How can we help prevent sexual assault in the future? Teach every child not to rape. Zach Rosenberg and his son are starting early.
“Because that’s rape,” I answered, matter-of-factly.
“What’s rape?” my four year-old son asked as he lined strawberries along the edge of his plate, the breeze outside pushing through our windows as the blinds scratched against the window sills. We could hear the sounds of his cartoons pouring around the corner from the living room. My son never looked up as I explained, in simple terms, why it isn’t right to force yourself onto someone else.
I always wonder if I’m speaking over my four year old’s head. My wife used to tell me that I spoke to my god daughter, and then our own son, like they were teenagers—no baby talk, no funny voices. Real talk. We now attribute that as one of the reasons our son forms oddly complex sentences and ideas, but hey, we’re also just proud parents.
But this was the first time I’d breached the topic of rape with my son.
It wasn’t rape that we were really talking about per se. By definitions, it was probably sexual assault, but I strangely felt more comfortable using the R-word than the S-word with my son.
Here’s how it all started: you know how preschoolers think they’ve got a girlfriend or boyfriend at school? And if the families know each other, it becomes the (*cough*) moms’ obsession to get them to hold hands, hug and kiss? Well, our son has always been very physically loving to his mother and I, which we adore. Nothing’s better than my son hugging and kissing me. But I never really like the idea of kids kissing each other. They’re playing house; they’re copying what they see everywhere. And sometimes, they’re fulfilling the wishes of parents who scramble for their iPhones to take adorbs Facebook photos. Innocent, right?
Before lunch that day, my son told me that his girlfriend was no longer his friend. It was her idea, he insisted. I let it go for a while, as he told me about his new friend (another girl) and how they were going to get married. I told my son to just be friends. We sat down at the table and as he eyed his strawberries, holding each one up in the midday light, he said again that his girlfriend didn’t want to be his friend.
“Why doesn’t she want to be your friend?”
“She didn’t like that I kissed her,” my son says, pushing his index finger into the middle of a strawberry.
“Well, did you ask her first? Or did you just try to kiss her?” He looks up and takes a bite, nonchalantly saying within a shrug “I just tried.”
“Oh, well, dude, you can’t do that,” I say, thinking this will end here.
“Why not?”
That was when I dropped the R-word.
After I explain, the world is still the same. The cartoons are still on, the strawberries are still lined up on his plate. My wife is still out doing an errand. Nothing’s changed, except I’ve started a meaningful conversation about rape with my son. He’s four, but he understands right and wrong. Kids just want to mimic their parents; my son sees me kiss my wife whenever I get it in my head to do so, and sees that she welcomes it. So, he, in turn, thinks that he can kiss the girl that the whole school staff had confirmed one day to my wife and I was his girlfriend.
Later, I know, we’ll be having deeper conversations about sexual assault and rape. Part of being a man is respecting women. This isn’t a feminism thing or a men’s rights violation. My son is already interested in girls as girlfriends and wives (no, really, he dropped this one on me later that day). He doesn’t know about sex, but he knows about kissing and hugging. And that’s our entry point into the conversation. Glen Canning recently made a statement about his daughter Rehtaeh Parsons. She was a Canadian teen who was raped and bullied until she hung herself. She lived through it, but was hospitalized and died Canning’s letter, “Rehtaeh Parsons Was My Daughter” is a tough read. He mourns a wonderful father-daughter relationship, cut short. He wonders how the Canadian police can’t find enough evidence for the case, while the perpetrators have traded photos around the school that prompted other boys to send lewd texts to Rehtaeh and girls to call her terrible names.
Canning says his daughter was disappointed to death; “the court system in Nova Scotia,” says Canning, “was just going to rape her all over again with indifference to her suffering and the damage this did to her.”
My heart hurts for Canning and Rehtaeh’s mother. And as a father of a son, I don’t know how I could raise a daughter and have to tell her one day to “be careful” as she left for a party or a friend’s house. I don’t know how I could understand why I’d be buying her pepper spray “just in case,” knowing that if if it came down to it, it would likely be turned on her by an attacker. I’m not cut out for raising a girl with headlines like the ones telling Rehtaeh Parsons’ story.
