Could I get paid to do really obvious studies too?

Unlike my post from a few days ago, I'm being facetious when I say that this is a news item no one saw coming. This should have actually been quite an obvious connection to most people with a halfway-functioning brain stem.

A newly-released study has brought us the shocking revelation that there is a link between childhood spanking and adult interest in hot, kinky sex.

"Straus, co-director of UNH's Family Research Laboratory, conducted a study in the mid-1990s in which he asked 207 students at three colleges whether they'd ever been aroused by masochistic sex. He also asked them if they'd been spanked as children. He found that students who were spanked were nearly twice as likely to like masochistic sex."

Maybe this is just me, but, to get a bit Oedipal, it makes sense that childhood experiences will become imprinted on the adult psyche--in this case, in terms of sexual behavior. Getting spanked as a child with a paddle by Daddy Dearest would logically lead to being spanked with a slightly different paddle as an adult.

Of course, part of what I don't like about the study aside from the fact that its conclusion was already glaringly obvious is the fact that it lumps BDSM in with other risky sexual behavior. As someone who owns a lot of leather, a collar, a leash, ropes, and chains, it really makes me angry to be treated like my sexual interests are the result of "damage" done from corporal punishment in childhood. There are plenty of precautions that can be taken to ensure that BDSM between two rational, consenting partners is perfectly safe.

For the record, I was spanked as a kid, and I do have a good interest in BDSM. However, I really don't enjoy being smacked on the ass with anything. I much prefer being tied up, or being the one to tie someone else up, so that either makes me the exception to the rule or proves that spanking isn't really as damaging as Straus would have people (U.S. lawmakers especially) believe.