Spankings are not discipline "Spanking is a sex act" Jillian Keenan at The Slate

[intaglio]

/snip

I realize that many well-meaning parents will disagree with me, but spanking kids is gross. There are a lot of reasons why—it’s counterproductive and ineffective, for starters—but there’s another reason that nobody talks about. Butts are sexual. That’s why the area is one of the few “private” parts that, along with breasts and genitals, we feel the need to cover with a swimsuit. If a parent saw a teacher patting a child’s shoulder, it’d be no big deal. But if a parent saw a teacher patting a child’s butt, she would (rightly) be very alarmed.

/snip

So I have a question: If it’s “somewhat pedophilic” when my adult husband consensually spanks me in a simulated “punishment,” what should we call it when parents do the same physical thing to actual children in an actual punishment?

/snip

Spanking is a sex act. It has been for a very long time—probably even longer than it’s been a parenting choice. A fresco at the Etruscan Tomb of the Whipping, which dates back to approximately 490 B.C., depicts an erotic spanking. In Francum, a 1599 epigram by John Davies, includes one of the most explicit descriptions of sexual masochism in Renaissance poetry. In Victorian England—well, there are way too many examples to list them all, so suffice it to say that spanking was a constant focus of Victorian erotica.

The entire article is very informative - especially about the automatic bodily responses to spanking

[aikoaiko]

1. So is kissing and hugging, but that doesn't mean its sexual when a parent hugs or kisses his/her kid

Here is the link to the article for those who want to read the stupidest argument against spanking.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/09/spanking_is_a_sex_act_which_is_why_it_should_not_be_used_for_punishing_children.html

I refuse to spank my kid but this line of reasoning is moronic.

[cali]

3. whole heartedly agree.

[kcr]

6. I've never known anyone who uses kisses and hugs as punishment

So, not getting how that makes the argument moronic.

[aikoaiko]

7. The case argued in the article is that it doesn't matter if its done for punishment.

[kcr]

8. Who spanks their kids for fun? n/t

[NickB79]

20. Back in the day, it was almost an Olympic sport

I think my grandfather and his Army buddies practically bragged about who beat their kid's asses the hardest, based on the stories I heard from my dad and uncles.

[kcr]

24. Maybe, but I doubt it was a fun activity for the kids.

Comparing hugs and kisses to spanking is nonsense which is what the person I was responding to was doing.

[pnwmom]

53. Rice's 4 year old said his dad has a "whoopin' room." That seems sick to me. n/t

[kcr]

55. It sure doesn't sound like it was used for hugs and kisses, does it?

I don't know how much there is to the article in the OP, but I think it's certainly plausible. I'm not surprised at the knee jerk reaction, though. A lot of emotional investment in a topic like this.

[pnwmom]

56. I think it's because the vast majority of Americans spank their kids

and/or were spanked as children, and many DUers aren't the exception.

So there's a lot of reason for denial.

[Stellar]

45. I never understood why some people got thrills

from being spanked. That to me is crazy.

[ancianita]

17. Agree. The line of reasoning is bullshit.

[Johonny]

21. +1

[LittleBlue]

23. +1

Utterly bizarre reasoning in that article. Slate obviously needs clickbait.

[pnwmom]

25. It depends. If a parent French-kissed his child, it would be sexual and unacceptable.

If a parent didn't simply hug, but groped his child, it would be sexual and unacceptable.

Same with spanking -- it crosses the line into sexual touching. Even though the parent wasn't having sexual feelings, the act could stir them up in the child. The same factors (increased blood flow to the area as a result of the strikes, connected nerves to the genital region) that affect adult "players" indulging in spanking also apply to children, who have the same physiology. What can sexually stimulate an adult can also stimulate a child.

[moriah]

61. Heck, I'm grossed out by parents and children kissing on the lips.

Especially past the teen years. In our family, parents kissed you on the forehead (sometimes the cheek, but forehead was more common) and were kissed back on the cheek.

I know some parents lip-kiss their kid (no tongue) and it's not sexual at all, but it still makes me feel queasy. Especially when a 30-something man kisses his mother goodbye on the lips.

Maybe I'm just a prude.

[pnwmom]

63. I don't do it either.

My parents used to do it to us, but as I got a little older it felt uncomfortable. So I kissed my kids on their cheeks. I don't think they missed out on kissing!