Rape has been all over the headlines lately, and because of that, on my mind lately. During the long and arduous Steubenville rape case, a mom blogger friend of mine had written an article I was sure I’d hate based on the title alone. Eve Vawter’s piece, “It’s Official, Rape Is No Longer A Girl Problem, It’s A Boy Problem. So Shut Up About Girls ‘Preventing’ Rape,” discusses the dystopian reality we’re in where men rape but we educate women on how to not get raped.
While the reported and accepted statistics show that men are more often the aggressors in sexual assault, we see few classes for men about, frankly, not raping. We see plenty of women’s self-defense and rape prevention classes. When I first read Vawter’s piece, I was infuriated. As a dad blogger and a mild nightwatchman for men’s rights, I immediately take offense to sweeping generalizations and dogmatic misandry. But as I read more, I got past my own feelings. I thought back to the last time I was in an organized group that was telling men, directly, not to rape women.
High school.
It was part of the then-evolving “Becoming a Man” class at my all-boys, Catholic high school. A mix of religious, morality and sexuality topics rolled into one class, it fielded the topic of respecting women, and the decisions to make if you were to ever have doubts about a woman’s willingness to engage in sexual activity. My best friend actually ended up teaching the class years later, and now at a different (charter) school, says he still fields the rape topic with his male students. “Ethics should be taught across the board,” he told me, adding, “rape is a crime of power not passion—so we teach it as a manifestation of tyrannical behavior.”
Now here’s something that will really bake your noodle: three priests from my old Catholic high school were accused of sexual abuse. At least one admitted guilt, and another had been arrested years later for assaulting a boy at a bus stop. I’ll just leave that there.
Convicted Steubenville rapist Ma’lik Richmond’s lawyer is planning to appeal the guilty verdict because – he says – at 16 years old, his client’s brain isn’t fully developed, and as such, he might not understand that rape is wrong.
My son, all of four years old, is chewing his last strawberry mouthful as I finish my definition of rape and sexual assault, and my explanation of why forcing himself onto a girl—even his “girlfriend”, even just a kiss—is wrong. He gets it. His brain is far from fully-developed, but he nods as my sentence trails off and my hands fall back down to the table. “Okay, daddy. I won’t do it anymore,” he says. He slides off of his chair and gallops back to his cartoons.
I know my son didn’t rape his preschool ex-”girlfriend.” And in all liklihood, he didn’t sexually assault her either. But when she let him know that she didn’t like him kissing her, it opened up our first conversation on the topic. And though I’m not completely sure I’m speaking on his level, I know I’d rather speak to him now so he knows that this is a topic between us. The rougher road lies ahead, but I’ve paved the first block and that’s what matters.
Also read:
The Healthy Sex Talk: Teaching Consent, Ages 1-21
A Letter to My Son About Consent
Photo courtesy of the author
Heck, I’m still struggling with a 4 year old having an “ex-girlfriend” which means they must have had a boyfriend girlfriend relationship for a while….. ¼ of his life maybe = 1 year? What about teaching a child about “friendships” … how many people are so against a little boy innocently kissing a little girl but have nothing to say about his having an “ex-girlfriend?” I can only speak to where I live, boy/girlfriends are not acceptable. How about starting there? Ohhhh, isn’t it cute, they’re boy/girl friends …. Holding hand and ooooops, he tried to kiss her ..SHE didn’t… Read more »
By the way, Tom, I actually really agree with you about the problematic nature of calling boy/girl friendships with small children “girlfriends” or “boyfriends”. I think our society has put this weird romanticized notion on children for too long, and it has affected the way we see people of different genders.
I’m not criticizing Zach, I’m just making a general statement about society. I wrote about this in my post The Healthy Sex Talk, too.
They really are all just friendships. Even if they have “special feelings” for one boy or one girl, they’re still just friendships.
