A question, mostly for men, how bad ’locker room’ talk really is?

[Sonervousimgonnathrowup]

I guess women can answer too, I’ve certainly have heard some horrible stuff, some men don’t wait to have an all male audience, but I’m guessing men know the real truth.

Is there a reaon for your name @2boysDad ?
You have kids?
Boys or girls?
Would you be proud your boys would turn up talking about women in that manner?
Or happy men would talk about your daughters that way?

Exactly. "Just as bad" my arse.

Agree fancy calling someone the rapist.

What does struggle snuggles mean.

It hasn't got him anywhere has it being like that. He's in prison forever and ever and lost his family was it worth it?

I must apologise for the graphic details in my post. I just look back on those times and it scares me how naive and vulnerable I was at 17 to think this sort of speak was OK and acceptable against females. I should not have revealed the graphic nature of my experiences for others to see however it's not speaking up and poo pooing events like this away that leads people to think they can get away with it.

God this is grim. Scary, but when you think about it, I don't know a single woman who has'nt experienced this shit at some point.

@2boysDad "I doubt there's a single (straight) man alive who hasn't had a conversation ranking women by their looks."

Can't recall one. I am aghast at the stories which appear every time a subject like this comes up, and at those who defend them, normalise them, or minimise the social harm those attitudes cause. If I were involved in any such conversation I would like to think that I'd do my bit to shut it down, but my conversations (drunken or otherwise) with male friends have genuinely never gone that way. Maybe I'm deluding myself?

I'd like to think we are no worse than when women get together.

Also, i think there's quite a lot of stuff said in a 'Jimmy Carr' style of taking the piss out of people that are actually sexist/racists/bigots

So, yes, even though we are definitely old enough to know better, we still talk about women in very sexual terms ...because we all still fancy women.

One interesting thing I've noticed working in a mixed office environment, it seems perfectly acceptable for older women to make inappropriate comments and have very dodgy conversations about men, but quite rightly men would be sacked for saying the same kind of things about women.

I don’t think so @PhotoDad . DH is the same.

That would depend that was said wouldn't it?

All this kind of talk falls on a spectrum, and there's a world of difference between "school kids rating women in a top-ten" and some of the stuff that I got in the replies to my post. We should not be lumping all this together.

I think we should all treat each other with respect regardless of gender etc- some of the examples of behaviour on the previous page are bloody awful, please don't think I would approve of the behavour on, for example, that post about Belize.

But that's getting off the subject of my post - you asked what men talk about and was it that bad and I gave you an answer - no it's not. I think you would be bored stiff by most of the conversations I've had with friends in the past. You might disapprove of some of the dodgy memes I've been sent by friends but it would be a mistake to read too much into that. If we were all judged by our dodgiest joke there would be 68 million of us in prison and no prison guards.

Anyhow - I feel like I've poked a hornets nest and this wasn't the answer you were looking for.

I shall now leave this thread and do the cooking...

Also the 'Not My Nigel' vibe in here is strong!

I work in a mostly male workplace although many women also work there, it isn't limited to the locker room and there's no particular type of bloke or even woman who uses "locker room talk", nearly everyone on site will openly talk like this anywhere in the building, including managers, site directors and security. Most people would be horrified. I'll try to phrase examples as cleanly as possible. Topics of discussion in my workplace include which female/male members of staff you'd have sex with, what the state of their genitals are like. Many mentions of rape, different sexual activities, jokes about Nazi Germany, black slavery and A LOT of racism. No one is really careful about what they say in front of who because probably 95% of staff are involved or have similar discussion.

‘Struggle snuggles’ is how one officer referred to sexual assault/rape.

This was a colleague of Couzens, not the man himself.

Ah, @2boysDad is off to do the dinner. So enlightened!

@2boysDad, the point is that it’s a spectrum. A continuum. If no one challenges lower-level misogyny and disrespect, it makes it easier for those who enjoy it to escalate it. To say something more shocking, more taboo.

Those of you who are party to these conversations (most men it would seem) have a choice don’t you? You can laugh along with the ‘banter’. Or you can keep quiet in the mistaken belief that this means you aren’t conplicit in it. Or you might decide to challenge it. The point along that spectrum at which you challenge such comments is up to you.

