Teenage boys' sexual harassment of teenage girls

I suspect a lot of parents don't actually know what is available easily on the internet. Many parents are probably still of the opinion that porn on the internet still can only be accessed after a lot of teasing pop ups and a credit card input. Many people I speak to are horrified that hardcore porn can be viewed for free, simply by clicking a button that says "Yes I am over 18". Maybe if there was more awareness of this then parents would be stricter and start using parental controls more.

This is sickening behaviour from all involved, from the boys who think it is okay to ask a girl to create porn for him, to the girls who think that they only gain worth by becoming a sexual creature. The fault lies everywhere for this one.

^Yes, niceviper, I agree. I think a lot of it is putting in boundaries and encouraging ethical behaviour from a very young age. Then when they come to issues that they come across as teenagers, you can talk to them about that issue, but know that you have gone through general boundaries, compassion, kindness and so on over and over again at an earlier point.

It would be very difficult to resolve anything with teenagers without them having developed certain shared values as children.^

Lovely but alas, I suspect an ideal that is only attained by a minority. We can only hope that we can teach our children how to respect themselves and each other in the face of the media and societal barrage that shouts loudly that respectfulness is wrong.

This thread has a lot of valid points.

However it needs to be addressed boys did behave this way 10 years ago porn was transmitted through phones really nasty stuff but it was just beginning.

It does in relation to phone photos being taken and sent. The girls are not being sexually harassed or assaulted while they are doing it. They need to not be doing it.

Yes, niceviper, I agree. I think a lot of it is putting in boundaries and encouraging ethical behaviour from a very young age. Then when they come to issues that they come across as teenagers, you can talk to them about that issue, but know that you have gone through general boundaries, compassion, kindness and so on over and over again at an earlier point.

It would be very difficult to resolve anything with teenagers without them having developed certain shared values as children.

Thanks, Lapsus. That's helpful.

I see that the only word in red on that NSPCC page is DONATE.

I would say that is because you have instilled a "no stealing" boundary early.

I was thinking more of the boundaries in terms which start with playing nicely as toddlers, respecting other people, not pressuring friends into peccadillos etc (obviously not an exhaustive list). But only those who are sure of what makes up ethical conduct will be at all ready to withstand peer pressure, especially of hormone fuelled.

KRITIQ linked to the actual report on this thread.

Read it. It is heartbreaking.

I cannot echo more strongly what Nyac said This isn't about girls behaviour, this is about boys' behaviour.

Even if girl's do not comply or say "Fuck Off" - they are still being sexually harrassed. They are still being exposed to derogatory and degrading comments etc.

Reading the report I was secretly "pleased" that I am arsey enough to say "Fuck Off" and am aware that this is part personality/part learnt behaviour/part priviledge.

Then I remembered that less that 1 year ago a man in a position of authority to me wrt to some voluntary work I do made a suggestive comment in front of a number of others when I said before a meeting that "We needed to go upstairs to check he was happy with how that room had been set out" (for a following on function/event). I said nothing. I made a face. It stills bothers me a lot nearly a year later. Bit of an eye opener for me making the connection and extrapolating to work out the impact on these girls.

I hate to think what these teenage boys and their attitudes will be like in 5/10/20 years time. .

Even worse is the fact that these girls are being routinely sexually assaulted on a very very regular basis in school.

Some kind of grammar goblin attacked that post. Hopefully it will still make some vague sense.

Niceviper, one of my is a teen and the other is nearly a teen. I do find they want to talk about these issues and are not looking to push that particular boundaries. Some elements of this do have to be addressed with young children, but some can only be discussed from secondary school age onwards. Teens do pick which boundaries to push at within their own ethical convictions. They are not, for example, going to steal from my neighbours just to push a boundary.

Which isn't to say that I'm not aware that all manner of issues and boundary breaking may be heading my way. I just don't assume they will break boundaries over porn culture.

"The only encouraging news is that people will soon be able to opt out of having adult content on the internet".

