Let’s not forget you are an adult and not .. say, a small 12-year-old boy. Your buttocks are probably twice as large than they were at that age. Also, the flesh will be firm and no longer tender.
Find a master who will cane you on one cheek only, and you might get a rough idea what it was like.
The ferocity of the cane may have declined in part because of a marked fall in the quality of the rattan available for the purpose.
Wild rattans have been seriously depleted throughout all of South East Asia. Rattan plantations have been established in Indonesia and elsewhere but they are producing stems that are usually inferior to wild rattan. There are bans on the export of unprocessed “rounds”. What does reach the West is often of very poor quality – low density, low strength and lacking in flexibility and STING.