Why do so many men turn bad...?

[Destinysdaughter]

Was just thinking about this, May be simplistic but was wondering why so many men end up being rapists, paedophiles, DV abusers, stalkers etc?

Is it something in their family background, being a victim of abuse themselves, conditioning, or something else?

The vast majority of women who are victims of violence and/or sexual assault are attacked by men. That's what's being discussed here. Do you have anything to say about the origins of male violence and what might be done to address it?

Assassin
The vast majority of ALL people (not just women) who are victims of violence are attacked by men.
But FAR more men are attacked than women.
What this shows is that violent men much prefer to attack other men rather than women.

This is NOT a problem facing women it's a problem facing PEOPLE (mainly men)
Or are you trying to say that if just as many women attacked women as men then that would be OK?!
Or are you saying women are special class of person such that if they're attacked it's far worse than a man being attacked so we need special extra consideration for women even though they're less likely to be victims than men?!

Away from the gender politics and back to reality - If the question is why are men generally more aggressive than women then in my personal opinion it's mainly ( by which I mean greater than 50%) hormonal.
There are undoubtedly some societal and conditioning reasons too.
But testosterone and the cocktail of male hormones that males have (and perhaps just as importantly the hormones and other chemicals that females have that males dont) are the main reason that men are
Bigger (Tst & others leading to HGH production)
Stronger (Tst and others leading to increased muscle mass)
More competitive
More aggressive
Very good evolutionary reasons for all of these.
The male wants to make as many women pregnant as possible.
The female wants to find an alpha make to impregnate her and look after her while she uses her resources nurturing the baby.
There are many other testosterone effects which all lead to what are considered 'male traits'
The evidence is overwhelming and obvious and such a no-brainer it literally goes without saying.

When female testosterone levels increase (eg after drinking alcohol) is when they start to behave more like men - getting more violent, more amorous and leary.
This was taught to me at high school and reiterated in general studies at A-level!
Has this all been proved wrong now!
Am I suddenly living in a world where there are now no physiological or psycho- chemical differences between men and women and it's all down to social conditioning.
Of course it's hormonal!
When a woman who's just had a miscarriage steals another womans baby is that because she's been conditioned to want to look after children or because she has an overwhelming hormonal driven need to nurture a child?

Why do we question the influence of hormones in male behaviour yet use them to defend female behaviour?

So, to pick out the relevant parts of your post, you think that men commit violence against women because they are bigger, stronger, more competitive and more aggressive due in the majority to hormones. If that's the case, do you think there are any ways in which society can look to prevent men from behaving aggressively towards women? If you are not aggressive towards women, then why aren't you?

jms

This is the last time I'm answering you.

Why do we question the influence of hormones in male behaviour yet use them to defend female behaviour?

Because men go around kicking the shit out of women (and yes of course other men!) and raping them. And women don't.

It's not just testerone. It's male on male competitiveness, it's objectifying women, it's degrading women to nothing more than fuck machines, it's the proliferation of online pornography debasing them, it's a huge surge in sexual harassment in schools being classed as banter by a lot of teachers, it's 'acceptable' locker room talk, it's endemic sexism, that leads to misogyny, that leads to powerplay where women will always lose.

Some new studies have shown that testosterone is not necessarily linked to violence. Male on male competitiveness has been shown to produce testosterone. I.e. it's the other way around. (I can't be bothered to link, just Google it).

If it was merely down to testosterone, it would be all men.

And if men are just violent and there's nothing we can do about it, because, you know, hormones, then perhaps it would help if conviction rates were higher and punishments were far more severe.

Assassin yes of course there are things society can do. But again your asking what can we do to stop men behaving aggressively towards women and not what can we do to just stop men behaving aggressively!

What are the things that society can do, and why/how do they work if testosterone/hormones are the major culprit for this behaviour?

Datun

"It's not just testerone. It's male on male competitiveness, "

How is that Not Testosterone too?!

