Whipping Tom: The Weird, Serial Spanker Of London

Whipping Tom was a mysterious man who wandered the streets of London in 1680. He shocked 17th-century society by lunging at women, lifting their dresses, and spanking their bums while shouting “Spanko!” before escaping capture. At one point, things got so bad that armed men would patrol the streets dressed as women in the hopes of drawing him out.Almost 200 years before Jack the Ripper stalked the streets of London, there was a much more hilarious monster terrifying society. He was given the name of Whipping Tom because this monster’s modus operandi was the spanking of young women’s bums. He would allegedly attack without warning, spanking ladies on the bottom while shouting “Spanko!” and then elude all attempts to capture him. He was so quick and slippery that some people even claimed he used supernatural powers in his escape. It was this sort of behavior that earned him the title “The enemy of milk wenches’ bums everywhere.”

Mostly Tom would use his hands to carry out a spanking but sometimes he would use a birch rod, attacking quickly, tipping them over his knee so that they couldn’t get away as he gleefully laid a smackdown on their derrieres and then be gone in an instant while his victim sat there confused as to what had just happened.

"Whipping Tom" was the nickname given to two sexual attackers in London and the nearby village of Hackney. Both would attack women walking alone and beat them on the buttocks. While there is some evidence that an earlier attacker in around 1672 was also nicknamed "Whipping Tom" and carried out similar attacks on women, the earliest recorded attacker of this nature was active in central London in 1681. He would approach unaccompanied women in alleys and courtyards and spank them on the buttocks, before fleeing. The inability of the authorities to apprehend the offender caused complaints about the ineffectiveness of London's constabulary, and prompted vigilante patrols in the affected areas. A local haberdasher and his accomplice were captured and tried for the attacks.

Whipping Tom: The Weird, Serial Spanker Of London