Trigger warning for brief mentions of rape and abuse.
I recently came across (possibly via Scarleteen) this awesome report about male adolescent sexual health within the primary care setting.
According to the study, male sexual health is quite often overlooked within the clinical setting. Pediatricians are three times more likely to take sexual histories from female than from male clients and twice as likely to counsel female clients on the use of condoms. This is particularly bad, because male adolescents cite health care providers as one of their most important sources of sexual health information.
The other primary sources of sexual health education for adolescent boys are also falling down on the job. Both mothers and fathers have difficulty discussing sex with their sons, according to the paper. However, sons whose parents talk to them about sex report being closer to their parents, more comfortable talking to their parents in general, and more open about sex with their parents. In particular, gay male teens who have a supportive home environment during the coming-out process have much better psychological outcomes: without a supportive environment, they’re at risk for isolation, flunking school, substance abuse, depression, suicide, stigmatization, and a host of other negative consequences.
Sex education and HIV/AIDS prevention information is also important: it has been linked to more consistent condom use. However, as I’m sure everyone is reading this blog is aware, in America certain political forces have been waging a war on evidence-based, comprehensive sex education that says such controversial things as “if you have sex use a condom”; true sex-positive sex education that centers pleasure, enthusiastic consent, and sensible risk management is not even on the radar. Sex education is vitally important, because approximately three-quarters of male teenagers have engaged in some sexual behavior (including manual or oral sex) by graduation.
For adolescent men, puberty presents several important issues. Diseases like Klinefelter’s or Marfan syndrome may not be identified until adolescence; other issues, like gynecomastia (which occurs to between forty and sixty-five percent of male teenagers) or testicular torsion, may not appear until adolescence. Earlier-maturing boys tend to take more risks; later-maturing boys tend to be less confident and more likely to experience bullying, depression, and substance abuse.
Many young men engage in risky sexual behaviors: a quarter have used alcohol or drugs before last sex; 16% have four or more lifetime partners; 8% initiated sex before the age of 13; 28% reported no condom use at last vaginal sex; 11.1% had anal sex (which is at higher risk for STIs than PIV sex) with a female partner; 5.6% reported having sex with a sex worker or person living with HIV or often or always being high during sex. It is important to note that none of these are, in and of themselves, destructive choices; sluthood can be an awesome and fulfilling part of life. However, young men who make these choices require more guidance from sex-positive sexual health sources to make sure that they’re managing their risk and that it’s a level of risk they’re comfortable with.
But unfortunately many men are not actively choosing to participate in sex. 82% of men have experienced pressure from their friends to have sex; virgin-shaming is alive and well among men. More than half wish they had waited longer to have sex and more than one-third did not really want sex the first time it happened or had mixed feelings about it. Approximately 1 in 12 (higher for black men and those who had sex under the age of 15) were coerced into first-time sex, mostly by a female. (The percentage of men who were raped wasn’t discussed within the report.)
Men suffer from other risks. Although they only account for a quarter of the sexually active population, adolescents and young adults account of half of all new STI cases and 30% of new STI infections. Young people age 13 to 24 are estimated to account for 10% of undiagnosed cases of HIV. 7.2% of young men who have sex with men have HIV (people of color generally have higher rates than whites).
Being a survivor of dating violence is slightly more common among male (11%) than female (8%) high-school students. I know I sound like a broken record on this, but abuse and domestic violence are far more gender-equal than we think, and when we raise awareness of abuse we have to raise awareness of all kinds of abuse, not just the male-on-female kind we think of.
In addition, 1 in 8 male adolescents who have had PIV sex have impregnated a partner, and 4% are fathers. Because of lacking or inaccurate documentation of paternal age on birth certificates, the percentage might actually be much higher. Teaching adolescents pregnancy avoidance methods is a clear necessity.
The use of condoms by adolescent men, particularly men of color, is rising, with 70% reporting condom use at both first and most recent sex. However, less than half report consistent condom use. Barriers include embarrassment while buying them, reduced physical sensation, incorrect use, and inability to plan or discuss it with one’s partner. 10% use the withdrawal method which, while better than nothing, is not protection as good as a barrier method or hormonal contraception. Only a quarter use two methods (i.e. condoms with hormonal birth control). Young men are less likely to use condoms if the male’s partner used a contraception method, if the man is an older adolescent, and during a casual first sexual encounter. Adolescents who discuss contraception before sex, use dual contraception methods, and wait longer after beginning a relationship to have sex are more likely to use condoms. Men and white teenagers are less likely to discuss contraception and STIs before losing their virginity than women and people of color are.
