It is perfectly reasonable to tell your kids that they should not drink or be in situations where others are drinking. I believe that parents should first make sure their own drinking is not problematic. If a parent, while drinking, has EVER done or said something they regret, they should own up to it and consider the example they set for their kids. Four ounces of wine and 12 ounces of beer are considered one drink. More than two drinks per day is too much for anyone. Modern wine glasses are gargantuan compared to the ones I bought when first married in l959. Look at yourselves first parents. And yes, teach your child to respect themselves and all people and animals. Demonstrate respect in your own relationships. Take good care of yourself. You are your child's first and best teacher.
36
Fathers have to set a good example for their sons. My late husband always treated women as the intelligent people they are and all the women of our acquaintance loved him for it. He never hesitated to call men out for their stupidity in their attitudes toward women. Our son witnessed his father's behavior and learned what being a real man was all about.
A couple of years ago my son told me the most important thing his father told him in all their talks was, "The first time you hit a woman or molest her sexually against her will you have lost your manhood forever". My son certainly has his faults, but a lack of respect for women is not one of them.
52
I once overheard a thirtysomething classical musician's response to his ladyfriend's suggestion that they attend her high school reunion together. "Only if you can promise that your classmates won't beat me up," he replied.
He said it lightly, but I knew that he had grown up in a small town on the Great Plains, probably not the friendliest environment for a boy whose interests went beyond hunting, fishing, and sports.
Boys are not all the same, and yet if you go shopping for boys' clothes you find an emphasis on sports- and military-themed casual clothes, and yes, that includes camo for babies. Middle American culture very strongly insists on boys being aggressive, uninterested in intellectual matters, totally wrapped up in sports, unemotional, and macho.
There's a difference between machismo and masculinity. Machismo blusters to cover up insecurity, aspires to a stereotype exemplified by the plethora of superhero movies, and despises everyone who isn't macho, whether it's women and girls or less macho boys. Masculinity is quietly self-confident, uses its strength for good, and does not need to conform to any stereotype, or indeed, to prove anything to anyone.
It is the rare American school that does not field any sports teams. I maintain that we need to place equal emphasis on the arts as a way to show young people different ways to be and to gradually change our warped culture.
55
No two people are alike but the hormones which determine sexuality determine a lot of preferences that will not be conditioned to their opposites.
I appreciate this article, but it misses the point.
Yes, it would be good for boys to see women and girls as full human beings. But the deeper cause for a lot of these problems is that boys are not taught to respect themselves as full human beings.
Boys are very expressive, physically, verbally and emotionally, at a young age. Then they are told not to cry, and their emotions are shut down. Also, many boys are being punished in school for running and rough-housing at recess, things that make children naturally do. Instead of helping boys develop strong, healthy emotional expression, adults shut the kids down. So, we end up with men who express their physical-sexual-emotional selves in a distorted way.
This would not happen if these guys had a strong emotional intelligence onboard. Boys are de-humanized by being shut down emotionally.
This article suggests that how boys view women is at the heart of male health. No, male health and well-being is at the heart of healthy male expression. We need people to recognize that both men and women have been dehumanized by reductive cultural norms. Support the boys in having strong, healthy emotional expression! That will guide all the physical-sexual stuff. I am a man, and I know this is an import part of the solution!
55
In defense of men.
I will admit that boys in locker rooms is no place to learn about sexuality. Having said that, women need to know this.
Locker room banter is rarely if ever a discussion about violence towards women. I take exception to the belief many women have that all males are about conquering women any way they can. Including violently.
It is simply not true.
Most men have mother, sisters, women relatives who they cherish and protect. They don't speak about assaulting women for fun. That would be disrespectful to the women in their lives.
They don't.
If one accepts the notion that "boys will be boys". Then we will not have responsible men in society. We will only have fully grown, aggressive, beastly men acting out sexual fantasy violently.
That is not the world I, or most men, live in.
44
As the father of teenage boys, I’m far more worried about the promiscuous teenage girls in our neighborhood constantly encouraging my sons to have sex with them. Three times I’ve had to send girls home when they showed up at our house to “study” dressed (almost) in a way that made Madonna seem like a Puritan.
In 2018, boys don’t have to “attack” girls, they have to defend themselves from their constant advances.
42
Well. if you want to spend your time tilting at evolutionary windmills, this is as soon a way to do it as any. I don't think the de-masculinization of men is going to happen any time soon, whatever onesies you put on them. Boys will do bad things, especially when it comes to sex (and wrecking family cars), but they WILL be boys. If you think otherwise, you've never been a boy and probably have never been the parent of one.
Those of us who are still asking ourselves how Trump could have won will gain some understanding by reading this piece and considering how people who don't live in the NYT bubble might react to this sort of thing (such as dressing your little boy in girl's clothing).
38
Helping girls to realize that if sexual activity is forced on them or coerced they have no reason to be ashamed. It seems to be just accepted that victims keep this to themselves for years which is understandable due to attitudes and treatment of victim in the past.
Going forward I think a great deal of emphasis needs to be put on getting victims to realize there is no more shame attached to being a sexual assault victim than to being a gunshot victim. Both types of victims need to get treatment right away.
41
Wow, amazing how defensive and dismissive so many of the male comments are. The comments reflect an absolute lack of empathy for victims. As the mother of a 4 year old girl who is growing up with majority boy friends I am very much aware of the fact that the disparate treatment of boy and girl children is very real. I already fear for her psyche if she faces the level of harassment and assaults I did from the moment I entered puberty to well into my 40s. The catcalls, lewd comments, unwanted touching, and the memorable time I was tackled at night by a neighborhood acquaintance (who was drunk) who threw me to the pavement laughing the entire time. Luckily I've always been a fighter and had no problem loudly shouting at men, calling the police, and shaming them in public. I've also intervened when I have observed men abusing women in public, while grown men have stood idly by. I intend to teach my daughter to do the same and I hope parents of boys intend to teach them that they need to respect a girl's boundaries. The writer is absolutely correct that parents are the key and they need to stop abdicating their responsibility.
6
If you look at the patterns of a former time: sex-segregated college residences; full-body dress including often uniforms; separate sports events; minimal alcohol use by women (of any age); all this was designed to minimize the undue exploitation of women.
Women, often with well-meant male support of course, broke these systems apart in the 60s and 70s, but unfortunately it came at a cost.
I am not saying the cost is justified or inevitable, and education of men - and women, which this article elides - is necessary to minimize abuses.
But the problem is inherent in mixed education and social relations to a degree. And it is when women drink alcohol or smoke dope with men, too, another blithe elision in this piece.
The article is simple-minded in assuming men have predatory impulses and at best affect a veneer of civilized behaviour viz. females. It ignores too thousands of years of a complex sociology and biochemistry involving the sexes.
It's not a blank page, we can't just start over on rules dictated by the bien-pensants whose naive columns are showcased daily in this journal.
3
Can we proclaim Ana Maria Archilia and Maria Gallagher national heroines, not refer to them as "the two women" who confronted Flake?
Where that more people were brave enough confront our "representatives" on various other topics and shenanigans they seem to always get away with?
Where's the outrage Ms. Achilia and Ms. Gallagher displayed and were brave enough to do something about it from our citizens? Isn't that democracy?
2
I have been noticing women more in TV shows and have found that they are often the "victim" of horrific crime schemes such as burying them alive or putting bombs on their bodies. They are also blamed more for the whole "Mess" whatever it may be, i.e., family problems , money issues, children's issues. Why do you suppose this is and why is this not being discussed. TV has a powerful influence in this culture. They are also most often the "helpless" victim but when they aren't they are monsters -- American Horror Story. Think about this dissonance.
3
I do not know what happened to me in my childhood or adolescence or young adulthood, but the whole idea that girls or women are even capable of being pushed around -- taken over, abused, whatever -- simply doesn't compute for me, doesn't fit in my head. Do I have a "wimp factor"? Where you just don't make another person's mind give in to yours? I don't think so. I do know, as a therapist, that there must be some pain in a boy that transmogrified into absence of empathy or (and) presence of entitlement or (and) delusional sense of superiority. One of the few good answers is therapy for the boy/man -- not to mention strapping his parent in the therapy chair, too.
2
Defenders of Mr. Kavanaugh talk about how terrible it is for his reputation -- for any man's reputation -- to be torn apart. What about the years and years of deep, dark emotional anguish suffered by Dr. Ford -- and by all victims of sexual assault? Not important, I guess. The scene in the Capitol elevator highlights the pain and helplessness of sexual assault victims. It also takes a man of power, Mr. Flake, and pins him down? How does it feel, oh man of power, to be pinned down? Not so good. It may very well have changed his point of view.
9
The video game statistic is a bit misleading. Female characters are overtly sexualized in video games. However, ask a teenage boy if their is a male character they would like to more closely resemble. I guarantee you they'll have at least one answer and probably several. Male characters are fictitious hyperbole as well. The problem in video games isn't the unrealistic representation of either gender. The problem is both male and female characters are designed only to appeal to male players. That's why video games are sexist.
Fortunately, some game designers have attempted to address the issue. They seem to recognize, ethics and morality aside, that more girls would play video games if only there were more games girls liked to play. A sort of "if you build it, they will come" moment. We see this explicitly in titles like "Life is Strange" or less specifically in the oddly gender ambiguous "Night in the Woods." The vast majority of the market still caters to the traditional male machismo. Boys spend money on games. If you look through the cracks though, there are a number of good trends that run counter to traditional sexism.
4
Thank you NYT for publishing this important piece from Peggy Orenstein! As usual, she has articulated what needs to be a said in a clear, straightforward way backed up by data, as well as her own professional, and parenting, experience. I believe most boys start out wanting to do the right thing, but the culture of condoning violence as a way to prove and strut one's masculinity, as well as satisfying testosterone-fueled urges, leads them to toss their morals out of the window, especially when under the influence of alcohol or feeling the need to prove themselves to male peers. Regardless of these explanations, they need be held accountable for their behaviors. Excuses and explanations do not help or provide justice to the survivors of their assaults.
3
Why no discussion about the impact of pervasive pornography on boys attitudes and behavior? It has to be a negative influence and far more powerful than R rated movies.
9
Boys are men in training. They can be whatever we condition them to be: ethical human beings who respect other people or self-interested louts whose only value is self-satisfaction. It is particularly important for fathers to impart healthy respect for women to their boys. Remember, the most consequential decisions they make in their lives are likley to be made without their parents presetn or after their parents are gone. Parents, use their adolescences wisely.
2
I have two sons who have never been accused of sexual misconduct. I have a niece who gave birth to her stepfather's child at the age of 13. I knew one girl who slept with her father who bought her a pink negligee when she was 12 (the fairy princess came to live with us for several years). A girl rode my bus who slept with her grandfather and everyone was afraid to talk to her because she said she was a witch. I mentioned at a book club that sexual misconduct is not that uncommon and the leader, a retired social worker, informed us that 14 girls had been removed from their home due to incest that year. So I wonder why I can't hear their "Me Too".
I can report as many terrible accounts about the behavior of mothers and they seem to be more often discounted as very rare, when CNN reported that women are equally represented in people who murder their children. I don't think we're going to fix what happens in private places with a broadly accusing lecture that further blunts the sense of a world that doesn't know and doesn't care. I can't even begin to tell you how completely blown off I was by every social institution when I try to report a wrong (even now).
Childhood lasts a long time and a human life lasts far longer. Teaching children to discuss these things in public, and that the public is accountable for hearing, will do far more toward helping young women report predators than telling them in a sterile silent setting by Mama. They need credibility.
4
I am resilient. When I was five-years old, my father, who had a serious alcohol problem, would begin with maudlin claims of how much he loved me, and then move on to grabbing my wrists so that I had bruise marks, and then kissed me with his tongue down my throat. The odor of tobacco, whiskey and beer made me sick to my stomach. My mother saw this and did nothing. This happened more than once, and led to other abuse including emotional, physical and sexual. I quickly learned to find hiding places in the closet, in the hallways, in the basement and on the roof.
Later as an adult and the mother of a three-year old, when my parents visited in my home, I told my mother that I was going to tell my father I would not have him drunk in my house. My mother immediately told me they were leaving and they did. Later, on a phone call, I reminded my mother about the abuse. She said she didn't know. I said she was right there. She began to cry.
My father got on the phone with anger and asked why I made my mother cry. I told him his drinking made our lives miserable. He said, "My drinking never bothered anyone." I told him how abusive he'd been to us all including beating my mother. I realized, all those years, he had no idea he was blacking out and being so abusive. Finally, he stopped drinking. It's not just boys and it's not just rich or poor.
4
I think I was raised on another planet with different rules about boy girl relationships. It was suburban Philadelphia, 70 years ago. I went to a boys school. I don't recall talk among boys about dominating girls when I was 16. We dated, went to dances. Boys respected girls. Girls waited to see how boys reacted. I do recall hearing that talk much later when I was in college after being in the army during Korea where I don't recall hearing talk about domination either. It seems to have begun to develop about 50 years ago.
I hear people Kavanaugh's age talking about and justifing the bad character implied by "boys will be boys." I think they're talking about themselves, projecting and justifying lapses in character and disrespect in their own generation.
My grandsons, now in their twenties, were raised and schooled in the Netherlands. They don't exhibit any of that domination thinking. Their relationships with young women seem relaxed, respectful of each other. I would say they define what respectful normal should be like.
We need that. Indeed, I believe we'd profit if we encouraged women to mentor young boys about gender relationships. That'd be better than young men who know little or nothing about girls and who've been taught by social media that it's ok to disrespect other human beings.
15
Civilizing a culture is a thousands-of-years process. I look at Hamurabi’s code, the pre-existing codes of Hindus, the book of Job, and Moses’ law as an evolution which recognized that civilizing was and is essential to survival of mankind. Small-tribe based culture required the brute-strongest men to impregnate genes. What now matters most is intellectual brilliance, creativity, and collegiality. With Jesus came “whoever believes” which makes the genders equal (John 3:16). Drunken brute sexuality is out of step with evolution of culture! Instead, we have parallel cultures, one of mediocrity that serves the purpose of consumerism. Now, adults should and do rise to the leadership culture based on commodious talents rather than gender. In the under-culture of consumerism, brute strength still is unrestrained. Sadly, both directions also mean that traditional family-based, sex-only-in-marriage, education first by family, and adult commercial success based on family has morphed away from family as central. Not that progeny of families that are traditional don’t do better than those who are not such but that the dominant polar directions of culture are on the one hand that brilliance, creativity, and leadership ability in an upper culture are far, far more important than gender; brutism is unacceptable, there. In the rest of culture, whatever it takes to create consumers matters more than family. Drunken brutes in the under culture are not yet restrained.
1
After a hot summer party years ago a friend of mine ended up in a taxi cab with this girl who completely blacked out after heavy drinking, and fell asleep on him. Not being able to fully wake her up, he found her keys in her purse, lifted her up and carried her into her apartment. This was a hot summer, the girl was 17-18 years old, extremely attractive and very scantily dressed. My friend just put her on her bed, closed the door and left. He had all the opportunity in the world to rape her. He was alone, she was drunk, there were no witnesses.
But my friend, like all of the guys I used to hang out with in college, had been educated to respect women and never take advantage of them. It isn’t so hard. We had plenty of opportunities for consensual sex without having to resort to violence or abuse. When other friends heard about the story, nobody was surprised. We would all have behaved the same way. Sex without consent was never even remotely considered.
I don’t know what it is about this dark sub-culture of rape and abuse in which American high school and college kids seem grow up, but it wasn’t our culture. And for the record I’m not that old. This happened in the early ‘90s, in a sexually liberal college environment. If what we hear is true, Brett Kavanugh and his friends really were monstrous aberrations.
6
It is way past time to stop idolizing the football players and the jocks in high school and college and begin to recognize and reward the real champions in any educational system: the young men and women of outstanding intelligence, creativity and diligence.
I can hear people objecting because being part of a team has been for many the most important formative experience of their lives.
However, we now have conclusive proof that our most aggressive sport can destroy the brains of our sons.
Certainly there are much better, safer teams that could inculcate camaraderie and the spirit of group endeavor.
A science team could work to design something really useful -- devices for persons with disabilities, environmentally-safe substitutes for plastics, etc. etc.
A social justice team could study a community need and find ways and means to meet it, in the process helping and perhaps changing the lives of some of their neighbors.
A nature team could have adventures in the woods or in the wilder parts of their local landscapes, activities kids love and --scientists are discovering -- produce happier children.
Why not camping or bicycle trips -- things that foster autonomy and a sense of adventure? Music or art groups?
Why introduce boys and girls early to what is truly valuable and will serve them later in life.
Let the NFL and other leagues have training camps which boys can try out for. Our schools do not need to be the "farm teams" for their multi-billion dollar industry.
8
Men are expected to make the first move, to ask the woman for a date, to ask for a good night kiss, to propose marriage. Until this dynamic changes, a monumental cultural change, nothing will change.
12
Having watched again a great deal of Kavanaugh's interview of last Thursday, I focused on Mrs. Kavanaugh.
His behavior was consistent with the behavior of an alcoholic in such an explosive setting: the rage, denial, victim hood, tears, paranoia, deflection, etc. I even wondered as have others, if he might have had a drink or two before his testimony.
During many of those moments, I had to wonder if Mrs. Kavanaugh's obvious distress, down cast eyes, and tears were not altogether due to her husband's words, but to his behavior right there and then - behavior that she might be all too familiar with.
My late older brother was an alcoholic, it's what killed him. It also killed his wife - he was a violent drunk. She did not die at his hand, but the stress, the fear of him took its toll. She loved him after all. Denial is not limited to the alcoholic.
20
The author is writing from her experience in interviewing young men for her upcoming book. Certain patterns emerged, which she discusses here. While it is obvious to most of us that she’s not talking about every man, there are many defensive commenters who choose to interpret it as a blanket condemnation.
To them I say: stop being snowflakes. Put your ego aside for a moment and focus on the real problem outlined here — the epidemic of sexual assault and the so what/who cares attitude about it.
21
We give children incomplete information about sex and reproduction and we treat sex, desire, and the human body as something bad and unmentionable. We tell them nothing more than to abstain. At the same time, children have access to pornography that almost uniformly demeans women and shows them apparently enjoying rough treatment. For some reason it still surprises us when young men and women don't know how to navigate their desire and both young men and young women believe that demeaning treatment is "normal".
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/magazine/teenagers-learning-online-po...
3
Presuming that the description of the event is the unvarnished apolitical truth, it reflects poor parenting of all parties involved.
Parents are responsible, until the kids turn 18, to raise the little tykes.
For the parents of a 15 year old girl to allow her to go to a prep school party with 17 year old alcoholic boys is an abdication of their parental responsibilities. "What happens next" should have been as clear as day to the parents.
For the parents of a 17 year old boy to have raised him to ever cover a girls mouth so he can move in on her, is equally an abdication of parental obligations. His parents should have given firm enough training on this point that it would not be overruled by his buddies in the locker room or the internet.
Parents need to be put on the spot when this stuff happens; if they are still alive, all four of them should be brought to the front of these proceedings.
Booze people up and they behave like animals, duh. Booze kids up and it is the same but with even less self-control.
Ms Orenstein’s article continues a disturbing trend of attributing most if not all of the problem to boys and men. Using worn stereotypes of “boys will be boys” and summarily blaming “all male” spaces for men’s nefarious sexual education remains a shaming, sexist, misandrist and dispassionate approach.
It fails to acknowledge how research has repeatedly documented that most male/female sexual and aggressive behaviors are mutually perpetrated by the sexes. A study recently done by U of British Columbia finds boys reporting higher prevalence of dating violence against them by girls. There many studies along these same lines.
As someone who works with men, most of these men do not even have male role models let alone experienced the “all males” spaces mentioned in the article. For this man, it has been all male spaces with men teaching other men and boys about sexual issues that has served me the best. Again, we find women claiming the moral high ground and authority in educating boys and men on sexual issues. Let’s have a real open, dignified and compassionate dialogue between the sexes without the fear, rage, presumed guilt and automatic condemnation of men and subsequent duplicity that bespeaks so much of the current climate.
3
Agree, the locker room is not the place to lean about sexual ethics. The church might not be as well. Consider the Pence Rule of insisting that “Mama,” Karen Pence, be present whenever he might find himself alone in the company of a woman - any woman.
The Pence Rule stands at the opposite end of the sexual ethics gone awry spectrum. It treats women as temptresses and it is a view shared by both men and women who trace sexual ethics back to Eden. As such it provides cover for Kavanaugh and Judge because 15 year old Christine Blasey - just a year older than Lolita - was knowingly partying with older drunken boys at an unsupervised gathering.
In the context of the Kavanaugh hearings it’s important to concentrate on the careless brutality of two, drunk, teenage boys, but it seems to me many who are quick to dismiss this behavior as “boys will be boys” are operating under a deeply held belief that women were created to tempt men and men were created to be tempted, so what happened decades ago is not
extraordinary. I personally doubt we will make much progress educating young men to treat young women as human beings until we confront this subtler but more insidious view of sexual ethics. Data on domestic abuse within the church community tends to support this.
https://www.christianheadlines.com/news/domestic-violence-within-the-chu...
1
In New York City back in1952 my dad had a massive stroke and was put into a State hospital for the rest of his life ,my mom faithful to him and devout to his care visited him taking subway and bus every weekend, by family and friends as she now supported us she became known as"the pants" in the family ,when my dad died at Creedmor State hospital in 1956 I then as the son became "the man in the family" and was told to be strong" all these male oriented slogans came from our cousins and neighbors w/o the least thought about
their minimizing not only my mom's strength but my own fright as a
young teen of being "that man" in the family.
2
Do all the studies, surveys, and interviews you can for the rest of your life. I guarantee in a million years, young people's view of sex will be the same.
What really upsets me as how people are making a circus of what should be a short job interview.
6
We should be able to let boys be boys and girls be girls, but behavior, in a civilized society must be rooted on the principles of respect for the rights of all individuals. The answer to all of our problems can be found in the Constitution of these United States. It is too bad Democrats hold the Constitution in such disdain. Judge Kavanaugh is one who will protect those principles. Those principles that protect us all from baseless, unproven, uncorroborated and refuted allegations. Democrats are destroying the fabric of this exceptional republic. Democrats must be severely punished for this in November.
8
Haven't read this yet but the title is really good. I've lived my 70 years believing (and living) exactly that: locker room talk is not as common as one might imagine, but it's certainly not how I learned about sexuality, etc. No does in fact mean no, and one doesn't do rape of physical assualt to have "one's way".
A gay guy choir director said to me once that testosterone is poison. He was likely correct.
5
Apparently nothing is giong to stop this absurd narrative, not event listening.
This is about, "you've got the wrong guy".
Due process. Mean anything? You can't have due process if no one reports the crime. If she would just report the crime to the Bethesda police there are men who say it was them. The police could determine if their credible. End of issue.
Juvenile justice. Mean anything? He was 17. If he committed the crime or pled it would be expunged by now. That's the purpose of our juvenile justice system. You can be punished for crimes committed as a minor but you can't be punished for them as an adult if you are clean for 5 years after you turn 18. Rights of children mean anything?
Justice is blind. Mean anything? If you have two witnesses and you don't know their gender or who nominated who or what happened to Merrick Garland you believe the more credible. One not only remembers everything-including doodles in his yearbook-but can document everything he says. The other remembers nothing, can't be cross-examined for conflicts of interest or discrepancies, and what she remembers has been refuted. Who would a reasonable person believe?
You hate Trump and fear a conservative Supreme Court. The time to address that was November 2016. You lost. Innocent until proven guilty? Duke Lacrosse? Evidence? Any of these things mean anything?
Now, it's "he got mad...he disqualified himself"? Seriously?
Confirm him ASAP. Godspeed Brett.
One thing I have not read in any of the discussions revolving around the Kavanaugh hearing or the #MeToo movement is the role of women and girls in their actions and clothing.
Look around. Attractive often women wear short, low cut dresses. Teen age girls wear ragged cut offs that are so tight as to seem painted on. Of course, movies and TV take this to the extreme.
It is usually said that boys and young men need to be taught not to be sexually aggressive, yet I have not seen a post or article anywhere that suggests women should dial back their flirtations and behavior suggesting availability for sex.
Let's face it. Human beings are sentient animals. We need to control our animalistic tendencies in order to have a functioning society. This, to me, implies control on both sides of the aisle.
7
For parents who feel inhibited about talking about sex with your kids, you can find sex educational books available on the internet. I used keywords "books on sex education for teenagers" and found several that were inexpensive paperbacks. I looked on Google and on Amazon. There are many to choose from. You can just leave a copy in your child's bedroom. That is an easy solution for people who find it difficult to talk about sex.
It's not the case that young men "grow up in a world in which women are either hyper-sexualized or absent." They grow up most times in houses with women who are their own sisters, mothers, even grandmothers. They put these women into a separate class, the "exclusions" who are not to be part of the lesser sort of human females who are "game" for sexual conquest. Mostly we did know that we were crossing a line, at least one and maybe more, when we pushed or shamed or otherwise coerced a girl into sex; that's what made it a "score", anyway, something to brag about doing "to her". And that's why the guys would be contemptuous many times of the girls they "scored" on. Those girls had let themselves be used, had done wrong in NOT stopping the guy. All that without the guy having done wrong--in fact, he was proved a real man by her being used by him. Older men, too, would congratulate his laddish ways. It's not that boys don't know, it's that the culture rewards this kind of male using of females. Just ask Trump, still bragging into his old age.
20
It seems there is an epidemic of men sexually assaulting women. Has anyone studied WHY so many men, often seemingly reputable men, are sexually assaulting so many women? Is this a recent problem or has it been going on for years . . . or even millennia? You can't treat a problem until you have a diagnosis of what causes the problem.
3
I drink beer, I drink beer
I'm on daddy's dime
Beach Week is here.
I drink beer, we drink beer
Did she say "Stop?"
I cannot hear.
I drink beer, you drink beer
How much is too much?
I do not care.
10
0renstein says of the young men she interviewed for her upcoming book on young men: "I’m not convinced they are always reliable narrators of their own experience." If this is so, who might be reliable narrators of their experiences?
Perhaps an incompetent anthropologist is required. One who interviews the natives and then supplants their narrative with one ideology or another. Any form of feminist theory will do. Or perhaps an economic theory. If not, there is no shortage of psychological theories that will suffice.
5
Painting "boys" with a broad brush of sexualized aggression is akin to associated terrorism to "muslims" and crime to "blacks."
I would argue that First World democracies are leading the way in addressing issues of sexual assault, and I think it's incumbent on us to begin to differentiate between levels of assault, so that a wink is recognized as more serious than rape.
Also, we should not forget that many activists post that "words are violence," and as such we need to ensure we address the wide-spread "mean girl" culture in females, in which verbal intimidation, bullying and more constitute real violence on young women, which is equally as damaging and lasting as physical violence inflicted by males.
2
This is all so true. We have to get people, especially Conservatives, to stop the nonsense of its just “boys being boys”. One of the ways to do so is to assure them it will not be looked lightly on now or in the future. People cannot agonize over how these boys will fare in the future, if we hold them responsible for sexual assault. The time has come to take a stand and Kavanaugh as case number one, has to be dropped from consideration. Lindsey Graham has it all wrong. No one has besmirched Judge Kavanaugh. He did that all by himself in earlier days. And no, he doesn’t get a pass. This is the Supreme Court we are talking about. We already have two, Judges Gorsuch and Thomas, who should not be on this court, adding a third would weaken the institution beyond repair for years. The Republicans have become an amoral Party.
9
As a boy in this essentially puritanical culture I was imbued by my parents about the 3 Rs so that I would grow up to be a man who would make them proud - as a doctor, lawyer, politician or anything else that would confirm their brilliance.
They never said a word about sex.
