Fake Bloody Whip Marks In Bad 1970s Porn
For as long as we’ve had photographic BDSM porn, we’ve had fake cane welts and whip marks. Once I even found a photo of the fake marks being applied to a model’s bottom.
My editorial policy on marks is somewhat multiply-lobed. To protect gentler sensibilities, I try never to show real/actual open cuts or blood (though I did once show a bloody paddle of cruelly-innovative design.) I don’t worry much about severe or colorful welts. I don’t worry at all about whether a given set of marks is real or fake, because art is art, and good forgeries offer the same pleasures as the real thing when it comes to visual media. (More discerning readers sometimes remonstrate with me about this.) However, at the risk of contradicting myself, if marks are too obviously faked, I’ll avoid and not share those images, for the same reason that nobody likes to watch an obviously-faked orgasm. And, finally, I generally avoid faked “bloody” marks, which I find far more distasteful than any honest dents and dings that may result from heavy or enthusiastic BDSM play.
Some of you may never have seen what I’m talking about. We don’t often see fake blood in porn these days, because the credit card companies prohibit it. But for a brief time in the anything-goes cash-paying 1970s, when all the rules were changing, it wasn’t uncommon. Artsy film makers were making outrageously bloody exploitation and horror films, while pornographers were experimenting with cheap special effects and wondering what would sell in the under-the-counter magazine space. And so it wasn’t at all uncommon to see cheap attempts at making BDSM porn — usually by vanilla pornographers who didn’t understand kink and missed or misunderstood all the important fetish signifiers — that included super-fake bloody whip marks. Because of my interest in vintage porn, I come across it surprisingly often.
Despite my usual practices, I’m publishing these two images from the 1970 Dutch porn magazine Kwak #5. I suppose I want to preserve and transmit the memory of just how cheesy and terrible porn could be, half a century ago. These whip marks are extensive, but appear to have been painted on with runny catsup or perhaps cheap theatrical blood. In truth I’m far more interested in the faux-medieval costuming, which sadly isn’t shown very well. But since many of you may not expect to see fake blood here at Spanking Blog, the painted-on whipping marks are obscured. Click the image to see them in all their dubious glory.
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