"..it's objectifying women, it's degrading women to nothing more than fuck machines, it's the proliferation of online pornography debasing them, it's a huge surge in sexual harassment in schools being classed as banter by a lot of teachers, it's 'acceptable' locker room talk, it's endemic sexism, that leads to misogyny, that leads to powerplay where women will always lose. "

That's all symptoms not cause!

"If it was merely down to testosterone, it would be all men. "

Don't know if you've noticed but some men have far more testosterone than others!
Some men, eg. one of my sons, has an extra X chromosome and so has a larger amount of female hormones too. He is far less aggressive and competitive than his 'normal' brother despite having exactly the same upbringing and social conditioning.

"And if men are just violent and there's nothing we can do about it, because, you know, hormones, then perhaps it would help if conviction rates were higher and punishments were far more severe."

Didn't say it was just hormones and didn't say there was nothing we could do but you don't seem to want to hear that!

Assassin your questions ( or at least the fact that your asking them) is wonderfully encouraging and positive. It smacks of someone who wants a solution rather someone who has an agenda and wants to take sides. But to tackle this issue we need far more people who think like you rather people who think like datun. We need a culture change that brings about understanding and progression rather than an ideology that rants about toxic masculinity.

AssassinatedBeauty

If castration was the punishment for rape, the rape statistics would plummet. And no, I'm not advocating castration. But you get my point.

So a strong deterrent would help. But obviously prevention is better than cure.

Trying to change attitudes, trying to educate, trying to raise children to have respect for each other's boundaries. Raising girls' self-esteem so the value they place on themselves is not conditional upon male approval, etc.

Ironically the whole point is that if castration was also a preventative measure then rape stats would also plummet.

Education (for both sexes) , engendering respect (for both sexes) and raising self esteme (for both sexes but especially for girls initially) are also a very good starting point. But so is a realism for what we're dealing with. Which is a primal, hormonal, powerful basic instincts.

The only way a lot of women can even begin to understand rape is by assuming it's about power not sex. That's because women don't have the experience of(or the ability to understand ) how a male brain perceives the need for sex. Try imagining when your ovulating or whatever it is for you, at your horniest then you've had a few drinks, you feel happy elated you really really want sex......that doesn't even begin to come close!.
That's like comparing the desire for a peice of New York cheesecake with pouring cream (my favourite) to the need and desperation of a starving man to steal a sandwich he sees someone holding in the street.
It's not a really desirable nice-to-have! It's a desperate overwhelming, all-consuming need to copulate above anything else in the world! From being teenagers boys have to deal with these urges and thoughts constantly! From the moment they wake up (usually with an erection) to the moment they go to sleep (usually with an erection). EVERY woman they see stimulates them sexually. Not just attractive women. All women! From their friends mum to the dinner ladies. Given the chance they would literally shag every female they could get their hands on until their semen had turned to water and their cocks were falling off!
These urges Never go away. Most males just learn how to deal with them over time because they're Always there. But for some males it gets far stronger than others and sometimes they can't deal with it. Some because of social factors too but the desperation and urges get so extreme they will risk almost anything to satisfy theeir urge. Their addiction!
So because women can't relate to it on a sexual level they rationalise it to themselves that it's about power over the woman and not just a primal urge to fuck her!

Before the cure first needs to come understanding the disease.

I need some brain bleach.... so you're extrapolating from your own feelings to assume that all men are like you. Is there any evidence for that?

Rape is inevitable then because (some) men just can't control their hormonal/biological urges.

Of course it's about power. You don't just get to take what you want. We have morals and laws. A man who raped feels entitled to use a woman's body against her will, therefore powerful. It is fundamentally a (violent) act of power. Whatever else it is about.

Can you pass the brain bleach AB, I could do with some too.

Venus does a woman who takes another womans baby do it because she feels entitled to it not because she feels the need to have a baby?!
Does some who robs a bank do it because they feel entitled to not because they want to have a lot of money and a better life?
Does a drug addict who steals money do it because they feel entitled to it and not to feed their addiction!
These are all fundamentally violent acts but the expression of power and violence and entitlement are not the reason for any of them!

