It could also lead to a tendency to engage in high risk sexual behavior and masochistic sex including having sexual arousal from spanking.
Murray Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory, said, "It increases the chances of sexual problems," but it's not a one-to-one cause.
Elizabeth Gershoff from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor said Straus' study apparently is the first to connect spanking with sexual problems. Gershoff, who went over 8 decades of spanking research, said while many children experienced spanking, the sexual problem may arise depending on how they understood the reason behind the corporal punishment.
Some may understand "that in loving relationships sometimes there's pain or physical aggression," while other young people may develop the view point that "whoever is stronger and has more power can overpower the other person and use physical aggression to control the other person's behavior," Gershoff said.
Straus is slated to present on Thursday the result of his analysis at the Summit on Violence and Abuse in Relationship at Bethesda, Maryland, organized by the American Psychological Association. He had authored three other studies centering on sexual problems.
A 1999 study done by the Ontario Health Supplement found out that Canadian adults who were slapped or spanked during their childhood had a greater tendency to develop anxiety disorders, alcohol abuse or dependence and externalizing problems.
