Washing out the mouth with soap is a traditional form of physical punishment that consists of placing soap, or a similar cleaning agent, inside a person's mouth so that the person will taste it, inducing what most people consider an unpleasant experience. This form of punishment was especially common in the United States and United Kingdom from the late 19th century until the mid-20th century.
Washing out the mouth with soap is most often used as a response to profanity, lying, biting, [1] tobacco use, or verbal disrespect. It functions both as a symbolic "cleansing" following the infraction and as a deterrent, due to the foul aftertaste. It is commonly used as child discipline or school discipline, and is more frequently employed by mothers than fathers. [2]
This punishment still has advocates today, even though its use has diminished considerably in recent years in favour of discipline methods that are not considered violent or humiliating. Additionally, ingestion of soaps and detergents can have potentially serious health consequences, and people using this form of punishment may face legal sanctions.
A friend of mine was horrified one day by hearing her little boy make use of a very bad word [...] Turning to the maid she said, "Jane, you may take Master Dick up stairs and wash his mouth out with soap and water. It is too soiled for him to sit at the table with us..."
One of the earliest recorded uses of forcing another to ingest soap as punishment appeared in the 1832 Legal Examiner, in which it was noted that a married couple "were constantly quarrelling ; and that one evening, on the man's return home, he found his wife intoxicated, [...] perceiving a piece of kitchen soap lying on the ground near the spot, he crammed it into his wife's mouth, saying, "She has had plenty of water to wash with, she ought now to have a little soap". [4]
In the 1860s, the periodical Aunt Judy's Annual Volume featured the main characters forced to eat a bar of soap as punishment for constantly failing to wash up, as the climax to a story entitled "Scaramouches at School". [5]
In 1872, The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal stated that the practice of washing out the mouth of a child heard to swear was noted by an American colleague, and should be recommended to colleagues in the Orient as well. [6]
In 1873, a schoolmistress in Mahaska, Iowa was noted to have punished a boy in her class for indulging in chewing tobacco by washing his mouth out with soap. [7] Much later examples tell how Filipino or Lakota individuals were punished for speaking their native language with a similar punishment. [8] [9]
An 1898 "study in moral education", published by the Journal of Genetic Psychology, noted that whipping, withdrawal of privileges, lectures, being sent alone to a room and washing out a subject's mouth with either soap, salt or pepper, were the most likely punishments to deter future abuses. [10] Two years later, a New York State Department of Social Welfare officer submitted a complaint against the Rochester Orphan Asylum noting that "I find, as charged, that children's mouths have been washed with soap-suds, but not, as also charged, with ashes and water; that such punishments were ordered for obscene or profane language". [11] By the start of the 20th century, the practice was also noted at the Maryland State Reformatory for Women as punishment for any infraction of the rules. [12]
In the 1940s, washing out the mouth with soap was a hazing ritual in the British Royal Navy. [13]
In the 1950s, several American schoolboards ruled in favour of washing out a pupil's mouth with soap as a legitimate punishment. [14] [15]
In 1953, Wisconsin judge Harvey L. Neelan fined a Miss Mertz $25 for her drunken obscenities and noted that she should be required to wash her mouth with soap. [16] In 1963, Michigan judge Francis Castellucci ordered Louis Winiarski, who had been found using obscene language around women and children, to wash his mouth with soap before leaving the courtroom. [17] A similar case in October 1979 saw a New York resident choose to wash his mouth out with soap, rather than serve ten days in prison for his disorderly conduct and obscenities. [18]
In 1977, the National Criminal Justice Reference System published a report defending the use of corporal punishment in schools, in which a school administrator noted that he documented 200 cases, over his 13-year career, of using corporal punishment, noting "That's not just using paddles in every instance, but if you shake a student, if you grab a student, if you wash a student's mouth out with soap, that's corporal punishment under the definition of the law". [19]
In 1982, the Journal of Youth and Adolescence listed the practise, alongside paddling and hairpulling as a "moderate" punishment for children, beneath the realm of "severe" punishment such as whipping. [20] Similarly in 1996, the American Academy of Pediatrics classified it as an alternative to spanking. [21]
In 2006, students at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts carried out a peer-reviewed study on the ability of punishment to curb the use of profanity by interviewing colleagues on their remembered upbringings, and noted that the most commonly reported parental reaction was a verbal reprimand (41%). Soap in the mouth was mentioned in 20% of the episodes, and physical punishments were described in 14%. [22]
Washing out the mouth with soap is meant to be unpleasant, but is usually not intended to cause death or serious harm. Nonetheless, many people employ the aforementioned techniques with extremely limited knowledge regarding the safety of ingesting their chosen cleansing agents. Agents likely to cause serious harm if swallowed include many automatic dishwasher detergents and laundry detergents. Even ordinary bar soaps and liquid hand soaps may cause harmful effects including vomiting, diarrhea, irritation of the lining of the mouth and digestive tract, and in rare instances, pulmonary aspiration. This is especially true if these products are ingested in large quantities.