[NYC Liberal]

57. It's still a form of affection. Not the polar opposite when done with kids vs adults.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Um, if you and your husband consider it 'somewhat pedophilic' when you

do it, that says icky things about you that you then go ahead and do it anyway. What other 'somewhat pedophilic' things do you get up to, and why? No, don't answer. Really could have done without the knowledge that you go around deliberately doing things that you think are 'pedophilic'.

[intaglio]

30. Try reading the post in Slate

She makes it clear that that is what ignoramuses say about her.

[tblue37]

47. It is an excerpt from an article on Slate, not something the OP wrote. nt

[Blue_Adept]

4. I thought spanking as described in the porn threads here was a violent asssault on a woman

And that women who like being spanked suffer from a stockholm syndrome of some sort. And that people that like to spank other consenting adults have something seriously wrong with them.

It's getting hard to keep up with what's what these days.

[cali]

9. shocker: people here have varied opinions

and the majority opinion here on DU doesn't seem to be that spanking is a violent assault (btw, plenty of men like being the recipients of spankings), but that consensual S&M is fine.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

10. Women spank men too.

That's not a one-way sex act. Either sex can do it, and in the same way.

[Blue_Adept]

12. I had brought that up back then as well

But it never gets commented on. Or just lumped in the whole something is wrong thing. Which for folks like me, who enjoy both, well, I guess I must be doubly bad.

[cali]

13. I contest your claim that the DU consensus is

that sexual spanking is a violent assault on women.

You keep saying that, but that's not what I've seen here.

[Warren DeMontague]

66. The consensus, most definitely, is that it is not-- as long as it's consensual & btw adults.

But I have seen a small number of people argue ferociously that it is... just as I've seen a few people here argue that performing oral sex is inherently oppressive and degrading to women, too.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

14. I don't get into it personally.

I don't go out of my way to inflict even really minor damage on my or other people's bodies, or have same inflicted on me since I got into nursing and actually learned more about how my body works. Your body goes downhill far too fast all on its own, no need to seek additional damage out.

[HereSince1628]

5. Corporal punishment is about establishing dominance by pain and/or threat of pain

When we look at impropriety of interpersonal relationships, coercive dominance/power and abuse of power is always a metric.

It says something about us and the meaning of our "family values culture" that we still give passing assent to: "Just like my parents with me, I can't make convincing arguments to my kid(s) about right and wrong, but, on threat of pain, I will make them respect my authority."

And we grow up fine, supporting militarized police forces, with the discards of the largest, perhaps most "kinetic" military in the world.

[DavidG_WI]

54. Bull...

I used to get hit with a wooden spoon, I'm also vehemently anti-war, anti-police state etc. corporal punishment is sometimes the only way to get your point cross to a kid that doesn't care about time out or not getting to watch tv or play games.

Corporal punishment teaches them that actions have consequences beyond enforced boredom.

[HereSince1628]

58. "corporal punishment is the only what to get your point across..."

I do accept, completely, that some people believe that is true.

You believe hitting teaches something that can't be stated in words. What is that something?

Don't answer too quickly, Just let that percolate, it WILL come to you.

[DavidG_WI]

59. That life is...

painful, and that people will lash out violently a you if pushed.

Pain is motivational, never experiencing it will leave you ill equipped for the real world.

[HereSince1628]

60. Ok, so can you provide the peer reviewed professional paper

Last edited Thu Sep 25, 2014, 07:10 AM - Edit history (1)

from where that gem of wisdom originates?

[NaturalHigh]

11. I'm totally against spanking kids.

This particular article just kind of grosses me out, though.

[ljm2002]

15. I don't buy it...

...it seems that anything these days can be sexualized.

There was an old expression in photography, "The money shot". Nowadays people titter if you use that term, because it is used in porn movies for a specific type of shot.

The Teabaggers learned to their chagrin that there is another meaning for the term "teabagging". So they changed their name to "Tea Partiers". (did YOU know what "teabagging" in a sexual context meant before Rachel Maddow started tittering about it? I most certainly did not).

Now we have someone claiming that spanking a child is analogous to sexual playing, because some adults like to engage in spanking for sexual gratification.

So by that logic, beating someone is sexual in nature because some sado-masochists practice that. Hanging someone is sexual in nature because some people engage in auto-erotic asphyxiation. Getting high is sexual because some people get high to have sex. Pinching someone is sexual because some S&Mers do it during sexual play. Biting someone... well you get the idea.

