Spanking Mentioned in Saturday Evening Post.

@RosieRad,

Of course a spanking won't cure heroin addiction. I was just lamenting older times when shoplifting was the major concern for teenage and young women, not dying from an overdose of some drug and everyone saying, "What can we do?", and women with young children doing drugs is just so reprehensible to a grandparent!

If you read my comments, I am often speaking with a bit of sarcasm, or wishful thinking, whichever fits my need, quite often, both! I wish spanking would cure everything, even Cancer. That is a fact, and I make no apologies for my belief or wishes! Of course, it doesn't, but that is why we write fiction, isn't it? Anything is possible in fiction, all we ask is that you suspend real life and go with it! Wouldn't it be great if a sound spanking did break the horrid hold that drug has on people's minds and lives? Wouldn't it be great if a court ordered strapping saved a 21yo college student's life from her next overdose? Wishful thinking!

Back to reality, however,I just think it is funny that so many people know what does not work or will not work, or is bad, but have no clue, whatsoever, what would work. That was my point! Some Judges tried remedies outside the box but were shutdown by those who knew better! Or, did they?

Some Judge (probably a pervert like me) thought a spanking would stop some female from crime. Who do you think put a stop to it? What was the alternative? What is the alternative now! That was my point in throwing out the whole heroin problem. Too many no's and no answers for a very real and horrible reality in our country. Wishful thinking at its best! Just, don't wake me from my dreams. Real life sucks! Sarcasm!

@Seegee,

Yeah, sometimes life is not fair. They should have bought her milkshakes, maybe a pink teddy bear and had her watch "Happy Days" episodes until her dad showed up. All she did was risk her life, break the law, probably risked rape, worried her parents half to death. Yeah, you're right! If she had been 7 or 12 however! Give me a break, please? Emotional abuse? Hows about scared straight? Yes/No? Sarcasm!

You know what, no lawsuit was ever even suggested! Wonder why? Abusive parents! Had to be! (Bingo, sarcasm again!)

You are, however, entitled to your view and could have voiced your just and moral outrage 45 years ago when it happened, had you known! The gal, who I crushed on for years, is now a happily married Christian grandmother. However, even today, I'm pretty sure she'd see things your way!

I did not say I was for or against what happened to her, only relayed the facts as I was told. They seemed to validate some of the other stories that came out of Florida in those days! I was NOT using wishful thinking that such things happened, though I would be a liar if I said I never wished I was a fly on the wall that fateful day! Wishful thinking! (Ok, Perverted wishful thinking! She was so hot!)

I am truly Sorry if my anecdote caused you concern or upset your sensibilities! Now, am I being sarcastic or using wishful thinking that I may actually earn forgiveness? Your call! Either way, lighten up, she survived just fine!

@fatherjim sorry if I took you too seriously

Actually in Siberia they believe it can:

http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/features/beating-addiction-out-of-you-literally /

They probably thought that they were doing her a favour, scaring her straight. Back then mental and emotional abuse went hand in hand with physical abuse - er - I mean "institutional corporal punishment".

Hopefully it's different now, but there were good reasons they closed the large orphanages, and you didn't need to be orphanage or delinquent to suffer in a place like that.

So a couple of decades ago the news was full of abuse claims about a local Catholic run orphanage. Details about the beatings and the shamings - call it physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual abuse with the nuns handing out hard core beatings while telling the kids that this is what they deserved and why did they want to make Jesus want to hate them? Why did they test the savior's love by acting so sinfully? And no, we aren't talking about knuckles being cracked here.

As the news and outrage was spreading, I heard an old friend of the family wondering what the fuss was about. The beatings? The shamings? The mental and emotional abuse? She had gotten all of that going to a convent boarding school in the 1950s, with the difference being her parents were paying for her schooling. Everything that was being reported as abuse, including not wanting to be alone with a certain maintenance worker if you didn't want his hands everywhere on your body, all of that happened at her (now closed) private school because that was how the nuns raised kids. Apparently at the time it was considered a good school, but being in an institution back then, well the situation lent itself to abuse.

Today, well virtually every former orphanage has abuse claims against it, claims that are hard to prove or fight because so many of the "caregivers" are dead. Many private schools have had to quietly settle lawsuits - not for the corporal punishment (which met "the standards of the day") but because abusers sought out places like that for a good supply of victims who weren't going to see their parents every day. Even at the best schools that existed at those times it was almost an open secret that one or two of the staff were diddling the students.

Reformatories where the strap gets swung, schools were the lads drop trousers for their canings, those are interesting in fiction but were hell to live through. Thankfully they are gone now.

Goodgulf
Some good points. And not even nentioned was the sexual abuse committed by so many Catholic priests and the church's coverup and denial.
Not going to go into great detail about the prison system and its abuses but totally agree with something I heard once, that people go to prison or jail as punishment , not be punished. The punishment is incarceration, deprivation of the freedom to come and go as one wishes. Whether it be institutionally-sanctioned brutalization like beatings, or rape by other inmates it is wrong.
To mention the issue of shoplifting, today chances are a first-time teen offender would receive probation and be required to make restitution and perform a certain number of hours of community service. And the juvenile record would be sealed, would not follow her around the rest of her life. Much better than being placed in a juvenile facility with much worse offenders. Some would say is coddling criminals-but do we really want to treat some kid who made a dumb decision like a hardened criminal? Not to mention the fact that so many youth who get in trouble are suffering from psychological problems-ones often stemming from some type of abuse.

