Home Kinky Sex Advice BDSM Advice Spanking Toys Guide: Implements, Tools and Techniques

Spanking Toys Guide: Implements, Tools and Techniques

5 January, 2020

Last Updated on 9 September, 2025 by Cara Sutra

Enjoy my comprehensive spanking toys guide: your corporal punishment implements class starts here!

Spanking is an erotic act between consenting kinksters and lovers. Do you prefer yours OTK (over the knee), strapped face-down to a bench, during sex or in some other fashion? Does the mere thought of a raised Dominant hand, or a spanking toy whistling through the air, stir the tendrils of arousal? You might be wondering which spanking tools are best for effective corporal punishment. Welcome to my big spanking toys guide, in which you’ll also find links to all our spanking toy reviews.

There’s a wide variety of spanking toys in the world of BDSM gear, so I’ve listed the main types below for you. Hopefully this will prove useful when considering which spanking toy to use for delivering the style of erotic tease and/or corporal punishment you desire.

List Of Spanking Tools & Implements

Hand

Best for: any time you fancy! Perfectly portable, discreet for travel and as powerful/noisy or gentle/quiet as you choose. 😉

How to use: Great for traditional OTK (over the knee) spanking sessions, or just a bit of ‘slap’ during the ‘slap & tickle’ of corporal punishment.

Make sure you always spank their fleshy areas to keep things safe and tolerable, like buttocks and backs of the upper thighs.

Paddles

Best for: up close and personal, sharp slappy hits, audible as well as physical enjoyment.

How to use: As an extension of your hand. A spanking paddle gives you that wide surface area for a satisfying slap to their rear. Paddles are also a great warm up before moving on to other, harsher forms of corporal punishment, or just great fun on their own. Stay concentrating on one spot on their arse or move around for a wider, even coverage of paddled red derriere.

Read all our spanking paddle reviews

Riding Crops

Best for: when you have some swinging room, those who like stinging stripes & the whistle through the air.

How to use: Concentrate on the buttocks and/or fleshy areas of the backs of the upper thighs, as usual with any type of corporal punishment. A riding crop can be used to deliver more precise, stinging strokes with a strong hit, interspersed with trailing the tip over their cropped flesh to tease if you want to drive them wild. An extensive session of harsh strokes with a riding crop can leave marks from subtle red lines all the way up to deep bruising and welts.

Read all our kinky riding crop reviews

Floggers

Best for: when you have plenty of swinging room, those who want a versatile tool for sensual up to more punishing play, dull thuddy hits.

How to use: When using a medium to long flogger, stand well back from your partner or sub’s behind, while they’re either standing facing away from you or on all fours. You’ll need some room to swing during this corporal punishment session. Work up to firmer strokes from light swishes over their upper thighs and buttocks. Strokes are usually on one buttock for a while then the other, or both alternately by using a figure of 8 flogging motion. Floggers can be short, medium or long tailed, and are versatile enough for sensual romantic teasing touches up to inflicting a harsher more painful punishment.

Read all our BDSM flogger reviews

Canes

Best for: when you have enough room, those who like intense impact play, leaving bright red stripes, an audible air whistle.

How to use: make sure you have enough room to give a good swing. As with the other corporal punishment tools, use a cane only on the fleshiest parts of the body, so the buttocks and backs of the upper thighs. Never use a cane on someone’s upper or lower back, front, or anywhere else other than buttocks or backs of upper thighs, you could do real damage.

A cane can be used quite lightly but is much more effective when used on a very masochistic submissive or play partner. The whistle through the air before a cane strikes will instil a sense of fear and obedience that is addictive to the most submissive kinksters. A regular tool in judicial canings, a cane can deliver the most fearsome strike, leaving anything from red lines across their arse up to bloodied, bruised, deep welts, depending how cruel you like to play it.

Read all our spanking cane reviews

Whips (Single-tails & Bullwhips)

Best for: outdoor use rather than indoor (unless you’re in a large hall with enough space), those who are experienced in wielding a single-tail ONLY, professionals at corporal punishment.

How to use: Some bullwhips and single tails can be short enough to act simply as a single tailed flogger. However, the majority of bullwhips and single tails are very long, and therefore require a lot of room to use them. Ideally, you’d be outside – or at least in a very large hall without too many people around. Far too many people think that using a single tail or bullwhip is as easy as picking it up and lashing out with it – it’s a huge mistake to think like that.

Using a bullwhip safely takes months if not years of practice. It is very easy to severely hurt not only the person you are trying to consensually whip for enjoyment, but also yourself.

The backlash of a single tail coming back at you can hit your own face, the back of your neck or even catch your eyes. Never use one without the proper training or a suitable amount of space. You can receive training by seasoned professionals at various kink and fetish clubs around the country, or by hooking up with contacts at such events as the London Fetish Fair or the Birmingham Bizarre Bazaar.

For beginners, I’d advise using the shorter version of a bullwhip, and starting gently. See the Bettie Page whip below, for a good example.

Read all our BDSM whip reviews

Electrosex Spanking Toys

Best for: whether you have lots of room or very little, those who can’t wield a heavier/more difficult implement very well, precise corporal punishment, electro-play fans.

How to use: Electrosex toys provide stimulating tingles by conducting safe levels of electricity to various erotic nerve endings in the body. There are electro-pads you can apply, connected to a main electrosex unit, as well as all kinds of sexual pleasure accessories. As well as internal toys such as dildos and butt plugs, you can find electro-paddles to give an erotic tingle when lightly applied to your submissive’s behind.

You can read more about this unique form of sensual play in this fantastic guide to electrosex & electro-toys – and, of course, in all our electrosex toy reviews.

Spank Safely

As with everything kink and BDSM, you should make sure you always only ‘play’ and use spanking toys with someone you know and trust.

Have a safe word in place and/or set up the use of the traffic lights system. ‘No’ doesn’t always mean ‘no’ in BDSM and corporal punishment sessions, so you need to arrange another word, one you wouldn’t normally say in such a scene, which does mean ‘stop, I don’t want any more/I can’t take any more’.

A safeword should always be respected and will always be respected by honourable members of the BDSM community and anyone who really cares about your mental and physical safety. Ensure that there’s active consent at all times.

If using an item which prevents you from speaking, such as a mouth gag, hood or mask, you should arrange another way to ‘safe out’ of proceedings if you need to. This is usually by using a buzzer button or other finger signals which are looked out for by the Dom or Top in that session.

Click to read more BDSM advice articles, as well as my beginner’s guide to BDSM and my beginner’s guide to bondage.

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