Why do so many men turn bad...?

Sorry reread and want to correct.

The lower levels of abusive / harrassing type SEXUAL behaviours.

Also the "because they can" thing.

When it come to violence in general, I think that the difference in the levels between men and women is due to a combination of things, size being one of them. Women can and do wallop children, abuse vulnerable people they are caring for etc.

What you don't see is the sexual violence or even the lower levels of abusive / harrassing type behaviours. This does seem to be a "man thing" and it would be great to really try and dig down and understand what can be done. If there is something very different between this male sexual drive then women are going to struggle to understand and therefore address it as it's out of our experience. This "couldn't help myself" thing - what does that actually mean? How does it feel / manifest? I mean, lots of men don't feel that way but they must have at least a little more insight. Or they wouldn't have been letting each other get away with it / making excuses for it / saying it's a fact of life and what can you do etc etc for millenia.

About 1% of the male population are estimated to be psychopaths (not just having psychopathic traits). Another 1% narcissistic personality disorder. Another 3-% "antisocial" where there is debate about whether this can be viewed as a personality disorder or not, although it strongly affects their behaviour. That's 5%, or not far off from the 1 in 16 men admit to be rapists figure quoted earlier. While male entitlement, sex drive, socialisation etc undoubtedly do play a part, I think we need to be aware that underlying that in many cases there's likely to be this kind of "abnormal" psychology involved as well.

Just RTFT NameChanger22 Sat 28-Jan-17 11:30:24 blunt but fair. This is Trump, giant toddler. The ones who, when they're caught, say "why are you being so mean to me! it wasn't my fault! you're so unfair".

I think that some boys aren't necessarily taught boundaries and consequences in the same way as girls are. Anecdotally, my partner said "oh well, he's a boy" the first time our son tried to tear one of his books. I went slightly apeshit and asked how it would be the different if he was a girl.

Just to throw in that society / societal norms play a huge part. The position of women in society, and men. What their roles are. Whether women are seen more as people or chattel. How much violence of all types there is in the society. Whether society takes a heavily victim blaming view or not. etc

It is wider than how any 1 person is brought up, or their life experiences.

Different countries have enormously different levels of and tolerance for DV, violence against women generally, sexual violence. Many societies that have a higher incidence for violence generally have higher levels of sexual violence - thinking South Africa / Jamaica. Also, in times of war, or unrest, when society breaks down and the usual rules are lifted, rates of sexual violence go up.

So it's complex. The fact that different countries have different levels of crime generally, and sexual violence / DV for this FWR viewpoint, is positive in that it proves that if society and institutions say NO this is bad, then it reduces.

However it seems that in many ways after a lot of progress, things are starting to go into reverse in this respect a bit.

Psychopathic traits are pretty useful for soldiers on active service I'd have thought. Although they need to be tempered with the ability to work with the rest of the squadron.

Interestingly I once read that heart surgeons score relatively highly on psychopathy. I suppose to do that kind of high-risk work you need to be somewhat, er, detached from strong emotion.

The reason you missed it is Helen is because no one said it. Moonin is just mix and matching different posts and adding some words in of her own.

That she chooses to ignore AskBasil's post saying how nice men just shows what she chooses to focus on.

Who cares what feminists really think when you can just make it up eh?

Another Socialisation in our patriarchal society can have a very negative impact on some groups of men. White working class men suffer particularly badly and this in turn leads to the women in their lives suffering substantially more.

I'm not sure about this. For a start, I don't think white men are encouraged to take things out on women any more than BME men. In fact possibly the opposite (as an average). And more well-off men have a greater sense of entitlement (again on average) so I don't think that helps either, in term of how they treat women. Although I suppose it makes a difference to general feelings of frustration and anger which would in turn be taken out on women...

Racing drivers are often very high on that scale too. Zooming around a corner at 100 miles an hour you can't fully care about yourself, your fellow drivers or have proper risk assessment... psychopath.

By nature I would say that I am definitely not violent. I hunt my own meat but don't enjoy shooting the deer.