What my peers and internet taught me was devoid of the two most important elements of life: Respect and Responsibility.
I was in a fraternity where there were nationally known athletes and all of the slugs and thugs the caricatures picture, but there were also some arts and humanities majors who were not part of the drinking, vulgar mob.
The athletes talked sex a lot and the girls followed them, not us.
If we learned about the two most important Rs, it was because it was somehow in our nature. It was only when I lived in France that I discovered that parental discipline was part of what parents used to teach Respect and Responsibility.
Here, parents have ceded that discipline and those teachings to our failed school system. The thug boys won and now their screaming opposites - victims.
America has become a dying land of extremists: thugs, hystericals, Trumpists, democratic fascists, and, in opposition, the few remnants of those who picked up on Respect & Responsibility somewhere.
2
In 201, I moved to Indianapolis from NYC to a small bungalow near a university. Within a few months, I found out that the equally small bungalow next door was not where students lived but was a party house.
I had not been to many big parties in school and left when when people started to be more drunk so what I witnessed in the next door was shocking by the brazen sex by the men but also on the part of women who clearly were using their drunkeness as a proxy for consent, that nice girls, religous girls, say no but do communicate an open door by not clearly saying no, allowing themselves to be led, all but dragged, laughing while saying no and going pretty far into sexual behavior in a state so drunken were unable to manage an equally drunken partner with what they were or were not willing to do.
I'm NOT blaming girls here nor am I letting the men off the hook. What I am saying is that stuff is going down every weekend that will come back to bite the participants that in the light of day would embarrass and shame of should it come out at a job interview or to their children.
Several times in the year and a half I lived there, I called the police, came out of my front door to ask if the girl needed help, went to campus police. To the university's credit, they got the house closed.
But Christine Blasey Ford had NOT been drinking that night and still . . .
1
Self admitted mamas boy here. Girls are not the only ones terrorized by bullying/macho/aggressive boys. Other boys - the silent/silenced majority - live in legitimate fear as well - of being bullied and beaten up. School, parties indeed the world can become a terrifying place. It also spawns school shooters.
3
Gee, I’m sure that ‘wild feminist’ onesie is a real hit in certain circles. Sigh...
In any event, it doesn’t take research to know that high levels of testosterone and alcohol make for a dangerous mix in young men, especially when you combine that with a young woman under the influence of alcohol, as well. Prudent behavior involves a keen sense of self-preservation and both young men and young women should avoid alcohol.
The rest of Ms Orenstein’s piece appears to simply be more ‘toxic masculinity’ whining. Clearly, in her eyes, young men and boys need to be more feminized.
I suggest, instead, that young men and boys need to be masculinized in the traditional ways. Chivalry, perhaps. Women are to be respected and defended. Violence against women is unacceptable. Period. Men who commit violence against women are to be shunned.
1
It seems to me that our president and some GOP members of the Judicial Committee have silently given permission to teenagers to host and attend wild parties, drink too much, and engage in unacceptable sexual behaviors. As parents who actually care about the future of our society, we must be extra diligent to protect our children from the impulse to go down this road. Our culture is in bad shape, and we must try very hard to save our children from the temptation to live for only a moment's gratification.
1
The sexuality of the attack on Dr. Ford is in the eye of the beholder. The grinding and groping and efforts to undress create the impression of a sex act. But the core of the offense, according to Dr. Ford, was the hand over the mouth and the humiliating laughing.
If Kavanaugh was indeed a virgin, raping a girl to break his cherry is more than extreme. As for his struggles to undress her, they were all for naught because of the one piece bathing suit. And if Kavanaugh had been aroused, Ms. Ford would have known that.
The facts as Ms. Ford described them don’t paint a picture of an attacker in a sexual frenzy. The core of the incident is humiliation and terror.
I think the sexual nature of the attack has been overstated and the sadistic cruelty has been understated. Not all vicious attacks by boys on girls are for sexual pleasure. And the essence of this attack seems to be more about inflicting pain than stealing pleasure.
5
I like that you ended your article about a baby boy being born. In male dominated religious cultures, women having babies is seen as a sometimes shameful evidence that sex has taken place. and because female have babies, females are always blamed. Peggy Orenstein writes, "Rejecting Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court would be one way to let them know their actions matter." The Judge Brett Kavanaugh I saw testifying before the Senate is not someone I'd want judging my children and grandchildren. Of course, the same system that allows boys to be boys often didn't allow mothers to be mothers. The gender biased sexualizing and objectifying of girls has ramifications far wider than the scenes of the initial "fun for some" assaults.
6
I agree that what happens to Kavanaugh is serve as a lesson either way it goes. Either young boys will learn that sexual assault is a serious crime that can negatively impact their future or that it's not such a big deal and they can get away with it with few consequences. We cannot continue to teach the second alternative.
8
As some people have noted socialization begins at home. It is simple and you teach respect. If that is the thrust here fine. Lets do a better job of teaching that. However, I know and knew plenty of men and boys who talked smack and never assaulted anyone. So lets not jump from teaching to a very ideological agenda on boys, men and who and what they are. The day the left moves in that direction I will sit out elections or vote R as I find Third Wave ideology as odious as the ideologies of the right.
2
I was taught some simple, easy to apply rules. They served me well through the tempests of young manhood:
1) Don't have sex with people you barely know;
2) Don't have sex with drunk people; and,
3) Don't have sex with crazy people.
Despite what must seem to the Tinder generation to be Victorian limitations, I got, and gave, all the pleasure I needed. I found a fantastic wife, and have managed not to attempt to hand-gag anyone while ape-groping them. I don't have to worry about something in my past getting raked through the media dunghill. I am still friends with a number of old lovers (we're all a bit old now, I suppose) and our time together is a warm memory, rather than an old listing on a smartphone, or a summons to testify.
There's something to be said for what used to be called "continence," especially when it comes to drinking and sex.
23
I am the mother of four sons, now all grown young men. I am a wife. I was, many moons ago, a young dating female. I have a lot to say about this article, but will limit it to these three points:
1. The deliberate strategy my husband and I used in sex talks to get through to the boys was this. The more sensitive and uncomfortable the topic, I, their mother would address it. Uncomfortable? You bet. But did we get ever their attention. Their dad would them have a "follow up" on the topic addressed, man to young man.
2. I was a young woman in the dating game in the 70s. I went out quite a lot. I have to say, not once -- again, not once -- did any young man cross the line of going too far or hurting me in any way. Was I lucky? I don't know. I always found the boys I dated respectful and kind. Do I believe it was different for other women? I do 100%. But there is another population of boys out there.
3. My final point. And I'm white hot angry. Not all men are pigs. Many are caring, respectful human beings searching for connection and love. Ms. Orenstein doesn't promote feminism, she sows division. To quote commenter, M. Sherman, unless "they follow a path carefully prescribed by feminists, boys and men will often be forces for sexual evil." That is as true a statement as I have read. To limn men and boys as predators in waiting, as is done here, is most unfair. Many of us know insightful, self-reflective men who bring good to their partners, their families, and the world.
51
... and Peggy hat do you have an opinion on Bill Clinton (and his enabeler Hillary), or Corey Booker, or Keith Ellison, or ad infinitum ad nauseam!
3
I wonder if there is a correlation between the internet and
the aforementioned disconnects.
All sexual deviant behavior and pervisions are to be found
on the internet, guaranteed by the 1st amendment,
Everything with the exception of propriety and respect.
F3
1
Pleazzz... I met so many girls who were more sexually aggressive and knowledgable than me. By far and by a very wide margin most kids are good and don't need any special education to behave properly. Peggy is freaked out.
3
Ms. Orenstein has judged the accused, Kavanaugh, guilty without any corroborating evidence.
If Barrack Obama was nominated for Supreme Court justice and a woman claimed he sexually abused her in high school, would Ms. Orenstein have the strength of her convictions, and consider Obama guilty?
If not, why not?
2
Enough with the phrase and headline Boys Will Be Boys. Isn't it about time we replace it with Sexual Predators Will Be Sexual Predators? Try it. Today.
Everyone - boys, parents, school leaders, churches, assault victims - needs to stop reinforcing the notion that this somehow a rite of passage. Using this phrase will always read like, sound like a justification of high jinks.
Commit today to more honest language and you are halfway there.
2
Hopefully the #me too movement will continue so that sexual education will start at an age that will help eliminate the need for it.
This will be years in the making but better we talk about it, then keeping it in the closet.
1
Locker room talk represents ignorant young males trying to make sense out of raging hormones in their bodies and how to satisfy the urges that they produce and how to deal with the opposite sex amongst themselves. They need to know a lot that they just don’t to manage themselves well and get to understand themselves while getting to know how female classmates are feeling.
Meanwhile, society tries to pretend that ignoring sexuality in adolescents will keep them from becoming obsessed with it. Sexuality is crucial to the adolescent experience and there are no rational reasons to not inform adolescents all that is known about it, without fear and shame.
4
Yet, the majority of white females voted for Trump. Ms. Orenstein, what message does that send? To, well, boys ? What does that fact say about the gray areas of consent?
And no, in no way do I condone physical force by men to overpower women or support Kavanaugh!
I would be interested Ms Orenstein ‘s take on the Yale Basketball Team Captain’s situation or Azziz’s date with the social climbing fan who gave him her number while on a date with another man lol! Will she address these issues in her book?
She wrote on the easy part!
2
It hardly helps the way sex is depicted on TV and in movies: a hookup at a bar, drinks, two seconds later two horny people scrambling madly to rip each other’s clothes off with him slamming her upright against a wall or kitchen counter because the bedroom is like a whole ten feet away. Who are we kidding here? We adults created this mess.
3
It’s not like guys say, ‘Dude, I made her feel great!’” a high school junior in New England told me. 'That never happens. It’s always, ‘Bro! I slammed her!’” They’ve banged, they’ve nailed, they’ve smashed, they’ve torn up, they’ve destroyed. It all sounds less that they’ve had sex than that they’ve just returned from a visit to a construction site.
By construction site do you mean from a pre-season hs football work-out?
P.S. Whatever happend to wooing. Women need way more of the wooage.
3
Had Judge Kavanaugh been a liberal judge, in favor of Roe vs Wade, would this media frenzy have happened at all?
4
So boys, you now play identity politics. Is there a new civil rights law on the books to protect the white entitled male? Perhaps we all missed that one.
Kavanaugh was acting presidential both when he was molesting women, bragging about it, lying about it, and acting shocked that he was not entitled to do it.
And millions of women voted for a president just like that.
Makes you, and me, wonder.
Even if you concede it were better there was more forensic detail, GPS house coordinates in Blasey Ford's testimony, that this 15yo girl feared for her life, still is obviously damaged by the memory...Yes, I can finish a sentence but maybe my meaning is more impactful if I do not.
I think a vote to confirm Kavanaugh indicates the senator voting yes thinks Ford is a liar! That Kavanaugh choose the Rape Network, FOXNEWS, to defend himself - what an immense error, what poor judgement!. Then, to launch an astonishing partisan attack on the Democrats and Clinton (she won the popular vote by 2.9 million!) is disqualifying in itself. Even Alito, Thomas never approached this extremity of political partisanship. If Kavanaugh thinks that women who report predation and rape are just left-wing misfits and Soros clones, also totally disqualifying. Beyond, after this vile display of Trumpism, how can anyone have a shred of trust in his fair judgement when he waged Jihad against maybe two thirds of the US population, ie., people opposed to Trump, people who supported Hillary (she received 2.9 million more of the popular vote!). Even if you don't believe a single word of the Ford testimony, the performance of Kavanaugh is totally disqualifying. In a better world, he would not receive even a single vote for SCOTUS, not even from Cruz, Grassley, HATCH.
1
Thank you for this excellent article.
The most important lesson we can teach any child is not to hurt another. If parents are too stressed or too tired or simply too inept to teach basic decency to their offspring, it is up to the schools. It has to be at the very top of the agenda, above 'STEM.' (STEM is also a problem; kids who never master the art of clear communication will not be reliable in terms of succeeding at any job, nor in obtaining Consent.)
Dating is based on Language, not calculus. In recent years, a foolish decision was made to stress 'hard sciences,' over communication skills. Wrong decision.
Sexual assault in an extreme form of bullying. We have young children committing suicide over extreme bullying. We have teens bringing combat weapons on campus to slaughter others' kids.
Yes, it is time to drop everything & re-emphasize to all young people the importance of showing respect & consideration for every other person. It is time to make Health the priority at schools, because sexual assault is directly linked to health. And so are alcoholism & substance abuse.
We spend vast sums on education. What are we getting? The same generation that now confronts the rape crisis lost $$$ when 'Masters of the Universe' lied about investments. We lost lives, time, money fighting futile wars in ineffective ways. Finally, we reached the point when even our elections themselves were attacked by Putin.
There's a way out of this quicksand. It's called Reform. Grab on.
Two Problems....
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1. Way too many Deplorables that laugh at Learning and Prefer Fighting which is of course based entirely on "Might Makes Right"...and that includes sexual domination like rape.
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2. Lack of Meaningful Punishment based on a silly belief in "rehabilitation".
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Liberals never kill conservatives - look at Lincoln, Kennedy, King and Kennedy again....conservatives view liberals as "prey animals" because they don't fight back ...AND FORGIVE!
"Rejecting Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court would be one way to let them [boys] know their actions matter."
Ms. Orenstein, if Kavanaugh is rejected to the Supreme Court before a thorough investigation, or in the absence of any corroborating testimony or evidence, boys won't learn that "their actions matter." On the contrary, they'll learn that the principles of justice in the U.S. no longer matter.
You write as if the establishment of Kavanaugh's guilt is a fait accompli. It is not.
Need one remind you of the Duke lacrosse team, the Rolling Stone Magazine/UVA case, or, more recently, the two Sacred Heart University football players who were falsely accused of rape. Their accuser is now in jail while the student athletes' lives have been irrevocably ruined.
#MeToo cannot come to mean #AllAccusedAreGuilty. But unfortunately, that's the place where many people seem to wish we are headed.
4
I'm not really sure who's to blame, but the slow death of "romantic" love as an ideal in our society must surely be a large part in the progressive brutalisation of the male idea of sex in our society. Say what you will about wanting to put a girl on a pedestal, but when you were raised with an ideal of chivalrous love, you didn't want to hold her on the pedestal with your hand over her mouth while she struggled to get off.
Feminism played some part in this process. The reaction of many women to the double standard of conventional sexuality seems to have been to play the game as hard as the boys. I'm not sure that was such a great idea. It might have been better if the idea had been to raise the level of the behaviour of men to the cautious and principled approach being urged on women.
Right now, young men are being bombarded with the openly hostile masculine sexuality of pornography and the openly hostile attacks of the feminists who vilify men for the attitudes conveyed to them by the society as a whole. It seems that prostituting yourself for a couple of thousand bucks online is now not that much of a big deal for young women. I don't think that's helping.
Again, it is very unfortunate that the feminist reaction to ideas coming from men like Jordan Peterson and women like Carrie Jaye are so hostile. Young men who think about these things now want to take responsibility for being the best man they can be, including towards women, and that is what we need to encourage.
5
"If we never give our children permission to get things wrong, they're unlikely to ever learn how to get things right." ~ JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN
• We Can’t Just Let Boys Be Boys
“Instead of raising children in an adult world, with adult tastes, interests and opinions prevailing, we prefer to live much of our lives in a make-believe children’s world.” ~ HUGH HEFNER
YES, you CAN "let boys be boys". It's called 'growing up’; and then EDUCATE them in rights and wrongs. Of course, it's much easier to ignore parental responsibilities.
“Do not raise your children the way [your] parents raised you, they were born for a different time.”
~ ALI IBN ABI TALIB
(601 or 607 – 661 CE)
2
Argh! No, no, no.
Female researchers in this area too often extrapolate from a minority (if a larger minority than one would like) of males. OF COURSE most men and boys want to think, if not say, "Dude, I made her feel great!’" (Ms. Orenstein, I expect you know the relationship between female orgasm and ovulation.) Men are programmed to want to please women, but are terrified that they will fail. A a statement "Dude, I made her feel great!’" is intimidating to a male listener, because, especially if he is young, he has no confidence that he could ever do the same. Much better to make it sound athletic, or even aggressive. At least a man has some control over that. Boys are taught to conquer their fears, as a prelude to war. Sex is a very bad application for such a lesson.
Yes, boys need sex talk, but not as much about 'respect' as about how they will become powerfully drawn to women and will find their self-worth painfully tied to their ability to please those to whom they are attracted. How best to do that, and how to handle failure (rejection) are the key topics that need to be addressed, topics currently tragically absent in discussions with both mothers and fathers.
Boys, obviously, are humans, neither brutal nor indifferent, and certainly not monsters! But they are left blind and alone in negotiating what will soon be their powerful, basic drive to find, be accepted by and please a woman. They replace their fear with bravado, and too often with brutality.
3
Thank you for the article. I need to point out that Women claim to perform 90 percent of the child rearing. So where is the responsibility for how men turn out? All I have heard since the 70's is mean are pigs, stupid, over sexed and incapable of doing anything useful. Just look around the whole world was built and maintained by men.
4
The attack on manhood proceeds apace
3
When I was very young, I thought everyone, including girls, had a penis. Had I been born on a farm, I certainly would have known better. I was born in 1938, and sex education, at least in the school system, was off limits.
My first experience with sex was in grade school when one of my friends told me that Storks didn’t make us. He then proceeded to tell me he watched his mother and father and that’s how babies are born. I was outraged! I went home after school and said to my father, who was a teacher, “Tell me how babies are made, and I don’t mean about Storks.”
He then, somewhat embarrassed, called my mom, my older brother Glenn who was 3 years older than me into the room, and proceeded to talk about the Penis. I said, “Stop,”, and immediately ran upstairs to my room. I was devastated. I loved the Stork story.
You must remember that in the late 30’s and even into the 40’s, sex education wasn’t taught in public schools. Playboy was still years away, but, we did have National Geographic and for many of us, this was our sex education.
Back then, at least in most societies, women were Mothers. That was their MO. They weren’t thought of as equal, at least in the work arena. Remember Home Economics in High School?
Talk about Enculturation. How about even our nursery rhymes...”Sugar and spice and everything nice...that’s what little girls are made of.” Boy’s. what are they made of? Almost just the opposite.
Today, things are much different. It’s called Evolution.
2
Just like the sexually uneducated Republican men are ramming, jamming, and forcing Kavanaugh and this hateful vote down the throats of the vulnerable women and girls of this nation. They are certainly in need of your counsel, because they lack sensitivity for sure!
1
One cultural element not discussed is the highly sexual degradation of females in popular rap culture. This is a problem too. Yet it always seems to get a pass. B's and hos, ya know.
3
Yet, so many women supported Bill Clinton and trashed the women who accused him of rape, assault, and sexual harassment. That also sent a message to society and to men and women. Bill Clinton and his supporters left men feeling empowered to trash women, and left women feel like men were free to harass and assault them (yeah, just another bimbo eruption, they said). After all, Bill Clinton's supporters said, it's just about sex, and everybody does it. Indeed, Bill Clinton's supporters just let boys be boys, and let those boys become men who felt they could get away with rape, assault and sexual harassment.
1
In response to this thoughtful piece, John Podhoretz wrote on Twitter something like “Stay away from my son, you proselytizing harpy” so I’d say we have a ways to go.
5
Men were never taught responsibility when it came to any interaction with women. If a look into religion shows anything, it shows profound disrespect to women. Putting women on a pedestal, oh yes, but respecting their wishes and desires, never. This is where all this starts: from the notion of “barefoot & pregnant” to the constant mansplainig. Strong, loud, entitled, alway overpowering, ever pushing, never asking. The male god is all powerful and this society has yet to reject this notion. My rapist stepfather loudly acclaimed his superiority as a man in front of his family. What he said to me in private, after each incident and there were many, that what he was doing was his right, his privilege and my fault for being an enticing bitch and he was entitled to do what he wanted because it was his house. When he grabbed me in front of his wife, my mother, he said it was a joke, it was funny. He compelled her and me to laugh at his “joke” or else he continued the abuse. She in turn told me to let him do what he wanted because she was powerless to stop him. My young half-brother, his son stood by crying. Now here we are 60 some odd years later. This is what you tell young men: religion got it wrong, women are equal, even if they are physically weaker. Tell them that sex is not a conquering sport. Nailing, slamming, banging is not sex, it’s raw power and it’s wrong. Sex is making love for mutual pleasure and it can be wonderful without force.
3
I sometimes wonder what the world would be like if guys weren't so concerned about impressing other guys. Whether it's frat parties or billionaire golf circles, the need to impress each other really pushes out the kinder nature that boys parents would recognize of their sons.
8
@michelle: True! Have you noticed that street harassment is always by groups of males, not individuals?
3
We should probably make a social effort to change the way men view women, but we need to be ready to accept the possibility it is a less immutable thing than we'd like to believe.
4
@Gershom Believe you mean less mutable.
Yes, it's about sex--but it's also about fair pay for women's work, elevation of status for work positions held by women. It's about the too-often done "domestic violence," against women: e.g., the physical, mental, and emotional assaults against females. It's about portrayals of women in any type of production that places them in positions where they are deemed lesser, apologetic, insecure, demeaned, disrespected, or compromised. It's about placing a good value on being female.
Also, it's about women not being portrayed as behaving "more like a man"--showing force when most women wouldn't be interested in it; being violent or carrying a weapon, being cold or unemotional, acting with bravado--all so that a woman is represented in situations where it would no doubt have been a male in these types of roles. You cannot just swap a woman in place of a man so as to make it an "even playing field." Women need to more often be the writers, directors and producers of films, t.v., and stage plays to show who we are, really.
Women are very different from men, period. It's time that women get free from the wrong ideas and impressions about being female, and instead find out who we really are, and then educate the males around us so they know what we're about, what we value for ourselves, and how we intend to authentically represent ourselves as females.
It's time for female self-definition and for spreading the message that being female means we're making the rules for ourselves.
6
Socialization begins in the home, with the parents. Those who are scholars of childhood development would likely agree. If parents display certain behaviors, children see them and will emulate. If parents don't instill appropriate behaviors, then poor choices are made as they get older.
Furthermore, parents of, I have to say privileged kids, are rarely home; they are typically successful career persons. They rely on other caregivers such as nannies and the like to socialize their children. When acts of inappropriate behavior are addressed with the parents, the answer is typically, "oh they are just kids", and of course the horrible phrase "boys will be boys"; swiftly followed by "I was like that as a kid".
Says it all......
4
@MHV
Unfortunately, by teen years parents are not as influential they were while peers and mass culture loom larger. Add in alcohol and other drugs and you don't have such a firm foundation. Even decent kids do indecent things when they are part of a pack.
Am not suggesting parents are not wise to raise children carefully and with the best values they can display. Just acknowledging there are other forces at play.
1
Totally accurate. I went to co-ed public junior high and high school in Maryland in the 60's. The student body was mainly of military families. I had plenty of women friends, real friends, who still are 50 years later. Neither I nor my male friends would anymore assault one of those women than we would each other - you don't do that to friends, you take care of friends. Of course there was sexual attraction, but it was polite, respectful and not coercive. We didn't tolerate crime at school against anyone - if one hurt another, we stopped it. It was a relatively peaceful micro-society despite the ugliness of 1966-1969. Fortunately, drinking was prohibited in my family and no alcohol was a condition to being on the track and cross country teams. There were no drinking parties, at least that I went to. All boys and all girls high schools are artificial social constructs that don't foster creation of healthy, respectful friendships among the genders. If the only inter-gender contact is at drinking parties, that sounds like a boys hunting party, not a social event. Do the parents of kids who attend(ed) those all girls and all boys high schools think that they are protecting their children? Sounds like they were setting their children up for ignorance, crime, and fantasy.
10
America’s descent into hedonistic decadence seems to be irreversible.
3
Consent forms for consensual sex with Witnesses add a notary.
4
Christine Blasey Ford dated Brett Kavanaugh’s friend and classmate Chris Garrett in high school. According to Kavanaugh’s calendar, he, Mark Ford, Tom Kane, P.J. Smyth, Bernie McCarthy and Garrett went to a beer drinking party at classmates Tim Gaudette’s house on July 1, 1982. This sounds like the party Christine Blasey describes. She says Kavanaugh Ford, and Smyth along with one other boy—who name she cannot remember—were at the party where she was assaulted. At any rate, Garret, who has not publicly commented, should be able to say whether Ford was present at the party. Ford says she did not tell her parents about the alleged assault because she did not want them to know she had been at a drinking party at a house where no adults were parents. This is plausible, but it’s less plausible that she would not have told her boyfriend Garrett that his friends had sexually assaulted her.
1
@William Case, a 15 year old girl would likely not tell her boyfriend, in that situation. She may have believed that when his allegiances were weighed, that she would not be valued more than his male friends, or that he was not courageous enough to support her (was he a follower, surely she would have known). Maybe she knew that regardless of the outcome, that her boyfriend would view her in a different, less positive way. She may also, as she said in Congress, have been humiliated and told herself to forget what had happened.
14
Sophia raises good points.
In addition, a girl in that situation might fear that her boyfriend would privately question whether she really and truly had been an unwilling party, and harbor doubts as to whether she had cheated on him.
5
“Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.” — Kin Hubbard
2
Apparently there are many ways to be a girl, but in the mind of the author only one to be a boy. Which is being a troglodyte rapists probe to alcohol abuse and disregarding and not respecting women.
I think this judgment of people based soley on their gender and attriburing these negative traits to everyone of that gender is sexist. And i feel insulted by it.
13
If they cannot see girl/women as fully human then they have a pathology, plain and simple.
1
Trump might as well rally his crowds by saying ‘only Democrats’ are against sexual assault and gang-rapes and repetitive perpetrators of such acts. (‘His’ crowds might as well think like Kavanaugh and his friends, that if one of them support Kavanaugh doing such things, it makes it O.K. for all of them to support him.)
There is an uncomfortable truth that sex — if you’re doing it right — is fundamentally an act of domination. We are pretending that it is easy to skate the line between eroticism and the feminist ideal of affirmative consent but it is complex.
8
I was thinking of writing exactly this same comment.
I've endlessly heard of women who resist men because they want to see the men push harder. Many men have experienced persistence paying off. My grandfather had to bug my grandmother 4 times, each time more boldly than the last, to go out with him.
I suspect these things are really tricky and deeply rooted in our psychology.
4
@Daniel Please share this gem of yours with any dates/victims you encounter. It might save a bit of time.
3
No, of course we can't "just let boys be boys". But neither can one "boy" pay - based on media hysteria - for a whole culture of male misbehavior. And the other dirty secret is that women have played the sex game as well. To portray all women as victims is not only dishonest: it is stupid.
12
This is what I told my son when he was in high school. "Sex is different for women in that it is much more invasive and physically personal for them than for men. Women should always be given the right to decide when and how sex should occur."
Another time I saw that his screen saver was a very sexy and almost nude picture of a female pop star. I thought it was inappropriate and said so. He argued back that it was harmless and his friends all liked it. I asked him how it would make his girlfriend feel if she saw it? That gave him pause, and he changed it.
If you want to make it easier to talk with your sons, have them sit in the back seat of your car for a medium or long drive. I have found that not having face to face eye contact makes them much more receptive to conversation.
I used to drive my sons friends around a lot and boy did they talk. Almost TMI, but I laughed at them on the stupid stuff and interjected strongly on the important things. I think most of them listened.
My son made his own stupid and Ill thought out mistakes, but I am know that his treatment of women was not one of them.