Here's a good example of a film about what used to be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven_Help_Us

It's not a boarding school, but the kids at this catholic school know that one of the priests is a Bad Person who disguises abuse as corporal punishment. The abuser doesn't see himself as such, but the other priests at the school know what is happening and more or less ignores it. At least until the end of the movie.

That was actually quite a good film. There's an Australian mini series called The Devil's Playground which looks at a case (fictional) of child molestation leading to suicide and how the church cover it up and simply move the offender to a different parish. Another mini series Leaving Liverpool dealt with how foster kids from England were sent to all corners of the Empire (including Australia) and suffered terribly at the hands of the people who were supposed to look after them and care for them.

I'm beginning to think I'm in the twilight zone! Are we trying to take a moral high ground here, stating all corporal punishment , especially by an institution in the past was nothing but abuse? It reads that way to me.

People, we are here to read stories! STORIES! Yes, some are old and about things we no longer see as acceptable. Heck, there was a time a white woman would be whipped if caught with a black man! Yeah, that racist crap sucks, but if you pull up a newspaper account from 1942 and you read that this happened. It happened! No use showing moral outrage now! We all know it is wrong. Heck, Hitting people for any reason is WRONG! There, now I've gone and ruined it for everyone. I, for one, have always contended all spankings should exist only in the world of fiction, but, you know what, it existed and happened and happens. Heavens forbid, some children and even some adults are still spanked, without CONSENT! I know, it blows the righteous mind!

As a degreed Historian, I do believe "those that forget history are doomed to repeat it". By ignoring old anecdotes from around the world, we leave the door opened. Yes, state your views, but be careful. That person that found that anecdote, may not be so free to share another if attacked for re-telling the past! In South Africa in the early 60's a Swedish woman was caned by the police for spending the night with a black musician. Horrible, should NOT have happened! But it did and re-telling the story may be offensive, but it is also a cautionary tale if we try to legislate our views on morality!

I try to avoid reading anyone's comments on the stories here, as I am so tired of people telling the author that they were abused, should have called the police, and that the whole story should NEVER have happened. BUT, it was well written and fun to read? What?

Fiction is Fiction. Even if based on truth, it's in the past! You can't make judgement. You can only let the story cause you to react to the information. How many writers who get a thrill out of writing about their childhood spankings will share them if they are told their memories are sick? We won't even get into the whole consent issue!

Could you have imagined the stories Stephen King would NEVER have shared had he read such ridiculous comments on his stories! Steven, a car that kills is sick. Pouring pigs blood on a young girl is twisted. What sicko would even imagine such a thing? AND, I'm pretty certain not one person "KILLED" in a Stephen King story ever gave consent to their killing!

Read the stories, Marvel over how times have changed, some for the worse, some for the better. Put yourself in the writer's pants or panties and take that spanking you didn't really deserve. Experience the humiliation and frustration or the realization that , after-all the hub-bub, it didn't really kill you and actually made you better! Or, suffer the outrage of watching your adult daughter soundly spanked by a police officer for jaywalking, and all you can do is stand there and fume. FUME! That is fiction. No one will ever pour pigs blood on your daughter's head, either, but after seeing the movie, you now know just how you would feel about it!


Finally, I was schooled by Nuns for 12 years. Never saw abuse once, not once. I lived with many priests for over five years. Not once did they come on to me, abuse me, or try to take advantage of me. I loved those men for who they were and what they represented. All of them. I truly loved the nuns, all of which were so instrumental in my life. I was never institutionalized, or in an orphanage, or foster home, and I know they are great fodder for horrific stories, so I won't argue about those since I would argue from ignorance. But, I can tell you that there are many many wonderful nuns and priests in this world. Was there systemic attempts to hide bad priests throughout the world? No question. That was wrong. Nevertheless, rushing to judgement on a whole system is quite ridiculous!

Whew!, how many soap boxes did I climb? I could get hurt just trying to get off my high-horse alone! And, what does any of this have to do with The Saturday Evening Post? And, why do I feel somehow responsible? (Catholic guilt?) And, who starts a sentence with and?

People who live in glass houses, should never judge? HMMMM! Definitely wishful thinking!

Maybe I was overstating the case.

I'm not going to say that every child who went to an orphanage or boarding school was abused, or that there were abusers at every school, but from 1990 to 2010 various claims have been made against every one of those institutions I know of. Other students have stepped forward to say "That wasn't my experience", an in some cases we're talking about one or two kids a year (the "special pets" of the abuser), but there was something about having all those children together and away from family members that attracted abusers.

It can be weird following cases like those, where some people explain what wonderful places they were and others talk about the choir master who liked smacking bare bottoms and molesting students. It's as if those people went to different schools, and in a way they did because their experiences were so competently different.

I've also heard people explain that institutional corporal punishment - say caning at an English public school - is a good thing because it teaches the students that the world isn't fair. And I accept that most cases the corporal punishment administered met the community standards of the day.

I think I just proved how half-reading something on too much pain and too little sleep can lead one to type away like a fool! I don't even know what I was ranting about! Sorry to all! Never-mind, nothing to see here! Move along!

In reality, I do, I was ranting because people can post all day long and nothing negative is said. I try to post one thing and then I feel attacked. It's just me with old-wounds that have never healed, that have nothing to do with this site or the great writers here. I really do need to stay off the computer when I'm tired and in pain. Bad combination. Sorry! (Not sarcasm)