I was dumbfounded by a news story I read last week - an Alabama high school punished 18 students for violating the school's dress code by showing up at the prom in clothes that were deemed too revealing. Share on Tumblr PinExt Corporal Punishment? In 2010?

By Jennie

I was dumbfounded by a news story I read last week – an Alabama high school punished 18 students for violating the school’s dress code by showing up at the prom in clothes that were deemed too revealing. This isn’t what surprised me – schools certainly have the right to set dress codes for school attendance and school functions. The first thing that surprised me was that the students weren’t turned away from the prom, which seems to me like it would have been the most appropriate and sensible punishment. The students were allowed to attend, but were told that they must choose between a three-day suspension and a paddling as punishment.

Perhaps even more surprisingly,  only one of the students chose the suspension over the paddling.

There is a lot about this story that confuses and disturbs me. First of all, I’m curious as to how many of the violators were male and how many were female.  I would bet that it’s not the boys’ styles of dress that were deemed inappropriate (unless the odious “baggy pants around the thighs” style has actually made it to formal wear). I understand that it was probably girls’ attire that was the most in danger of being too revealing. But I don’t like that  in our society, on the one hand young women are constantly bombarded with messages encouraging them to be sexy, but on the other hand when girls listen to that message, they are judged or punished.

Furthermore, the girl who chose suspension over paddling appeared to be…well-endowed. The dress that she wore may have passed the modesty test on a girl with a smaller chest. That doesn’t seem quite fair to me. I would have to guess that determining who was appropriately dressed and who was not, even with guidelines, was not an exact science. (I know that there was a determination as to how many inches above the knee skirts were allowed to be; I wonder if girls were checked out with tape measures at the door.)

Another question: I wonder how many of the students who chose paddling over suspension felt pressured to choose the punishment rather than miss three days of school that they may have needed in order to get the grade they were hoping for. The fact that the majority of the students chose paddling does not mean that it’s a reasonable punishment.

Again, I really, really don’t understand why the school did not simply send the children home to change their clothes. If what they were wearing was objectionable enough to get them punished, it seems to me that it was…dangerous to the moral well-being of the rest of the prom-goers to allow them to gaze upon these wanton hussies misguided youngsters.

But the biggest WTF is really just this: paddling? Really? In this day and age? On nearly grown children? I’m afraid to ask who administered the paddlings, and what sort of morality tests they had to undergo before it was determined that they were pure-minded to carry out an act that, after all, dominatrixes get paid big bucks (one would suppose! I have no actual knowledge of the going rate for a dominatrix!) to perform.

Last but not least, I wonder what the parents thought? If it were your child, would you let a stranger spank them?

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