Dear ______:

Currently in ________, the only people who can smack someone on the buttocks as part of their paid professional duties are prostitutes, porn stars and educators employed in schools that practice paddling.

Medical science has long recognized, and documented in great detail, how being struck on the buttocks can stimulate sexual feelings. Children of school age are especially susceptible. The tragic consequence for some who are subjected to this kind of maltreatment is that they form a connection between pain, humiliation and sexual arousal that endures for the rest of their lives.

We can never know how many innocent children have had their sexual development derailed by school paddlings. Any number is too many. If one puts all other considerations aside, this should be reason enough to instruct paddlers in the schools to put away their weapons and begin teaching as they were trained. If they are unable or unwilling to do so, they should be advised to find some other line of employment.

A full discussion of all the other things that are wrong with corporal punishment isn't within the scope of this letter, nor should it be necessary. That information is abundantly available, and any literate person with access to a computer can become an expert on the subject in two or three evenings. Only among the uninformed are arguments favoring corporal punishment taken seriously. Were that not the case, teachers' colleges would teach undergraduates the correct method for hitting children. They don't.

Sincerely,

_________________