Marcelo recently put up a controversial tweet on the protocols of corporal play. He’s since deleted it, so I can’t quote it directly, but the main thrust was that a lot (most?) subs dislike having to count the strokes when receiving a thrashing. He suggested that it takes them out of subspace and doing a ‘thank you’ per stroke seems fake.
I’m not sure why he deleted it. Hopefully it wasn’t because he got a lot of disagreement, because I’m on his side on this one. Obviously there’s no objectively bad play style here – YMMV and I’m sure some people love that protocol. But personally I find it weird to repeatedly say thank you and the counting always pulls me out of subspace. It makes sense in a very traditional school roleplay scene, but I’m not sure why it’s so common outside that niche. Or at least, why it’s so often the default way to do a corporal scene.
The only time I’ve really enjoyed counting the strokes is when it’s done playfully. Sometimes I’m not sure if a stroke really counted or not. Was it a sighting tap or the real thing? What if I don’t count and it really was one? But if I count it, and it wasn’t one, I’ll look like a wuss! That kind of dynamic can be really fun when executed in a teasing way. But if we’re going for a serious beating, then at least let me zone out into subspace.
I sourced this image from an old tumblr feed. Hunting around led me to this photo print by coop, which appears to be from the same series.