Content note: This piece touches on nonconsensual spanking, other forms of physical abuse, sexual assault, trauma, suicidality, addiction, and human rights violations.
1. It doesn’t work. According to one expert, Elizabeth Gershoff, who reviewed 61 long-term studies and 8 international investigations, “Zero studies found that physical punishment predicted better child behavior over time.” The same expert also noted that some studies found physical punishment increases children’s aggression and other behavioral problems. (I mean, yeah, when the person you’re supposed to be able to love and trust implicitly starts beating you on a sexual body part, you’re gonna have some feelings about that, and those feelings might manifest as aggression.) Gershoff’s final word on the matter: “Physical punishment is harmful to children’s development and well-being. There is no evidence that it has any positive outcomes whatsoever.” Hear hear.
2. It’s traumatic. Studies have found that, in terms of inciting behavioral problems in children the likes of which are usually due to trauma, spanking has “statistically indistinguishable effects” from other forms of childhood trauma, like emotional abuse, neglect, and the death of one’s parent. People who were spanked as children are likelier to die at a younger age from cancer, heart disease, and respiratory problems. They are also likelier to develop aggressive and antisocial behaviors, anxiety, depression, and autoimmune disorders – all problems known to arise from trauma more generally. Spanking is also linked with an increase in heavy drinking, street drug usage, and suicidality.
3. It’s sexual. As spanking fetishist and journalist Jillian Keenan argues in her brilliant Slate piece on the matter, the butt is an inherently sexual zone. The area shares an artery with the genital region, which is why spanking feels pleasurable for many kinksters – and why it’s a vastly inappropriate thing to do to one’s child. Worth noting, too, is that statistically speaking, given the amount of kids who grow up to be spanking fetishists, there’s a non-zero chance that any kid you spank is experiencing that spanking as a sexual assault on some level (sadly, I speak from experience). A scientist who’s studied spanking’s neurological effects says it produces “the same reactions in the brain” as sexual abuse. Just because a body part doesn’t seem sexual to you doesn’t mean it’s not sexual, culturally, biologically, and for many people, personally.
4. It teaches a terrible lesson. I don’t know about you, but when I think about the wisdom I hope to impart to any offspring I bear, “hit people when they piss you off” isn’t high on my list.
5. It’s a human rights violation. Children should have just as much of a right to bodily autonomy and protection from harm as anyone else in society, but as things stand, they don’t. It’s still perfectly legal to spank your kid in many places, even though – as described above – there are mountains of evidence showing that spanking is ineffective and harmful. This one form of physical abuse has been privileged as an “acceptable” form, and it’s not. It’s abuse. It’s a violation. It’s not okay.