A sensitive question.

I have a question, not an important question by any means, just curious as to the answer, maybe someone in the medical profession might have the answer. First let me explain how the question arose. One of my grandsons (13) is listening to some Billy Bunter audio books I got for him, he finds it very hard to believe that kids actually had to lean over a chair to get 'Whacked' or 'Caned' in School in the old days, Bunter was always being caned by Mr.Quelch. Then the grandson asks me if someone had a fat bum like Bunter they wouldn't feel as much pain as someone with a skinny bum, and that's the question, who feels the pain more, the fat bum or the skinny bum?
I have a theory on it, and although I don't know any medical words to use I'll use me own. The fat bum has more space therefore more sensitive nerves under the skin, whereas the skinny bum has less area so less nerves, so the fat bum would actually feel more pain, and for longer than the skinny bum.
I anxiously await your theories or guesses.

Re: A sensitive question.

Great question! What a clever grandson you have!

I think they will both feel similar pain, though, as it's mostly from the nerve endings in the skin I think. Assuming it's not a REALLY violent caning!

Re: A sensitive question.

Thanks Ania. Mr. Quelch never gives less than 6 of the best, and as the writer says "He puts beef into it" so I image that would have been pretty severe. We used to get it on the hands never on the backside.

Re: A sensitive question.

Interesting question. If you consider a punch then for sure a fat person won't feel it so much but a cane? Mmm - I suppose it is the difference between skin and muscle. A skinny person's muscles would take a fair bit of the impact as opposed to fat with a fat person. Pat would know the answer I expect.

Re: A sensitive question.

It seems this thread is alluring to the "Slap Happy" more Ass than aspiration.

Re: A sensitive question.

A slight deviation from the thread - when I was at Grammar school I had both the cane and the strap (not at the same time you understand !) and the strap was much more painful.

Re: A sensitive question.

Alan matey - a steel ruler even more so!!!

Re: A sensitive question.

Having lost some weight I can say categorically a thinner bum feels more pain. Falling over when I was 20 stone was embarrassing because I couldn't get back up but generally a little bruising and I was fine. Falling over now blooming hurts not so much padding I feel every bump and bruises are huge !

Re: A sensitive question.

Thanks folks for the replies. Well as Julie has experienced hurt to the backside through thick and thin so to speak, it seems thinner bums feel it more. Billy Bunter is fiction of course, but a lot of heavy caning did go on in these boarding schools, wasn't a radio show of Jimmy Edwards called "Whacko". I used to glance through my sisters copies of "The School Friend", I think that was the name of it, when I was young and curious hoping to learn something about the fairer sex and there used to be a weekly story about some girls called The Four Marys, strange but I never saw any of them get whacked, that might have been interesting, but that was all before womens liberation.

Re: A sensitive question.

I'm not sure that you can compare falling to caning though. Caning involves narrow contact with an area of skin, whereas falling involves "blunt" damage from weight and gravity.