To actually feel a bit sorry for men who grew up in the 90s/00s?

Well that's the whole point. You can't.

You have no idea how your best friend Barry really handles sexual consent, especially if you haven't been in a situatuon with him where you've had to provide it. You don't know if Barry starts out respecting boundaries, but 6 months into a serious relationship, he thinks consent doesn't really count like it does when you're just dating.

With your husband, maybe you willingly do everything he wants to do and he learned he is better off finding someone who does after having to bully reluctant women into the sex acts he favours.

That's the point. You might know a guy, but really you know what he's like with you.

OP is right to highlight that sections of the media landscape socialised, popularised and lionised this kind of behaviour. There needs to be blowback from this.

And now we have the wonder that is Naked Attraction.....

100% agree. I was 20 in 1990. Most of the blokes I knew took all that lad stuff with a big pinch of salt. If anything, young women seemed more bolshy and assertive then.

This is bullshit. I grew up in a time when people were openly racist and it was fine to hit your kids.

I manage to do neither of those things because I’m a decent human being and I’ve also learnt from a better society.

No, we were all told we were fat! And lots of other crap, but we all had the ability to think. Nuts and all that crap didn't remove our brains.

It is interesting and there is an element of truth in it but those growing up in the 60’s were fed the permissive society, in the 70’s there were some pretty predatory bands and singers, in the 80’s there was a culture of laddish total entitlement…… Through all of this time the majority of men developed into decent human beings. I am more concerned about those in their teens and twenties now as they can be subjected to a whole incel culture.

Born early 70s, started uni in 1990 and DH is the same age.

Yes the whole lad culture thing was rife and there was everyday sexism - one of my first jobs in 1995 was working with a major car brand and every dealership had nude women on calendars in the workshop. Clare Short had been trying to ban page 3 since the 80s.

But men in general back then were the same as they are now. DH didn't need to be explicitly told not to rape or assault people because he is a decent human being who was brought up to treat people properly. Consent was a big topic, teens were being taught about it in sex ed lessons at school. The main issues I remember around rape were attitudes from the police and legal profession which meant women were less likely to report.

When you remember rape in marrriage only became illegal in 1991...you get an idea of the culture.

Up to then marriage implied consent.

(As the OP says, the decent men and boys worked it out).

Thank you so much for putting into words exactly what my menopause scrambled brain was thinking (I’m 55 and rape was NEVER acceptable ) but unable to articulate…..xx

Not meant to be a gotcha at all, it's what I think in response to your post.
So I hope you're able to surmise that no, I don't feel sorry for them and that culture harmed women way more than it harmed men.

I mean don't forget the generation before was bringing us up and there were very strong moral codes in place
Really?

YABU. It wasn't THAT different then. Everyone knew that the kinds of behaviour we are discussing were wrong, just as they have always known it.

What happens in EVERY era is that people proclaim progress around women's rights to sexual autonomy while actually just finding new buzzwords for the same old abusive behaviour. 'The permissive society' in the 1960s, 'lads and ladettes' in the 1990s, 'sex positivity' today.
It is always about appearing to be radical by celebrating women's own sexuality, freeing it from shackles, whilst also crushing any truly independent expression of women's sexuality by requiring it to take (by pure coincidence of course) exactly the shape that best suits men's sexual gratification

It isn't a history of progress, it is a history of shape-shifting. One change is the arenas of abuse. In the 70s and 80s it was Page Three, DJs at discos, etc. In the 90s it was 'rock and roll' comedy circuits, pubs, nightclubs, and today the main arena of abuse is the MASSIVE presence of hugely abusive porn, which many of us don't actually see.
Perhaps that's what makes it possible for the OP to have the strangely positive view of progress since 90s/2000s. I honestly don't see improvement

I sort of agree with you. I’m not sure how men are meant to approach women now tbh; without it being viewed as too much or a violation. Of course violence, aggression, sexual assault and rape are absolutely unacceptable and criminal acts. To me, someone politely approaching you and asking you out, or saying they’d like to take you out, is not at all the same thing.
I just read the article on the guardian about DW and thought to me sending flowers and a note saying I’d like to take you for dinner is ok.. isnt that ok?? I think this is how many men approach women and have done in the last 40/50 years maybe more! so I think now I can’t see how men can approach women without it being considered OTT or manipulative. (Of course I’m talking about one small element of the report.)

