Campaigners link caning to porn
In the 1970s and early 1980s – the years running up to the abolition of corporal punishment in England’s schools – campaigners often sought out pornographic magazines looking for links between caning and sexual arousal. Pro-caners vehemently denied such a link existed. This was all before the Internet ... Here’s a typical news report from 1977.
CANING
LINKED TO PORN, TEACHERS WARN
EDUCATION Secretary Mrs. Shirley Williams has been
warned of a “growth industry” in pornography that dwells on the experience of
school beatings.
The anti-caning pressure group, the Society of
Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment (STOPP), also says there is no evidence
that the use of the cane in schools is declining.
It says Surrey reintroduced corporal punishment for infants in 1969,
Newcastle introduced a heavier strap last year and Sunderland proposes to
extend the right to beat to probationary teachers.
The group calls on Mrs. Williams to introduce
legislation making physical punishment in schools illegal.
It has supplied her with a dossier containing details
of the contents of corporal punishment magazines which, it says, vary in price
from £1 to £3.50.
About one third of the most easily available magazines
contain material specifically connected with schools, it claims.
It lists a 52-page magazine which has 50 pages of
photographs of "teacher" striking a "schoolboy" with a
cane, metre rule, and by hand on clothed and unclothed buttocks. Also a
two-page colour centre spread showing a "teacher" caning two
"schoolboys" on bare buttocks. The photographs are posed by models.
Mrs. Williams has been told about another 55-page
magazine which has nine pages of drawings and photos, a story titled “Spanking
in Schools" and letters titled “Prep School Punishments” and “Spank or be
Spanked”.
STOPP mentions the existence of glossy magazines, 8mm
films, soundtape cassettes, paper back novels and sets of photos exclusively
devoted to corporal punishment, a high proportion of it set in a school
context.
The pressure group says Mrs. Williams and her advisers
should know “of this underworld reflection” of what remains a “normal” system
of discipline in a majority of British schools.
STOPP says it realises that the distasteful nature of
the evidence leads many people to dismiss it as irrelevant, but it says there
is now a “disturbing” amount of pornography available which dwells on the
experience of corporal punishment.
Such punishment, it claims, can damage the normal
sexual development of a child, and it claims that an addiction to some form of
corporal punishment is a common form of sexual deviation, mainly among men.
Extracted from the
Belfast Telegraph 15 July 1977
Picture credit: Unknown.
Versions of this report also appeared
in other newspapers at the time, including the Reading
Evening Post.
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