Children who are spanked or victims of other corporal punishment are more likely to have sexual problems as a teen or adult, according to new research presented today by Murray Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire.
Widely considered the foremost researcher in his field, Straus presented his new research findings at the American Psychological Association’s Summit on Violence and Abuse in Relationships: Connecting Agendas and Forging New Directions held Feb. 28 and 29 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Bethesda, MD.
Straus analyzed the results of four studies and found that spanking and other corporal punishment by parents is associated with an increased probability of three sexual problems as a teen or adult:
• Verbally and physically coercing a dating partner to have sex.
• Risky sex such as premarital sex without a condom.
• Masochistic sex such as being aroused by being spanked when having sex.
“These results, together with the results of more than 100 other studies, suggest that spanking is one of the roots of relationship violence and mental health problems. Because there is 93 percent agreement between studies that investigated harmful side effects of spanking, and because over 90 percent of U.S. parents spank toddlers, the potential benefits for prevention of sexual and relationship violence is large,” Straus says.
“Furthermore, because other research shows spanking is not more effective than other discipline methods, there is no need to expose children to the harmful effects of spanking. We can help prevent mental health problems and relationship violence from happening by a national health policy recommending never spanking,” he says.
Coerced Sex
A survey of more than 14,000 university students in 32 nations found that 29 percent of the male and 21 percent of the female students had verbally coerced sex from another person. Coerced sex involves insisting on sex when the partner does not want to, or threatening to end the relationship if the partner does not have sex.
The percentages of those who physically forced sex were much lower: 1.7 percent of the men and 1.2 percent of the women said they had used physical force, such as holding down the partner or hitting a partner to make them have sex.
“The most important finding of this study is that each increase of one step on a four-step measure of corporal punishment was associated with a 10 percent increase in the probability of verbal sexual coercion by men and a 12 percent increase in sexual coercion by women,” Straus says. “The relation of corporal punishment to physically forcing sex was even stronger. Each increase of one step in corporal punishment was associated with a 33 percent increase in the probability of men forcing sex and a 27 percent increase in the probability of women doing this.”
Risky Sex
In the second study, Straus analyzed the same sample of university students, but focused on whether they had insisted on sex without using a condom. Straus found that 15 percent of the men and 13 percent of the women had insisted on sex without a condom at least once in the past year.
Using the four-step corporal punishment scale, Straus found that of the group with the lowest score on the corporal punishment scale, 12.5 percent had insisted on unprotected sex. In contrast, 25 percent of students in the highest corporal punishment group engaged in this type of risky sex.
The third study analyzed data on 440 students in a New Hampshire high school. The students were divided into five groups, ranging from those who were never spanked to those whose parents used corporal punishment even when they were 13 years old and older. The study evaluated eight indicators of risky sex, such as more than one sex partner.
Straus found that students who had experienced corporal punishment had engaged in more risky sexual behavior than students who had not been spanked. From this study, Straus concludes that corporal punishment weakens the bond between the child and the parents. He believes that this alienation from parents may make teenagers less likely to avoid sex and less likely to follow safe sex practices.
Masochistic Sex
In the fourth study, Straus asked 207 students at three colleges about whether they had ever been sexually aroused by masochistic sex: imagining that they were being tied up when having sex, engaging in rough sex, or by spanking, and if they had been sexually aroused by actually doing these three things.
“The core idea of this study is that being spanked by loving parents confuses love with violence, which increases the probability that violence will be part of making love,” Straus says.
The study found that 75 percent of students who had been spanked a lot by their parents were sexually aroused by masochistic sex. In contrast, 40 percent of students who had never been spanked were interested in masochistic sex.
“What is new about this study is a scientific test of the idea that being spanked as a child inclines people to want to be spanked when having sex, and that this is especially likely to be true when there is a combination of lots of spanking and lots of love,” Straus says.
Reducing Spanking
To reduce the use of corporal punishment, Straus recommends that the American Psychological Association, the U.S. Children’s Bureau, and other organizations publicize a recommendation that parents should never spank.
“However, to make this work, we need to start by informing professionals who advise parents about the evidence-base for that policy. They need this information to be able to give appropriate information and help to parents about replacing spanking with positive discipline to correct misbehavior,” he says.