The examples and perspective in this section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. The specific issue is: US-only incidents listed here(July 2019) |
There have been a number of cases of arrests, charges and civil lawsuits arising from the domestic discipline of washing another's mouth out with soap; often arising from the perception of abuse of parental authority by an outside figure.
In the United States, there is often variance between individual states as well; [23] for example North Carolina specifically instructs its social workers that "washing a child’s mouth out with soap is not considered an extreme measure", [24] but the Florida Department of Children and Families took away a mother's two children permanently after she forced her 8-year-old daughter to chew soap after saying "fuck", leading to an allergic reaction. [25] [26] [27] [28] [29]
Spanking is a form of corporal punishment involving the act of striking, with either the palm of the hand or an implement, the buttocks of a person to cause physical pain. The term spanking broadly encompasses the use of either the hand or implement, the use of implements can also refer to the administration of more specific types of corporal punishment such as caning, paddling and slippering.
A corporal punishment or a physical punishment is a punishment which is intended to cause physical pain to a person. When it is inflicted on minors, especially in home and school settings, its methods may include spanking or paddling. When it is inflicted on adults, it may be inflicted on prisoners and slaves, and can involve methods such as whipping with a belt or a horsewhip.
A dishwasher is a machine that is used to clean dishware, cookware, and cutlery automatically. Unlike manual dishwashing, which relies on physical scrubbing to remove soiling, the mechanical dishwasher cleans by spraying hot water, typically between 45 and 75 °C, at the dishes, with lower temperatures of water used for delicate items.
Hand washing, also known as hand hygiene, is the act of cleaning one's hands with soap or handwash and water to remove viruses/bacteria/microorganisms, dirt, grease, and other harmful or unwanted substances stuck to the hands. Drying of the washed hands is part of the process as wet and moist hands are more easily recontaminated. If soap and water are unavailable, hand sanitizer that is at least 60% (v/v) alcohol in water can be used as long as hands are not visibly excessively dirty or greasy. Hand hygiene is central to preventing the spread of infectious diseases in home and everyday life settings.
School discipline relates to actions taken by teachers or school organizations toward students when their behavior disrupts the ongoing educational activity or breaks a rule created by the school. Discipline can guide the children's behavior or set limits to help them learn to take better care of themselves, other people and the world around them.
Dishwashing, washing the dishes, doing the dishes, or washing up in Great Britain, is the process of cleaning cooking utensils, dishes, cutlery and other items to prevent foodborne illness. This is either achieved by hand in a sink using dishwashing detergent or by using a dishwasher and may take place in a kitchen, utility room, scullery or elsewhere.
Child discipline is the methods used to prevent future unwanted behaviour in children. The word discipline is defined as imparting knowledge and skill, in other words, to teach. In its most general sense, discipline refers to systematic instruction given to a disciple. To discipline means to instruct a person to follow a particular code of conduct.
A spanking paddle is an implement used to strike a person on the buttocks. The act of spanking a person with a paddle is known as "paddling". A paddling may be for punishment, or as an initiation or hazing ritual.
The tawse, sometimes formerly spelled taws is an implement used for corporal punishment. It was used for educational discipline, primarily in Scotland, but also in schools in a few English cities e.g. Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, Liverpool, Manchester and Walsall.
Laundry detergent is a type of detergent used for cleaning dirty laundry (clothes). Laundry detergent is manufactured in powder and liquid form.