I think it’s weird when adults are romanticising children’s relationships. I think it’s actually quite natural when it’s kids imitating adult relationships…and I think there’s a big difference. I had “boyfriends” when I was in grade school (yes, even as young as Zach’s kid), in large part because that’s what I saw in adults. Kids imitate adults; it’s part of how they learn. If anything, the fact that kids imitate adults by having opposite-sex “boyfriends” and “girlfriends,” says a hell of a lot about how focused adults are on romantic relationships…and a lack of opposite-sex friendships (as well as a… Read more »
“I’m going over to my 3 ½ year old grandsons house for dinner tonight. I can’t even imagine this conversation with him.” Which is precisely the problem. We shelter children too much in this culture…so much that before we realise it, children have become adults who still don’t quite understand how to interact with the “opposite sex.” My parents are actually quite conservative when it comes to sex, but I had the big “sex talk” with my mother when I was 5-years old. It didn’t traumatize me. It was just one more piece of information I had. More importantly, when… Read more »
I think everyone’s hate directed to Zach because he used the word “rape,” is pretty telling. Our culture hates the word so much, we’ve made it taboo…we can’t even talk about it. Zach started a conversation with his child explaining that unwanted sexual touching is rape, and a bunch of people read that and think Zach has accused his child of being a rapist. The fact that Zach dared to speak about this taboo subject with his child causes people to fear for the psychological well-being of his kid. Zach didn’t punish his child, or publicly shame his child. He… Read more »
Thank you for this piece of rational discourse. All of it.
Thank you for this piece. It was a brave exploration of the difficult but vital conversations that we need to be having with young boys and men. Try, if you can, to ignore the hate. You are working hard to introduce your son to some vital conversations about sexual violence, and I admire you for that. Regardless of what some of the haters may say, yes, we DO need to teach men not to rape. We need to teach ALL people not to commit sexual violence, but there’s no way around it: men commit the vast majority of sexual assault,… Read more »
That should be easy, for those who are already so practiced at ignoring criticism of “Rape Culture”.
Agreed Jamie. This little child didn’t rape anyone, no. But the action of acting physically on someone without consent especially in gendered relationships is important to discuss. Parents have a huge long slog ahead of them. We’ll make mistakes in how we discuss sex and consent and assault, mostly because no one has taught us how. I try to keep this quote in mind all the time when I think about people and bodies and how I work/play/interact with people. ““Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.” Immanuel Kant ”… Read more »
Placing concepts of extreme violence and gender judgements on a four-year old is wrong and unnecessary. Any psychologist will tell you that boys and girls kissing each other is a healthy and natural process of socialization. Violence is violence. Affection is affection. Equating one with the other is morally wrong and pandering to alarmists. Next thing, he’ll be telling his daughter that looking at what boys have between their legs is molestation. Something that is unwelcome is not rape. Call it what it is, not what he fears it could become if his son turns out to be one of… Read more »
The problem is that what ONE person considers to be “affection” could be violence to another. We have heard stories from a number of men about women who raped men by envelopment, then said they did it (despite hearing a “no”) because they felt it was sexy, and that it was necessary for them to have sex in order to bond. To those women, “affection” turned to rape of a man. That’s the problem. OF COURSE Zach knows his son didn’t rape the girl. He even says it in the piece. And of course he knows it came from a… Read more »
If a father wants to have a discussion with his son about consent then he should use the word consent not the word rape. There is nothing healthy about telling a four-year-old boy he raped a girl when he didn’t.
What’s important to note is that *in this piece* Zach admits he used the wrong word and the point of the post was about opening up a discussion about consent and how much of a struggle it can be to have these discussions, but how necessary they are.
That’s the problem. OF COURSE Zach knows his son didn’t rape the girl. He even says it in the piece. He also said in the piece that the reason he gave his son for it being wrong to not want to be friends with the girl because she didn’t want to be kissed was “Because that’s rape.” That is the problem, and many commenters have said so specifically, while still agreeing that it would be good to teach a lesson about not touching people (or playing with them) in ways they don’t want to be touched (or played with). Although… Read more »
Marcus, he is talking about how is glad he introduced the subject, and also saying that it’s a hard subject and he may have used the wrong word.
