I'll say this again right off the bat since you seemed to ignore it completely, it's irreverent whether it's sexual or not! You would be more shocked if the head of the orphanage was a male and non-violently raped her? Why? Or maybe you wouldn't be? Yet that would be a less severe "punishment".
Arousal is required for something to be "sexual", in your book? Then if she took a large thorny object and forcefully inserted it into Rikos vagina, pulling it in and out and causing all sorts of damage, but neither of them were aroused,that wouldn't be sexual in your book? If you kick a person in the groin, that is a attack on someones sex, AKA a sexual attack, the phrase is being used much differently here than normal, but that is technically correct. It's not asking them to become sadists, the self defense instructor is not asking them to string their attacker up with rope by their groin and leave them hanging there for a day! Or turn the juice on while they're in a electrocution chair! Besides, Riko had a pretty extreme blush going on in that picture, and being naked is something you can get use to easily enough.
You don't know if she was put on display or not? The boy had no problem looking at her. Regardless, it was YOU who said it was to make a example of her, now you're saying the example was possibly in private? You seem to be a bit confused about the meaning of the phrase "making a example" of someone.
And back to it being irrelevant whether it was sexual or not, and it being ineffective. I shall go through a long list of things that could have been done to encourage kids and people in general to do what you want.
1. While it's pretty nasty and unfair to do, punishing a group for the actions of one is also a pretty effective way of making sure a group keeps a person in line. You can offer the group rewards for catching someone doing something against the rules and reporting i/stopping and pass down punishment to everyone, or everyone but the perpetrator if they are caught without anyone reporting it. Like creating your own mini-police state.
When Riko did whatever she did that resulted in her being tied up and hanged naked on display with a rope violating her, if they had instead punished everyone but Riko for it, say grounded everyone else but her, and deprived them of dessert for a month, and told them they'd get rewarded instead of punished (except for the rulebreaker) if they report next offense before it's discovered, you can be sure the kids themselves would be making sure something like that doesn't happen again. Of course you got to be careful with the rewarding for reporting, keeping it minimal to minimize false positives.
2. Provide something positive, a carrot, to encourage people, it also becomes a stick, since you can't take away something unless you give it out. If Riko and others were given chances to earn stuff. Rather than being told everything found by their own effort and risk of life, simply belongs to the orphanage as the price of food and shelter, it doesn't work for communism, and it wouldn't work here either. If Riko had a chance to earn the items she wanted, then she wouldn't be "stealing" them, and having earned them, any time she misbehaves, you know she has these items, they are out in the open, and you can then take them away as punishment. Also, by earning stuff, they can use their own stuff while exploring and take better care of it than if it was borrowed from the orphanage, with the orphanage owning everything.
3. Learn about the people you are trying to manage. Anyone who bothers learning at all about Riko would know she loves exploring. And knowing her mother, along with her passion, would mean you'd know she'd have great potential that needs nurturing and protecting. Depriving her of chances to train and explore is probably the most effective way to punish her, ground her to her room, no lessons, along with taking the stuff she earned from #2, at least temporarily. You know she'll make up for lost time when the punishments over.
4. Combining 2 and 3. You get to know the kid, talk to them, make them appreciate having you around and desire your praise because they know you appreciate them. Then the greatest punishment is disappointing you. Verses literally (I mean literally, literally) torturing her over and over so she becomes hard to it.
5. Don't go bonkers on the rules. There is a expression, 'pick your battles'. If you make lots of rules, including unreasonable ones, and try to enforce them all, you're going to lose alot more.
I'm sure there is more I'm not remembering or lack the expertise to properly get into it. Not doing some of these things may just mean she's just stupid and stuck in her ways. Not doing any of these things, and torturing her over and over again, despite there being lots of evidence of it being ineffectual and even backfiring, means the Old lady head is doing it only because she enjoys inflicting the extremely absurd excessive tortures (that yes, some are sexual in nature too)
Edited by truepurple, 19 July 2017 - 08:55 PM.