funishment

Blend of fun +‎ punishment.

• (US, UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfʌnɪʃmənt/
• (Northern England) IPA^(key): /ˈfʊnɪʃmənt/

funishment (countable and uncountable, plural funishments)

1. (ethics, uncountable) A proposed treatment of criminals that would take them out of wider society (like a traditional prison) but without aiming to punish them.
   • 2013, Gregg D. Caruso, Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility, page 107:

     I cannot elaborate in full detail here on the way things would unfold, but the crux is that hard determinism is seen to collapse upon itself: institutions of “funishment” will lose their ability to deter, and prove self-defeating.

   • 2014, Derk Pereboom, Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life, page 172:

     Funishment would resemble punishment in that criminals would be incarcerated apart from lawful society; and institutions of funishment would also need to be as secure as current prisons, to prevent criminals from escaping.

   • 2023, Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, New York: Penguin, →ISBN:

     If constraint, no matter how minimal, involves an adverse element that is undeserved punishment, quarantine advocates must provide, in [Saul] Smilansky's words, compensatory “funishment.”

2. (BDSM, countable, uncountable) A "punishment" administered for the enjoyment of the submissive, rather than as discipline.
   • 2014, Raven Kaldera, Sabrina Popp, Unequal By Design: Counseling Power Dynamic Relationships:

     […] when punishment turns into “funishment”, and the Minuscule starts “acting out” in order to have some desired masochistic play.