To actually feel a bit sorry for men who grew up in the 90s/00s?

[fetchmycatsocks]

I've NC because I feel this is a bit of a controversial opinion

But AIBU to actually feel a bit sorry for men who grew up in the era of Nuts/Zoo/'Shagger of the Year' awards? Whatever their characters, they weren't encouraged to believe that consent should be unequivocally sought and given. They had awful men feted by the media as role models. Awful behaviour towards women was celebrated and joked about, on TV, in magazines, everywhere. I can remember as a teenager really having no clue about what my 'rights' were as a woman around consent, etc - absolutely nobody ever spelled it out to me, or to the girls and boys around me.

I guess I'm asking AIBU to feel a bit sad that men who grew up in that era probably did have a bit of a tricky time working out how to be men?

To be very clear, I absolutely believe that all the decent boys and men worked it out fine for themselves. I just think - kids look to the world to learn how to be, and the world we grew up in taught us some really crap things when it came to this

No.
Rape and sexual abuse has always been wrong and, as you say, the decent men worked that out pretty quickly.

I was a teenager in the 90s, in my 20s in the 00s. Haven’t dated anyone new since then and I always feel quite lucky compared to what women dating now face.

I had a Loaded-reading boyfriend in the late 90s, who most certainly understood consent and ‘how to be a man’. I think for a lot of people there was a real naïveté around the sleazy culture aspect more than anything else. We’re wiser to it after years of revelations and more people accept Nuts-type humour isn’t innocuous, but at the time plenty of people found that type of thing funny even if they were perfectly decent. For those who didn’t find it amusing in the 90s and 00s, it was simply uncool to make a fuss about those things. I remember how thrilled I was when I started seeing younger women make a fuss!

But the manosphere backlash is an openly brutal misogyny of a type I didn’t experience back then.

This basically. I grew up in this era and had to deal with naked women’s bodies on magazine covers and in mass produced newspapers like it was normal. Additionally, the constant pressure women seemed to be (and still are really) subjected to in relation to their weight. We’re always told to strive to have bodies which simply aren’t natural without either an eating disorder or plastic surgery, or both.

Let’s also not forget the hideous TV shows in the 00s all based around weight and body image. Snog, Marry, Avoid? For example.

I don't have sympathy towards men who choose to abuse women or overstep anybody else's boundaries whatsoever.

I think it's really important to look at what we are holding up to children as examples of what's acceptable. Of course there were positive role models, but there were also really awful ones, and at the time, things that we now strongly condem as awful were held up as 'lad humour'. As a women you couldn't point out that they were misogynistic and horrible, because you'd just be accused of not having a sense of humour. So lots of girls laughed along with them too. It was an unpleasant culture to grow up in, and I think it was unpleasant for some boys as well as all of the girls

Because there are plenty of men who want to be equal with women and not live in a world that says women are lesser beings to be owned and controlled. There are plenty of men who live their lives by this principle and have strong relationships and happy lives.

Addmittedly we don't hear about them much on Mumsnet, but they do exist

I think it was a confusing time for everyone. I think a lot of women who very much know they were exploited or abused back then were made to see what they were doing as liberal and cool. They did consent, but on incredibly shaky ground: for the wrong reasons or under the influence of drugs or alcohol that wasnt always in their control. Sometimes with extreme power differences from the outset.

They didn't want to see it that way, though and thought anyone who brought it up was somehow slut shaming them rather than querying if their choices are making them happy. They were young women being imperfectly counselled by either their imperfect peers who weren't making much better choices themselves.

It's now, when the trauma from that time has caught up to them or they just mature, they can look back honestly and say those times left them with more harm than good. They weren't in control at all.

No. My DH is nearly 50 and I met him at 29. He and his mates were never part of “laddish” culture. I’m not going to feel sorry for men who indulged in that behaviour or were complicit as it was possible to not be a misogynist and/or predator.