Children who are spanked are more likely as adults to coerce their partners to have sex, to have unprotected sex and to have masochistic sex, according to new research by Murray Straus, sociology professor and co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire.

While other studies have shown the link between spanking and physical violence, Straus said his research is the first to unearth a link between corporal punishment and sexual behavior.

Straus's inspiration to study the connection between spanking and sex came from two unlikely sources: Voltaire and Madonna. The 18th-century philosopher wrote about how his penchant for masochistic sex came from being spanked as a child, Straus said. Madonna sang about it.

"Some girls, they like candy, and others, they like to grind," she sang in her 1990 hit "Hanky Panky." "I'll settle for the back of your hand somewhere on my behind."

Straus 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.

Straus has bundled that study with three new ones that explore the connections between corporal punishment, coerced sex and risky sex. He presented all four studies yesterday at the American Psychological Association's Summit on Violence and Abuse in Relationships in Bethesda, Md.

"My underlying motive was to bring this to the attention of parents and of more people," Straus said this week, "in the hope it will help continue the decrease in the use of corporal punishment."

Straus defines corporal punishment as the use of physical force to correct a child's actions or control a child. The physical force is often enough to hurt a child, he said, but not injure him.

"The defining line between abuse and corporal punishment is injury," Straus said. "This minute, in Concord, you can bet there's some frustrated, angry parent slamming a child against a wall. Most of those kids are going to bounce off, unhurt. But one . . . will have a concussion. Then it's child abuse."

Previous studies have shown that 90 percent of parents strike their toddlers, a statistic that's held steady throughout the 30 years Straus has researched corporal punishment. Meanwhile, the number of parents who hit older children has drastically decreased. Straus said it's unclear why, though he has some theories. One is that 2- and 3-year-olds are less likely to respond to repeated verbal warnings.

But Straus said the effects of spanking a child can be grave. He'd like more pediatricians and child-rearing experts to warn against spanking. He'd also like lawmakers to take a stand by dedicating some state money to teaching parents about the dangers of corporal punishment. "The best-kept secret in child psychology is that children who were never spanked are among the best behaved," Straus said.

Here's a look at Straus's most recent findings:

• Adults who were spanked as children are more likely to coerce their partners to have sex.

Straus asked 14,000 college students in 32 different countries whether they strongly disagreed, disagreed, agreed or strongly agreed with this statement: "I was spanked or hit a lot before age 12." He also asked whether they had ever verbally or physically coerced an uninterested partner to have sex.

He found a big difference between students who said they'd been hit a lot before age 12 and those who said they hadn't. For every increased step on Straus's four-step scale of agreement, men were 10 percent more likely to have verbally coerced sex from a partner by insisting on sex or threatening to end the relationship if the partner refused. Women were 12 percent more likely to have done that.

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