Both exist at the same time. You don’t have to choose one or the other.
It’s simple. Very simple. For something to be violent it must be forced. If you hold someone’s hands down while you kiss them then it is violence. If you walk up to someone and peck them on the cheek then it is not violence. If so, then I know about two dozen women who have ‘raped’ me in the past decade by showing me affection. The over riding problem with this man is his assumption that all men are violent and capable of rape. He then applies this highly sexist and hateful attitude on to his son. If he really… Read more »
You’re actually really wrong about violence requiring force.
Steubenville required no force. But that was rape.
It may not be violence, per your definition, but it can certainly be violating. And it is assault.
No, not for Zach’s child, but as he gets bigger it will be. And I want my kids to know that no one ever had the right to touch them unless they want to be touched. The end.
I’m reminded of an article I read recently about moral violence, specifically with the example of the violence in a hug. From that article: “I was watching a documentary about Iraq with a friend of mine (not a veteran). Midway through the piece, a short video clip was shown of two soldiers searching an Iraqi home…Then one of the soldiers, clad in body armor, sunglasses, and an automatic rifle, feeling in an amorous mood I suppose, leaned toward a young Iraqi man in the living room and gave him a hug. The Iraqi submitted with limp arms and an unenthusiastic… Read more »
People don’t want to know that all actions involve language and meaning. Or they don’t want to believe it. They’ll say, “What’s he complaining about it’s a hug.” But it’s a symbol, right? So much more then that.
When I was four a lot of my aunts wanted to give me kisses and I didn’t like it when they did and clearly expressed this. Was I passed around like currency and regularly raped by my aunts? My grandma was a regular offender too. Zach, do you think I have a potential lawsuit on my hands?
Adam, I have written numerous times about how children should NEVER be forced to kiss our touch anybody. I believe your bodily autonomy, as a child, WAS violated by your aunts and grandmother. But the INTENTION wasn’t to harm you. It may have been to embarrass you a bit, and that’s really troubling too. I cannot figure out how all these people who want men to be protected from sexual violence with the same fervor that women are, come to GMP and say things like what you’re saying. Why shouldn’t you, Adam, have been protected from this type of bodily… Read more »
Zach, I have a lot of respect for you as a person and father, but I also don’t agree with Your “that’s rape” logic. We live in a world of collapsing innocence, but a four year old kissing a four year old is still just that. I think by labeling a truly innocent act as rape you risk tainting the diabolical nature of rape and sexual assault in your son’s mind and subverting your message. There’s no way he can understand evil like that now. And now he is probably confused with respect to his feelings which he doesn’t fully… Read more »
Zach, I’m struggling very hard to keep my terms delicate about the content in this article. I’m a Clinical Professor of Psychology, so I’m going to (rightfully or not) claim a bit more expertise than a random person with internet. We know, or at least I sincerely hope we know, that young children stealing a kiss on the playground is not rape. You describe your son’s disappointment in being rejected, follow up by telling him he’s a rapist, then continue in the article to describe a tragic even where an innocent girl was raped and bullied to death. The narrative… Read more »
I see where you’re coming from Dr. G., and frankly (as a layman) I think that your analysis makes a lot of sense. Sometimes it’s difficult (and frustrating to not be able) to articulate WHY something strikes one as off the mark: Thank-you for taking the time to un-parcel all of that there, Dr. G.
A response from a nonparent, so make of that what you will: The rape conversation over strawberries seemed like a good moment to try to bring up empathy or the Golden Rule as well. Your son has probably had moments where another kid tried to do something to him and he didn’t like it. (Maybe another girl tried to kiss him and he didn’t like it?) He might have understood even better if he could register that she felt just the way that he did when this other kid did it to him. (I know, I know, “their brains aren’t… Read more »
Which country do you live in, because this page shows stats for all scandinaviaian countries and all of them MEN are murdered more than women These stats are from 2012
http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/Homicide/Homicides_by_sex.xls
Before you pat yourself on the back for what you did to your son, you should read this:
http://i.imgur.com/i3Lnb.png
Then you can appologtize to your son for making him less safe in a misguided attempt to make people you don’t know safe from him.