4
I remember an episode from the Star Trek series (one of the later seasons) where First Lt. Cmdr. Riker meets a female of a species where gender orientation - as a recognized trait - is deeply frowned upon, and played down to the point of invisibility. The species has a blue skin color, and reproduction no longer occurs by direct body contact. The babies are cultured in petri dishes and raised in state nurseries. As luck would have it, the ever suave and handsome Riker takes a personal *ahmm* interest in the "female-ish" native blue girl, and they get better acquainted...thus causing "her" to admit that she has conflicted feelings about her personhood. Basically, "she" is "heterosexually oriented" in a species which has totally given up on the potential value of gender orientations. Essentially, everyone is "asexual" ... which most closely resembles a homosexual orientation in "our" species. But because she can't help but respond to the obvious signaling & attentions of Riker, she becomes conflicted. She wants to join the insurgency and resume "normal" gender relations with some "male" of her species. This was a really challenging social "conundrum" for me to chew on...as it was for a great many people at the time! Hmmmm..... thought provoking, yes?
2
@Bonnie Jacobson: Thank you for this wonderful illustration of efforts to sort through the complicated reality of gender constructs. I've thought for years, however, that we're giving up to the male-domination of our lives if we trade away our own reflection and definition of what makes up our gender as females--we can personally reinvent ourselves away from prescribed "norms" having to do with femaleness...to my mind that's what feminism is really about.
So you have admitted that you don’t believe men. Why are you even bothering to interview them?
13
Conservative Republicans are apt to dismiss this type of analysis as elitist claptrap. They are likely to say each individual has to be personally responsible for his own actions. So what is it, Kavanaugh the Kompromised supporters? Was your boy's problem because of poor upbringing or because he lacks the personal responsibility you demand of others? Or, as I suspect, is it just that Republicans are inveterate hypocrites?
2
Nah, I think for a baby boy, I'll take the "Wild Feminist" onesie off and replace it with one that says "Wild Boy, and Proud of it!"
5
There was a time when the best parental advice was not to have sexual intercourse before marriage. Now Peggy Orenstein suggests that the good parent or coach will tell the boys not to get the girl pregnant, as if promiscuity is compatible with respect.
The technology of contraception and abortion have changed the dominant morality of girls. Boys have understandably taken advantage of increased opportunity to practice their natural instincts. There are enough willing teenage females that terms like floozie or hussy have lost all negative connotation. Today there is genuine fear of being ostracized as a prude for supporting any moral limits on sex – except the new premise that women are in charge.
The new morality is that whatever the girl says is right – and she can say almost anything. The real fear of the pink hat ladies is that men might regain their senses and their responsibility. Imagine a legal declaration that men have a right to procreate and that an unborn child may not be aborted without the consent of the father.
In a world of true equality, women may have to be more careful who than mate with and whose child they can abort. Good men will be defined as those willing to serve as head of the family. Dirt bags will always be available to service the needy.
The "sexual ethics" of Ms. Orenstein need to be grounded in nature and reproduction. Government policies need to promote family wealth and child rearing.
7
This is the part of liberalism, and my own Democratic Party, that turns me off.
The incessant lecturing on how things ought to be according to self-appointed experts who "know" so much, but who lack the respect for traditional ways and common sense.
And no, sexual assault is not a "traditional value." But being a boy is about "being a boy," with all that entails. Fighting, failing, sports, trying out, getting up through pain, taking huge physical risks, trying to figure out girls, experimenting, and yes, imitating adult behavior (which is not relegated to Upper West Side bistros), and wanting to prove your worth, and figuring out where you fit in.
Now you can try to tinker with that and change it. Good luck. But you will save the boy and kill his spirit. A boy has to find adventure, or he will wither. Let us try to make it healthy adventure, ...but let us also save the boy from political correctness.
Until he gets to college. Then the PC police can take over and shame him for having been a boy.
But till then, Lewis & Clark beckon, and the Wright Brothers are taking big risks, and Ms. Orenstein can tell us whether the armed forces are better places to learn about "sex" than locker rooms, or cars late at night.
But I am glad we killed the Boy Scouts. I mean, what's with that uniform anyway? Too many boys having fun, and way too militaristic? Don't ya think? Or do ya think at all?
15
Not sure where this is going. Attempted rape is adventure?
5
@Jubilee133
You are missing the elephant in the room. Its about evolving into being better human beings, in successive generation, and pertains to both boys and girls. If you decide to live in a society, you should be prepared, to be lectured, as much as others about yours.
2
@Jubilee133: "Until he gets to college. Then the PC police can take over and shame him for having been a boy."
What a tiresome rant. By the time your boy gets to college it's already too late. He will already have learned the behaviors that will lead him down whichever path he chooses to walk. And btw, your examples of Lewis & Clark and the Wright Brothers as stories that beckon to boys is anachronistic, because they also offer scope for the imaginations of girls. It is up to parents and educators to provide quality spaces that nurture the endless curiosity of children, and we can certainly do so without your unhelpful, retro talk of "PC police" and Boy Scouts.
4
women are the new men and girls the new boys.
meanwhile, real boys are told to shut up, behave and "man up" whatever that means.
6
Once again were putting all the blame on men and absolving women from any blame like they are little children who have no control over their fate. This is a disgusting article assuming that Kavanaugh is guilty without any evidence. I guess Kavanaugh now knows what it's like to be a black man in this country....so many were sent to prison for rape based on no evidence.
9
@Karen
Yeah, I'm sure Judge Kanavaugh knows JUST what it's like to be a black man in this country.
And the only thing he's in danger of is not getting the nomination. No white dudes are going to jail here.
Jesus wept.
1
Why don't we try sex positive education? Orenstein points out that the language boys use to describe sexual encounters reflects a conception of sex as conquest, not as pleasure. Let's work on that, for the sake of all genders. If we tell all young people that sex is about pleasure and intimacy, maybe the first question would be "would you like it if I...?" Instead of "may I have your permission to...?" Instead of just consent, we should be talking about *enthusiastic* consent. And not just for girls. Maybe if their sex partners asked them if they would enjoy sexual contact, boys would think a bit more about what's driving their actions.
2
Should we have some kind of Truth and Reconciliation process about sexual assault in America? It would do more to change the culture than having men adamantly deny accusations that they know can't be proven all these years later. I feel it would be especially helpful for young men and boys in high school and college. It could help the survivors of sexual assault process the trauma faster and not let it derail their lives for years and decades. Obviously the worst offenders would still face criminal charges, like in South Africa.
The way it stands now, the men who genuinely care about women and admit their wrongs, get the shaft, but a man who follows the "deny, deny, deny" strategy gets away with it. In Truth and Reconciliation, if you won't admit the truth, you get the shaft.
There are false accusations, but there is a way of rationally identifying false accusations. The most recent examples from Duke Lacrosse etc., show that. Dr. Ford's testimony shows the opposite, that her's is not a false accusation. I doubt it can be proven to a criminal standard, but allowing Kavanaugh to get away with it by a defense of loud denials and claims of privilege is not acceptable. Not for a seat on the Supreme Court where truth is supposed to matter.
8
Ford has two sons. If they were accused of attempted rape by someone who could not say when or where the attempt took place. Had no physical evidence, no police report, no witnessess would she believe her sons or the "victim"??????????????????????????????????????
The claims against Kavanugh are as credible as the FAKE NEWS generated Rolling Stone UVA "rape" case and the Duke lacross team "rape" case.
5
@Reader In Wash, DC,
I have 27 year old twins - upstanding (to my knowledge) men.
However, if one was accused of such a thing, I (along with many other parents) would not automatically assume anything as you so narrowmindedly suggest.
We believe we know our children, partners, and friends so well as to see inside them, but as we have seen from endless tragedies with guns (for example), looking from the outside is not a scientific method of knowing or predicting the capabilities of others. Too often, what passes for upstanding apppearance is mistaken as character.
What I can say is that if one of my sons, so accused, conducted himself as Brett Kavanaugh did in front of the SJC, Iwould suspect the worst: his guilt.
5
The headline of this condescending opinion piece ought to tell you all you need to know about the sickening social engineering efforts of the left, and how pervasive those efforts have become.
8
@Mike Not all of us. I know many progressives who fully support women's rights and completely reject Third Wave feminism. We are no more interested in these ideologues than I hope you are the ones on the right.
1
It's not up to women to determine what boys will be allowed to be. Hands. Off.
9
i had to talk to my daughter about sex. It was very uncomfortable for both of us and I was only partially successful. She still experienced a violent sexual assault, The police were not helpful and she suffered for years because of the fact that no charges were laid against her rapist regardless of the fact that there were over 30 injuries recorded as evidence of the assault. So watching this woman being grilled by entitled old men who think that women should shut up and endure. I will no longer shut up. I will no longer endure to make sure entitled old men get to keep their entitlement.
12
Considering the anti-male attitudes of present society, I firmly believe the last bastion of masculinity is homosexuality.
4
KAVANAUGH IS A BULLY. Our schools are beginning to educate both boys and girls about bullying. Kavanaugh has all the earmarks of a bully: aggressiveness, belligerence, self-righteousness, and denial of any wrongdoing. When confronted, bullies lie and re-write their own history. Kavanaugh was trying to bully the Senate committee into confirming him, and it looks like it worked.
13
Booze + Youth + Testosterone. And we're surprised when things go awry?
5
We've already allowed boys to be boys. Look who occupies the White House.
2
Rarely does a boy internalize what his coaches or teachers say about male-female interaction in the sex/romance department, and—at least in my day—they didn’t say much about such subjects. I was taught that what a man said was of little import and that the real measure of a man was seeing what he actually did. Of course, my father was my model of how a man acted in relation to women based on how he treated my mother. And while my parents’ relationship was quite traditional, consistent with the times (my parents married in 1954), in that big decisions were made by my father, my father and mother were always respectful of one another even in times if obvious stress or tension. My father was physically affectionate in a respectful way, expressed by tickling my mother around the waist—signaling to us kids that all was well.
As very young boys it was drilled into us that we were never to open a girl’s or woman’s purse unless directed to do so by the girl or woman who owned the purse and that a female’s purse was part of her physical person. All such lessons began with “a gentleman never” or “a gentleman always”. At a very early age we were taught to see girls as in a par with our mothers and the very good and venerable female teachers who made up the teaching corp which took us through grade school, and even though idiots, we boys were held to the standards of men—enforced with the paddle at school and then, that same evening, reinforced with the belt at home by one’s father.
3
Yes, we can let boys be boys because most boys are not Brett Kavanaugh, Harvey Weinstein.
7
The war on men countinues.... I am totally opposed to and against sexual assalt. But this is just trying to stop boys from being what they are. Like it or not. God made us the way we are, and we just have to live with that.
11
@American Patriot
I'm afraid I don't recall the Abrahamic admonition: "I've made you a sinner, so just keep sinning."
If your God made boys assaultive, what will your religion do about stopping them?
When a majority of white women vote for Trump despite his vile behavior, they condone and legitimize this behavior. They are setting an example for their sons and daughters. Woman are over 50% on the populations, you have the power to change this, vote for people based on their chatector and principles.
1
@ad Completely agree with you on that. However, please note that evangelical Christian white women compose the vast majority of that support. Non-evangelical white women went hard for Clinton. You need to adjust your demographic just a smidge, narrow it down to the actual offenders.
That's odd. In our PE and sports team locker rooms coaches were clear on expectations of gentlemanly behavior,sex talk,especially regarding girls.. never touch a girl in anger a particular sex act could= marriage buddy...things we mostly knew already.
Later after home games.. win or lose we wanted to invite girls to occasional beer parties afterward, house,lake or farm settings. The girls would not come if they didn't trust us much less bring friends to the next party. Regardless of beer consumed any guy doing anything unpleasant to the girls was stopped and banished.
Trying to get to 2nd base was for going on dates if you were lucky.
young men in raucous locker rooms is not the problem.
the problem is tainted liberal excess coming to fruition..
1
From the author regarding men/boys: “...I’m not convinced they are always reliable narrators of their own experience...”
So men/boys lie about their experiences but women/girls do not? If we are all from the same gene pool, how did girls obtain this special gene that prevents them from lying or exhibiting deceitful behavior? It’s as if we should change the beloved "what are little boys made of" nursery rhyme from:
“What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails
And puppy-dogs' tails
That's what little boys are made of”
to:
"What are little boys made of?
A bubbling and putrid cauldron
Of aggression, anger, and deceit
Devoid of any redeeming qualities
Unless a shadow of a girl who is “furious, traumatized, grieving over harms big and small” stands behind him
That's what little boys are made of
That's what little boys are made of"
Obviously, girls would still be made of "Sugar and spice
And everything nice "
9
What!? Women have been saying gender is a social construct and there's no difference between girls and boys out of one side of their mouth, and out of the other side they're saying that girls are fragile and special and need protection. And all the time there's a theme that girls are always "good".
Newsflash: High school girls are every bit as nasty as high school boys.
Let's have separate schools, classes, dorms for boys and girls again.
5
This Ford accuser ,along with the METOO Man-Hunt, has to be traumatizing vulnerable young boys and men today. Especially the psyche of the more quiet and timid boys, unsure of themselves as it is! How many will become celibate, asexual or QQ over this relentless assault on maleness is the unknown question ? No wonder more American men today are marrying foreign women who have a more open , mature relationship with men...
13
Would the excuse that "boys will be boys " be applied by the same people if Dr Ford had been a 15 year old boy ?
4
Is there hope? I doubt it.
1
The most emotionally fortunate children come in threes, as two girls and a boy, or two boys and a girl. Growing up this way takes much of the mystery out of sex naturally, before sexual drive even develops.
So I accept your basic principle that we should be doing a better job at teaching young men how to respect and act around women. I also do understand as you, that alcohol is in most instances the common element of these crimes. So even if you had trained your son all the do's and do nots about dating you still have alcohol messing up your brain. I also understand many believe as I that alcohol is not to be used as an excuse. But it is a factor! It is a factor in both sexes. So we should be teaching women as well as men to recognize when a man is drunk and walk away from the situation. The reason I say this is because women will not be able to convince men that it is all there fault. I say this because that is what is going on know.
Can you control what you think ? I have the answer , NO you can't. Imagine just sitting down enjoying your coffee and you see, smell something and your mind reacts to those senses, you can't control what your mind is going to come up with. So how can you posable believe as a woman that you will be able to control a drunk man in front of you? Education is a great way to control this problem but as our long history has told us all the education in the world does not help you when you are so drunk you can't remember anything. This is not a man problem it is a human problem, that can be solved by coming together and recognizing that it take all involved to make coherent decisions.
We can still recognize wrong from wright, VOTE NO! Mr. Flake
Everyone - really!- every human - needs to read Ms. Orenstein's book Girls and Sex. We have failed our sons and our daughters when it comes to talking to them about sex. You may think you told them what they need to know, but when your 24 year old daughter asks you why you never talked to her about her body, pleasure and mutuality, and you didn't talk to your son and daughter about "the shoulder shove" well then, you didn't tell them enough. I'm glad Ms Orenstein is writing the book for boys. I will avidly consume it.
2
An op-ed about boys, girls, and sex, and the word love isn't mentioned, even in reference to platonic love. Am I old-fashioned, or is there something wrong here?
3
Religion with modesty and morals would also help.
2
Mr. Kavanaugh is catholic, Rhporter. Lying seems to be built into the DNA of sexual abusers in the church.
2
How can we keep our country moral, decent and honest? How can we protect our little children? How can we stop promoting indecent and immoral lifestyles to the rest of the world? Simply put God back into the equation.
Whether republican or democrat, Christian or atheists, if what we think, say, or do is decent, moral and right...then it comes from God. If what we think, say, or do is indecent, immoral and wrong then it does not come from God. You can only lie to yourself and others, but not to God. This may be why separation of church and state exists. Blessed be those that believe in His name: who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
With 7.6 billion males and females on earth every female can find a good man, and every man can find a good woman. Males that rape women lack confidence as males. These individuals need to be psychologically tested since the first grade in school, every year till they reach adulthood. The propensity to rape and/or kill can be discovered. However, the supreme court will not allow a mandatory law to test kids for any reason.
@manoflamancha Kavanaugh is a staunch catholic.
"I’m not convinced they are always reliable narrators of their own experience. At times, I can almost see the shadow of a girl behind them as they speak — a girl who is furious, traumatized, grieving over harms big and small that the boy in question simply didn’t recognize, or didn’t want to."
Clearly, the subtext of "Believe women" is "Don't believe boys". And aren't there just as many boys who are left feeling the same way about girls they've been involved with? Amazing as it is to think about, boys have feelings and get hurt too. Yes, really! And incredibly, they're not all heartless jock frat boys who pound beers and pound girls. And anyone who has ever been young knows that girls can be really cruel to boys as well.
How about, for a change, we allow an empathetic man to write about the experiences of boys and men and not just feminists who don't understand boys and are only out to confirm their own biases? Is that too much to ask, NYT?
9
@J.C.
J.C., if you have not read other pieces by Ms. Orenstein, you may not know that she is a woman trying to initiate honest dialogue about how to effectively teach both sexes about sex and relationships, in a world that often belittle's the emotional needs of males.
As to your last paragraph, I highly doubt there is a coordinated effort to keep an empathetic male from writing about the emotional struggles and experiences of boys and men. My guess is there just aren't that many men who think the world would want to hear from them.
As an empathetic female, who believes navigating this world is emotionally challenging (and often difficult) for everyone, I'd champion hearing more from the empathetic men of this world.
3
@J.C.
"But...but...what about the BOYS?!"
Yes, boys do get hurt, but the more common responses are to call the girl filthy names if she doesn't want to be with them, even if it is just to the "bros", or to stalk and harass.
How about for a change empathetic men actually write about their experiences and feelings voluntarily without pretending women need to "let them"? And what about reading about the pervasive female experience without getting defensive and turning the narrative back to males? Is that too much to ask, JC?
1
Trump and the GOP run on let boys be boys . They supported that women abuser Roy Moore , they supported Trumps sleazy behavior. You need to remove these bad leaders from these jobs of power and put them in jail. Judges are known women abusers also. If you are really serious to make it better for women and young women start prosecuting the bosses above. You will just be letting the women abusers get worse and see more of them.
3
"If he let the nomination advance, one of them said, her voice ragged, he would be 'telling all women that they don’t matter'.” Because Ford's vaporware accusation from 36 years ago was reason enough to stop the process?
It was obvious it was staged overwrought Marcuse theatrics coupled with irrational thinking--"telling all". Did either of the women ever take a logic course or was it simply "female" thinking channeling Trotsky?
All this encounter revealed was that Flake needed a reason to be played by his friendship with Coons and the theatrics in the elevator was the perfect cover.
Flake's false balking and ad nauseam #MeToo mobs hysterical elevator-and-restaurant abusive "protest" assaults as they please are just further examples of even more deep-swamp farce and fodder for the left's two-fisted propaganda engine--our Sovietized mass-media--e.g., this essay.
2
One channel mentioned that Judge Kavanaugh’s parents were at the hearing. They must have been embarrassed by his behavior, specifically his disrespect toward the senators. If they weren’t embarrassed, they should be ashamed of themselves.
Is anyone surprised that this president nominated this judge?
He is a privileged, irresponsible, unaccountable preppie frat-boy. His behavior is not typical, and it is not normal nor acceptable. His temperament and demeanor, especially his disrespect toward Senator Klobuchar, was despicable.
Even I (at age 65) know what Ralph means. His explanations concerning his yearbook comments are pure fiction.
Trotting out his wife for the Fox interview was unimpressive. It reminded me of Bill Clinton, letting Hillary talk about the “right wing conspiracy against my husband...” and how he sat there and let her say that knowing he did what he did, as he continued to lie about it. Shame on you Judge Kavanaugh, and just as much shame on Bill Clinton for using your wives in such a disgusting way.
He does not deserve this lifetime appointment. Surely we can do better than this.
3
@Christine Interesting interpretation re: the presence of Kavanaugh's parents. How could they be embarrassed by his behavior, when by his certain account he did nothing wrong, and was falsely accused.
What's even more notable is the absence of Ford's parents, the ones who let their child (yes....a 15 year old is a child, as is a 17 year old) out to drink with boys. Where were THOSE parents?
I read and re-read the article and I am still looking for the place where the author puts any responsibility on women. I read plenty of ways that urge men to become feminized but I can find no examples of how women are supposed to masculinize. I mean, I get it bagging on males (especially the white ones) is really in fashion these days, especially for the Editorial Board of the NYT. But seriously please attempt just a bit to recognize that most of the men (even white ones) out there are upstanding empathetic caretakers of their society, community and families. To paint with such broad brushes you would be thinking we living in a real Patriarchy like.... I dunno Saudi Arabia, the Congo or virtually anywhere else in the Non-Western world.
3
Lisak and Miller 2002. That's all I have to say. They described rapes to American men and asked if they'd ever done any of those things. They just didn't call it rape.
Just over 6% of the men admitted to at least one rape. Several admitted to several. One man has 50 rapes to his name. These men also had disproportionately high rates of domestic violence. But think about that. 6% of men (that is more than 1 in 20) admitted to rape. Not attempted rape, but actual completed rape.
Most of these men would call themselves "good guys". They only did it once, after all. They don't rape everyone they come across, just when they're drunk or when they really want to or when 'she deserves it' or ... name your excuse. Doesn't change anything. Gather 20 American men into a room, and statistically speaking, 1-2 of them are rapists. That's terrifying, and it says that we need to do so much more about teaching boys not to rape.
4
@M The general data of a study without all the supporting material is not useful. Mean, Median, Standard Deviations. Also, while statistics are useful they rarely in some cased they are just educated guesses when you deal with populations in the hundreds of millions especially ones broken out into distinct regional, sub-cultural and economic sub-classes.
The GOP have rotted to the core. If the tv camera was not on there would not be even a weeks FBI investigation. The GOP believe women don't matter or the working poor or middle class. It all about each one of them and giving everything to the rich people. Wake up GOP supporters if you are not independently wealthy a vote for them is for failed policies and more women abuse cases.
1
Not a GOP vs Dems problem. what message does the left send with Bill Clinton, Corey Booker and Keith Ellison? Both sides look the other way when it comes to people that will vote their way. Washington has a very big "do as we say not as we do," problem. Leadership is not the word I would use.
But how do we fix that? Would burning Judge Kavanaugh on the alter while allowing these other hypocrites to stay provide any kind of a remedy? Hypocrisy of the highest order. Nobody blinks and a million years of history won't go away overnight. Nor over the next decade as it stands.
I’m interested to see so many comments from men. Obviously, they took time to read the article. But are they truly listening?
4
@Martha McCormick
I think a better question is, Is Peggy Orenstein really listening to boys? Or is she just on a mission to paint of picture of boys that advances her own agenda and biases.
It goes both ways.
1
@Martha McCormick
My guess is that they don't let themselves listen. They are too busy thinking up their defensive responses and turning the tables by pretending to be the victim.
1
Had Jeff Flake been a Democrat, he'd have just told the two women disturbing the peace that he knew what was best for them and to just let him do the thinking this time.
This entire episode reminds us how the D.C. Democrats act once they have bought and paid for a group's votes. Just as Dems allowed black employment to zoom during the awful Obama years - ''those jobs aren't coming back!'' - Dems always assume the women's group will dutifully follow along because Bill Clinton supposedly fought for abortion.
But then again, is THIS the week to remind Dems of Bill Clinton?
A woman too indepedent to fall into anyone's line has the week's best reaction to progressive demands for women to yell when ordered to and back away the rest of the time:
"Principled opposition rooted in facts and logic are all well and good, but emotion-driven tantrums belong in a romper room, not in any Senate hearing room. You want to be role models for girls and women, take a course in civil discourse, and as I always recommend, learn to argue with your lady smarts, not your lady parts." —Michelle Malkin
3
We can't let girls just be girls either. Times are a changing.
3
This isn't about 'boys being boys', it's about 'rich boys being privileged rich boys.' And the ultimate privilege is getting away with things the lower classes can not.
5
Here is the message you are sending to boys and men. You lump all of them together indiscriminately in what now seems a vendetta. You assume all carriers of Y chromosomes are deeply flawed and require correction, and use as “data” advocacy journalism and selected anecdotes. While there is no question people can do better, this sort of “opinion” is cheerleading, not convincing.
8
@LTJ A view that will shift votes. While one might detest the right at some point the old saw. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" will come into play or some men will say I will not have these folks as allies and will not have the other side as allies and as such will simply not support either.
1
The dichotomy begins with parents. When you have a daughter the parents inculcates vulnerability, fear of plausible sexual predation, the shame that would be hers and her parents and destruction wrought by society on them. No such lessons for the boys. They allow boys to follow their hormones. Period. Their sexual conquests are indications of their virility, a silent acknowledgement and acceptance, almost a sense of pride. "Don't get them pregnant" is tantamount to saying, "Don't get caught and use a condom". What happens to the girl is inconsequential. I guess we are still cave dwellers!
6
AGREE!!
The entitled boys from private schools and from small towns will be put on pedestals and told they are the future of civilization, so long it's kept in their image and likeness.
Thank God that I came of age in 1968 and witnessed the insanity of that year and its fallout and could see the equal insanity of the White Male Dominance track I was being aimed toward.
A decade later, after offering service as an occupation I moved into institutional investment sales and marketing thinking enlightenment had moved in all society.
What a dope!!! I soon realized that those of my age truly believed they were special because they had money and perceived prestige.
It turned out my peers we no different from previous generations of entitled American males, and that societal changes where bothersome. They saw women as sex objects or uppity for wanting to be considered equals.
1
I can't possibly be the only one who notices the absurdity of the headline of this piece. "We can't just let boys be boys" ? What's the plan? What do we want to transform boys into? And why can't we let boys just be who they are.... uh... boys.
10
Wrong title.
This is not "We Can't Just Let Boys be Boys."
This is "We Can't Just Let Boys be Predators."
4
What an extraordinary denial of female agency in this piece.
The metoo movement is about victimhood and lack of agency: men this and men that, boys this and boys that. Women and girls? Victims!
8
Hogwash. The smallest man can physically overpower most women.
1
It is an ugly world when we glorify those who confront our Senators in the halls of Congress.
It is an ugly world when many women are taught to see themselves as not personally responsible for their own decisions and always vulnerable to being preyed upon by men.
And it is an ugly world when our 'new feminists' want to 'change' all boys by emasculating them, by discouraging their growth, and my misrepresenting everything about their maturity.
3
You do the very best you can with your boys ... and then it's into the Thunderdome they go.
5
This entire conversation as it relates to Mr. Kavanaugh is pointless at this moment in time..
The point is, "Is this REALLY the kind of person - male or female - that WE want on OUR United States Supreme Court, making decisions about how WE can live our lives?"
NO. There are plenty of highly qualified, morally ethical, socially conscious people who have never had these kinds of charges levied against them who would be honored to SERVE US.
People like Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
5
The problem is that bad behavior by boys and adolescents is always excused as a natural part of growing up. The fact that many boys behave badly and assault girls/women does not make it ok. I'm glad we are finally having this conversation. Kavanaugh and other men who behaved badly as boys should own their past and make amends.
And I don't think anyone who assaulted a girl/woman (even once as a boy) should ever be on the Supreme Court (Thomas or Kavanaugh included). Only people of the highest ethical caliber are worthy of that.
2
I am the mother of two daughters and two sons. My children were treated equally, at least by me. The lectures the girls received were the same ones the boys received about everything from sex to parties to drinking to drug use to respecting themselves and their friends, from standing up for their friends, to keeping an eye on their friends' safety, to calling me for a ride if they ever felt a friend or they could not get home safely. Body parts were never called by wrong names. Every internet story about crazy things from inhaling gas to sexual exploits was hashed out in conversations where they were forced to think for themselves about what was right and what was wrong. They learned fun isn't fun unless it's fun for everyone. You don't start when they are teenagers when their selective hearing of adult voices begins. You start much earlier, obviously at levels they can grasp, but you start. And you reinforce. There might be a little finger crossing involved but that is only 2 percent of the effort a parent should put forward to make sure their children, boys and girls, are not afraid to call out any and all behavior that crosses the line of common decency of their friends and/or siblings, and assess their own behavior. If they are afraid to confront their friends, the early conversations you had with them teaching them to think critically about things ensures they are not afraid to come to a parent or other adult to report it.