Miss Agatha Trunchbull, also known as Miss Trunchbull, or simply The Trunchbull, is the fictional headmistress of Crunchem Hall Primary School, and the main antagonist in Roald Dahl's 1988 novel Matilda and its adaptations: the 1996 film Matilda, the 2011 musical Matilda, and the 2022 film Matilda the Musical. She is said to look "more like a rather eccentric and bloodthirsty follower of the stag-hounds than the headmistress of a nice school for children".
Dishwashing liquid, or dishwashing soap, dish detergent, and dish soap is a detergent assisting in dishwashing. Dishwashing detergents for dishwashers come in various forms like cartridges, gels, liquids, pacs, powder, and tablets. It is usually a highly-foamy mixture of surfactants with low skin irritation that consumers primarily use for washing glasses, plates, cutleries, and cooking utensils. In addition to its primary use, dishwashing liquid also has various informal applications, like creating bubbles, clothes washing, and cleaning birds from oil spills.
In sociology and psychology, poisonous pedagogy, also called black pedagogy, is any traditional child-raising methods which modern pedagogy considers repressive and harmful. It includes behaviours and communication that theorists consider to be manipulative or violent, such as extreme forms of corporal punishment.
Caning is used as a form of corporal punishment in Malaysia. It can be divided into at least four contexts: judicial/prison, school, domestic, and sharia/syariah. Of these, the first is largely a legacy of British colonial rule in the territories that are now part of Malaysia, particularly Malaya.
School corporal punishment is the deliberate infliction of physical pain as a response to undesired behavior by students. The term corporal punishment derives from the Latin word for the "body", corpus. In schools it may involve striking the student on the buttocks or on the palms of their hands with an implement such as a rattan cane, wooden paddle, slipper, leather strap or wooden yardstick. Less commonly, it could also include spanking or smacking the student with an open hand, especially at the kindergarten, primary school, or other more junior levels.
Physical or corporal punishment by a parent or other legal guardian is any act causing deliberate physical pain or discomfort to a minor child in response to some undesired behavior. It typically takes the form of spanking or slapping the child with an open hand or striking with an implement such as a belt, slipper, cane, hairbrush, paddle, whip, or hanger. On a looser definition, it can also include shaking, pinching, forced ingestion of substances, or forcing children to stay in uncomfortable positions.
R v Hopley was an 1860 legal case in Eastbourne, Sussex, England. The case concerned the death of 15-year-old Reginald Cancellor at the hands of his teacher, Thomas Hopley. Hopley used corporal punishment with the stated intention of overcoming what he perceived as stubbornness on Cancellor's part, but instead beat the boy to death.
Corporal punishment, sometimes referred to as "physical punishment" or "physical discipline", has been defined as the use of physical force, no matter how light, to cause deliberate bodily pain or discomfort in response to undesired behavior. In schools in the United States, corporal punishment takes the form of a school teacher or administrator striking a student's buttocks with a wooden paddle.
Corporal punishment of minors in the United States, meaning the infliction of physical pain or discomfort by parents or other adult guardians, including in some cases school officials, for purposes of punishing unacceptable attitude, is subject to varying legal limits, depending on the state. Minor children in the United States commonly experience some form of corporal punishment, such as spanking or paddling. Despite opposition from medical and social-services professionals, as of 2024, the spanking of children is legal in all 50 states and, as of 2014, most people still believe it is acceptable provided it does not involve implements. Corporal punishment is in the United States usually considered distinct from illegal child abuse, although the distinction can often be vague.
Like most detergent products, Tide Pods, a laundry detergent pod sold by Procter & Gamble (P&G) since 2012, can be deadly if ingested. Media reports have discussed how children and those with dementia could mistake laundry pods for candy and endanger their health or life by consuming them, and they were named an emerging health risk by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2012. Between 2012 and 2013, poison control centers reported over 7,000 cases of young children eating laundry pods, and ingestion of laundry pods produced by P&G had resulted in six deaths by 2017. In response to the dangers, P&G changed Tide Pod containers to an opaque design, introduced warning labels, and added a bitter-tasting chemical to the pod contents.