Origins of Spanking Fetish?
MarilynStn
To hurt a child for pleasure is more than wrong it is an
abomination, and the thought terrifying. Certainly, any parent who has
any leanings in that direction must seek other ways to discipline, if they
already have children for whom they are solely responsible, delegate
discipline to the other parent if that is an option and seriously consider
forgoing having children or being responsible for children if that can be
accomplished.. But the implications go beyond spanking. Even if true
sadism is rare, cruelty is encountered every day. To verbally abuse
someone, to impose extra burdens on them, to frustrate them in their
efforts to attain their goals are in my view equally abhorrent if
motivated by some emotional pleasure in playing king of the mountain at
another's expence. In all conflict situations we must constantly examine
our own motives to make sure we are not indulging in cruelty.
Marilyn
BARBARA GILLEY
> To hurt a child for pleasure is more than wrong it is an
>abomination, and the thought terrifying.
To hurt a child for any reason is just as wrong and every bit as
disgusting!
SFPo8
Much as I commend Chris' general opposition to spanking, his (and 2.2's)
insistance that it must *sometimes* cause fetishism has led them both to
having to twist the evidence to fit their theories; something I tried to
say but did not express as well as she.
Obviously, fetishisms have some cause. There are many different forms of
fetishism, and if it were not politically imporant (in terms of this
group) to show that one particular fetish is caused by one particular act,
it might be possible to look more calmly at the possibility that the
causes of all fetishisms have something in common. Chris' theory of
genetic loading may well be part of the answer.
But if spanking was a trigger, then we would not see the frequent
counter-examples which Vashti and Vicki and I (and recently Marilyn) have
pointed out: the many non-spanked who are fetishists and the many spanked
who are not.
Hal
Ivan Gowch
: To verbally abuse
: someone, to impose extra burdens on them, to frustrate them in their
: efforts to attain their goals are in my view equally abhorrent if
: motivated by some emotional pleasure in playing king of the mountain at
: another's expence. In all conflict situations we must constantly examine
: our own motives to make sure we are not indulging in cruelty.
: Marilyn
That's a stunningly ironic statement, coming from someone who has
freely acknowledged cruelly abusing her own children in the name of
religion. But then I guess Marilyn thinks bruising your children's
bodies is OK, as long as you do it for God.
Your God approve of that sort of thing, Marilyn? Perhaps it's
time to switch brands...
--
==> Ivan Gowch <==
Ivan Gowch
: maril...@aol.com (MarilynStn) wrote:
Right on, Barbara!
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
remain anonymous. With his permission, I am herewith posting a slightly
edited version in which identifying details have been removed. I think
it speaks for itself. -Chris
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris: This is a long E-Mail because I feel I have so much to say after
reading your postings about the origins of spanking fetishes and your
hypothesis on the possible origins of the fetish in people who were not
spanked frequently, if at all, when they were children.
I have often wondered why I should carry such strong inclinations
from my own boyhood when I was unquestionably a goodie-goodie who was
physically punished far less frequently than many of my schoolmates and
have had a paranoic fear of expressed authority all my life. Though my
wife had clearly understood this seeming contradiction already, your
postings opened new windows for me. I like your idea of testing your
hypotheses as a research topic for a doctorate and will gladly provide any
assistance you may require, should you go ahead. I have often day-dreamed
of putting together a research study of my own on the spanking fetish, but
one directed toward achieving better understanding from the public. Maybe
there is synergy here. But first let me answer your request, which is to
furnish personal examples of the origins of the fetish. So many thoughts
have flowed that I had better deal with it under subheadings, beginning
with a general description of my own background and going onto some
tentative hypotheses of my own.
Upbringing
I had an unusual childhood, having been raised, if you can call it
that, in private schools of the British type, far from my own home, from
the age of seven to approaching 17. When I was around 7 1/2, my parents,
who then lived in [Country A], took me to [Country B] and left me at a
private school there. The journey in those days (before World War II and
the growth of airlines) took some 21 days by ship and air. I can recall
very little about that school, though some memories stand out, notably the
utter blackness of the first six months. When I revisited that school in
my forties, the headmaster was a son of the headmaster in my time and had
been my contemporary as a pupil. He was amazed at my lack of recall. At
the age of 12 I journeyed to [Country C] for a holiday with my parents
(who had last seen me two or three years earlier when they took their long
leave in [Country B]). With World War II about to break out, I acompanied
them back to their home, where I had a very happy six months at the local
school. My mother then took me on a four-day train ride to a private
school and left me there. It was a more normal existence than previously
because I was able to travel to my home for two of the four school
vacations each year. I have clearer memories of the 4 1/2 years I spent
there, including, once again, the utter blackness of my first six months.
I learned to live the role allotted to me, trying hard to be
something less of a klutz at sports and joining the Allied armies at age
16. I went on to become a professional man, a husband and a father, who
with my wife's active support, brought our family to [Country D] to start
a new career when I was already middle aged. In that I have had some
success, and am still actively pursuing my career in my mid-sixties.
I have related the above in somewhat tedious detail because I
believe that it is important in your research to understand the two sides
of the spanking, and/or domination and submission. What makes a group of
professional men, who had identified their common interest through the
Internet, take a spanking weekend together, as I read in one news group?
On the one side, respectable mainstream. On the other what is politely
termed an alternative preference by the liberals and a horrible sin by the
conservatives. I can only answer the rhetoric question in terms of my own
personal experience, which is what you seek.
Both my private schools believed in caning as a practical means of
enforcing discipline. The junior ("preparatory") school in [Country B]
limited this privilege to the headmaster, who caned his pupils with their
pants and underpants down, and forbade them to use the swimming pool until
their welts had disappeared (we swam without swimsuits) so parents would
not be dismayed. I was only caned by him once, and was so frightened that
I had no memory of the pain even shortly thereafter. Yes, that episode
does stand out in my memory as does a spanking by my father when I was
five or six. I had undoubtedly taken out on my sister some of the
frustrations of kindergarten and was confined to my room until my father's
return from work, and, in due course, he took down my pants and spanked
me. That, too, remains in my mind as a very frightening and bitterly
disillusioning experience, but also a solitary one.
My second school was far more egalitarian in its belief in caning.
We were caned by our house prefects, by our house masters and, for extreme
offenses such as smoking, by the headmaster himself, a very religious man
who had developed the ability to inflict greater pain than anybody else in
the school. The other difference from my first school was that we were not
required to drop our pants. As I said, I was a goody-goody and was only
caned two or three times. I have often wondered why I should have had a
strong spanking fetish all my life, while those of my fellow pupils who
were caned just about weekly by one housemaster (a partially crippled man
who I have come to belief was a sadist) should have emerged as tough young
men with no signs any such fetish. Your posting has suggested an answer
that I can endorse. I was a misfit in that school and I believe that part
of my memory of being so is that I somehow lacked the guts to do things
that were punished by caning -- things that were not very hard to do. One
had only to be late for morning roll-call to be required to accept two
strokes of the cane at a time of the prefect's choosing. I think I almost
came to feel that there was a male bonding between caners and canees that
I was not part of, because I lacked courage. I have now learned to reject
that hypothesis, because it takes no account of actual circumstances. The
more likely truth is that I had been so soaked in fear of authority that I
had no understanding whatsoever of the enjoyment and thrill of testing
authority, which is part of the pleasure and necessary development of
childhood. To this day, I may understand the process intellectually, but
never in my gut.
However, the desire to be spanked, humiliated and degraded has
been with me all my life. You can well ask why I did not indulge it after
leaving school. My answer is that I had tempting opportunities, including
a very brief experiment while still at school with a dormitory mate. But,
each time, my fear of being caught prevented me. And that, in the
circumstances, is also understable. The school went to great lengths to
prevent any latent homosexuality, and had no choice otherwise, because the
400 boys and teachers were cloistered way out in the country, and meetings
with girls were confined to holidays and very occasional outings. The boys
were not even allowed to occupy a toilet cubicle in privacy, the school
rules requiring them to leave the door wide open so any passerby could
check what was going on. The punishment for being caught engaged in
undesirable experiments with another boy was, first, a painful interview
with the headmaster, and second, immediate expulsion. In a country with a
small, elitist class, that black mark would distinguish the rest of one's
life. As for the years thereafter, [Country C] was so repressive that
police detectives used to peep through the windows of suspected gays, and
charge them in court (as late as the 1970s) and have them sent to prison.
The result was societal ostracism.
All these things can be powerful disincentives to straying from
the mainstream, particularly when the injustice and the cruelty that was
all around one was sufficient cause for defiance in itself. Since coming
to [Country D], the doors of tolerance have opened. But, by now, I am a
happily married man with an expanding family. My fetish is as strong as
ever, but not strong enough to risk breaking my marriage. Bonds can be
formed by exercising a spanking fetish, and those would be outside the
marriage. So what might be termed the other side of me wins out.
Having said much to support your thesis, I do think that the
origins of a spanking fetish need to be examined under three distinct
headings. The first is the fetish itself. I do believe there is a genetic
influence, though not as specific a one as I have seen suggested. I would
regard it more as a matter of an appropriate general character -- such as
being overly sensitive to what others think of one, preferring to be led
rather than to lead, and so on. The major influence is in one's culture
and environment, and the emotional atmosphere is the more powerful of all.
As an interesting sidelight, some of the alumni of the second of
my private schools arranged a get-together. We sat down for dinner,
husbands and wives from diverse occupations -- and guess what the main
topic of conversation was? The canings we men we had experienced. We
learned, among other things, that their frequency had subsequently
increased until a later headmaster, who had actually been at the school
the same time as I, said enough was enough. I can remember a senior
government officer -- a man in his 50s -- discussing in some detail the
particularly effective caning technique of one teacher.
As you rightly say, an atmosphere charged with punishment can be
most effective in the development of a spanking fetish. But I would also
suggest other explanations. Children raised with few limits on their
behaviour might well develop a feeling that they would have been much
happier if their parents had imposed the limits they needed and enforced
those limits with physical discipline, as happened to their friends. Once
again, there is a feeling of missing out, of not having undergone the
necessary rites of initiation. My second heading would be submission. I
envisage this in the shape of that allegorical "suitcase" that the
therapists love to talk about. Children need a parent to help take the
load of their suitcase by being a listening post for a kid's fears and
anxieties. Without that listening post it is all too easy to internalize
those fears and implicitly give up on trying to carry the suitcase any
further. What better resource then than submission? Somebody else takes
responsibility for making those fears come true. There is no further need
for personal struggle. My third heading is self-respect, or, to put it
bluntly, self-hate. I doubt if any person with a spanking fetish has not
lived with self-hate at some time or another. It is a logical development
of the process of self-internalization discussed above. A desire for
degradation, which is fairly common in the S&M community, would seem to me
to be a means of internalizing that, too.
You may well ask at this stage how I profess not to have indulged
my own feelings, yet be able to discuss spanking and/or S&M practices. The
answer is that I have read all I can and have been fortunate enough to
have a spouse who has supported me by attending lectures by people within
these communities. This is why I have written to you at such length. I
strongly believe in the value of the Internet as a means of letting us all
talk to each other. Whether or not one practices one's fetish one has to
live with it, and learn to accept it as a part of our character of which
we have no cause to be ashamed and one that can give extreme pleasure, if
only in our minds.
I would have been very happy to have posted this message myself.
But my problem is that my sign-on and my E-mail address are very likely to
be clues to my identity, and there is potential for hurting my family.
Please feel free to quote from it in any of your postings, so long as
there is no reference to who I am or where I live and have lived --
particularly those paragraphs in which I describe my adult life. I hope I
will hear from you, about both your research and yourself. I write this
in considerable trust to a complete stranger. Having read what you posted
I believe there is no alternative but go forward in trust and in common
exploration.
Barbara Ann Gilley
>Even if you think that spanking is wrong and that parents shouldn't do it,
>to equate a Non-spanko parent who thinks that he or she is doing the best
>thing for their child to a parent getting their rocks off by spanking is
>either naive or dishonest.
We can never really know for a fact a person's intent. Only the person can
know that for sure. When an action results in harm how does intent lessen
the fact that if the action had not occurred to begin with, there would
not have been harm? For instance, Susan Smith claims that in the final
moments, she did not intend to kill her children. Her children are dead
regardless of her stated intent. We can argue forever about what we
think her real intent was, but we will never know for sure. The only thing
we know for sure is that 2 children are dead as the result of her actions
or her failure to take action that would have kept them from dying at the
moment.
Tom93117
I read the letter you posted from your friend. It matches my situation.
I wish I could understand this whole issue more. Please tell your friend
he can e-mail me if he wants to talk. I'd be interested in privately
exchanging thoughts with someone else in the same predicament.
Tom
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
me permission to repost it on the "Origins..." thread provided that I
removed any identifying information. After reading this letter and then
reading Daphne Merkin's article in the current issue of "The New Yorker,"
I am struck by the large number of parallels in the childhoods of these
two women who both became spanking fetishists. -Chris
-------------------------begin letter------------------------------------
Hi Chris--
I've just discovered the a.s.s and a.p.s newsgroups in the last couple of
weeks, and have decided to try to get involved a little (rather than
"lurking"). I've read a lot of the posts on the origins of spanking
fetish...and since I feel pretty strongly about this subject, thought I'd
start here!
I was surprised to learn that some think their spanking fetish was caused by
something other than a history of being spanked. It's always been a "given"
to me that I have this "condition" because of the spankings I received and
witnessed as a child.
I think my parents were abusive. They hit us, spanked us (at least one of us)
almost every day. Although they did not break bones, and they rarely left
bruises, and the number of strokes were usually in the single digits...it
still felt/feels like abuse to me.
Just to list some events/situations/thoughts:
* Starting at age 3, I attended a private school, while my brothers/sister
(6,8,& 10) went to public school. I was in private school because my mother
was anxious to go back to work. My mother dropped me off/picked me up on her
way to and from work, but my sibs were home alone before and after school for
about 3 hours/day. There was always trouble. My mother and I would get home
just about the time my father got home, and the first 1/2-hour home was spent
punishing my brothers/sister. My father would get them upstairs in the
hallway, have them drop their pants, touch their toes, and he'd hit them with
a belt. I would sit on the stairs and watch it every night. This went on,
probably 2 or 3 times each week, for about three years. When I was 6, I knew
I would start second grade in public school and would be faced with
participating in this ritual. I remember being terrified about the prospect
of going to school!!
* I think this "watching" routine left me feeling as though I were not really
"part" of the family...my brothers/sister were somehow bonded together over
it...and I was on the outside. Participation in this ritual was a badge of
honor. I remember my grandparents saying that I was spoiled because I didn't
"get it" like the others, and talking about how my one brother was so
brave..."he steps right up and drops his pants." (Kind of a
multi-generational sickness, huh?) I think watching gave me some sadistic
tendencies (at least fantasy-wise).
(Interesting side note: The "brave" brother will tell you today that he
thinks being beaten was good for him. Those of us who weren't so brave don't
think it was a good thing. I guess this brother actually got some good things
out of it...attention, respect, etc.
* My father was the main disciplinarian. Mostly, he would strike out in
stupid, blind rage. God only knows what was going on with him. He'd get home
from work, angry as hell as he walked in the door, looking for whatever had
gone wrong (and if you leave 4 young kids alone, there's plenty that can go
wrong). Most of the time we were punished for making a mess, or not doing
chores, or fighting among ourselves. He was more into smacking you as you
walked by than actually going through a "spanking ritual." Although he did
spank us (without influence by my mother...more on that below), It was pretty
quick and clean.
* My mother, on the other hand, was into rituals big-time. She'd talk to you,
tell you she was going to spank you, describe it in detail, sometimes make
you wait a couple of hours, make you bring her the implement of the day, make
you undress, make sure there was audience involvement....the whole nine
yards. She didn't spank us often, but when she did, it was memorable.The
weird thing is that, as children, we saw my mother as our protector. She
"controlled" my father, told him to stop sometimes when he went too far
(there were times when I thought he would kill one of us, he'd get so angry).
But, as an adult, I'm pretty convinced that she was really the
instigator...that my father was working (consciously or not) under her
direction.
* I have a very clear memory of being a little girl, maybe 5 or 6 or 7,
getting ready for bed one night, and realizing that for the first time
that I could remember, I hadn't been spanked that day.
* Another influencing factor, I think, is that my folks were pretty cold,
unempathic, humorlous, self-involved people. I think spanking was probably
the most lively thing that was going on in our house. I know they didn't have
much of a social life or sex life. I suspect they got turned on by spanking
us. I've often thought that these may be the factors that turn people into
fetishists. A lot of the fantasy-stories in a.s.s. are about how spanking
makes people feel loved (the old "negative attention is better than no
attention" syndrome). Also, if we learn our sexuality from the people we're
around, and the only time we see them get a "gleam" in their eye is when
they're hitting someone....maybe we pick that up without even realizing it.
* Another family scene was my father beating the family dog. He would get
the dog in the laundry room and beat it with a leather dog leash. Lots of
barking and yipping and nails scratching on the floor. My mother always said
that she loved dogs and my father said he hated them. My mother would bring a
dog home, my father would beat it for a couple of years, and then they'd get
rid of it (because it was a "bad" dog (wonder why?), or because my father
would have had enough. Then a few months later, she'd get another one. (Two
other interesting side notes on this: 1) after we grew up and moved out, my
mother says that my father started to get violent with her (up to that time,
he'd never laid a hand on her). She divorced him just as quick as can be. It
was okay for him to beat us for 20 years, but she didn't want him going after
her. 2) She still goes through dogs every couple of years...but she can't
blame their demise on him any longer.
* My other brother (the one who wasn't so brave) has a dog-thing happening
that is eerily like Mom and Dad. She brings them home, he beats them, and
they're gone in a couple of years.
* I was a "good" girl until I reached age 11-12. Then I turned into an
angry, rebellious, wild teenager. Seems like everything just caught up to me
there, I had so much anger, I couldn't be good anymore.. I think I also
realized that they weren't hitting me for being bad...just for being there
and because they liked it.
I wonder if people who have a spanking fetish, but don't have a childhood
spanking history, experience the fetish in the same way as those who have the
history? I suspect that those who've been through the childhood trauma have
different feelings about shame and fear. I wonder if those who don't have the
history might gravitate more to the "tops" side. Or, I wonder if they come
from cold families and picked up their fetish yearning for some kind of
attention.
Child abuse has been running through my family for a couple of generations at
least. What really rang a bell with me in your notes is when you said that
the cycle must be stopped. That's my goal in life right now...to raise a
child with no physical punishment.
Anyway, it looks like I'm running out of room in this note. Thanks for
listening to all of this. It's harder to write about this stuff than I
thought it would be!!! I'd appreciate it if you would keep this anonymous.
[name withheld by request]
Witness
>I told you and I'm telling you again! MY PARENTS WERE NOT SPANKERS.
But, ehm, Vicki, there are other people a small child meets,
you know. At daycare, or your grandparents baby-sitting (do
you know whether your _parents_ ever got spanked?), or...
_Lots_ of opportunities to get spanked. Without your parents
even knowing and without you remembering.
Not that _I_ think you were spanked, really... I'm just pointing
out that because your parents were not of the spanking ilk doesn't
mean you were never spanked.
And you _still_ haven't explained to us how & when you found
out about the _concept_ of spanking. Do you remember
_that?_ I mean: if you were never spanked the very thought
must have been quite a shock, no?
>You are really starting to irritate me.
Our Chris can be very stubborn, isn't it? Actually I like
it. But then he's not saying things about me which are
manifestly untrue.
>>3) They actually were spanked, but won't admit it for political
>>reasons.
>
>WRONG!!!! Why wouldn't I admit it? You are making no sense at all!
This is even _wronger_ than the other two: Vicki is so honest
it's painful :-)
>HUH??????????????? I don't even understand THIS!
He's saying you might have a spanko node. And you very well
might have one! :-)
>Vicki Grrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!
