As a child, did you ever throw a whole handful of chocolate pudding at your father's head because he said you couldn't have a pony and then did you get put over bended knee and given a good spanking? If so, a new collection of studies presented at the American Psychological Association's Summit on Violence and Abuse in Relationships in Bethesda, MD, this week suggests that such corporal punishment may have affected your adult sex life.

Abuse expert Prof. Murray Straus of New Hampshire University polled 207 college students in the mid-nineties and found that those who'd been spanked earlier were nearly twice as likely to enjoy masochistic sex later. Though it's a little Freudian-sounding for our tastes, the idea that early childhood experiences may affect our later sexual proclivities is not that shocking; nor is the idea of enjoying a little masochistic sex as an adult really all that disturbing either, if you ask us (assuming the spanking wasn't tantamount to abuse)--when it comes to adult sex, as long as you're not hurting anyone else without their consent, do what feels good (even if that means feeling bad). But there is definitely something shocking and disturbing about the results of the follow-up research Straus just presented...