I am finally home in San Francisco after a long week in Austin, Texas for the big SXSW tech conference; I apologize for the delay in approving comments today (flight delayed FIVE hours) – and the lack of updates around here. We’re about to get back to normal! I missed you, and have a lot to share.
While I decompress and unpack and eat check out one of the stranger scenes at SXSW Interactive, one of the booths on the Trade Show floor. It seems that on March 10, fashion designer Marc Ecko launched an anti-corporal punishment campaign (regarding kids in American schools).
As part of the launch and sort-of social media foray in Unlimited Justice‘s bizarre marketing plan, the company put a huge spanking booth in the corner of the SXSW Trade Show. Yes: the scene (pictured above) looked like Kink.com lite at SXSW.
It had two full-on spanking machines that used wooden paddles, and was staffed by booth babes. Que!?! To say that it sent a mixed message it putting it mildy. No offense to the booth babes, who were friendly (I chatted them up, of course). But they were only there because they were hired to promote the campaign, and had only learned about the topic a day before. It seems downright odd to me that the way you’d raise awareness about stopping the institutional hitting of children would be to sex it up. And you know me, I love sexing things up. This just felt weird and uncomfortable to everyone I talked to after we all got over the excitement of there possibly being an adult spanking booth at a tech conference.
The saddest part was that the babes were not into spanking wither, in any kind of sex-positive grown-up kind of way which might have given this idea any kind of rational context. The blonde told me she’d only been spanked for the first time in her life by the machine to test it out, and it left her unpleasantly bruised. Too bad.
Photos of the machines and paddles are part of this gallery I shot for CBSi/ZDNet, which has other oddities in it like SXSW schwag condoms, booth babes, a kik.com sign that got mysteriously improved…
There should not be a balance of power between a teacher in a class and a 13 year old student. The teacher IS in charge.
I not sure spanking is the answer, but there seem to be no penalties whatsoever for misbehavior or failure. A student cannot be failed! We have 8th grade students who cannot read. We have 8th grade students who are parents.
A student is flippant, arrives late, turns in incomplete or late work. Then when the student starts his/her first job that student promptly gets fired and everyone blames the school teachers.
The problem is system wide. When someone tries to correct any part of the problem even as Mark’s device, the attacks are predictable.
What frustrates me is that I HAVE taught in a better system and I HAVE seen the better results. I know what works, I also convinced that it’s politically unachievable.
Happy St Pat’s.
While I can’t say I agree with the marketing technique, there is a certain psychology at work here. However, it doesn’t sound like it was well presented. Adults get a charge out of spanking because it is an act of humiliation, an exchange of power, and it hurts. These are exactly the reasons spanking is inappropriate for children. Spanking between adults (especially in a trade show booth) is consensual play. Spanking a child is neither consensual nor play. When an adult spanks a child, there is no balance of power – just very real pain and humiliation.
I wonder how much time Mark has spent teaching middle school.