.. to think that "I fear for my sons" and ..

[BertrandRussell]

"I feel sorry for my sons" are just new ways of saying "I hate feminists"?

BertrandRussell I'm sorry I don't believe you. I don't believe you see your son that way. I hope to god it's just lip service to feminism because I don't think it's normal for a mother to see her son that way with no reason.

It's so sad.

If I did not know my son so well I might be worried what the mantra "all men are potential rapists" might do to him in the terms of normalising sexual aggression.

bumbleymummy Thu 09-Jun-16 17:02:01

"WomanActually I think there's a difference in saying that a particular man that you encounter could potentially be a rapist and all men are potential rapists. One is coming from the position that there are some rapists around and you don't know when/where you may encounter one and the other one suggests that all men could potentially rape you (which isn't true - only a rapist could potentially rape you)."

This. Which is why I would want my son to respect that the woman at the other end of the alley simply does not know who he is, rather than want him to think of himself as potential rapists.

I do believe you. Any sensible parent realises the possibility exists that its not someone else's son thats the risk.
One of my sons school friends is serving a life sentence for murder. He's one of the kids that got little actual hands on parenting.

Turn my phone off for an hour and when I turn it back on I'm denying that women ever commit sexual assaults and I'm an unnatural mother! I' explain further in a bit.

I wonder whether it isn't actually a good thing that mothers are fearful their sons could be falsely accused of rape or being perceived as potential rapists.

It is parents' role to teach and demonstrate to their sons the risks if they fail to ensure they have obtained real and conscious consent from their partner when engaging in sex. And indeed help to educate them, how women feel vulnerable around strangers, teaching them to respect others rights and vulnerabilities is important.

Why an earth would any mother want to not discourage their son from sexually predatory behaviour or scenarios where their behaviour could be considered as opportunist and risk a 'false' accusation of rape.

In most scenarios of 'false accusations' of rape, the accuser is often a vulnerable woman or someone who regrets her choices the next day. Would you really want your DS's to have a sexual encounter where their partner feels like that the next day?

These were all discussions I had with my own DS as he was growing up. I didn't make a big deal out of it, just had a chat about it when the scenario came up in the news or in a film. Equally you can damage a son's attitude to conscious consent by negatively blaming the female in such scenarios in front of him.

FFs stop feeling sorry for the poor boys, having a penis is no excuse for stupidity.

I know that this thread has gone down a dark path. But just a small example when I was in the shops earlier. Woman at the next till talking to her daughter who was maybe about 8/9. Girl said something about someone not liking when a baby was crying, the response from her mother was. "well that's because he's a boy, boy's don't like babies crying, boys don't like babies full stop."

You dont need to defend yourself against false or silly accusations, or deliberate misunderstandings. Because those are potentially never ending. Just keep the discussion on track.

or deliberate misunderstandings

Yes me and a whole bunch of other people (Including very long time posters) plotted to deliberately misunderstand and politely ask for some context to help us.
Mayz
Mango
Furiosa
Alisvolatpropiis
White dragon?

And anyone else who wanted clrification of a term they hadn't heard of / seen used, we were doign it deliberately as a plot from the MRA.

I find it funny that you EveryoneElsie is hung up on this while BertrandRussell recognised it was causing confusion and expanded on her on line OP.

Bert;
Turn my phone off for an hour and when I turn it back on I'm denying that women ever commit sexual assaults and I'm an unnatural mother! I' explain further in a bit.

EveryoneElsie
You dont need to defend yourself against false or silly accusations, or deliberate misunderstandings. Because those are potentially never ending. Just keep the discussion on track.

as PP have said, it's based on context. The suicide stats are higher for young men than young women - hence that campaign at bus stops.

BertrandRussell I'm sorry I didn't mean to imply you were an "unnatural mother". I just don't think you see your son that way.

I've read your post on all sorts of threads and you come across as nice, normal and intelligent. I know you are also a staunch feminist and even if you do believe all men are potential rapist I don't believe you really think that about your son.

it reminds me that it's up to me to help him combat the sort of socialisation that led to the recent incident at Stamford.....,,,,

This is a strange one, surely you shouldn't be taking responsibility for this, it should be him?

as PP have said, it's based on context.

Shhh Don't mention the CONTEXT!

SilverBirch, there is a good distance between being anxious to teach your son to avoid sexually predatory behaviour and giving your son the impression that sexually predatory behaviour is somehow normal male behaviour. And it is just possible that repeating that "all men are potential rapists" might do the latter.

If there is one thing I do not want my son to internalise it is the idea that sexual aggression (or indeed any other form of physical aggression) is a normal part of being a man. Because from there, there is only a short step from thinking that perhaps it isn't so shocking after all.

I do talk to my son about the things you mention. But I very strongly try to avoid any implication that this is a "male thing" rather than "criminal behaviour perpetrated by some males".

In most scenarios of 'false accusations' of rape, the accuser is often a vulnerable woman or someone who regrets her choices the next day. Would you really want your DS's to have a sexual encounter where their partner feels like that the next day?

Lots of men have occasions where they regret their sexual choices the next day. Would you hold the other partner responsible for that? If your DS said to you "God, I wish I'd never slept with X" would you tell him X was to blame for her "predatory behaviour"?

It strikes me that this discussion is similar to the all-too-frequent Muslim/terrorist arguments. Yes, the majority of terrorists are (currently) Muslims but that doesn't mean that the majority of Muslims are terrorists. And it's grossly unfair, prejudiced and bigoted to treat a Muslim as a potential terrorist just because of their religion. The assumption that a young Muslim is a terrorist in the making and only some hands on parenting will stop him from becoming the next Bin Laden is deeply offensive. Likewise, the assumption that a young man is a rapist in the making just because of his anatomy is deeply offensive.

No one said a young man is a rapist in the making.
'All men are potential rapists' is really not the same thing. Its to get the idea across that its not monsters doing it. Its very ordinary men.

Rape rates are higher and lower in different societies. Now, I doubt that some cultures are made up of people with a higher genetic predisposition to rape. There is something going on at a sociological level. There is a difference between deranged, mentally ill, serial rapists hiding in bushes and some one like the Stanford rapist everyone is talking about at the moment. In his case, it's not unreasonable to think that he would have behaved differently if his parenting had been different and his socialisation in school had been different and the specific student culture at Stanford had been different. In a society that doesn't raise boys well and support them appropriately into manhood in this regard, it's not unreasonable for parents, especially of girls, to regard all young men as potential rapists. Because it is a fact that most women are not raped by predatory strangers, but men they are familiar with who just feel entitled.

Without parsing every word, I think this is what Bert is trying to get at.

This is US based, but I think our cultures are not far off:

www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/08/what-makes-a-campus-rape-prone/402065/

Here are some quotes:

[UCLA psychologist Neil Malamuth] found that between 16 percent and 20 percent of male students said they’d commit rape if they could be certain of getting away with it. That’s at least one in six. When he used the phrase “force a woman to have sex” instead of “rape,” the percentage jumped to between 36 percent and 44 percent—that means for nearly two out of every five guys, the key deterrent seems to be the fear of getting caught.

No one said a young man is a rapist in the making.
'All men are potential rapists' is really not the same thing.

By that rationale:

All Muslims are potential terrorists.
All black men are potential drug dealers.
All gay men are potential HIV spreaders.

Utter shit.