4
Amen, Ms. Orenstein.
I don't understand why parents think boys are incapable of thinking through their sexual urges and controlling their behavior as teens and young adults.
I had a boyfriend as a teen who did not push the envelope for fear I was too young. He valued the relationship, had long-term thoughts about it and reasoned that any regrets I might have on that front would ruin our prospects long term.
I also recall a young man who (mistakenly) believed he had a moment of opportunity with me as a teen, but stopped, later explaining rather sullenly "you were too drunk to consent." He totally understood that a girl with too much alcohol in her is a deal-killer.
Amazing things are possible when you raise boys to think.
18
A most important article, and re-reading it would do a lot of good to more folks than we can think of. Respect of others as human beings, implies the need to have self-respect, and it cannot start early enough. By the time the kids are in school, influenced by other kids (usually boys) devoid of a loving education by parental example (as one cannot expect kids to learn 'right from wrong' by ongoing bad behavior, if not abuse, by parental attitudes conducive to disrespecting others (especially girls, and in this case, spousal disrespect). Now, you may ask, why does this sexual abuse still occur? Could it be that we boys cannot help behaving according to our hormonal impulses, instinctual to the core? Could it be that we, parents, not having been taught the basics, cannot show, and give, what we lack? Well, we have a conscience that 'knows' right from wrong, and perhaps all we need is a formal discussion for clarity, so women are held in as high an esteem as we do for boys, and that our differences (some would call them as being 'opposites'), as they come together (we are social and sexual beings, after all) complement each other perfectly (at least, that's the idea). Insofar the relaxation of our morals by alcohol and/or other drugs, that remains a problem of huge proportions, still not well addressed by society, as they help escape personal responsibility, at least that's what some folks may want to use as an excuse. Who could say that educating children well was easy?
OK, here's the way I see it. You're on the board of directors of a successful Fortune 500 company. Your President/CEO has just died after to leading the company to phenomenal growth and profitability over the past 25 years. There are dozens of very qualified candidates in that are very interested in this prestigious position. With input from a respected investigation firm, you and 12 other board members have narrowed the field down to ten and will be interviewing them over the next two weeks. One full day will be allocated for each interview and then a decision will be made about who will lead this company through the next two or three decades.
One of the candidates has some worrisome but unproven rumors about his past. Under questioning, he reacts with many vague responses that don't really answer the questions. He begins turning on the board members starts showing signs of paranoia. Finally, he tells the board members he's convinced the reason he's being relentlessly interrogated is that there is a huge conspiracy against him.
After interviewing all ten people, how do you think the above-described man will fare in the voting?
55
@Mark
Since he is the boss's pick, he gets in.
1
that's not an accurate analogy. This is. imagine the same scenario, but out of the dozen or so candidates, you are chosen to be the new CEO, and before you are formally hired you go through a formal interview with the board. You complete the interview and are poised to be approved, but at the 11th hour a accusation from an individual who you dont know says you assaulted her 36 years ago when you are a teenager but does not know exactly when and where it happened. Immediately. without hearing from any witnesses shareholders of the firm who supported your rival start marching in the street calling you a rapist and humiliating your wife and daughters and destroying the reputation you built with earnest hard work through your life's work.
How would you feel? bitter maybe. How would the people feel who supported you and approved you after what was supposed to be your final interview, bitter too. Would it tear the Company apart? Probably.
1
The adage "do as I say, not as I do" comes to mind when I think of how men perceive and treat women, because what we do has far greater impact. As kids, we pattern ourse!ves very much after parents. If dad talks down to mom, doesn't allow her to have input on making decisions, and basically portrays himself as more important than mom, sons AND daughters see this and it becomes part of their psyches. We pattern treatment of the opposite sex largely on this. It is a pattern of subservience of women, and it is a vicious cycle.
14
Important observation. Thanks.
I am one of those parents who spoke insufficiently to her son about sexual ethics. Thankfully he seemed to have gotten the right message. But now at age 27 and in the wake of the Kavanaugh hearing, he sees an urgent need for more discussion about the issue of consent while drinking. I’ll be sending him Ms. Ornstein’s essay.
6
We all learn from our experiences. I learned about girls and women by paying attention to how they were experiencing the same event. What some men don't seem to understand is that someone else might be experiencing the same event in an entirely different way than they themselves are and need to pay attention to that other's experience not just to defend their own.
13
Uh, wait a minute:
"On an individual level, adults need to talk to boys early and often about sexual ethics, gender dynamics, consent, pleasure, healthy relationships and the risks to them of mixing sex and alcohol..."
Maybe someone should inform Ms. Orenstein, "words" are just a human construct, they don't really mean anything, and NOBODY can teach a society how to behave in a "moral" manner, they can only teach them how NOT to behave in a moral manner, but NOT with "words."
1
@MrMikeludo...
When "moral forces" are absent in a household, who can possibly expect "moral sense" to be instilled in children?
When "moral forces" are absent in the schools, who can possibly expect "moral sense" to be instilled in children?
When a child consistently sees his mother becoming pregnant during her life between, say 13 and 18 with the the result being five kids, who can expect a "moral sense" to be instilled in her children, be they male of female...an all this on top of never seeing a father or seeing an abusive father or in receiving some sort of approprite moral guidance in the schools?
As Walt Kelly's famous Pogo character once said:
"We have met the enemy and he is us."
If a man has a certain charisma and creates an atmosphere of trust and comfort, he is likely to find a woman drawing closer until she is curled n his lap like a cat, purring.
At that point, he should not rush!
Too many men ruin their chances by being out of control and n a rush.
Too few men know this, and perhaps if they are very crude and aggressive, this wouldn’t appeal to them.
And, ...too many women put up with obnoxious behavior from men and are too trusting too soon or are ambivalent about whether they want sex or not.
1
Can women make men change? Boys change? In many ways #MeToo is really about law enforcement. It does nothing about prevention. Men live in a "me first" world. Boys learn what they see, and it is so, so subtle. Just this afternoon I witnessed two men, just around the age of a white haired Republican Senator, walk past a women on the deli line at a local supermarket. She had been patiently waiting for ten minutes, and was clearly the only one on line. They walked by with an air of self importance, and both were immediately served by middle aged men. When the women protested, someone from another department came over to help, a young girl. Both men apologized, both used that worn excuse about " not seeing". How Freudian! It is an underlying belief in superiority that leads to sexual abuse. Men "just don't see" or "remember". It is taught to boys by men. Can a well taught sex ed class undo what boys learn from men?
5
@et.al.nycstart by calling men out on this behavior , people are trainable. A good phrase to ask when a man says something condescending to a female : " would you ever say THAT to a man ? "
Listen to the stammering and / or silence that follows. They will remember it when you say it, believe me. They are not used to having their sexist behavior pointed out. Want it to change ? Stop putting up with it in silence.
TL;TR but one gets the gist of the article in the head line. And the fact a woman wrote it tells you where it’s going. Boys are bad girls are sweet victims. That seems to be the new narrative. And sure there will always be a bad Apple. So were to stop our boys from being boys leading to men not being men. Perhaps we need to rethink the role Extreme feminism has played? Girls invading once all boys sports , schools , military and even the Boy Scouts. All in the name of equality. There is a difference between the sexes like it or not. It’s in the male DNA to protect and provide. Are they really any women out there who wants a boyfriend who cowers in the time of need? Equality means a lot of different things but it does not mean change your gender to better suit mine. Yes boys will be boys and that’s how it should be. Most grown up to be fine gentlemen.
10
You're missing the point. Look at the numbers for sexual assault and gender/based violence against girls (and boys at the hands of catholic priest) in the US. It's not only individual boys who do bad things, it's a particular culture in the context and under the protection of which 'boys will be boys' plays out in ways that are detrimental and harmful for many people - including boys. Many boys who are permitted to be 'boys' do not grow up to be gentlemen. In many cases their sense of entitlement to women's bodies, and social capital, and supposed superiority is satisfied and paid for by women's supposed inferiority. Moral equality, which is different from any kind of biological difference, means consent and mutual respect. Look at the numbers for sexual assault.
5
@J Clark Your reading skills have failed you. What she is saying is that we need to talk to our sons about how to relate to girls and women. My sons are grown, and I think I failed to do this. And if they learned it by watching their father, they learned very badly indeed.
8
@ J Clark
Girls are not “invading” the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts opened up membership to girls to prop up their sagging numbers. The Girl Scouts are against it. Check your assumptions!
2
Its simple for boys . Never force yourself upon a women . Its always been that way . It seems the judge broke that rule .
5
Let's not forget Kavanaugh's naked partisan attack on Democrats he blames for the mess he's in. That alone should disqualify him. And he is, without ANY doubt, a perjurer. "Devil's Triangle" being a "drinking game?" Were this not so serious a matter, it would be laughable. Most people are aware of the real meaning of "Devil's Triangle: "A threesome with 1 woman and 2 men. It is important to remember that straight men do not make eye contact while in the act. Doing so will question their sexuality" (The Urban Dictionary).
10
The article's main point is that there is something grievously wrong with boys. The problem is claimed to be immense.
The positive mention of Mary Koss, the source of the utterly incorrect claim that one in four women on campus is raped, tells us that author Orenstein prefers hype to accuracy.
The results of more recent and careful studies of sexual attacks on campus are that about one in one-hundred women is raped, and about one in 50 is sexually assaulted in a form other than rape. These figures match the historic ones for the campus and for society in general.
Lurking in Koss' figures, and implicit in Orenstein's urgency, is a judgment that one out of five or ten boys will become a rapist.
This is wildly wrong. It recalls the family-wrecking assertion back during the recovered memory fraud, circa 1990, that half of all fathers had raped their daughters.
The vast majority of us men are not billionaire sexual bullies. We are not the stuck-up fraternity children of the masters of the universe. We are genetically coded to protect women from sexual assault, and it is quite rare for this coding to fail: only one in two or five hundred of us becomes a rapist.
Men and women have a problem. The problem isn't men. Or women. The problem is men and women together. Let's work on it, rather than creating myths that women are fragile innocents and men are monsters.
There's nothing uniquely wrong with our sons. Keep your uninformed and vengeful hands off them.
10
Most of the women I know have been sexually assaulted. Also, lots of men. The point I took from from this article is that a lot of men may not know that they have done anything wrong because their views are sex are more of conquest than consent and mutual pleasure. One time I was groped and digitally penetrated by a man at a bar against my will. Another time, I told a man to stop after he was causing me pain during sex and he told me I couldn’t say no after I had said yes and he wouldn’t stop. My mother told me she was raped and my brother told me he was molested as a kid. To say that this doesn’t happen is not going to solve any issues. I have a son and I am teaching him about consent for himself and others.
1
Looks like Trump is telling the FBI who to talk with in the investigation. This is well beyond the limited scope that Flake had agreed to. I hope that this paper reports this.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna915061?__twitter_impression=true
“While the FBI will examine the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez, the bureau has not been permitted to investigate the claims of Julie Swetnick, who has accused Kavanaugh of engaging in sexual misconduct at parties while he was a student at Georgetown Preparatory School in the 1980s, those people familiar with the investigation told NBC News. A White House official confirmed that Swetnick's claims will not be pursued as part of the reopened background investigation into Kavanaugh.”
“Instead of investigating Swetnick's claims, the White House counsel’s office has given the FBI a list of witnesses they are permitted to interview, according to several people who discussed the parameters on the condition of anonymity. ……”
3
How do we protect our sons from a culture that pretty clearly thinks males are almost all dangerous predators? A similar article by a man saying such things about most or all girls would never make it near the Times, nor should it.
It probably won't get printed but I'll try:
Not I, my sons or any guy I ever hung out with would dream of doing what Kavanaugh was accused of. Never. To imply otherwise is false and hateful.
13
@keith
The article doesn't say anything remotely like that. If you start from a false premise, how do you expect people to take you seriously?
I believe you when you say you would never dream of doing the things Brett Kavanaugh is accused of and that you consider them to be heinous. I’m sorry you are taking this personally and feel that the writer is trying to implicate you.
Please consider: Not all males are dangerous predators, as you rightly say, but almost all dangerous predators are male. How do women know which is which? We don’t — so yes, we are forced to be suspicious and to prepare for the worst at any time.
And it’s not just the “predators” who pose a threat; I’ve seen many a quiet “nice guy” turn frighteningly aggressive after a few drinks.
This is not going to change until young men learn that “scoring” is not the measure of a man. That’s the point of this column.
1
What is it about New Yorkers that makes us think we have to reinvent the wheel every-single-time. European, specifically the Dutch have far healthier attitudes about sex and gender and the outcomes anew far better. Alcohol consumption as well.
Public policy rule #1: don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to. Find success, copy, paste.
8
Sadly, I think it is worth noting that every woman and man who voted for Donald Trump told women their assault didn't matter. Men are, predominantly but not exclusively, the perpetrators of these offenses (ethical and legal), but the origin of this clearly social problem resides in the socialization of boys, girls, women, and men by boys, girls, women, and men as well as our institutions of church, family, and school, among others. Having learned a great deal from Orenstein's writings over the years, I'm disappointed by the overly simplistic analysis in this, granted, short piece. If we really want to solve this problem, we must undertake a thorough-going analysis of its causes. For instance, girls and boys and their relationships are sexualized in ways and to a degree that we have never seen. Who is responsible for that fact--surely social media corporations at least as much frats or football teams.
8
@MYPOV
Relationships among groups of humans aren't "problems to be solved," rather they are "realities that are (by definition) constantly changing."
There can be no "solutions" because the goalposts are constantly moving. What is needed are clear understandings of the realities. Journalists and academic researchers can make significant contributions to understanding realities.
A good example is found in your own words, "... girls and boys and their relationships are sexualized in ways and to a degree that we have never seen." Indeed, what we're seeing is new but the social processes that brought us to today's reality are not new -- they go back millennia. Sexualization is a necessary part of human life cycles.
Undoubtedly, our intelligence can open up reality-changing alternatives. But the search for those alternatives aren't at all helped by academic-journalism of this sort.
2
" False in one thing false in all"
Ms Ford testified she was so traumatized 36 years ago that she could not stand to fly to Washington DC for the hearing and had to have it delayed except that it was then revealed that she flew regularly all around the world for fun and profit and in fact flew that week to Baltimore.
"False in one thing false in all"
2
Steve W,
Of course that sword cuts two ways Steve.
Blubbering bully bro Brett has lied not stop since he stepped foot into Washington politics. His latest stunts this week exemplified that. The man lies about big and little things like he is channeling Trump.
The job interview was for Brett. Not Dr. Ford.
He failed badly.
Dismiss him and chose another.
" False in one thing false in all"
3
@Steve W
You don't know whether her therapist had prescribed medication for use before/during/post flight - which is how many who are terrified of flying actually do make their flights. So maybe you should check with Dr. Ford's therapist about this, before making some blanket statement.
Dr. Ford's harrowing account of Kavanaugh's abuse was impossible to be denied by Kavanaugh's highly supportive team of Republican judiciary committee members, all alpha males (Flake excepted) who see no problem in young adult men who drink to excess and have their way with women. After all, isn't that a rite of passage for privileged prep school boys? Grassley/Hatch et al should relish the rest of their days on the hill, for the tsunami of the coming midterm elections will cleanse this chauvinistic swamp.
3
Arming all teenage girls would be a good first start. No explaining required. No questions asked. Teenage boys will soon catch on.
1
“Boys do it because they can: because they are oblivious, because they are ignorant, because they are impulsive, because they have not learned to see girls and women as fully human.”
Tragically, many boys (and men) engage in this behavior because they do not see themselves as fully human either.
6
Besides the “boys will be boys” angle, there’s another element to this that I haven’t seen discussed.
Like the crime of rape, the actions against 15-year old Ms. Blasey, against Ms. Renate, and against Ms. Ramirez all are a matter of domination and power. Hopeful conquest of a freshman or sophomore girl by an older jock occurred when I was a student, because maybe they were a bit naive, smaller, subject to peer pressure not to rat on the perp. In my understanding, Ms. Renate wanted to ‘fit in’ to the favored crowd. Ms. Ramirez at Yale was viewed as an outsider, both being from Puerto Rico and not being in the financial class as many of the other students. All easy targets when you are the ‘superior’ one.
Having fun at the expense of others and exhibiting no empathy for others is a symptom of that. I suspect that young Brett Kavanaugh also enjoyed the hazing rituals and intimidating the ‘nerds’ of the class as just another entitlement. The outrage he demonstrated, at the prospect of losing an entitled SCOTUS seat, seems to be proof of the tantrum of the bully finally getting his nose bloodied.
Mr. Kavanaugh certainly does not have the temperament to sit on the Supreme Court. And if the charges are substantiated by the FBI investigation, I’d argue that he should resign or be removed from his federal judgeship. We can and must do better, if we expect the judiciary to represent more than the privileged few.
11
The reason few parents teach their sons about what might be called rules of escalating physical intimacy in courtship is that THEY themselves are either ignorant or have forgotten what it’s like to be 17, clueless and faced with a serendipitous “opportunity” while drunk. They may even be struggling with similar issues in their own marriage. Teenage boys really DON’T discuss sex with peers...in locker room or anywhere else as much as people assume, and when they do, it’s usually for the purpose of teasing and playfully insulting each other as a form of both displaying dominance and bonding.
Think about it. Why would anyone want to get drunk before sex? It doesn’t enhance the experience. It’s a cliche. The reason most young men do it is to fit in, look “comically cool”, which may help attract peers...particularly women AND especially to remove anticipatory anxiety over their own hard wired fear of rejection. Many of these “good guys” in fact have subconsciously internalized the unhealthy idea that any expression of male sexual agency is wrong. They believe they must drink to somehow magically transform themselves from chaste but clueless “good guy” to sexually confident “bad boy”...from honorable but dull Ashley Wilkes to the much more playful and sexy Rett Butler. Alcohol is a scam...a fraud. Escalating sexual intimacy requires full attention and sensitivity to your partner’s needs and limits in the moment...something you simply cannot do while blitzed.
5
He’s not being cynical about Dr. Ford. He’s being realistic about the motivation behind the actions of Senator Feinstein leading up to this debacle. There are obvious political objectives behind her actions, Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh are just road kill. If you can’t believe that is possible you are very naive about how the political game is played at the highest levels.
I have firsthand experience. I once worked at a private investigation firm in Washington D.C. that engaged in these type of smear campaigns. It is very, very ugly business.
Make no mistake, Senator Feinstein took Dr. Ford’s compelling, credible accusation of sexual assault by Judge Kavanaugh and weaponized it for political ends. The result was the national disgrace that was that Senate hearing. These accusations could have been vetted thoroughly, out of the glare of the public eye and media, by professional government investigators, weeks ago. True, if brought to his attention Senator Grassley may not have acted but he was never given that chance because Senator Feinstein sat on the information, keeping it from her fellow committee members and therefore preventing them from having the opportunity to discharge their duties in a more confidential, professional, respectful manner for all parties involved, including us.
It was a cynical, disgraceful act of bloodsport politics at its worst. Nothing more.
7
John,
Your assuming Grassley et al didn't know already.?~!
As if they couldn't and didn't do their own research previously. Gee...who'da thunk about looking in his closet for skeletons before throwing him into the limelight. C'mon!
Those 65 signatures whipped out immediately saying what a swell guy our blubbering, braying, bully bro Brett was/is was planned well in advance. The Op research into Ford and others was well underway before the lying SCOTUS nominee sat for his job interview.
But yes the machinations going on in Washington are, and sadly always have been, cynical, disgraceful, underhanded politics.
1
Maybe, but after Merrick Garland, so what?
1
@John judge garland. No need to say more.
1
Ms. Orenstein is right - us parents of boys need to teach them early and young, about proper behavior; but not solely in "how to act with a woman," but how to express desire, affection and love in healthy, respectful ways. Part of that is also reminding ourselves as parents that while we may want to teach our sons to be independent and resilient and mentally and emotionally strong, focusing on 'competing' and 'drive' and ambition often contradicts this directive. So we must balance these facets of rearing.
And YET - *another* facet of this problem lies in the lens through which _girls_ are taught and encouraged to adore men and seek partners. American culture perpetuates a "Daddy's little's girl" daughter-rearing canard. Some of the most sexist people I've ever known, with the most rigid expectations of how men are supposed to act, have been highly educated, progressive _women_. Women who were told in many ways by both mom and dad that masculinity meant filling certain checkboxes on a well-defined list.
Just a few days ago the NYT published a piece about how a rigid construct of masculinity persists, while women have seen definitions of femininity expand.
It's true that boys need more detailed and nuanced training on individual behaviors; but it's equally true that as long as society and girls expect they follow a strict set of guidelines in order to be masculine, many young men are likely to continue to make terrible, costly and harmful mistakes.
4
Good points, thank you.
American males of every age are raised on a steady diet of violence and sex as expressions of masculinity. If in doubt, watch movies and shows made for and/or written by men: every other scene is an explosions, a fight, a chase and/or a rape-like sex encounter.
5
Playig? Is that like belting the wife when she objects to your drinking? Boys will be boys? And they grow up to be the self-centered, controlling, and mean men that abuse their families either emotionally or physically. The wife has the kids and is available when the boss shows up. No - Kavanaugh and friends are the problem - the list of women on his calendar, under age drinking, a smirk for how much is too much. His friend is a an addict - and Kavanaugh? Is the happy family window dressing? Just what we need - another abuser of women on the Supreme Court.
5
It seems like we are crossing the line between criminal acts and masculinity. Wanting to be physical in bed does not make a boy a bad person. It just makes the boy prefer rough sex. Many women enjoy the same. There is an obvious line that is crossed when an act becomes criminal, but for the love of God, we have to stop this war against men and masculinity. The boys you interviewed don't have a shadow of a hypothetical girl behind them. They have the shadow of feminism and the self doubt of their very "masculine" act or thought that this movement is labeling as criminal. These are very troubling times to be a sexual man.
2
@Eddie- How about we stop male aggression towards women first. Seems to me that would stop a lot of problems.
@Eddie
Actually, what we have to stop is this obsession with the completely false idea that there's a "war against men and masculinity."
I made sure my boys had subscriptions to Mad Magazine, all the science fiction and comic books they wanted, games like Dungeons & Dragons and Magic -- along with the NY Times, Commentary Magazine and plenty of doses of George Orwell, H.L. Mencken and The Simpsons -- and they turned out all right.
6
#Metoo has moved us toward a more equal gender culture. If Kavinaugh came clean on his drunken attempted rape of Blasey Ford, or if he didn’t remember, his reported history of drunken sexual aggression in prep school and college, that would be truth and restorative justice. I made some sneaky, less than consensual moves in my adolescence, but I’m willing to apologize so I can be judged on who I am now. Kavanaugh's white male rage politicized and exacerbated the conflict, playing to Trump and his base. The traditional male role model, emotionally closed off and in charge, doesn’t work in our economy where the best working-class male jobs are techs and nurses, the two-job family, and the racially and gender diverse American culture. Its dysfunction pushes men inward toward both self-hate and misogyny like the Proud Boys and the women who accept male dominance toward self-denial.
2
Orenstein’s assertion that the “influential 2002 study on campus rape” by Lisak and Miller (which “reported that 90 percent of assaults were committed by a small group of serial perpetrators, allowing most parents to breathe a sigh of relief”) was debunked by a 2015 study by Swartout and Koss is false. The Swartout/Koss study is the one that has been definitively debunked. Before Koss publishes her book, she should read the various papers that poke gaping holes in the Swartout/Koss study. Here is the best place to start: http://www.jimhopper.com/swartout/swartout_critique_executive_summary.pdf
3
Nothing here about girls discovering their sexuality and seeking men, usually older, to help them do so. That's a separate conversation.
Girls should never be made into the current model of waifish victims that is being portrayed here. Give your daughter a small knife, and a can of mace.
The idea that girls cannot protect themselves from drunk contemporaries should be totally debunked.
I know it's unladylike, but cut him or mace him, just don't be a victim.
4
@UTBG
So you'd never believe your daughter's tale of sexual terror, because you "taught her better." Uh. Huh.
1
It's conservatives trotting out the old "boys will be boys" excuse for sexual assault who insult all males with a sweeping generalization.
The implication is that *all* males will engage in trickery, manipulation, coercion or force to have sex; that *all* males view females with contempt, as less than human, as objects to be used; that *all* males will throw any ethics and humanity they have out the window to take advantage of a vulnerable person, if that person is female and the goal is sex.
It's conservatives who insult men and boys with such a truism. And yet you never hear the males it slanders pushing back against that particular insult, not even in all the trolling and cacophony of the internet.
I wonder what explains such a curious lack of outrage.
8
True. They seem to only push back against it when a women is pointing it out and asking for change. Interesting.
The uncomfortable truth. We can lecture and teach until we are blue in the face about the ills of sexual assault to young boys and young girls - but put alcohol in the mix, and all bets are off. In many cases, it's not about the lack of conversation, it's about what happens in a raucous party atmosphere. And yes, girls - at this point - become equally as complicit as boys. An alcohol infused environment with teens (and even adults - in fact, we know some who are WORSE than teens when drinking) is a disaster area. You were there in high school and college....don't allow your memory to be so morally superior in your adulthood that you selectively alter your recall of those situations. Girls who are drunk behave JUST as badly as boys who are drunk.
What we teach to our son and 3 daughter is that YOU are in control of yourself. No one can touch you without your consent. Ever. However "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." If you attend a party with people who are excessively drunk and foolish and treat others poorly, then these are people with whom you should not associate. To return to that kind of environment time and again becomes bad decision making. That's not victim shaming - that is common sense. Don't associate with drunk people that you don't trust.
Bad things do happen. That that is wrong, and sexual assault needs to be reported and punished. But, part of equality is recognizing that we are ALL responsible for our choices.
13
I did look up some articles on a specific question pertaining to the Catholic education that Brett Kavanaugh says is fundamental to him. I looked up an answer to why a woman cannot be a Catholic priest. It seems there are many reasons. First, Jesus Christ would have chosen women if he wanted them to be priests. Here, I did look for a quotation from scripture to back this up but there was none. The Papal Theologian I was reading went on to say that women were not good at philosophy and logical syllogisms. Women were not good at fixing the roof. But their emotional attachment was stronger precisely because he was a man and they could identify him as a loving spouse, touch him (?). And kiss his feet. This jumble of reasons is what boys in an all boys school are presumably taught. Does anyone find this a odd as I do?
3
As far as I can tell, Ms. Orenstein has not provided any real suggestions of how to get boys to respect girls. Perhaps a start would be to emphasize that all people are created in the image of God and that without proper boundaries it’s inevitable that (most) men will end up doing things with women that one or both of them will regret.
Why is this article referring to males age 18 and older as "boys"?
They are legally "men," they are held accountable as "men" and they need to act like "men," not boys.
4
First sexual experiences are awkward and often involve mistakes and regrets. Over time, memory may transform a consensual encounter into something totally different. It is widely accepted in the scientific community that every time we access a memory, we replace it with a new memory, influenced by the circumstances under which we rewrite the original. Human memory is extremely unreliable. Rape is a crime, and accusations of rape should be dealt with by the criminal justice system. But to destroy men's lives based on "I believe her!" sentiment, without any evidence or corroboration, is crazy. And sometimes women just lie - jealousy, psychological problems, other reasons. By drumming up the war on men and human nature, you change the way young women think about sex, as something almost necessarily near-criminal. Sexual impulse and desires are completely natural - 7.5 billion people on Earth are a living proof of that - and these impulses are the strongest among young men. Just like the war on drugs has been a total failure and put a great many innocent people behind bars, the war on sex (involving a too broad definition of "rape") will fail and lead to many innocent lives destroyed. You can't change basic human instincts by such articles. What you will achieve however (probably already did) is that you will scare swing voters (people who have common sense in contrast to fanatics on either left or right) by this militant feminist agenda and re-elect GOP & Trump.
