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If you have young boys in your life then teach them that it's ok to feel and express their emotions, and as they get older that their sexual self need not be fr

If you have young boys in your life then teach them that it's ok to feel and express their emotions, and as they get older that their sexual self need not be frightening and that sex can exist outside of narratives of domination.

appplication 9mo ago
> that their sexual self need not be frightening and that sex can exist outside of narratives of domination This makes a ton of sense but the language needs so much work here to be digested into a real conversation by your average parent, let alone preteen/teenager.
zahlman 9mo ago
This requires them to have spaces where they can express themselves sexually without the fear that male sexuality will be judged as inherently violent or oppressive. I've lost count of the times I've seen women praised while men were castigated, in the same space, for expressing any kind of honest sexual preference.
- AlecSchueler 9mo ago
  Yes, that's the issue I'm highlighting. We have to teach the next generation differently. Be the safe space
  - Der_Einzige 9mo ago
    Why should we lie to them? Nearly all NSFW content takes the most extreme forms of taboos related to social oppression and ratchets them up well past 11. Almost no one in the USA can even begin to relate to sex in ways that don't involve "domination", or "race", or some weird Freudian familial relation, etc. Ultimately, we need to begin by destigmatizing the male libido. Simply saying "male desire is good and it's fine to have it" is literally heretical anywhere except among gay men. Men never got any kind of sexual liberation. Young boys need only to look at their own usually mutilated manhoods to see what modern society thanks of their desire. To even begin to teach them that they can relate to sex without domination, first teach them that their own desires are not evil.
    - zahlman 9mo ago
      > Nearly all NSFW content takes the most extreme forms of taboos related to social oppression ... what? No, that's a niche that you'd have to go out of your way to find. > Young boys need only to look at their own usually mutilated manhoods to see what modern society thanks of their desire. I assume you refer to circumcision. Maybe it's "usual" in your country. In Canada it's the minority condition: https://cps.ca/en/documents/position/circumcision https://cps.ca/en/documents/position/circumcision
    - AlecSchueler 9mo ago
      > Nearly all NSFW content takes the most extreme forms of taboos related to social oppression and ratchets them up well past 11. Almost no one in the USA can even begin to relate to sex in ways that don't involve "domination", or "race", or some weird Freudian familial relation, etc. Yes, we live in a patriarchal society. That same patriarchy is at the core of our modern loneliness. Teaching young people that "it doesn't have to be this way" isn't lying. Telling them it's the natural order of things is the lie that ultimately tears people apart because their bodies know differently. > To even begin to teach them that they can relate to sex without domination, first teach them that their own desires are not evil. This is exactly what I was saying.
- Melonai 9mo ago
  It's an annoyingly double-edged issue, and one that I believe neither side of the political spectrum (speaking in very broad strokes here) has addressed well at all. Though I usually consider myself progressive (to an annoying degree to some), the progressive "answer" to young men right now on how to find friends and partners is essentially something like: > You should just be yourself! > But, if you aren't practically perfect and even slightly express your social and physical needs you are a monster. > But, even if you are perfect, we reserve the right to hate you based on experiences with other people