Educators and Parents Worldwide are in Desperate need of training/Public Service Announcements in the Media, especially television and internet, to learn effective, non-violent discipline methods to teach children why what they did was wrong and to model appropriate behavior. Shockingly, schools in 20 states still practice physical/corporal punishment of children by hitting them with WOODEN PADDLES to deliberately inflict physical pain and suffering intended to PUNISH them. Meanwhile, this outdated and harmful practice has been made ILLEGAL in schools in 30 states, obviously not 21st Century Education’s “Best Practice”. Over 50 National Children’s Health and Education Organizations are OPPOSED to School Corporal Punishment of children and recent research indicates physical punishment of children is bad for them, teaching them to become violent, disengage in learning and trusting adults/authority figures and lowering their IQ’s. U.S. Congress is holding hearings on Abusive and DEADLY practices in schools (kids have DIED at the hands of school employees entrusted with their care and education, who are still paid by our tax dollars to be entrusted with our children, as they are legally immune from prosecution for their negligent and harmful actions resulting in DEATH of children) and must ABOLISH Corporal Punishment of ALL Children in ALL Schools nationwide immediately!
It is so amazing that when there is scientific research done on the part of someone who holds the title of doctor, that there is always a negative effect or some sexual disfunctions. I also find it amazing how they are able to just go out and find these subjects many of them adult school college people. Either someone conducting the survey was not asking the right questions, or they were being dupped into believeing what they were being fed with no real proof to show for their research.
As an adult male that grew up at a time when spanking was the normal and any adult can hit a child through spankings from parents, to school teachers, principals, policemen, priest or nuns, none of the people in my generation ended up in prison for it, had sexual dysfunctions, or problems steeming from the spanking. It is another excuse for not dealing with an issue and a solution that works. I raised my son on spankings since I was a single father and he turned out ok with no problems and thanked me for taking the time to do it while he was growing up. No child wants to be spanked, but it seems to be the most effective way of getting across a point and it is not sexual. If spanking someone especially a child is a sexual turn on then there is something wrong with the person doing the spanking or something wrong with the child concerning sex that has nothing to do with spanking. Parents today are so caught up in their own careers that they do not give attention to their children and have strangers raising them and that is the problem with kids getting into trouble or being abusive or whatever because they are retaliating from the fact they had parents who did not care enough about them to show it by taking the time to punish them with a spanking. The butt is padded for a reason and can endure more than you think, and it worked well in the past and just as effective today but parents are always looking for the easy way out and scientist use these parents fears and concerns to get grants to validate them. When this country needs is a good spanking from childhoon into adulthood and beyond in some cases including when adults are incarcerated and maybe the point will get across than all of this pampering and using solutions like grounding or something as stupid for to ground a kid today as punishment is the biggest laugh of all with all the technology to keep them more in touch with their friends. This ignoring true punishment for grounding only leads kids to have time on their hands to search the internet and get themselves into trouble and it is that trouble that leads to some deadly consequences. So think of that the next time you think of grounding your child as to just giving them a good old fashion over the knee spanking with your hand. I am against things like paddles or other impliments but the hand will not do damage and get the point across. Anyone can turn anything into something sexual but spanking is not it. If they are going to be turned on sexually to someone, they will find ways and only using spankings as the culprits. There is no accountability today and that is what has caused the problems that these researches have found and not the spankings themselves. In the old west, fathers would spank their sons well into adult hood by taking them out to the barn and giving them a good whipping and they turned out ok as did anyone who got spanked before the seventies when women decided to get this practice outlawed with laws being made to prevent it and that is where the real problems started, not before. Look at the behaviour of kids prior to the sevenites and the robots we see being raised today with no respect and parents themselves who need to be spanked for the way the raised these children who have no heart or soul and think nothing about suing their own parents and so forth. You tell me if these researches are true or not and are you willing to go by them and pay the consequences later on. It seems to me that things that were effective and worked in the past are pushed aside for things that do the opposit and people wonders whatever happen to the good old days.
This information is very funny I really enjoyed this information…thanks guides!!! :)
good
Sexual Problems In Women
Sexual problems in women have been buried under the coverlets for a long time. ‘Thirty years of married life, four children and soon to be a grandmother, Petrushka Prutkova did not know about orgasm nor was she expected to when her husband rose off her with a “Za vashe zdorovye,” pouring some himself some kvass , patting her bottom and dressing and going out.
‘She did not look it. Indrani looked to be more in her 40s than her actual age which was 20-plus. I was with Dr. Chantal in a remote Indian village attending on this young old-looking woman who had been married off when she was 15 and now had five children, all girls and a syphilis infection that just refused to be cured. This woman knew nothing about orgasms, menstruation was dirty word and she was isolated like a leper in a colony for those four or five days. She was ‘polluted.’
For more information visit: http://asksexpert.com/blog/?cat=1089
I would love to find out more..
Child buttock-battering for the purpose of gaining compliance is nothing more than an inherited bad habit.
Its a good idea for people to take a look at what they are doing and learn how to DISCIPLINE instead of hit.
I think the reason why television shows like “Supernanny” and “Dr. Phil” are so popular is because that is just what many (not all) people are trying to do.
