I don't think the issue is inherently about gender, and as such the invocation of rape analogies seems a bit of a stretch. On the other hand, dismissing these a

I don't think the issue is inherently about gender, and as such the invocation of rape analogies seems a bit of a stretch. On the other hand, dismissing these actions on account of the children's age seems overly naive. I remember when I was little, I liked to build things (hey, I still do!). Sand castles, cardboard contraptions, anything out of anything really. I would say I was a builder. Most of the other kids seemed apathetic to anything that didn't involve chasing each other around while screaming at the top of their lungs, but I remember a small minority of the other kids were of a different category still: they were the opposite of me. They were destroyers, and they'd come over to annihilate pretty much anything my friends or I had built. This was a pattern that lasted with variations from Kindergarten to Junior High. I'm not sure what makes a lot of kids so destructive, but they sure seem to derive joy from tormenting others. This behavior can probably fixed with parental intervention, but I agree with the author here that's generally not happening. I know this defense as "kids will be kids", and it does ring as hollow today as it did when I was little. If some kids have no morality of their own, they sure should be conditioned to at least act as if they did. Following this line of thought I would like to de-emphasize the rape aspect, though I cede that being aggressive, destructive, and domineering is certainly something that is actually expected of boys. I know, because I had a hard time being accepted as a real male by my peers throughout puberty. However, the core consequence I think is not necessarily an increased incidence of sexual assaults, but more fundamentally a toxic acceptance of destructive behavior throughout society in general.