Tell me what you think of this article about men and boys (Philip Zimbardo interview in the Guardian)

I suppose, to be very generous, there is always some agenda when speaking to other people, but most of the time it's nothing more than, "I want to know more about you, because so far, we get on okay, and I want to know what interesting things I can learn from you, and what things we have in common, and if we can go for a bike ride together."

There have been some articles written by women programmers in gaming, but I'm too tired to see if I've got any links.

I agree he seems to be talking from his own experience. In relation to porn, what I found quite disturbing was when he said

"With old pornography there were typically stories. There was a movie, like Deep Throat, and in the course of some interesting theme people were having sex. No it's only about physical sexual contact".

Really, has pornography ever been about the story other than just the physical act of sex? I also didn't like the line "It's always been difficult for boys to talk to girls because you are never sure what they want or what their agenda is." WTF! To me boys were just friends, some you liked, some you didn't, I never saw myself as having an agenda with male or female friends.

I don't agree that it is a feminised environment that makes boys retreat to virtual worlds for comfort, but I do agree there is a problem with their view of sex and how they behave with girls/women. It would be interesting to know how many of the film/virtual game/interactive role play software manufacturers and programmers are women.

Penis size in porn is pretty straight forward to answer. Where are the statistically relevant small penises in commercial porn? Who are the male porn stars with small penises? The answers are nowhere and none.

I do not consider it an article, an article has an aim like a rifle and that piece is a shot-gun. Not even a hunting shot-gun for that matter, more like a double barrel sawn-off with a cut down taped stock for a pistol grip. You would hold up a bank with it. It startles and is guaranteed to both hit and miss anything and everything. Something like that, saying so many different things, people are bound to find something objectionable in it.

Embarrassingly, that should say porn / knob, rather than porn / know, so now I've ended up mentioning penises even more than I initially intended to. Sorry to all those engaging in higher-brow conversations.

Apologies for lowering the tone yesterday. Just crossed my mind suddenly - thanks to those who engaged in the porn/know question!

The interesting thing (reading posts & what I was thinking as reading the article) was all this business about how mothers are (there there, unconditional love) and how fathers are (you need to work hard for your grades) etc, it struck me that it sounded like a combination of his own upbringing / his own family and maybe how things are done in his social sphere / peer group in the place that he lives? Because that was a massive generalisation and one that didn't even "ring true" so I think he was talking about HIM. IYSWIM.

To be fair though, there are a large number of environmental scientists who hold professorships in the US who firmly believe that lie that humans are not contributing to climate change. Some of them have formed a group called PlantsNeedCO2. Just because someone has standing in their field, doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't barking

I've just read this article this afternoon and I too thought it was a strange one for the Guardian. While I understand some of the of concerns he raises (once you get to the end of the article) my initial reaction was to be offended by the obvious - it's really the woman's fault for not being tough enough - assertions at the beginning of the article.

I thought it seems very contradictory as he gives the impression of a strong female unit working hard and supporting the family unit but then claims it is too feminised . He also says that boys don't get the emotional support they need in a family without a father figure but surely they will be more empathetic having spent so much time in female company?

Response piece

www.theguardian.com/science/sifting-the-evidence/2015/may/11/if-men-are-failing-we-need-to-look-to-the-future-not-at-lazy-stereotypes

This article made me roll my eyes so far that they almost got lost down the back of my brain. I see the Guardian has a response piece today.

I've become increasingly convinced that many psychologists just make crap up to fit their own worldview.

This article has only served to reinforce that point of view.

I was thinking more of violent sex really, especially the increased expectation that women (and girls) will say yes to anal sex without any real understanding of the associated risks. Or that their pleasure should be a factor at all.

I am actually much more concerned about, not so much men opting out of sex with women (though that too) but finding themselves genuinely unable to enjoy it or properly engage in a fulfilling sexual relationship due to early and frequent immersion in the porn world. I'm also deeply concerned about a pervasive and low-level change in mens thoughts about what women are and how they should act, sexually.

Serious physical violence, not as much. I tend to see the actual violence part as a little like the video games/violence thing - someone who already has those tendencies may have them encouraged, but I'm not sure someone without them will be spurred to it by porn. Not that that's the brightest of bright sides.