If that makes your head explode maybe you should think about why and take a step back and argue, calmly with the facts not the person.

Are you justifying rape because of a hormonal urge to have sex?

Women who take other women's babies are mentally ill, hormones can exacerbate this.

And yes, people rob banks do it because they feel entitled to have other people's stuff.

HTH

*generally mentally ill

I'm not justifying rape or any crime. Understanding something is totally different to justifying. People who rape need to be dealt with. Removed from society until such time as they are no longer a threat. Better still prevented from raping in the first place but to say it's because of entitlement is missing the elephant in the room of sexual urges! I notice you ducked the drug-addict analogy but I would argue even bank robbers don't feel entitled. They know they're not entitled! They know it's a risk, they calculate the benefits outweigh the risk or they just feel they've nothing to lose.

How would you address the issue of preventing men from raping?

I didn't "duck" anything. I'm not interested in responding to every non point and tenuous analogy you might choose to make.

Why are you so bothered by the idea that rape happens because of male entitlement to women's bodies? And that it is about power? I don't deny that they get off on that power, I get that it's sexual gratification for some men to rape women.

Jmslvlc990 wrote - "isn't one man a week also killed by a woman? Or am I misreading that stat?"

You are very probably misreading that statistic.

I suspect that you are assuming that the men who are killed by a partner or ex-partner must have been killed by a woman. Actually, in England and Wales, about 1 in every 3 of these men is killed by a man.

(Only about 1 in every 250 women, who are killed by their partner or ex-partner, is killed by a woman.)

I think theres somethimg to do with the narrative that if you work hard, you get what you want, and the idea that a man can be a provider if he want to be. By that i mean that if society lets men work extremely hard but still have no money, and therefore find it difficult to attract partners normally, men are then faced with havimg to.become a 'if they wont let me have security and safety by my b eimg good, i'll have to take it by being bad' which may also tramslate to sex?

it is odd that everyone these days is comditioned both to go for what they want but also to passively accept it when they are beimg shafted. i do womder how much violemce would go down if a goos days work meamt you had more than the dole equivalemt after breaking your back all week and getting nothimg. i'm sure its resentmemt at this that causes men to become momsters much more than we like to admit.

Assassin

How I would prevent men from raping;

1.Accept that men and women are a mess of hormones, competing agendas and biological and evolutionary programming.

1. Accept that social conditioning can only do so much to rail against it given that fundamentally women still want strong alpha males (possibly many alpha males) and males still want to have sex with many fertile looking females.
2. Have a multipronged attack based on this honesty....

Treat people as individuals and assess them as individuals. Assess them not just physically but mentally, chemically etc... Put in place awareness and behavioural monitoring at all stages of development. Offer holistic therapies and treatments along side education and awareness of each others needs, desires and motivations. Have regular 'body-swapping' sessions and workshops ( better imagination than mine needed) to drive into the heart of getting boys to understand what it's like being a girl and girls to understand what it's like being a boy. Keep this going all the way through the education system to adulthood. I think the biggest problem is that males and females don't really understand each other and the biggest blocker to that is thinking that we do! The results of the continuous behavioural, chemical and other assessments should be fed into a national data mining warehouse where trends can analysed and continously improved and over time correlated with adult behavioural outcomes leading to early intervention where necessary.

We should also look at legalising and heavily regulating and controlling sex work. Sex workers should be highly qualified and highly respected members of society that provide men and women with services on a voluntary or state funded basis or on a private basis again under highly regulated circumstances.
This new honesty should ultimately pervade media and advertising and romantic fiction. Women should not be seen as sex objects for men to use except were that forms part of a fantasy in which both are complicit and neither should men be seen as a 'resource' or 'protection' object for women to use to benefit themselves. When both sexes accept this happens and agree to stop thinking of each other in these ways we will have made progress.

Vesuvia thanks for the info thats far more helpful than the "No that's true!"
I'll look into it :-)