Careful Vicki! Watch your language!
Witness
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: <major snip>
: > 1) They actually were spanked, but do not remember because the
: >events took place very early in life, before they were neurologically
: >capable of forming longterm memories. (My hunch, Hal, is that this is the
: >category into which you and Vicki fall).
: WRONG! Grrrrrr!!!
Lighten up, Vicki...
: I told you and I'm telling you again! MY PARENTS WERE NOT SPANKERS.
: If YOU were right, why then am I not *remembering* or fantasizing
: about my brother's spankings?
Perhaps your parents had mellowed with age and didn't spank your
brother?
My original point was that even if someone has no memories of
being spanked, the possibility remains that an incident or two occurred
VERY early in life before the baby brain was capable of forming longterm
memories. Parents may forget about such incidents, especially if they
decided to stop spanking early on.
: Because there were none! Just that very
: tiny one which I do not even call a spanking! But I remembered it.
I rest my case. :-)
Chris, whose father doesn't remember having spanked him.
MarilynStn
Your post about needing discipline and missing it where it is not
present makes a valid point. Those of us who grew up in authoritative
homes probably did wish from time to time that the controls would come off
and we could wallow in anarchy. Those who experienced permissiveness or
even worse indifference at close hand probably envied us. Sadly, no one
ever had a perfect home environment, and yet most have made an adequate
adjustment. The point of your post, which I second is that there is a far
cry from fantasy to reality and that it is unwise to assume that those who
seek the fantasy really wish to relive a vanished reality.
Marilyn
Kenneth H. Riley
>Ken,
> Chris may or may not be a parent, but he apparently is an adult
>who was very troubled by the parenting he received. There are many
>unhappy people out there, who trace their unhappiness to their childhood
>experiences. While I am skeptical, I think nothing but good comes from
>people being open about themselves in a friendly environment where their
>privacy is secure. While this environment has not always been friendly,
>it is certainly one in which we can explore the implications of parenting
>practises. The danger comes, as you recognize, when men and women seek to
>establish questionable conclusions: that ordinary childhood spankings in
>an otherwise warm and loving environment leads to paraphilia or
>semi-paraphilia.
> On the other hand I enjoy debating with Chris and would hate to
>see him go. Unlike some others, he is usually polite.
>Sincerely,
>Marilyn
Marilyn,
I was not asking Chris to leave alt.parenting.spanking. What I asked
is that he not post inappropriately to alt.parenting.spanking as he
has been doing. Chris has even been inappropriatly posting email from
spanking fetishists. Of course if they really wanted to post here
there is nothing to stop them. If they have opinions on the subject
of parental spanking of children they are more than welcome.
Notice that spanking fetishists who are truly interested in the
subjects discussed on alt.parenting.spanking are already here and
posting with no help from Chris. The subject of spanking fetish and
its origins belongs on alt.sex.spanking. I simply suggested to Chris
that he can carry on his study of the subject more appropriately over
there.
Notice that Chris posts anonymous email from those supposedly
supporting his position that childhood spanking "causes" spanking
fetish. Frankly, I believe that one should be suspicious of such
"anonymous" email when someone uses such a ploy to bolster their
arguments. After all, the person asking for anonymity could be doing
so because they have presented a made up story...assuming the person
really exists at all.
Ken Riley us00...@interramp.com
Kenneth H. Riley
[SNIP]
>We can never really know for a fact a person's intent. Only the person can
>know that for sure. When an action results in harm how does intent lessen
>the fact that if the action had not occurred to begin with, there would
>not have been harm? For instance, Susan Smith claims that in the final
>moments, she did not intend to kill her children. Her children are dead
>regardless of her stated intent. We can argue forever about what we
>think her real intent was, but we will never know for sure.
[SNIP]
You are making an absurd argument, Barbara. Susan Smith strapped her
two children into the family car and then ran the car into water deep
enough to engulf the car and drown the children. Now she may claim
that she didn't intend to kill them but one would have to be awfully
naive to believe that. She certainly wasn't trying to give them
swimming lessons. She isn't retarded. She can make any claim she
wishes. The evidence says otherwise. I know for sure she intended to
killl her children and I am sure millions of others feel the same way.
No need to argue forever about what her "real" intent was. Her intent
is obvious. Just use your common sense. I have the perfect
punishment for her. Strap her into the same car and sink it with her
in it.
Ken Riley us00...@interramp.com
Roeg
> remember and which I AM NOT lying about, I already HAD this fetish!
>
> Vicki
So what might logically follow is that you may have experienced the
same "tiny" type of spanking your brother had before memory and also
before the developement of your fetish. If you are willing to admit
that your parents did give "tiny" spankings to your brother at a
young age, why would you not accept that you may have received
exactly the same treatment?
Roeg
Kenneth H. Riley
>Kenneth H. Riley (us00...@interramp.com) wrote:
>: Chris,
>: Why do you continue to inappropriately post stuff like this on
>: alt.parenting.spanking...
>: Just because you have an
>: agenda of attempting to link spanking fetish to childhood spankings
>: doesn't give you the right to use up out bandwidth inappropriately...
>: I resent your attempts to turn this group into
>: alt.Chris.agenda-of-the-week...
>: your inappropriate posts of your spanking fetish email here on
>: alt.parenting.spanking where it isn't wanted. This is NOT the NG for
>: what you are trying to do.
>: By the way, I don't even believe that you are a parent.
>: Ken Riley us00...@interramp.com
> Hey, Ken. May I respectfully suggest that you fuck right off?
> In considering that proposal, please keep in mind that:
> 1. You do not moderate this newsgroup.
> 2. No one gives a rat's ass what you consider appropriate.
> 3. No one gave you authority to allocate bandwidth, as if you
>even knew what that is.
> 4. No one gives a rat's ass what you resent.
> 5. You have no say in what is or is not "wanted" on this, or any
>other, newsgroup.
> 6. No one gives a rat's ass what you do, or do not believe.
> What not help yourself and take your hostility and pathological
>arrogance to a qualified therapist? The world would be a happier
>place...
>--
> ==> Ivan Gowch <==
First of all, Ivan "The Growch" Gowch, I'll say what I please on this
news group. If I think something is inappropriate, I will say so.
While Chris may not comply, and that is his right, I'll make my
opinions known anyway. As for what *you* may think, your thoughts,
opinions and a bus token will get you a ride on a bus. I've seen
punks like you come and go...always loud and belligerant, attempting
to intimidate the weak or the meek, all the while avoiding contact
with men. Shades of Georgie Porgie!
You may fool some here on alt.parenting.spanking, but I see you for
what you really are...a sorry excuse for a man who gets his jollies
hurling insults from the safety of his keyboard. You get a sense of
power from it. A power you can never realize when you are among men.
It doesn't take other men very long to realize that you are a punk,
does it Ivan? I don't mean "punk" in the way that kids use it. I
mean it in the way that that all men, and punks like you, Ivan, and
Georgie Porgie, understand. What I mean by punk, is someone like you
who gets "turned out" by the other men or boys. They made you their
punk...and it shows.
Men, when informally congregating and conversing amongst themselves,
can be bombastic, crude, loud and even intimidating. Men realize,
though, that this behavior is inappropriate in mixed company, such as
when women or children are present or on forums like Usenet. Only a
punk would continue such behavior in those situations. Your "rat's
ass" diatribe is as unimpresssive now as I am sure it was to those
boys who butt f**cked you when you were a punk kid. Your repeated use
of the word "ass", was probably a Freudian slip since I am sure it is
a subject with which you are intimately aquainted. Grow up Gowch.
Ken Riley us00...@interramp.com
LaVonne Carlson
>
> Vicki wrote:
> >
> > So why then is he NOT a spanking fetishist?
> > Of course I can't be sure, but I'm reasonably sure.
>
Roeg wrte:
>
> I don't think that anyone is really saying that there is a direct,
> invariable link between being spanked as a child and developing a
> spanking fetish. I do, however, think it is reasonable to assume that
> some people will respond that way if given that circumstance. I know
> I am convinced that there is a relationship between my spankings as
> a child and my spanking fetish as an adult.
>
> The deal is we never know which children will respond in which way.
> Aside from the fact that spanking teaches nothing an at best
> suppresses behaviors temporarily, I didn't take the chance that my
> own children who might have inherited some of my hard-wiring were
> stimulated by me to develop a spanking fetish. And now that they are
> adults, I can reasonably conclude that not spanking them was just as
> effective in raising wonderful, productive, loving, kind, adults as
> spanking them as some would suggest could have ever been. Are my
> adult children spanking fetishists? Don't know. I do know this--if
> such a response WAS triggered in them. I didn't do it. And that, to
> me is as important as anything else.
>
> It's too bad that spankophiles spend so much time arguing who is
> right and who is wrong on this issue and simply don't agree that
> spanking children COULD be a risk and it is an unnecessary one. Why
> take an unnecessary risk?
>
> Roeg
Roeg--
You are absolutely right. No one can predict how an individual child
will respond to being spanked. Spanking does teach, however. It
teaches violence as a way to express anger and to solve problems,
because children learn by example. It lowers self-esteem and teaches a
lack of respect. And, at best, the only thing spanking can do is
temporarily suppress behavior in the presence of the spanker.
So, why do people continue to subject children to this totally
unnecessary risk? Because, in spite of all evidence, and in spite of
all logic, they refuse to admit that it is a risk. And that is why I
believe it is time to follow the example of other countries and ban
spanking as an allowable form of disciplining children.
LaVonne
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: wit...@xs4all.nl (Witness) wrote:
[snip]
: >Dearest Vicki, _no_ one is saying that you're a liar. No one
: >is saying you _do_ remember having been spanked and
: >intentionally are keeping it from us. That's just not the
: >case! (Well, Chris might have put this in a list of cases,
: >but I'm sure he never for one tiny moment thought that _that_
: >was the case actually.) We _all_ believe you're painfully
: >honest. Please! You _are_ honest to a fault!
: Chris did.
No, Chris did not. I have never called you a liar, Vicki. I
wish you would please repost the passage from a note of mine in which you
think I accused you of this. The fact is, you can't. So I wish you
would please stop claiming I called you a liar.
[snip]
: >(BTW: do you know what Freud teaches us about someone who so
: >vehemently denies something? :-))
: I'm afraid to even ask.
I really wish you WOULD ask, Vicki. :-)
Chris, who would be happy to explain to Vicki what Freud said about
people who vehemently deny accusations no one has made.
John Palmer
: Roeg (r7...@tiac.net) wrote:
: [snip]
: : It's too bad that spankophiles spend so much time arguing who is
: : right and who is wrong on this issue and simply don't agree that
: : spanking children COULD be a risk and it is an unnecessary one. Why
: : take an unnecessary risk?
: Thank you, Roeg, for going right to the heart of the issue!
Ah, if only it were so, but by that same argument one should never
have had the child in the first place, since surviving the nine months to
birth was a risk, and an unnecessary one. . .
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
[snip]
: I don't think that anyone is really saying that there is a direct,
: invariable link between being spanked as a child and developing a
: spanking fetish.
Yes. If anyone has made such an assertion, I sure must have
missed it.
: I do, however, think it is reasonable to assume that
: some people will respond that way if given that circumstance.
I would still like to see someone seriously attempt to account
for the existence of spanking fetishism in a way which does not involve
exposure to spanking in childhood. The suggestion that the sexual
preference for spanking is entirely the result of "spanking genes" is
just plain ludicrous. Not only would such an hypothesis need to
explain why such genes would persist in the genepool, it would also
need to explain the high degree of variability of fantasies among
fetishists in terms of differing allele frequencies.
I would especially like to see someone explain why a significant
number of spanking fetishists appear to have eroticized precisely the
implements, positions, rituals, etc. of their own childhood spankings if
their childhoods had nothing to do with how they developed sexually. It
is difficult to see how else one could parsimoniously explain such
"coincidences" except as the result of a causal effect: eroticization of
childhood spankings.
: I know
: I am convinced that there is a relationship between my spankings as
: a child and my spanking fetish as an adult.
I am sorry, Roeg, but you must be mistaken. Ken Riley says
people like you don't really exist, didn't you know? :-)
Chris, who continues to urge spanking fetishists who believe that
childhood spankings influenced their sexual development to post on this
thread and make yourselves heard!
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: Ken Riley wrote:
: > Take it over to alt.sex.spanking, Chris. This is inappropriate for
: > alt.parenting.spanking.
: Ken,
: How wrong you are! I am a spanking fetishist. Have been one all
: my life. I don't dislike the world. I am not on a personal vendetta.
: And I do not believe that "everything" is linked to childhood
: spanking.
: I do know however, that my fetish is directly related to my boyhood
: spankings both in substance and detail.
When a person's sexual fantasies closely parallel their childhood
corporal punishments down to the fine details, it is very hard to see how
else one can reasonably account for this "coincidence" except as a case
of eroticization of childhood corporal punishments. The only other way I
can conceive of such a "coincidence" occurring as often as it apparently
does is to suggest that the child was born with genes causing physical
punishment on a particular part of the body in a certain posture with a
certain implement or implements, and that this somehow influenced the
parents to punish the child in precisely this manner. Such a suggestion
is so far fetched, IMO, as to be not worth the trouble of debunking.
: My childhood spanking
: is also related to self-esteem issues that I had to deal with in
: adulthood.
Please elaborate!
: I also know from personal experience that raising
: children to be productive, positive, happy adults need not ever
: include even a single spanking.
BRAVO! Kudos to you, Roeg, for having successfully broken the
cycle and not spanked your own children!
: And the only reason to limit this discussion to alt.sex.spanking is
: that people, perhaps yourself included, who want to be able to
: support the practice of spanking children, do not want to hear about
: fetishism as a possible result of that choice.
I totally agree. Discussion of the putative effects of childhood
spankings on the development of spanking fetishes in certain children is
obviously a relevant topic for alt.parenting.spanking. It is no more
off-topic for a.p.s. than discussion of any other alleged long-term
effect of spanking - positive or negative. I think that Ken is clearly
being a bad sport by claiming this topic has no place in a newsgroup
devoted to debating whether or not to inflict deliberate violence on the
next generation. The issue of the permanent effects childhood spankings
appear to have on the sexuality of at least some spanked children has
been swept under the rug for far too long, IMO. I, for one, am
determined that it NOT be swept under the rug on alt.parenting.spanking.
: This is very much an
: appropriate discussion for this parenting board. Burying your head
: in the sand won't make the reality of spanking fetishism go away.
Tell'em, Roeg! :-D
: And
: if there is any chance that spanking children triggers this response,
: parents need to know that and choose to avoid the practice.
I believe that one can draw a parallel here to an issue I've
raised in a different context on some of the other threads in a.p.s.:
asprin and Reyes Syndrome. Most children who take asprin never develop
Reyes Syndrome. But a minority of children appear to be at much greater
risk of developing Reyes Syndrome if given asprin than if not given
asprin. We have no way of determining in advance which children are at
risk and which children are not. Hence, the responsible course of action
is to avoid asprin entirely and to use alternatives to asprin with every
child.
They same reasoning applies here, IMO. Most spanked children do
not become fetishists. But a minority of children do appear to
permanently eroticize their childhood spankings. We have no way of
predicting in advance which child's sexuality will be permanently altered
by spankings and which child's sexuality will not. Hence, the responsible
course of action is to avoid spanking entirely and to use nonviolent
alternative discipline with every child.
Chris, who continues to exhort all of the Roegs and 2...@2.2s lurking out
there to stand up and be counted!
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: Roeg <r7...@tiac.net> wrote:
: >Maybe he is too. You can't be sure about that either. But that is
: >also not the point.
: Of course it's the point! Since Chris is saying that we are a product
: of spanking parents!
This is a distortion of my position.
Vicki, I posted several non-mutually-exclusive scenarios for how a
person who was never spanked could nevertheless become a spanking
fetishist. I know you read that particular note because you posted a
rather hysterical response in which you reacted to several of the other
scenarios I'd proposed as if they had been maliciously directed at you
personally. Ring a bell?
: Since we are this way because we were spanked as
: kids. Or most of us are, unless we are just NOT REMEMBERING or not
: admitting it etc.
I think you are taking my hypotheticals far too personally and
reacting far too defensively, Vicki. My point is not to call you a liar
or an amnesiac. My point is that the hypothesis I have proposed cannot
be falsified simply by certain spanking fetishes stating that they have
no memories of having been spanked as children. As I've explained in
earlier posts, and at considerable length, my hypothesis CAN potentially
be falsified by a failure to find significant degrees of allele sharing
among fetishists or a failure to find an elevated percentage of compliant
"good" children among spanking fetishists when compared to the general
population.
: >> AND, why then do both our kids show signs of this fetish when I
: >> honestly know neither was spanked.
: > Any kind of exposure to spanking might trigger those that are so
: >inclined to respond that way. In this culture were spanking so so
: >prevalent that it occurs daily public schools in 23 of 50 states and
: >happens almost universally at some point in families, it would be
: >difficult NOT to be exposed to spanking in some way. Heck, spanking
: >is even talked about a lot on TV.
Also, I am still not convinced that Vicki's children could not
possibly have picked up on it from her, via some subtle means. I am sure
Vicki is sincere when she says she has never exposed them to her fetish
in any way. But children can be remarkably intuitive sometimes in what
they manage to pick up from their parents. Just a thought...
: And what about the other fetishes? Let's take one like Beastiality? Is
: that due to watching dog/animal sex on TV? Is it done in schools?
: Wonder what caused THAT one.
This is TOO easy.
Some people may have gotten more love from the family dog or cat
or horse or pig than they got from anywhere else and learned to eroticize
cats or dogs or horses or pigs. Some people may possess rare mutant
alleles for pheromones which crossreact with certain infrahuman mammalian
pheromones while possessing a lower binding affinity for human pheromones.
Still other zoophiliacs may have been traumatically punished at an early
"polymorphously perverse" age for engaging in sex play with the family pet
and became fixated as a result.
Chris
Roeg
>
> 7) They were spanked as a child and now see spanking as the root of
> everything they dislike in the world and now are on a personal
> vendetta to prove that everything is somehow linked to childhood
> spanking.
>
> Take it over to alt.sex.spanking, Chris. This is inappropriate for
> alt.parenting.spanking.
>
>
Ken,
How wrong you are! I am a spanking fetishist. Have been one all
my life. I don't dislike the world. I am not on a personal vendetta.
And I do not believe that "everything" is linked to childhood
spanking.
I do know however, that my fetish is directly related to my boyhood
spankings both in substance and detail. My childhood spanking
is also related to self-esteem issues that I had to deal with in
adulthood. I also know from personal experience that raising
children to be productive, positive, happy adults need not ever
include even a single spanking.
And the only reason to limit this discussion to alt.sex.spanking is
that people, perhaps yourself included, who want to be able to
support the practice of spanking children, do not want to hear about
fetishism as a possible result of that choice. This is very much an
appropriate discussion for this parenting board. Burying your head
in the sand won't make the reality of spanking fetishism go away. And
if there is any chance that spanking children triggers this response,
parents need to know that and choose to avoid the practice.
Roeg
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: Marilyn,
: I was not asking Chris to leave alt.parenting.spanking. What I asked
: is that he not post inappropriately to alt.parenting.spanking as he
: has been doing. Chris has even been inappropriatly posting email from
: spanking fetishists. Of course if they really wanted to post here
: there is nothing to stop them. If they have opinions on the subject
: of parental spanking of children they are more than welcome.
Two points. First of all, I believe that testimonials from people
who claim that their childhood spankings turned them into
spanking-obsessed fetishists are OBVIOUSLY on-topic for
alt.parenting.spanking. It is every bit as on-topic as discussion of any
other long-term effect people believe spankings in childhood have had upon
them. If you don't agree, Ken, I'm afraid that is really just too bad. I
am sure you would be delighted to see this issue shunted off to the
alt.sex.spanking Usenet ghetto where you and other apologists for spanking
could more conveniently ignore it. Things aren't going your way. Tough.