5
It's a travesty that the FBI is "limited in scope" and unable to investigate the 10 Gang Rape parties that Kavanaugh oversaw when he was in high school. This is more than a credible allegation and the FBI has a responsibility to get this serial rapist off the streets. The correct course of action is to extend the FBI investigation interminably until all 10 Gang Rape parties can be investigated, reviewed and all participants interviewed under penalty of perjury. Anything less is a perversion of justice. America can and must do better.
2
Ms. Orenstein -- thank-you for your well stated analysis. Please leave the testosterone disoriented young men to the older males. We will do our best to bring them inside a framework where their maturation does not in part consist of abusing women. We know we need to improve. The men of industry and warfare have stolen our brothers and their minds. It is hard work rescuing them from the well-stoked cauldrons of violence and warfare created by men with sick hearts.
Calling all men -- we need to work to bring our lost brothers into the tribe of nourishing men, where the pathologies of sexual and social dominance are transformed into the power of nurturant renewal at the core of men, for the sake of our planet, our sisters, our future.
It's time to defang the great white shark, the ultimate predator. Before we are done I will wear his teeth as a necklace, grind them into a powder and fertilize my crops with their dust. This may take a long time, but the women are counting on us. We must not fail.
4
Boys will be boys - what else can they be? Problem is how our culture defines what it means to be a boy/man. Any boy who is humble, studious and compassionate is ridiculed cast aside as a need/geek etc. Our culture prefers “bad boys” - by both men and women. This culture prefers hard drinking and general uncouthness as “cool”. This culture celebrates women as “ho” and men as “players”. This culture abhors real feminity, modesty and worships crass sexuality as the model of ultimate freedom for women. Our girls are over-sexualized at an early age. They are growing up with celebrities as their role model - not writers,artists, scientists, intellectuals.
So our boys are boys. Our Girls are girls - exactly the way we have defined them to be - this culture drives towards them what they becomes - toxic masculinity and crass sexualization.
11
« We still want our rapists to be monsters, exceptions, degenerates whose expulsion from the community solves the problem. » This phrase is interesting. It is intended to be a rhetorical turn of phrase. But there is a feeling a little bit that the language being used by Orenstein is not very scientific, and, perhaps, even superficial. If you replace one word in this phrase—a word that seems to be otherwise implied by the article—you get this: « We still want our boys to be monsters, exceptions, degenerates whose expulsion from the community solves the problem. » The necessity of fighting against violence against women is critical. In the meantime, the very easy pathologizing of « boys » as « monstrous » (pathologized at birth in this article, as if the newborn baby needed to be corrected in the cradle) is something that a more serious investigation of the problem might also reflect upon. Such reflection may get us to the goal more quickly.
My parental sexual education amounted to "Here are the keys; don't hit anything." However, I did receive formal sex-ed from school. There were three separate components which were periodically repeated beginning in fifth grade. First and most obvious was the biological component. This is how babies are made. Second was the safety component. Here are the dangers of sex. Finally, there was the social component. Here is what appropriate behavior looks like.
There were also informal sources. I don't mean locker room talk either. I mostly mean films. I watched almost anything growing up. If you watch enough romantic comedies, you get the general outline of how men ought to behave. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I encountered Larry Clark and Harmony Korine's "Kids" as a very young teenager. If you want the most depressing sexual education you can ever experience, their film captures the lesson beautifully.
In more practical terms, discovering the opposite gender was at first a mutual curiosity generally ending in mutual embarrassment. This later evolved into a serial exercise in relationship building. The relationships happened to include sex but sexuality was only a component of something larger. A trial and error approach to making gender work. These were probably my most formative experiences. At some point, you'll inevitably end up single in college. Knowing how to build something more lasting than a one night stand is an invaluable life skill for adolescents.
4
I just looked at Orenstein's reference, and it says "Using the FBI’s definition of rape, the researchers found a higher proportion of men — 10.8 percent of the total sample, nearly twice as high as the Lisak/Miller study — who would be considered rapists."
That's shockingly high, but that's still only one out of ten. And you would never get that from reading Orenstein's article, which implies that this is a problem endemic to men and boys because no one ever told them that rape was wrong (gosh, next they'll be telling me that you can't rob banks) or they saw scantily clad models in video games, etc.
Honestly, this kind of "all men are abusers" extremism just hurts the cause. The problem here is drunken, entitled, sociopathic creeps like Kavanaugh, and you aren't going to stop those guys from raping by making the other boys guilty and scared, because Kavanaugh types will do what they can if they think they can get away with it, and they usually can.
Not that kids shouldn't receive a solid grounding in these matters, but it makes no sense to turn this into some kind of crusade in which every boy is a rapist.
8
@Josh Hill
I would totally agree with you although I might not go so far as to characterize Kavanaugh as a sociopath. However entitled, and white would certainly be appropriate tags to attach to him.
@Josh Hill
No careful reader of this piece would come to the conclusion that the author is engaged in "some kind of crusade in which every boy is a rapist."
Those of us who are not reading this from a defensive stance implicitly understand that the author is talking about a subset of boys and men, by no means all.
P.S. An “only” one out of ten chance is pretty good odds if you’re looking to win a drawing. Not so great if you want to avoid being raped.
These situations are almost always complicated by drinking on both sides. Both people need to have clear verbal expressions of consent before things proceed, as a drunken stupor is not the best condition to interpret someone else's nonverbal cues.
12
@M -- Beyond a certain point of intoxication by drugs and/or alcohol, consent is not effective. A person so intoxicated cannot give consent, it isn't meaningful.
What if both are that intoxicated. It isn't clear just how intoxicated that need be, but it isn't passed out either. They could both still do it.
So which one is raping the other? Is it always the man? Is it the one older, or more experienced, or just the one on top? Is it whoever complains later when sober?
"Both were drunk" is a hot mess to sort out.
6
@Mark Thomason Please stop asking questions you already know the answers to in order to be inflammatory. Obviously, if any two people were drunk and unable to give consent and yet proceeded anyway, they would both be in the wrong.
1
@N. Archer -- That is not always how it is sorted out. It is a live question, and legally dangerous for those involved.
Our county prosecutor told a meeting full of parents and high school kids (including me and mine) that when two people who cannot consent have sex, then the older one is charged by his office, whether boy or girl.
Parents were outraged, there was shouting, and he lost the next election, but I understand that in fact his office handled matters that way for years.
Many good points in this well-written piece. We have a long way to go.
5
Thank you for this opinion column. Determined to ensure my son lives a life of respectful, non violence, regardless of what flexible institutions encourage the opposite.
10
From an article by Dr. Mary Ott published in 2010:
"Relationship power is an important aspect of relationship quality. Research with older adolescents and young adults supports a predominant belief that “girls want love; boys want sex,” which places the power in the relationship in the boy’s court. However, data on early and middle adolescents paint a different picture. From the perspective of relationship power, a school-based study of 957 adolescents in the 7th to 11th grades with recent dating experience found that boys had less relationship power than girls. Specifically, the study describes: (1) adolescent girls were more confident than boys in navigating relationships; (2) adolescent boys were perceived by both girls and boys to have less relationship power; and (3) adolescent boys were more likely to report that their dating partner attempted to or actually influenced them. Boys expressed levels of love and emotional attachment similar to girls in this study."
"Boys are frequently viewed primarily as perpetrators of interpersonal violence; however, they are also frequently victims of interpersonal violence. Among 9th to 12th grade adolescents, 4.5% of boys reported that they were forced to have intercourse, (compared to 11.3% of girls); in other forms of dating violence, this trend reversed itself, with 11% of boys reporting that their girlfriend or boyfriend hit, slapped, or physically hurt them on purpose in the previous 12 months, compared to 9% of girls."
5
One problem elite prep schools face is that the students come from people who have a lot of money and power. So a head-master has to tread softly in exercising in locus parentis: offend a parent, and that risks a lawsuit and loss-of-funding.
The students know this, which shifts the power relationship. This unequal power relationship also comes into play when the students also associate with others from lower classes who work at the schools or in the community. It takes character not to be tempted by it.
This shifts the burden of upbringing back to the parents, who in such families think they can contract it out by sending their kids off to boarding schools.
39
I'm a 59 year old white male lawyer, a one-time fraternity boy from a Southern university, and while I didn't come from Kavanaugh's privileged background and I'm no Republican, I certainly have traveled in the culture and institutions he has been part of. But my parents made it clear from an early age that "boys will be boys" was not an excuse when it came to relationships with women or drinking, and that I was expected to adhere to a certain code of behavior. And there were very specific conversations that my father had with my brothers and me about how to act, primary of which was that no meant no, and that without consent, we would be acting immorally and illegally. I still did things I now regret under the influence of alcohol, but they were things that were embarrassing, not sexual assaults, and for that I'm certain my parents' influence was critical in the university environment. It's not too much to ask of today's parents to have the same conversations with their sons -- it will make their sons better people and maybe help us move toward a more just and civil society for everyone.
88
Joseph Campbell taught at an all-female institution and wrote and lectured more about the passage of boys into men better than any others I've found. There is a well-defined rite of passage, there is pain that comes from maturity, there is no easy way or short-cuts and the expectations when a male is transformed are rather daunting. Ideals passed on from legends like the Knights of the Round Table are instructive. Chivalry is to be admired. The embodiment of the great warrior is found in the lives of those who lived and fought while staying true to the romantic ideal.
The anthesis of the Knight is in the person of Donald Trump, a hero to millions of men and women. With the possible exception of Sen. Flake, the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee make up a pool of terrible role models. There are, as Campbell taught, discernible ideals, often romantic, followed by the Knight: courtesy, respect, honesty, charity and almost immeasurable bravery.
Did Judge Kavanaugh display any of these?
33
@Doc
And yet in reality many of those knights were thugs and enforcers for the local Lord warlord or petty king. They were also mercenaries for what I mentioned.
Indeed there was a change when the church set up a code of behavior but they(the church leaders) had to use religious artifacts to scare the knights into compliance.
Eventually the knight became better at what they were told they should do but as with all humans it took a long time.
This is easy information to find on the internet.
My parents raised me to respect all folk and to try to put myself in the other person's place, that's worked well for me. But I also did regrettable things as a young man I look back and shudder but I never assaulted anyone sexually or unprovoked.
I'm 63. I still have vivid memories of a first cousin who was much older than I, when I was 18, and who lived near me at the time. (Note, people didn't worry much about first cousin marriage at the time and it was legal in that state.) He persistently hit on me for months, even though he periodically expressed the opinion that I was not attractive. He said things like, "You don't look nearly as bad when it's half dark." He just could not bear me saying "no." I remember him saying, "You said you don't want to go to bed with me, I know you don't want to go to bed with me, I just don't know *why* you won't go to bed with me." Well, it's because I thought both his personality and his body were utterly loathsome. I moved out of state, so finally got him more or less out of my life. This is, by the way, not the only time a man who hit on me expressed the opinion that I was unattractive. For example, a man who asked me out also criticized my brown hair as being "mousy," at the same time. Another man criticized me as being "fat." For the record, my looks and weight were average. Reasonably pretty, never model beautiful. So it was like, I was not the gorgeous woman of their dreams but what they reluctantly had to put up with in real life. And they expected me to do what they wanted even though they openly expressed that attitude? Jeez.
7
As I read this, it strikes me as a very true account of the nature of the issue/problem.
2
Most interesting how some people make a person guilty without evidence or recollection of events. Ms. Ford needs a psychiatric medical mental workup with memory recollection (such as hypnosis). She has convinced herself Brett Kavanaugh is her attacker yet she remembers almost nothing. I watched the entire hearing and she was scary as an accuser. As for whoever leaked the information (Feinstein, her staff, lawyers, etc.) Someone did and they cannot/could not be trusted with confidentiality.
1
@Jan.
Her memories of the key details are very clear ,and they have haunted her for years though she tried hard to forget them. Her experience and her memories ARE evidence. Just because she doesn't remember certain details that you deem a requirement in order for you to deign to validate what she suffered does not, in fact, negate the truth of their existence of of her experience.
Reading even some basic facts about trauma and the brain (ironically, like the ones Dŕ. Ford has spent her career researching) would perhaps remove the mask of harsh and unfair judgement from your mind.
3
Jan - have you ever been in an accident? Do you remember everything about it? Or, are you like me in that you remember certain details vividly decades later. I was a toddler and my mother flipped her car on I95. I remember the ambulance, but nothing else. I was 17 and the horse I was riding had a meltdown. He reared and plunged and I eventually came off. The horse came down on top of me, scaring me badly. I remember the smell of his sweat and the color of the shirt I wore, but I don’t remember who else was there that day.
Memories are funny things. We don’t get to pick what we remember about our lives, but trauma leaves it’s own mark.
And by the way, Dr. Ford has a therapist. She doesn’t need your armchair diagnosis.
1
I saw plenty of recollection of events from Dr Blasey Ford. I saw plenty of lies from Kavanaugh the Kompromised (boof is flatulence, Renate Alumnius [sic] is a show of respect, I never blacked out drunk - yeah, sure. How stupid does he think we are?) Seems he also needed his beloved calendar to recall anything. Maybe he could have used his calendar at his earlier sit down with the committee, when he couldn't remember anything. He was unqualified in every way before Dr Blasey Ford showed up.
People need to talk much more about the "Meaning" they are seeking in their own lives, before they set out to teach that to their children.
Both, Women and Men need to speak up NOT about what they DON'T WANT, but about what they DO WANT in their interaction.
Both, Men and women, need to be able to speak up about what it means for them to BE - a human being. About why it matters to them to be appreciated for their "brains" vs "breasts" or "pecks"? Not just parrot talking points, but actually explain it. The role it plays in their brief physical experience here on earth.
Once they can do that, then they should try to explain it to children, and see if the latter will believe them.
3
In order to teach boys the rules of love and sex, the rules have to be objective. Teaching boys that, in order to figure out what is right or wrong, they must defer to the better judgment of the nearest woman incurs a huge burden of doubt and uncertainty that is incompatible with maturity.
Teaching boys not to attack a woman in the street is obviously using just the most extreme example of a wrong behavior, but it has the crucial attribute of being objectively recognizable and avoidable.
Teaching boys to accept unquestioningly a woman's judgment of their behavior, without recourse to any objective standards of conduct is an illogical principle (since women are no more privy to the truth than we are), and a demeaning and psychologically unsustainable practice.
What accountability should a man have for his behavior at 17?
A judge who reviews the most consequential cases in the land is personally at the crux of a central issue in criminal justice, that of forgiveness.
The claim is of sexual assault, or attempted rape. Men who have been convicted of that crime, at such an age, serve very hard time in prison. When released they are weighed down with a criminal record, and sexual offender status, automatically disqualifying them from public sector jobs, and forcing them to disclose their histories to potential employers.
What is fair accountability? Quite frequently, in such cases, the opinions of the victims play a large part in whether leniency is shown, which in this case would be Blasey. A requirement for early release is that the offender take full responsibility for the crime. The slightest equivocation is disqualifying.
Law and order conservatives who uniformly favor harsh sentencing, but are incredulous that a man who has escaped prosecution, should be held at least accountable enough to prevent him from being promoted to the highest governing echelon of our society?
The best outcome here would be that Kavanaugh be disqualified as a judge and spend the rest of his life advocating for forgiveness and leniency for the consequences of crimes committed by others whose chances of a life such as his own, were effectively ended at the young age he is said to have committed a crime much like theirs.
4
Fraternity houses are also one of the places on a college campus where you are guaranteed to find educational programs (some led by professionals, some led by peers) about gender identity, alcohol use, sexual behavior, and more.
Does it always work? No. But at least an effort is being made to give young men the tools to drive the challenging road of social interactions (using the article analogy) that they so often lack.
To assert that boys learn about how to treat women in locker rooms and video games avoids mention of the most effective teacher of boys of all... girls.
Unfortunately, the lessons that girls teach boys are not that girls are sugar and spice and everything nice.
Boys learn quickly that girls like the boys who are aggressive and tough, the ones with cash and cars. The boys who could afford to pay to take girls on nice dates. And yes, often the boys who treat “no” as an invitation.
Boys learn from statements like “I didn’t really like him, but he invited me to that really expensive restaurant, so I said yes.” And what is the lesson? That girls are commodities to be bought and sold. And that boys are marks to be used. And who is teaching boys that lesson? Girls.
Of course, these are generalizations. Not all girls are teaching these rotten lessons. Some really do just want to meet a nice sweet guy.
But the same is true for boys. There are a lot of boys who want to treat girls with respect and be treated in the same manner back.
Our dating culture is the problem, not boys.
And our dating culture is created by both boys AND girls.
If we want to fix it we need to change how both behave, not pathologize boys.
8
Well, the article makes one crucial assumption: the adults esp. the male parent would know what to say to the young boy about how to treat women well in sex.
And if male Senator behavior is anything to go by (men such as Grassley, Lindsey, Hatch), even Trump, and Bill Clinton, the older generation treated their women WORSE. Or at the very least had little regard for them when it comes to matters of sex.
So the problem perhaps is endemic and more fundamental. A lasting solution therefore would likely not come from just conversational coaching.
America needs to visit how it is as a society. Its attitudes towards freedom, liberty are mature. But its attitudes towards women, sexual moderation, moral based existence, minorities are juvenile at best.
I mean why treat human bodies as vehicles of pleasure, and so much? If the parents - and by this I mean more the older generation - fornicated mindlessly, is it not natural that their sons would take the animal instinct to the next level? Even if they go to Ivy Leagues and all prep for it?
Parents must visit their values - or their lack of them - to truly educate their sons for the better.
7
Alcohol removes inhibitions. A man who behaves badly when drunk. is at heart a bad person, and vice versa.
1
I am an 80 year old male. I received no sex education of any kind from my parents or school. My mom hinted from time to time and her educational advice was "just don't do it." My dad however never gave me lectures but taught me to respect everyone by his example and women were as much a part of everyone as men were.
My recommendation would be for the Dept. of Education to put together a team of medical professionals who would create age appropriate educational classes starting as soon as the children start school. When they get to the age where they are about to hit puberty both the boys and the girls should be told what is going to happen or what is already happening to their bodies. Sexual attraction should be presented as a normal cycle of life. It's not dirty or perverted to be attracted to someone, but kids need to be shown how to react to that attraction. Parents are careful to teach their kids how to safely cross a street but I think most parents are still too squeamish to talk frankly about sex.
9
We are talking about sexual harassment and assault.
The harassment they inflict is about bullying people, which is what war and violence is about. War and violence is really the expertise of men. Isn't everyone sick of men killing people? I know I am.
8
America culture - and many others, too - is a generally misogynistic culture and rife with male-on-female abuse. There should also be education, for both sexes, about power abuse, as that is the umbrella abuse encompassing male sexual abuse of females. There is plenty of other abuse, sexual and otherwise. I have experienced sexual abuse by other boys, and by women, and have known of abuse in all directions, including of females by females. Some was overt abuse (including that by women, make no mistake about niceness), and some more insidious manipulation such as the powerful tease and rejection.
At the heart of abuse is contempt for, and/or objectification of another human being, and that is held by all genders. That is what needs to be education to all, the nature and variety of power, and the abuse thereof.
9
One would think that males sexually assaulting females is an epidemic. Fearing my own well-being, I checked some statistics and found that in 2016, there were 272,040 rapes/sexual assaults reported in the US (Justice Dept stats), or less than 0.2% of all females. Other websites note serial offenders, which is good news because it means that at least some men are not rapists. I also understand that not everyone reports sexual assault; some wait 35 years to report these events. No stats on that. CDC stats, it's been noted, have been inflated because they have not been using the standard legal definition of assault and rape.
To read Ms. Orenstein's column and some of my fellow readers' comments, one would think that every male is guilty of at least thinking of sexual assault. I'd like to suggest that the problem is not as rampant as everyone is making it out to be, and that we are all getting caught up in hysteria (best word I could think of -- no misogyny intended).
Most sexual assaults occur at work and on college campuses. Many companies and colleges have excellent orientation programs covering inappropriate sexual interactions. Rather than accosting high powered men in elevators, can't we let these programs, along with media hoopla articles like this, take effect. Cyberbullying, Trump tweets notwithstanding, has been steadily trending down, presumably because of greater awareness. If it could work for teenagers, it should be able to work for the rest of society.
10
@L.gordon Having worked at a major university I can tell you that women's complaints about male sexual harassment go no further than the male department head or a low level administrator. That's one reason that these numbers never make it to the federal statistics.
2
I think Kavanaugh was probably playing, in those days innocent horseplay. In those days, normal for a boy to chase a girl, the old cat and mouse. I'll bet he took her scream to mean "careful or we'll get caught!" and tried to shush her so they didn't get caught. sounds like the zeitgeist at the time. But I can see how that could be reinterpreted and you'd remember it saying, hey maybe I didn't want to do that.
8
@Saxton Pretzir -Your explanation is a prime example of rationalization. The individual who did this was drunk. He assaulted another person and caused significant damage. As described, his intent was to rape her. Don’t minimize what he did and how it affected her. This was far beyond play (horseplay in your vernacular) and was a demonstration of raw contempt coupled with a misuse of physical strength. Remind yourself, an adolescent male is not a horse and an adolescent female isn’t one either.
15
@Saxton Pretzi
Are you seriously defending sexual assault? There is no defense for forcibly covering one’s mouth to keep them from screaming while pinned down! There is NO justification for that behavior, ever.
3
If he was “playing” and she was not, it is still assault.
1
I'm afraid talking to boys may not be enough, this is way more complex than frat culture. The hard truth is that these bad boys seem succesful, and other boys emulate their behaviour.
There is a psychological research on if and why women prefer bad boys, at least on the short term. In short, they are percieved to be more attractive, and are good at hiding their darker sides.
In any case, we are up against something more complex than jock culture, and what worries me that this behaviour might be deeply ingrained in human nature. And that takes a long time to change.
3
We need more women in government. Women focus their energies around improving society, family and the lives of children. If this happened worldwide, we would have fewer wars and conflicts which are probably some manifestation of male aggression. Women need equal pay for equal work. There should be reliable ways for women and children to report sexual assault. The future can be brighter.
10
Thank you for calling out the role alcohol- and other drugs - play in sexual assault. Far too little conversation about the excessive drinking
That pervade high school and college. Past time to set limits somehow.
Men, white powerful men in particular, must speak out about sexual assault and the depraved frat boy culture that has become their operative norm.
8
Who can say if one instance involving one boy would work broadly. But here is how my father introduced me to sex before I was twelve, 57 years ago:
My father and I went to our local library. He picked out a few small books on sex. We took them home, and read them together.
I was a squeamish kid. I thought, "You put what where? No way I'm gonna do that!" But my father concluded our discussion this way:
"Listen, Rob, you can learn all of this book stuff anyplace. But there's one thing I want you to remember. Sex is not dirty. Sex is beautiful."
At the time, this concept, that sex is beautiful, was beyond me. But I remembered it. Besides kissing game parties that I think started in sixth grade, I was in a group of almost all celibate kids. I didn't have intercourse until after my freshman year of college. But the first time I could have had intercourse, consensually, soberly, I stopped before I got that far (which must have confused the also eager young woman I was with) - not because I was scared, or unaroused, but because I thought, the first time I wanted to have an emotional connection with the woman, and as much as I liked the woman I was with, we didn't have that connection.
My father's equating sex and beauty had a corollary: sex is not ugly. Ugly sex was anything from unemotionally connected sex to forced sex. Ugly sex was not my idea of a good time.
My sex life has been unremarkable in its frequency. But almost all of it has been beautiful. Can you use this?
27
O.K., buckle up cause here it is. The Sexes aren't equal. And boys, most of all, high school boys know it. They should be taught that girls are physically weaker, and they are spiritually weaker when they abuse them. They should be taught that girls are stronger in ways that they are not. They should be taught that the laws society has passed to protect women are their because the sexes are not equal, and it magnifies themselves when they act accordingly.
2
The solution to the national epidemic of sexual misconduct against women from men seems to be simple. Separate boys and girls in public schools and colleges. Restore the old morality that restricted sex to marriage. Teach again both boys and girls that sexual actions have consequences. Punish both MALES and FEMALES for sexual misconduct.
2
@Eduard C Hanganu I'm pretty sure there wasn't less assault under "the old morality"
8
@Eduard C Hanganu
Dont kid yourself. The so-called "old morality" is a prime cause of the problems the author outlines.
1
Prospect for women's rights in America?
America, like all human societies which have ever existed, is primitive and essentially failed in at least one important respect: It simply cannot deal with justice about the incredible biological diversity of the human, cannot actually give freedom for all, recognize and exploit all the native talents people have.
America, like all societies which have ever existed, is a nurture over nature nightmare. By this I mean take Christianity: In Christianity human beings are supposed to, by nurturing, be able to be reformed, prevented from evil, made in image of Christ, but in actuality the history of Christianity, with all this "nurture", has been a vast system of incredible injustice, a forcing of humanity into more than straitjacket, a torture which in ancient societies was known as a Procrustean bed.
In modern America, which is pushing beyond Christianity, we are by no means beyond the nurture over nature idealism and actual injustice. Instead beyond Christianity projects in America declare all people are equal but really promote socialism, a project of having people approximate the thought and behavior of selected minorities and obviously the weaker sex. And of course this modern nurture over nature project is being backed, as it always has been historically, by censorship, bureaucracy, use of force, essentially a forcing of the human into unnatural channels of thought and behavior.
How get beyond nurture to acceptable nature?
With all due respect, if this
"I’m not convinced they are always reliable narrators of their own experience."
is true, then you are an inept interviewer.
You cannot possibly have ever been in an "all male space," and can have no idea of who, in detailed fact, is there and what, in ditto, is being taught/learned or how that happens if or when it does. And women's physical absence from any given "all male space" doesn't mean that they are not there in meaningful ways.
Listen carefully without questioning or an agenda and you'll start to understand men's (and women's) behavioural patterns in informative ways.
11
Bad boys, good boys, great boys -- it just doesn't matter, because in this star chamber United States society, one can be accused at any age, by anyone, at any location, for any implicit or explicit assault. Smart parents can not solely arm their sons with knowledge of the birds and bees and acceptable behaviors toward all men or women. Sons must also be instructed in recording their lives to protect against accusations made without even one iota of hard evidence. An adolescent or teen must now think ahead and realize an entire life's education, career, family, and friends can be attacked by a jilted lover, a psychotic stalker, or a complete stranger. Basically anyone that knows his name in passing can find out enough information to accuse your son! I would suggest archiving cell phone GPS data, texts and emails, and photographs of all friends, social groups, and dates. Not just Facebook and Instagram, but data that only your son and their date(s), girl/boyfriend(s), or spouse(s) would know. On top of that, maintaining a secret diary, either digitally or handwritten, would cover details forgotten years into manhood. Like Kafka's The Trial, one simply doesn't know what a son will be persecuted for in the future. Act now.
4
@James Totally true!
1
Don’t walk alone after dark. Be prepared to use your keys as a weapon. Don’t accept a drink you haven’t seen poured. Don’t put down your drink and go back to it. Don’t get into an elevator with a man. Look in the back seat of your car before getting in. Watch what you wear. Don’t walk or jog alone in isolated areas. Need I continue? This is women’s everyday lives. Until the number of false sexual assault claims comes anywhere remotely near the number of actual sexual assaults, your concerns are not nearly as urgent as mine. Sorry not sorry.
1
Last night, I assisted in preventing an attempted rape in the dorms where I'm currently on student exchange.