Anthony, BRILLIANT chart. Thanks.
Hi Archy
This woman has survived a life threatening relationship because she learned what can trigger a dangerous man.
In some situations you speak up,in others you are smart!
I my country MORE WOMEN than men are MURDERED every year. We call this phenomena in Scandinavia “partner murder”. What triggers these men seems to be when they realize they are not loved,not wanted,not desired. Rejection. She want to leave,or has left him.
When this is the reality you live in, you do not feel it is your job to educate men in situations where you feel threatened.
“I my country MORE WOMEN than men are MURDERED every year. ”
Then your murder rate must be low as heck if your random-stranger murder rate is zero.
It’s a well-known fact that men represent 30-40% of DV murder victims, and 70-80% of all murder victims for the vast majority of nations.
Hi Schala You are right. The murder rate here is low. But Anders Behring Breivik’s massacre changed the statistics when he killed 77 persons one afternoon. He saved one person in his killings,a man. His explanation was:” I saw myself”. And some say it is unfair to say more women than men are murdered. It is about 52% to 48%. It can be described as similar. Some also say that the murder rate of women here are not larger than in other similar countries,BUT the rate of males killed are lower than other places. Why is this so? I am… Read more »
Your country is severely different to the rest of the world. Men die 4-6x more in violence than women. That point aside you raise a good point about speaking out, but isn’t that more for intimate partners and not strangers?
Just checked the stats on the countries that makes up Scandinavia. None of them have women being murdered more than men.
Where did you get your stats
I find it sickening that the author is explaining a false situation of rape to his son and then gloating about his achievement over the internet. “Dude,” you’re going to traumatize your child and potentially ruin his future. Sure, it’s not a bad thing to tell your children what’s right and wrong, but kissing a girl isn’t considered rape! He’s 4 years old, for heaven’s sake! Give the kid a break. Sure, what he did wasn’t right, but there’s no reason to put inappropriate labels on things that don’t need them. I’m not generally one to tell parents how to… Read more »
I agree with you Joseph, the kid is $##$ing four years old. What ever happened to the innocence of childhood. Remember how little boys and girls used to pretend they were boyfriend/girlfriend even though they had no idea what the concept of coupling was. You taught your four year old son what rape was, way to go you idiot. So now every time he even looks at a girl he’s going to think he’s a rapist or something? All you had to do was teach him that not all girls what to be kissed by a strange boy and only… Read more »
Hi Marcus Williams I both agree and disagree with you. But remember two things: * for centuries many cultures on this earth has made their family’s honor be dependent on women’s bodies and sexuality.(( Excuse me for to being able to write this clearly.)) Think of honor cultures today where the family kills their women. It happens today also in Europe. And this is also still a part of our culture in the west. See C.Harkim Honey Money. I have not read her, but the book looks interesting. She writes about the suppression of female sexuality. Archy can take a… Read more »
When my kids were small and now with my grandkids, I’m suspect of ANYBODY who approaches me. Not that I think everyone is going to grab my kid but I always keep a firm hand on the cart and/or the kid. I’m not rude in fact I’m very cordial. It’s the kids part of this that bothers me. IN so far as wedding bands? My wife will totally admit that she bought the biggest one she could find so that women would know “he’s taken.” Wonder how people (guys) would respond if a man made such a comment, in front… Read more »
Well, my first instinct was to say, “My 6’3″ Serbian husband would not be pleased to hear you say that.” But that’s against the point. I just wanted to slip away from him.
But yes, as my friends who know my husband said on Facebook when I told the story, “Smokey would f*@cking kill that guy.” (his nickname is Smokey, not his real name, just FYI.)
He probably would have punched the guy unconscious if he’d heard it. But OF COURSE the guy would never have said it if I had a 6’3″ Serbian man with me 😉
PC language police here.
What difference does it make that he’s Serbian? Are men with Southeastern European heritage supposed to be scarier than others? If he were African American would you point that out as well? Slavic immigrants to the U.S. have faced numerous forms of discrimination and outright racism against them. In the nineteenth century, to be Serbian American was to be nonwhite. Think about how many Eastern Europeans in our TV shows and movies are anything besides prostitutes or organized crime figures: virtually none.