Adolescent men experience many barriers to getting proper sexual health care. After losing their virginity, many men do not think about preventative care; traditional masculine beliefs preclude young men from seeking care even if they have symptoms. Young cis women tend to get reproductive health care from their gynecologists; young cis men do not have access. Shame, denial, fear, stigma, lack of social support, lack of confidential services, lack of health care, and not knowing where to go for care can place significant barriers in front of men getting treatment for STIs.
This is a great post, very useful information, especially as a parent of boys, but why on earth is an MRA being allowed to troll and derail?
I feel like a lot of this is chicken-and-egg stuff tbh.
Also from the report Ozymandia42 refers to in the original post(page 6 in the PDF zie linked to):
Continuing to only frame prevention programs directed at youths as initiatives to end violence against women and girls is in my view sliding closer and closer to being considered enablement as more and more research starts to show a totally different picture than the programs paint. Will the programs change? I hope so.
Incidentally, and bringing this conversation back on topic, that is the sort of thing I have always found to be a problem with the way our society educates men about sex and sexual health. First of all, the most important thing is, there is no focus on what’s good for the men, because the first thing that anybody ever things about is how these guys could totally screw everything up for someone else. So the approach to sex ed is to teach men all about how dangerous they are as males. You give them long lists of things to look… Read more »
I pointed out one example where it would be rape and one where it wouldn’t. Agreed. And I think Mens Rea has a lot to do with the distinction. It’s not rape unless there is Mens Rea. Noone foresaw that would happen, not your partner when she consented in advance and not you when you performed the sex act – but the damage is still done I’m honestly not going to live my life worrying about stuff like that. What if I bake a cake and she’s allergic to vanilla but nobody knew because she never had vanilla before and… Read more »
Enthusiastic consent has troublesome aspects and I think Hugh Rustik comment mentions some of the troublesome aspects. That’s the reason why I didn’t mention enthusastic consent in any of my comments, but replied to one specific example you mentioned where you said having sex with someone asleep (or half asleep which is a term which cover a wide range of awareness) is not rape. I pointed out one example where it would be rape and one where it wouldn’t. The absolutely minimum requirement in my book is that a person is given the opportunity to stop any sexual activity if… Read more »
@Tamen, I understand your negative reaction and you can actually count me in as someone who would also have a negative reaction to that. Just so we’re on the same page. Where we’re not on the same page is what the doctrine of Enthusiastic Consent actually says about the scenario. I would change the name of the doctrine, perhaps, and myself I would call it the doctrine of Enthusiastic Double-Checking Everything and put in a corollary called Everyone Is Guilty Of Rape No Matter How Hard They Try Not To. By introducing this as a standard, someone is bound to… Read more »
In Norway a woman in 2005 got convicted for rape and sentenced to 9 months in prison (the state asked for 10 months) for performing a blow job on a sleeping man. Her boyfriend were also present in the room and watched. She first claimed no sexual contact had happened. When DNA from her were found on his genitalia and underwear she claimed that he consented – that he had moaned during the act and that he smiled at her afterward just after he woke up. This case were reported a lot in international media as well as national media… Read more »
Note: If your going to have sex while sleeping check your local jurisdiction’s sexual assault laws. While I’m not a lawyer, I think my state says its sexual assault to have sex with a sleeping person without any mention of if they consented or not.
Assange is incredibly off-topic. If you want to discuss the Assange case, please go to the Open Thread. Any further discussion of Assange in this particular thread will be spamfiltered. I have a post in the works about enthusiastic consent; Hugh, I agree with your critiques of the enthusiastic consent concept and personally prefer the term “good consent,” but since I haven’t actually posted the what-is-good-consent post yet, I chose the term “enthusiastic consent” so people would get what I’m talking about. 🙂 Dungone, mens rea affects rape in the legal sense– obviously, one should not convict people who were… Read more »
@The_L, okay, I have no idea where you’re coming from but I’m going to respond by asking you what you think this means: “true sex-positive sex education that centers pleasure, enthusiastic consent, and sensible risk management.” Does this mean that Ozy considers “true sex-positive sex education” to include enthusiastic consent? Or does it not? Because I was responding to what Ozy said she considered “true” sex-positive sex ed. What were you responding to based on what I said? I’m a little baffled.
So your basically saying women are wrong for saying that conducting sexual activity on someone who has not consented is rape @Mysti, if that’s the only criteria for saying that it’s rape, then yes, definitely, they are wrong. Simply saying that the woman did not consent to sex is missing the “mens rea” element which is considered a necessary element of a crime. According to Wikipedia, it stems from the Latin phrase actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which translates to “the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty”. Without this key… Read more »
@dungone:By “not even on the radar,” Ozy means that it isn’t there and the Powers That Be won’t even consider it, not that it’s accepted and going on all the time. This is a common expression. I’m surprised you don’t know what it means. And…wow. You had sex ed? At all? And you live here in the US? You don’t realize how lucky you are–I lived in a state where we weren’t even taught where babies come from, much less anything about birth control or what our periods were all about. My most recent ex had no idea that there… Read more »
Solo, my understanding was also that penetration was involved while she was still asleep. Yeah. Not at all ok.