of your gender, or because of your privilege, even though you probably have never felt it, and we're also allowed to make fun of you because of said privilege, since making fun of you is "punching up". > Also, you also should accept that you will *always* be considered a threat to half the population due to how you were born, and if you don't accept that or even try to prove the opposite, that makes you even more dangerous. > If you aren't happy with this you are an incel, and don't even mention the word "misandry", that's not a thing. The only way to change this is to either be gay or transition into a woman. Obviously I'm employing a bit of hyperbole for emphasis and this is also me trying to empathize with what it's like being a boy right now despite lacking first-hand experience. Luckily, most women do not feel this way about men, but I've heard all of this said by my friends at one time or another (and I might have said something similar myself during my weaker moments, when I was upset). Meanwhile the hardliners on the opposite side of the spectrum espouse the idea that actually men should be evil because it's manly. That women are lesser to them and that patriarchy is super cool actually. See Andrew Tate as an example, who has captured the ears of millions of teenage boys around the world. At first it's hard to comprehend why his ideology speaks to them, but you have to remember that most of them are just entering the time of their life where they have to figure themselves out, where they have to, for the first time in their life, find friendship, respect and companionship on their own outside of the family or the playground. And after all, everyone wants to be loved and respected in some way, and Andrew Tate offers them an answer: You can be an asshole and still be loved and respected, while the leftie answer tells them that you can be as perfect as you like, but you probably still won't be loved and respected, and if you fuck up, don't expect any grace. And now the question is what should society actually do so that both young men and young women can find a harmonious place in it? I think really the only answer is to stop playing the blame game, stop trying to make one side the constant bad guy and scapegoat, try to comprehend that we are all equally human, and that whatever a person's gender is doesn't give you the right to be shitty to them. I don't know, maybe this is simply another utopian idea, of men and women living together in perfect unison, never being mean to each other. I think we should still strive to achieve some sort of balance, but sadly I don't really see an easy answer to this. Sorry for this long rant, I've wanted to put this into words for a while. Occasionally I think about how bad it must be being a teenage boy right now, the thought scares me and I feel lucky not being one. Every time I read another woman saying that she's afraid of every man on the street walking in proximity to her, and every time it's dark out and I hear a man behind me and I get physically afraid, I think, what if I was a man and she was afraid for her life because of me? Just because I exist in the space next to her? Just because of a random coin-flip during my conception? And it feels awful. I don't want anyone to go through that.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
olalonde 9mo ago
I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion. The loneliness epidemic is relatively recent, and unless I'm misunderstanding you, this isn't something young boys were taught in the past.
- globular-toast 9mo ago
  It's more that they need to unlearn what society has been telling them for the past couple of decades. Young boys in the past weren't brought up being essentially told they are monsters and that expressing preferences is "objectifying women" etc.
- AlecSchueler 9mo ago
  No, we taught them the opposite, and they grew up to build the lonely world we're all living in now.

