</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Peanuts said:
It seems to me that it is not helpful to spank children on the bare bottom at all. I totally think that is very humiliating to the child. I've read before where children have been given enemas and that just seems appauling. I can't imagine why an adult would do that ?? The spanking .. it seems adults resort to that out of desperation to gain control of the child .. but enemas ??
</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
Yeah that's horrid. I have heard of that sort of thing (enemas) as being part of sexual humiliation practices. I think any type of intentional sexual humiliation practice should be strictly between consenting adults; otherwise it is sexual abuse in my opinion. Spanking is much less black & white because the intent is not to cause sexual humiliation, but when someone pulls a child's pants off prior to spanking them that's getting awfully close to sexual humiliation in my opinion. Fortunately I've never known anyone to undress a child before spanking them. Hopefully that's much less common now!
Good for you, Peanuts, on finding other ways to discipline! I personally am opposed to spanking in general, but I will say that I'm not arguing whether it's effective or not. I actually don't know. But I'm opposed to it even if it is effective -- even it's the most effective deterrent available (which I seriously doubt) -- because of its sexual connotations.
I was spanked as a child -- mostly it was corporal punishment inside the school system I mentioned. My parents didn't really do that. I know that my mother spanked me, but I can't actually remember it (I can only remember knowing that she had, so I must have been really little). I will say that for me spanking would never have had the intended effect (would not have worked as a deterrent on me) as it only resulted in a confused obsession with power/dominance/humiliation/pain that morphed into sexual identity issues.
Sidony
P.S. Just to be 100% clear, we are not referring to medically necessary enemas that an adult might help a child administer. This is strictly referencing the mention of enemas etc. as punishment.