So your husband is known for violence? Punching him out would be far far worse than his comments to you. Not to mention a single punch can and HAS killed before so he could be up on manslaughter charges if not murder and not see his wife and kids for many years. I wouldn’t hit someone for the comment, I’d say “Excuse me but that type of comment makes her very uncomfortable. If you want to hit on someone, check to see if they’re taken first and if they aren’t then use appropriate language and avoid sexual or body talk”.… Read more »
Maybe she mentioned that her husband is Serbian because she thought the offending guy was a Bosnian Muslim. In his mind that might entail more than just run-of-the-mill violence but something truly terrifying.
Would you always ask your child for permission to kiss or hug him? Would you hold your wife to that standard? If not, why is their personal space less because their your child? That sounds like ownership. If you can’t say it’s always wrong to kiss or hug my child without explicit permission first, then you need to rethink your position.
Obviously with your own child or spouse you would be far more in tune with their body language and other cues, and should easily be able to tell when they are comfortable or uncomfortable with what you are doing on an ongoing basis. Naturally this does not mean that because of their ties to you, they consent by default.
Has everyone gone crazy??? Seriously. We have to TEACH boys men/ not to rape?? A 16 year old’s brain might not grasp that rape is WRONG? Has everyone gone crazy??? Scary.
When you have so many rapes/publicizing of rape on social media followed by social media? I’d say YES we need to teach people not to rape.
Not just boys – but boys and girls, for both boy and girl victims.
Trey Malone killed himself after he was sexually assaulted and didn’t get the support he needed. Amanda Todd, Steubenville, Rehtaeh, and this one yesterday in California whose name I do not know.
It’s too much. We must teach active, enthusiastic consent, bodily empowerment, healthy sexuality, and boundaries.
It’s a sad world, but that’s why we need to change it.
There will always be the criminal element. There are some people who don’t care if they do something wrong. I grew up in a “working class”, tough, neighborhood. People who could fight or were willing to do violence were “respected”. People didn’t have economic power. Violence was a form of power. There are individuals called “wannabes”, who try to associate with gang members because they want the power and “respect” held by the gang. It’s not just rapes that get filmed. It’s also beatings. I’m half Asian and the neighborhood was mostly white when we first moved in. Some people… Read more »
Thank you for such an insightful article. I work in the field of domestic violence, with women and children and I am so fed up with women being held responsible for abuse perpetrated against them. I believe our young people are the key to changing this. It is not about feminism or women being held above men, it is about basic human rights and we all deserve to be treated with respect. You are perfectly corrrect in observing how wrong it is that we have to teach girls how to avoid being raped or assaulted. The conversation should be about… Read more »
“I work in the field of domestic violence”
That brings up an interesting point. When a woman is allegedly raped, we’re told that looking at anything she did is victim blaming and we should never blame the victim, but in cases where women kill their husbands, victim blaming is not only allowed; it’s given it’s own name, battered women’s syndrome.
An excellent lesson, well done sir! If more parents would take the time to talk to their kids as the thinking, feeling little people they are, the world would be a better place. Thanks for sharing your story!
The issue is not just sex or touching (hugging, kissing) but respect of self and others. And the truth is, the conversation about respect has to include everyone; it may be that using the word ‘rape’ with regard to a 4-year-old is overkill, but starting an ongoing discussion about what’s okay and what’s not goes a long, long way in life — for boys, girls, those for whom we don’t have categories, everyone. Thank you, Zach, for the effort to get at something that is never really easy. The world clearly needs more of this sort of thing; however imperfectly… Read more »
I know my son didn’t rape his preschool ex-”girlfriend.” And in all liklihood, he didn’t sexually assault her either. And yet, it sounds like that’s exactly what you told him — that what he did was wrong because it was rape. That confuses the hell out of me, and I’m 43. I think it was great that you used this as an opportunity to talk about personal boundaries and why it’s important to respect them. However, I don’t see much value in treating something as rape that by any reasonable standard, *is not rape*, or teaching a kid that “rape”… Read more »
Part of this scene, which I may not have explained correctly, was me panicking and knowing I was using incorrect terms because 1) I talk over my son’s head often, and 2) the rape issue’s been on my mind recently because of all of the news. That created in me this odd “I’ve got to address this” feeling, however possibly mislabeled. Thank you for reading, though. I appreciate the input!
