# The cane > Rattan, and the least forgiving implement in common use. Diameter and length, why the pain arrives twice, why skin splits without warning, and how to use one. - Canonical URL: https://consensualspanking.co.uk/implements/cane/ - Section: Implements - Updated: November 2026 (2026-11-01) - Audience: consenting adults over 18 only. Everything on this site concerns consenting adults over 18. I use canes and I would not tell anyone not to. But this is the one object on the site where the gap between a stroke that was fine and a stroke that caused an injury is measured in a very small amount of extra force, and where the person receiving it cannot warn you in time. --- ## In short - A cane puts the whole force of a stroke through a line a few millimetres wide. That concentration is the entire difference. - The pain arrives twice. The impact, then a worse second wave several seconds later, which is why people miscount and overcommit. - Skin splits with almost no progressive warning, usually because several strokes have landed on the same line. - Rattan flexes and absorbs part of the impact. Acrylic and delrin flex differently, are often heavier and do not forgive a misjudged stroke. Garden bamboo splinters and should never be used. Everything here concerns consenting adults over 18. ## What it is Rattan, which is a climbing palm rather than a wood or a bamboo. Solid, with a fibrous structure running the length of it, which is why it bends a long way without snapping and why it has been the material of choice for two centuries. Canes are described by diameter and length, and both matter more than anything else about them. Diameters in normal use run from about 8 millimetres to about 14, lengths from roughly 60 centimetres to a metre. Thin and thick behave differently, and not in the way people assume. A thin cane is whippy, fast at the tip and almost pure surface sting, and it is the one most likely to break skin. A thick cane carries more mass, flexes less and bruises deeper, but it is less inclined to cut. I would hand a beginner the medium one, because the thin ones are less forgiving than they look and the heavy ones are hard to control. ## What it feels like, and why it arrives twice A line. Not a patch, not a spread, a defined stripe of sensation with normal skin either side of it. The thing nobody is prepared for is the timing. The impact itself is often less dramatic than expected, a hard tap and a flash of heat, and then five or ten seconds later the real thing arrives and keeps climbing. Fast and slow nerve fibres do carry different components of pain, but that difference is measured in fractions of a second, so the several-second build is more likely the tissue responding to being crushed along a narrow line. A theory that fits rather than a proven cause. The consequence is what matters. Someone who has just taken a stroke does not yet know how hard it was, and will tell you it was fine, because at that moment it is. Give them another four in quick succession and all four second waves land on top of each other. This is the commonest way a caning goes further than either person intended, and waiting fixes it entirely. ## How it fails Skin splits, and it does it without a build-up you can read. With a strap you watch pink become red become hot and swollen, and you have a long time to decide. With a cane you get red, red, red, and then a line that has opened. The usual cause is several strokes landing on the same track. The tip is the second problem. Everything you swing rotates, so the last few inches travel fastest, and on a long cane that difference is large. A stroke aimed to cover the whole backside puts the fastest part of the cane over the far hip, where bone is close to the surface. The third is the person receiving it. Canes produce a startle response, so people move, and a stroke aimed at a stationary backside lands somewhere else on a moving one. Use a position that is comfortable to hold and warn before each stroke. See [positions](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/positions/). > **The line that consent does not cross.** Under *R v Brown* [1993] UKHL 19, consent is not a defence to causing actual bodily harm in England and Wales. Transient redness and light bruising generally sit below that threshold. Heavy or lasting bruising can meet it, and skin that has been cut open is likely to. Of everything on this site the cane is the implement most likely to take you there, and both people are exposed if it does. More at [is any of this legal in the UK](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/uk/is-it-legal/). ## Technique Stand at right angles, far enough away that the tip of the cane arrives at the far edge of the target with your arm comfortably extended, then check where the tip actually lands. If it goes past the far edge, you are too close or the cane is too long, and no care with the swing will fix that. The setup is covered in detail at [using a cane](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/using-a-cane/). Strokes go horizontally across the fullest part of the lower half, parallel to the floor. Not angled down towards the crease, not up towards the tailbone. Work from the bottom upwards, leaving a finger's width between each line so nothing lands twice. Space them. Ten