Research presented last week to the American Psychological Association seems to indicate that kids who received physical punishments such as spanking from their parents may very well be more likely to have sexual problems later in life.
While there have been many, many studies done that show spanking is detrimental to a childs’ health, this is the first one to make any type of co-relation between spanking and later sexual problems such as coercing a sexual partner, engaging in risky sexual behavior and/or engaging in masochistic sex.
The research is based on studies done by leading domestic abuse researcher Murray Straus. Dr Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, analysed the results of four studies that were part of the International Dating Violence Study, a survey of more than 14,000 university students at 68 universities in 32 countries.
Straus found that ”…both men and women who had experienced corporal punishment as children were less than 10 percent more likely than those who had not been spanked to verbally coerce sex from a partner.”
But Straus is quick to clarify the meaning of these results, saying that while spanking does appear to increase the chances of sexual problems later in life for some people, it cannot be seen as a ‘one-to-one causation.’ In other words, there is often more at play here than the occasional spanking.
Either way, sounds like yet another good reason to avoid spanking the child…
What do you think?
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