I was in high school in the early 1960’s and the paddle was used by the P.E. teacher fairly regularly in P.E. class that at the time was all boys. While the “taking it like a man” thing seemed operational more becuase you didn’t want to appear a wimp in front of your classmates, there was none of this bonding stuff that seems to be so prevelent in the English school system. We took our whacks but didn’t like it, didn’t like the teacher and freqently plotted revenge if we could.
This tribal kinship growing to manhood thing and the showing of stripes and bragging about receiving CP which seems to come across when Brits and Aussies talk about their CP experiences, didn’t happen, at least not in my school. It mostly angered the recipients and didn’t have much impact on behavior—except that we were more careful not to get caught at our mischief which sometimes took the form of hiding the jerk’s paddle or other of his teaching supplies in retribution. Air was also let out of all four tires of his automobile more than once too.