Boys Will Be Boys

Girls require strong guidance from their mothers to prevent them from becoming total sluts, an unfair temptation for the boys and men in this world. This is why slut-shaming is so frowned upon; it’s just their predetermined destiny without proper intervention. Please act now for the good of humanity.

Totally ridiculous, right? That’s pretty offensive too, right? I mean there are plenty of women raised by fathers, bad mothers or with absentee parents who are not unthinking id-monsters ruled by their sex organs. The suggestion that women are so fragile and malleable is not just a slap to the doctrine of all waves of feminism; it dehumanizes and suggests the girls and women of this world lack free will, independent thought and a moral compass, right? I couldn’t agree more.

At some point during this first term of the Trump presidency, and I don’t know if it was the Access Hollywood tape, the #MeeToo movement, Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing or some other time, this idea that males are predatory by nature has become an acceptable opinion. It may even be considered fact by some. You see plenty of memes that say “Teach your son not to rape” or other similar verbiage to imply that there is a problem with males being naturally predisposed to assaulting women without proper parental guidance to direct them otherwise. Beyond making this claim, this meme-philosophy conflates rape with sexual harassment, groping and any unwanted sexual behavior in which a male might participate when he’s being ruled by his penis (see Harvey Weinstein masturbating into pot). Well-meaning folks will re-post these memes. Strong women do it to give a “true true” take and flex their fem-muscles. Men do it to make sure they aren’t confused with a man who has not been instructed to not rape and to make sure all know that they are some of the “good ones.” There are a number of other motivations that aren’t necessarily rooted in any deep thought nor do they give consideration to the weakening of the word “rape.” Most recently corporate marketing has jumped into the fray with the astounding Gillette ad, We Believe.

I’m not sure why this has become not just socially acceptable, but praise-worthy and thought to be valuable enough to sell men’s products. Half the country wants to rape or beat you and it’s just strong women, woke hipsters, pithy memes and social media that keep us monsters at bay. It’s easy for these folks to defend too. No matter what, someone can say “Well, obviously this doesn’t mean you. You were raised right.” The man can then acknowledge that he’s better than the other guys and avoid a conflict he didn’t really want to participate in anyway. We’re told that our job as men is to help our comrades in arms who share our struggle in resisting whomping, whooping and raping. Our society is savage, where unenlightened men wander the streets grabbing butts and demeaning women when we’re at our best. This is nonsense. This is lazy, sexist and wholeheartedly ignorant. Boys need to be taught to not sexually assault the same way girls need to be taught that they can’t bed every man that gives them a kind smile.

So, really, what typically causes a male to become a rapist? A penis, right? Actually, no. Circles, a European organization that specializes in treating sex offenders in hopes of returning them to society (a cause that I am more opposed to than in favor of) states that men who commit sexual assault have one or two of these major issues:

1) Major unresolved anger issues directed toward women

One of the unexpected notes on this one is that many children who have suffered violent abuse at the hand of some adult man blame their mothers for not protecting them. They were powerless when the adult “had the power to stop it” and now that they have the power they’re going to humiliate or dominate women since it was a woman who refused to stop their own domination and humiliation.

2) Difficulty establishing relationships

Along the same lines as the first is repercussions from being abused neglected or abandoned as children. These are the obsessive types who fear abandonment and cling to the idea of a relationship with a woman. They will resort to violence and worse as they try to make sure that this woman won’t leave or will love them or some other such distorted intimacy.

With this in mind, can we please stop? I’m a grown-ass-man and can roll my eyes when people are choosing to be purposefully ignorant, going for group-think meme-brain over original thought, but our boys are still innocent. Labeling them as Future Rapists is so unfair that you should literally feel ashamed of yourself. I mean that. You should feel that ache in your chest when you have wronged another person and immediately start cleaning out your timeline. Our boys are not rapists in-waiting. Our girls are not sluts in-waiting, nor are they victims in-waiting. Do I really need to explain sex to my child just to explain rape to him, to then tell him that I know he wants to do it but he can’t? It is also cruel to think it’s best to teach boys from a young age to be ashamed of themselves for being boys because one day it is going to lead them to horrendously hurting someone … and they won’t be able to stop themselves. “Boys will be boys” does not mean that they will be bullies, assailants, or misogynists and we, as a society, just need to accept this violence. This rape culture idea, including Gillette’s ad, seeks to redefine the phrase to fit it into their narrative, but this is a narrative that seeks to subjugate men to be seen and not heard (unless they are echoing thoughts that have been approved by the “thought leaders”).

Another thing – notice I asked what causes a male to become a rapist? Yeah, that’s because women can be rapists too and the numbers are not insignificant. According to the CDC, 1 in 6 men were victims of sexual violence at some point in their lives. 1 in 14 men were “forced to penetrate (or attempt to do so),” a CDC rape classification. According to Scientific America, who pooled four years of data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, 35% of male victims who experienced rape or sexual assault reported at least one female perpetrator. Those men are only 58% of those victimized by women. When women rape, they rape other women 41% of the time. There are also gender stereotypes that conclude that all heterosexual sex is welcome with men and the “no harm, no foul” or questioning one’s manliness has caused men to under-report their assaults at a rate greater than the already-astounding 64% of sexual assaults that women don’t report. So, doing a little math here (with minor rounding for ease) that’s 9.3 million cases of women raping men in the USA by the time the current population dies. There will be another 6.6 million cases of women raping women. As then-candidate Donald Trump made famous “Well, somebody’s doing the raping” and guess what, ladies. It’s you too.

I can already hear responses. “Oh, boo-hoo for men. They’re the victims now because they’ve had it soooooo hard.” That ain’t it, babe. Equality is equality. Equality is not learning a lesson and then repeating all of the behaviors that we learned were bad with a new batch of people. That’s petty retaliation and I’m no longer willing to accept it as appropriate behavior. It is sexist bigotry, misandry, and the backwards thinking of a nouveau chauvinist. Calmer heads will say that the ultimate point is that we need to teach our sons morals and principles that will ensure they grow into good men. Well, excuse me, but no $4!7.There hasn’t been a push to train our boys to be awful that needs to be overcome, so calling our boys rapists is not a requirement to hammer home a point.

I’m a father of a son, a brother of too many sisters, a son (obviously), and a man. No one had to teach me not to rape. No one had to teach me not to murder, maim or even pinch a girl’s butt. You can choose to look at these little boys as future rapists and you’ll teach them to look at you like a current @$$40l3. There’s too much division in this country among adults; let’s not start dividing up the children too.