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“Even innocents carry within them their own guilt in their own way. No one makes it through life without paying, in one fashion or another.”
--Lady Helena Atreides, “Dune: House Atreides”
Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson (469) | | “You can REALLY take a severe beating young lady.” Paddle abusers praise their victims this way often after paddling. They sometimes even shake their hands, or tell them what “good Christians they are” for taking a hard beating without complaint, and for hiding the pain and humiliation. | | When doing some of the early interviews, I believed for a time that some of the paddled young women were not strongly affected by their paddlings. Some of the young women seemed approving of their paddlings, and seemed otherwise unconcerned about the sexual issues. This made me doubt the book and myself. Maybe men paddling women is ok after all? Some of them even seem proud at how they were able to “take the licks.” If it doesn’t bother them, why should it bother me? The principal’s are no doubt happy swinging their paddle toys, the women seemed to have no problem, and more than a few seemed to revel in “taking a good whoopin” with dignity, as they had been conditioned to do. | | This ability to take a hard beating may not have been such a helpful trait, some of them later realized. This actually tended to encourage the paddlers to hit even more often and harder. When they got a stoic they “busted her ass” even more than normal. Maybe they just wanted to see if they could break her down and make her cry, or maybe they just enjoyed giving a very severe beating that they couldn’t give to most students, not because they were extra bad but simply because they were able to take it. Cathy and I have seen this many times in our lengthy and detailed interviews of both school and home spankings. | | At first hearing, women describing paddling without it seeming to bother them can seem erotic. The sex abuse elements are left, but we seemingly have no harm and no victim. Some young women, in fact, almost seem to “get off” on being able to take a severe beating. They were very proud that they didn’t “rub their ass in front of the Principal,” or didn’t “cry in front of classmates.” They didn’t, in fact, show any emotion. They deeply buried how much it physically hurt, and they even more deeply buried the psychological and sexual harms. Some of them, particularly if they had been paddled before, had mentally “tuned out” or “zoned out” of the experience somehow, which is very disturbing when dissociation disorders are considered. Even while describing the beatings some sounded detached—like they were talking about watching a movie of someone else being beaten. | | It at first, in my ignorance, this seemed to me a positive. I reluctantly added some praise of my own to them and re-considered writing this book, regardless of the principal’s rather obvious sexual motivations and sadism. Somehow these young women overcame the abusive treatment and got on with life with some stoic coping mechanism that I didn’t understand. As Cathy and I listened more and questioned more deeply, however, this perverse pride started to reveal itself as perhaps the saddest thing of all about paddling—and that was years before I would learn of dissociation effects. It sunk in that this attitude was akin to battered wives being praised by their abusive spouses for being able to take a hard beating well, and being proud afterwards that they didn’t complain or show their pain to anyone. It would be like slaves being praised for “really taking a beating” without complaint, and who seem content with their life and fate. It is very subtle, but also a sign of the deepest societal sickness possible. | | A local Newspaper article showed this subtle, sad effect in a victim of domestic violence who had that same, perverse “pride” that paddlers so like to engender at being able to take severe beatings from her husband well. There were a few articles in the Oakland (Michigan) Press called, “Missing mother had talked of abuse,” and the next day, “Children [of the missing mom] taken into custody.” |
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