Broken Skin
Broken skin is when the surface layer of skin actually splits open during impact play, rather than just bruising or welting beneath it. Caning and whipping carry the highest risk of it, since both concentrate force into a narrow line; a flogger's wider, blunter tails rarely do it. It happens when a strike exceeds what the skin at that spot can absorb, most often a repeat strike landing on already-marked skin, or a stroke that wraps and lands on unusually thin skin. Once the surface is open, it's a wound like any other: exposed to infection, and to bloodborne pathogen transmission if it makes contact with someone else's blood or an unsterilised implement.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
A break in the skin looks different from a welt: an actual gap or split, not just raised, reddened, or bruised tissue, sometimes with a bead of blood at the surface immediately, sometimes only visible on closer inspection afterwards. Stinging that continues sharply rather than settling into the duller ache of a normal mark is often the first clue before it's visually obvious.
WHAT TO DO
Stop landing strikes on that exact spot immediately, and pause for a moment generally to actually look at it rather than continuing on adrenaline. Clean the wound with clean water and mild soap, not alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, both of which damage healing tissue more than they help. Cover it with a clean dressing if it's still oozing or exposed to friction, otherwise let it breathe.
Never let an implement that has drawn blood touch anyone else's skin without disinfecting it first. Sharing a marked cane or flogger between partners is a real bloodborne pathogen transmission route.
Watch it over the following days. Increasing pain instead of decreasing, spreading redness, red streaks extending outward, warmth, pus, or fever are all signs of infection and mean seeing a doctor, not waiting it out.
HISTORY
Naval flogging, delivered with a cat o' nine tails built to cut, not the soft-falled modern flogger, reliably broke skin. Those wounds were treated with brine rubbed directly into the open skin, believed at the time to guard against infection. It is where the phrase "rubbing salt in the wound" comes from, literally, not as a figure of speech. It worked poorly and hurt more than the flogging itself. Modern wound care replaces it with clean water and a covered dressing, not salt.
- GoodRx. Infected Cut: What It Looks Like and How to Treat It. goodrx.com/conditions/wound-care/how-to-tell-if-wound-is-healing-infected
- Healogics. Signs of a Wound Infection: 7 Signs You Shouldn't Ignore. healogics.com/blog/signs-of-a-wound-infection-7-signs-you-shouldnt-ignore
- British Tars, 1740-1790: Flogging and the Cat. britishtars.com/2018/01/flogging-and-cat.html