According to a recent study, people who were spanked as kids are more likely to have sexual problems when they get older. The study particularly concerned itself with 3 sexual problems. First was the problem that people have of verbally and physically coercing others into having sex. Second was the problem of wanting to engage in risky sex such as in the case of premarital sex without the use of a condom. Third was the problem of desiring masochistic sex such as the desire to be spanked when having sex.

90 percent of U.S. parents use spanking as a way of correcting the behavior of their kids. With these recent results about the problems it may cause, many parents may wish to reconsider their policy.

The study involved 14,000 university students from 32 countries. In terms of the male population, 29 percent had either verbally insisted on sex when a partner did not want to or threatened to end the relationship if the partner did not want to have sex. 1.7 percent of the men said they had used physical force, either holding the partner or hitting them. 15 percent had insisted on sex without a condom in the past 12 months. These men all scored high on a four-step measure of how much corporal punishment they had received as children. Each step on the scale showed a 10 percent increase in the likelihood to engage in the problematic behaviors already mentioned. This suggests that spanking by loving parents causes children to confuse violence with love and increases the probability of violence during sex. Results for women were equally persuasive to this conclusion although statistically proved to be only about 85% as likely as they were for men.

The study was presented by Murray Straus, author of “Beating The Devil Out Of Them: Corporal Punishment In American Families And Its Effects On Children.”

Source: University of New Hampshire