When I was really young I discovered that being spanked while wearing diapers didn't hurt a bit. My only fear was my mother would discover this fact.

My mom usually used a wooded spoon for spankings. Once it broke while she was spanking my older brother, and he laughed at her...

My dad was the Spanker, so when he died that stopped. I don't recall it being much more than slightly emotionally traumatic, much more so than the physical part of it.

Allyson, that Unshelved is awesome! I get Unshelved in my LJ as a feed, and I've read a *shitload* of their "book club" books (like yours). Expect your sales to get a bump up.

Who here got spanked by their parents?

Not I, although my older sister did a few times. As I'm not a parent, I have no idea whether I'd ever smack a child, but I'd like to think I wouldn't. I certainly don't plan to, anyway.

That's so terrific about the Unshelved mention -- richly deserved and a great recommendation to their target audience, too.

Who here got spanked by their parents?

Me. My parents had a thing where you weren't supposed to spank on the butt (no idea why), so we were spanked on the backs of our legs instead, with a switch or a belt. That sounds horrible written out, and I wouldn't do it myself, but it wasn't traumatizing at all. I don't think my parents spanked me past the age of 5 or 6, but we had corporal punishment at school, and I occasionally got paddled in elementary school--less than most of the boys, but more than most of the girls, because I was quote-unquote disrespectful and given to talking back until I learned to play the game and keep my dissent and impatience to myself.

The spankings we got in my family involved a heavy duty paint stirrer with a face drawn on it (by one of my siblings, I think). We called it "Percy the Persuader". It should be noted that it was considered preferable by my siblings and I to the bare hand of my mother (my dad having become useless at dealing out punishment early on cause he was a softie at heart).

Hubby says he was spanked. Having heard the descriptions, I say he was beaten. Lingering bruises and having to stay out of school for a couple of days does not count as a spanking. Then again, he and his siblings often used handy kitchen implements/small furniture on each other. It was a very hands-on family.

I was not fully accepted into the family until I yelled at my father-in-law for smacking his grown son, my Hubby, upside the head in my presence. They were afraid he'd married a wimp. Raised by wolves, I guess.

The spanking that I remember the most is the one I got when I turned the thermostat up to 90 degrees. I was led to believe this could cause all sorts of bad things such as the house burning down....

Both my parents had been spanked and agreed that it hadn't done a bit of good but it did make them resentful, so they didn't do it with us. Disappointment worked just fine -- and, as previously noted, they don't even have to be present for it to work!