Colleen wrote a great post about The Dirty Secret of Corporal Punishment. It is a must read for new parents that have been raised with the idea that spanking is OK. It is not OK.
If we deconstruct what spanking really is, perhaps we can gain a better perspective. Slapping the bottom of a strange woman would obviously be seen as sexual harassment. Fondling the bottom of a child would obviously be seen as a sexual violation. However, miraculously, when you combine these two elements to the slapping of a child’s bottom, it becomes…not a sexual violation? We must denormalize these commonly acccepted practices in our society. According to research, the slapping of the buttocks leads to stimulation of the nerve endings that lead to sexual arousal. This means that even if a child is in extreme pain, he can simultaneously be experiencing arousal. In the worst case, this may lead to a lifelong association with sexual arousal and pain. Many people, like the BDSM culture, take pride in these fetishes, but I can’t help but think that given the choice, children would decide to grow up with a normal sexuality.
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It generally falls on us, the survivors of sexual molestation, rape, and exploitation, to take up the torch to protect future generations from these atrocities. Not many people are willing to discuss these crimes, because, frankly, large segments of the population benefit from them. Sex abuse is recognized by psychologists to have the worst effects of any other kind of abuse, often leading people into lives of crime, drugs, alcohol, early motherhood, low-impact jobs, and even sex work. A brilliant thinker points out in a book that will soon be released that these effects clear much of the competition out of the way for more functionally-raised people in the workforce. So in addition to sparing the parents and family members who perpetrate these crimes and allow them to occur, the silence and inaction of people on issues of childhood sex abuse proves very economically advantageous for those who do not have to suffer it. Of course, none of this is consciously realized, but our instant recognition of it as a potent truth shows that this is something we have perhaps unconsciously realized all along. In a world where child abuse did not take place, those with functional upbringings would have to work harder to achieve what they can more easily achieve now. They would have to compete with more well-adjusted people. They could not indulge in the vanity that they are just “better” than the people who have ended up as criminals, prostitutes, or single-mother fast food employees.
Here is a great interview with Jordan Riak about the effect spanking has on children. It’s a must listen if you are a new parent and are considering using force on your child.
Tags: abuse