Second of all, not everyone has access to anonymous posting, and
not everyone who does have such access knows how to use it, trusts it, or
is otherwise comfortable using it.
: Notice that spanking fetishists who are truly interested in the
: subjects discussed on alt.parenting.spanking are already here and
: posting with no help from Chris.
Except, of course, for the two who HAVE posted with my help.
What's your point?
: The subject of spanking fetish and
: its origins belongs on alt.sex.spanking.
I agree. But it also belongs on alt.parenting.spanking because of
the connection between spanking fetishism and childhood spankings which
some have made. This is one of the only topics I can think of which is
clearly relevant to both newsgroups.
: I simply suggested to Chris
: that he can carry on his study of the subject more appropriately over
: there.
: Notice that Chris posts anonymous email from those supposedly
: supporting his position that childhood spanking "causes" spanking
: fetish.
Thus far, no one has emailed me claiming otherwise.
: Frankly, I believe that one should be suspicious of such
: "anonymous" email when someone uses such a ploy to bolster their
: arguments.
For what it's worth, neither of the individuals whose email
letters I reposted used anonymous addresses when contacting ME. However,
both were quite emphatic about me stripping any identifying information
from their notes before they would give me permission to publically post
them. I should mention that in both cases it was MY idea to publically
repost these emails (after getting permission from their authors, of
course).
: After all, the person asking for anonymity could be doing
: so because they have presented a made up story...assuming the person
: really exists at all.
Insinuate whatever you like, Ken. I believe that the two reposted
letters are obviously genuine. These compelling human stories speak for
themselves. I certainly didn't write them, as even a cursory comparison
of my writing style with theirs clearly shows. And I really can't imagine
why someone else, using a non-anonymous ID, would write a phoney life
story and send it to a total stranger like myself. What would they gain
from doing so? Neither of the stories contained the sorts of lurid
details which typify spanking fetish pornography, so I doubt if the
authors were sexually aroused by writing them. I can't think of any
other plausible motives except to unburden themselves to someone whom
they felt would understand.
Chris
Alex Martelli
...
>You are absolutely right. No one can predict how an individual child
>will respond to being spanked. Spanking does teach, however. It
>teaches violence as a way to express anger and to solve problems,
I think it teaches more along the lines of "might makes right". Any
form of punishment tends to, in as much as what places the punisher
in his or her privileged position is an imbalance of power ("might");
not necessarily a physical one -- differentials of economic power
tend to work pretty well along the same lines, for example.
Rearing a child without _any_ punishment is something like an ultimate
challenge in a task, parenting, that is well-nigh impossible to do
well no matter how one tacks is -- but, it CAN be done, and it can be
pretty rewarding in the end (if you don't mind the child developing
THEIR own personality and values; punishment may be more effective
if you're determined to try and warp the child's personality to match
your own ideals, and force your own preferred values onto them).
If you justify other sorts of _punishment_, then I think this weakens
your moral stance against the corporal variety in particular. Verbal
abuse in the guise of "talking-to"'s, or assaults against personal
freedoms (aka "grounding"), also qualify for the "no one can predict
how an individual child will react" (adolescents suiciding because
of a grounding is not unheard of), and teach the same deep lesson of
"might makes right".
>believe it is time to follow the example of other countries and ban
>spanking as an allowable form of disciplining children.
Therefore putting MORE might -- the State's near-monopoly of armed
coercion -- to "prove" you're right? You seem to have learned the
"might makes right" lesson particularly well -- whether it was
through spanking, other forms of punishment, or any of the other
uncountable ways in which this favourite mindset of domesticated
primates is continually reinforced.
I can shatter a person quite effectively without laying a finger on them
(and without raising my voice, nor pronouncing one word which would
qualify as "indecent") if they're dependent on me and look to me as a
powerful figure of authority; while it is still true that "no one can
predict" the long-term effects of that on a child, I suspect they're
at least as likely to be deeply damaging on them as those of most mild
domestic violence. I have witnessed parents who claim to "always talk
with their children" do something like that -- talking TO the child,
not WITH them -- in a unilateral flow of ``lecturing'' and ``scolding''
which, though maybe not deliberately and consciously intended to be
psychologically shattering, is in my view pretty likely to have some
of that as its effect. How are you going to disallow THAT?
I suspect that the only long-term effective solution is weaning the
_whole_ culture away from its reliance on punishment. One day our
descendants will look upon our taking punishment for granted like
we look on our ancestors' acceptance of blood feuds, duels, and
personal vendettas -- with amazement and lack of understanding.
That's if humanity is lucky, of course. But then, it tends to be.
Alex
--
Alex Martelli, Bologna, Italia -- DISCLAIMER: these are only MY opinions...!
__ Man has no Body distinct from his Soul... | William Blake
\/ Energy is the only life, and is from the Body... | DID know
Energy is Eternal Delight. | where it's at...
Roeg
>
> When a person's sexual fantasies closely parallel their
> childhood
> corporal punishments down to the fine details, it is very hard
> to see how
> else one can reasonably account for this "coincidence" except
> as a case
> of eroticization of childhood corporal punishments.
I totally agree and that is precisely my situation. The most
satisfactory adult spanking sessions in which I get involved are
essentially duplicates of the spankings I received by my father.
Clothing, place, procedures, spanking position, implements used to
spank all add to the intensity of the experience and when the details
are identical to my boyhood spankings then I am most content regard-
less of which role I take. To suggest that being hardwired for
spanking accounts for the importance of such details strains
credibility as far as I am concerned. I may have been hardwired for
being predisposed to become a spanking fetishist but it was the
situation of my life that shaped and promoted and reinforced its
development.
>
> : My childhood spanking
> : is also related to self-esteem issues that I had to deal with in
> : adulthood.
>
> Please elaborate!
Being spanked was for me a dichotomous experience. On the one hand
by eroticizing the experience, I was able to endure it and to enjoy
on some level the anticipation and memory once it was over. On quite
another level, spanking made me feel insignificant, disrespected,
angry, unloved, unimportant, and worthy of having pain inflicted
upon me. It went a long way in destroying any positive relationship
I might have had with my father, caused me to respond negatively to
him and to avoid association with him in other situations.
Given my family status, educational level and
employment, by most standards I would be considered a success and a
shining example of how spanking has no real negative impact. I
do wonder, however, if I might not have accomplished far more had I
not had to deal with a significant amount of anger, self-doubt and
poor self-esteem which spanking created in me.
Parents who choose to spank take an unnecessary and dangerous chance
in my opinion.
Parents who cannot distinquish between discipline and punishment
(corporal punishment in particular) do a major disservice to the
children they love.
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu ( ) wrote:
: > No, Chris did not. I have never called you a liar, Vicki. I
: >wish you would please repost the passage from a note of mine in which you
: >think I accused you of this. The fact is, you can't. So I wish you
: >would please stop claiming I called you a liar.
: Certainly, be very happy to, and I quote:
: > 3) They actually were spanked, but won't admit it for political
: >reasons.
: Didya check out #3 Chris???? If that's not saying we are lying then
: just what IS it????? Not admitting is the same as lying. If someone
: asks you something and you don't tell them the truth, you are not
: admitting the truth. You are LYING....
In other words, Vicki, I never called you a liar, and you are
unable to post anything of mine in which I did. You have GOT to stop
taking every general statement I make as if it was aimed at you
personally. The world does not revolve around you, Vicki.
In the note of mine which you quote above, I was listing every
conceivable possibility for why I thought some spanking fetishists would
say they weren't spanked as children, including three or four possible
ways that someone might become a fetishist without having been spanked. I
have not accused anyone in particular, least of all you, of lying about
their childhood and don't plan to.
The fact remains that I have not accused you of lying, Vicki, and
I think it is high time you got off your high horse.
Chris
LordRedbun
writes:
>In article <4i71n3$b...@carbon.cudenver.edu>, cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu (
)
>writes:
>
>>Chris, who continues to urge spanking fetishists who believe that
>>childhood spankings influenced their sexual development to post on this
>>thread and make yourselves heard!
>
>Hello. Yes...I enjoy consensual spanking between adults, yet I do have
>my own opinions on spanking as punishment for children. I do not believe
>that being spanked as a child causes one to become a spanking fetishist
>later on in life.
I want to briefly elaborate on Steven's opinion here with a bit of
editorializing on my own. Do some people, as a matter of emotional
self-defense, eroticize their childhood spankings? Probably. Do RL
childhood experiences influence adult interest in erotic spanking?
Sometimes.
That having been said, it is my firm opinion, based on discussions with a
large crossection of spankophiles that while RL childhood spankings,
experienced, witnessed or both, MIGHT in some cases serve as a catalyst
for a later interest in spanking as an adult, the predisposition was
already there to begin with.
As I have often said on this NG, I was occassionally spanked as a child.
As a late baby boomer child (born in the mid 50's) spanking was considered
a normal and common form of childhood punishment. Yet, even though as a
switch I often find myself blissfully turned over a feminine knee (well,
maybe not as often as I want, but that's a different story), I have NEVER
incorporated ANY of my RL childhood experiences into either my fantasy or
RL spanking scenarios. The way I see it, I am into spanking because I am
into spanking - NOT because of anything I went through as a child.
This is not to invalidate the experiences of those who DO incorporate
their RL experiences into their adult spanking activities. It simply
means that we are all different and that what triggers (but not causes)
the awareness of a spanking fetish varies tremendously from person to
person.
I still strongly believe, that while RL events may TRIGGER that fetish,
for the core spankophile, it is as much a matter of our hardwired sexual
orientation as being hetero-, bi- or homosexual is. If the hardwiring
isn't there, the kind of moderate, or even semi-frequent level of
childhood spankings that were considered normal prior to, say, the 70's
would not make any difference. Look at all the millions of people who
were spanked or witnessed spankings during that era who DIDN'T become
spankophiles as evidence of what I am saying.
Just one man's semi-humble opinion.
David Knight - Spanks 'R Us (Los Angeles Branch)
"Your Lap or Mine?" ®
SFPo8
Roeg writes:
> The most satisfactory adult spanking sessions in which I get involved
are
> essentially duplicates of the spankings I received by my father.
> spanking accounts for the importance of such details strains
> credibility as far as I am concerned. I may have been hardwired for
> being predisposed to become a spanking fetishist but it was the
> situation of my life that shaped and promoted and reinforced its
> development.
spanking "cause" fetishism are maintaining.
Yes, we do think that we are "hardwired for being predisposed to become a
spanking fetishist."
Once that hardwiring is in place, the specific elements which are
eroticized will be determined by varying factors. Some children who are
spanked will eroticize those events and some will not. Others who are not
spanked will eroticize stories, or observed spankings, or accounts of
spankings. The details will be different for each person, and each will
have a different "reason" which they give for having become a spanking
fetishist.
The point is that the hardwiring is a sufficient cause to explain *why* we
are fetishists. The kind and type of fetishist will be determined by
circumstances, but those circumstances are neither a sufficient cause nor
a necessary cause.
In other words, no one is denying Roeg's belief that the spankings he
received in childhood were eroticized and became part of his fetishism.
The comic books I read in childhood were eroticized and became part of
mine. I thought they were a "cause"; he thinks spankings were a cause. But
it is a more parsimonious explanation (to use Chris' language) to say that
neither were causes. They just shaped the nature of the fetishism.
In other words, if I had been spanked, I would very likely have eroticized
those events, and probably thought they caused my later fetishism. And if
Roeg had not been spanked, his fetishism would have taken a different
form.
It does not strain credibility to assert that Chris' theory of genetic
disposition would be sufficient to account for all fetishism, with other
factors accounting of the particular type of fetishism. Once might say,
"God made me a fetishist; spankings are the specifc fetishism I adopted."
What straings credibility is that spankings alone could *cause* a fetish
when more counter examples (all the unspanked fetisishists and spanked
non-festishists) exist.
Hal
John Palmer
: So, why do people continue to subject children to this totally
: unnecessary risk? Because, in spite of all evidence, and in spite of
: all logic, they refuse to admit that it is a risk. And that is why I
: believe it is time to follow the example of other countries and ban
: spanking as an allowable form of disciplining children.
We should then also outlaw pornography. While we're at it, let's
outlaw speech that causes people to get upset, because that's a risk too,
especially in the political arena, because it might cause bad legislation
to be passed. And. . .you know, some things that don't really upset people
still produce strong emotion, so let's ditch those, because they can be an
outlet for that upset. Maybe we can get Ray Bradbury to write a book about
such a society. . . Maybe we could name it after the temperature at which
books will burn.
Roeg
>>We should then also outlaw pornography.
We do outlaw pornography as it applies to chidren. Subjecting
children to pornography IS illegal. Forcing children to participate
in pornography is illegal. It's considered child abuse.
>> While we're at it, let's outlaw speech that causes people to get
upset, because that's a risk too, especially in the political
arena, because it might cause bad legislation to be passed.
Your comparisons of the outlawing of free speech to guaranteeing
the bodily integrity of chidlren is ludicrous. Just as ludicrous
as it would be to compare the outlawing of wife-beating to the
outlawing of free-speech.
> And. . .you know, some things that don't really upset people
> still produce strong emotion, so let's ditch those, because they can be an
> outlet for that upset. Maybe we can get Ray Bradbury to write a book about
> such a society. . . Maybe we could name it after the temperature at which
> books will burn.
Your argument strains credibility to the breaking point. To try
to equate providing basic protections to ALL citizens including
children (who are needful of the most protection) to loss of free
speech rights is a meaningless stretch of illogical proportions.
NtyVanessa
sexual & that the buttocks is an erogenous zone more for some than for
others.Most infants are touched & many (of us
spankophiles,probably)sexually aroused from early on. Later the taboo
element gets added & excitement becomes part of our association to the
bare ass. In questioning spanking enthusiasts-informally-there is not a
consensus on having been or not been spanked as prerequisite to becoming a
lover of the fetish. Some tell me that they knew they liked it & were
"bad" on purpose to get spanked more;others hated their spankings;others
were yearning for them-& none of this seems to have a general bearing on
one's preferences for giving,receiving,or switching & in what percentage
of which role. It really is as individual as each person.
I write as a clinician with expertise in developmental psych.,sexuality,&
shame. I write also as a female spanking enthusiast who prefers to receive
but enjoys switching(literally if desired) if it pleasures &/or excites my
partner. I wasn't spanked but was intrigued & aroused by the idea from age
2 on. My masturbatory fantasies changed as I grew older,becoming more
"age-appropriate" to a certain degree (from wishing I was a Sweetpea baby
in a Popeye cartoon -getting spanked-to pretending I was a boarding school
pupil being punished as in Victorian PEARL-type lit. to "Penthouse
Variations" type scenarios,etc.,etc.,etc.),but I remain happily willing to
engage in all kinds of scenarios involving naughty girls from age7 thru
adulthood!
I believe that for me the attraction to spanking is a combination of my
status as a neglected,ignored child pining for attention-which is
certainly given during a spanking-& the fact that the nerve endings of my
bottom are very sensitive & connected to orgasmic sites. I was the "best
little girl in the world" for fear of cold unacceptance,and envied friends
whose parents took the time to teach them discipline via c.p. Those
friends could misbehave,be punished,and then be forgiven & shown love. I
think that I seek that scenario repeatedly in my spanking scenarios.That's
it for now-any reactions,friends?
SFPo8
Chris first wrote:
|: >For one thing, a common statement one hears about the childhood of
|: >fetishists is that they felt ashamed and kept it a secret.
And I responded
|: Yes. Just as gays once did. And most enlightened adults understand
that
|: you cannot "prevent" gayness but just accept it.
And he wrote:
| I question whether very many gay children felt ashamed about it
|during their preschool years . . . Yet, fetishist children do often
appear to feel
| shame about their fixations, even if no one ever told them they were
wrong.
How did "pre-school" creep into this discussion? Are you denying that
children who were gay once felt shame, still often do? You have added an
age factor to bolster your position; remove it, and the parallel is still
there.
|: So even a tolerant and well-meaning advocate like Chris may actually be
|: supporting, by his stance, an attitude which brands certain people as
|: perverse, which is the reason I bother to argue with him.
| I think you have this backwards, Hal. Intolerance of
| homosexuality led to parental efforts to stamp out any sign of gayness
in
| their children, not visaversa. I do not believe that research into
| possible roots of spanking fetishism will precipitate a societal
| backlash against fetishists.
I don't see what is backwards here at all. There is no reason to stamp out
something unless one is intolerant of it. Chris uses the argument
"spanking may cause fetishists" to bolster his no-spanking stance. He
must, therefore, think fetishism is bad, or why try to avoid it? If
spanking produced an effect which Chris thought was good, or neutral,
would he be discussing that?
As to the "societal backlash" against fetishists, I think Chris displays
an insensitivity to what it is like to walk in our shoes. We don't need a
backlash (in spite of the intriguing hidden pun there). There is enough
animosity already.
|As for gaining acceptance, I still maintain that there is no
|connection between theorizing that at least some spanking fetishisms are
|caused by childhood spankings, and a lack of societal tolerance for
|consensual behavior of adult fetishists.
No connection between theorizing as to causes, if that was all you did.
But you use that *theory* as a *reason* not to spank.
Let me try it this way: I will theorize that living in Colorado makes
people dogmatic and sometimes opinionated. Just a theory. Testing that
theory by examining posts from Colorado doesn't mean I think being
dogmatic and opinionated is bad, does it? Theorizing that some dogmatists
are the way they are because of where they live does not mean I am
opposing dogmatism. Or does it? How does it *feel* to you?
| The jury is still out on the origin of homosexual orientation,
|btw. Considerable controversy still exists.
Yes. Agreed. But there is some evidence which points to genetic factors
without regard to actual events. Not much, if any, hard evidence for
causation of homosexuality by parental behaviors. Chris himself suggests a
genetic predispostion for fetishism. Both are sexual orientations.
Obvious parallel. Why the strong resistence to that parallel?
| Robert Stoller theorized that "perversion" is eroticized hatred.
| If unintegratable emotions of hatred aroused by spankings become
| eroticized in some children, the source of the guilt would be obvious.
| No societal attitude need be present.
"Perversion" is a label people put on the behaviors of others. Then they
try to explain it.
We no longer label masturbation as perversion, so we do not try to explain
it or prevent it. We no longer label oral sex or anal sex as perversion,
so we do not need to explain it or prevent it. Those who do not label
homosexuality as perversion need not explain it or try to prevent it
either.
Chris wants to prevent spanking, and he uses the possible consequence of
adult fetishism as a reason. To do this, he has to label it as a
perversion or there would be no reason to prevent it. What I keep asking,
but sadly without results, is for him to stop using "us" as a reason not
to spank.
Hal - who thinks Stoller (and Chris) should look for eroticized hatred as
the cause of witchcraft and would find an equal amount of evidence.
SFPo8
Chris continues to confuse adult fantasies with sexual orientation
| Since I can't imagine how, for instance, Roeg could have grown up
|to have fantasies which match his childhood spankings in every detail
|without there being some causal relationship, I really can't imagine ever
| changing my mind.
This is really Chris being deaf. One more time: Roeg could grow up to have
fantasies about his childhood spankings without the spanking having
"caused" the fetishism. All adult fetishist have *fantasies*; some
fantasies are derived from real events, some from other sources. Our
fantasies derive from our experience. Our fetishism need not derive from
any specific event. If it did, mine would derive from reading comic
books, because my fantasies are still of being Huey, Dewey, or Louie being
spanked by Donald Duck! (That did not really happen, Chris, but my
fantasies are very clear in every detail).
A sexual fantasy might or might not be of an actual occurrence, and one's
fantasies are incorporated into one's sexual oreintation. But to claim
that the occurrence (a childhood spanking) caused a sexual *orientation*
in some people, and not in others, and that still others have the same
orientation without that occurrence, is to reduce the concept of "cause"
to absurdity.
|Chris, who thinks Hal worries too much about things which really aren't a
|threat.
