With those words Fox News reported on a recently released study that outlines just that – if you spank your kids it could color their outlook on sexual activity. 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. The study, presented 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.
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, says Straus’ work appears to be the first to link spanking with sexual problems.
I am curious how you would find yourself counseling a person who hears of this study and questions whether or not spanking their child could be more harmful than beneficial?
The fact that after 80 years of ‘spanking research’, (whatever that is!)this person is the first to discover this “link” says a whole lot to me. Wonder where it was all those years?
Besides, I’m shocked that the APA stood for this kind of thing being presented to them. I didn’t think there was any such thing as deviate sexual behavior where they’re concerned. Shouldn’t they have chastised these researchers as masochistic-phobes and sent them packing? I mean the very idea that you would call someone’s sexual preference deviate! 🙂
God’s love is extrordinary. The sexuality He has bestowed should not be discarded as any different. Hate to say it, folks, but super-kinky sexuality is pretty much part of it…if it is done in a loving, safe, and consensual way. Want to exclude it as ‘normal’?…well, you write off that which is ‘normal’ for a small, devout, willing subset of folks–of yourselves–that you are simply not willing to understand. I feel you should. I am not the only one.
Straus is a hero in drawing scientific evidence for promoting families free of violence. I applaud him for that. But he is no expert around sexual kink. The evidence he presents that adults who were spanked as kids are now slightly–slightly–more likely to want this in their adult beds is dwarfed by the much larger numbers of the population that like to get this respective behavioral groove on! Psychology, despite it’s important merits, has derailed itself in ignoring the growing body of social science literature that clearly indicates that sexual kink–spanking, bondage, or whatever–is not only NOT psychologically unhealthy, but a common–if less frequent–form of human desire (check out ‘Sadomasochism: Powerful Pleasures’).
Straus’ failure to recognize the oppression of social stigma against BDSM folks is yet another example of the hobbling of psychology to do the good work it was chartered to do; promote human wellness. Sorry, but most BDSM folks are loving their experience, sans the oppressive stigma of social bigotry. I still love you, Murray. Let’s make the work real, honest. There are no boundaries here, but the moral assertions we hold about the most dearest elements of our sensual lives.
With compassion,
B
Chris,
I’m not necessarily interested in arguing the merits of BDSM, its rightness wrongness, etc. However, a couple of things in what you say concern me. The idea that because we’re loving the experience, what we’re doing is OK is foreign to scripture. I love nothing better than my sin apart from the grace of God so the fact that I like something is no gauge as to its acceptability before God.
I would hope as well that in addition to being ‘loving’, ‘safe’ and ‘consensual’ you would affirm that for sexual expression to be legitimate it must also only be between a man and a woman who are married to each other.
Blessings…
Larry
Chris, thanks for jumping in with both feet. I appreciate your candor and please know you are always welcome here. I agree with you (I think this is what you said) that equating spanking with how we express love to our wife or husband is fraught with error. Frankly, I think it speaks more of the researches prejudice than it does with anything related to parent/child discipline.
However, I would like you to clarify one of your comments. You stated:
Question: In order to help me process what you mean, could you please define “loving, safe, and consensual.”
Also, when you speak of “normal,” I am not sure whose “normal” you are talking about. I would assume that “kink” is normal for you and you would criticize anyone who would think you are not normal. However, it seems that you don’t allow others (who would think that activity such as bondage is not normal for them) to have that standard. As a matter of fact, you even go so far as to impugn people for not accepting anything you have determined as acceptable, “you are simply not willing to understand.” Couldn’t “people” say to you that you are the one “not willing to understand” them on what they believe? Or, would it be better to say that people don’t believe the same way as you and that is “OK.” My point is that you seem to commit the same error in your statement as you accuse others of making in regard to how you view sexuality.
Pass the salt…
Dan