Washing out mouth with soap is a form of physical punishment, most often used as a response to profanity, lying, biting, tobacco use or verbal disrespect. It functions both as a symbolic "cleansing" following the infraction, as well as acting 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.
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Famous quotes containing the words washing, mouth and/or soap:
“Why do otherwise sane, competent, strong men, men who can wrestle bears or raid corporations, shrink away in horror at the thought of washing a dish or changing a diaper?”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“A child of three cannot raise its chubby fist to its mouth to remove a piece of carpet which it is through eating, without being made the subject of a psychological seminar of child-welfare experts, and written up, along with five hundred other children of three who have put their hands to their mouths for the same reason.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Commercial jazz, soap opera, pulp fiction, comic strips, the movies set the images, mannerisms, standards, and aims of the urban masses. In one way or another, everyone is equal before these cultural machines; like technology itself, the mass media are nearly universal in their incidence and appeal. They are a kind of common denominator, a kind of scheme for pre-scheduled, mass emotions.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–62)