Hal - who would lose his job, and his standing in his community if his
orientation were known, and who thinks Chris is too ready to dismiss the
feelings of others in pursuit of his personal crusade.
NtyVanessa
PLease forgive my lack of "netiquette" in my response to your
post-RE:Origins of Spanking Fetish. I'm new online & didn't realize until
after I sent my statement that I should have quoted you & explained what
message I was responding to,or that it helps everyone reading to know who
& what that was,
Your ideas were very interesting to me & being a bit too eager to join in,
I just dashed off a quick reply in a sort of brainstorm. Obviously,your
topic is important to me and I wish I'd known a little more about writing
to a newsgroup before I did it so crassly.
Other paticipants,please forgive my lack of tactfulness. I guess I deserve
(another spanking)!
SFPo8
Chris writes to Vicki:
> In other words, Vicki, I never called you a liar, and you are
> unable to post anything of mine in which I did. You have GOT to stop
> taking every general statement I make as if it was aimed at you
> personally. The world does not revolve around you, Vicki.
[snip]
> The fact remains that I have not accused you of lying, Vicki, and
> I think it is high time you got off your high horse.
Having previously called Chris tolerant and understanding, I feel obliged
to note that in this case he is being arrogant and nit-picking. He did
suggest that people like Vicki and I, who deny being spanked, might be
doing so for PC reasons, andt hen said, well, he didn't necessarily mean
us. She took it as an accusation of lying, and why shouldn't she?
A general statement: people who were spanked as children may have been so
angry about it that they can never get over their childish rage and
feelings of unjust treatment so that they spend an entire lifetime trying
to prove that they should not have been spanked by proving that no one
should ever be spanked. Of course, Chris, I am not talking about *you,*
personally; the world does not revolve around you, so don't feel that my
suggestion applies to you. It is just a general statement.
Hal
SFPo8
ntyva...@aol.com (NtyVanessa) writes:
[a long and very convincing comment about how infants may be aroused by
touching, and how such touching could be a source of sexualization
involving the buttocks with or without any spanking having occurred]
> I write as a clinician with expertise in developmental
psych.,sexuality,&
> shame. I write also as a female spanking enthusiast who prefers to
receive
> but enjoys switching(literally if desired) if it pleasures &/or excites
my
> partner. I wasn't spanked but was intrigued & aroused by the idea from
age
> 2 on. My masturbatory fantasies changed as I grew older,becoming more
> "age-appropriate" to a certain degree (from wishing I was a Sweetpea
baby
> in a Popeye cartoon -getting spanked-to pretending I was a boarding
school
> pupil being punished as in Victorian PEARL-type lit.. . . .
> I believe that for me the attraction to spanking is a combination of my
> status as a neglected,ignored child pining for attention-which is
> certainly given during a spanking-& the fact that the nerve endings of
my
> bottom are very sensitive & connected to orgasmic sites. I was the "best
> little girl in the world" for fear of cold unacceptance,and envied
friends
>whose parents took the time to teach them discipline via c.p
Another testimony from someone who believes that spanking has nothing to
do with creating fetishists, that the tendency is there very early, and
that non-spanking may "cause" a fetish equally as much as spanking
"causes" the fetish.
Keeping track, Chris? Runs at least two-to-one against your point of
view, doesn't it?
Hal
SFPo8
Chris' response to my major post on this topic is not in total
disagreement, but he still just doesn't seem to be grasping some of what I
am trying to say, or is not willing to.
>: 3. Personal note: I think growing up with a fetish, as a child, which
I
>: had to keep secret from the world, was something which shaped my
>: character, gave me tolerance of others, a certain degree of self-doubt
and
>: insecurity, and a sense that I was different and somehow guilty because
of
>: that difference and the need to keep it secret.
> The fact that you felt guilty and needed to keep your sexual
> orientation a secret at age 5 ties in to one of the reasons I believe
> fetishism is an undesirable thing to create in children. Growing up is
>already very difficult to do without extra burdens of guilt being added
on.
When you say you believe "fetishism is an undesirable thing to create in
children" you assume what you chose to prove. You assume that it can be
created. I assume it cannot.
My intent was to show why childhood fetishism might be tied to certain
behaviors (being "good) which would be true whether it was created or
innate. You have proposed that fetishists are often "good" children, and I
have suggested a reason why, and you have ignored the reason to again
state your prejudice about another issue.
Hal - a good child, but not for the reasons Chris want to believe
Kevin Shubert
>will respond to being spanked. Spanking does teach, however. It
>teaches violence as a way to express anger and to solve problems,
>lack of respect. And, at best, the only thing spanking can do is
>temporarily suppress behavior in the presence of the spanker.
Boy, I must have been a terrible pupil...because I never learned that violence
was a way to express anger & solve problems. Nor did I have a low
self-esteem, and I had much respect for my elders.
Suprisingly (oops, guess I don't fit into your generalization), I did not
supress my behavior in the presence of my parents...I simply did not do that
behavior again.
There comes a time when people outside of the family should remain outside of
the family. People do not need outsiders or the government to run every
aspect of the household.
Susan.
Amy Olivier Calvin
(Barbara A Gilley) wrote:
> >NNTP-Posting-Host: 38.13.121.166
> >X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82
> >
>
> >Of course the example you give of susan smith shouldn't be protected by
law. She should've received the same treatment she gave those kids. I
don't think by any definition you can find that what she was trying to do
was related to discipline.
No-one in here is condoning excessive force or abuse.....:-(
Chris C.
Austin, TX
Witness
>He did suggest that people like Vicki and I, who deny being
>spanked, might be doing so for PC reasons, andt hen said,
>well, he didn't necessarily mean us. She took it as an
>accusation of lying, and why shouldn't she?
I seem to remember that that was one in an _exhaustive_ list
of _possible_ explanations for why Vicki might deny
remembering being spanked. You should read it in that
context I think. I never thought he _really_ stated that
that was the case.
>A general statement: people who were spanked as children may
>have been so angry about it that they can never get over
>their childish rage and feelings of unjust treatment so that
>they spend an entire lifetime trying to prove that they
>should not have been spanked by proving that no one should
>ever be spanked. Of course, Chris, I am not talking about
>*you,* personally; the world does not revolve around you, so
>don't feel that my suggestion applies to you. It is just a
>general statement.
However that general statement applies to _me._ So:
It's like saying that: people who have been sexually abused as
children may have been so angry about it that... [etc. etc.]
... by proving that no one should ever be sexually abused.
(Here I go again: equating harsh spankings to rape. Ah
well. Don't be offended: I realise there's a _big_
difference between spanking and rape. Spanking involves the
_back_ side and rape the _front_ side. So they're each other
_opposites!_ How stupid of me!)
Witness
Swithcnm
The bottom line is that the punisment should fit the crime.
If your looking for ways to elimate voleince in the home. Turn off you TV
and
Radio. The media has effect our kids.
Roeg
>That strongly suggests to me that the incidence of whether or not you
>were spanked as a kid is not a strong influence on whether you get
>interested later in life.
I have been involved in adult spanking for approximately 30 years.
Your experience has been totally different from mine in as much as the
large number of people with whom I have associated did see a rather
strong connection between childhood spanking and the development and
particulars of their spanking fetish.
My experience strongly suggests to me that the incidence of
whether or not you were spanked as a kid is a very strong influence
on whether or not you get interested later in life.
And in some cases, myself included, the fetish developed early in
life and was recognized as sexual as early as age 11 or 12.
Disciplinary spankings by my father only sought to enhance and
reinforce the sexual response.
Roeg
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
[snip]
: It does not strain credibility to assert that Chris' theory of genetic
: disposition would be sufficient to account for all fetishism, with other
: factors accounting of the particular type of fetishism. Once might say,
: "God made me a fetishist; spankings are the specifc fetishism I adopted."
: What straings credibility is that spankings alone could *cause* a fetish
: when more counter examples (all the unspanked fetisishists and spanked
: non-festishists) exist.
My hypothesis (it couldn't really be called a theory yet without
more empirical backing) states that predisposition to fetishes of any kind
should be the result of loading for additive genes coding for increased
plasticity of a neural template for sexual imprinting of the brain by the
environment. I seriously doubt if there is a "gene for spanking
fetishism" in particular. The possibility seems quite off-the-wall to me.
Differences within the population with regards to genetic loading would
account for why the majority of spanked children do not become fetishists.
As I have already repeatedly pointed out, the existence of people who were
spanked in childhood who did not become fetishists does not constitute a
"counterexample" to my hypothesis. Indeed, my hypothesis predicts that
the majority of spanked children will not become fetishists, only those
genetically loaded with the hypothetical additive genes. This is because
the laws of probability dictate that only a minority will be genetically
loaded in this manner.
Chris
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: Chris first wrote:
: |: >For one thing, a common statement one hears about the childhood of
: |: >fetishists is that they felt ashamed and kept it a secret.
: And I responded
: |: Yes. Just as gays once did. And most enlightened adults understand
: |: that
: |: you cannot "prevent" gayness but just accept it.
: And he wrote:
: | I question whether very many gay children felt ashamed about it
: |during their preschool years . . . Yet, fetishist children do often
: |appear to feel
: | shame about their fixations, even if no one ever told them they were
: wrong.
: How did "pre-school" creep into this discussion?
It has "crept in" because so many fetishists have traced their
obsession back to extremely young ages. The age of two has popped up more
than once, if I recall.
: Are you denying that
: children who were gay once felt shame, still often do? You have added an
: age factor to bolster your position; remove it, and the parallel is still
: there.
I don't believe the parallel is a valid one. I don't think gay
children would feel ashamed or secretive if they hadn't experienced
society's censure of homosexuality. On the other hand, I certainly was
not aware of social censure of spanking fetishism when I was growing up.
I certainly heard lots of negative stuff about "queers" and "faggots" but
I never heard the term "spanking fetishist" until a few years ago. Yet,
in the delurk notes on a.s.s. one hears again and again how the fetishist
thought they were the only one in the world who felt this way, yet one
also frequently hears that it was a shameful secret just the same. This
indicates to me that social censure could not have been the cause of this
shame. Any awareness of social censure of spanking fetishists would have
tipped off the child that they really WEREN'T the only one in the world
who eroticized spanking.
: |: So even a tolerant and well-meaning advocate like Chris may actually be
: |: supporting, by his stance, an attitude which brands certain people as
: |: perverse, which is the reason I bother to argue with him.
I reject the suggestion that exploring the putative childhood
origins of spanking fetishism brands anyone as inferior or worthy of
scorn. I consider birth defects an undesirable outcome, and urge pregnant
mothers not to take thalidomide for that reason. I believe there is a
clear causal connection between maternal thalidomide ingestion during
pregnancy and birth defects, as does the rest of the scientific community.
Please note, Hal, that our understanding of the causes of the thalidomide
baby syndrome have not lead to a cultural backlash against people with
birth defects. I still fail to see why you are so convinced that merely
proposing a testable hypothesis linking at least some spanking fetishism
to childhood traumas will create a backlash against spanking fetishists,
or that identifying a preventable cause of at least some forms of spanking
fetishism will do likewise.
: | I think you have this backwards, Hal. Intolerance of
: | homosexuality led to parental efforts to stamp out any sign of gayness
: | in
: | their children, not visaversa. I do not believe that research into
: | possible roots of spanking fetishism will precipitate a societal
: | backlash against fetishists.
: I don't see what is backwards here at all. There is no reason to stamp out
: something unless one is intolerant of it.
You seem to be arguing my position for me, Hal. I am saying that
the societal intolerance caused attempts to prevent gayness in children.
In this last passage you are arguing the same point. But what you
originally argued was that attempts to prevent gayness in children lead to
societal intolerance, not the reverse. Your point was that avoiding
spanking children in order not to turn them into fetishists would somehow
cause a backlash against adult spanking fetishists. Your reasoning
continues to elude me. I continue to believe that you are pointing the
casual arrow in the wrong direction and that avoiding creating traumas for
children to eroticize will have not promote societal intolerance towards
those who did eroticize their childhood traumas.
: Chris uses the argument
: "spanking may cause fetishists" to bolster his no-spanking stance. He
: must, therefore, think fetishism is bad, or why try to avoid it?
Yes, I do. To be ANY kind of fetishist means a much smaller pool
of potential sexual partners, no matter how accepting society may be of
the fetish. Furthermore, since society is still not very accepting of
fetishes, this constitutes another needless burden which no caring parent
would place on their child if they knew how to avoid doing so. You have
got to stop taking this as an attack on adult fetishists, Hal. It isn't.
: If
: spanking produced an effect which Chris thought was good, or neutral,
: would he be discussing that?
You are conflating "fetishism" with "fetishists" Hal. The two are
not the same thing. One can be against birth defects without being
against people who have them. Similarly, one can be in favor of avoiding
creating fetishisms in children whenever possible, while not having any
particular prejudice against fetishists themselves.
To pick yet another analogy, I am an asthmatic. I am in favor of
avoiding creating asthma in children whenever possible. I think that
asthma is an undesirable outcome. However, I don't think I am an inferior
human being because I have asthma, nor do I feel that way about other
asthmatics. Furthermore, I do NOT view with alarm research into the
origins of asthma for fear that it will create a societal backlash against
asthmatics. To me, there is simply no logical connection between the
two.
: As to the "societal backlash" against fetishists, I think Chris displays
: an insensitivity to what it is like to walk in our shoes. We don't need a
: backlash (in spite of the intriguing hidden pun there). There is enough
: animosity already.
Before I can be "sensitive" to something, I first must be
convinced that it exists. I continue to reject your linkage between the
pursuit of greater understanding of the origins of fetishisms and a
societal backlash. I just don't see how one follows from the other. Has
it occurred to you, Hal, that since the present state of general ignorance
about human sexuality is consistent with a high level of societal
"animosity," perhaps greater understanding might actually BENEFIT the
social standing of fetishists rather than diminish it? Indeed, this
outcome seems more likely to me. After all, if I am correct and many of
the current adult spanking fetishists became that way because of spankings
in their childhood environment, greater understanding of this would almost
HAVE to result in greater societal tolerance. After all, how can one
really condemn someone for something which happened to them when they were
young and helpless and over which they had no control? If any "backlash"
occurs, it will be a backlash against the parental use of spanking on
helpless, unconsenting children. THIS, of course, is one type
of backlash which I am more than happy to promote.
: |As for gaining acceptance, I still maintain that there is no
: |connection between theorizing that at least some spanking fetishisms are
: |caused by childhood spankings, and a lack of societal tolerance for
: |consensual behavior of adult fetishists.
: No connection between theorizing as to causes, if that was all you did.
: But you use that *theory* as a *reason* not to spank.
Yes, I do. For reasons already stated, I don't think I would want
any child of mine to grow up to be a fetishist if I knew how to avoid it.
For that matter, if I could push one of two buttons affecting my child's
sexual development - one button labelled "gay" and the other labelled
"straight" - I would not hesitate to push the button labelled "straight."
By growing up heterosexual, my child would have the largest possible
selection of potential sex partners and therefore the best chances of
finding happiness with an especially compatible partner. Additionally, as
long as societal intolerance to gays exists, pushing the "straight" button
would save my child from any unhappiness this might cause as well.
However, lest there be any misunderstanding, if my child DID grow up gay I
would accept them as they were, would stand by them, and would not love
them any less for being gay.
The same reasoning applies to having the choice of pushing a
button labeled "spanking fetishist." I would not push it. But this
doesn't mean I would disown or otherwise reject a child who grew up to be
a spanking fetishist. Because of the small number of potential sexual
partners and because of societal intolerance, my fetishist child would
need my love and emotional support even more. Perhaps, Hal, if you
recognize the distinction I am drawing between fetishism and fetishists
you won't react so defensively to my hypotheses. Please think about what
I am really saying here, Hal, and perhaps we can wind up saving each other
a lot of time wasted in future needless argument regarding nonissues like
this one.
: Let me try it this way: I will theorize that living in Colorado makes
: people dogmatic and sometimes opinionated. Just a theory. Testing that
: theory by examining posts from Colorado doesn't mean I think being
: dogmatic and opinionated is bad, does it? Theorizing that some dogmatists
: are the way they are because of where they live does not mean I am
: opposing dogmatism. Or does it? How does it *feel* to you?
I don't *feel* much of anything, really. Your suggestion does
inspire some *thoughts* though. I am open to the suggestion that
geographical residence may sometimes affect temperment in subtle ways.
For example, perhaps elevated levels of lead in the water supply may be
making people in a certain region more intolerant of others, unreasonable,
and prone to angry outburst and paranoid behaviors. Lead toxicity has
been known to affect behavior in this manner. Eating magnesium-deficient
foods, which may relate to low magnesium content in local soils, can also
adversely affect behavior. Perhaps the high average altitude of Colorado
has some sort of influence on our dogmatism. To see if there really is a
relationship between Colorado residence and intolerant behavior, a large,
controlled study would be needed. We would need to develop a clear,
operational definition of "dogmatism." Also, every other likely cause of
dogmtism should be controlled for or else allowed to cancel itself out
among large numbers of randomly selected respondents. Then we'd see if
the presumed relationship between Colorado living and dogmatism remained
or not. I would definitely not feel personally affronted and threatened
by such a study. If there is something harmful about living in Colorado I
would definitely want to know!
: | The jury is still out on the origin of homosexual orientation,
: |btw. Considerable controversy still exists.
: Yes. Agreed. But there is some evidence which points to genetic factors
: without regard to actual events. Not much, if any, hard evidence for
: causation of homosexuality by parental behaviors. Chris himself suggests a
: genetic predispostion for fetishism. Both are sexual orientations.
: Obvious parallel. Why the strong resistence to that parallel?
Since we still do not know what causes homosexuality, Hal, you can
make it "parallel" whatever you wish. It is true that significant degrees
of allele sharing (actually, sharing of genetic markers) have been found
at a locus somewhere in the Xq28 region for pairs of gay male brothers in
contrast to pairs of non-gay brothers, and for non-gay brothers of gay
men. However, some gay men to not share these same markers, while some
heterosexual men do possess them. Furthermore, there have been cases
reported in the literature of identical twins who grew up discordant for
homosexual orientation: i.e. one twin grew up gay, while the other twin
grew up straight, a fact which makes a simple genetic explanation
untenable. The fact is, Hal, we do not know much yet about why some
people are straight and some are gay. Progress is gradually being made,
and the societal standing of gays progressing as well. (I don't think
there is necessarily a causal relationship between the two trends, btw.
But research into the origins of homosexuality is not triggering any huge
societal backlashes yet, either). I fail to see why research into
spanking fetishism should be any different.
: | Robert Stoller theorized that "perversion" is eroticized hatred.
: | If unintegratable emotions of hatred aroused by spankings become
: | eroticized in some children, the source of the guilt would be obvious.
: | No societal attitude need be present.
: "Perversion" is a label people put on the behaviors of others. Then they
: try to explain it.
Giving things names is a standard human way of beginning to try
and understand them better. It is a key element in how our left cerebral
hemispheres process information. I see nothing wrong with giving a
certain behavior a name and then trying to explain it. Obviously you do.
Have you ever read any of Robert Stoller's books, Hal? The woman
whose email letter I reposted awhile back mentioned having read Stoller
extensively, if I recall. She doesn't seem to feel that Stoller
dehumanizes her as a spanking fetishist, for what that's worth.
: We no longer label masturbation as perversion, so we do not try to explain
: it or prevent it.
The ground has shifted only slightly. Where childhood
masturbation was once viewed as a sin, it later became medicalized as a
perversion (which Kraft-Ebbing called "onanism"). Now it is viewed by
many as a symptom of child sexual abuse which should trigger an
investigation of every male adult in that child's life. If you don't
think there are attempts to "explain" masturbation anymore, Hal, then you
aren't reading the current social work and child abuse journals.