This afternoon, after we turned over his ID cards and phone to the relevant authorities last night, the assailant was somehow back in the building, happily playing billiards with a friend in the common room. The stare he gave upon seeing me tells me he will attempt it again. We will not be as gentle a second time.
While I am sure they believe they are doing good, the internet feminist set does not understand that the rules of engagement which have been set for the #MeToo era have barred young men from making honest, candid contributions to the conversation. By Ms. Orenstein's own observation, the student from Chicago recounts having spoken only to one other male student about Kavanaugh. Two things are buried here.
Not only can we infer from his statement that there has likely been no public forum for young men on his campus to discuss the Kavanaugh proceedings, Ms. Orenstein does not inform us whether he has spoken to female friends about his thoughts.
Even as I tell my anecdote of helping stop a would-be rapist, there are times in my personal history I am far less proud of that will never find voice for fear of being painted part of the problem. I suspect I am not alone in this.
Rather than preventing boys from being boys, energy might instead better be focused on letting boys speak. Somehow I believe this to be more valuable in the long-run.
4
Ms.Orenstein,
Actions speak volumes more than words! Boys and Girls learn how to interact from watching those around them interact. Long before they have the vocabulary to discuss relationships they have been given a post graduate course in relationships by their parents, relatives and other adults. By the time that they can intellectually discuss relationships with mentors or their peers their basic assumptions have been formed even if they can’t articulate what those assumptions are.
If you want men to respect women and women to act in ways worthy of respect start before age two! Respect the fact that the genders mature differently. Respect the fact that children can recognize Hypocrisy long before they can say the word.
No amount of “discussions” on relationships will offset not practicing the words about them yourself. Those with power have preached “values” to the masses that everyone knew that never followed themselves since the dawn of humanity.
In fact they still do! Still do as we speak today. Those with power publicity follow different or their own rules for relationships. Often with disastrous but predictable results. Everyone can watch because we live in a “fishbowl”!
Want Boys and Girls to behave better towards each other? First start with the adults around them treating each other better.
What message does it send when anyone watching TV or the Internet can see that power not relationships is what really counts?
8
Watching "reality" TV shows, like The Apprentice (to pick one out at random), only reinforces your observation that we learn relationships are about power, not equality and understanding. Watching nothing but Fox News lies and reality TV shows has severely damaged the ability of a whole generation to think and act clearly, reasonably, empathetically, and selflessly. Trump's GOP is the unfortunate result.
Well meaning liberals aren’t without fault in today’s situation. We are too quick to dismiss organizations that teach boys chivalry and honor simply because they don’t pass our liberal litmus test. What’s left is the hyper aggressive masculinity of Donald Trump. We’ve failed to see the benefits of organizations like Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts and church youth groups. They all have worthwhile contributions in shaping the minds of young men. Frankly I’d rather boys values about women be shaped there versus the internet or the locker room.
25
@James: as a fairly liberal independent, I have been pleased with most of the messages sent by participation by my sons in Boy Scouts. A lot depends upon the parents of the kids wh join.
Just stop all of this scolding before it backfires. Surely men aren’t any more flawed than women. And men aren’t inherently bad, but that’s the message. I hope my son doesn’t absorb any of the current unhelpful dialogue about “masculinity” being toxic. At some point, “good guys” will have enough, and you’ll lose the conversation and all of the current progress.
15
@CS As I wrote above, protecting our sons from this kind of hate is a real challenge. This is the Times, not some sick corner of the dark web.
2
@CS, my husband was a disabled veteran from World War Two. When he returned home he was constantly called by the local VFW to come to their meetings. When he finally did go, it turned out they were showing all pornography movies. He was disgusted, left, and never went back nor joined the organization. I guess old boys are still boys. And what did they teach their sons then?
1
@CS May I suggest you reread this op-ed as you seem to have missed the point entirely. Ms Orenstein I sent not suggesting that men are inherently bad or that masculinity is toxic, but that many “good guys” are capable of doing bad things, particularly if the emotionally aspects of sexual contact and interpersonal relationships between boys and girls are not taught to them by their parents and the culture at large. We are all responsible for this and can’t simply write off societal challenges because they make us uncomfortable or ask us to question ourselves.
1
"At times, I can almost see the shadow of a girl behind them as they speak — a girl who is furious, traumatized, grieving over harms big and small that the boy in question simply didn’t recognize, or didn’t want to."
This short passage provides a perfect example of a phenomenon that, in my opinion at least, undermines much of what the MeToo movement and others sympathetic to it, wish to achieve. It is this: the claim to know the interiority, the motives, the intentionality of others. of men and boys in particular. Describe behaviors, describe your own experience and that of others who have been victims of toxic masculinity. But let us speak for ourselves. Sadly if you're seeing shadows as you ask these young men to tell you their experience, your vision is probably clouded.
9
Who better to write about the culture of the locker room than someone who isn't/hasn't lived it?!
And women have always had the power to determine men's behavior. If you choose better partners, you may find you get the behavior you cry for.
4
@AK:and yet alt right men want to decide if a woman carries a fertilized egg to term. Strange world, isn ‘t it?
8
I attended high school from 1964 to 1968 and college from 1968 to 1972. Not once did I ever hear boys talking about their sexual contests and triumphs. Nor did I hear anyone describe girls as dogs and the like. If it is as pervasive as you write I think it's situational - certain boys, certain schools.
One girl got pregnant in our senior year. She dropped out of school. Some boys didn't know why, others knew and didn't talk about it.
We weren't choirboys. We loved our beer and it gave us courage to see if we could get to first or second base in the back seat of a car. If the girl protested we may have made on more attempt and then backed off. If a girl called us pigs we backed off real quick - we were embarrassed or ashamed.
Perhaps my experiences were the exception, but I would like to hear from other men and boys.
14
@MJG -- Four years later than that, I certainly heard a lot of it. Mostly lies, I thought then and still think now. But they talked it up constantly.
5
@MJG- I’m glad your experience was positive. I grew up in the same era. I was in a Catholic High School from the fall of 1961 and graduated in the spring of 1965. I saw the same things described by Dr. Ford. I went to a diploma registered nursing school and later took further college degrees in university settings. As nursing students, we were often invited to frat parties as well as parties held by medical school students and residents. From personal experience, I assure you, the predatory sexual culture was in full swing practice at that time. It certainly didn’t originate in the 1980s.
6
In my experience the macho studs like kavanaugh and trump, talked and talked and boasted about “getting some”.
In my experience these were frustrated expressions of those that didn’t , and those who lacked the good common sense to hear the uttered “no”
Good common sense. Not in a bart or Brett or entitled white boy’s vocabulary.
Reward this?
In this topsy turvy world of trump, if this undersexed frat boy is put on SCOTUS, there will be an impeachment post nov 6th and/or the STATE of Md will unleash STATE charges against a sitting justice of SCOTUS.
To the doubters, no one saw the freak in 1600 coming either. No one .
1
I grew up in a "company town" where you had to have top secret security clearance to work at the "plant". I got not only "don't get anyone pregnant", I got "If you mess up in any way, I'll lose my clearance, and my job, and... the consequences were assumed to be so unthinkable, as to be never spelled out.
Keeping a clearance meant being investigated every two years and having your co-workers, neighbors, friends, families of the children's friends interviewed about you, your spouse, and your kids. Any whiff of questionable behavior would cause problems.
In spite of that level of scrutiny and oversight "stuff happened". Drinking, teenage sex, ... a party while the parents were away where the house burned down. That tells me that "prohibition" and adult supervision are not enough.
I skipped some grades, K-12, and sat in special classes that were 3/4 girls, 1/4 boys. I regarded girls as peers and equals. That didn't stop me from trying to kiss girls and getting rebuffed.
Yes there are gender differences, but if we try to minimize them in how we raise children, treat genders equally, find common ground, then (in my case) boys will think of girls as "boys, but different". There was a time when I was very young when I played with girls. We climbed trees, explored the woods, played hockey, built forts, and threw snowballs at each other. Laughing, always laughing.
1
I fear reaction to this hearing, regardless of outcome, will result in people believing they are taking positive action against the rape epidemic in ways that continue to accidentally contribute to it instead. Girls will be taught to be more careful, be more scared; boys will be told to watch out for vindictive girls. How can we break culture-wide bad habits?
16
By respecting people and parking our senses of entitlement in the trash where it belongs
Easier said than done.
7
I agree that upbringing is the single most important element in reducing sexual excesses in adolescents.
But I think the issue it teaching respect for each other, and how to maintain self control - not having some arbitrary mob of angry ideologues define what everyone else must adopt as acceptable ethics.
That Ms. Orenstein completely sidesteps issues related to adolescent endocrinology tells me she is not interested in really understanding what happens with teenage sexual encounters.
To ignore the hormonal component, is disingenuous.
Boys, will, be boys. And it's because that's the way the biology works.
1
Once there was chivalry, a chivalric code of behavior. The only people who remember this are probably in their 70's or 80's by now. Chivalry is Olde Englishe stuff. Men doffed their capes (supposedly) and lay them at feet of ladies so they wouldn't soil their delicate feet on muddy streets. A hand was offered. Doors were opened.
Women, at least women of a certain class, were revered and placed on metaphoric pedestals. It may have been for show, but chivalry, or its remnants were around until Feminism arrived, along with Women's Lib, and a new concept, Gender Equality.
Bras were burned. The "Pill" appeared, heralding the so-called Sexual Revolution. It was the much ballyhooed 60's, innocent and hopeful and fun. Many of us were still too timid and shell shocked to leap willy-nilly into the now mythical orgiastic hedonism of that time, which ended so dismally with the arrival of A.I.D.S. and drug abuse.
A legacy of those times was that, in stepping down off their ennobled but restricting "pedestals", and joining the boys as equals, women became fair game in a raunchy testosterone driven boy culture.
When girls became one with the "guys" (a term that lost gender specificity at that point), boys and men assumed a license to share their locker room culture with women they no longer felt compelled to venerate and respect. Love was out, sex was in, and something profound and precious was lost.
1
Tonight, SNL nailed the Judge K problem in America in a skit only SNL can do.
The funny thing is that 30 years from now lawmakers will simply have to ask Google if aspiring judges and civil servants were at a house party in 2018.
5
The entire op ed piece is written from the perspective that males must not be the Subjects of their lives, but only the Objects of female lives.
In this article it is only how the female experiences the male and can benefit from better male behavior that matters, not vice versa, and not the first person male singular. That is not equality feminism, this is Female Supremacy movement thought. Just as schools now have hundreds of special programs ONLY for girls and virtually none for boys, but somehow none of that accounts for increasing male academic under-performance.
Boys ARE boys. That is a biological fact. If "We Can't Just Let Boys Be Boys" (the title given to this OpEd), then that means we must somehow extract the maleness from boys. Where is this going? Mandatory oriechtomies for all boys at age 14? Half the population permanently denied its biological reality and emotions?
More sex education would be a tremendous thing. And half of that sex education should be educating girls to take responsibility for their own physical desires, to own, truly own, when they say Yes and how to ask for what they want. It is the rare heterosexual boy young man who, confronted with a young woman who is open about what she wants from him sexually, won't respond in kind.
24
@Frank The phrase about letting boys be boys refers to people who let their boys run wild. I don’t know about you, but I think boys as well as girls should learn self restraint and self control. The mantra, “Oh well, boys will be boys” is too easy a cop out for poor parenting. I’ve had my younger nephews hit me when I go to see them, and their parents say, “Sorry! They’re such boys.” I think there is a problem with that! No one wants to remove the “boy” from a boy, but it should never be an excuse for bad behavior. We can raise boys to be men with manners, integrity and respect without stripping them of their maleness.
1
@Frank
What is in reality happening is that polite, professional society is now demanding, rightfully, that uncivilized behavior on the part of males be replaced by gender-equal decisions on sexual fellowship. To be sure, some females are equally barbaric and uncivilized but this “boys will be boys” is more commonly aggressiveness of males. In some subcultures, some females accuse men of not being man-enough..witness a flagrant similar accusation against our POTUS. This social evolution is not implying that a general drift toward suppressing barbaric maleness will happen in all subcultures. If barbarism disappeared entirely, teenage pregnancies would cease and children would only be born to married couples economically and maturationally ready for parenthood, and that such parenthood would advantage upbringing that trained children safely away from barbaric tendencies. Our social evolution in the last 2000 years, especially, the last 20 years, eschews male-dominant, male-sexist impositions and chooses instead gender equality in which both genders agree on relational experiences, but not just outside of marriage but also in realization that best for all is within marriage. At present, “clear consent for all aspects” is the dominant theme. Will our culture eventually come to realize that “within marriage” is by far the best way?
1
Acknowledging the limitations of specific words, and verbal language, to adequately transmit and communicate complexities clearly we are all too often caught up in everpresent harms of binary banality and its constricting either/or reality. We become blind, as it were, to existing ranges and continua; be they considered as uni or multidimensional. Consider: teenage boys had never been told about “the importance of not pressuring someone to have sex with you.”A clear sentence. Based on a number of issues meriting exploring. Teenagers, of whatever gender and gender identity, as well as adults, are diverse in many ways, notwithstanding temporary and more permanent measurable similarities. What would enable Tom,Juan, Avi, Achmad, having been told "NO" to some sexual act, to continue being with Marie, Sue, Leah and working, their best, THEN, to get to know each other? As PEOPLE. What role(s), if any do/can formal home, school, religious and less formal maturation, processes, media, etc. play? In a toxic, daily, WE-THEY culture which enables, and even promotes, violating created, selected, targeted "the other(s)!" Violating sexually is but one way of violating: (1)marginalizing. How many parents don't marginalize, by word and deed, some fellow beings?(2) exclude. How many parents aren't a living model of excluding...(3)dehumanize. How many parents...(4) discriminate...How many...The semantic pattern is set. Less words. What about behaviors? Is menschlichkeit just a mantra?
Ms. Orenstein, I would kindly ask you not to lump all males into one category. My High School life consisted of studies, fishing with my brother and Friday and Saturday nights playing chess or risk. I did not star on any varsity team as well as many other boys who also did not. I did not go out on dates because most of the girls were fascinated with the jocks and wouldn't give you the time of day anyway. My 18th birthday was spent at the recruiting office enlisting in the Air Force Security Police. There were no keg parties or "Beach Weeks" in my social circle. That has been over 40 years now and I have a good wife and excellent partner in life. So please Ms.Ornstein do not put us all into one boat.
12
@Charles Stockwell Well said Mr. Stockwell from the mother of two grown sons who spent childhood weekends as you did.
3
How about if we teach children of all genders to be kind, compassionate, and loving? In other words, children should be taught to be humane toward all living beings, human and animal as well as Mother Earth.
26
How we move boys to men in the USA is a well worn topic that has yet to be perfected. In my life time it was first broached by author Robert Bly. Teaching the difference to boys between macho and masculinity is a good start. But it wont be accomplished by anything remotely close to the ME#2 movement. Nor will the feminist communication that women prefer soft boys to men be helpful. It's more complex than the military or football as well; and the computer nor cell phone will teach it. I don't even know any men today who as boys didn't try to feel up a girl between the age of 14 and 18 and it doesn't make any of them bad people. They are not guilty of sexual assault. The ME#2 feminist movement will more than likely hurt women in the long run. They will become less believable and less trustworthy. There are 3 stages of sexual development for boys to men, locker room sex is the first stage.
@Dixon Duval
It is telling that you mischaracterize the #MeToo movement as ME#2. Is that how you think women perceive themselves, as #2?
And if a girl's or woman's breast is groped without her consent, that is indeed sexual assault. A boy of fourteen should be taught that simple fact in no uncertain terms.
3
@Nell, you are speaking only for yourself Nell and of course those who choose to adopt your rationale. When people choose to be victims they protest, a protest is always that injustice is being done. They form a narrative as you those who are like minded, determine who is to blame, and what must be done to make things right. Reality is alway more complicated than the narrative, however and as a result people are lionized or demonized. The way you and those like you see the world and society isn’t real.
@Nell Is there other reason for men to want to be with women rather than sex? As a man who can take care of himself in all life aspects without a woman's help I don't see one.
We 'owe' each other truth. Truth. Including that women have been half, and now, over half the electorate. Where are our 'sisters' politics? This is where we need help in ridding us all of our poisons.
I was a busboy in the University of Arkansas student union during the Anita Hill - Clarence Thomas hearing. It was on a giant screen. I couldn't escape because my job was to bus all the tables in that room. I have a good sense of what happened in that hearing: it turned on one particular thing.
Yes, Clarence Thomas getting angry and speaking of a 'high-tech lynching' did it. That was really it. A man's anger, directed at being the 'victim'. That cleared the way for one of the worst judges to ever set on the Supreme Court. His strange sexual harassment of Miss Hill was extraordinarily grotesque, and now he's one of the most powerful handful of people in America (and has been for decades).
Same tactic for Kavanaugh and the Republican Senators: place the criminal as the victim,and do it very loudly, with anger and indignation. But this time the crimes are more heinous, the sexual attacks physical in nature, assault and battery, etc. Kavanaugh and his angry, Republican Senators are playing the same cards Clarence Thomas played. We'll see how America today responds.
But, as sick as we are as a nation of climate-change deniers & criminal inequality of wealth, power, income & property; we still have a chance to move towards something better, something more honorable, loving & good.
5
When men abuse women, is a need to prove to themselves and other men that they are "real men" at the root of this behavior, I wonder. I've sometimes felt that men who are insecure about their masculinity are those most likely to put women down in a variety of ways.
These could also be the men who - to satisfy that same need to show unquestionable proof of their masculine identity - bully weaker men or attack gays and lesbians. They need to show - to other men, but to themselves most of all - that they are different from "the other."
We really need a new definition of masculinity that makes it clear that there are lots of different ways to be a "strong man," and that none of them involve violence toward others, women or men -- or children or animals for that matter.
4
I think most boys learned about girls from Playboy Magazine. In my circle of friends, girls were seldom mentioned. My intro to the opposite sex came through square dancing. You could approach a girl directly to dance or you could maneuver into a set where she was dancing. Twenty five percent of the time you were dancing with her and if she was interested, she would let you know. Very low impact dating, an immersion course in socializing. Eventually we were all friends with steady dates. There was no booze and we traveled frequently to other towns. I must have danced with at least a hundred girls and dated a dozen before college. Girls were part of my life and not a mystery. I preferred their company. This was in New England, not Texas. Structured socializing has it's merits. It wasn't all kids, half the dancers were adults. If you acted like a fool, you were kicked out of the club.
2
I think I never understood other men until I began receiving a normal level of testosterone. Now, I feel a hidden urge to punch someone, to be sexually aggressive, and more confident. In other words, the Alpha Male stereotypical behavior is hormone driven, and on an instinctual, animal level, that has little to do with reason. Men need to be understood as much as women. All the more reason for women to be very careful around men and protect themselves. The illusion that they need not do so (due to feminism or not) is a call to danger. If you expect men to behave like women, it will never happen. But then, men can never satisfy women. And posing as a victim is another way for women to claim power.
Conservative Republican old white men have no trouble playing themselves as victims; Kavanaugh the Kompromised did it emphatically. So maybe they CAN actually learn something from women.
Very well researched and written article. I have never seen this issue being discussed so openly and in such detail ever before. #Metoo movement has really turned into a REVOLUTION. Which is encouraging women to raise their VOICE against these crimes.
Deborah Remirez has done a great thing by coming out in the open in such a way. Not only has she raised her voice regarding what happened with her, but she has brought into light the kind of Nominee MR Trump was choosing for supreme court. Just goes on to prove one more time what a BLUNDER of a president is TRUMP.
Wake up AMERICA and impeach him before its too late.
3
“On an individual level, adults need to talk to boys early and often about sexual ethics, gender dynamics, consent, pleasure, healthy relationships and the risks to them of mixing sex and alcohol.”
I don’t believe too many American adults have any credibility on these topics. I wouldn’t presume to dispute the research of the attitudes of young people, but is there any reason to think they don’t actually reflect the attitudes of adults who raised them? It’s instructive that much of the bad behavior that gets publicized today is centered on the entertainment media... from Weinstein to Louis CK, these producers have spent decades leading by example. Many will undoubtedly go on pretending that this form of entertainment doesn’t affect the attitudes of children and adolescents but I don’t believe that for a minute. Boys had getting that talk from the likes of Weinstein early and often for a very long time.
2
To suggest that men commit sexual assault when they have the opportunity is absolutely absurd and incredibly offensive. The study you rely on is massively problematic based on its sampling and methodology.
4
It is just amazing and amusing how many women presume to know _everything_ about the internal narrative of men and boys and how completely such self-appointed experts get everything wrong.
But that doesn't stop ever them. Arrogance or naivete?
2
The author is talking to young men and trying to understand. Where are all the men who are writing about this problem? Its easy to criticize.
Whether it’s the director of a women’s and gender studies program at a major university writing an opinion piece in the Washington Post titled “Why Can’t We Hate Men” or this piece, there is a clear message coming from the opinion pages of two of our top newspapers: Unless they follow a path carefully prescribed by feminists, boys and men will often be forces of sexual evil. A lot of the young men Orenstein has interviewed for her book say that they don’t feel they’ve done anything bad, but, she adds, “I’m not convinced they are always reliable narrators of their own experience.“
I get the feeling, however, that as a woman she feels certain that women are reliable narrators of their own experience, As a man, with three grown sons, all very decent men, and five grandsons, on their way to being the same, my reflex reaction when I read something like this is, Please don’t tell me about my feelings or those of my sons and grandsons.
Orenstein’s concern about excessive alcohol use by young people and its role in non-consensual sexual activity is right on the money. In fact, if our country devoted one-tenth the time and effort to concerns about that as we do to gender issues, I believe we’d have far less of a sexual assault problem on campus or off. But to really address this appropriately, excessive drinking by young women also has to be a concern, and Orenstein doesn’t touch this.
113
@M. Sherman Seriously? I mean, seriously, not being facetious, is this what you got from the article you read? I read: teach your sons that alcohol impairs their judgement, that women are human beings with feelings and not sex objects, and that those guys that are bragging about sexual conquests are not worthy role models or people to impress. I read that we should help our sons understand that it is natural to have sexual feelings and, as I told my children (a boy and a girl) that "safe sex" is an oxymoron, that sex is a powerful, important part of our lives and that there is no such thing that power and "safe" unless you have a condom big enough to fit your heart. I'm not trying to be snarky. I don't know how in the world you read this as some condemnation of you and your feelings or as a feminist screed. Yes, it was a "reflex reaction." I wonder why?
@M. Sherman
You are right on the money. The goal is not the attack every boy or every man; it is to teach both sexes to respect themselves (which means not over drinking) and respect one another --to understand their sexuality and limits. I was taught nothing about sex when I went to college. At least my father fold my brother "sex can be a beautiful thing- -or a very ugly thing." Having heard all the horrific accounts of sexual abuse suffered by both girls and boys, I feel incredibly lucky that nothing ever happened to me. I know that boys and girls drink for lots of reasons--to feel cool, to fit in, etc. I also agree that lots of upstanding, fine young men don't spend hours watch porn or boasting in the locker room. But too many do, and too many rise to the highest political power. That needs to change.
4
@M. Sherman reasonable observations I would say- and one key element is that of the phrase "narrators of their own experience". We all know and accept that a narrative is not necessarily reality, This protest by women insinuates that almost anything is a sexual assault. These are the individuals who believe the world is divided up between "good and evil" like Peggy. And everyone had better choose a side- or else!
4
For a society to live under a semblance of peace and order, we first must establish and agree to the adherence of standard conduct of behavior to include socially sensitive behavior. This code has no gender, race, color or creed.
Unsolicited Sexual assault is a physical and emotional attack. No one has the right to incite such harm on another, no one.
The Kavanaugh hearings have set a much-needed stage bringing this out of the shadows to the view of an entire population. The cry of 'boys will be boys' is deemed lame and antiquated. For the first time, I can remember the 'he said she said' argument is being investigated, has been put to the test.
I know it is 'limited in its scope' but, the message is that is beginning to seep into a perspective perpetrators mind is the possibility of suffering the consequences is real. This will no longer disappear with a simple denial or exchanging money for silence.
'If I get caught, I am going to have a hard time making this all go away, I may receive jail time and/or the credibility of my character will forever be in doubt.'
This does not negate the need for ongoing conversation but, without any real repercussions for an act of unsolicited sexual assault, for the most part, it will remain a conversation.
3
Another excellent, thought-provoking article by Peggy Orenstein. Thank you. As a mother of 2 sons, I have to ask myself how well am I doing to inform them of all that this article speaks. It is a very difficult challenge, esp. speaking with wiggly, embarrassed pre-teens (it has to start early), then even more wiggly and more embarrassed teens. Modeling in the home is the best advice I can think of, but as wisely pointed out, the signals and constant messaging about female bodies as commodities in all that we see, is a very difficult challenge. Everyone on TV (American TV) these days seems to look identical. Race, gender, nationality, body-type, age seem to all blend into an overly simplified face with too much makeup that fits some "ideal" vision. Same with movies, but TV is worse. Look at the counter-parts of other TV, say from the UK. Faces are flawed and real. This goes on and on in all forms of media. Ms Orenstein said it far better than I can, so let me just say, again, thanks for this article and all others you have written.
5
I have to disagree with Orenstein's headline. If a child is completely saddled with high expectations (including a memorized catechism of conduct), where failure is not allowed, where does the child learn how to process and learn from error or failure?
Judge Kavanaugh's demanding youth in a household that embodied inflated expectations appears (at least from his Senate performance) to have left him emotionally at the level of a three old old when confronted with a personal failing. I don't believe he was equipped to process for himself the requirements of interpersonal ethics or integrity.
Personal freedom and personal choice appear to have been removed from the menu. Trial and error, and self-discovery appear to have been inadmissible from early childhood.
17
@Sequel
Quite the contrary: I believe Kavanaugh was born into a permissive household more concerned with outward appearances & elite "affiliations" than genuine achievement & growth.
It has been well-established by now that he was alcoholic from an early age. Kids are not born alcoholic. That's on the parents & grandparents.
It does not take "a memorized catechism of conduct" to teach children to be kind to others. We have 3 adult offspring & 1 grandchild. They were brought up Christian, prayerful, yet rarely attending church. We spent hours talking to them, every week, about what behaviors are unacceptable & what 'friends' are worth having.
Parents who self-medicate & apply physical punishment or fines such as 'grounding' instead of Lecturing & Haranguing their youngsters are doing them a disservice. You have a right to choose whether or not your kids attend parties & if so, whose. You have a right to accompany them; to insist liquor is locked up. Better yet, offer them treats they dream about instead of attending some classmate's mystery fête. The holidays are here: plan ahead, start now.
Being a parent is relentless hard work. You don't want your baby to grow up to experience horrors or drugs. So use your brain to come up with alternative pastimes, well before it becomes an issue that you don't want your kids partying in the homes of alcoholics.
And stop criticizing home-schoolers. They are on to something.
If you're going to have kids, safeguard their health.
6
Are you saying that boys should be allowed to prey on unsuspecting girls as part of their growing up period?
4
@Sequel
Learning to interact with females isn't quite the same as perfecting your jump shot, or figuring out that you want to be a fire fighter rather than a lawyer when you grow up. Young women can be traumatized for life by the trials and errors inherent in the process of a young man's self discovery.
Mom and Dad have to deal with this matter both directly and early in their boys' lives.
7
Change in the balance of power between men and women will come when women assume power. There will be no effective change so long as the only path presented is the one where men hold the power and women beg them to be more considerate of our our needs.
No one gives it to you, you have to take it.
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@Irene Moore
With power comes responsibility and ownership of the consequences for its exercise.
Prospect for men in a left wing feminist world?
