Showing posts with label sexual aggression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexual aggression. Show all posts

Friday, December 8, 2017

Boys will be Men: Sexual Harassment and Self-Control





Boys will be boys is a meaningless statement at best. At worst, boys will be boys is an excuse for aggressive behavior. And for young men, the aggression can include sexual harassment and assault.

Boys will be men. Girls will be women. In addition to their biological trajectory, parents, family, educators, clergy, and others will help boys and girls become the men and women that respect or do not respect sexual boundaries. Boys will be sexually active men.

Sex education is important but it is not enough. Awareness of sexual attraction is of course important to inhibiting harmful acts. But adolescents also need to learn strategies for inhibiting forms of sexual expression that harm or offend others.

It’s no secret why men, rather than women, make headlines for sexual harassment and assault. In case you haven’t noticed, adolescent males and young men have a powerful sex-drive. That’s biology at work. That’s not an excuse for wrongful behavior. But it is important for all humans to recognize that young heterosexual males are biologically driven to have sex with females. They are intent on having sex. Testosterone is a primary driver of sexual desire.

Moral bumper stickers aren’t going to help much when a young man sees a sexually attractive young woman. Sexual self-control is not easy for young men, which is why societies have provided external controls for millennia.

Sexual Self-Control and Social Barriers

We have a dilemma in western cultures because we have removed many external barriers to sexual expression in order to be fair to women. But we have not replaced those barriers with working control strategies that are fair to women.


In the 1930s and 1940s many of the world’s men went to war. Formal and informal arrangements were made by governments to meet young men’s sexual desires by providing men with prostitutes and brothels. To fight the battle of disease, some governments (e.g., USA) supplied men with condoms. Thus, they could continue to enjoy sanctioned sexual expression when away from home for years.


Meanwhile, back on the home front, millions of women left the home for the factory and the office, which were previously a man’s world. This movement of women into the workforce was at a time when western women had only recently secured the right to vote and a few were rising to powerful positions in all areas of society.


Following World War II, western cultures were on a path to learn how men and women could be educated together, work together, serve together, and even worship together. Appropriate boundaries on this path have not been fully established.


When men and women were segregated, men did not have to learn how to treat women respectfully in schools, at work, or in church. Segregation works for men to the extent women are not available at school, work, or elsewhere when sexual desire prompts the quest for sex. But segregation of the sexes is an immoral method of placing barriers around male sexual desire.


As an aside, let us not forget that women have sexual desire as well. Segregation placed limits on their access to attractive males. The removal of barriers at school, work, church, and elsewhere provided opportunities to interact with possible sexual partners.


In male dominated cultures, men pursue attractive mates and women vary their attractiveness to select desirable mates and repel others. Of course, this process does not always work well thus magazines for young men and women provide constant advice on attraction.


And let us not forget that segregation never works for those who are attracted to those of the same sex. Men and women who experience same-sex attraction are, and were, forced by cultures to live close together in residential schools, college dorms, hospitals, and military bases. Only recently are people becoming aware that some people find both men and women sexually attractive.
Recognizing their problem with sexual self-control, some men attempted to cope with temptation by keeping their wives close and refusing to be alone with other women. Understandably, this barrier interferes with a woman’s access to discussions when career-improving events may take place. It also interferes with developing important social relationships and mentoring.


Possible Solutions

Continual Sexual Harassment Training

Harassment training needs to be a part of the culture. And sexual harassment training needs to be age-appropriate and evidence-based. Children, teens, and adults must learn to respect others’ boundaries. At a minimum, they must learn by presentations, reading materials, and quality videos what behavior is unacceptable and the negative consequences for violating the boundaries. Adults need to know the impact on others following unwanted sexual behavior (talk and touch). And we need research to identify the most important components of training programs.

Sex-education and Self-Control

Sex education must include values. Sex education should include values that underscore the importance of respectful interactions with others. Students need to learn perspective-taking to encourage the development of empathy. This means that older students must learn the harm done when people are badgered into sexual activity. Sex education should also include information about acceptable sexual expression within the value system of the local subculture. Understanding what consent means is critical to a culture of respect. For many, appropriate sexual expression includes masturbation.

Sex education is never value-free. Sex education separated from values of respect for oneself and others leaves learners with the impression that sex is divorced from morality. Nothing is further from the truth. Sex and morality must be combined because sex and morality both have to do with relationships in which one or more persons can be hurt.

Parenting

Parents are always accountable for the behavior of young children but they should not be blamed for the misbehavior of teens and adult children. I’m defending parents because they are too easily blamed for the misdeeds of their teens and adult children. Consider many examples of parents who have raised more than one child to find some children grow up to be responsible adults and others do not. So, parenting is not the sole answer to the problem of disrespectful and harmful sexual behavior.
That said, parenting matters. Parenting is a factor. Parents teach children to respect the boundaries of others by the language they use about sex and others, the behavior they model, the movies they watch, the way they treat other adults to whom they are sexually attracted, and how they react to news reports of sexual misconduct. Parents teach their children about one-one relationships when they enjoy time together. Everyday, parents are teaching their children something about respect toward other human beings.

Sexual harassment and assault represent severe violations of respect for others. Parents are in a position to constantly guide children toward respectful behavior toward siblings, relatives, friends, and others. The work of parents is hindered or helped by the actions of grandparents, teachers, and others. Parents are not alone when it comes to parenting and child discipline.

Psychotherapy

Individuals with sexual self-control difficulties should consider psychotherapy with an experienced provider. Talking with a supportive therapist may make an offender feel better but it won’t provide skills of attentional control, boundary setting, habit training, and other strategies of acceptable sexual expression.