: We no longer label oral sex or anal sex as perversion,
: so we do not need to explain it or prevent it.
In some U.S. states, oral and anal sex are still on the books as
criminal offenses. You have picked a poor example.
: Those who do not label
: homosexuality as perversion need not explain it or try to prevent it
: either.
Actually, there is a great deal of interest in the origins of
homosexuality. If you doubt this, run a word search on "homosexual*" in
any large database of academic research literature. Furthermore, Donald
Wildmon and others have publically stated that if a "gay gene" exists,
children should be screened for it and "cured" if at all possible.
Ironically, in the gay movement, it is generally considered politically
correct to buy into a 'social constructionist' explanation for sexual
orientation. Genetic research is seen as an evil plot to identify gays,
label them "sick," and retaliate against them. This is the opposite of
the position you seem to be taking, Hal: that exploring possible childhood
ENVIRONMENTAL influences on spanking fetishism is a threat to fetishists,
while suggesting that spanking fetishists were just "born that way" is
not. But I digress.
My point is, Hal, there is PLENTY of interest in explaining
homosexuality. This has lead to some angry responses from certain gay
activists who claim that any such theorizing is a threat to gay people.
I see such research as leading eventually towards a general theory of
human sexuality which can explain all sexual orientations, from the
rarest fetish to heterosexuality. It is not necessary to condemn
homosexuals in order to want to study the origins of homosexual
orientation. It is not necessary to label adult spanking fetishists as
inferior in order to study the origins of fetishism, either.
: Chris wants to prevent spanking, and he uses the possible consequence of
: adult fetishism as a reason. To do this, he has to label it as a
: perversion or there would be no reason to prevent it. What I keep asking,
: but sadly without results, is for him to stop using "us" as a reason not
: to spank.
And I keep explaining why I consider any kind of a fetish or other
rare sexual orientation an undesirable outcome in the child if such can be
prevented. I also continue to maintain that taking this position need not
translate into a societal backlash against adult fetishists any more than
attempts to eliminate environmentally-caused birth defects need translate
into a backlash against adults with birth defects. This has nothing to do
with labeling people "perverts" for the purposes of a planet-wide pogrom,
and everything to do with making the child's developmental journey as
unburdensome as we can manage.
Chris
Barbara A Gilley
I think you may have missed my point. I was not saying that Smith was
attempting to discipline her kids. I was saying that her claim that it
was not her intent to kill them is irrelevant to the outcome. In my
opinion, the same holds true with respect to child abuse. If a child
ends up brain damaged as a result of a parent's discipline (not something
I haven't seen in my working experience as a counselor), the parent's
intent at that point really doesn't make much of a difference in my
book. The damage is done.
As to what is being condoned here, I have read messages here where,
in my opinion, excessive force and abuse most certainly was condoned. I'm
not into spitting contests, so let's just leave it at that. If you want to
agree to disagree on that point, fine with me. I think we've all
demonstrated that we can read and comprehend what we read. Let each person
draw their own conclusions about what has been posted in this NG.
I can't predict the future. I can't predict with 100 percent accuracy
which parenting situation will get out of hand and result in permanent
damage or death and which ones won't. Can you?
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
[NtyVanessa's note snipped]
: Another testimony from someone who believes that spanking has nothing to
: do with creating fetishists, that the tendency is there very early, and
: that non-spanking may "cause" a fetish equally as much as spanking
: "causes" the fetish.
Actually, what jumped out at me while reading Vanessa's note was
the fact that she traced her sexual obsession with spanking, in part, to
a traumatic lack of parental attention in childhood. Vanessa noted that
being spanked involved a child getting a parent's full and undivided
attention, at least briefly. This actually fits my model quite well. If
I am correct, Vanessa developed a fetish as a way of coping with
traumatic overload in childhood. I would predict a heightened level of
shared alleles among Vanessa and other fetishists coding for a low
threshold for imprinting of an hypothetical neural template. This
genetic predisposition would not "cause" someone to develop a fetish, but
it would increase the odds of developing a fetish in the presence of the
right environmental factors (such as traumatic overload).
: Keeping track, Chris? Runs at least two-to-one against your point of
: view, doesn't it?
Actually, I am not "keeping track," Hal. This is a scientific
question, IMO, not a question which can be settled by a majority vote. I
don't really care what percentage of spanking fetishists agree with me and
what percentage don't. What would falsify my hypothesis would be a
failure to find the predicted heightened degree of allele sharing among
fetishists by a large, well-done population genetics study, not the
results of a self-selected opinion poll.
Chris
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: Hal:
: >He did suggest that people like Vicki and I, who deny being
: >spanked, might be doing so for PC reasons, andt hen said,
: >well, he didn't necessarily mean us. She took it as an
: >accusation of lying, and why shouldn't she?
: I seem to remember that that was one in an _exhaustive_ list
: of _possible_ explanations for why Vicki might deny
: remembering being spanked. You should read it in that
: context I think. I never thought he _really_ stated that
: that was the case.
Actually, the exhaustive list was of possible explanations for
why any spanking fetishist might not report having been spanked. The
list as a whole was not about Vicki or Hal or anyone else in particular.
The very first item on the list was amnesia due to very early spankings
which occurred before long term memories could be formed. In a
parenthetical aside, I said that I had a "hunch" that this "might" be the
case with Hal and Vicki.
: >A general statement: people who were spanked as children may
: >have been so angry about it that they can never get over
: >their childish rage and feelings of unjust treatment so that
: >they spend an entire lifetime trying to prove that they
: >should not have been spanked by proving that no one should
: >ever be spanked. Of course, Chris, I am not talking about
: >*you,* personally; the world does not revolve around you, so
: >don't feel that my suggestion applies to you. It is just a
: >general statement.
: However that general statement applies to _me._ So:
: It's like saying that: people who have been sexually abused as
: children may have been so angry about it that... [etc. etc.]
: ... by proving that no one should ever be sexually abused.
I agree, Witness. This is a valid analogy.
: (Here I go again: equating harsh spankings to rape. Ah
: well. Don't be offended: I realise there's a _big_
: difference between spanking and rape. Spanking involves the
: _back_ side and rape the _front_ side. So they're each other
: _opposites!_ How stupid of me!)
True, but spanking children and raping children have lots of
other elements in common. Both involve overpowering or intimidating the
child, exposing the child's "private zone" and touching the child in ways
the child hates.
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: As somebody closely involved in an organisation for adults into spanking
: I can give some feedback on this. Not a rigorously verifiable
: statistical analysis, which I would think impossible anyway, but a
: considered view taking the expressed opinions of hundreds into account.
: We certainly have people who were spanked or beaten as children by
: parents, teachers, nuns & priests (by the stories we have heard these
: are by far the most vicious and sadistic group), baby-sitters, aunts,
: uncles, etc. We also have people, like myself, who were not.
: I would estimate the incidence of whether it happened or not roughly
: mirrors the incidence in the general population.
I am curious as to what you use as an estimate of spanking
prevalence in the general population. Please clarify.
: Also that though we have Members in their 60s - 80s who would almost
: certainly have been routinely disciplined physically, we also have many
: in the 20 - 40 age group who almost certainly were not.
People in the 20-40 age group were born between 1956 and 1976,
when spanking was an extremely widespread parental practice, at least in
the USA. It remains extremely popular to this day, which is why I am
curious about what you believe the general population prevalence of
spanking to be. Your suggestion that "many" of the younger spankophiles
were not physically punished in childhood while the 60-80 year olds
"almost certainly" were only makes sense if one assumes that the
prevalence of physical punishment by parents has dropped off in recent
decades. In the USA, it has actually changed very little according to a
number of published surveys which I have cited in the past and will dig up
and cite again if anyone is interested. (I notice that you are from the
UK so your sources for population data may be different than mine).
: That strongly suggests to me that the incidence of whether or not you
: were spanked as a kid is not a strong influence on whether you get
: interested later in life.
: However I can certainly confirm that many who do get interested later do
: try to relive or recreate childhood experiences. But doesn't that happen
: anyway in evey other field, whether it is the memory of ice cream, the
: high from climbing a mountain or driving a fast motor-bike, or your very
: first sexual experiences of any sort?
Pleasures from ice cream, mountain climbing or fast driving are
unconditioned stimuli. It is natural for people to enjoy remembering
pleasurable experiences. First sexual experiences also fall into this
category, but none of this really addresses the issue of sexual
orientation as I see it. Most spanking fetishists did not enjoy
childhood spankings. Indeed, some have explicitly stated that they were
extremely upset by them. Eroticization of something which terrorized and
upset the child is better explained as a neural coping strategy for
trauma rather than as an example of enjoying remembering something which
was pleasant when it originally occurred.
A minority of spanking fetishists do report becoming aroused by
childhood spankings. However, stating that the reason they enjoy
fantasizing about childhood spankings is because they were enjoyable at
the time begs the question of etiology entirely. Whether the person who
has eroticized spankings is a spanked child or a formerly spanked adult, I
want to know WHY this eroticization occurred. Saying that some fetishists
are aroused by memories of childhood spankings because these were pleasant
experiences is tantamount to saying that child spankings are arousing for
these individuals because they are arousing. It reduces to a tautology.
Chris
sfp...@slip.net
>What I would still like for you to address, Hal, is my
>reasoning for considering fetishism an undesirable outcome for a child if
>it can be avoided: shame, secrecy, social censure, and a small pool of
>potential sexual partners. One needn't consider fetishists inferior to
>recognize that growing up and living life as a fetishist is a tougher
>deal than growing up and living life as a "normal" heterosexual. Your
>own above testimonial about secrecy, self-doubt, guilt, and insecurity
>while growing up is a case in point. Please respond to this point, Hal.
I thought I had, but I'll try again.
It is called victimization.
My shame and secretiveness when I was a child (or now) did not derive from
simply deciding to be that way. There were adequate signals, and still
are, that enjoyment of spanking was considered shameful by the world at
large. Not because it causes harm, and not because it violates some moral
principal. It is like picking one's nose in public. That's not wrong, but
for most people it is shameful. The buttocks are shameful. So, yes, it
isn't easy to be a fetishist, or a nudist, or a public nose-picker. We
teach children to wear clothes and pick their noses secretly. We do not
teach them to act out their sexual fantasies secretly; instead, we teach
them to suppress them.
> It is not clear to me how having a guilty, shameful secret about
>which the child dare not tell anyone should promote compliant "good"
behavior.
Well, I did explain this. Maybe you didn't read it; here is a shorter version:
I think growing up with a fetish as a child, which I had to keep secret
from the world, gave me tolerance of others along with a certain degree
of self-doubt and insecurity. If I was different, then others who were
different were also worthy of respect. Being a fetishist at 5 years of age
helped make me "good," because it taught me some valuable lessons: we all
have secrets; we all are far from perfect; we are not what we seem to be
to others, or they to us. What the world thinks is "perfect" may not be
even very important; we all dissemble in different ways, and one must
comply with what the world asks in order to be accepted, and at the same
time be true to oneself.
I learned to comply in order to fit in; I behaved well because I feared
that in some way I was really a naughty child. Yes, I felt guilty; guilt
can cause over-compliant behavior. Is that so surprising?
Hal
sfp...@slip.net
> I am not deaf, Hal, just dumb perhaps.
Actually, I wanted to reisist the cheap shot, but it is too much of a
pleasure to agree.
>I simply fail to see the
>distinction between the imagery which an individual finds maximally
>arousing and that individual's sexual orientation
The imagery is what an indivdiual fantasizes about. The orientation is
what he does. They are rarely identical. Even "normal" people incorporate
sexual imagery into their fantasies which they never act out.
> If you find the mental image of Donald Duck spanking Huey, Dewey and
Louie an
> arousing one, then I would say that this constituted part of your sexual
orientation.
> I fail to see the distinction you assert here.
If I was actually oriented to try to spank or be spanked by cartoons, I
would be a raving lunatic. I like(d) to imagine it. I have also had
dreams of walking around in public naked, but that is hardly part of my
orientation.
> You are beating a dead horse here, Hal.
No, that's not part of my orientation *or* imagery <g>. I am not a
sado-necro-bestialist.
>I have also suggested a number
> of reasons why various individuals who were never spanked might develop a
> preference for spanking as foreplay. Do you remember the note in which I
> listed hypotheses about female primate lordosis posture, crosstalk
> between afferent and efferent nerve tracks in the second sacral region,
> reddening of the buttocks as a sign of female estrus condition, etc.?
Yes, and as you know, I agreed with the substance of that note. But then
you still claim, even though there are other ample explanations, that
some people might be *made* into fetishists by being spanked. That is not
a necessary conclusion; your examples of other possiblities are alone
sufficient to explain the phenomeneon.
O.K. And other damn analogy. My sore knees this week may come from: the
new shoes I am wearing; old age; extra strenuous exercise; vitamin
deficiency; white shoelaces I wore as a child. There is a lot of
correlation with children who wear white shoelaces having sore knees as
adults, so maybe it's not worth the risk of using white shoelaces, even
though all the other explanations seem more likely. My theory is that all
of these might be responsible (along with genetic factors, triggered by
the white sholeaces, bad shoes, vitamin deficienceis, etc.) So if guess
you can't rule out one possible cause, even if it is not very common, and
even if it seems unlikely to most people with sore knees.
Hal
sfp...@slip.net
> Hal, I might not dismiss your "feelings" so readily if you could
> convince me that my theorizing about the origins of spanking fetishisms
> threatens your job security and your social standing. Thus far, you have
> made your case poorly.
I'll try to make it better.
You want to end the spanking of children. That's fine.
To do so, you will grasp at any reason you can find. One of those reasons
is that spanking a child might make him into a spanking fetishist. You
must believe that it is wrong to be a spanking fetishist. That makes me
feel that it is not, in your eyes, good to be a spanking fetishist. Which
I am. Doesn't threaten me; just puts me down.
>Would you want your child to grow up having to hide a part of themselves
that way?
> If you could prevent that from happening to your child, wouldn't you
take action to
> prevent it?
If I could, I would do what is in my power so that no child of mine would
have to hide who he or she is, and it is in my power to ask that people be
tolerant of all sexual orientations which do not harm others.
I would not preach that a certain orientation must be avoided because it
is a possible consequence of something I do not like.
Your wishing that one could take action to prevent spanking fetishism
forces you to reject the notion that such fetishism cannot be caused by
what parents do. I know that in your mind you are acting with scientific
dispassion, but I find the passion overwhelms any willingness to be
objective. I see the same fervor in your arguments as in those who tried
to prevent children from the "perversion" of masturbation throughout the
nineteenth century because of the possible bad outcomes, all chimeras.
What solved the "problem" of masturbation was accepting it as normal, but
those who wanted to stop it could not even consider that it might be
harmless, lest their crusade be slowed.
In this regard, you remind me of the Marilyns of the world. If you could
prevent your child from eternal damnation, wouldn't you do that? Never
mind the fact that most people believe in damnation, or that it can be
caused by something parents do; *if* you could prevent it, wouldn't that
be nice?
Why resent a little sermonizing about how to prevent something bad just
because it can't be prevented, and isn't bad in and of itself?
I don't appreciate your conclusion,Chris, because one of the premises
makes me a sad pervert, and I have outgrown accepting that label.
Hal
sfp...@slip.net
>I reject the suggestion that exploring the putative childhood
>origins of spanking fetishism brands anyone as inferior or worthy of
>scorn. I consider birth defects an undesirable outcome, and urge pregnant
>mothers not to take thalidomide for that reason.
Wow! Talk about parallels! Let's not even start to discuss the
differences between thalidomide causing birth defects and spanking causing
fetishism. Let's just stand back in awe at Chris' comparison of a person
with a minor sexual variation to a child with no arms or legs. It is this
kind of paralell that by inference *does* brand me as inferior, not worthy
of scorn, perhaps but worthy of prevention at all costs. God, don't bring
another thalidomide baby - or spanko - into the world!
>Your point was that avoiding
>spanking children in order not to turn them into fetishists would somehow
>cause a backlash against adult spanking fetishists. Your reasoning
>continues to elude me.
It sure does. I am not saying, and never have said, that your arguments
cause a backlash against fetishists. I have said that they *presuppose*
fetishim to be bad.
It is much akin to saying, "Well, just because I could find a way to
prevent people from growing up to be Buddhist doesn't mean that I think
there is anything wrong with being Buddhist." Oh, really?
> I continue to reject your linkage between the pursuit of greater
nderstanding of the
> origins of fetishisms and a societal backlash.
Actually, I never suggested such a linkage; "backlash" was your phrase and
your interpretation of my stance. I don't think you are creating animosty
towards fetishists by your research, but I do think (and you have agreed)
that in order to make the argument you do, you must begin with a
predisposition of your own to label fetishists as people with a
disability, problem, deviance - whatever.
After rejecting the parallel I drew between children feeling shame at
being gay and children feling guilt at being spankos, Chris seems to
embrace it:
> For that matter, if I could push one of two buttons affecting my child's
> sexual development - one button labelled "gay" and the other labelled
> "straight" - I would not hesitate to push the button labelled "straight."
Many gays would agree with you, or once would have. But it was not until
gays began to insist that *there is no such button* that they could begin
to accept themselves and ask others to accept them. Until you, Chris,
begin to accept the fact that there *may* be no such button as the one you
insist upon, spankos like me are going to see you as one who would change
us, not accept us, and therefore one who devalues us, *would* change us,
*would* change others like us, and therefore will only theoretically see
us as your equals while trying to prevent us from coming into existence.
There is nothing wrong with your inquiry into the sources of spanking
fetishism. What is wrong is the premise you have adopted that a proper
response to fetishism is to find a way to prevent it.
Hal
Bertie3778
Gowch) writes:
> What not help yourself and take your hostility and pathological
>arrogance to a qualified therapist? The world would be a happier
>place...
one more time, but I will do it slow. POT . . . KETTLE . . . BLACK
Moving your lips while you read it may help.
Peace and thoughtfulness
Roeg
> The bottom line is that the punisment should fit the crime.
What exactly is that supposed to mean?
> If your looking for ways to elimate voleince in the home. Turn off you TV
> and Radio. The media has effect our kids.
While I cannot disagree that media violence plays a role, I
certainly believe that a child learns more that violence is alright
as a means of dealing with issues by being spanked than he does by
watching a TV show. Real life has a much greater effect than a piture
on the tube. If dear old dad thinks nothing of causing junior pain,
then using force, pain and violence MUST be alright.
Hell, listen to those who support spanking children on this group.
That is certainly the violent message they've learned and learned to
support.
Roeg
sfp...@slip.net
) wrote:
Chris writes
> what jumped out at me while reading Vanessa's note was
> the fact that she traced her sexual obsession with spanking, in part, to
> a traumatic lack of parental attention in childhood. . . . This actually
fits >my model quite well.
It fits my model even better. Your model is "genetic predisposition + a
spanking" Mine is " a genetic predispostion + whatever"
Remember, it is you who argue that the possiblity of causing your child to
develop a spanking fetish is a reason not to spank. I am arguing that a
child with certain gentic predispostion will become a fetishist, possibly
even spanking fetishist, whether you spank or not.
> Actually, I am not "keeping track," Hal. This is a scientific
> question, IMO, not a question which can be settled by a majority vote.
It is not a vote. It is testimony which you choose to ignore because it
does not support your beliefs. You certainly do keep track of everyone
who posts in agreement with you; not long ago, you even gave their
numbers.
Hal
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: Susna wrote:
: > I must have been a terrible pupil...because I never learned that
: > violence was a way to express anger & solve problems.
: Sure you did. If you support hitting little children as a way to
: parent then I would certainly say that you learned that violence
: is an acceptable way to express anger and solve problems. The
: cycle of violent interaction continues.
In other words: "I was hit when _I_ was a child and it never
taught ME to be violent!!! That's why I now hit my own children because
I know first hand just how harmless it is!!!"
