could really feel the knots digging into and
cutting my flesh.  At the end of the dozen, I was tempted to ask
for another dozen, but I am glad I didn't, as the healing process
turned out to take much longer than I expected.

When the flogging was finished -- a total of 196 lashes, according
to Al -- he put on latex gloves and rubbed salt into my wounds.  
In some ways this felt as if I was being flogged all over again,
especially later, at home, when the endorphins wore off. 

The only video taken was of my back when he wasn't flogging me,
and there was no still camera used this day.  He did get some
still captures off the video, which are not bad, but not as clear
as photos taken with a still camera.

I write this more than two weeks after the flogging and I am still
in the process of healing and probably will be for a while.

Photos of this and a previous flogging session are in the photo 
album "jsnaw" of the Yahoo group whippingonly2.  A direct link to 
them is:

http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/whippingonly2/lst?.dir=/jnsaw/
Be sure to click "Show All" in order to see thumbnails for all
of the photos including the latest which begin with photo number
22.


Many more photos are in my profile photo album at:
http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jeans_noshirt_and_whipped/my_photos

Narratives of other sessions and other thoughts I have about flogging
and whipping can be found in the files directory at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mcpf/files/jnsaw/

Sincerely,
jeans_noshirt_and_whipped
"Bob"