Young women are obviously also having a fucking terrible time with porn too, but I actually have more optimism about their ability to fight it than I do young men. I think for most men, the 'porn is harmless' rhetoric is pretty deeply engraved - whereas I think a lot of young women are aware of at least some aspect of how shit it is. Which is hopefully the start of fighting it.

Anyway, yeah 'momma loves you' was just pretty foul really. Momma loves you. Ugh.

I got to this line:

'“Mothers give love unconditionally – because you came out of her body, a mother loves you. You bring home your report card and it’s all Cs? Mom will say, ‘It’s OK. Momma loves you anyway. Try harder.’

and wondered who on earth he was talking about, has he not heard of Tiger mothers by any chance? Just bizarre.

when my children (boy/girl) come home from school with poor reports I certainly don't go 'there there' I ask why they underperformed and what they are going to do about it. I'm probably fiercer than their father. We both love them unconditionally because we are their parents. That doesn't mean we don't have high expectations of them, if anything the opposite.

Oh and both my children enjoy video games, that's such a lazy stereotype. This guy is really out of touch if he thinks video games are just for teenage boys as there is a large adult market which amazingly includes plenty of women.

With regard to porn I'd be much less worried about men who opt out of having sex with women and much more concerned about porn inspired violence toward women.

Yes pretty awful. I came on to post about it actually. So full of unsubstantiated assertions and wild generalisations. I'm surprised the Guardian gave it such an uncritical airing.

As a single parent to a boy (and girl) I am perhaps over sensitive to the boys need dads thing but this was really particularly bad. People, and particularly women, have always brought up children alone. It's always been commonplace thanks to war, death and desertion on the one hand and the disengagement of generations of men from the business of childrearing on the other.. No need to create a moral panic over something so common in human history which so many parents have successfully navigated.

I am worried about porn though. There will be clear rules about it in this house when the time comes plus lots of conversation. Although as a single mother I'll fail anyway due to simultaneously over-loving and failing to understand my boy

I think he raised some valid points about living lives online may mean that some people are struggling to develop real human relationships (obviously no irony in my posting this on a messageboard rather than chatting to mates about it down the pub), but I'm not sure how big a factor that is; I always used to go round with a book and read that to avoid actually talking to people, because I wasn't confident with people I didn't know (and not talking to them doesn't make that any better.) So shy children will always find ways of not being the centre of attention. And it is children, not just boys.

He may also have a valid point about porn and the lack of stories (less convinced about penis size, as I agree that a lot of porn seems to be fairly average, though not all.)

But while there may be some valid points, they're rather swamped by the stereotyping about conditional love and so on.

Glad someone else saw this. I was happy to see it being talked about, especially the porn issue, but there were way too many 'wait, what?' moments in the article, and I was really disappointed.

Re penises: I dunno Whirlpool, is there a chance you've just met a disproportionately large sample of well endowed men? I'd have said porn did have a larger average, assisted by the illusion created by hair removal. But then, I'm no connoisseur. Also, I am a touch 'oh boo hoo for you' about boys feeling sad about their dicks, given what the industry says/does about/to women. Unfair of me, I know, and unhelpful, but there you go. Just whiffs a bit of 'poor menz' to me, that particular complaint.

I only caught the tail end of his appearence on the BBC, and I remember a TED talk of his on why torture was a bad shit crazy waste of time, and he had quite a sound and compelling perspective on abuses during the Iraq war.

Not sure what to make of this however. Echoing sentiments made above in that we're struggling in uncertain times, we are (hopefully!) in a time of redefining what it means to be human, outside of gender, race, class etc.

Zimbardo got lucky with a few show-boat experiments in the 70s - ones that were horribly unethical and would be in now way allowed today - and made a career off the back of them. He is a charismatic speaker but a total idiot. He is a stellar example of a man who just states nonsense which is then accepted as fact simply because he is a man and believes his own bullshit.

I read this and thought it was outdated, unevidenced nonsense. Gives psychology a bad name. I was glad to see he was comprehensively slated in the comments section.

I thought the bit at the end where boys wrote on a bit of paper how they felt internally and externally was crap. That's not evidence, it's a warm up exercise for a workshop. And I bet you would get the same results if you did it with girls.

Disappointing.

Oops . sorry my wi fi is being silly