Tawse

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A two-tailed leather tawse, produced for the BDSM market, resting on a pillow. A small strap is attached to the handle to allow it to be hung on a hook when not in use.

A tawse ' (the plural of Scots taw, a thong of a whip) is a typically Scottish implement for physical punishment, called tawsing after it, that was often used for educational discipline instead of the English cane (which, like the horse crop, was however used in private schools, usually on bare bottoms or the hands).

It consists of a thick, relatively hard piece of leather, often made by a saddler, rather like a prison strap, that splits into two, three or sometimes more parallel tails. Confusingly it was frequently called the belt, which is normally a term for an unforked implement, as worn in trousers (see Belt (clothing)). The products of the best-known producer, John J Dick, were made in a village called Lochgelly, which became a household name.

Scottish schools used the tawse to beat pupils on the bare buttocks, legs or hands. In the mid to late seventies, a teachers code banned its use for spanking.

Since the ban on all corporal punishment in the UK, it survives mainly in BDSM and corporal punishment scenes in the UK (especially in Scotland where there exist several private clubs where the tawse is used in corporal punishment play).

Original Lochgelly tawses are prized by collectors and aficionados of the Corporal punishment scene and can fetch a great deal of money. The grand-daughter of George Wilson Dick sells original Lochgelly tawses on the Lochgelly website and there is a ready market in Lochgelly replicas.