One point appears remarkably consistently throughout the adult accounts: many underestimated the physical experience.
People who had never received corporal punishment sometimes imagined that its fearsome reputation had been exaggerated over the years.
Several discovered otherwise.
One adult who had spent years wondering what a traditional caning might have been like eventually arranged to experience one.
The first stroke apparently answered much of his curiosity immediately.
The sensation was considerably more severe than expected.
Another participant similarly admitted that he had underestimated the experience and found himself astonished by the intensity.
Others reported rather different reactions.
Some considered the experience painful but manageable. A few found that anticipation was actually worse than the event itself.
This enormous variation is hardly surprising.
People differ considerably in their sensitivity to pain, emotional response and expectations. The circumstances also varied, making comparisons between different accounts extremely difficult.
Interestingly, several people said that once the experience was finished they felt pleased simply because they had finally answered a question which had bothered them for years.
Others reached precisely the opposite conclusion.
One man who had been curious since leaving school eventually tried it as an adult and decided immediately that his curiosity had been completely satisfied.
He had wondered.
He had found out.
And he had absolutely no desire to repeat it.
Perhaps that is the most literal example of curiosity being cured.