: Wonder why is it so easy for some folk to see a husband hitting a
: wife as abuse, yet so difficult for the same folk to see fathers
: and mothers hitting little children as exactly the same
: thing--perhaps worse. At least an adult has a fighting chance.
A child represses the emotions associated with being hit by the
parent. In the process, the child also loses the capacity to empathize
with any other children in the same predicament. This makes it very
easy to treat one's own children in the same cruel manner, rationalizing
all the while that: "It never did ME any harm!"
: > Nor did I have a low
: > self-esteem, and I had much respect for my elders.
: The same kind of fear...oops, I mean respect that you wish to spank
: into children? And as far as self-esteem is concerned, I really
: wonder what kind of self-image an adult must have if they are able
: to hit children and call it learning and love?
The "respect" an adult inspires by hitting a child is much like
the "respect" accorded to the neighborhood bully.
: > I did not
: > supress my behavior in the presence of my parents...I simply did not do that
: > behavior again.
: Oh really, then I would assume that you only had to be spanked one
: time in your life. Do you really thing we are so naive as to
: believe that all it took was being hit for you to alter your be-
: havior with a glad heart? Please, give us a break.
I get the feeling that Susan really believes this about her
childhood self. But I don't.
: Spanking made me devious and careful not to get caught---enless of
: course I wanted to in order to get spanked and feed my developing
: and parentally reinforced fetish.
And I'll bet that if Usenet had existed when you were growing up,
Roeg, and if your father had had an account, he would have been posting
about how well spankings "worked" on his little son! It is amazing how
blind parents can be, especially if such blind spots originated in
emotional repression from their own childhoods.
: > There comes a time when people outside of the family should
: > remain outside of the family. People do not need outsiders
: > or the government to run every
: > aspect of the household.
: >
: Why do I suspect your attitude would change if you were on the
: receiving end of the hitting.
Susan talks rather like a wife-beater: "How dare you
interfere with our family privacy?? How DARE you!! It's none of your
goddamn business what I do to my wife in the PRIVACY of our OWN HOME!!
So all you buttinskies can BUTT OUT!!!"
The female spanking fetishist whose email letter to me I reposted
a couple weeks ago said that once she and her brothers had grown up and
left home, her father, having no more children under the roof to hit,
started hitting her mother. The mother left him in short order, causing
my correspondent to observe that while her mother had stood by and
watched with total indifference as the father whipped and clobbered the
children for twenty years straight, Mom would NOT tolerate _herself_
being hit. I guess this just goes to show what Mom's priorities were:
herself first, her children last. If anything, I believe hitting
children is worse than hitting spouses because spouses are full grown
independent adults, while children are emotionally vulnerable, dependent,
and legally unable to leave.
Chris
SFPo8
Guy
>> Guy <acop...@acopclub.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>That strongly suggests to me that the incidence of whether or not you
>were spanked as a kid is not a strong influence on whether you get
>interested later in life.
>I have a question and if this has already been brought up, I'm sorry.
>What if children were spanked, such as a little girl by her father.
>To take this one step further, what if after the spanking she was
>actually touched by her father in a sexual manner.
>OR, what if a father put his daughter over his knee, did not spank
>her, but began to touch her.
>I feel that the two above examples might, and I say might, result in
>the daughter associating spanking with sexual feelings.
>I'm sure this has probably been talked about, I may have missed it.
That may or may not constitute child abuse, depending on how & why it
happens. As we all know, that can lead to its own problems. But surely
it has lttle directly to do with spanking. Of course, if I tickle my
daughter in play she may grow up with a tickling fetish. If she plays on
our rocking horse she may develop a passion for ponies.
My point is that those things can happen even if I do not tickle her or
and nobody else does, if I have a rocking horse or not.
It seems to me that if someone has a disposition towards fetishism they
may or may not develop a fetish. The particular fetish they develop may
be related to things that really happened in childhood, perhaps things
they wished had happened, things they feared may happen, things they
read about or see on TV, in a very complex way that cannot be simply and
trivially explained by simple cause and effect. It all depends on the
people, place, mood, time, etc.
I would suggest that, having been menaced by a 13 year old with a gun,
(fortunately a broken air pistol but neither he nor I knew that), trying
to emulate Rambo, nowadays TV is a far more disturbing and alarming
influence than that of over-severe parental spankings.
I have met a few people who were damaged by childhood abuse. I have met
far more who in my considered view would have achieved more in their
lives for some judicious parental discipline, however that was applied.
>
> I have been involved in adult spanking for approximately 30 years.
>Your experience has been totally different from mine in as much as the
>large number of people with whom I have associated did see a rather
>strong connection between childhood spanking and the development and
>particulars of their spanking fetish.
>
> My experience strongly suggests to me that the incidence of
>whether or not you were spanked as a kid is a very strong influence
>on whether or not you get interested later in life.
>
> And in some cases, myself included, the fetish developed early in
>life and was recognized as sexual as early as age 11 or 12.
>Disciplinary spankings by my father only sought to enhance and
>reinforce the sexual response.
Are not we confusing two issues here? If I realised I was getting a
sexual response from a kid I spanked (and thank God I have not had to do
it often) I would stop. Completely there and then and use other methods.
I would adopt a different approach. Because if I carried on I would be
sexually abvsing the child.
: I don't think that anyone is really saying that there is a direct,
>: invariable link between being spanked as a child and developing a
>: spanking fetish.
> Yes. If anyone has made such an assertion, I sure must have
>missed it.
>: I do, however, think it is reasonable to assume that
>: some people will respond that way if given that circumstance.
> I would still like to see someone seriously attempt to account
>for the existence of spanking fetishism in a way which does not involve
>exposure to spanking in childhood.
A case history: one of our very active members was the only child of
adoring parents who idolised him & never spanked him, never felt the
slightest need, because he was a good kid anyway. He went to a large
Comprehensive (i.e. an unstreamed state school for the Americans) which
had no school uniform, no great order or discipline within the school.
Certainly no corporal punishment of any kind. He hated it.
He watched the kids going to the posh Public (i.e. exclusive fee-paying)
school up the road in their smart school uniforms. He knew that corporal
punishment was used there, extensively. He felt he would gladly have
accepted that for the chance to learn in a quiet orderly environment.
When he was a little older, after leaving school, he bought a uniform
for that school. He dressed up in it alone, thinking he was the only one
with such a kink. Then he discovered us and has been coming regularly
ever since. His girlfriend came from a similar background, and has taken
to it like a duck to water too, though she would not have been
interested, had he not introduced her. They are by no means unique.
Or take myself. I cannot remember being spanked, although as one of a
large and sometimes rowdy family, with a father who cleft to old-
fashioned values, I probably was. Although my school used the cane,
frequently, I never felt it, saw or heard it being used. The worst I can
remember is a slippering off the woodwork teacher. It was not severe,
that I accepted as fair at the time & only remembered 20 years later.
I was, however, into power relationships from a very early age, and read
extensively, unreconstructed books from before the time the current
craze for Bowdlerisation began. I almost certainly read a lot of comics
and school stories that featured corporal punishment, but never got
interested in spanking per se.
In my twenties I played with bondage & mild BDSM. Then I went & brought
up a family. Then I met a lady who was very much interested in spanking,
as well as the rest of the bdsm gamut. I tried it, found I did not much
like taking it but anyway did as a learning experience, but enjoyed
giving it out to willing adult female recipients. And they enjoyed doing
that too, as part of a role-playing power-exchange game.
>Since 95% of all children have been spanked, what is the likely hood
>that someone with a spanking fetish was spanked during childhood?
>The fact that a spanking fetishist may have been spanked during
>childhood is a trivial statement. Once again you are begging the
>question that a spanking fetish is somehow undesireable.
>The suggestion that the sexual
>preference for spanking is entirely the result of "spanking genes" is
>just plain ludicrous. Not only would such an hypothesis need to
>explain why such genes would persist in the genepool, it would also
>need to explain the high degree of variability of fantasies among
>fetishists in terms of differing allele frequencies.
Surely man is just another mammal, one in which banding together in
social groups is a survival trait, such as lions or baboons. Any such
group has need of only only enough 'tendency to dominance' to provide
one leader per group, plus somebody to take their place when they cannot
hack it. Energy wasted in rivalry within the group, outside the formal
challenge, is wasted.
So I suggest that is a survival trait for the race to have a 'submission
gene', (or more likely complex of genes that affect social interaction),
that randomly predisposes some amongst them more than others to prefer
to be a follower than a leader, to turn the other cheek rather than
fight back?
Again an illuminating anecdote: One of our adult schoolgirls is a great
great grandmother with four generations of kids, about thirty in all.
She only discovered the bdsm scene in her early 70s. She is now in her
80s and is still playing, sub. She went to a very severe French convent
and hated it at the time. But when her boyfriend brought her to us she
loved it and has been coming back ever since, with or without him.
Anyway the point about the story is that in retrospect she can identify
which of her kids in the various generations had a leaning towards
enjoying spanking games. Some did, some did not, but there were several
instances of those that had no inclination that way siring kids that did
and vice versa.
>I think you are being a bit arrogant here, Chris. Why couldn't
>spanking fetish be the result of something that you don't understand?
>Why must the cause of spanking fetish be on *your* list of causes?
> I would especially like to see someone explain why a significant
>number of spanking fetishists appear to have eroticized precisely the
>implements, positions, rituals, etc. of their own childhood spankings if
>their childhoods had nothing to do with how they developed sexually. It
>is difficult to see how else one could parsimoniously explain such
>"coincidences" except as the result of a causal effect: eroticization of
>childhood spankings.
>Why would spanking fetishists eroticize *your* experiences rather than
>their own? Do you remember having wet dreams? Were they the result of
>things that actually happened or of things you wished would happen?
>Actually they were dreams of normal events with eroticized twists.
>As for eroticization of childhood spanking, one need not ever have
>been spanked to eroticize being spanked. Much like wet dreams.
Amen
>Chris has been "urging" for quite some time for only those fetishists
>who are sympathetic to his position to post here. What does it mean
>when they *do* post? Could they be like Chris, who says he was only
>spanked for very brief periods without implements and it tramatized
>him and turned him into a fanatic? Everyone is not a crybaby. Some
>people are just weak. They may want to believe that their weakness is
>someone else's fault but their belief doesn't make it so.
>Ken Riley us00...@interramp.com
In short, as one of the very early pupils to our school puts it, to
every new pupil; "If you enjoy it, do it. If not, do not. But do not
presume anyone shares exactly your experience or preferences exactly.
Above all do not try to analyze it too deeply. It will drive you around
the bend and not get you anywhere."
-- Guy;
Chairman of the Governors and Bursar to Miss Prim's Muir Reform Academy,
Headmaster of Muir College
PO Box 135, Hereford, HR2, UK
John Palmer
: Susna wrote:
: > I must have been a terrible pupil...because I never learned that
: > violence was a way to express anger & solve problems.
: Sure you did. If you support hitting little children as a way to
: parent then I would certainly say that you learned that violence
: is an acceptable way to express anger and solve problems. The
: cycle of violent interaction continues.
This is a fine example of circular logic . . . also a good example of
changing definitions. I do hope it's not intended to convince people of
anything, because as far as that goes, it's rubbish.
sfp...@slip.net
I had written:
>: It does not strain credibility to assert that Chris' theory of genetic
>: disposition would be sufficient to account for all fetishism, with other
>: factors accounting of the particular type of fetishism.
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu wrote:
> I seriously doubt if there is a "gene for spanking
> fetishism" in particular. The possibility seems quite off-the-wall to me.
Seems absurd to me too. I keep saying that. I don't know why you have to
keep demolishing ths particular straw horse. I am agreeing with you that
whatever genetic factors are present only dispose towards fetishism in
general.
>Indeed, my hypothesis predicts that
>the majority of spanked children will not become fetishists, only those
>genetically loaded with the hypothetical additive genes
Yes. I agree. But what you keep overlooking is that once they have those
hypothetically additive genes, that is a sufficient cause for them to
become *some kind* of fetishist. So is a spanking fetishist so much worse
than whatever else they might become?
Hal
sfp...@slip.net
Chris:
> I do assume that fetishism can be created. I have built a falsifiable,
> scientifically-testable hypothesis on this assumption.
Not correct. Your hypothesis has two parts .
A) there are shared alleles ( I may not have stated that quite right)
among spanking fetishists (testable, but most spanking fetishists accept
this possiblity. I do.)
B) Spanking children with those alleles makes them fetishists
How do you test that part? Well, ask fetishists. The majority say the
spanking did not
happen, or if it did, it was not siginifciant. Not a test - but as close
as one can come. And this is the part you refuse to consider. You say "it
is not a majority vote," but you have no suggestion as to how this part of
your hypothesis could be disproved, and I think you know what a pragmatist
would say about that.
Bertie3778
writes:
> My original point was that even if someone has no memories of
>being spanked, the possibility remains that an incident or two occurred
>VERY early in life before the baby brain was capable of forming longterm
>memories. Parents may forget about such incidents, especially if they
>decided to stop spanking early on.
>
>
If it happened befor long term pathways were in place how the hell could
they make any difference? It Seem to me that you would be argueing
against the very mechanism of harm here?
Peace and thoughtfulness
Bertie3778
<bgi...@delphi.com> writes:
>
>Bertie3778 <berti...@aol.com> writes:
>
>>Even if you think that spanking is wrong and that parents shouldn't do
it,
>>to equate a Non-spanko parent who thinks that he or she is doing the
best
>>thing for their child to a parent getting their rocks off by spanking is
>>either naive or dishonest.
>
>We can never really know for a fact a person's intent. Only the person
can
>know that for sure.
It is some times difficult, but not always, and certainly not always
impossible.
>When an action results in harm how does intent lessen
>the fact that if the action had not occurred to begin with, there would
>not have been harm?
The eternal unproved assumption of harm.
>For instance, Susan Smith claims that in the final
>moments, she did not intend to kill her children. Her children are dead
>regardless of her stated intent. We can argue forever about what we
>think her real intent was, but we will never know for sure. The only
thing
>we know for sure is that 2 children are dead as the result of her actions
>or her failure to take action that would have kept them from dying at the
>moment.
>
Do you even for a moment *believe* this lame-assed analogy??
I started to write a response to you but you comparison is so absurd as to
be not worth the effort.
Peace and thoughtfulness
Bertie3778
writes:
>>Anthropologist, Desmond Morris, proposed that
>>reddened buttocks is an ethological sexual releaser in human males, just
>>as it is in many other species of primates for whom reddened female
rumps
>>indicate estrous condition. [snip, for brevity, of much important
>supporting >material] None of these factors need to have any direct
>relationship to
>>childhood corporal punishments.
>
>Yes. Exactly! Let us say that again, together: "None of these factors
>need to have any direct relationship to childhood corporal punishments."
>I think that is what I have been trying to say all along. Childhood
>punishments, experienced or observed, need not be a factor at all in
adult
>sexual orientation.
>
>
Hmmmmmmmmm, sounds like that deep semi-genetic node type thing the
spankos have been talking about.
Peace and thoughtfulness
SFPo8
SFPo8
SFPo8
I don't appreciate your conclusion,Cchris, because one of the premises
Bertie3778
>
>Well, after all this discusion, it seems as if the point of argument was
>really what was meant by a "cause." Your model is a very good one, in my
>opinion; it explains the phenomenon very well. I can accept it.
>
>But note: if you are correct, then if those children who are coded for
>possible fetishism had not been spanked, or never saw someone spanked,
>they might have become fetishists anyway. In my opinion, not only
*might*
>have, but *would* have. If the genetic coding is triggered by some of
any
>of the many possible (and well-explained) options you have provided, then
>an actual spanking might not *cause* anything except for a person
>subsequently to *attribute* his or her fetishism to that experience.
>
>
Again, I cannot help but notice that bondage is reported to me to be a
much bigger kink than being a spanko. I do not know ANYONE who was ever
tourtured by the Spanish Inquisition in a dungion, nor captured tied up
and tortured by Injuns. Is there any data on how many bondage type folks
WERE tortured by the Spanish Inquisistion, perhaps at an age they were too
young to remember.
;-)
That last line was for you Vicki.
Peace and thoughtfulness
SFPo8
SFPo8
SFPo8
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: >: It does not strain credibility to assert that Chris' theory of genetic
: >: disposition would be sufficient to account for all fetishism, with other
: >: factors accounting of the particular type of fetishism.
: cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu wrote:
: > I seriously doubt if there is a "gene for spanking
: > fetishism" in particular. The possibility seems quite off-the-wall to me.
: Seems absurd to me too. I keep saying that. I don't know why you have to
: keep demolishing ths particular straw horse.
Perhaps I misunderstand, Hal. I thought you were arguing that
spanking fetishism is not caused by spankings in the childhood
environment. If the environment has no bearing on the development of the
fetish, and fetishists were simply "born that way," this leaves a
"spanking fetish gene" (or genes) as the default explanation.
: I am agreeing with you that
: whatever genetic factors are present only dispose towards fetishism in
: general.
Okay. I got the impression from a couple of your earlier notes
that you were positing a more precise effect from the hypothetical
genetic factors. From the above, it appears that we agree.
: >Indeed, my hypothesis predicts that
: >the majority of spanked children will not become fetishists, only those
: >genetically loaded with the hypothetical additive genes
: Yes. I agree. But what you keep overlooking is that once they have those
: hypothetically additive genes, that is a sufficient cause for them to
: become *some kind* of fetishist.
I don't agree that this is a sufficient cause. A person who is
genetically loaded for these hypothetical genes would be more likely to
develop some sort of fetish than a person who wasn't. But being highly
sexually imprintable by the environment would not, in and of itself,
constitute a sufficient cause. The right sort of environmental stimulus
is still needed. I am suggesting that emotional trauma is the most common
high-valence stimulus for development of a fetish in genetically loaded
individuals, and that the high imprintability of the neural template for
sexual imprinting by the environment makes this template the path of least
resistance for rerouting of catastrophic emotions shunted away from
conscious awareness by repression.
: So is a spanking fetishist so much worse
: than whatever else they might become?
I think the development of ANY type of fetishistic sexual
obsession is an outcome to be avoided when raising children. Fetishists
have a much smaller pool of potential sexual partners than nonfetishists,
a fact which complicates the pursuit of happiness. This is true even in
an hypothetical society in which fetishism carries no negative social
stigma. In the real world, fetishisms do carry a social stigma. This
fact further adds to the difficulties of a child growing up as a
fetishist. For these reasons, parents should avoid creating fetishisms
in their children. I believe that avoiding the use of spanking and
avoiding other potential sources of emotional trauma for the child is the
best way to accomplish this.
Chris
John Palmer
: A child represses the emotions associated with being hit by the
: parent.
Wow. . . a truly amazing feat of mind reading.
: In the process, the child also loses the capacity to empathize
: with any other children in the same predicament. This makes it very
: easy to treat one's own children in the same cruel manner, rationalizing
: all the while that: "It never did ME any harm!"
Wow! We could abandon modern psychology, just by letting you teach
us all your wondrous methods! Please, tell me how you managed to read the
mind of *EVERY SINGLE CHILD* who's ever been spanked?
: The "respect" an adult inspires by hitting a child is much like
: the "respect" accorded to the neighborhood bully.
After all, a parent who spanks a child sets up a resonance in that
child that prevents the child from seeing anything other than that spanking
for the rest of the child's childhood. Beware! That single warning swat
removes from the child all observational and perceptual acuity until the
child's 18th birthday!
Seminars
> spankings in early infancy simply will not be remembered because,
neurologically speaking, they CAN'T be remembered.
Why is that? If I can remember my first step and other early memories, if
Ray Bradbury can truly remember back to birth, why would any memory be
"neurologically" impossible? Improbably perhaps, but not impossible?
