The original adoption and the continued use of the paddle in some schools in the South of the USA remains inadequately explained although correlated with conservative beliefs and fundamentalist religion.

Genes (DNA) and Dawkin’s memes (ideas, attitudes, and customs) are transmitted from generation to generation with great and varying fidelity, respectively. Travel, education, forced mixing reduce the stability of memes. Conservative and beleaguered communities evolve more slowly than liberal and confident.

I have previously drawn attention to Scots-Irish Baptist enclave in central Florida with a propensity to paddle. Jun 08, 2019,  #835 viewtopic.php?p=73028#p73028

The following map shows the school districts in Florida that continue to paddle. I know little about the state so am not well placed to interpret the data. Can anyone help, please?

On entry #837 August 31, 2019 KK proffered information indicating that over 10% of 17-year-olds report they are spanked by parents in the USA.  Place and times matter but with in loco parentis it would be less likely that they would take the initiative to write that they would want their youngsters at last to be exempted from corporal punishment at 19.

In time and place here 13% of high school seniors would be subject to the paddle.  Percentage wise more young men and young ladies will be spanked in MS where the age emancipation is not until his or her 20tn birthday.  Who said Lincoln emancipated the slaves?

New Zealand.

1950 doesn’t sound all that long ago.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti … ll+spanked

The optimum age

Fakes and fetishes are not new especially reports of the spanking of young woman

The supposed letter to agony Aunt Jenny, circa 1950, is almost certainly not real. This is not to say that young women were never spanked but such spanking would have been rare and considered by most right thinking people as distinctly “kinky” or worse.

In the 19^th century increasing literacy, improved methods of making paper and printing, combined with the removal of taxes resulted in the modern newspaper and an insatiable appetite for content. Hard news has always been balanced by soft and human interest material, sometimes puerile and salacious even if disguised.  It was not just the popular rags that succumbed to publishing fetish.  Learned men in medical journals were not immune or prolific contributors to this forum.

It is of interest that some US schools in the rural South paddle 12^th graders who could be 17 or even 18 years old. Parental consent is implied or explicit, as is that of the spankee. Clearly, the communities involved find the practice useful and I am not going to condemn them.

When I was in high school in the early 1960’s the school leaving age was 15 and jobs were plentiful. Most of the less academically inclined left school at the end of the school year (in the Southern hemisphere is the same as the calendar year) in which they turned 15. Those who stayed on were at school willingly, in small classes and were generally well behaved.  But we boys were not exempt from caning which, if earned, was always better than the alternative.  CP is quick, clean and cathartic  with minimum impact on others. It is also safer than when used on younger children – if it is an accepted local practice.

I agree with your analysis kk.  The author wanted to start a chain of correspondences other than for its purported purpose.  It is less a likelihood that would not be the case.  I did not think those kinds of people were in New Zealand.  I am kidding.

The conjunction of corporal punishment and young women, and faked “readers’ letters” thereon has, as KK observes, been a regular newspaper circulation boosting device from time immemorial and has frequently been commented upon here in the past.

A not too distant example in a major British Sunday Newspaper was the so-called ‘Caned WRENS”  letters allegedly from women caned (frequently on the bare and by male officers) while serving in the Women’s Royal Naval Service.   These featured in the Sunday Telegraph in 2006 and are said to have been written by the newly appointed female editor who was attempting to liven the staid old Sunday Telegraph up a bit.  She did not survive very long in the post.

I am sure KK is right (he usually is) about similar material in medical journals.  However the only instance I can bring to mind, in the British Medical Journal, was I think motivated not by fetishistic inclinations but by genuine concern about the caning of girls on the part of a doctor who was lobbying the government and medical officialdom on the matter.

But wait, perhaps KK was thinking of caning therapy at the Novosibirsk Institute of Medicine in Siberia.  Yes, certainly a fake IMHO.  But what a pity.  I really did fancy a session on Professor Marina Chukhrova’s caning couch!  

inclinations

Soft evidence for the yellow route

viewtopic.php?p=72797#p72797

In the absence of authoritative reports we must make use of soft evidence such as the following. A single report should be given little weight but the following does make it clear high school coaches and paddles likely had more than a passing acquaintance.
__________________________________________
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-5/

Ashland Tidings. (Ashland, Oregon) October 31, 1912, page 5

ASHLAND HIGH SCHOOL
Personal Notes That Tell of Activities in the Realm of the Three R’s.

[. . . ]

The high school football boys gave
Coach Butterfield a good start-off on
his trip to be married. Scenting
trouble, Mr. Butterfield had planned
to take the motor, but the boys were
wise to him and about 30 got ex-
cused from school and caught him
just as he was making a run for his
office. He was then carried down
to Lane’s, where he was glad to treat.
In the meantime some of the boys
unpacked his grip and substituted
old shoes and rice for his wedding
garments, a loss which he has prob-
ably discovered. He was then es-
corted to the motor, where he was
compelled to give a speech from the
steps, only consenting through fear
of the school paddle. Rice and shoes
decorated the car when it left the
station.

[. . . ]

I am glad you found by whatever way, by sheer happenstance or by not skipping over postings here Penn State University Library as a valued research resource.

Those with an eye to Forum history will wish to note that a significant milestone was reached in this thread today when with contribution #868 above American way made his 1en thousandth logged contribution to this estimable Forum.  His actual total is somewhat greater than that as Tapatalk somehow contrived to lose track of his early posts, made under the actual name American Way.  He has since posted under a variety of usernames due to  login problems which have arisen  at various times.

Congratulations American Way!  I am not too far behind you as Tapatalk contrived to lose a year and a half’s worth of my posts from the totals.  However despite being here rather longer than you I am definitely behind! 

Thank you for your kind words.  Church’s Antique use to sell a raising of the school age limit tawse for a King’s ransom but a less fearsome one is awaiting your milestone post and subsequent induction.  Joan Thomas (Rodney) lived to ripe old age so don’t discount that lady from Margaret Stones Corporal Punishment of Schoolgirls impact.  Hands or posterior?  Your choice.

Virtual school is not the same as reality and the same applies to corporal punishment.