Duke and Deconstructing Toxic Masculinity

Parents Forum
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@1Wife1Kid I don’t buy your premise… that it is a very small group of sociopaths actually committing sexual assault.

Lets take a look at the military for example 26,000 sexual assaults in 2012 isn’t a small number… do you mean to convince me that a very small number of sociopaths are committing these 26,000 assaults?? Really?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault_in_the_United_States_military

“A 2012 Pentagon survey found that approximately 26,000 women and men were sexually assaulted. Of those, only 3,374 cases were reported. In 2013, a new Pentagon report found that 5,061 troops reported cases of assault. Many people are optimistic that this 50% increase in reports is indicative of victims “growing more comfortable in the system.” Of these reported, however, only 484 cases went to trial, and only 376 resulted in convictions.[1] Another investigation found that only one in five females and one in 15 males in the United States Air Force would report having been sexually assaulted by service members.[2]”

From the above, and from personal knowledge, I have to say that the vast, vast majority of unwanted sexual contact goes unreported and isn’t necessarily committed by a sociopath. Its a cultural problem.

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Furthermore, the locker room talk that we all heard on tape if allowed to become (or remain) cultural, goes hand in hand with unwanted sexual contact and sexual assault especially in the presence of alcohol. I disagree that exposing it and eradicating it is harmful to women.

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The OCR just sanctioned a college for failing to provide equal rights to males by suspending them prior to validating the accusation with investigation and a number of other discriminatory actions by the college. I am so ready for this anti-male sentiment on campuses to fade into the sunset. Let it play out in society as a whole where it belongs.

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Let it play out in the courts were it belongs.

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runswimyoga, The military is not representative of civil society. It’s a closed off hyper aggressive cult where new recruits are hazed relentlessly to make so-called soldiers out of them, resulting in even death.

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/articles/marines-find-culture-of-hazing-abuse-at-boot-camp-after-recruits-death-at-parris-island

However, no reasonable person would extrapolate that to the civilian world and try to solve the uniquely military problem through reeducation of civilian college kids.

You state that the stats are underreported per your personal experience. May be, but there is no way to discuss this topic then. You are holding your subjective, limited personal experience as representative of society-at-large, ignoring actual stats in the process.

Also, you went from rape to unwanted sexual conduct. The two are not the same. That’s the kind of definition expansion and sleight of hand that I think is totally inappropriate and ineffective, for reasons I mentioned in my earlier post.

RAINN claims that incidence of rape and sexual assault has dropped by 73% in the past 20-25 years. Seventy three percent. That’s a huge drop. Yet I do not see any discussion on that topic.

Finally, on the locker room talk, I would have absolutely no problem if someone claimed that there is a locker room talk culture. It was there when I was young, and my son claims that it is very much alive and well today. But to claim that such indicates a rape culture is just factually incorrect.

Social change can be brought without distorting facts. I understand that the word rape culture is sensationalist and hence very effective in organizing a group of supporters who would rally around that cause. But it is also incredibly insulting to the 99.8%+ males who will never commit rape. To change locker room talk, you have to reach out to these men. Calling them rapists is not the start of a great PR campaign.

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Can’t argue with that mamalion.

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@1Wife1Kid So, while I stated the majority of unwanted sexual contact and sexual assault goes unreported per my own personal experience, there are also official Justice Department stats to back that premise up…
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/four-five-acts-campus-sexual-assault-go-unreported-police/

“Only about 20 percent of campus sexual assault victims go to police, according to a new Justice Department report providing insight into why so many victims choose not to pursue criminal charges.”

“Students were less likely than their nonstudent peers to go to police.”

“The Justice Department report said that young women between the ages of 18 and 24 are more likely to be raped than those in any other age group.”

“The rate of rape and assault was 1.2 times higher among nonstudents than among their peers in school. In both cases, about 80 percent of victims knew the perpetrator. A weapon was used in about one in 10 cases.”

“Nonstudents were more likely to be attacked at home, while attacks on students occurred more often while they were out, engaged in leisure activities.”

“There also were some differences in who committed the attacks. Nonstudents were more likely to identify an intimate partner, while college students more often said they were the victim of a friend or acquaintance.”

Your premise that only rape is important enough to be called sexual assault (or taken with the upmost seriousness) IS actually one of the reasons why many women don’t report these crimes to the police.

