My father spanked me on occasion, but never in anger. If he was angry with me, he would tell me to go to my room for awhile and so that I could sweat it out and he could cool down. Then he would come in and say something like, "Do you know why you are in trouble?" When there was a consensus he would take me over his lap and swat me a few times with a paddle or a belt just hard enough for me to feel it. He never left any sort of a mark. And I never felt unloved or abused because of it.

The only times I ever swatted my kids were when they did not feel the urgency of a very dangerous situation...running out in front of a car for instance...or they needed a quick correction to change the course of their actions, just a quick swat or even just a touch. With the car scenario, I would take immediate action to give a good firm swat on the butt so they would feel the feeling they should have felt when they almost got killed and associate it with future decisions about streets and cars or what have you.

We never did it to punish our children. We put our kids in their rooms, took away screen privileges, took away toys...whatever logical consequence presented itself.

That all being said, my friend, I would say that it all depends on how you responded to your father's spankings. Was he angry? Did you feel abused, humiliated, unloved? If so, then at the very least it must effect your adult relationship with him and with others. I seriously don't see getting spank as something that could make you gay. But it definitely could have triggered something in you.

I repeat a lot of my dad's behavior, not with spanking but with anger and flipping out in general. Do you find that you repeat your father's negative behaviors? Genes are funny. We all have dormant traits. MI can be one of them. An event can turn it on, and then you're stuck with it. Getting spanked or hit or beat could flip the switch, but likely it would have been flipped eventually by something else.