Nonsense. It does illustrate how much our social milieu has become sexualized, when anything you do has some sexual analog, and so the claim is that whatever you are doing must be sexual in nature.

Please note, my little screed has nothing to do with the question of whether people should or should not spank their children. Nor do I deny that *sometimes* spanking a child may be sexual in nature. I'm just so tired of everyone trying to sexualize everything. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I would argue that most of the time, spanking a child is simple punishment, whether well considered or not is another question.

[leftstreet]

18. 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar'

couldn't resist

+1 to your post

[ljm2002]

19. Touché...

...I had forgotten how Bill and Monica's Oval Office escapades twisted the meaning of that particular phrase.

[pnwmom]

26. It's not that it's analogous to sexual playing. It's that the physical act of spanking

can stimulate the child sexually, even though that's the last thing the parent intends.

There is increased blood flow to the area that is being hit, and the nerves there are connected to nearby nerves involved in sexual feelings. This is physiology and, unfortunately for those who want to justify this for children, the physiology is the same for children as it is for adults.

[Adrahil]

16. Welp, I don't spank my kid, but...

... I also don't spank my wife. I don't have that particular kink and I don't find violence sexy in any way.

[Egnever]

22. Well that was dumb

[pnwmom]

27. No, it's common sense. The same act that can sexually stimulate some adults

can sexually stimulate a child, even if that's the last thing the parent intends.

Increased blood flow as a result of the hitting, connected nerves to the genital area -- the physiology is the same.

[TM99]

34. No it is not science, psychology, sexology, or common sense.

Increased blood flow to the buttock occurs in numerous activities that children can be involved in. Are you now suggesting in this illogical way that when a young girl rides a horse, that she is being sexually stimulated? After all, there is increased blood flow to the buttock region during horseback riding.

Children, while sexual beings, are not the same in their responses to those acts or actions that would, may, or could stimulate an adult. Even during actual physical molestation, the 'pleasure' a child may experience is not even remotely the same as an adult. A young boy will not ejaculate in orgasm, and a young girl will not have a clitoral or vaginal orgasm. Sexual development is just that - development over time as the human animal matures into full adult sexuality.

Spanking children is not an effective means of disciplining children and can and does often border on physical abuse. We, as therapist, know this and have taught that since at least the late 1950's. The public is slow to understand this, and sadly abuse still occurs. Educating adults about this is important but bogus articles such as this cause more harm than good. Spanking is not a sexual act unto itself. Please stop peddling such tripe as this as informed fact when it simply is not. Thank you.

[pnwmom]

36. Actually, you are also incorrect about children not being stimulated during molestation.

It doesn't matter that a boy doesn't ejaculate; he can still have sexual feelings. One of the issues victims of child sexual abuse face is guilt because they DID respond to the abuse with sexual feelings to the abuse. But the feelings were an automatic physiological response. They didn't want those feelings any more than an adult who is being raped.

https://www.rainn.org/get-info/effects-of-sexual-assault/adult-survivors-of-childhood-sexual-abuse

Guilt, shame and blame

Survivors may feel guilt or shame because they made no direct attempt to stop the abuse or because they experienced physical pleasure

http://nospank.net/sexdngrs.htm

“When a child is hit on the buttocks... [t]his kind of violent touch can be sexualized in the child’s mind not only because of a real flow of blood into the genitalia, but also because of a longing for intimacy with the parent: if painful physical touch is the only fulfillment of that longing, then this can “feel good.” 
Shere Hite, sex researcher, sociopsychologist. The Hite Report on the Family (1995)

[TM99]

40. I am not.

One crucial area of healing is recognizing that the 'pleasure' experienced during molestation at a pre sexually mature age is not equivalent to adult sexual feelings. Stimulation is not simply stimulation. Physical discipline such as spanking may be physical abuse but it is not defacto sexual abuse.

My sexology training in background is not in the Hite school. She made gross leaps of logic that were not always in agreement with clinical and research results.

Children do not think, feel, or experience like adults. To overlay adult thinking, which is done far too often in abuse counseling, on to childhood experiences perpetuates victimization and will not lead to a resolution of healing from abuse.

I will not argue with you about this topic. I am trained in the field. I am molestation survivor myself. I work with children and adult abuse survivors extensively in my practice. I work in the field of somatics and actually do know the differences between stimulation, pleasure, pain, sexual stimulation, etc.