The kind of thing you're talking about was no worse in the 1990s and 2000s than it was in the 1980s, 1970s and doubtless before that.

I'm not convinced it's any better now, it's just moved off the TV and onto social media.

But say things did magically improve in 2010 - are we feeling sorry for any men older than the age of 16? Basically, all adult men?

@Konstantine8364I agree with you

No. I feel sorry for younger me, and the fact that I wasn't taught the boundaries that were required to exist in that era, because unscrupulous older awful men kept eroding them and I didn't know how to push back and say no.

I have zero sympathy for any of those men. They knew what they were doing.

The good men, like my husband, and friends' brothers, were never engaged in the 'taking advantage of younger girls' in the first place. It's only the questionable ones who used the culture to their benefit.

Always so many people prepared to shield men from the consequences of their actions!

Truly sickening.

Poor menz.

”Don’t rape women” must be very complex and confusing to comprehend

@fetchmycatsocks I was a teenage boy in the early 00s.

One thing that really sticks out in my memory, that isn't talked about nearly enough, is how the media of the time misled boys and young men into thinking that women are just the same as men on the inside. As a hormonal teenager, I thought that if I would have spontaneous sex with just about any woman, then women must be the same as me and they must want to have spontaneous sex with just about any man. Of course, after a few years of actually talking to women and understanding their feelings and perspectives, I quickly understood that this is not true, but it would have been really helpful for me as a young adult if movies and TV shows hadn't misled me.

Please remember though that the vast majority of men do gain an understanding of consent as they grow older and wiser, regardless of how shitty their upbringing may have been in the 90s and 00s.

One problem that remains though is that most men have no idea when a woman does actually want to be "approached". I have heard some women say "if I keep looking at a man, then he should know that I'm interested." Well, that one doesn't work, because women also stare at men when they think men are weird and creepy. I am not seeking a partner at the moment, but if I was, I wouldn't approach a woman because it's almost never socially acceptable... but then if women never approach me, then what's the mechanism by which men and women meet each other? Who knows.

I don’t feel sorry for them no. My husband grew up during this time and has somehow managed to grow into an adult who understands consent and respects women. It can be done.

I’m a woman and grew up in that era. Now as an actual adult (well I feel more adult in my 30s) and with children. I listen back to a lot of the music I grew up with and it’s all just about degrading women. Not all songs, but so many songs pushed on the radio, I can’t bring myself to sing to out loud.

I did have a moment where I listened to 70s music and there seemed to be a fair chunk of lyrics that were not so disrespectful.

Not to say music influences you 100%. But if you are humming some misogynistic lyrics and it’s normalised, it probably does subconsciously do something - or am I being too deep?

I know what you mean OP. I more so feel sorry for the good guys who have been made invisible and told they are “unmanly” due to this movement.

I agree with you and also the women of our era.

I agree we had no idea how to deal with predators, or even that we had the right to not feel uncomfortable.

I honestly don't feel sorry for them. I can't believe that's a genuine question tbh.

It was the 1990s. Not the times of the viking invasions. If someone actually thought consent was optional because a magazine said so, they shouldn't have been allowed out without a chaperone.

Rapists and sexual abusers have not been wronged by society. It's not my fault, Your Honour, Ladmag said it's ok to grab a woman in the club and drag her into the toilets. I didn't know any better. If anything, I am the victim here.

My eyes just rolled so far up they did a full 360 and came up from the bottom.

Exactly this.

It's high time this shit was called out and stamped on hard.

I grew up with it and it was horrid, so no, I don't feel sorry for any perpetrators, no.