There are several reasons why child buttock-battering isn’t a good idea. Here are some good, quick reads recommended by professionals:
Plain Talk About Spanking
by Jordan Riak
The Sexual Dangers of Spanking Children
by Tom Johnson
NO VITAL ORGANS THERE, So They Say
by Lesli Taylor M.D. and Adah Maurer Ph.D.
In my middle years of schooling I became the focus of a rather odd individual who happen to be my physical education instructor. Paddling was used as a method of punishment and typically administered while the recipient wore his traditional “jock strap” of the 1970’s.
One of infarctions warrenting punishment was avoiding the shower after gym class. If cought, the offender was made to return to the shower and remain under the spray of water until all had finished. He then was made to return to his locker were he would step back into his “atheletic supporter”. I believe this was done as the instructor could then say the youth was not “stripped” of clothing.
With bottom beared and in clear view of all, Ibent over the bench and holding tightly. The instuctions were to count aloud as the heavy wooden paddle was applied. I myself did not lose control and cry but there were those who did….crying and wailing almost incontrollably as they received 6 to 10 strong and deliberate strokes with that large wooden paddle.
I thought at that time that the humiliation was even more severe than the pain in that the class always laughed loudly as the paddlle induced cries and apologies.
As an adult, I know this effected my sexuality. Although my wife does not find it arrousing, she finds that I am quick to obey vs receiving the paddle. I also find it arousing to whitness a man or a woman being punished by the paddle as others observe.
I have studied and discussed this with phychologists. Most agree that when one experiences humiliation in conjunction with painful punishment. One associates the sensations and thoughts as stongly provocative sexual stimuli.
I so remember one incident that will never leave my mind. The image of one young man brought to the front of the gym floor and made to bend and grab ankle. How loudly the girls laughed as he was paddled. Please stop, oh please, I can’t stand it! only brought on the punishment that much harder. Obviously the young man’s shorts were not dropped. There was nothing indecent or sexual about it. I remember the gym teacher very clearly. I believe he used all of his force for the final 4 cracks. I also did hear him say to the student..” I can see that you like this paddle” don’t you…and then the crack…and the question and the crack..It was then I noticed what the teacher had seen. The boy was very erect. The young man was then made to stand, legs spread widely and hands clasped behind his head. His manhood straight in front of him as the class laughed. One would be foolish to think this situation would not evoke a fetish within him
I am sure the young man’s sexuality was being altered or developed as his punishment aroused him and this was pointed out! .
I will also comment that the paddle was used about once weekly. It was feared greatly and that fear caused much anxiety and tension.
In closing I do not think that there is any way a student or child who regularly experiences punishment can differentiate the feeling of sexual excitement or fear.
I also feel that punishmetn (such as paddling) alternated with agressive intercourse will serve to develope or unleash the urges from within an individual. My wife is case in point. Even the most hard of her punishments are immediately hollowed by intense lovemaking.
I have never revealed this until now. I sincerely hope it did not bore the readers.
My n ame is Dr. Rick Frei and I just finished a study at the Community College of Philadelphia where we looked at these issues with over 500 students. We found that students who were the recipients of more severe corporal punishment were more likely to have been in trouble with police, more likely to have done drugs in the last 30 days, more likely to have hit their partner, and more likely to stay in relationships in which they were being abused. They were also more likely to be sexually aroused by spanking, and violence in general. On the flip side, those students who reported that their parents were actively involved in their lives reported being hit less by their parents. They also had less problems with police and drugs later in life.
You may not like the conclusions drawn by the researcher and you can (rightly) argue that survey research does not prove causality (maybe the children’s bad behavior caused them to be spanked, not vice versa). But the data speaks for itself.
Most compelling of all reasons to abandon this worst of all bad habits is the fact that buttock-beating can be unintentional sexual abuse for some children. There is an abundance of educational literature, testimonies, documentation, etc. available on the subject that can easily be found by doing some quick research on the topic.
Just a handful of those raising awareness of why child buttock-beating isn’t a good idea:
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Center For Effective Discipline
PsycHealth, Ltd, Behavioral Health professionals
Churches’ Network For Non-Violence
Archbishop Desmond Tutu (supports Global Initiative)
Parenting In Jesus’ Footsteps
Global Initiative To End All Corporal Punishment of CHildren
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
Countries where child buttock-battering is prohibited by law:
Sweden, Finland, Norway, Austria, Cyprus, Italy, Denmark, Latvia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Germany, Israel, Iceland, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, Spain, Costa Rica, Republic of Moldova, and more in process.
In fact, the only UN member who did not sign the Convention on the Rights of the Child was the U.S.
Someone should spank BJ for posting something so idiotic.