Technically he did sexually assault her, but since it’s children involved there is a huge amount of leeway because of intent, etc. If you kiss someone without their permission, it’s sexual assault afaik, or maybe physical assault depending on your local law. Trouble is the words are so loaded that it can induce heavy shame into someone since people don’t usually talk about severity where a kisswithoutconsent is called sexual assault, and so is sexually abusing someone who is unconscious.
Thanks, Zach, for illustrating how simple it is to talk to kids about boundaries and bodies, even at an early age. It’s important for boys AND girls to learn to respect each other, and there are so many opportunities to teach them. I appreciate your post!
As a Prevention Educator who travels throughout San Diego County speaking to children-adults (schools, juvenile halls, homeless shelters, etc…) about sexual assault, domestic violence, elder abuse, and what a healthy relationship should actually look/sound/feel like, I appauld your understanding of the absolute importance of parents having conversations like these with their own children. Too often parents are afraid that communicating about these topics will be difficult and that their children will be uncomfortable with the seriousness. But what would be more difficult, having the conversation with the child BEFORE they become another statistic (survivor, perpetrator, or loved one of a… Read more »
Thank you for reading!
Totally dug this article. I think it’s interesting, and kind of frustrating, that this sort of conversation doesn’t happen more often. For some reason, we have this idea that a man physically invading a woman’s space to kiss her, uninvited, is somehow “romantic” or “just the way it is.” When I’ve spoken to others about how this is, actually, an invasion (and can be an assault when you’re dealing with adults)…the response I get sometimes is, “well how else would I approach her to kiss her?” And it’s like, the possibility of talking about it first hasn’t even crossed their… Read more »
Trouble is with asking there are women who say they want a man to just DO IT and not ask, so it can confuse some guys. I think by default we should ask though to avoid these issues. There is a poster on the GMP who said he just up n kissed his future wife at the airport and that worked out fine. There is probably a lot of body language going on that is meant to signal it’s ok to kiss, trouble is not everyone sends the right body language nor everyone can read it 100% accurately so there… Read more »
It worked out for him (this is Marcus who did that) because he had an established relationship with his future wife. They hadn’t kissed yet, but they had expressed romantic feelings and he may not have had express permission (which would be ideal) but he had implicit permission, which is better than no permission at all.
Ahh, apologies, I thought that was before the romantic feelings were set. I’ve seen people at bars, etc just up n kiss with no asking and wondered wtf. I have a fair idea of when it’s ok to kiss (both leaning in is a giveaway I guess) but I couldn’t for the life of me ever want to fuck that up and make someone uncomfortable, so I ask. But then I am someone that resists hugging others without asking cuz of the same reason and usually let them hug me first. I’ve had female friends touch my arm, my leg… Read more »
I’m uncomfortable with sexually aggressive women probably because I’ve had bad experiences with them in the past. It makes me uncomfortable when I’m unnecessarily touched and it makes me more conscious of when it happens. Women will touch your arm, back, or shoulder when talking with you a lot more often than I believe most guys suspect. Women also seem to use more “terms of endearment” with strangers like sweetie or honey when talking to men than men when talking to women. I never appreciated that either, but don’t think it’s problematic enough to complain about. Don’t sweat the small… Read more »
Plus we should address the media and sex access over magazines and Internet that imprint and facilitate the objectification of the female gender and the consequent of violence against genders that comes from this.
Thanks, Zach, for putting into words so exactly what I am feeling about this whole issue. Rehtaeh’s death, as horrible and impossible for any parent to imagine for their own children, must not be in vain.
Self respect and COMPASSION. Are NECESSARY to teach about this.