Modern left wing philosophy in general is something of a religious view stripped of the metaphysics, a view which denies as much as possible biological differences between races, ethnic groups, sexes, individuals and instead declares that humans are malleable, able to be shaped this way and that by nurture, and the left wing project is to shape people in something of a new type of idealism beyond religions such as Christianity: We are not to be shaped by the ideal of say Jesus Christ but be as sensitive as possible to women, put upon minorities, etc., which is to say like in Christianity we are supposed to become meek, but not meek in image of Christ but meek in approximation to the most meek members of society, and women as a whole are the most meek sex.
The "Everybody is Equal" American project according to left wing philosophy in general does not make people equal by respecting biological differences between people and actually allowing a flourishing of native talents, but instead is a project of shaping a people to act and think according to the most put upon members of society, and these members are far from being the most gifted members of society (who defends the gifted as a minority group?) but rather minorities and of course the entire sex of women. Feminism does not really make women think and act as men but rather is a project of making men act and think as women. It's the womanization of the human race.
7
@Daniel12 Your analysis is rather simplistic. You are falling for all the assumptions based on gender. I don't want to be more masculine or more feminine. I just want what is fair regardless of religious or cultural biases. The bottom line is that everybody wants to be treated with respect and have a chance to succeed based on actual talent and merit.
6
@Daniel12 You speak of "the most put upon members of society". Your implication is to mean those at the bottom of the hierarchy - women, minorities, the other.
You are arguing that might is right and those who are deemed powerful in our society are powerful because they are better at life then the non-powerful.
What you are doing is defending patriarchy. That makes you part of the problem. It also means you are missing out on the greatest part of what it means to be human. You have bought into the "power over" philosophy and that isolates you in your own self-aggrandized cage.
The alternative way is "power with". To achieve that requires that you truly respect others and that you work together with people to bring about the greater good for all. I know that is regarded by some as a naive philosophy but if you truly want peace of mind, that is the path. It is not just Christianity that teaches selflessness. It is the core philosophy of every great body of teaching.
4
And what is wrong with that?
Speaking for a large minority of boys whose dating life was meager - we were the studious ones who were not at parties much at all. Let's remember there is a complete lack of understanding between men and women. We men (as boys) have desires that are difficult to disregard (that does not mean we have free reign to do what we want). Women (as girls) are remote - and given the dynamics of male/female relations, a girl dates up in age so a 16 year old girl can attract HS seniors, a college freshman can interact with upper classmen. For boys that is not the case.
For many of us stories we heard of parties where kids went into bedrooms to have sex were just stories. Were they true? Were they juvenile boasts? For a kid in a small house, we couldn't even imagine a house roomy enough to have such scandalous events.
In the mid-late 1960s I remember a sex ed class in which we heard the lesson that a boy's plea that he needs the girl is usually just a plea for sex. That remains true - in fact boys don't know that girls want something different.
But there is no way to stop boys from talking to their male peers - and disregarding desire and replacing it with vague notions of respect is not an answer.
15
@Terry McKenna you are right. Vague notions of respect will not do it. We have to be very real and concrete in what respect looks like - and it includes not letting 'nice guys' think they are owed anything at all.
11
I was one of the boys you describe and I agree that replacing desire with a vague notion of respect is not the answer. The answer is understanding what REAL respect is, and not acting on some vague locker-room version of "desire".
5
I keep hearing this refrain from women, that men believe they are "owed" sex or "owed" women. I was a kid in the 70s, and for me this has never been the case, ever. I find it disturbing that so many women believe men feel this way, but even more upsetting to me is hearing women put ALL men into the rapist category. You cast guilt on me just for being a man. You mockingly say "good guys" as if they don't exist. I have a sister who was being groomed by her pedo highschool teacher, and it was a guy who alerted our family. A good guy. We do exist, but the more I read things about how all boy are rapists from birth, how testosterone is evil, and masculinity is paired with toxic... well let's just say you are losing my support.
If we as a society believe in the opportunity for redemption and reform, let’s acknowledge that this event occurred in his youth, decades ago. The judge has led an exemplary life of service. Let’s move on.
4
@Joe Yoh Before redemption there must be repentance. I know, an old-fashioned concept. How about remorse or admission of guilt? Restitution to the victim. This can be as simple as saying to her, "You're right. You're not lying. I'm sorry." Instead this man has denied any wrongdoing, asserting, unbelievably, that all he did in high school was pray, study, and play basketball. We all have things we have done we are ashamed of - who can honestly say we have done nothing wrong? The judge's lack of humility and ability to self-reflect makes him a poor choice as an arbiter of justice.
72
Daniel, Viewers of right wing media are constantly fed a false Democratic view on gender
I don't know any Democrat that thinks men should be more like women and women should be more like men. That is a right wing misrepresentation to get the viewers outraged. Democrats want women and men to be treated equally so women can earn the same wage for doing the same job, not be discriminated against when it comes to opportunities for advancement. Also, to confront the dismissiveness of sexual assault or harassment of women, which as Dr. Blasey-Ford stated, derailed her life for many years and still affects her.
11
Yeah, typical conservative fall back line when one of their own turns out to be a liar. Otherwise, it's "personal responsibility" and if you are poor, addicted, or compromised it is all on you. Merrick Garland.
2
Opportunities and insights are being lost in the gender-polarized discussions around mis-cued and aggressive sexual encounters. I am not referring to criminal instances of rape or sexual assault, but to casual encounters often alcohol aided--the ones likely to cause trouble especially for younger inexperienced people. As a young gay man I often found myself in situations where a male sex partner came at me with his agenda of what constitutes a satisfactory experience with little or no regard for my interests. No misogyny here. While narrow notions of male sexuality and
entitlement are reinforced in group think and popular culture (as are the equivalents for females), discussion and change should focus on fundamental attitudes and the bullying of oneself. We will never legislate intimacy but perhaps we can model it.
11
Although the author's main point about teaching teenage boys proper behavior is valid, the Kavanaugh case should not be jijacked by the issue. Either there is corroborating evidence or there is not.
A democratic, civilized system must not be turned upside down by bullying for political profit
16
@eve ben-levi- I agree with you about evidence itself, but then this particular investigation seems to be fully Trump's to define. How will we ever know if the evidence gathered and the results we see are showing the whole picture or not? Trump lives for aggrandizing himself and bullying all of us, Mr. Kavanaugh looks to be auditioning for understudy. Reason to expect the FBI reports to be truncated somehow.
2
@eve ben-levi sure, then let the investigation happen. no one deserves to be on the Supreme Court - or perhaps you have forgotten an Obama appointee whose appointment the Senate chose to ignore.
2
@eve ben-levi
"....the Kavanaugh case" as you put it is about finding the right person to fill a job vacancy. Finding that person is not done in a court of law. If there are, as there surely must be many, candidates of similar skills, training, and competence as Kavanaugh but without allegations of sexual violence in there application files and who have not demonstrated a hight sense of entitlement and lack of emotional control in their job interview, then surely the job goes to one of these people. Kavanaugh does not have any inherent "right" to be accepted for the job of Supreme Court judge any more than an applicant for a job at a fast food joint might have.
3
Back in 2006, it seemed that a "real man" was seen to be someone who took what he wanted by any means necessary, and could care less if anyone got hurt in the process. Having principles and caring about others was for wimps. Then the film Superman Returns came out. Panned by fanboys for its relative lack of violence, the film had two heroes, Superman and his romantic rival. Both men cared more about doing what was right than getting what they wanted. They would put themselves in danger to do what was best for others, even if it meant swallowing jealousy and desire. They were both in love with a strong woman.
Come forward to 2018 and my other favorite superhero, Black Panther. He has cool superpowers, but his is also an "inner heroism." He is wise and principled, mature and learned, cool under pressure yet emphathetic to the point of showing mercy to his defeated enemies. He delights in playful sparring with the powerful women around him yet shows them deep trust and respect, grounded in a self-aware self-confidence. In all three of these men, the combination of principles, strength, kindness, and tenderness is incredibly more sexy than any superpower. Men, and women, can choose what they want in their masculine ideal. Masculinity does not have to be toxic.
39
The progress on equality of opportunity for genders and many other categories is remarkable but quite incomplete.
This article makes clear we should be looking for ways to help boys too. As part of the inequality boys are subject to, they are approaching a full third less likely to complete college than girls (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_education_in_the_United_States#/media/File:U.S._degrees_conferred_per_year.png). Worse, they are ten times more likely to be incarcerated: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States.
I worry about my boy and girl equally but the data says I should worry more about my boy.
20
I am sorry, I played football through HS, competed in college and well into my forties. Thus, I’d say I am qualified to offer the topics discussed in the locker room. Men are more concerned about what is going on with themselves and/or each other. They do not openly articulate their feelings about women or their relationships with them. Too serious. Too uncomfortable. Men usually reserve discussions about women for their closest male and female friends.
Men of the locker room type learn about women by being fortunate enough to have their interest and company. Both learn together. It’s a give and take sort of process. Parents and teachers, in my opinion, have never been that helpful other than already being in healthy relationships, themselves.
I do not believe that you can teach men and women how to get along. Both need to spend face-to-face time learning what is acceptable and how to help a relationship grow. Each person is different. So, if anything, both men and women should be willing and have the courage to listen, explore, clarify and develop each other’s needs/wants. Not easy, at first, but gets easier as one matures.
25
@Lou - This makes sense.
1
I don't suppose there will ever be a time where all young men are suave, sensitive, and caring toward women where sex is involved. I am many years removed from school but even in those dark ages, before cable television and the internet, when the postal service delivered pornography wrapped in brown paper, we had sex education beginning in the fifth grade and continuing through junior high. It would probably seem hopelessly old fashioned now but at least some effort of sexual socialization was being made. Then, of course, there is the input of parents and peers. What tends to undo every effort, though, is alcohol. Every kind of misery is amplified and made more frequent when booze is involved. My grandmother was the temperance type of conservative protestant that campaigned for prohibition and women's suffrage during the 1910s and I remember how corny I thought it when she told me my father had to take the temperance pledge as an adolescent. Many years later I am more inclined to see the point.
22
Bit, according to conservative Tepublicans, sex education is the work of the devil and has no business in public education. Another reason why GOP devolution is resulting in the destruction of our society.
1
Society and its norms, especially sexual norms, have changed drastically since I was an adolescent. I came of age during the sixties when "free love" was widely talked about, but most of my contemporaries didn't practice it. "Good girls" didn't engage in premarital sex, and "good boys" respected the boundaries set by the girls. So what happened? What changed? I don't think there's one simple answer, but the rapid breaking down of barriers, the surge in both parents working, and the surge in divorce , both creating households with little or no parenting; the incremental increase in sex and nudity in movies, tv, magazines, and eventually video games; all of these things have created an unspoken acceptance that sex is okay, even for teens. And not only is it okay, it's seen as "rite of passage" for boys and girls.
Look at high school proms where girls typically spend as much on a dress as a bride used to. And parents hiring limos (often with a wink and a nod to the fact that they come with alcohol), an expectation that their children will be out all night. What message does that send to both boys and girls? Girls are encouraged to wear make up and dress in revealing clothes, to what purpose? (And no, I'm not saying that excuses any boy or man from forcing themselves on a girl/woman.)
Yes we need to educate boys as to appropriate behavior with girls, but we also need to stop encouraging the behavior we say we don't want, and we need to be good role models for them.
37
@Kingfish52 There was no innocent time when girls and boys had boundaries that they all understood. Listen to the #metoo stories from older women - they were raped, groped and assaulted in the middle class world of the 1950s too. The big difference was that the social penalties were higher - for the women.
9
I'm a strange person to push back considering how devastated I was by Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony. It wasn't just the hand over her mouth, it was everything, because cruelty and dehumanization defined everything Brett Kavanaugh said and did.
Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher were furious when confronting Jeff Flake. Gallagher shook with tears, while Archila verbally dressed Flake down with pure white-hot fury. Flake looked stunned, shocked, and ashamed, (things he should have felt all along). It's another point of agreement. Not only was Flake sending a terrible message to boys, he was an oblivious boy himself. He'd missed absolutely everything until confronted. It means as a boy he never internalized the basic idea that women are actually people.
Women are definitely people, as I can personally attest to. My push-back comes from knowing that not all men fit a stereotype any more than all women do. I spent several years in high school being chased around by a girl who didn't understand the meaning of the word "NO." It got so bad I made my friends promise not to leave me alone with her. She wanted what she wanted, and she couldn't understand why I wouldn't let her take it. I’m not alone. I spoke to a friend and there's a 17 year old girl who bangs on her door every day asking for her 16 year old son to come out so she can, well, I can’t write it here. He won’t come out, yet she refuses to accept NO. Your rules may be valid, but there are plenty of exceptions.
72
@Robert B -- I am giggling because you actually wrote "not all men".
Hi Robert -- can you allow Ms. Orenstein the space to write about a subject that is very important to her, and to many others, without finding it necessary to insert yourself into the narrative? Can you just try to not make it about you?
Sure, there are aggressive girls who chase after boys. This article is not about those girls. Perhaps there will be an article on that subject in the future; Also, if you're a man who understands that women are actually people, then you're not one of the boys who need to learn crucial lessons starting from a young age, are you? You're not in that demographic. You don't have to defend yourself with "not all men".
6
Girls and women have agency too. They too must be responsible in part for what comes of their own actions.
To take an example given here, yes a woman always has the right to say no, even once she is naked in bed with a man.
However, she also needs to take some responsibility for having willing gotten naked in bed with him. How, and how much? That is a hard question. I'm sure the answer is not that it is all on him.
There is a lack of balance in this, as the pendulum swings from treating women very badly to treating them with extremes of protectiveness as passive victims without agency or responsibility of their own.
I've never raped a woman, though opportunity has offered. I hope my sons never would. However, I hope my daughter has the good sense not to get in the position of "opportunity offered." Not that it would be justified, it wouldn't, but that stuff happens when you get careless.
62
@Mark Thomason No. There is no woman's "responsibility" for a man ignoring a woman's no. If she says no, and he ignores it, it is 100% his fault for failing at respecting her.
Stuff doesn't just happen when you get careless, as you put it. You make it sound like rape is in the air, just a condition of the world around us. No. Rape is a thing a person chooses to do to another person, for power and contempt. The victim bears precisely 0% of the blame; it doesn't matter if s/he was drinking, drunk, drugged, naked, clothed, got into bed with someone, got naked with someone, is someone's significant other or spouse. No means no. End of story.
4
@Mark Thomason A woman has a right to use her "agency" to refuse sex with a man even if she has gotten naked into bed with him. If he violates her right to say "no" in that context, he is a rapist and must be held accountable for his crime.
1
How is "opportunity to rape someone" offered?!?! What kind of mind even think any action by a woman "invites" rape?!?
3
Many men learned a life lesson in 1991. If you value your career, never comment on a female co-worker's appearance in any way. Never compliment, or even mention, her clothing, her hairstyle, her perfume - and never, ever, comment on her loss of weight or on any other women's appearance in her presence. Watch your language at all times and, to the extent possible, avoid out-of-work interactions with opposite-sex co-workers.
It will be interesting to see what lessons career-minded males in H.S., college and grad school will take away from the Kavanaugh/Ford situation. I suspect some version of "boys-with-boys" / "girls-with-girls" may become more common, at least for a while. Certainly seems the safest.
24
@Tim C I wish men had learned that lesson. And sex segregation would be fine, too. Segregating the sexes always tends to benefit women & girls.
4
@Tim C I would be THRILLED to never have a co worker comment on my appearance, positively or not. Sadly, that is not yet a reality. Maybe what young people will take from this is that it is never ok to mix drinking and sex, or even (GASP) that enthusiastic, sane consent is required before any sexual activity. We can hope, right?
2
If not commenting on looks, smells, avoiding social interactions, etc. is all you learned from the Thomas/Hill hearings, then you should do a bit more self-reflection and see what else you should have learned. Respect, equality, fairness come to mind.
7
I read and reread this column. I'm not sure I got the point of this nor was I able to discern any solution to badly behaving boys or any better understanding of the strange era we are in. Maybe, it was always so. I'm 67. I grew up in the '50s, my teen years were the '60s. I went to public schools, got my first job, played baseball and football, joined the boy scouts, joined the YMCA, took martial arts, got my first girlfriend, went to socials, built my first car, bought my first guitar, made friends (that I still see). My teen years ended in 1969 with my induction in the Army. I got drunk, tried psychedelics and other drugs. Got out, got my BA, married, raised 2 kids. My son got his undergraduate degree, played Division 1 ball, is a pilot. My daughter went to Maritime school and became a merchant marine. There were bratty kids when I grew up and some of them had a lot of advantages. I never mixed with them. There was nothing I could learn from them. They became lawyers and accountants and CEOs. I hire them when I need them. I have never experienced the kind of social dysfunction and pointless materialism as is happening now. Even the privileged brats of my youth became better adults. Bad male behavior, I don't know, maybe it was always so. It sure seems more prevalent now.
I can still recite the Scout oath, motto and law: A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, brave, clean and reverent. Maybe that's what's missing.
44
@CMK
On my honor
I will try
To do my duty
To God and my country
To help other people at all times
And to obey the Girl Scout laws.
(or, alternatively:) Especially those at home.
That's what Girl Scouts memorized in the 1950s!
Unfortunately, not many Boy Scouts in Bethesda in the 70’s and 80’s.
2
@CMK Bad male behavior is more prevalent now, because our culture has become so pornified and women have been hyper sexualized as a backlash against our social and political gains.
2
I am one of those mothers who has been 'nearly obsessive' about educating my teenage daughter, from early on, to counteract the incessant misogyny, sexism and objectification of women in our culture. This time, we discussed the level of entitlement many men assume in the way they treat women - which was on full display with Kavanaugh, acting indignant and outraged that he was even accused, his defense puffed up with his indignation. It was also evident in how the majority of the Republicans senators wanted to 'plow through' to a vote, basically dismissing Dr. Ford and her allegations...As if Kavanaugh deserves this appointment and the men who want him there are entitled to get that, too. We imagined what would happen if a woman candidate had defended herself in that way, behaved that way in hearing. We decided it would not have gone well. Meanwhile, Kavanaugh gets points from Trump and his bro culture administration. Sadly, my daughter said this attitude of entitlement is alive and well in many teenage boys, so there is work to do! I look forward to reading your book and sharing it in the community.
30
It's not just boys who need better education. One of my daughters, at 17, became enamored of a 27 year old man who had a job she would have died for. They became . . . in a relationship, I'm not sure what to call it. He was handsome, in uniform, well-mannered, and she was smitten. I asked her where the relationship was going, and it was evident that she was trusting him to decide that. One day, as she was going off to meet him,I said, "Remember, you can say no at any time and he has to accept it." She said, "Even if he's--you know--" I said, "even if you're both naked on his bed." I could tell from the look on her face that she was sure that was, somehow, unethical. I assured her it was not. She seemed greatly relieved.
37
In NC a 27 yo with a 17 yo could be charged with statutory rape.
1
This column presents an incredibly important and persuasive analysis of one of society's biggest problems. It is at the root of much divisiveness in politics. What kind of a message to young boys and young men did all the parents who voted for Trump send? What kind of a message does Trump send virtually evryday of his life to young boys and young men? He dodged this specific question in a press spray this week about Kavanaugh. If you are a parent and you are thinking about voting for Trump again, please reread this column first.
57
@James Ricciardi: Reading and rereading this column justifies my initial vote for Trump and makes certain my vote for Trump in 2020. In fact I can't wait to vote for Trump after reading this column as it is certain he may be the only protection men in general will have from women like this author and the effete men who find common cause with this sort of male bashing nonsense.
1
@Arthur Taylor If that is your belief, then that is your belief. Other parents may feel differently. How you to purport to know even one of my personal characteristics is betond me.
“We still want our rapists to be monsters, exceptions, degenerates whose expulsion from the community solves the problem”
This is so true for many crimes, it makes it convenient for us to not acknowledge or do anything about the toxic environment that enabled it and also not look within because clearly I am not a monster.
I think we are capable of a spectrum of emotions and actions from the very deplorable crime to the highest form of compassion. Living meaningfully then is a continuous process of being sensitive and watchful of our thoughts/environment and also acknowledging/correcting when we fall short.
17
And we want our enemies to be sub-human and our illegal immigrants to be terrorists. This is the unfortunate blowback of American exceptionalism, which is the unfortunate blowback of the worship of testosterone. I am a prostate cancer survivor. We have to keep our testosterone levels in check. Perhaps Mother Nature is giving us a bit of a warning here: the very thing that makes a man a man can kill him.
I greatly appreciate this lesson in male => female understanding. It is well-stated.
If we are to survive on this finite planet, we must also cultivate better male => male and female => female understanding.
The greatest threat to humanity right now is rampant over-reproduction. The only solution is expanding the range of our sexual intimacy to include non-procreation. We are capable of emotional and physical intimacy with anyone whom we genuinely love.
11
Boys can see a popular male who gives them misinformation but comes off as more experienced as someone they "trust" to provide sexual knowledge. False notions spread, and some boys think that girls are teases who might really want sex in spite of how the girls might act. Or they get told that aggression is desirable to them. As a teenage male, I certainly heard such information.
This is neither harmless nor innocent, yet in the context presented it can seem to be so. There needs to be a massive program in education until these ideas are debunked and corrected. The addition of alcohol or alcoholism to the mix makes it even more troubling and destructive.
33
Nature has a role here as well, not merely nurture. Men have as much right to explore and seek to live in accord with their nature, including their sexual nature as women do, and without judgement or condemnation for the essence of the nature with which they were born.
If you wish to have an impact, such a singular focus the “snails and puppy dig tails” condemnation of masculinity is not going to work. Negativity never provides lasting behavioral change. What might help would be an exploration of masculinity affirming ways in which gender relationships can move in the West that are in accord with the essential sexual character of both men and women. Castrating Tee Shirts for male babies aren’t going to do that.
22
@KBronson Please explain the "essential sexual character of both men and women". I'd love to know what your version of that is.
2
@KBronson
Except that we are rational beings who are supposed to control ourselves. Blaming this on Nature exculpates men and boys from the normal societal controls that Nurture provides. Don’t let boys be boys, teach your boys that sex comes with love not just desire.
3
I do not even let my dog "live and explore" according to his nature yet human males should be allowed to do so? What about human males evolving towards being less-governed by what's between their legs and more striving towards higher levels of the human experience?
1
With all due respect, Ms. Ornstein, please change the phrase "construction site" to "demolition site." There is nothing constructive about "slamming, nailing, smashing, tearing up, destroying" etc. Nothing good is being built, not even a male ego. But I understand this verbal slip. Even smart, enlightened, feminist women have been so indoctrinated in patriarchy and male privilege that we unconsciously and repeatedly minimize negative, often dangerous male behavior. All of us, women and men alike, have so much learning to do.
48
@Kelly Morgan - Wow. Yes - very, very insightful.
3
A young acquaintance of mine was date-raped a few years ago after a night of excessive drinking. She was devastated and I was shaking with white hot anger when she told me. I was about to go all ninja warrior when she told me something I have not been able to get out of my mind.
She said that when she confronted her tormentor, he burst into tears.
If we wanted to, we could gather 100 people and they would each have a different interpretation of why this young man cried, but I will tell you mine: it's because he did not realize he had done anything wrong until after the fact. And this has bothered me.
See, outside of being a woman, I am also a mother of a son. It's easy as a woman to demonize men; it's harder as a mother to do so.
Most young men do not go off to college to be rapists; yet many young women are getting raped. What is the disconnect? Could it be the culture of "seduction"?
Think about what we tell kids: sex is an oppositional game of "get". Girls defend the bases; boys try and steal them. Boys get to like sex, girls get to provide the pleasure without much emphasis on their own.
We need to re-write the seduction script and make it more equalized. We can't risk giving mixed messages. It might not hurt if we also give boys permission to feel their feelings; it might lead to more empathy on their part.
Otherwise this story will keep playing on repeat, over and over again.
240
@GWE
Sex Ed teacher Al Vernacchio wrote a book about this very idea, called “For Goodness Sex”. He suggests a pizza analogy to replace the baseball analogy: when do we eat pizza? When we feel like it. How do we decide what kind we want? We talk about it.. etc. I read this book with my 12 year old son last spring. It was uncomfortable for us both, but hopefully will give us a common base for future conversations.
13
@joe joe,you don't get it. They don't care about what is "best for the country". They want to be in charge and they will do whatever it takes to get there. Watch the votes. Manchin and Donnelly will vote for Kavanaugh and McCaskill will only vote for him if she starts losing in the polls. They want to stay in Congress. Mitch McConnell has made the biggest bet ever when he blocked Garland and he won't pull back his chips for "the good of the country". THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT THAT.
5
@GWE
Rapists always cry when they are caught or confronted.
5
The motivations behind adolescent boys' behavior, particularly with regard to girls, are complex. Teenage boys are only starting to understand sexuality, they feel peer pressure to be sexually active, they don't fully comprehend long term consequences of their actions, they seek social settings without parents, and often experiment with alcohol. 'Living and learning' often means making mistakes, to varying degrees.
The best hope for young males to better approach manhood is to get the right messages from adult men. So take Brett Kavanaugh. What if, when Dr. Ford's story came out, Kavanaugh had 'manned up' and taken ownership of his indefensible behavior? What if Kavanaugh had said something like, "When I was young, I made mistakes. The worst was when I was intoxicated and forced myself on a girl. When she called out, I panicked and put my hand on her mouth, which was a further wrong. I understand now that she has since had to live with the consequences of what I did to her. If I could take it back, I would. I am so sorry for what I did and understand that whatever happens to me now won't compare with what she has gone through."
Whatever the political repercussions - and I suspect it would not have doomed his Supreme Court prospects - such an honest, introspective statement would have resonated with boys everywhere. That would have been an accomplishment in itself.
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@NM. And then there is always the possibility that he never did this. With no corroborating evidence, people hear are quite willing to just string him up.
1
Correction-what if he had “manned up” and taken ownership of his alleged behavior.
You can say you believe he did it. Anyone who says they know he did it based on the information currently available is someone I would never want anywhere near a court room bench.
Brett Kavanaugh may be guilty. I believe he did it. Nonetheless, what has happened to him over the past two weeks is a grave miscarriage of justice.
Those two facts are not mutually exclusive.
Brett Kavanaugh may have done something very bad 35 years ago. The U.S. Senate definitely did something very bad to him on Thursday—thanks to Senator Feinstein’s inexcusable delay in sharing her knowledge of the accusation for weeks—weeks that could have been spent vetting this accusation in a much more professional, responsible, humanly decent way.
She chose not to so a good portion of this mess is on her.
3
@NM
It certainly would have been interesting if he had taken that route, but having done so, should he rise to the Supreme Court as a reward for his honesty in confessing a serious crime?
Why would this seem just, when such compassion does not remotely apply equally to poor, high school drop out, homeless, 16 year old black boys, as it already does to a man with every advantage of upbringing and education, groomed to be a leader in the ruling class?
Shouldn't the consequences instead, be greater, for a man who grew up in a neighborhood of mansions?
Than for those in our prisons who had absent, drug addicted, parents, who were physically and emotionally abused, or forced into sex work or gangs at age 12? Our prison populations are not of comprised of people who had a lovely youth.
If I thought that your suggestion would trigger forgiveness for any of the 2.8 million poor, disadvantaged, and minority inmates in American prisons under draconian drug and other laws which conservative judges like Kavanaugh love to fill, I'd give a big hurray.
But it wouldn't have the slightest impact for them, in which case there is absolutely no basis in justice for it. This is a government for one and for all.
1
This is a teaching moment. Your behavior matters. You may think you’ll get away with it, but it can come back to haunt you later at the most inopportune times. All of this hearing circus could have been avoided if the senate had done a better job of vetting this nominee. Or perhaps they were looking for a candidate that would do whatever it takes for the benefit of trump.
