1987; Austria 1989; Cyprus 1994; Denmark 1997; Latvia 1998; Croatia 1999; Germany 1999; and Bulgaria 1999), it appears that the media in Australia prefer to regard it as "normal" rather than "deviant" behaviour. "Children continue to be the only people against whom violence is considered to be acceptable" (Saunders and Goddard 2000: 124). In some cases the "light smack or tap on the hand or bottom" (Goddard 1996a: 182) turns "into beating and so along the line to the point where abuse laws, or the criminal law, can be invoked" (Boss 1995: 28). Indeed, many deaths and severe injuries of infants and young children may be linked to "confusion about, or reluctance to condemn, corporal punishment of a child" (Goddard 1996a: 182). As a general rule, media coverage of the issue in Australia has tended to be conservative and has failed to make the connection (see Saunders and Goddard 1999b). This view of "physical punishment" is also reflected in the media elsewhere. The following headlines appeared in the same newspaper within one week: Is there a backlash? In 1988, David Hechler's The Battle and the "Backlash": The Child Sexual Abuse War was published. The principal focus of the book is on what Hechler terms the "backlash". Hechler's argument, outlined in his first chapter, can be summarised as follows: The discovery of the full extent of child sexual abuse followed the recognition of physical abuse as a serious problem. Child sexual abuse had previously been regarded as rare, or the product