I can see from this thread and others that you are not likely to change your mind or your message, however, I have said my piece in disagreement from my professional perspective.

[pnwmom]

41. Are you aware that some parents even spank 10 year olds?

Are you aware that many girls begin puberty at about the age of 8?

Are you saying that all children prior to adolescence are "pre sexual" and can't respond with sexual feelings?

If so, your training has left a lot to be desired.

http://www.pandys.org/articles/sexualabuseisnotyourfault.html

When children are touched sexually, very often this stimulation will feel nice….maybe even exciting….and can lead to sexual arousal and orgasm. Very often, children do not understand what these feelings are, and the mixed feelings and sensations can be very confusing and difficult to understand. However, the fact that you had these responses does not make what was done to you okay. Being aroused is a physical response that you have no control over. Conditioned responses are automatic and they happen whether you want them to or not.

[TM99]

44. My training is quite sufficient.

I guess it just doesn't meet your 'requirements'.

Are you aware that children spanked at 10 years of age have received spankings since they were much younger? It just doesn't start magically at a later age. There is a pervasive pattern of spanking from a young age in families that utilize corporal punishment as a means of disciplining their children.

Are you aware of the actual differences between pre-puberty sexuality, puberty sexuality, and post-puberty sexuality? Yes, there are actual differences.

Are you familiar with the concept of a sexual construct and what that actually means with regards to children who have and who have not suffered sexual abuse at various ages prior to puberty and/or after puberty?

Instead of arguing with an internet know-it-all any further, I would simply suggest that your education may be lacking or merely sufficient for a general understanding and not a deeper one.

On Edit - All the links you provide are to advocacy groups. I am not adverse to them, however, they are not always clinically or psychologically accurate. They can serve a very positive purpose but if you as an advocate for survivors are pushing some spurious science as this OP is then you may be causing more harm than good.

[pnwmom]

46. If a 10 year old has been spanked from an earlier age, that doesn't immunize the 10 year old

from sexual feelings at that age. If you are so knowledgeable about this, why don't you provide any links showing that pre-adolescent children cannot be sexually stimulated by a spanking?

[TM99]

48. That's the point.

There are no studies that directly show or not show a sexual stimulation in children when spanking as occurred.

The research only shows a correlation later in life that children who have received excessive physical disciplining like spanking can and do have a myriad of other mental health issues including sexual ones when they reach teen and adult years. They can suffer from depression, they can engage in risky sexual behaviors, and they may or may not enjoy masochistic sexual acts. The last one is tricky because adults who enjoy sado-masochistic sexual expressions are not always abuse victims. You will find a pretty even distribution across the population of those who were and those were not.

Use your own Google-fu to find those. They are available on the APA site for one.

No one disputes that spanking has deleterious effects on children. But to draw such erroneous claims as that all spanking is sexual abuse is not supported by the research.

On Edit - The author in the OP is not a mental health professional. She is a very young journalist, writer, and 'Shakespeare geek'. Having been in the field probably longer than this young woman has been alive predisposes me to trust my training, my research, and my clinical experience and those of other mental health professionals far more so than her.

Good day.

[pnwmom]

49. You are putting words into my mouth.

I never said that "all spanking is sexual abuse."

I said that a spanking COULD sexually stimulate a child, even though that was not intended by the parent. And I don't think that is a risk any parent should take.

[TM99]

50. Hardly.

You are vigorously defending this OP which is "Spankings are not discipline "Spanking is a sex act" " That is the claim of the author - that all spanking is sexual and therefore all spanking of children is sexual abuse.

Spanking does not stimulate a child in the sexual manner in which you or the OP describe. Parents should not spank their children so as not to risk sexual stimulation. Parents should not spank their children because it is poor parenting with mental health issues of various types as the long term consequences.

[pnwmom]

51. I think it is better to defend the truth at the core of the OP, despite its strident title,

than to pretend that no children could ever be stimulated sexually by a spanking.

[TM99]

65. There is zero truth at the core of this

poorly written OP.

This author is not in the field.

[riqster]

28. So kicking a man in his wedding tackle must also be a sex act?

After all, it is a private place. And blunt force trauma would cause physiological changes ( blood flow, swelling ) to the parts being beaten on: changes that also occur (albeit differently) when having sex.

Yupyupyup. Kicking men in the crotch is now sexy, why, hell, it's pleasure incarnate!