Personally, I’d like to see all of it challenged by other men, but I don’t get a say in that unless I hear it for myself so I just have to trust that good men will tell shit men to shut up when they’re busily degrading and disrespecting women for laughs. And I don’t have that trust I’m afraid.

I work in higher education with mostly male students and there is a lot less institutional tolerance of "locker room" talk now than there was even say 10 years ago. Now we have a more enshrined right to ask students about campus to stop if what they are saying oversteps boundaries regarding language and content. I think students now are generally far more respectful, at least publicly, though who knows what they say when it's just them and their mates. I also think a lot of it is bullshit macho stuff designed to impress other "lads" not reality. But previously I've heard it all. I don't think it's possible to shock me, unfortunately.

I’ve been in scenarios where there’s been a lot of that kind of male locker room talk. Personally I find it cringey and it’s not something I engage in, my approach in all walks of life - online, amongst friends, whatever - is to treat people respectfully as I would face to face and one on one.

More often than not it’s a mob mentality kinda thing, and guys come out with utter rubbish they don’t really mean simply because it’s bravado and their mates are doing it too. They’re trying to get laughs or invoke a reaction. On other occasions unfortunately, it’s not bravado and you do get a glimpse into the personality of someone who has deeply rooted misogyny traits and is not able to contain them, particularly when they’re in an environment they don’t perceive as hostile.

I don’t think women in groups are quite as severe, but they do have their moments. I worked as a barman from 18-21 and some of the comments I overheard and which were often directed at me - and from women who could have been twice my age - were really shockingly crude.

Male or female, I doubt most of these people would say the same things alone in a quiet room with you which is why they should all work a bit on their self restraint in groups.

Have some of you actually heard a group of women on occasions as well

@worriedatthistime, the majority of posters here are women so yes, most of us have heard other women in conversation numerous times.

@waterlego and all those conversations are appropriate are they
No women ever talk about their sex life, rate men etc
People in groups in general can be arseholes
I work in a mixed environment and its the women who have the more open discussions the men wouldn't dare
Yes there is a minority of really sexist men, but a lot of locker room talk can be both sides

Again then, show me the Reddit subs that women have made about raping and brutalising men, like the Strugglefuck sub. Should be super easy, I mean finding that sort of stuff from men takes minutes. Or maybe you can direct us to the porn women create for other women to wank over that shows men crying, being choked and fisted. Super available I assume?

Men literally put it out there for all of us to see, yet you STILL try to insist women are just as bad?!

I've never heard any women boasting/joking about violent sexual acts, no.

This x a fucking million.

Women can be coarse. They can be crude. They can overshare. They can talk about sex in the basest and most mechanical terms. They can be unflattering to the men in their lives or men in general.

But I’ve never, ever heard a woman express sexual rage, aggression or violent intent towards a man, or use that specific hate-filled, dehumanising language that instantly makes you feel a bit shocked and sick when you hear it. I dunno though, maybe I’m just a snowflake. I mean, at the end of the day joking about choking women and giving them rectal prolapses is all just bants, amiright?

In my experience, women don't go round murdering men during sex, rape them or otherwise abuse men sexually.

Not comparable.

I second that about squaddies ... my dad is ex forces so I was an army brat and we lived in Cyprus when I was 15-18. The way they treated young women was horrendous. I was assaulted by two who were mates when I was 15. Didn't tell anyone, what was the point? I'd had a few years of watching how much they closed ranks to protect each other. If anything my dad (low ranking) would probably have felt more repercussions.

The "boys will be boys" and camaraderie at any costs was poisonous. And that was before phones/video uploads/revenge porn, god knows what it's like now

For the "women are just as bad" brigade ...

• upskirting
• revenge porn
• touching up in public
• heckling school kids in uniform
• sexual assault
• graphic description of violent and non consensual acts

How often really do women do this or equivalent to men?

Aaah yes and then there are delights like the rapes and assaults on Porn hub.

And UK Punting.

Yep women really are as a class equally depraved