Non-consensual sexual activities

[JellySaurus]

I have a question about non-consensual sexual activities, both those that require physical contact and those that don't.

Why is it generally men who do these things, and not women?

It happens worldwide and across eras, so I can't believe that it is cultural or entirely down to socialisation.

Is it purely biology? If so, why don't women on testosterone exhibit these behaviours? Does their socialisation restrain them? Or do they simply not have the 'urge'?

Why do some men never do them, even though they may be dominators or controllers in other aspects of their lives?

What causes these behaviours?

All of those things are overwhelmingly committed by males.

I have heard several young teen males...

I think it's probably best to view this from a statistics point of view, not a 'several young teen males that one person has met' point of view. What are the statistics like for men arrested or imprisoned for rape or sexual assault vs women, I wonder...

Indeed.

Do we really have to dig out the statistics again?

rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/statistics-sexual-violence/

98% of adults prosecuted for sexual offences are men

OP I have to go out just now. I will dig out stats on fetish/paraphilia later. This is an overwhelmingly male crime, as are all crimes of non-consensual sexual activity. There's quite a lot of research on it.

Part of the motivation is surely power, to create fear and reinforce dominance? Flashing, upskirting, rubbing up against you on the tube - men know these incite a fear response in women. They are asserting their power over us. Women on a hen do flashing their boobs don’t make men afraid. They might be embarrassed, or find it funny. No woman who has experienced these things from men find them funny. We are back to power, patriarchy and the need to subjugate women.

But testosterone is a male sex hormone involved in reproduction

but this sort of behaviour is not about reproduction

It is about power games, sadism, bullying and generally deeply inadequate personalities seeking out someone they can exert themselves over

Just not in such a big percentage.

Do you think 'not such a big percentage'is a sufficient way to describe 2% vs 98%? I don't.

well, because in this case, the OP is asking why women dont do this, but the answer is, they do.

And most sexual violence certainly comes from men, and worse sexual violence, but certainly not all.

If 98% of convicted sex offenders are men, that doesnt mean 50 x more men than women are committing these acts, becasuse the same act, from a woman, instead of a man, is less likely to be classed as a crime

Exactly nimbus

Male dogs and cats that you're not going to breed from often get neutered. It just helps make their behaviour more manageable.

I think the less serious sexual offences are still massively under reported if they are committed by men. Most women have been sexually assaulted ( often multiple times) I have never reported any of these incidents to the police. I suspect there are many more unreported assaults committed by men than there are ones committed by women.

Male dogs desire to have sex obviously decreases if they are neutered , but it doesn't actually change levels of aggression as much as people used to think. Many male dogs become more aggressive after castration, its called fear aggression. No idea how this relates to human male behaviour!

Jesus Christ, why are we seeing so many “women are just as bad” comments on the feminism board? It’s patently untrue
Some people have a very real issue with women discussing male pattern behaviour. It's weird and depressing.

I think the less serious sexual offences are still massively under reported if they are committed by men.

So are the serious ones. No doubt partly because women are too traumatised to go through reporting it, partly because they fear they won't be believed, partly because of the awful reputation of the police, and partly because the conviction rates are so abysmally low anyway.

Part of the motivation is surely power, to create fear and reinforce dominance? Flashing, upskirting, rubbing up against you on the tube - men know these incite a fear response in women. They are asserting their power over us.

Men are socialised to value having power over others and to enjoy the feeling. It leaves me cold and I can't see the attraction. I can't relate to men who feel that way. To me it feels like something is wrong with them.
And men are encouraged to watch increasingly violent porn, which includes elements of sadism, power over others, othering, and women being permanently available without them being able to withhold consent.

But - and I know this won't be a popular opinion - women are also conditioned to have socially acceptable outlets that are lower-level abuses of power. Tribalism, being a Wendy, ostracising, criticising, bullying, organising a shunning. They are non-sexual, but still express power over others. They benefit the patriarchal system as it means women police each other.
You can see the end result, women often have to learn to value female friendships.

