You could slap his wrist for saying it, but then he....

“ You could slap his wrist for saying it, but then he said it with his face, and you could spank him for making faces, but then he said it with his eyes, and there were limits to correction—no way, in the end, to penetrate behind the blue irises and eradicate a boy’s disgust. ”

Jonathan Franzen

From : The Corrections