I am not a particularly emotional person, I am pretty relaxed and laid back

There are two types of psychopath, active and passive. Active is the murdery kind. Passive is your hard nose businessman.

Xenophile - you may be interested in a documentary called 'Are You Good or Evil?' This article discusses it www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/.

I'm not making any claims re it one way or another, other than that I found it interesting.

That was to moomin.

Oh, sorry, I thought that was a direct quote. Elephants didn't use the word psychopath. She also said some men cannot be trained.

FYI, I disagree with her post. I just think your characterisation of it was unrecognisable.

I would say all children are trained (socialised), but male and female children are socialised to different norms and have different material to work with.

So badly socialised girl babies grow up differently from badly socialised male babies.

Nature and nurture.

The nurture part is the only bit we can work on, but recognising the nature part helps.

As a society we tend train girls into victim hood, and men into abusers. I have found it easier to train my DSs into decent young men, than to train my DD into self assurance, body confidence, independence.

I think its because men are able to do whatever they want and get away with everything, while society goes around making excuses for their bad behavior. This happens in childhood and even more so in adulthood.

Men never have to learn a lesson. Most people think they're great (or at worst a loveable rogue) no matter what they do. They don't have to care for anyone, they have more money, more freedom, more rewards. Men are spoilt and behave like spoilt children as a result.

*TheElephantofSurprise

They do that because it is in their nature. Socialising, conditioning etc train them not to, if they are trainable. Not all are*

"Men are born psychopaths and it's just in their nature to be violent. Men can't be trained."

I've missed this, moomin, though have RTFT. Which post said this?

Men are born psychopaths and it's just in their nature to be violent. Men can't be trained.

Am I the only one offended by views like that?

MrsTerryPratchett
"So a very bad childhood might lead to anorexia or self-harm in a woman but rage and violence in a man. Same anger; different target."

I think there is a lot to be said for that view. Socialisation in our patriarchal society can have a very negative impact on some groups of men. White working class men suffer particularly badly and this in turn leads to the women in their lives suffering substantially more.

Communication plays a part.

Who has heard that quote football was invented to give men something to talk about.

How often do they talk about feelings? I have recently been party to a conversation amongst two young men I know. One admitted he really cared for the girl he had broken up with and due to difficult reasons the relationship had to end, it was mutual but very sad. But he had to write this revelation down because he couldn't verbalise it to his friend and was worrried he would be perceived as weak for daring to show he cared for someone.

Whereas I am having terrible relationship difficulties currently and have freely confided in a few female friends. I admit to being devastated, I have cried in front of them and admit I'm hurting like hell. The male friends I have told have told me to get laid to get over it and one even offered to have sex with me. These are well educated men, some sport quite liberal credentials to the world.

This isn't an excuse for men but the fact they just often don't communicate about feelings is bad news for humanity.

You can see the psychopath brain at birth?

That's interesting, where did you read that, out of interest?

Some interesting research into psychopath proves that there is a pyshcopathic brain. You can see it on an MRI. However, upbringing alters the outcomes for yhe child enormously, not least because it has the possibility of training the brain pathways to trigger areas of the brain dealing with emotions etc.

It quite literally is nature and nurture. Scientists are beginning to look at the role hormones also play in this dynamic. I.e. Testosterone etc

I don't believe it is men's nature to be rapists, murderers, abusers etc. any more than it is in women's nature, or any more than it is in our natures to be altruistic, kind, empathetic, honourable etc.

Although the fact that the first thing men did when coming out of primitive living, was to enslave women and define us as property, is a bit worrying, when it comes to human nature. I wonder if women would have done that to them, if we had been bigger and stronger?

I'm not sure we would have. I think the evidence is that women are more inclined to be collaborative and co-operative than men and I think the biological aspect of carrying, birthing and nurturing other human beings, would probably have prevented women developing an ideology that de-humanised half the human race.

So I'm a bit uncomfortable with it. I want to believe that men's essential nature is the same as women's, but oh, the evidence...