View original postI was in this same argument a few day ago (in person, which made it much more uncomfortable.)

I can well imagine, my last run in on this subject, live and in person, was as the de facto referee at a night out gone bad, where ironically the two people arguing were not the ones drinking and seemed to be trying to outdo each other in terms of most absurd caricatures. We had one angry hyper-pro-spanker who had serious temper control issues and a habit of spewing out statistics from thin air, and one who thought spanking was automatically severe abuse who was prone histrionics and tearing up and threw out endless sob stories. Felt like I was sitting through a play, a very bad an awkward play.

The former admitted to having no recollection of ever being spanked, but having no criminal record, and the latter admitted to have been spanked regularly, was paradoxically indignant at the implication they'd ever been abused, and also was - barring the penchant for melodrama - very courteous and had no criminal record. Neither of them saw the irony of that, even when attempts were made to explain it.

So they were like poster-children for the other side. Plus the cliche gender role reversal, weeping willow was a guy and temper control was a chick. They also ended up dating which was disgustingly predictable.

View original postEvery time I read something on it, I always feel there are too many other factors involved to properly isolate what causes what. I imagine I don't need to point out that I'm talking about spankings and not beatings, but it seems I can't take these things for granted on rafo.

Well the common sense level at RAFO is actually pretty far above most internet sites, but yeah, can't take anything for granted. There's a heavy flavor of reductionist to these sort of studies, and I lean to the holism outside of major obvious trauma, so I may be biased but I don't really think at this time one can realistically settle spank v no-spank even with a proper study, as you say, there's just too many factors, and the 900-lb gorilla in the room is that even if there weren't it probably very unrealistic to expect to get reliable trustworthy data on a subject where proper inquiry requires veering very close to "Do you beat your children?" in the eyes of whoever you're asking.