Punished, as a boy

We have been enjoying The Terror, a television series about the doomed Franklin expedition of 1845 to find the northwest passage to India. It is based on fact, but there has been a fair bit of the supernatural added to turn it into something of a horror movie. We know that there were no survivors, which makes it quite sad to watch. (Several expeditions later searched fruitlessly for the lost party, but it wasn't until 2014 that Erebus, one of the two ships in the expedition, was found. Terror was finally located in 2016.)

Last week's episode was entitled "Punished, as a boy" and naturally that set my pulse racing, as I'm sure it did yours when you read the title of this post. In the episode, three of the sailors committed various infractions which caused the captain of Erebus to sentence them to 12 lashes each with the cat o'nine tails. The ringleader argued, which raised the sentence to 20, then 30 lashes, and finally, that he should be "punished, as a boy".

The next scene begins with a closeup of the naked back of one of the miscreants, striped with blood. It is now the turn of the ringleader. He is shirtless, and is led to a wooden bench, bent over it, and bound. Then the captain orders that he be "punished, as a boy". At that, his breeches are pulled down to expose his bare buttocks (which we don't see). Obviously, the point of being whipped across the bum instead of across the back, as a man would be, is to add humiliation to the punishment. The flogging begins, and the viewers watch the culprit's face, and hear his muffled groans and gasps. It is only when the flogging is over that we see his naked, striped bum. He then staggers off to the ship's doctor, who tends to him.

The scene was done tastefully enough, and Ron remarked during it that I was seeing a really good spanking. I agreed, although it wasn't much of a turn on for me because I am not fond of seeing violent beatings or blood. Still, I thought you might be interested.

In closing, I want to share with you what is considered by some to be Canada's second national anthem. Listen to the late, great Stan Rogers sing "Northwest Passage".