Image via Unsplash.com- Silvana Amicone

Whipping Tom, The Criminal Who Terrorized Old England With Bare-Bottom Spanking Assaults

Over the course of 30 years, a litany of women were attacked by a mysterious figure with an obsession for spanking

Andrew Martin
4 min readApr 9, 2022

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Criminals and deviants take many forms, scaring and harming society with their actions. Some crimes are more run of the mill and then there are the likes of “Whipping Tom,” an assailant who terrorized parts of England on two separate occasions during the 17th and 18th centuries with an onslaught of assaults where dozens of women were forcefully bare-bottomed spanked in public.

“Whipping Tom” was very noticeably active at two very distinct times (1681 and 1712). In both instances, a male assailant would come up behind women on the street, lift up their dresses and spank them hard on their bare buttocks. On a number of occasions, the attacker took the women and laid them across his knee, much like the old-fashioned form of spanking a petulant child might receive.

The first noted wide-spread appearance of “Whipping Tom” came in 1681 in London. A man (never proven whether it was the same person for all attacks) secreted themselves in alleys and courtyards with little to no lighting. As lone women approached, they would grab them, lifted up their skirts and…

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Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin

Written by Andrew Martin

Dabbler in soccer, history, investing & writing. Master’s degree in baseball history. Passionate about history, diversity, culture, sports, film and investing .

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