My 99 Cents

‘Spank’ is a strange euphemism. Outside its use in soft porn, the term ’spank’ now only refers to the hitting of children. Its core definition, however, is always the same: a blow (or smack) delivered with an open hand.

The use of the word ’spank’ in the context of striking a child is defensive. Like the media’s insistence on the term ‘abuse’ rather than ‘torture’ to describe the treatment of American detainees in the so-called War on Terror, the use of the word ’spank’ seeks to blunt the reality of violence through language.

This is not to say a ’spank’ on the bottom is the same as torture at Gitmo; nor is every hit the sort of life-threatening crime you read about in the news every day. What it is, however, is violence, the kind any one of us (adults) would not inflict on a fellow adult without risking

1. physical retaliation

2. criminal charges

3. public condemnation

If the word ’spank’ were replaced in every instance ( in conversation among parents and the public in general, in the media, among policy-makers) with the word ‘hit’, public acceptance of the practice would decline. At the very least, a more honest discussion of corporal punishment would ensue. Children are not property, and adults have no more right to hit a child than they have a right to hit each other, or any one other person.

If, as some maintain, hitting “works”, it is only in the way that spousal abuse and sexual abuse “work”, by instilling compliance based on confusion and terror.

Bravo to State Assemblywoman Sally J. Lieber of California for introducing this legislation.