The other day Paul, a long time friend of ours came over to our house and was telling us about some people at the hot pools who had whipped their kid for being bad if full view of the hot springs. Paul, who is against any form of child abuse, was outraged and said, "Can you believe it. The kid was only 5 years old and they spanked him just for running around and bothering folks. They're lucky that I didn't whip their asses."
So I started telling Paul about some of the ways that other peoples of the world disciplined their children. When I got to Thailand I told him that the Thai's corrected their kids by a member of the same sex pinching the genitals of the offending child. It's usually done by the oldest family member who's present but once I even saw a restaurant manager call over a couple of kids who were left in the restaurant and were running wild. She told them to come over to her then told them to behave, which they did for about five minutes. Soon they were running around again so the manager called them over again. When the kids came up to her, she reached out and pinched the oldest boy through his pants right on his penis. The other Thai’s in the restaurant started laughing and pointing at the boy who was immediately ashamed of his behavior, straightened up, took his sisters hand and sat down at a table until his parents came back. Kelly and I have seen this kind of punishment lots of times and it always worked, and with either sex.
Paul, like most Americans, was very upset at what he considered to be sexual child abuse says, "Those perverts should be arrested, thrown in prison where they could suffer a little abuse themselves for doing something like that."
I say, "But Paul, that's not any worse than spanking, slapping or beating a kid. Or even screaming at them and calling them names, and the whole time that we have traveled in Thailand we’ve never seen any of those happen to a child. Since the object of disciplining a child is to get their attention and to alter their behavior, then pinching their genitals and laughing at them is better than actually hurting or belittling them."
Paul looked at me saying, "I don't believe you. You know how I feel about child abuse so I think that you're just telling me this to get a rise out of me, because no one is going to touch a kids genitals in public and get away with it."
We then go through period of "I tell you it's true." "No it's not." Until finally Paul says, "Well, if it's true, will you swear to it on the Bible?"
I say, "Sure, I'll swear on it, but since I am not a Christian then swearing on the Bible would mean nothing to me."
Paul's quiet for a moment then says, "Well then, what does have meaning to you that you will swear on?"
I think then say, "Kelly's panties have meaning to me, so I'll swear by them." I turned to Kelly saying, "Hey Kelly, take your panties off and kick them over to me so I can swear on them that what I said is true."
Kelly just shrugs and starts to take her panties down, but Paul stops her by saying, "That's okay Kelly, you don't have to take them off. If Tai's willing to swear by them then I guess I have to believe him even though I still thinks it's sick! And anybody who does it is just a filthy pervert."
I try to tell him that different culture’s handle different things differently and that there is no one correct way to do anything, but Paul wouldn't listen. He just shook his head at my stupidity.