If men were encouraged to have less violent outlets (and porn was banned), would the majority of them change their behaviour and how many generations would it take?

I think that's a very good point, Thelnebriati. When women carry out controlling or aggressive behaviours against unconsenting people they are almost exclusively social, rather than sexual.

Regarding women flashing and groping, how many women get a sexual thrill from doing so? Or do it precisely because they get a sexual thrill from it? How many plan these assaults, or accumulate paraphernalia relevant to these types of assaults?

For the purposes of this discussion, I'm not convinced that 'but women do it, too' is relevant.

If you plot rates of male offending by age and average testosterone by age the curves are very similar, so it is likely that there is a biological component to this kind of behaviour. But comparing across societies it is clearly also modified by what society considers acceptable and unacceptable behaviour from men.

and yet some of the most extreme sadistic violence is from men with low testosterone, or even who have been castrated

I think one of the reasons fewer women flash is the risk of sexual assault as a response. But also, we know we are supposed to dress provocatively, to entice men; so flashing doesn't have the same boundary violating connotations it does for men. I think we underestimate how many men have a boundary violation fetish. Its why its such a common theme in porn - hidden cameras, incest porn.

Porn itself used to be the boundary violation, before it was mainstream and so easily available.

I got married young so nights out and hen nights with groups of girls were limited but on all the ones I did attend, we'd always have groups of young men chanting 'show us yer tits' etc.

Some girls did, some didn't. A few things twigged with me back then and they included alcohol use and personality. The girls that flashed would be drunk or had self-esteem issues. They needed the validation of males. Though, there was one girl in the group considered by both sexes as a 'stunna' who had the kind of self-confidence we all wished for. She needed no encouragement to flash.

The other thing I noticed was the attitude of what's sauce for the goose type of thing. Young women could buy Playgirl or Athena posters of sexy men, the Chippendales were touring and the Armani ads were everywhere. A small group of my friends felt under pressure to start behaving like men. This was before the Ladette culture but probably paved the way for it.

Things started getting better for women - I hadn't been allowed to take 'male' subjects like tech drawing and economics at my school but that changed a year or two later. Joan Collins was busy being a bitch and getting one over the men in Dynasty. Women were actually getting jobs out of the typing pool.

Then the misogyny of internet porn landed. I put up with sexist shit as a young woman but the crap my daughter put up with was far nastier.

I have heard that women taking lots of testosterone can make them aggressive and sexually driven. But that will only be compared to other women.

Women don’t have a strong urge to ‘get inside’ someone else’s body, for obvious reasons. We also have a strong aversion to being penetrated in anything other than optimal conditions (something men can’t seem to fathom or relate to), so even women who have taken testosterone will be able to empathise with that aversion.

Some men have weaker urges than other men and the ones who have strong urges, but don’t act upon them, have good self control.

I think men are more likely to be boundary breakers in a way, most law breakers in all offending behaviour are men as shown by the overall male v. female prison statistics for any crime.

I saw a 'flasher' when I was around 15, I still find it incomprehensible in a way why someone would be bothered to do that, why they would bother to wait in the cold the only thing I can think of is it's a bit like hunting - the hunting instinct - or like Thelnebriati said - a boundary violation fetish.

I also read somewhere that men are on average 10% more psychopathic than women which might have something to do with it.

I still find it incomprehensible in a way why someone would be bothered to do that, why they would bother to wait in the cold

i agree, but as women, we have no idea what it is like to be a man. I think most men would understand exactly why they bother to wait in the cold.

Because I would love to get my head around it, I have chatted to many men over the years about this, and men can find it frustrating how women simply don’t get it. They feel driven to do things. Sometimes they are even freaked out and mystified by the weirdness or intensity of their own urges. We women can pontificate all we like about it, but it is biological, no socialised.

Women seem to sexually abuse children sometimes.

The Swedish study of transsexuals found that transwomen had the same rate of violent offending as ordinary men (though rape specifically wasn’t looked at separately).

But,

Transmen had a higher violent offending rate than ordinary women. So perhaps testosterone had an effect there.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/