The other day Ezra Klein mentioned that
In states with lower percentages of people that endorse spanking and washing kids’ mouths out with soap, which is the case in New England and much of the Middle Atlantic, Obama did very well. In states with higher percentages, like Wyoming, Idaho, and Alabama, McCain won big.
So… a lot of people out there seem dead certain that all BDSM is an attempt to paper over domestic violence. I guess one way to clarify that would be an inquiry into how many BDSM adherents spank or beat their children.
I know only a very small subset of everyone who’s overtly into BDSM but I’d say by and large they’re less likely to use corporal punishment on their children. Some way less.
It could just be that most of the people I know aren’t interested in spanking their children anyway. But I’ve still got a hunch that on average people in BDSM are less likely to spank their children than, say, the average “vanilla” voter in Wyoming, Idaho, or Alabama. I mean, if you’re aware it turns you on to spank a partner how likely are you to spank your child? Same if instead being spanked turns you on? Meanwhile, if you either have no earthly clue or, worse, you’re unwilling to admit it to yourself…
Like I say, it’s an only anecdotally substantiated hunch. That’s not the same as saying I have no idea at all. But if you’ve got something more solid to either confirm or refute I’d love to hear about it.
I know a kinkster who is
Submitted by Dw3t-Hthr (not verified) on Sat, 2009-12-19 10:11.I know a kinkster who is completely agitated by people who spank children because to her spanking is and always has been a sexual experience. Which led to significant cognitive glitches around experiences of corporal punishment when she was a child, apparently.
[”...to her spanking is and always has been a sexual experience.” Exactly! Somewhere a few years back I posted my suspicion that it’s like that for most people. Which is why I think it’s a really terrible thing to do to kids. (It’s not that one shouldn’t discipline children, it’s that you don’t have to do it physically and/or sexually-abusively.) —fl]
but for a lot of us spanking
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 2009-12-20 05:41.but for a lot of us spanking isn’t a sexual experience, and we aren’t somewhere deep in denial, either.
And, as I said below, it is easy in the more urban environments to “negotiate” with your children. What clothes to wear or when the room gets clean, even if the homework is done, are arbitrary impositions upon a child’s life. OTOH, on the farm where I raised my kids as a single mom, not doing chores had an immediate impact—-if you don’t feed the chicks, they die. If you pull away from mama and run into the field with the cow, that cow may well trample you. Machinery can kill, and failure to obey often has lethal consequences. However, I will take the majority of farm kids over city kids any time. They are responsible, resourceful, respectful, and quite capable—there is a 9 year old of my acquaintance who can back a 5th wheel stock trailer without assistance, load the hogs and secure them, and manage to negotiate price…
[Hi Anonymous. I should have been more clear. What I mean isn’t that parent and/or child is conscious of the sexual overtones. Instead I mean that the choice of the child’s bottom — which in all other contexts is treated as part of their “privates” — has a lot of confusing associations that I think adults tend to miss when they pick what seems to them like an “obvious” place to hit.
Also, hey, at least anecdotally you back up my hunch that people in BDSM are less rather than more inclined to corporal punishment of children. Either way I appreciate your feedback. Thanks. —fl]
I would never spank a kid,
Submitted by Holly Pervocracy (not verified) on Sat, 2009-12-19 11:50.I would never spank a kid, but that has nothing to do with sexuality, it’s just because my mother hit me way too much and I never want to go even a little bit down that road. (Also, it doesn’t teach anything or establish authority; the obvious rejoinder is “well, now I hurt, but you’re still wrong.”)
...and in turn that has nothing to do with my sexuality, I’m fairly sure. I definitely didn’t get turned on in any way when Mom hit me and I don’t even now like to be hit in the ways that Mom did.
I’m in a 24/7 BDSM
Submitted by Britni TheVadgeWig (not verified) on Sat, 2009-12-19 15:18.I’m in a 24/7 BDSM relationship and I would NEVER spank a child or use any form of corporal punishment whatsoever. I do not have children, but have worked with them, and my partner has children. To me, corporal punishment is child abuse, plain and simple.
What’s with this trying to
Submitted by Nightfall (not verified) on Sat, 2009-12-19 21:10.What’s with this trying to link or “dislink” BDSM with corporal punishment for children? I thought that a bigger objection was that BDSM is essentially ritualized spousal abuse in the minds of some people.