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This nominee was not vetted by the Senate or the White House. He was wholly presented to Trump by The federalist society and then sent up the hill to be confirmed. This nominee is the most blatantly political choice ever made.
5
I am surprised that, in discussing why boys commit sexual offenses, Ms. Orenstein does not include anger. There is plenty of anger among boys and men directed at girls and women. And anger is an emotion that is particularly difficult to control and frequently leads to acts of revenge.
The idea that a man rapes simply because he can does not sound right to me. Out of control anger is hardly uncommon. And angry men frequently cause great harm.
Male anger is often based on slights, both perceived and imagined. Some of it is based on real conflicts with women. But whether the conflicts are real or imagined, women are frequently targeted.
Men are not nearly as strong as they pretend to be and the hostility between the sexes is both latent and overt. And because men tend to be physically stronger, they usually have the upper hand in confrontations. So when men are angry, they can and do cause substantial harm, both physical and sexual.
If a boy covers the mouth of a girl, if he gropes her, and if he attacks her violently, I'd say there's a good chance he's angry and teaching him not to be angry and not to express his anger is an uphill battle at best.
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@michjas I think we already teach our boys to not express their emotion EXCEPT anger - perhaps teaching them to express ALL their empotions in ways that don't hurt others should be what we are working towards
4
@michjas You can't really "teach" a person not to be angry. Counseling is all about allowing a person to express anger in a safe, therapeutic session. Allowing the person to better understand his/her emotions so that the person can feel better instead of being at the mercy of emotion. Repressed emotions are much more likely to come out when a person is drunk. So the emotions displayed by a drunk person should be taken seriously and that person should seek counseling.
4
@michjas - Yes, and in the case of Kavanaugh, millions of people got to see that anger.
2
"Rejecting Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court would be one way to let them know their actions matter...".
Now how can that be when the judge has denied any wrongdoing and the FBI's (questionably necessary) investigation isn't complete? Or should we just dispense with the truth in the service of a larger issue that is not actually before the Judiciary Committee - in the service of an ideology, basically?
One reason among many this article is off the mark by a country mile.
Another: it's not only the guys who need the education. Women are sexualized in part because women cooperate in the endeavour.
What about how women dress in high school and college?
To suggest they have no responsibility in these matters beggars reasonable belief. Don't treat them as passive ciphers.
21
@Gerald
What you claim here would be valid a court of law regarding evidence for prosecution. Kavanaugh is being considered for a job and he has no more right to the position that he seeks than any applicant to work at McDonald's. If there are equally qualified candidates (I'm sure there must be many) and, among them, candidates with no allegations of sexual violence in the applicant file held by HR and there was demonstration in the job interview of an inability to modulate anger, then surely the job should go to one of these candidates rather than to Kavanaugh?
17
@Gerald
What you claim here would be valid in a court of law regarding evidence for prosecution. Kavanaugh is being considered for a job and he has no more right to the position that he seeks than any applicant to work at McDonald's. If there are equally qualified candidates (I'm sure there must be many) and, among them, candidates with no allegations of sexual violence in the applicant file held by HR and there was demonstration in the job interview of an inability to modulate anger, then surely the job should go to one of these candidates rather than to Kavanaugh?
3
@Gerald
Women are routinely and commonly killed in the Unites States by intimate partners, husbands, boyfriends, and men who won't take "no" for an answer, whether it is for a date, or the prom, or whatever.
"The Thomson Reuters Foundation survey asked about 550 experts in women’s issues which of the 193 United Nations member states they considered most dangerous on a range of issues...
The United States came 10th overall, but ranked .. third with Syria when respondents were asked where women most risked sexual violence, harassment and coercion into sex, and sixth regarding non-sexual violence such as domestic and mental abuse.
... a rising awareness of assault against women pegged to the #Metoo movement, the country’s outsized role on the world stage and a tolerance of violence added to the perception of danger in the United States.
“I can understand why people would perceive us as being a country that is dangerous for women because we kind of are,” Abby Honold, a sexual assault survivor and activist in Minneapolis, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“We try to sell that we are a country of freedom and also of safety, but there are a lot of people in our country that are not safe, and victims of sex assault and domestic violence are certainly in that group,” she said."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-women-dangerous-poll-usa-exclusive/ex...
7
The author seems to ignore that courtship is an ever changing dynamic. It can’t be taught anymore because what one learned 5 years ago no longer applies.
She also wrongly lays this entirely on men & boys. The courtship dynamic is a dance broadly between two classes (one enters each new courting with an amalgamation of previous attempts & stories) and specifically two individuals (the courting must be made specific to the individual’s unknown preferences as soon as possible). In this dance women being the wooed hold outsized power & influence in the process. There is the common refrain of nice guys finish last; it’s common because there is truth there. Younger girls typically prefer the “bad boys”, women will brag to one another about how rough & wild their man was (to be fair they to also brag about how nice or how they paid attention to their needs); but more importantly women will demean “good guy” suitors for not being aggressive or wild enough. This creates conflicting demands on behavior that leave a very narrow & very fuzzy path of acceptable behavior that is also not seen as “boring”. This path gets even harder to navigate when alcohol & drugs are involved.
And to counter the author’s politician turn at the end: as it stands not confirming Kavanaugh shows we live in a world where emotion & gossip matter more then logic & facts.
17
@Mike Regarding logic and facts, did you listen to or hear both testimonies in full? Who was the most emotional? Who was unhinged and hysterical? Not the woman. If she had been, she would have been skewered. Kavanaugh adamantly insisted on several points that are not, in fact, facts. Maybe he was just being hyperbolic but it's his job as a judge to have judicial temperament. It's also actually a requirement of the job, a sworn oath to be impartial and not politically biased. It doesn't matter that you're having a hard day. He was performing for a party of one (you know who) and in doing so, put aside ethics. So much for logic and facts.
9
@Mike
I’m sad to see you believe what you said. Women do not brag about how wild or rough their man was in bed. Rape and sexual assault have nothing to do with courtship. A short skirt or display of skin does not cause uncontrollable desire. How do I know this. Because many men do not behave this way.
While confirmation for the Supreme Court is not a trial where the standard of proof is beyond reasonable doubt, jurist in trials are frequently asked to determine which witness is telling the truth and which is lying. For most women, Ford’s tale is too familiar and therefore very believable. The denials and outrage by the offender is also familiar.
Toxic hyper masculinity needs to be called out for what it is. It is oppressive and destructive. Saying you are being emasculated is just saying you don’t want to give up what you believe you are entitled to.
6
@Mike Any man who puts his hands on a woman or penetrates her without her FULL consent is a sex offender. End. Of.
2
You would think that somewhere, in all the dozens of pieces that have appeared in the NYT about this tragic national event, there would be one, just one article that addresses the major issue as it is viewed by those of us who dot just automatically assume an accused person too be guilty: Does any normal person - not motivated politically - think that what someone did in high school should be allowed to destroy their career 35 years later? Without any judicial process, with no witnesses, with absolutely zero corroboration? Even with all of those in place I would still argue that a persons professional record is far more important. I'm sorry for Ms. Ford but she missed her chance to complain by 30+ years. She has wronged the country.
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@John Wilson
I wondered that, too. And I thought long and hard about ît. I still,don't know the answer in general, but I am certain that ownership and contrition must be evident before I can say "yes".
What did you see Thursday afternoon?
3
@John Wilson
Is not getting confirmed to the Supreme Court “destroying” his career? Kavanaugh didn’t have to accept the nomination, or he could have backed out when these accusations came up, with a reason like “not wanting to put the country through a painful hearing”. No one is entitled to a high profile job, and the main consideration here should be what is best for our country, not what is best for Kavanaugh.
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@John Wilson
There was a witness named - Mark Judge. The Republicans on the Judiciary Committee declined to ask him to testify. So it's a bit disingenuous to decry the lack of witnesses when named witnesses were not called.
As for Kavanaugh's career being destroyed - he still has a lifetime appointment in his current job, even if he is not confirmed for the Supreme Court. I don't see a guaranteed gig for the rest of one's life as career destruction.
88
Boys and girls should have separate classes on sex and self control starting with about 7th grade in all schools. This should continue until graduation. Fraternities at college should be required to conduct classes on self control and how to handle yourself. A little modesty and lots of self control and respect on both sides would help create a better culture.
Parents can not be counted on to teach this although many do, of course. Make it part of the curriculum starting very early in school years.
11
@Mickey Sure, and we can indoctrinate generations about what sex is through the state. Thanks no. This is the job of parents, churches and community... not the state.
Somehow, boys need to understand that a good man, who treats others with respect, will never have to fear embarrassment or have his behavior called into question. If Brett Kavanaugh had learned that when he was young, we would not be where we are today and there would be no need for his tears.
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@Ms. Pea. In the past, I would have believed this. But not anymore. When it is “fair” to attempt to destroy a man”s reputation just because one doesn’t want this President to get a 2nd Supreme County appointment, or just because a woman said so, I now believe that no one is safe. There is no more “presumption of innocence”. A woman”s word is all it takes. Men are liars and pigs. Their denial is proof the actually are guilty.
Why are all these mother”s posting teaching their daughters to distrust men automatically? What have we become...
@Ms. Pea, respect is learned by watching, not so much by parents telling children what respect means, and then beating each other up. our President is showing young people in the country and the world, what it means to be disrespectful. Because his parents who were epic failures, never did teach him to respect others.
2
I wish that i could say that My life has been a model of sexual decorum, but looking back after 71 there are many relationships that I wish I could redo. Men and boys at every turn are told that they must be powerful and aggressive to claim their place in the world and relationships. To be otherwise is to be considered a wimp by other men and yes, even by some women. The idea of the thoughtful sensitive man has been slow to catch on in our power fixated society
This is not to make excuses for my self or men in general. It is only to say that men and women need to work together to discover what it means to have viable non abusive relationships and work in progress still has a long way to go. We need to tell each other more clearly what we want which varies often from moment to moment and person to person. Otherwise we all become victims of our expectations and relationships sometimes become horror stories rather than a well spring of joy which they ought to be.
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@just Robert
Thank you. I (and a couple of other women) have been engaged in discussions over the last few years with male friends who are overall good guys.
Most of these are college friends..some reconnected through social media.
They have been shocked at stories of sexual abuse and assault, they said, no it didn't happen at our college! Except it did.
Then slowly, through our stories and our convo, they come to realize, with some horror, they they may have been perpetrators themselves though that wasn't their intent. They though that they were being masterful and seductive.
It has been gratifying and eye opening to have these discussions, and to see men listen and start to get it.
8
@just Robert
Have you considered contacting the women you mistreated to apologize? Depending on what you did that you now regret, they may still be suffering.
1
I'm troubled that you dismiss out of hand what we all know -- that it is a minority of boy sand men who commit these acts.
You mention the results of a study that attribute most rape to a small percentage of boys, and then you wave that result away without explaining why.
It is hard not to suspect that you think every boy and every man is a Cosby or a Kavanaugh, and that you conflate widely-varying acts.
While we clearly must have sex education, most men and boys don't force themselves on women and never would. The shame here is that someone like Kavanaugh feels entitled to attempt rape and then gets a free pass from the Republicans.
I don't think we'll solve this problem by ascribing it to scantily-clad characters in video games, or to every man and boy.
18
@Josh Hill
I believe Orenstein means that if serial perpetrators commit only a small percentage of campus rapes, the majority of campus rapes are committed by non-serial perpetrators; that is, as Orenstein says, boys who "do it because they can..." She goes on to discuss how inadequate education and engrained cultural messages encourage such behavior.
3
@BC
Yes -- and I don't see any evidence that any of these premises are correct. The typical boy is not a rapist any more than he is a mugger or a bank robber and good god, rape is not a matter of "inadequate education" and "ingrained cultural messages" any more than murder is.
I'm looking back at her column and it seems to be the superposition of her neurosis over what she actually observers. For example,
"In a quick, informal survey on Thursday, some of my interview subjects honed in on Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony that Brett Kavanaugh placed his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming. They were disgusted. They said that neither they nor any of their friends would ever do such a thing, and I believe them; but that repellent detail also allowed them to distance themselves from the more common coercive or nonconsensual behavior that too many young men do engage in."
The problem is, when you look at Orenstein's own reference, it says "Using the FBI’s definition of rape, the researchers found a higher proportion of men — 10.8 percent of the total sample, nearly twice as high as the Lisak/Miller study — who would be considered rapists."
That's shockingly high, but that's still only one out of ten -- the Kavanaugh types. And you would never get this from reading Orenstein's article.
1
" On an individual level, adults need to talk to boys early and often about sexual ethics, gender dynamics, consent, pleasure, healthy relationships and the risks to them of mixing sex and alcohol"
That is all fine but parents need to understand that they are ultimately responsible for their children's behavior. Bret Kavanaugh was 17 and Christine Blasey was just 15 when this incident happened. “I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” she said. The incident happened at a house party in the 1980s. Whose house was this? Where is the parental responsibility?
83
@Padman, I have a asked the same question multiple times. Especially since kavanaughs Mom is herself a trial lawyer who knows the difference between playful fondling and sexual assault, while drunk that too. Dr Ford probably escaped full blown rape because of her one piece bathing suit, and that mark judge rolled them down to the floor.
I read that Maryland is waiting for dr Ford to file charges and they will act upon it based on degree of assault, they could even act on it based on FBI findings.
Our kids ough to know what felony means. Here in the north western suburbs of Boston, wealthy neighborhoods, heavy drinking loud partying even vandalism amongst juveniles is a known thing. Restorative justice arrange for perpetrators to confront their victims and apologize to them. Community service and group therapy enable the juveniles to clean up their records.
4
@Petey Tonei
Neither Bret nor Christine had a driving license. They were obviously dropped at this house by their parents and they were picked up after the party was over. Bret's mom was a trial lawyer, She must take some responsibility for her son's behavior, he was after all 17 years old, the same thing with Christine's parents, where is the parental responsibility? Is this a cultural issue?
I work at a public elementary school as a recess monitor for grades 3-5, with boys and girls ages 8-11. Sometimes the students get into tussles - maybe playing tag too vigorously when they're pulling at each other clothes or throwing each other to the ground. If one of the children says no and the other child doesn't stop and the upset/aggrieved child comes to me and asks me to help them resolve the situation, I tell the child who was not listening to their classmate this: their body, their rules; your body, your rules; when someone is telling you to stop, you stop. Most of the children are receptive to the message, they get it and feel empowered.
I feel I'm doing my small part in educating tomorrow's teenagers and adults how to understand consent.
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@jay Good. I think this is a start at least, for boys. When I was growing up I was shocked by my own ignorance, not only of my own body and its development but the bodies and temperaments of young women, to whom I was strongly attracted. In high school we had supposed 'sex' lectures which, through the extreme reticence of teachers, told us nothing about sexual behaviour and didn't even make it clear what the sexual act was. The biggest lacking in my education was knowledge about sexuality and knowledge about relationships with the opposite sex. That was expected to be innate knowledge somehow. It isn't. It would be a great step forward if schools and parents took it on themselves to ignore 'conservative' social mores and teach children the realities of sexual intercourse and more importantly the realities of sexual relationships between men and women. For boys, how to properly treat women, all women, what women feel, to learn that women are not 'obligated' sexually, that sex, like marriage, is really their choice, not yours, to learn how to have good sex, how to please a woman. (Perhaps the reverse for women). Learning such things would have helped me enormously in dealing with the women in my life instead of the hit and miss awkwardness that characterised my late teens and twenties and caused a lot of pain. The women are right to come forward now and complain, it is the only way anything will change, especially in education about relationships and sexuality.
35
@jay
Outstanding, Jay! Your message is easy to comprehend, and is intuitively fair to child and adult alike. I recommend that the statement "Their body, their rules; your body, your rules; when someone is telling you to stop, you stop" be posted on pre-school, elementary school, mid-high, high school, college, and corporate campuses everywhere. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, maybe someone could post it in the Supreme Court (maybe it needs to be hangin' up somewhere in The White House now).
4
@jay: Thank you, Jay.
1
This article is an interesting addition to the piece on men and boys and their emotional stunted development, here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/upshot/gender-stereotypes-survey-girl...
As with that piece, it seems that if you teach men/boys to swallow their emotions, then they are unable to express themselves and also less able to recognize the emotions of others. They are not trying to be obtuse, they just dont know any better. Fathers need to teach sons more than rules in sports games, they need to teach them how men treat women with respect.
62
It isn’t just other men/boys that reinforce the idea that if men show their emotions or vulnerability they are perceived as weak. Women do it all the time too. The fact is women still want their men to be brave, courageous, honorable-and stoic.
Women contribute to bro culture too by showering attention and admiration on the men who represent the traditional strong, masculine male stereotype, particularly those who become successful, rich and powerful-all positions that require aggressive behavior and attitudes to attain.
8
@John
I'm sure that some women do this, but mostly I think the media portrays women as "showering attention and admiration on the men who represent the traditional strong, masculine male stereotype." But it is a false portrayal. And watching movies, tv shows, images and so forth with such characters can reinforce those beliefs as well as color the lenses through which we view real people's behavior. The result is that we start to interpret the people around us as confirming to stereotypes that actually fit very few real people.
1
Children pick up on subtle and overt behavior from their parents from the earliest age. My father thought the world of his own mother, telling a story about how he and his brother had attempted to mop the kitchen floor when he was a boy, his mother praised the boys and then my father saw his mother patiently redoing the work, when she thought she was not being observed.
My mother always taught me and my brothers that a woman is to be respected, and I saw first hand in grade school being a high achiever, that there were as many intelligent and capable girls in class as there were boys.
I never felt a need to push myself aggressively on a young girl or a young woman, and being raised Catholic did not have sex until I was 21, not unusual in those days, having attended Catholic schools for all of my education. With Catholicism, there was a reverence too for Mary, the mother of Jesus, and other women in the canonical history. They were admirable people to be looked up to.
Boys understand early examples as shown to them by their parents, how they are raised and the atmosphere with their peers and teachers. I'm sure there were some boys who were disrespectful to girls and women, I am glad that I didn't really know them.
28
Good people can do stupid hurtful things when they are drunk, and shouldnt be branded for life be cause of them. I would put Brock Turner's attempts while intoxicated to have sex with an extremely intoxicated woman behind a dumpster (not remarkable on a college campus) who had left with him voluntarily and passed out unable to recall what happened due to her voluntary excessive drinking. This act, and her consternation over how she was found are on no, way, shape or form in the same league as Cosby and Weinstein, and when we continue to see sex, vs. other reckless forms of drunk behavior, as deserving a lifetime of shame, and brand those men as deviants, we are making it that much harder for them to admit to fault.
31
@DebbieR
Thank you for stating this. Women engage in outrageous sexual behavior as well. Often, they regret what happened and call it something else. There! I said it and I’m a women..
@DebbieR
Yes, but you still are blaming the women here. Stop that. Boys need to take responsibility for their own misdeeds, as do girls. If a young man got drunk and raped someone, then they need to own it. Accept it. Quit telling the women who was also drunk it was her fault for getting drunk and somehow he is innocent. He is not. When men and the judicial system can recognize their own culpability then, at least some of the time, they can be forgiven and not "branded for life". In the meantime, until the culture changes, this is where we are.
9
@DebbieR - Hey Debbie, here's the thing: Brock Turner's "attempts while intoxicated to have sex with an extremely intoxicated woman" (check your sources: she was medically unconscious) is rape. It is exactly what Bill Cosby did: rape. It is exactly what Harvey Weinstein did: rape. The context, age of the people, and presence of alcohol does not change the crime. Suggesting that rape while intoxicated is just another form of "drunk behavior" is incredibly irresponsible. And perhaps we might all muster up a little empathy for a woman who, per her hospital records, was found with physical debris and pine cones inside her body--"consternation at how she was found"? Your mischaracterization of her pain is shameful. I'd suggest you read her testimony, which can be found online, and reconsider whether you think Brock Turner is a victim, as your comments suggest.
13
I like beer too. But I don’t like the effect beer and other alcohol has on many men who become quite angry and aggressive after a few too many. They often turn that aggression on women who bare the brunt. It is time men learned when to stop the drinking and take responsibility for their actions.
174
It’s not the beer per se that makes them aggressive. The beer/excessive drinking reduces their inhibitions so their true personality comes out which means in the case of Kavanaugh the angry drunk who disrespects and violates vulnerable women and girls. Shockingly, we saw that personality on full display during Thursday’s hearing. Do we really want that mendacious and sadistic man to sit on the Supreme Court in judgment of us all? I certainly do not.
5
There's lots of truth in this article, but also a running stereotype of males who bond in "locker rooms, fraternity houses" and who "assert masculinity through domination of girls". Quite a number boys and young men do not ever participate in these venues, nor interact with women as described here. These young people may actually be focused on their education and may even feel excluded from settings like fraternities and locker rooms.
Part of the process of better socializing young men should be to stop lumping them into single categories and to stop assuming that they all aspire to be residents of Animal House.
267
@John: As a woman and a feminist, I agree with your comment. There are many good men in this world.
53
@John And not all athletes behave this way. Both of my sons, now in their early 20's ,played varsity baseball in high school, and spent time in locker rooms. They drank beer in high school as well, but they are horrified by the behavior of Brett Kavanaugh, and they believe Christine Blasey Ford.
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@JaneF
Apparently their high school failed to teach them critical thinking skills.
Unfortunately it seems that a Senate Judiciary Committee is also not the place to learn sexual ethics. Far from it.
226
I would also be interested in the effects of religion, particularly Latter Day Saints, Orthodox Jewish and Roman Catholic religions. It seems to me that these are two major religions that relegate women to second class status; while occasionally acknowledging that they can be useful for some things. The male superior attitudes are often part of primary socialization in strictly observing religions of various ilks.
81
@Frank, its no different from Islamic and Taliban tendencies when it comes to relegating women to second class. All the Abrahamic religions are patriarchal. Even God is assigned a male gender. In contrast ancient civilizations had a pantheon of gods and goddesses. Women were rulers in ancient times. They held important positions. Somehow, with the advent of abrahamic religions, the hierarchy of power shifted to the male.
1
Females have the secret of life. Once upon a time, when we were living in caves, males surmised their "role" in creating life was...not much. So they spent the rest of their lives proving their worth, to themselves.
Someday, boys will learn to respect the secret of life, and I will promptly wake up.
Thanks to Mary Koss for educating me to be a better human being.
7
I am going to teach my daughters to remove themselves from parties where men are drinking to the point that they are unpredictable. Seems like a good tact to combat the problems outlined above.
102
@Rick This may be a great strategy for keeping the girls safe, but it leaves the responsibility for their safety solely on them without requiring that the boys ever learn about respect and consent.
7
Just advise her not to go to frat parties.
1
@Rick - Theory vs. application. I'm guessing you've not yet had the pleasure of "teaching" hormonal teenagers. Best of luck.
3
This is the crux of the problem. I'm was very glad to read this well reasoned article
30
Yet another argument for more intelligently acculturating boys on sexual matters before setting them loose on an unsuspecting public. It’s an excellent argument, but the subtext in this op-ed is uncompelling.
Sen. Flake reacted to an emotional argument from two women in an elevator, and chose to give more weight to the emotion than to the reality that this whole mess was occasioned by a monumentally cynical gambit offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein to torpedo a Supreme Court nomination that she found objectionable on ideological grounds – an argument that had already lost on the numbers; along with her willingness to use Christine Blasey Ford like a barnyard animal to secure that objective.
It says nothing about the basic validity of that elevator claim that confirming Kavanaugh is a declaration that women mean nothing. It’s actually a deeply offensive argument, invalid on its face, and Flake should have risen above his name.
#MeToo! has claimed MANY men, many for abuses far less serious than those claimed by Prof. Blasey Ford – and the social retribution has extended right into Congress. Throughout our society, folkways as well as legal precedents are being built to immensely better protect women against predatory behavior. There is NO indication that this ongoing process is diminished in any way, or would be by Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Two canny women saw an opportunity to buttonhole a clueless Flake … and sold him a used bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn.
37
@Richard Luettgen
How cynical can you get, that Dr. Ford was used by anybody? Your pretend concern for her is touching, and designed to obscure two important facts.
First, her motivation was not to derail Kavanaugh's nomination, once it was in progress; it was to avoid it in favor of some other candidate - any candidate - once she knew he was on a short list.
Secondly, her accusation is not about some sexist joke or innuendo at her expense. It's about actual bodily sexual assault. That is all that this case is about. It's not about Senator Feinstein (I agree that she could have handled things better, e.g., taking the admittedly risky step of confiding with Senator Grassley in the hope that he would not turn things into a partisan advantage). It's not about Senator Flake or the women he encountered in the elevator.
You patronize and belittle Dr. Ford and the women in the elevator to the point of insulting them. You make a token nod to protecting women in general against predatory behavior - but not Dr. Ford herself, because it doesn't suit you.
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@Richard Luettgen
Nope. There is EVERY indication that Kavanaugh would play a hand in rolling back the ability of women to function as equals in society.
Yes, the women in the elevator were making an emotional pitch. It tends to make one emotional when your very well-being and the institutional protection thereof, seems like an afterthought to those with the power to make all the rules. And the fact that so many dismiss Dr. Ford's experience, which has been backed up independently, as not worth taking into account because one or the other senator may be acting from political motive? That argument does not help your case. Dr. Ford's story is credible. Whether or not politics played a role in it coming to light is beside the point.
Kavanaugh is unfit. For this reason and for his spitting, partisan anger fugue over having been accused. All he had to say was, "Let's investigate. I'll be exonerated. Don't you hold SCOTUS to higher standards?
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@Richard Luettgen
Another verbose response from the endlessly loquacious Richard, completely missing the point.
Perhaps Flake's barely adequate but nonetheless consequential response was a recognition that Kavenaugh was blowing off what should be seriously considered. An FBI investigation is the least that should be expected.
Perhaps Brett's golden boy resume really isn't as important in this context as the possibility that he, by accident or design, was perpetuating a cultural fraud with his dismissive demeanor. Allegations of assault are worthy of serious, thoughtful consideration on a level deeper than politics.
However, be that true or not...it is clear that Kavanaugh has shown himself to be a mean, angry, partisan, entitled little piece of work. It is almost certainly true that Dr. Ford's allegations at this date cannot demonstrate "beyond a shadow of doubt" that a criminal proceeding is justified or even desirable.
Notwithstanding, they have provided a window into the character of Kavanaugh that demonstrates that he is not only incapable of exhibiting the gravitas of an Associate Justice...he probably shouldn't be on the bench at all.
He needs to be in rehab.
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Good piece. I look forward to reading Ms. Orenstein's book once it comes out. The problem with the notion that "boys will be boys" is that it was never okay. For various reasons, women & girls have in the past let men & boys off the hook for terrible behavior. That didn't mean they consented to it. The silence wasn't consent. Men/boys may behave as they always have, but women's reactions have changed. We're not silent any more. Don't want the consequence? Then don't do the behavior. Actions, consequences.
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Silence, Dr. Hassett-Walker does not mean consent.
But, at what point does continued silence move from being conflicted to acceptance of the action.
Your view is one-sided in a transaction that has two. Silence does turn to acceptance if the one doing the assaulting is not brought up short. And silence can be so diminishing of the eventual accusation because of the potential loss of the evidence with which to confront...and convict...the accused.
No woman should have her story dismissed...But...
If the story just remains a story with nothing to establish it as bona fide, one runs hard up against the basic principles of our governance as set in the Bill of Rights that the accuses is entitled to both the presumption of innocence and to confront his accuser. A story remaining a story enters the world of slander and libel.
Trial by press release and leaks from the members of the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee fly directly in the face of how we believe that people are to be treated.
You are oversimplifying and ignoring the roots of the problem.
All you are doing is further polarize and invite backlash.
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@Dr. Connie Hassett-Walker
Men and boys let women and girls get away with terrible behavior also, not the same behavior but abusive nonetheless.
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