“About one in 10 say they don’t think what happened to them is important enough to bring to the attention of police”

“Why would some victims think the crime was not important enough to contact police?They are basically suggesting that they know in our society that the only rapes that are taken seriously are those committed by strangers and are significantly violent”

NONWANTED Sexual contact is still a CRIME even if it is only a misdemeanor… so I don’t see any problem with educating students that it is just as important to report these acts as it is to report rape … because it all leads to a culture that silences women/men to report such things if we normalize rape culture… and yes, rape culture INCLUDES all forms of unwanted sexual contact or sexual assault.

We need to get away from the idea that only violent forcible rape committed by some random sociopathic person constitutes “real rape” because sexual assault takes many forms and its all illegal.

Here are some more stats on campus sexual assault

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/22/health/campus-sexual-assault-new-large-survey/

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I think the point is that rape is one thing and sexual assault another thing and unwanted sexual contact yet a third thing. Most laws are also structured this way with varying degrees of criminality. The concept of “rape culture” had traction for a media blip back when the 1 in 5 hit and before that was discounted and before the media understood that yes, some women lie… but most people understand there are different degrees and when advocates try to lump it all together and call it rape, it lacks credibility. There may actually be issues on campuses, but I’m not even sure the “numbers” that are starting to be published even substantiate this line of thinking…that it’s a big issue on campuses.More like some women are having problems with some men. But it’s OK because everything that has occurred has advanced the thinking around these issues in my opinion. Even the movie Hunting Ground was questioned after they used a story that was well…questionable. It’s a shame, but when people try to paint issues in broad strokes it can turn around and bite them. The good news is that awareness is increased, hopefully colleges have stepped up their counseling and support for women who feel they have been wronged and perhaps just perhaps more women will report assaults to the police.

And because of all this, our nation is more aware of men that step over the line, more aware of the subtleties of sexual relationships and more aware of binge drinking on campuses. Hopefully modern college feminists also learn that you don’t run around “blaming men” and calling them “toxic” if you want to advance thinking around the topic of male/female relationships.

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This is standard operating procedure for runswimyoga.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37639640

I think this discussion demonstrates great resistance to considering the history of sexual abuse, assault and rape and their interpenetration (pun intented). They may be different, but their effects are similar in silencing, cowing, and demeaning women. In the context of the current Trump events, it is amazing that people continue to deny rape culture.

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As a father to sons, I hope these types of programs are not looking to demonize boys. We have raised him to respect woman and family values. But to have him pre-judged based on his birth sex is terribly unfair. This stuff is a very slippery slope.

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This isn’t what this thread is about…however, until women go to the police, unless we process these claims it amounts to people simply “saying” this culture exists. The very reason women claim they don’t report criminal sexual activity is the reason that people say “look at the numbers” rape culture doesn’t exist. Also if feminists want to point to “toxic behavior on males” alot of that is not rape and is not criminal sexual conduct so using the word “rape” or “toxic” is in inappropriate in my opinion and ripe for creating an impasse between the two opinion points. I think it is simply wrong to talk about masculinity as if it were a negative trait. I wonder what “hyper-masculinity” really is - do we have “hyper-feminity?” I tend to think our attitudes toward sex, toward consent and toward rape a’la rape culture and “toxic” masculinity are defined by mistaken ideas by a micro-segment of “all” women and men. So yeah I have resistance…or perhaps not resistance so much as curiosity about where this is coming from since it is so alien from my life and my life living with men.

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I am a woman and have two daughters who have struggled with what I’ll call the “poisonous femininity” manifested by many girls of their generation. Their peers seem to have learned female behavior from sordid reality shows, resulting in behavior toward men that is truly appalling. The way I see it, focusing on just “toxic” men misses a large part of the problem.

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The 5 men leading this project have already gone on record as stating that the media (and others in my opinion) have grossly mischaracterized this program. I am going to post the invitation to this event once again so posters have a more realistic idea of what this is about.

Further, as the advertisement specifically states they were originally seeking 15 men to participate. The first meeting featured a speaker on the negative effects of pornography on our culture:

http://www.dukechronicle.com/multimedia/24862

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@HarvestMoon1: From what I can tell, there isn’t any syllabus or agenda other than those short bullet points in the ad. That’s hardly enough to just characterize it properly, let alone do so improperly. How can anyone be mad about a program when they don’t have any real information on that program?