appplication 9mo ago

> that their sexual self need not be frightening and that sex can exist outside of narratives of domination This makes a ton of sense but the language needs so much work here to be digested into a real conversation by your average parent, let alone preteen/teenager.

zahlman 9mo ago

This requires them to have spaces where they can express themselves sexually without the fear that male sexuality will be judged as inherently violent or oppressive. I've lost count of the times I've seen women praised while men were castigated, in the same space, for expressing any kind of honest sexual preference.

AlecSchueler 9mo ago
Yes, that's the issue I'm highlighting. We have to teach the next generation differently. Be the safe space
- Der_Einzige 9mo ago
  Why should we lie to them? Nearly all NSFW content takes the most extreme forms of taboos related to social oppression and ratchets them up well past 11. Almost no one in the USA can even begin to relate to sex in ways that don't involve "domination", or "race", or some weird Freudian familial relation, etc. Ultimately, we need to begin by destigmatizing the male libido. Simply saying "male desire is good and it's fine to have it" is literally heretical anywhere except among gay men. Men never got any kind of sexual liberation. Young boys need only to look at their own usually mutilated manhoods to see what modern society thanks of their desire. To even begin to teach them that they can relate to sex without domination, first teach them that their own desires are not evil.
  - zahlman 9mo ago
    > Nearly all NSFW content takes the most extreme forms of taboos related to social oppression ... what? No, that's a niche that you'd have to go out of your way to find. > Young boys need only to look at their own usually mutilated manhoods to see what modern society thanks of their desire. I assume you refer to circumcision. Maybe it's "usual" in your country. In Canada it's the minority condition: https://cps.ca/en/documents/position/circumcision https://cps.ca/en/documents/position/circumcision
  - AlecSchueler 9mo ago
    > Nearly all NSFW content takes the most extreme forms of taboos related to social oppression and ratchets them up well past 11. Almost no one in the USA can even begin to relate to sex in ways that don't involve "domination", or "race", or some weird Freudian familial relation, etc. Yes, we live in a patriarchal society. That same patriarchy is at the core of our modern loneliness. Teaching young people that "it doesn't have to be this way" isn't lying. Telling them it's the natural order of things is the lie that ultimately tears people apart because their bodies know differently. > To even begin to teach them that they can relate to sex without domination, first teach them that their own desires are not evil. This is exactly what I was saying.
Melonai 9mo ago
It's an annoyingly double-edged issue, and one that I believe neither side of the political spectrum (speaking in very broad strokes here) has addressed well at all. Though I usually consider myself progressive (to an annoying degree to some), the progressive "answer" to young men right now on how to find friends and partners is essentially something like: > You should just be yourself! > But, if you aren't practically perfect and even slightly express your social and physical needs you are a monster. > But, even if you are perfect, we reserve the right to hate you based on experiences with other people of your gender, or because of your privilege, even though you probably have never felt it, and we're also allowed to make fun of you because of said privilege, since making fun of you is "punching up". > Also, you also should accept that you will *always* be considered a threat to half the population due to how you were born, and if you don't accept that or even try to prove the opposite, that makes you even more dangerous. > If you aren't happy with this you are an incel, and don't even mention the word "misandry", that's not a thing. The only way to change this is to either be gay or transition into a woman. Obviously I'm employing a bit of hyperbole for emphasis and this is also me trying to empathize with what it's like being a boy right now despite lacking first-hand experience. Luckily, most women do not feel this way about men, but I've heard all of this said by my friends at one time or another (and I might have said something similar myself during my weaker moments, when I was upset). Meanwhile the hardliners on the opposite side of the spectrum espouse the idea that actually men should be evil because it's manly. That women are lesser to them and that patriarchy is super cool actually. See Andrew Tate as an example, who has captured the ears of millions of teenage boys around the world. At first it's hard to comprehend why his ideology speaks to them, but you have to remember that most of them are just entering the time of their life where they have to figure themselves out, where they have to, for the first time in their life, find friendship, respect and companionship on their own outside of the family or the playground. And after all, everyone wants to be loved and respected in some way, and Andrew Tate offers them an answer: You can be an asshole and still be loved and respected, while the leftie answer tells them that you can be as perfect as you like, but you probably still won't be loved and respected, and if you fuck up, don't expect any grace. And now the question is what should society actually do so that both young men and young women can find a harmonious place in it? I think really the only answer is to stop playing the blame game, stop trying to make one side the constant bad guy and scapegoat, try to comprehend that we are all equally human, and that whatever a person's gender is doesn't give you the right to be shitty to them. I don't know, maybe this is simply another utopian idea, of men and women living together in perfect unison, never being mean to each other. I think we should still strive to achieve some sort of balance, but sadly I don't really see an easy answer to this. Sorry for this long rant, I've wanted to put this into words for a while. Occasionally I think about how bad it must be being a teenage boy right now, the thought scares me and I feel lucky not being one. Every time I read another woman saying that she's afraid of every man on the street walking in proximity to her, and every time it's dark out and I hear a man behind me and I get physically afraid, I think, what if I was a man and she was afraid for her life because of me? Just because I exist in the space next to her? Just because of a random coin-flip during my conception? And it feels awful. I don't want anyone to go through that.

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

olalonde 9mo ago

I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion. The loneliness epidemic is relatively recent, and unless I'm misunderstanding you, this isn't something young boys were taught in the past.

globular-toast 9mo ago
It's more that they need to unlearn what society has been telling them for the past couple of decades. Young boys in the past weren't brought up being essentially told they are monsters and that expressing preferences is "objectifying women" etc.
AlecSchueler 9mo ago
No, we taught them the opposite, and they grew up to build the lonely world we're all living in now.