There's a long thread elsewhere on the proposed opt out. MN techies are unanimous in pointing out that an ISP level "opt out" won't work. The best protection is via device based filters (you can set more precisely which content is blocked) and is harder to circumvent.

But the key point, in that thread and this, is surely education. Not just about on-line security, but much wider SRE, and setting consistent standards at home. But by the teen years, there is far less a parent can do to influence - it's a job for the earlier years.

Teens have always, and will always play "how far can you go?". The trouble is that the externally imposed limits have been fatally undermined by the Internet, and teens are still learning their own self-discipline. And it is compounded (one hopes as a one-off accident of timing of emergence of technology) by a teen generation which is more cyber-savvy than their parents.

Hi NYAC. You know, I hope, that I respect you and your threads and posts; but I don't respect the NSPCC which in my experience loves to start a campaign without properly validated empirical evidence in order to promote its own fundraising activities.

I would like to know more about the data it has generated, and its relation to fundraising.

That being said, I totally agree that allowing children to access pornography is abusive; and that schools should be coming down like a ton of bricks on exploititive behaviour at school, and helping to prevent it from happening by telling girls (and boys) to Say No. (Or Say Fuck Off as one poster suggested.) But the NSPCC - I don't trust it to get this right.

And perhaps some prosecutions of parents for allowing/facilitating the production etc of child porn.

Perhaps we need a couple of high-profile prosecutions of girls for creating child porn (because they are) and boys for being in possession/publishing same (because they are).

And of course they didn't do this 20 or 30 years ago, the technology didn't exist.

I agree, we have to encourage girls to take responsibility for what they're doing. There's "enabling" behaviour here--the boys are doing the asking, because enough girls will agree to make it worth asking.

If only kids were totally asexual up to age 18 and then became adults immediately! But they aren't. It's a constant problem how to get adolescents to channel their growing sexuality into something respectful, while not encouraging them to be sexual at all. It is definitely not helpful having a universe of pornographyadult sexuality at its worstright in front of them!

It is about the girls' behaviour, they are writing on their bodies and texting the photos while they are on their own, not while the boys are with them. It's about both.

NYAC - not sure how my earlier posts came across, but when i say no means no, then I'm thinking the onus is on the person who hears that to respond.

It would be great if we could get rid of the idea that other people are there for our sexual gratifications. I think that there's a growing trend for teenage boys to be 'buff' and happily strip their shirts off to reveal a six pack and tanned torso. Girls shouldn't be expecting that either.

I think that there are two levels to this problem - the macro, media wide level of just showing people as things to be ogled, and the micro, individual level where we respect each other enough to actually listen to what other people say - whether it is yes or no.

Nyac, I think it's sensible to do both, but yes you're right: prevention is better than cure, and it's only when boys are taught not to see girls in one dimension that this problem will stop.

I think we need to teach girls that it's ok to say no, which is hard in a society which puts women's bodies on display all the time, at the same time as berating women who do say no for being a "tease".

The problem is boys are seen as the "in" class with girls, hardly surprising when they feature so much more prominently in the media, and girls often just want to get their approval.

The boy chases girl paradigm means that if a girl likes a boy the most common way to pursue him is to display her attractiveness to him, which is basically what sexting is, as anything with too much agency is considered stalkerish.

Yes, and it applies in so many cases. I've done decades of youth/teaching work (blimey I'm old) and it really does matter that people learn when to stop. It is a basic safety feature of life.

today some preteen girls were messing around at lunch time trying to do gymnastic/circus tricks (human pyraimd etc) and one of them had friends 'helping' her to do something. At one point she said 'ow, stop' and they were slow to respond. Apparently she says that a lot - I pointed out that even if they thought someone didn't mean it they should stop. I've done some work with special needs and having to restrain 'bolters' etc. When you do that, you learn how to stop before you get taught what to do.

I like your old-fashioned approach, angel, and I thoroughly agree that no has to mean no. Give them an inch and they just get confused.