Yes, for me a feminine pleasure of those films is the lovely dresses the women get to wear -
and then take off to be whipped!
Absolutely! It's very much a masculine pleasure as well! I'm particularly attracted to the 18th and early 19th century styles. Partly it's how those dresses emphasized and displayed the femininity, wealth and rank of the wearer, and partly from the historical reality that a woman actually could be stripped of her clothes and whipped during those times. I expend a great deal of precious brainpower (that I should be using for functions like eating food, walking, and breathing) on imagining scenarios in which a wealthy woman of breeding of those times might find herself going under the lash.
I was thinking of starting a thread of women in historical dress, because a beautiful woman in an ornate, low necked 18th century gown is so suggestive of the punishments I could contrive to put her through; but such a thread might be suggestive only of Pinterest to the majority of members here. What do you think?
Speaking of which, "Outlander" is a series loaded with authentic historical dress. And it includes a witch trial and a whipping scene (two actually, but one is of a dude, so it doesn't count.) Claire Beauchamp, played by Catriona Balfe, is a nurse during WW II. On a furlough to Scotland she unwittingly steps into a circle of standing stones during the full moon or something and travels back in time to the Scotland of the 18th century. Of course she has immediate issues with learning the culture and dealing with the suspicions of both the Scottish natives and English occupiers.
More to the point, in one episode, she and another woman are accused of witchcraft and put on trial. Claire insults the judges and they order her to be immediately "stripped and skelped" (whipped.) She is pulled from the dock and held kneeling with arms outstretched in the crowded courtroom. A man rips open the back of her shift and commences to "skelp" her:
The reactions of Claire and the realism of the scene are outstanding. However, it's also very disappointing as we don't get to see much of anything. If I were the judge I'd be pissed. He clearly said "Strip her!" At the very least that should mean topless, but personally if I were the judge I'd insist her bare buttocks get a rigorous skelping also. She's a suspected witch, for crying in a bucket! In the event, after only a few lashes, her lover charges in and rescues her from the crowd. They escape and later he surveys the damage:
It's particularly disappointing because in a previous episode an extensive whipping scene was shown. That's the one I mentioned of the dude, which doesn't count. Jamie Frasier (Sam Heughan, pictured with Claire, above) is stripped to the waist and gets 100 lashes of the cat 'o nine tails. I didn't count them, but I think we get to see pretty much all 100, and in graphic detail.
It's not fair and it's not right. Why couldn't Jamie be skelped and Claire catted? Or forget the skelping and just divide up the flogging with the cat even-steven. Fifty for each. I think men and women should be treated equally in all things. Don't you?