to twenty seconds between strokes is not theatre, it is the time the second wave needs to arrive so that both of you are making decisions with the same information. Six strokes properly spaced is a substantial caning. Six in fifteen seconds is something else. Look at the skin between strokes rather than at the person. A raised white line with red either side is normal. A line that is going dark purple, or shiny, or beginning to show a break anywhere along it, means that area is done for the evening regardless of what anybody agreed to earlier. Warm up first, and for longer than with anything else. Cold skin is less elastic and splits more readily. That is on [warm-up](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/warm-up/). ## How it marks The tramline: a pale central stripe where the cane compressed the tissue, with a band of bruising along each side of it. That pattern comes from capillaries breaking at the edges of the compression rather than under it, and it is the most recognisable mark you can leave on a person. It develops over an hour or two and lasts one to two weeks, sometimes longer. There is no discreet caning. If somebody has a physiotherapy appointment, a swim booked or a partner who does not know, this is the implement that causes the problem, and it belongs in the negotiation rather than the aftermath. See [marks and bruising](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/marks-and-bruising/). ## Buying one UK specialist makers sell rattan canes across a wide range depending on length, diameter and finish. The ones I have bought have been broadly in the fifteen to forty pound bracket, and I would treat that as a sense of the market rather than a price list. Handles vary from a plain end to a crook, and none of that changes what the cane does. What to look for: straight-grained rattan with no cracks or fibre lifts, a smooth surface, ends rounded or capped rather than cut square. Hold one end to your eye and look along it, the way you would check a snooker cue, to make sure it is straight, because a warped cane lands unpredictably. What to avoid matters more than the list above. Garden bamboo splinters along its length and drives fibres into skin. Acrylic and delrin flex differently from rattan, are often heavier, and do not absorb a misjudged stroke the same way, which makes them far harsher than they look. Improvising a cane is one of the few things in this section I would tell someone flatly not to do, and there is a fuller list on [improvised implements](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/implements/improvised/). ## Care and inspection Rattan dries out with age, and dry rattan becomes brittle and starts to fibre along the surface. Wipe it after use, give it a light rub of oil once or twice a year, and store it hanging or lying flat. Leaning a cane in a corner for a year puts a permanent bend in it. Inspect before every session. Run it through your fingers end to end feeling for splinters, raised fibres or soft spots, then flex it firmly and listen. Any crack means it is finished. A cane that fails mid-stroke leaves a splintered end travelling fast, and rattan splinters go in deep. Retire them earlier than you want to: they are cheap and skin is not. ## Read next - [Where it is safe to strike](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/where-it-is-safe-to-strike/) - [Marks and bruising](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/marks-and-bruising/) - [Warm-up](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/warm-up/) - [The riding crop](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/implements/crop/) - [All implements](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/implements/) ## Sources 1. *R v Brown* [1993] UKHL 19, House of Lords. [bailii.org](https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1993/19.html) > **Not legal advice.** Where this page mentions the law, it is general information written from an England and Wales position unless it says otherwise, and it is not legal advice. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own law. If your own legal position matters, speak to a solicitor. ## Common questions ### What diameter and length of cane should a beginner buy? If you are buying one at all, a medium rattan of around 10 millimetres diameter and 65 to 75 centimetres is the most controllable combination. Thinner canes are whippier and split skin more readily. Longer canes have more tip speed and are much harder to place accurately in a normal room. ### Why does a cane hurt more a few seconds after the stroke? A cane crushes a narrow strip of tissue, and the pain from that keeps building for several seconds after the impact as the tissue responds. The immediate sensation is often less dramatic than people expect, and the second wave that follows is worse. This is why people accept another stroke before the last one has finished arriving, and why strokes have to be spaced. ### Can a cane break the skin? Yes, and with very little warning. All of the force goes through a line a few millimetres wide, so there is no gradual progression from red to broken. Repeated strokes landing on the same line are the usual cause. Vary the placement, look at the skin between strokes, and stop at the first sign of a raised line going dark.