[I believe the argument is that it’s literal abuse with lots of layers of denial, justification, and excuses. Since abuse of partners correlates well with abuse of children I think if the BDSM/abuse link were there we’d see a corresponding link in BDSM and child abuse. I agree with you it’s not a perfect metric but it really ought to be indicative, at least, of the hard form of the accusation. Good question though, Nightfall. Thanks. —fl]
fl, you are correct. 60% of
Submitted by Britni TheVadgeWig (not verified) on Wed, 2009-12-23 00:50.fl, you are correct. 60% of men (as the studies have been conducted on heterosexual couples, with a male batterer) that abuse their wives also abuse their children. (If you need to me to source that, I can. I just have that on the top of my head and not the source, because I work as a therapist and educator at a domestic violence center)
Well, maybe. Corporal
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 2009-12-20 05:15.Well, maybe. Corporal punishment to me isn’t child abuse, but neither is BDSM really my thing. I’ve spanked my kids, mostly when they were too young to reason with and needed to learn something in order to stay alive—-i.e., the woodstove is hot or you can’t shake loose from mama and run in the field with the sheep—-on a farm, kids have to learn some lessons NOW. There isn’t room for negotiation or reasoning.
OTOH, as a survivor of a seriously abusive marriage, I can and do see a link between BDSM and spousal abuse. Just as religious fanatics use “submission” to justify their abuse of the spouse, I find it easy to believe that the more intense 24/7 relationships often sugarcoat a serious power disparity and concomitant abuse.
There’s very much a link
Submitted by Britni TheVadgeWig (not verified) on Wed, 2009-12-23 00:54.There’s very much a link between BDSM and spousal abuse. The power and control wheel that is at the core of defining abuse applies directly to most D/s relationships, and the bonds of BDSM relationship are strengthened through traumatic bonding, just as they are in abusive relationships (traumatic bonding is what makes Stockholm syndrome occur).
However, BDSM relationships are consensual through and through. And if the person wants that power and control to stop, they just have to ask to be released. They just have to say their safeword. They’ve willingly handed over their power and control to their Dominant. An abuse victim has had their systematically stripped from them.
While the differences can seem small at first glance, they’re really very large in the end.
Given what you are saying, I
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2009-12-23 18:21.Given what you are saying, I have a question: As you may know if you work as a counselor, I see a major potential for the loss of control and consent…...many abusive relationships start out wonderful. I see a real potential for the theoretically consensual relationship to move rapidly to a non-consensual relationship——you are counting on him to stop when you say stop—-what if he doesn’t? You may well be bound and helpless…...and then you are up a crick without a paddle.
What do you say then? Oooops? I goofed? Two consenting adults can, of course, do whatever they want to, but that is a seriously risky situation. IIRC, you have blogged about being assaulted?
Having read Klein’s article
Submitted by Stasha at the Dogged Pursuit (not verified) on Sun, 2009-12-20 06:19.Having read Klein’s article and from my own experience, corporal punishment is enforcing an authoritarianistic and heirarchal worldview on to a non-consenting person. In BDSM and even in “submissive” conservative religious households, consent / agreement is key. No child can consent to a beating, whipping, spanking, forced swallowing of soaps, etc. even IF, as the previous commenter stated, they personally felt a sexual response to the treatment.
Additionally, the argument that all pain or violence is abuse is not true any more than boxing or martial arts is abusive for the same reason — consent. If everyone in the ring (or octagon) wants to be there, then no abuse,, no matter how bad the pummeling they recieve.
There is also a balance of power in the contact sports (welter weights don’t fight heavyweights, etc.). There is absolutely no balance in corporal punishment of children as the adult has all (physically, financially, and emotionally) and the child has none. This is an important part of an authoritarian belief system, to reinforce that point to the child, the spouse, or other.
In BDSM, the key (and I defer to Britni on this) is an exchange of power. The submissive partner willingly gives up (sometimes temporarily, sometimes more permanently) their power to the dominant in order to gain a desired experience in return that may or may not be sexual in nature. At the end of the day, both partners are getting something they value from the relationship. The relationship and acts can be renegotiated, redefined, and ended by both or either partner if they are no longer getting what they need or want.
I think you put it best in another post and I find myself using this phrase a lot with those who try to make the BDSM = abuse or conversely the spanking/submissive wife does not = abuse argument: Can the child/wife/partner say no or stop? If they do, what happens?
Hm. I don’t see anyone
Submitted by Bird (not verified) on Tue, 2009-12-22 16:56.Hm. I don’t see anyone particularly backing the hypothesis that kinky people think of spanking as always sexual, but I also don’t see anyone mentioning my immediate thought, which is “Context matters.” My lover hurts me, and it’s erotic. I slam my finger in the car door. Hurts about the same. Not erotic. My lover with a needle? Hot. The nurse at the injection clinic? “Hold-still-this-won’t-hurt-ok-see-you-in-six-months.” Not hot. When my mother spanked me, it was never erotic. When my lover spanks me, it is.
I can’t tell you whether this would make me more or less likely to spank my children, as I haven’t got any, don’t want any, and belong (as many young, openly kinky people probably do) to a generation that’s heard a lot more about the evils of corporal punishment than our parents did.