Seminars
lot of you deserve spankings for getting off track. Whilst Chris did not
call Vicki a liar, he does use combative and perjorative terms that keep
her off balance. And Ken Riley, God help us... Methinks he protests too
much. I mean, can you argue that a major player in a spanking forum
doesn't have a fetish? I'm glad I'm not his kid.
I commend a.s.s for a willingness to delve into origins. Ken Riley refered
to gays, but I find it ironic that gay politics discourages research into
origins and inclinations. I'm glad spankophiles seek a truth.
I offer this: I doubt any fetish could spring from a vacuum. Whether a
child was remembers being spanked may not be the key. The key may reside
in the the environment; hence, those who envied their friends who were
spanked, were nontheless affected by spanking.
_________________________________________________________________________
After warning her twice about hitting a woman in the back, I once flipped
a little girl over my knees in Busch Gardens in Tampa. Her mother had a
holy fit, but ever after, the little girl followed me about with starlit
eyes. She at least once criticized her mother for never spanking her. If
we see her on here in another few years, I'll forever wonder...
Witness
>Is there any data on how many bondage type folks WERE
>tortured by the Spanish Inquisistion, perhaps at an age they
>were too young to remember.
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Witness
monty python fan
Roeg
>
> I would suggest that, having been menaced by a 13 year old with a gun,
> (fortunately a broken air pistol but neither he nor I knew that), trying
> to emulate Rambo, nowadays TV is a far more disturbing and alarming
> influence than that of over-severe parental spankings.
>
>
> Are not we confusing two issues here? If I realised I was getting a
> sexual response from a kid I spanked (and thank God I have not had to do
> it often) I would stop. Completely there and then and use other methods.
> I would adopt a different approach. Because if I carried on I would be
> sexually abvsing the child.
>
But unfortunately you can't necessarily ever know. I WAS sexually
aroused by the spankings I got from my father. Erections didn't
happen while the spanking was going on although psychologically I was
certainly sexually stimulated. He NEVER knew what was going on in
my head and unless you have an ability that most mortals don't, you
are decieving yourself to believe that you can tell if the child being
spanked by you is sexually responding. Oh and I see you intimate that
you have gotten a sexual response from a child while spanking of which
you WERE aware. I would think a responsible adult who can recognize
that spanking has an erotic effect on children would quickly seek
to find other methodologies unless they motives were less than pure.
Roeg
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: Chris wrote:
: > Actually, I am not "keeping track," Hal. This is a scientific
: > question, IMO, not a question which can be settled by a majority vote.
: It is not a vote. It is testimony which you choose to ignore because it
: does not support your beliefs. You certainly do keep track of everyone
: who posts in agreement with you; not long ago, you even gave their
: numbers.
The only reason I was keeping a tally a month ago, Hal, was to
debunk your assertion that "only 2 or 3 posts per year" appear on the
alt.sex.spanking newsgroup from individuals who trace their spanking
fetish to childhood spankings. I did this because at that time you were
arguing that because such individuals were supposedly so vanishingly rare,
we should just ignore what they were saying to us. I kept a tally for a
couple of weeks to demonstrate that your "2 or 3 per year" figure was much
too low. Once you conceded my point, I stopped counting.
Chris
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: In article <4hnil6$l...@carbon.cudenver.edu>, cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu ( )
: writes:
Just because one doesn't consciously REMEMBER something, doesn't
mean that no harm was done.
Chris
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: Again, I cannot help but notice that bondage is reported to me to be a
: much bigger kink than being a spanko. I do not know ANYONE who was ever
: tourtured by the Spanish Inquisition in a dungion, nor captured tied up
: and tortured by Injuns. Is there any data on how many bondage type folks
: WERE tortured by the Spanish Inquisistion, perhaps at an age they were too
: young to remember.
Actually, the popularity of bondage ties in (no pun intended) quite
well with an eroticization-of-childhood-trauma model. In this case, what
is being eroticized would be helplessness/powerlessness.
Chris
Roeg
> Re: Origins of Spanking Fetish?
>.Let's just stand back in awe at Chris' comparison of a person
> with a minor sexual variation
Speak for yourself, pal. It may be a "minor sexual variation" to
you, but to me it is a rather significant part of my life and part of
who I am. And believe me it has, despite the enormous pleasure it
has also brought, created all sorts of havoc in my life. It has
caused me to be totally dishonest with those with whom I would most
like to be totally honest. It has caused me to sneak around, hide,
be deceitful. It has kept me secreted and apart from others and has
made my life a most difficult balancing act. Yup it may be a
"minor sexual variation" to you, but it is an incredibly significant
variable to me.
Roeg
SFPo8
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu wrote:
>Indeed, my hypothesis predicts that
>the majority of spanked children will not become fetishists, only those
>genetically loaded with the hypothetical additive genes
I wrote
>: Yes. I agree. But what you keep overlooking is that once they have
those
>: hypothetically additive genes, that is a sufficient cause for them to
>: become *some kind* of fetishist.
Chris responded:
> I don't agree that this is a sufficient cause. A person who is
>genetically loaded for these hypothetical genes would be more likely to
>develop some sort of fetish than a person who wasn't. But being highly
>sexually imprintable by the environment would not, in and of itself,
>constitute a sufficient cause. The right sort of environmental stimulus
>is still needed. I am suggesting that emotional trauma is the most
common
>high-valence stimulus for development of a fetish in genetically loaded
>individuals, and that the high imprintability of the neural template for
>sexual imprinting by the environment makes this template the path of
least
>resistance for rerouting of catastrophic emotions shunted away from
>conscious awareness by repression.
Yes, I understand that. I am suggesting that emotional trauma is *not*
the most common high-valence stimulus for the development of a fetish.
(1) Most adult spanking fans do not believe they suffered any emotional
trauma, either because they weren't spanked or weren't traumatized by it.
(2) The few who do feel they were traumatized by it will naturally
attribute their adult preferences to that fact but are very likely
incorrect, since so many others had the same result from other causes or
a different result from the same cause.
(3) In order to substantiate your viewpoint, one would also have to find
others with minority sexual orientations (BDSM, diapers, undinism, scat,
bestiality) who were traumatized by being tied up, by toilet training, or
by a family pet. (In the case of homosexuality, a minority orientation, I
can't imagine what the trauma would have been).
(4) Several adult spanking fans who have posted here have specifically
attributed their orientation to non-traumatic events: seeking love,
seeking order, seeking a form of discipline. If genetic imprintibility is
assumed, there is no reason to postulate that trauma is the "right sort of
environmental stimulus" unless one wants supporting evidence that spanking
is traumatic, as you do.
> I think the development of ANY type of fetishistic sexual
> obsession is an outcome to be avoided when raising children. Fetishists
> have a much smaller pool of potential sexual partners than
nonfetishists,
>a fact which complicates the pursuit of happiness.
Two questionable presuppositions here:
1. Alex Martelli has commented in another context on the "pool of
potential partners" belief; one could argue that raising bisexual children
would allow them the largest pool of sexual partners! More to the point,
raising children to accept partners not only of both genders but of all
sexual orientations, all ages, all classes, looks, varieties, etc. would
be the way to widen the successful pursuit of happiness. Actually, I have
not found fetishism to interfere with finding a sexual partner as much as
my feelings about how people think, look, and behave outside the bedroom.
Many spankos are married to "vanilla" partners and can happily play
non-sexually with others without anyspecifically sexual contact.
2. The fact that you believe parents should avoid making their kids into
fetishists does not weigh at all in the argument as to whether they can or
cannot do this. If you chose to believe spankos were created from
pre-natal influences, that would be irrelevent to the argument as to
whether there was such a thing as pre-natal influnence.
Hal
LaVonne Carlson
>
> cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu wrote:
>
> : A child represses the emotions associated with being hit by the
> : parent.
>
> Wow. . . a truly amazing feat of mind reading.
>
> : In the process, the child also loses the capacity to empathize
> : with any other children in the same predicament. This makes it very
> : easy to treat one's own children in the same cruel manner, rationalizing
> : all the while that: "It never did ME any harm!"
>
> Wow! We could abandon modern psychology, just by letting you teach
> us all your wondrous methods! Please, tell me how you managed to read the
> mind of *EVERY SINGLE CHILD* who's ever been spanked?
John--I didn't see the phrase "every single child" in Chris's quote, only
yours. How do you explain the statistically significant correlation between
being hit as a child and hitting one's own children? How to you explain
statistically significant correlations between high schoolers tolerance for
violence and the parenting they have experienced (spanked versus nonspanked)?
>
> : The "respect" an adult inspires by hitting a child is much like
> : the "respect" accorded to the neighborhood bully.
>
> After all, a parent who spanks a child sets up a resonance in that
> child that prevents the child from seeing anything other than that spanking
> for the rest of the child's childhood.
No, John. When spanking is combined with warm, consistent, positive
parenting, the risk decreases---not diminishes, just decreases.
Beware! That single warning swat
> removes from the child all observational and perceptual acuity until the
> child's 18th birthday!
No, again, but there is a relationship between even rare and occasional
spanking--swating, etc and negative outcomes.
Roeg
John Palmer wrote:
> Correct. Instead of letting Chris try to slip something by
> with different words, I de-euphemised what he was saying.
Wow! Any you accuse others of mind reading? Pretty good that
you think you have the license to change the words of other posters
because you know better what they mean than they do. "De-euphemised"?
How about altered to mean what you want it to mean.
> As for the famous "with warm, consistent, positive parenting, the risk
> decreases", I have yet to see a well-developed study in regards to that
> fact, since parenting styles correlate with methods of discipline used.
> (e.g., a more authoritarian parent is more likely to spank; many of the
> supposed problems that arise from spanking also arise from authoritarian
> parents of any form. Unless a study specifically groups that important
> variable accurately, it's not measuring "just" the effect of spanking.)
Try Lazerlere (SP?), I believe his studies (which were conducted to
try to show that spanking was effective parenting) shows that at best
other parental approaches decrease the negatives created by spanking.
There are also parenting and management studies that clearly show that
authoritarian parents (the type you claim would more likely spank)
along with the extremely laid back parent (the kind I claim doesn't
even bother with their children much in a training sense) are the
least successful.
Roeg
SFPo8
In response to my words
:>.Let's just stand back in awe at Chris' comparison of a person
:> with a minor sexual variation [to a thalidomide baby]
Roeg writes:
: Speak for yourself, pal. It may be a "minor sexual variation" to
: you, but to me it is a rather significant part of my life and part of
: who I am. And believe me it has, despite the enormous pleasure it
: has also brought, created all sorts of havoc in my life. It has
: caused me to be totally dishonest with those with whom I would most
: like to be totally honest. It has caused me to sneak around, hide,
: be deceitful. It has kept me secreted and apart from others and has
: made my life a most difficult balancing act. Yup it may be a
: "minor sexual variation" to you, but it is an incredibly significant
: variable to me.
I am truly sorry for your pain. I know how it feels. Been there, done
that.
But it is not necessary to feel that way, nor is it necessary to accept
things as they are. It *is* only a minor variation in reality, and it
hurts no one. The fact that it hurts you is not your fault, and it is
certainly not a reason to accept the totality of the apparent havoc it has
created for you.
I have learned to accept my own dishonesty as sometimes necessary, but I
have also found those with whom I can be honest. I have found that hiding
my spanko side is no different from hiding masturbation when I was a
child, which we all do, first feeling guilty, and then realizing there is
no reason for guilt, although it is still a private act.
And "it" hasn't caused you to sneak around. What has caused that is a
societal attitude, (which you may share) that there is something wrong
with you. There isn't.
Once, people who were disfigured felt they had to sneak around and hide
the way they looked. Once gays stayed in the closet. Once women did not
wear pants in public. The determination not to accept the pigeonhole one
may find oneself in is part of the answer. I don't mean you can just come
"out" to everyone. I certainly can't. I would not dare. But I have found
out how to come out to a few people, through newsgroups, and even in the
city where I live. There are a few people now who know exactly who I am
and exactly how I am.
A year ago, before I knew there were so many people like me, I felt my
life had been hurt by my sexual orientation. Since then I have
corresponded by e-mail with 50 or 60 others, met about two dozen in
person, and even discovered that an old friend and colleague at work is a
secret spanko too. We met for lunch the other day, and laughed, and
hugged, and celebrated our discovery of one another.
It is possible. It feels like a new life. And it is the main reason why
I post in opposition to Chris on this subject, because he wants to
believe, as you do, that our sexual orientation must be a handicap. It
could just be a private hobby, no stranger than any other private
indulgence of a whim, but until we shed the guilt it cannot be.
Good luck.
Hal
John Palmer
: John Palmer wrote:
: >
: > cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu wrote:
: >
: > : A child represses the emotions associated with being hit by the
: > : parent.
: >
: > Wow. . . a truly amazing feat of mind reading.
: >
: > : In the process, the child also loses the capacity to empathize
: > : with any other children in the same predicament. This makes it very
: > : easy to treat one's own children in the same cruel manner, rationalizing
: > : all the while that: "It never did ME any harm!"
: >
: > Wow! We could abandon modern psychology, just by letting you teach
: > us all your wondrous methods! Please, tell me how you managed to read the
: > mind of *EVERY SINGLE CHILD* who's ever been spanked?
: John--I didn't see the phrase "every single child" in Chris's quote, only
: yours.
Correct. Instead of letting Chris try to slip something by with
different words, I de-euphemised what he was saying.
: How do you explain the statistically significant correlation between
: being hit as a child and hitting one's own children?
Huh? Did I ever make the claim that there is no such correlation? If
I never *CLAIMED* that correlation existed, nor that it didn't, why would I
want to explain it?
: How to you explain
: statistically significant correlations between high schoolers tolerance for
: violence and the parenting they have experienced (spanked versus
nonspanked)?
Ditto. Please learn to read; specifically, please learn not to
hallucinate words that are not written solely because they feed your own
prejudices.
: >
: > : The "respect" an adult inspires by hitting a child is much like
: > : the "respect" accorded to the neighborhood bully.
: >
: > After all, a parent who spanks a child sets up a resonance in that
: > child that prevents the child from seeing anything other than that spanking
: > for the rest of the child's childhood.
: No, John. When spanking is combined with warm, consistent, positive
: parenting, the risk decreases---not diminishes, just decreases.
Are you specifically speaking in non-sequiters today? I was, once
again, pointing out the implications in Chris's arguments.
Roeg
> Again, I cannot help but notice that bondage is reported to me to be a
> much bigger kink than being a spanko. I do not know ANYONE who was ever
> tourtured by the Spanish Inquisition in a dungion, nor captured tied up
> and tortured by Injuns. Is there any data on how many bondage type folks
> WERE tortured by the Spanish Inquisistion, perhaps at an age they were too
> young to remember.
>
That sort of approach, making ridiculous comparisons and being
sarcastic doesn't add much to the conversation, does it?
You seem to want to operate on a very literal level. While no
children were perhaps tortured by Indians nor had a relationship with
Spanish Inquisitors, there may indeed be a relationship between
certain activities and feelings in childhood and the translation of
those feeling into the promotion of a bondage fetish. There would
certainly be childhood procedures that would approximate the feelings
that being tied or that being placed in bondage could create.
In this particular instance the physical controls of bondage may
translate very closely into other types of physical or emotional
control that was present in the rearing process.
Spanking certainly has a more direct relationship to the chilhood
act than perhaps other fetishes do...but I suspect that less tangible
variables exist in some other fetishes that relate to childhood than
with spanking. Interestingly lots of the spankos I have met have
also expressed interests in other kind of fetishistic behavior
including bondage. There may be a "feeling"relationship between the
activities involved. My experience (and it is only that) is a good
number of male spankophiles also have accompanying shaving, enema and
bondage fetishes that given the nature of control and humilation in-
volved may all be related to a variety of childhood experiences.
I can't say for sure about most of this stuff but unlike some I
certainly can see the logic in such a fetish to childhood association
and see a relationship between some common practices used with
children and the variables associated with a number of fetishes. I
allow for the possibility. Other simply refuse to even consider them.
I wonder why that is.
Roeg
SFPo8
Roeg comments:
>...there may indeed be a relationship between
>certain activities and feelings in childhood and the translation of
>those feeling into the promotion of a bondage fetish. There would
>certainly be childhood procedures that would approximate the feelings
>that being tied or that being placed in bondage could create.
>In this particular instance the physical controls of bondage may
>translate very closely into other types of physical or emotional
>control that was present in the rearing process.
Yes. That is actually what Vicki and Vashti and I and a few others have
been saying, except we asume that what is true for bondage, enemas,
watersports etc. is also true for spanking. You do not have to have been
tied up as a child- almost certainly were not - in order to be into
bondage. Didn't necessarily get an enema to be an enema fan, etc. And
*didn't become a spanko from a spanking.*
Something which, in your words, would "approximate the feelings" would be
enough. Thus, no reason to think that spankos got that way from being
spanked any more than that bondage enthusiasts were actually tied up.
> I can't say for sure about most of this stuff but unlike some I
>certainly can see the logic in such a fetish to childhood association
>and see a relationship between some common practices used with
>children and the variables associated with a number of fetishes. I
>allow for the possibility. Other simply refuse to even consider them.
>I wonder why that is.
I can't remember anyone who refused to consider that there is a
"relationship between some common practices used with children and the
variables associated with a number of fetishes." It is, in fact, what most
of us maintain - there is a relationship, and there are many variables. I
thought that it was you who maintaned that in some cases it must have been
an actual spanking, or spankings, which created the fetish, rather than
just a number of variables, any one of which, including actual spanking,
might be absent or irrelevent.
(And, of course, the fact that an actual spanking is missing in so many of
our histories is why we think it is a factor which was irrelelvent to us
and could have been to everyone else.)
Roeg
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Roeg <r7...@tiac.net> wrote:
>Vicki wrote;
>> Again, I cannot help but notice that bondage is reported to me to be a
>> much bigger kink than being a spanko. I do not know ANYONE who was ever
>> tourtured by the Spanish Inquisition in a dungion, nor captured tied up
>> and tortured by Injuns. Is there any data on how many bondage type folks
>> WERE tortured by the Spanish Inquisistion, perhaps at an age they were too
>> young to remember.
>>
> That sort of approach, making ridiculous comparisons and being
>sarcastic doesn't add much to the conversation, does it?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Vicki wrote via email:
Sorry to complain, but I didn't write what you quoted me as writing.
Don't worry, this happens a lot. I believe it was Bertie who wrote the
above.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
My public apologies for the misunderstanding. I will try to be more
careful in the future. (There may be a spanking lurking in this
mistake for me...I just haven't figured out how to manage it <G>)
Again, sorry.
Roeg
TPFH
: Roeg (r7...@tiac.net) wrote:
: : Susna wrote:
: The female spanking fetishist whose email letter to me I reposted
: a couple weeks ago said that once she and her brothers had grown up and
: left home, her father, having no more children under the roof to hit,
: started hitting her mother. The mother left him in short order, causing
: my correspondent to observe that while her mother had stood by and
: watched with total indifference as the father whipped and clobbered the
: children for twenty years straight, Mom would NOT tolerate _herself_
: being hit.
my mom was the opposite. She says that one time my dad spanked me
really hard and she threatened to leave him if he did it again,
but she wouldn't make the same ultamatem for herself. I don't know
when this was but she didn't leave him until I was 13. And since
I don't think I was spanked after I was about 9....
But I don't really think of my dad's spankings as abusive, or at least
I considered the emotional abuse and witnessing his abuse of my mom
to be much more traumatic. Spankings probably weren't that effective
against me in particular(I don't think they are in general). I remember
telling my dad defiantly after a spanking "that didn't hurt." To which
he responded with another spanking. I'm not sure if that was only
one occation (I don't remember my childhood that well) but that might
be the spanking that my mom was refering to.