Dungone,
So your basically saying women are wrong for saying that conducting sexual activity on someone who has not consented is rape? Even though the same exact laws apply to women’s behaviour, your are intent that this is some way of screwing men over, that is a horrific display of misogyny and your entire argument is victim-blaming bullshit.
@dungone You probably want to read up on the Assange case some more. AFAIK he tried to engage intercourse while she was asleep. Also let’s fix the laws to put female rapists in jail, not complain about how Assange may or may not be innocent because some people(or laws) think rapists are mostly men. Side note, in Texas the HPV vaccine was to be offered only to girls even though it is being projected that the number of cases (mostly in men) of HPV caused throat cancers will exceed cervical cancers within this decade. Given that men and women are… Read more »
@dungone, I’m sorry I offended, let’s break it down. And if you don’t have a penis, then what? You have absolutely no control over what gets put into your vagina? No dude that was my point! Nuva Rings, Depo shots, female condoms, diaphragms, hormone spirals, the regular old pill – women have a ton of options for birth control. For guys it is mostly just condoms. Maybe this is actually a product of my female socialization that I need to be responsible for contraception, but to be quite honest if I imagine a future where a guy tries to tell… Read more »
@dungone, I think enthusiastic consent is a great goal. It’s my personal goal: I would like people to be enthusiastic about being sexual with me. The concept of enthusiastic consent was created to discourage coerced sex, pressured sex, and unwanted sex. Unwanted sex isn’t necessarily coercion (for instance, someone can willingly go along with sex that they don’t particularly want), but it’s still undesirable in the vast majority of cases. The problems occur when enthusiastic consent is made a moral requirement. That makes no sense, because there is actually a wide zone of sex that someone can want, or even… Read more »
Pediatricians are three times more likely to take sexual histories from female than from male clients and twice as likely to counsel female clients on the use of condoms. My boyfriend and I were going to do the whole “let’s get tested before we go unprotected” thing. So my boyfriend went to the campus health clinic and asked for an STD test, and apparently insurance won’t pay for it unless he thinks there’s some reason why he *would* have an STD, like if he had had a lot of partners lately (he hadn’t) or if he knew he’d been exposed.… Read more »
<blockquote. Honestly, if a man said he didn’t want unprotected sex and a suddenly found a woman enveloping him the next morning you’d be (rightfully) screaming ‘child support extracting rapist’.
Unfortunately when it comes to the legal system, she would neither be charged for rape nor denied child support from him. Even if she was an adult and he was a child.
Come on dungone, there’s a big difference between a light tickle or fondle in bed and engaging in an act that was explicitly forbidden the night before. Elaborate please? How does this relate to the Assange case. I thought it was more along the lines of a light tickle or fondle in bed. I was told that this constitutes rape, or at the very least sexual assault. I also heard that they had sex before. I also heard that regardless of what had actually happened, the woman did not consider herself to have been raped – this was a conclusion… Read more »
@f, wow, not sure where to begin… Anyway, here is what is logic fail-y about that for me – currently if you’ve got a penis, you have one fairly reliable birth control method over which you have full control. Not to mention that it also functions as a decent STD barrier. And if you don’t have a penis, then what? You have absolutely no control over what gets put into your vagina? It seems to me that as far as condom use is concerned, it presents the same exact option to both men and women. Women, who do not wish… Read more »
@Dungone: I am not interested into going into the particulars about Assange case as any of us only can make assumptions based on who we trust most of the involved parties who were involved and who gives different accounts of what happens. However, we can talk in general. If one nudge someone else and say “wake up, let’s have sex…” and they wake up and say “ok” then it’s not rape, or if they turn around and initiate some sexual act and it progresses from there then it’s not rape. If they just stirr and say “nnnnnnhhhh” or some other… Read more »
@dungone Come on dungone, there’s a big difference between a light tickle or fondle in bed and engaging in an act that was explicitly forbidden the night before. Luckily more DAs and Judges know how to spot that difference. Honestly, if a man said he didn’t want unprotected sex and a suddenly found a woman enveloping him the next morning you’d be (rightfully) screaming ‘child support extracting rapist’. The whole Assange thing has nothing to do with grey areas of enthusiastic consent*. * Of course assuming that everything is as the media says it is. I learned from DSK and… Read more »
@Tamen, that’s not what I heard. I heard she wasn’t “fully” awake, which is some kind of nonsense that assumes that she was incapable of saying “no” until she got the crud out of her eyes. According to the interpretation that I heard, then if I were to nudge your shoulder and say “wake up, let’s have sex…” then that would count as rape because I initiated sex before you were fully awake.