If you have friends in your local community, ask for volunteers. There could be some people who would be delighted to offer that service to you, and you’d get better feedback from a person than from a pillow.

You aren’t likely to injure someone with a flogger, at least not beyond the body’s ability to heal itself.

I slip a t-shirt onto a pillow and then slide one side of the shirt over a music stand so I can raise it to standing height. Of course, you’d need one of the more sturdy music stands to hold a pillow.

Other than the music stand, I’ve also just stacked a bunch of pillows on a chair next to a corner of a room until I could get the target pillow up to standing height. Look around and see if you have a piece of furniture (dresser, chess, table) that will allow you to place the pillow at the height you want. I thought the couch suggestion above could possibly work if the couch is against a wall, has a relatively flat back, and you prop the pillow up on the back of the couch against the wall. Maybe one or two pillows (or a box, some other suitable object) to raise the pillow up a bit more to standing height.