Why “flagellant” is a great word
FLAGELLANT — [Adjective, Noun] Given to or characterized by whipping; a person who whips themself or others, especially as a religious penance or for sexual gratification. From Latin flagellant-, flagellans, present participle of flagellare ("to whip"). First attested in English in the late 16th century. Unlike an ascetic, whose discipline is abstemious, or a masochist, whose gratification from pain is general, a flagellant is defined by the specific, ritualized violence of the lash. It is the rhythmic crack in a torch-lit chapel, the stark red weals rising on pale skin, the deliberate hiss of leather through still air—a physical script where pain becomes the only language the body trusts to speak, a testament that salvation, or sensation, lies just on the other side of self-inflicted violence.