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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Non-consensual sexual activities

60 replies

JellySaurus · 16/02/2023 10:05

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?

OP posts:
JellySaurus · 16/02/2023 16:19

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.

Why?

They feel driven to do things. Sometimes they are even freaked out and mystified by the weirdness or intensity of their own urges.

Why?

Does it all boil down to testosterone + masculine socialisation? But then why do a substantial proportion of men not do these things?

OP posts:
Transparent2 · 16/02/2023 16:24

JellySaurus · 16/02/2023 16:19

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.

Why?

They feel driven to do things. Sometimes they are even freaked out and mystified by the weirdness or intensity of their own urges.

Why?

Does it all boil down to testosterone + masculine socialisation? But then why do a substantial proportion of men not do these things?

Socialisation isn’t the same for all men (or all women). For example, I was brought up not to retaliate physically, whereas I have often heard parents encourage their child (usually in my experience their son) to punch back.

EndlessTea · 16/02/2023 16:33

Does it all boil down to testosterone + masculine socialisation?

Men are not just women with testosterone and masculine socialisation.

They have an entirely different set of instincts than us which relate to procreation and competition with other men.

They also have penises. They have the urge to stick them in things. They ejaculate, they have the urge to ejaculate on or in things.

why do a substantial proportion of men not do these things?

Not all men have equally strong urges. These urges can also be sublimated into other things. Many men have obsessive hobbies and interests where they can draw upon huge reserves of energy. Often men can turn almost anything into a competition, and this completely mystifies women. Even cleaning for goodness sake. They call it ‘detailing’.

DarkDayforMN · 16/02/2023 16:34

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

this. Rates of male violence against men follow the age-testosterone curve like other criminality.

Male violence against women is a different beast. There isn’t less of it in countries such as South Korea where there is less crime. The offenders keep offending across their life cycle. It seems clear that flashers, voyeurs, nonces and rapists aren’t driven by testosterone.

nepeta · 16/02/2023 17:25

It's probably impossible (at this time) to undo the knot of the many and various influences which are probably working at the same time, i.e., what is biology-based, what is cultural in a wider sense, and what is caused by more narrowly-defined social norms about how men are allowed to behave in various societies and who it is who is supposed to be responsible for that behaviour.

In some cultures, most probably, it has been women, ultimately, who have been held responsible for most types of rapes because women are expected to gatekeep sex and so the way women behave or dress etc. is put under more scrutiny, while "boys will be boys" is often the excuse in some form or another. This is still very much the norm in some sub-cultures and in some countries, too, which means that men don't necessarily expect negative consequences from their non-consensual behaviour.

I'd look at general violent crime statistics and sexual violent crime statistics to begin with. Men are more violent overall than women, and not just when it comes to sexual crimes. So men use physical violence more as a way of solving what they see as problems or as a form of satisfying their wants or needs.

But most men are not violent, so clearly whatever is driving this is not unavoidable or immutable, and a small percentage of women are also physically violent. Average strength differences matter here, too, and is one reason why angry women are less likely to punch a man who has angered her as he might punch back much harder. Words are women's weapons, more likely,

The differences in the rates of sexual paraphilias and sexual violence are also hard to parse, because girls even today are not brought up with the kind of entitlement to sex as many boys are. Female incels exist, probably in quite large numbers, but they don't gather online to hate on the whole male sex or to demand that the government gives them boyfriends or toyboys. I think this is because they don't think they are entitled to have dates or sex.

But there's probably a biological component to this, too, though once again, most men don't practise exhibitionism or voyeurism either. Some argue that female strippers are exhibitionists, but it's difficult to tell when they are paid for it if that would be one of the reasons they strip. I doubt it, actually.

It's so easy to forget how recent all the changes in how we view rape are and I try to remind myself of that, because many of the implicit values in our societies are still from the older era where how a woman dressed and how many sexual partners she had had affected the outcome of a rape trial where she was the victim of rape. If those values actually change then we would be in a better position to evaluate the question for these sex differences.

Though I'd also argue that if women could easily force men to have sex they would still have the concern of a possible unwanted pregnancy and the possibility that the men will physically fight back etc. Abstract desire is very different from actual deeds here.

ScrollingLeaves · 16/02/2023 20:15

EndlessTea · Today 16:33
”Does it all boil down to testosterone + masculine socialisation”?

Men are not just women with testosterone and masculine socialisation.

They have an entirely different set of instincts than us which relate to procreation and competition with other men.

They also have penises. They have the urge to stick them in things. They ejaculate, they have the urge to ejaculate on or in things.

why do a substantial proportion of men not do these things?

Not all men have equally strong urges. These urges can also be sublimated into other things. Many men have obsessive hobbies and interests where they can draw upon huge reserves of energy. Often men can turn almost anything into a competition, and this completely mystifies women. Even cleaning for goodness sake. They call it ‘detailing’.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but also you have really made me smile about the sublimation and ‘detailing’!

Apropos the idea of sublimated sexual energy, (which isn’t favoured as an ideal nowadays but I think it was at one point), does anyone know if there is any evidence about all men’s current heavy porn consumption affecting their direction of their energy ?

DarkDayforMN · 16/02/2023 20:33

Apropos the idea of sublimated sexual energy, (which isn’t favoured as an ideal nowadays but I think it was at one point), does anyone know if there is any evidence about all men’s current heavy porn consumption affecting their direction of their energy ?

"NoFap" is a thing - online men convinced that quitting porn and masturbation (disturbingly, they don't differentiate these) is giving them superpowers. (Unclear what said superpowers are - I think in many cases, it's the willpower to tidy their rooms?)

EndlessTea · 16/02/2023 20:41

I’ve been mulling this issue over and I think this thread is a bit like a ‘reverse Aristotle’. He thought women are basically failed, dickless men. In a way all this ‘women pontificating about men’ is viewing them as though they are failed, cuntless women. (Ftr I do have my tongue in my cheek - I know it isn’t equivalent in offensiveness).

Both women and men have procreative drives, and because women are evolved to nurture helpless young, we don’t tend to be wildly violent like men. Males are evolved to be violent. Their cheekbones, jawbones and foreheads are thicker and stronger to be able to fight each other without serious injury, for example.

Anyway, sometimes our procreative drives can go a bit wrong. Just as not every mother will chemically castrate her son and keep him as her forever child, not every man will set up webcams in women’s changing rooms.

EndlessTea · 16/02/2023 20:42

Unclear what said superpowers are - I think in many cases, it's the willpower to tidy their rooms?

😂

ScrollingLeaves · 16/02/2023 22:13

DarkDayforMN · Today 20:33
"NoFap" is a thing - online men convinced that quitting porn and masturbation (disturbingly, they don't differentiate these) is giving them superpowers. (Unclear what said superpowers are - I think in many cases, it's the willpower to tidy their rooms?

As Endless has brought up Ancient Greece, maybe like Hercules in those pre-internet porn days, cleaning the Augean stables.

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