[moriah]

31. For some, it is. Google "CBT".

And no, not talking about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which after learning what "CBT" could also stand for, I always spell it out.

[riqster]

32. I know-friends are into that. Not my cuppa tea, but hey, consenting adults.

But that is a different frame than the OP, which seems to hold that spanking children isn't a kink, but sexual in a more mainstream, universal sense. CBT is not universally enjoyed by males,(to say the very least) so I don't think it's all that applicable to the OP.

[moriah]

29. The science in the Slate article I thnk you're referring to is very bad.

To actually generate increased blood flow to the genitals in an erotic spanking, the stimulation is quite different -- the blows are focused specifically at a certain portion of the lower buttocks that is very close to the genitals, essentially making every blow "vibrate" the genital area. Additionally, it's adrenaline and endorphins, not oxytocin (as another article suggested) that are what are primarily released during painful stimulation like a spanking. Oxytocin IS generated during erotic spankings, but more in the "aftercare" portion where the "top" pays a great deal of loving physical attention to the "bottom", generally involving praise and massage.

That being said, there are far better reasons not to spank your kids than that you might inadvertently turn them "perverted", as another poster on here already argued using the same article.

Spanking doesn't work as discipline. I cited numerous studies in the other thread showing the detrimental affects, including one showing that kids misbehaved again within 10 minutes of being spanked 75% of the time.

[pnwmom]

37. Children are small. How do you know that that area you mention couldn't be stimulated

by a spanking?

http://nospank.net/sexdngrs.htm

“When a child is hit on the buttocks... [t]his kind of violent touch can be sexualized in the child’s mind not only because of a real flow of blood into the genitalia, but also because of a longing for intimacy with the parent: if painful physical touch is the only fulfillment of that longing, then this can “feel good.” 
Shere Hite, sex researcher, sociopsychologist. The Hite Report on the Family (1995)

[moriah]

39. As I said before, I wasn't paddled or spanked as a kid -- I was switched.

The day Mom drew blood, the welts (more correctly, hives, since they were an allergic reaction to the pressure/scratching) ran from about the top of my hips down the back of my legs.

But when I've seen friends spank their children (having to bite my tongue), none of them used the upward, angled impact to the lower buttocks that specifically causes genital stimulation. They spanked higher, and the impact was either sideways or straight down on the buttocks.

My point is this -- there are far, far better reasons to not spank your kids than to worry that you're going to somehow make them be into S&M later on in life. Like that it doesn't work, that repeatable studies have shown many other deficits in kids that were spanked than those who weren't, that you can control a child without having to spank them, etc.

[closeupready]

33. OMG. How stupid.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

35. One of those obviously daft statements that hint at too much time spent in echo chambers.

Last edited Wed Sep 24, 2014, 06:39 PM - Edit history (2)

Edited to remove embarrassingly twee typo.

[pnwmom]

38. It's not obviously dafty to the researchers who've studied it.

http://nospank.net/sexdngrs.htm

“When a child is hit on the buttocks... [t]his kind of violent touch can be sexualized in the child’s mind not only because of a real flow of blood into the genitalia, but also because of a longing for intimacy with the parent: if painful physical touch is the only fulfillment of that longing, then this can “feel good.” 
Shere Hite, sex researcher, sociopsychologist. The Hite Report on the Family (1995)

[951-Riverside]

42. Jillian Keenan has ...issues

Butts are sexual.

Do not let this woman change a diaper, it could get weird.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

43. "Until YOU feel better."

The professor in one of my psych classes answer to a woman who asked, "How much should I spank my child?"

She didn't get it...at first.

[DavidG_WI]

52. Thats moronic...

someone's been reading way too much Freud.

[LostInAnomie]

62. If boobs and butts are inseparably sexual...

... wouldn't that make breast feeding sexual assault?

Think of all those poor children being assaulted repeatedly. Forced to suck their mothers breast over and over again for years. No wonder so many people grow up to be such deviants, with pervert mothers like that. /s

[GeorgeGist]

64. Might be a winning argument ...

if you're trying to convince a winger not to spank their kids.

[Warren DeMontague]

67. I think spanking your kids for discipline is indicative of crappy, lazy parenting generally

it's not how I parent.

But it's a different behavior than sexual spanking, which is fine if everyone is a consenting adult. Not my preferred flavor, but whatever works.