The school I attended between the age of about 8 and about 11 years of age used to use corporal punishment a lot. The thing that I find annoying - with hindsight - was that it was very trivial. I didn't realise this at the time and went out of my way to ensure I never got it, but a regular series of miscreants would get hauled to the front of the class and whacked time and time again and although it was probably a real laugh to them because they knew from previous experience that it wasn't really done in a way that would hurt much, the rest of us were cowed into meek compliance through our ignorance.
However, I would say that I - and I think most of my fellow pupils - did quite enjoy the spectacle when someone was getting whacked with a stick, ruler, slipper or just the hand. When people are shooting spanking scenes it would get rather cumbersome and expensive to employ models to just be in the class watching with interest as one of their colleagues is dealt with but of course drawings don't suffer such limitations.

This drawing came from Janus magazine and was provided to illustrate a story where a teacher decided to punish one of the older girls by humiliating her - she took the girl into a class of much younger pupils, put her over her knee and spanked her bare bottom. It was very much the case that the girl would have elected a more severe punishment delivered in privacy rather than this humiliation in front of the younger girls, but clearly they were very much enjoying the spectacle. I'm not sure we would ever have jostled for a view quite this obviously but I can certainly empathise with the excitement showing in the faces of the audience.