Study: Spanking May Lead to Sexual Problems Later in Life
Thursday, February 28, 2008Fox News
Children who are spanked or given some form of physical punishment by their parents may be more likely to have sexual problems as adults, a new study finds.
Who makes this shit up? Who funds these studies?
An analysis of four studies by Murray Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire-Durham, found that children who suffer physical punishment in the form of spanking, hitting or slapping are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior as adults, it is reported by USA Today.
Oh? Such as?
The study, presented Thursday to the American Psychological Association, suggests that spanked children also are more likely to be "physically or verbally coercing" to a sexual partner and engage in masochistic sex, including arousal by spanking, later in life.
What? How do you prove a connection like that? Isn't it more likely that kids who misbehave and get the tar whaled out of them have a more likely chance of growing up to be assholes and of treating their sexual partners that way? I mean, if you're getting spanked so often as a kid that you begin to equate it with sex, you must be one misbehaving little monster to begin with.
Elizabeth Gershoff, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, who reviewed 80 years of spanking research in 2002 in the APA's Psychological Bulletin, said Straus' work appears to be the first to link spanking to sexual problems, USA Today reported.
EIGHTY YEARS of SPANKING RESEARCH???? I don't know which is funnier...that "spanking research" exists at all, or that it's been going on since the 1920's. How did Kinsey miss this?
Gershoff said that even though many children are spanked by their parents, future problems often depend on how the children process the experience and whether they ultimately equate love with physical pain.
I don't even know how to respond to that. I'm laughing so hard, I can't think straight.
I guess it only goes to show that you can prove anything, given enough data. And it's clear that what this is about is further marginalizing corporal punishment. Which is bad, given that far too many kids today who badly need a good smack already aren't getting it.