_________________________________________________________________
l This fable of elements which classify order species |
l sub-species genus phyla animal vegetable illegal chemical |
l socialist democrat republican yuppy-buppy-guppy proud racist |
l black white African Native American Irish and German |
l--Socio-genetic Experiment, The Disposible Heroes of HipHoprisy|
l |
l The Philosopher from Hell jff...@cie-2.uoregon.edu |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Amy Olivier Calvin
(Barbara A Gilley) wrote:
> >NNTP-Posting-Host: slip-43-16.ots.utexas.edu I think you may have
missed my point. I was not saying that Smith was
> attempting to discipline her kids. I was saying that her claim that it
> was not her intent to kill them is irrelevant to the outcome. In my
> opinion, the same holds true with respect to child abuse. If a child
> ends up brain damaged as a result of a parent's discipline (not something
> I haven't seen in my working experience as a counselor), the parent's
> intent at that point really doesn't make much of a difference in my
> book. The damage is done.
> ons about what has been posted in this NG.
>
> I can't predict the future. I can't predict with 100 percent accuracy
> which parenting situation will get out of hand and result in permanent
> damage or death and which ones won't. Can you?
Barbara,
You continue to use extreme examples and that is based on your personal
bias. The permissive nature of parenting in this country has led to many
of the current familial problems you claim are a result of abuse. The
answer isn't laws to punish parents, but to stop the encroachment of
individuals who believe the state can do a better job parenting (via
current laws). I however do agree with your stance and feel that physical
punishment is not ethical, but I do not think for a moment that I have the
right to judge those who DO NOT USE excessive force. I would always
encourage them to seek out positive alternatives first.
I do not feel your discussions are swaying anyone who is pro-paddling. And
Barb. I have worked in RTC's (and if your a counselor you know what I am
talking about) and they are not better parents or even a close sub for a
loving family!!!
Chris C.
Austin, TX
TPFH
: In article <4ih9k5$7...@sundog.tiac.net>, Roeg <r7...@tiac.net> writes
: >> Guy <acop...@acopclub.demon.co.uk> wrote:
: I have met a few people who were damaged by childhood abuse. I have met
: far more who in my considered view would have achieved more in their
: lives for some judicious parental discipline, however that was applied.
well, punishment is a subset of discipline, and should only be used
when the child has done something wrong. Spanking is one method of
punishment, but there are other methods. The main problems I see with
spanking are that it needs to be implemented immediately after the
undesired behavior to work (otherwise the child will associate the
spanking with the parent or being caught or something else), that it's
results are unpredicable, and most of all, that kids eventually need
to start thinking for themselves(they need to understand the real
consequences of their actions, not be dependent on an authority to
smack them every time they do something wrong). While I wouldn't
say that we should cause fetishes, I don't really think that fetishes
are bad so I think this point is moot regardless of wether spanking
causes a spanking fetish.
: Are not we confusing two issues here? If I realised I was getting a
: sexual response from a kid I spanked (and thank God I have not had to do
: it often) I would stop. Completely there and then and use other methods.
: I would adopt a different approach. Because if I carried on I would be
: sexually abvsing the child.
not to mention that spanking would be particularly ineffective if
the kid was enjoying them. But a parent should try to realize when
spankings aren't working they need to use another method. Different
people respond to pain differently. After all, pain is just intense
stimulli that is a message that something dangerous is happening, but
we can control our pain such as through meditation, and be aware of
it, but not bothered by it.
: A case history: one of our very active members was the only child of
: adoring parents who idolised him & never spanked him, never felt the
: slightest need, because he was a good kid anyway. He went to a large
: Comprehensive (i.e. an unstreamed state school for the Americans) which
: had no school uniform, no great order or discipline within the school.
: Certainly no corporal punishment of any kind. He hated it.
Well, children need discipline, but I don't think they need spankings.
Here is one of the straw men that I see spanking proponents use: They
give you a choice between an authoritarian parenting style, or a
passive parenting style, and not the choice of a authoritative parenting
style.
: So I suggest that is a survival trait for the race to have a 'submission
: gene', (or more likely complex of genes that affect social interaction),
: that randomly predisposes some amongst them more than others to prefer
: to be a follower than a leader, to turn the other cheek rather than
: fight back?
um... but why would the submissive trait be advantageous for the
people that have it, thus making it more likely for them to pass
it on? And wouldn't this eventually leading into a splitting
of the races like in H.G. Wells Time Machine?
or... we could start using genetic engineering and purposely inducing
fetal alcohol syndrom to make a working class of people :>
: Again an illuminating anecdote: One of our adult schoolgirls is a great
: great grandmother with four generations of kids, about thirty in all.
: She only discovered the bdsm scene in her early 70s. She is now in her
: 80s and is still playing, sub. She went to a very severe French convent
: and hated it at the time. But when her boyfriend brought her to us she
: loved it and has been coming back ever since, with or without him.
sounds like an interesting person.
: In short, as one of the very early pupils to our school puts it, to
: every new pupil; "If you enjoy it, do it. If not, do not. But do not
: presume anyone shares exactly your experience or preferences exactly.
sounds good to me.
: Above all do not try to analyze it too deeply. It will drive you around
: the bend and not get you anywhere."
awwww... :( but I like doing that... why do you think I call myself
The Philosopher from Hell?
/ jff...@cie-2.uoregon.edu The Philosopher from Hell \
\ If Hello Kitty was in Hell, she would redecorate it and turn /
/ it into a cute and happy Place. -- Carlos May \
\ O- Only 666 shoping days till Armagedon /
/ Nixon in '96! Because the only good politician, is a dead one \
\ http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~tpfh/ /
Guy
>
>>
>> I would suggest that, having been menaced by a 13 year old with a gun,
>> (fortunately a broken air pistol but neither he nor I knew that), trying
>> to emulate Rambo, nowadays TV is a far more disturbing and alarming
>> influence than that of over-severe parental spankings.
>>
> You suggestion has no merit as far as my experience is concerned.
I can only respond to my own personal experience. I you have not been a
parent of a susceptible child you would not have had such experience.
If you have not observed that most children are natural mimics, picking
up the speech and behaviour patterns of those around them, then I
suggest you look more closely. Most kids nowadays spend more time
watching TV than they do conversing with their parents. Since people
acting badly makes for much better, (or at least more saleable), drama
than people acting impecably, most role models on TV are not ideal. The
effects are obvious to me, and I would suggest to most parents.
>
>>
>> Are not we confusing two issues here? If I realised I was getting a
>> sexual response from a kid I spanked (and thank God I have not had to do
>> it often) I would stop. Completely there and then and use other methods.
>> I would adopt a different approach. Because if I carried on I would be
>> sexually abvsing the child.
>>
> But unfortunately you can't necessarily ever know. I WAS sexually
>aroused by the spankings I got from my father. Erections didn't
>happen while the spanking was going on although psychologically I was
>certainly sexually stimulated. He NEVER knew what was going on in
>my head and unless you have an ability that most mortals don't, you
>are decieving yourself to believe that you can tell if the child being
>spanked by you is sexually responding.
Well, I regret that you have had that experience. You are not unique,
neither are you typical of the hundreds of adult spanking fans that I
have met.
I know that spanking kids is not something to do without care and
thought for the possible consequences, which I accept may include those
that happened to you, amongst many other possible consequences, both
good and bad.
I have not done it many times, never in real anger, never regularly or
often.
I wonder though, about how often it was done to you. If I spanked a kid,
then felt the need to do it again that week, even that month or year I
would wonder whether it was actually working as a deterrent. If not I
would switch tack and try a different approach.
> Oh and I see you intimate that
>you have gotten a sexual response from a child while spanking of which
>you WERE aware.
I contributed to this thread in the interests of free and frank
discussion. Cheap jibes say more about their author than anyone else.
No, I have never detected such a response. Yes, I believe that having
sought and seen such a sexual response from adult ladies with whom I was
playing mutually pleasurable games consensually, (several of whom were
never spanked as children), I would have done.
I most certainly did not enjoy doing it in any way. Rather I felt great
sadness and regret that I had been driven to it.
> I would think a responsible adult who can recognize
>that spanking has an erotic effect on children would quickly seek
>to find other methodologies unless they motives were less than pure.
In most cases I have sought other means and did use those other methods.
I have also brought up a family to adulthood without my wife or I ever
feeling the slightest need to physically discipline the children.
I also have had the experience of caring for kids in circumstances that
I felt meant that it was an appropriate response on several occasions
and have no regrets that I did.
If you cannot imagine that such circumstances can occur, then all I can
suggest is that you have been lucky to have led a very sheltered life.
As for the implication you make once again that my motives were abusive;
the Norwegians have a proverb, "Never judge a man until you have walked
a mile in his shoes." I think it relevant.
I agree that in most cases, with most kids, it is undesirable, most of
the time. But there can come a point where the only practical
alternative is exclusion from the family home on a temporary or
permanent basis. That is likely to be even more traumatic all round,
particularly to the child concerned.
Again this is an option I have exercised, very reluctantly, with another
kid where I felt physical discipline inappropriate.
In an ideal world that would be to grandparents, aunts, uncles, but not
everybody nowadays has the support of such an extended family.
I know that most of the staff of state-run, charitable & voluntary homes
for kids are immensely professional and dedicated. But it is a sad fact
that a minority of the staff are attracted by the opportunity for abuse
and get round a lot of kids before they are caught. If I think there may
be any way I can keep a kid in a happy, functioning, home environment,
where the risks are acceptable, I will try it first. I believe every
parent should have that right, subject of course to legal test of
whether their actions are reasonable or not.
You have to appreciate that abuse within the home is not one sided. Some
kids regard their family as a Free Fire Zone. They take their home,
their parents for granted and see only that their life is different, not
so good as that they see schoolfriends, others enjoy, on TV, or
whatever. They zero in on the fact that they are short of what they
consider they deserve, without taking into account what they already
have, or the seeing the problems others have.
Such children can and will at times lie, cheat, steal, blackmail, bully,
maliciosly damage property, use senseless violence and every other means
at their disposal to achieve what are often very selfish and trifling
ends, because they do not begin to appreciate how the world works. Just
as many immature adults, of whatever age, do.
The difference is that the law sorts out the adults, usually, in the
end. But the law expects parents to take responsibility for their
children. They have to be allowed the authority to do it.
When all other means have been tried and have failed it is worth a shot.
That was my situation and, thankfully, it worked. He is a responsible
adult now, not the jailbird I think he would have become. The family
stayed together
In summary Roeg's point seems to be that; because he was spanked and
thereby developed a kink aboout it, that no kid should ever be
physically disciplined, under any circumstances.
That strikes me as someone trying to impose their own prejudices on me
and everybody else, without regard to the possible consequences. It is
seeking power without responsibility. I have fought such attitudes
throughout my life in every sphere, just as my father's generation
fought a world war against it.
Moreover he seeks to justify himself using emotive language, and making
unfounded allegations that would be actionable in a libel court if I
were of a more litiginous nature. I would suggest that further
discredits his case.
I will close with a sad anecdote about some friends of mine. A lady was
deserted by her husband and left to bring up her two daughters alone.
She met an older man, a widower, a grandfather, who was thoroughly
humane, worthy and admirable. The girls took against him, as kids often
do against step-parents. They trashed the home he provided, they beat
their mother up, they stole from her purse and destroyed everything she
valued.
He was paralysed by the fear that if he raised a finger to them, then
the finger would be pointed at him, by the likes of Roeg, as a child
abuser.
The girls are now in care, the parents are divorced, the mother
destitute and permanently disabled, the father financially ruined.
I do not know whether it would have worked had he spanked them, (he was
physically capable of doing so), or if they would as a result have got a
fetish for being spanked. But in my view it would have been worth
trying, despite the risks. The result of inaction has proven to blight
four lives, unecessarily.
Is Roeg and the other sanctimonious finger-waggers prepared to take
responsibility for the destruction of that family? I think not, but
believe them to be the root cause.
If anyone is bored by this I apologise for the length. No doubt it will
provoke a response, but I do not anticpate responding.
-- Guy
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: Hal wrote:
: > Re: Origins of Spanking Fetish?
: > Let's just stand back in awe at Chris' comparison of a person
: > with a minor sexual variation
: Speak for yourself, pal. It may be a "minor sexual variation" to
: you, but to me it is a rather significant part of my life and part of
: who I am. And believe me it has, despite the enormous pleasure it
: has also brought, created all sorts of havoc in my life. It has
: caused me to be totally dishonest with those with whom I would most
: like to be totally honest. It has caused me to sneak around, hide,
: be deceitful. It has kept me secreted and apart from others and has
: made my life a most difficult balancing act. Yup it may be a
: "minor sexual variation" to you, but it is an incredibly significant
: variable to me.
Thanks for making these points, Roeg. Hal seems to be arguing
that trying to prevent children from growing up to become fetishists is
wrong because it implies that having a fetish is an undesirable outcome,
and that to believe this means to have an intolerant attitude towards
adult fetishists. But in fact, having a fetish is clearly a great burden.
No caring parent would knowingly saddle their child with such a burden if
it were possible to avoid it. To the points you made above, I would add
that ANY rare sexual orientation also sharply limits the available pool of
potential sexual partners. This greatly complicates the task of finding
a compatible partner, and therefore complicates the child's pursuit of
happiness later in life.
One need not be prejudiced against adult spanking fetishists or
consider them inferior human beings unworthy of respect to not want one's
child to grow up to become one.
Chris
cdd...@ouray.cudenver.edu
: Well, children need discipline, but I don't think they need spankings.
: Here is one of the straw men that I see spanking proponents use: They
: give you a choice between an authoritarian parenting style, or a
: passive parenting style, and not the choice of a authoritative parenting
: style.
This is quite clearly true. One sees certain prospank posters on
alt.parenting.spanking invoking this false dichotomy again and again. In
fact, not spanking, or even not punishing/rewarding, is not the same as
not disciplining. For a good review of non-authoritarian, non-permissive
discipline, I recommend "Discipline That Works" by Thomas Gordon.
Chris
LaVonne Carlson
>
> In article <xPEpblO...@delphi.com>, Barbara Ann Gilley
> <bgi...@delphi.com> writes:
>
> >
> >Bertie3778 <berti...@aol.com> writes:
> >
)snip...snip..snip)
> I started to write a response to you but you comparison is so absurd as to
> be not worth the effort.
>
> Peace and thoughtfulness
Again, if we didn't insist on hitting children, we wouldn't even be
having this discussion...why hit?
LaVonne
SFPo8
Chris ignores Vicki and Vashti and me, the happy spankos, and rushes to
support Roeg when he writes
: It may be a "minor sexual variation" to
: you, but to me it is a rather significant part of my life and part of
: who I am. And believe me it has, despite the enormous pleasure it
: has also brought, created all sorts of havoc in my life.
> Thanks for making these points, Roeg.
"Thanks," Chris means, because you agree with him. Vicki, Vashti, and I
must be in deep denial because we are not experiencing havoc in our lives.
It is the unhappy spankos, those who cannot live with themselves, who
should be consulted for the way spankos should be; those of us who have
adjusted to our lives, as most of us have, should have our opinion
dismissed or ignored because they do not fit in with Chris'
preconceptions.
>Hal seems to be arguing that trying to prevent children from growing
>up to become fetishists is wrong because it implies that having a fetish
is an >undesirable outcome, and that to believe this means to have an
intolerant attitude >towards adult fetishists.
Actually, I am arguing that when Chris insists that you can prevent
something (without evidence that you can) he has to assume that what is to
be prevented *should* be prevented. I am arguing that it should not be
prevented and can't be.
> But in fact, having a fetish is clearly a great burden.
It is for Roeg,with whom I sympathize. It is for some others. It was for
me at one time until I decided that it was a burden which others placed on
me, by their vision of who I am, which I did not have to accept. I have
given up playing vicitm to other's misconceptions, including Chris'.
Being a woman is a burden in India. They have an even simpler solution;
they just kill excess girl babies. Works, too. Actually, being a woman
is still a burden in this coutnry; shall we prevent the birth of girls?
Once Chris finds out the right genetic clue he can just use amniocentesis
and abort us all.
>To the points you made above, I would add that ANY rare sexual
orientation also sharply > limits the available pool of potential sexual
partners.
I responded to this before: it could suggest that we should all be
bisexual! It would also suggest promoting sex between people of widely
differing ages and backgrounds. I think Chris just made this one up;
there are many limitations on people's sexual choices and no reason to
assume that most happy couples are identical in sexual orientation. But,
sure, let's get rid of the misfits and those with rare sexual orientations
so the world is safer for "normal" people.
> One need not be prejudiced against adult spanking fetishists or
> consider them inferior human beings unworthy of respect to not want
one's
> child to grow up to become one.
Sound familiar? It has nothing to do with intolerance or lack of respect;
Chris is wonderfully and condescendingly tolerant of us. He just doesn't
want his child to grow up and marry one of us. Why, some of Chris' best
friends are spankos, etc. It would just be better if we did not exist,
but Chris will be tolerant of us - especially if we demonstrate
unhappiness and despair for him. We are not inferior. We just should be
prevented.
If Chris is comfortable with that stance, then I guess he has to live with
it. But I don't have to.
Hal
Barbara A Gilley
>You continue to use extreme examples and that is based on your personal
>bias.
Absolutely, I've used extreme examples because simple explanations weren't
getting the points across. Thank goodness the examples are extremes. I used
those to make 2 points in the discussion regarding intent--(1) intent does
not alter outcome, and (2) you can't prove one way or another with 100%
accuracy a person's real intent. I can't remember exactly how the discussion
came up, but I think it had to do with intent being one of the criteria
to distinguish between abuse and spanking.
>The permissive nature of parenting in this country has led to many
>of the current familial problems you claim are a result of abuse. The
What familial problems am I claiming are the result of abuse? How are
those related to the permissive nature of parenting?
>answer isn't laws to punish parents, but to stop the encroachment of
I don't believe that education and prevention are punishments. Education
and prevention are what I advocate.
>individuals who believe the state can do a better job parenting (via
>current laws). I however do agree with your stance and feel that physical
>punishment is not ethical, but I do not think for a moment that I have the
>right to judge those who DO NOT USE excessive force. I would always
>encourage them to seek out positive alternatives first.
I don't have a bias towards permissive parenting (a collection of
behaviors). Not in the least. You are confusing that with what I do have a
bias towards which is nonviolent, ethical, positive, responsible parenting
(also a collection of behaviors). I hope I've put enough adjectives in there
to get my point across. There is such a thing as family (the people)
violence (some of the behaviors). Are the people bad or is it the violence
that is bad? Is it the people or the behavior? For me it is the violence -
the behavior.
>
>I do not feel your discussions are swaying anyone who is pro-paddling. And
>Barb. I have worked in RTC's (and if your a counselor you know what I am
>talking about) and they are not better parents or even a close sub for a
>loving family!!!
I'm not sure I understand your definition of a loving family. Please
clarify.
Roeg
> But Chris, here we go again. You are saying that we ALL consider it a
> burden, I don't think this is a fair statement to make. I don't look
> at it as a burden, I enjoy it,
As much pleasure as I get from my spanking fetish, I DO find it to be
an incredible burden. Given the option, I would gladly take a
sexuality that was such that vanilla sex was as rewarding as the
fetish is.
You don't feel burdened. I do. When a parent spanks a child and
risks promoting that fetish---they could respond like you or they
could respond like me. Are you willing to take the chance? I'm not.
And no parent should, I think.
>even before I told my husband about
> it, this BURDEN was a great sexual aid for me. It gave me a source of
> some very powerful fantasies, which I feel aided in my arousal level.
> Which actually was good for my/our sexual relationship.
You seem to be attributing to your fetish some additional power when
in fact you do not know if the intensity of more vanilla sexual
activity might be far greater if you were not a fetishist. Perhaps
the fetish minimizes typical sexual pleasure and rather than
enhancing sexual arousal, it merely complicates sexual relationships
by necessitating arousal through the fetish to reach an intensity
non-fetishists reach typically with vanilla sex. Something to
consider. The fetish may not be more. It may in fact be less.
Roeg