The Risk of Unintended Sexual Abuse Through Spanking

Homeschoolers Anonymous is running a series called, “Hurts Me More Than You,” from which I came across this testimony about the very real and tragic risk of unintended sexual abuse through spanking. If there were no other arguments against spanking, this one would be enough.

Some time ago a pastor and some of his flock came to my facebook page to try to convince me of my “error.” We had a long conversation. By the end of the conversation it was just me and one other person who was shocked and disgusted when I finally brought up the topic of the sexual nature of spankings. I was told that my thinking was perverse and the conversation ended soon after. Here is an excerpt from the end of the conversation. The name has been removed out of respect for privacy.  Please click on the image to make it easier to read.
Convo

6 Comments

  1. Zooey on December 16, 2014 at 5:02 am

    That man you were talking with, was making no sense whatsoever.
    Furthermore, he got altogether too angry, for me to believe that he never thought of the same thing himself. Any time someone gets so all-fired mad over a subject being calmly discussed, I always find myslef wondering, WHY is he so upset & angry, if he doesn’t realize that what Linda is saying, is simply the truth.

    As far as what the next generation would be like without spanking–he is simply giving an opinion, with nothing, absolutely nothing, to back him up.

  2. Steph, M.S.Ed on December 10, 2014 at 6:45 pm

    Thank you for sharing, Hermana Linda. It is sad that so many don’t understand this real risk of “loving” spanking. I write about this in my book! Most parents tell the child that they love the child before and after the spanking if they are truly committed to spanking the child the “correct, loving” way. Therefore, from infancy and/or toddlerhood, the child begins to equate pain with love. This, as we will see, can cause the brain to develop in such a way that it can no longer separate feelings of pain and pleasure. John William Money, a psychologist, sexologist, and author, studied how lovemaps are formed. Lovemaps are how the brain determines what is sexually pleasurable (Straus, 2006). “Money argues that because the centers of the brain that process feelings of sexual arousal and feelings of pain are in such close proximity, when they are stimulated simultaneously many times over a long period of time, the brain can no longer separate the two. So feelings of sexual arousal and pain become forever woven together. This fusion is especially likely because the most common age for spanking is two to six, which substantially overlaps the age that Money regards as most vulnerable for lovemap vandalism” (Straus, 2006, p. 124-125).

  3. Anon on December 9, 2014 at 11:44 pm

    At first I was plain defensive and started to say “Hey! I’m not a pervert!” but then I realized I don’t care if other people consider my enjoyment of spanking to be perverted.

    I was spanked maybe a half dozen to a dozen times my whole life as a child, never violently or harshly and I don’t think it warped me, but I do understand why so many people are against it. I don’t think that contributed at all to my “perverted” enjoyment of spankings since I also know people who were never spanked who enjoy it! I think for me it’s along the same lines of enjoying piercings and tattoos. The temporary pain followed by a small endorphin rush to make it go away combined with the emotional intimacy can make many strange and “perverted” things enjoyable. In the end I think I just realized I was willing to try any number of things as a consenting adult with someone I loved and trusted and that’s the big difference in the end.

    For the record, my mother always had me go to her room and wait for her so she could take a couple minutes to gather herself. This allowed her to never punish me in anger or frustration, but simply as a consequence that was usually over pretty quickly without any marks or welts or bruises or anything else. It’s probably why I’m (personally) not emotionally scarred. In the end I can’t ever remember the punishment, mostly the few minutes of nervousness and guilt waiting for my mom to come back and then trying to talk her out of it. My mom is the best and I adore her and she made my childhood magical and amazing and I couldn’t have asked for a better loving and involved parent.

    • Ella on March 17, 2015 at 3:31 pm

      I was into spanking before I was ever spanked (at age four). Which meant that when it happened, I already had huge sexual shame surrounding it and it felt like rape. Even now I’m conflicted about my sexual fantasies because the spanking-related ones remind me of childhood trauma and the vanilla ones are all “you know this isn’t really what turns you on, you’re just avoiding the other kind.” So for some of us, it doesn’t matter what caused what or whether we grew up to enjoy it: it’s still sexually damaging.

      This may be in part because I’m only into giving spankings, not receiving them, so I can’t reframe the childhood instances as positive in any way. They were the opposite…and yet seeing children getting spanked still involuntarily turns me on, which is gross in its own way given that I’m wired to relate sexually to the spanker. It’s so not fun, and while I envy anybody whose experience as a fetishist isn’t complicated this way, I wish more people would talk about the consent issues involved. Would I have denied my parents consent to spank me as a child? Absolutely, without question. But kids can’t…and it’s easy to see why.

  4. NT on December 8, 2014 at 1:11 am

    That is some twisted logic. (His, not yours – I’m assuming it was a “he”.) I don’t understand why so many people don’t get this. Of course spanking is a sex act. And butts are inherently sexual, not just in the type of sex I’m guessing he thought you were alluding to (sounds like he thought you were referring exclusively to anal sex?). Buttocks are a private part of the body, and an erogenous zone, full of nerve endings that are directly involved in arousal, and include muscles that contract during orgasm. I get so fed up with the fact that so many people choose to stay in denial about these things, even while more and more voices continue to speak up and say that being spanked left them with unintended but very real sexual damage.

    Thanks for speaking out about this, even when people like this insist you are wrong. Too many of us unfortunately know just how right you are.

    • Hermana Linda on December 8, 2014 at 1:55 pm

      Thank you. Yes, it was a “he.” I think you’re right, that hadn’t even occurred to me. Ick.

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