As I have written elsewhere, sexual desire varies for individuals based on their age, time of day, health, and environmental stimuli among other factors. At the extremes, some men have strong sexual desire, often linked to high levels of testosterone. These men often have difficulty with aggression in other areas of life. When aggressiveness is harnessed, they may rise to the top in government, business, sports, and the military. The damage to self and others is obvious when aggression, including sexual aggression, is poorly controlled.

Policies and Laws

Policies and laws are a type of external barrier. Whether we are talking about a parent’s rules for their home, school policies, military regulations, or a nations’ laws, human beings need rules. It is a paradox that freedom only works when one person does not exercise their liberty to the extent of restricting the liberty of another. The best rules and policies clearly define the limits of acceptable behavior and state the consequences for violating the rules.

When it comes to sexual harassment and assault, all decision-makers must consider specific types of behavior. Not all behavior requires loss of employment, expulsion from school, or dehumanizing condemnation, or incarceration. Let us be clear about the differences between offensive words, jokes, touching, and all the other ways one person can sexually harass another.

Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Restoration

I have written about this topic elsewhere. Here I only comment on a few points relevant to solving the sexual harassment problem.

Forgiveness can help victims gain relief from the intrusive memories of the past—especially when news stories bring similar scenes to mind. Forgiveness does not mean any victim is obligated to speak in favor of an offender. Forgiveness helps victims become survivors with a forward focus in life.

Reconciliation is a two-person decision. Reconciling with a person who sexually abused another may not be safe. Trust is the key ingredient in reconciliation. Trust depends on verifiable changes in behavior—words are not enough.

Restoring someone who has been guilty of sexual harassment or sexual assault to a former position requires wisdom. Apologies and repentance are not enough. Even sincere people can re-offend. The decision to restore a person needs to be an individual decision considering the risk of harm and the likelihood of re-offending. The decision is not easy. Some people change and some do not.

Note

You might guess after reading this post that I have concerns about father/daughter and mother/son dates. It's simple really, dates are culturally defined as romantic events. Parents tell their children they need to be a certain age before they date and they set rules for dating. When parents use the language of dates for their one-to-one time with their children, they violate the usual way we use language about an event that is highly emotionally charged with powerful forces of attraction. And we know dating is a way of finding life partners. Dating, marriage, and sex are about very different relationships than parent-child relationships.

By all means, spend quality time with each child. But use another word for parent-child "together time," "memory time" and so forth.

RESOURCES


Read more about sexuality, morality, and Christian cultures in A House Divided available from the publisher PICKWICK and other stores e.g.,  AMAZON  GOOGLE













Read more about Discipline with Respect on AMAZON.






















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Friday, April 15, 2016

Rape is a weapon of war

Refugee camp Kenya

“Rape is a weapon even more powerful than a bomb or a bullet… At least with a bullet, you die. But if you have been raped, you appear to the community like someone who is cursed. After rape, no one will talk to you. No man will see you. It’s a living death.”

Jeanna Mukuninwa

Aryn Baker’s disturbing report in TIME (April 18, 2016) is mental torture for anyone possessing at least an average amount of empathy and compassion. Instead of the dulling statistics sometimes—but not always— added to death tallies in war reports, Baker confronts us with real people who suffer horrors worse than death. Children and women, young and old, share the deep wounds of their souls accompanied by bodies that cannot be repaired, despite the work of dedicated physicians.

Any solution will involve changing the attitudes men hold toward women. Some efforts are directed to this goal according to Matthew Clark (CS Monitor).

Baker’s scenes take place in far flung places like the Congo. But we would be wrong to think that children and women in Europe, Asia, and the Americas are safe from male predators. The context of war has always unleashed the destructive powers of some men to a greater degree than others.

Women are traditional spoils of war.

There’s a long tradition that women are the spoils of war. Even the Bible illustrates the troubling attitudes toward women (e.g., Judges 21:10-24; Numbers 31:7-18). The rape of Europe by Nazi and Soviet troops is well known (Telegraph, 2015). But they are not the only offenders. And the topic is controversial and the number contested (NBC).

As Mary Louise Roberts writes in What Soldiers Do, U.S. brothels were set up in France to provide an organized way for GIs to have sex within a month of the D-Day invasion. She quotes Patton’s infamous phrase, “if they don’t f**k, they don’t fight.” She opined, “In the army officer’s view, the necessarily complete command of the GI’s body gave them dominion over the French woman’s body as well.” (See pp. 159-160; Also, NPR story).

The point of including Robert’s book is not to equate the sexual exploitation of French women by U S soldiers to the horrors of the women in Baker’s story. The point is to show that male warriors have a long history of destroying women’s lives—often leaving them with a fate worse than death.

Also, sad to say, even peacekeepers have been accused of raping girls (NY Daily News, 2016).

Who provides services?

Christians are not divided about the evils of rape. Nor do they refrain from offering care and support in an effort to bridge the chasm between victim and survivor. But Christians are divided about some aspects of care. As you probably know, Christians are divided over birth control and abortion. The divides make a difference in who gets what type of care in refugee camps and clinics in war torn areas. That said, Christian organizations are present and providing services to highly traumatized and fragile people.
  
Read more about Sex-related morality in A House Divided

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Website: Geoff W. Sutton   www.suttong.com





Thursday, April 7, 2016

Perceptions of Porn Addiction


Cover of Time April 2016



TIME’s recent “Porn” cover story describes a perceived relationship between internet porn use and reports of young men experiencing erectile dysfunction (Buscombe, 2016). Some have been motivated to create strategies to help others reduce porn use. Buscombe writes: “Of course there are much broader concerns about porn’s effect on society that go beyond the potential for sexual dysfunction, including the fact that it often celebrates the degradation of women and normalizes sexual aggression.” Later Buscombe mentions the lack of definitive research establishing negative effects of porn.

Having just published a book about sexuality, morality and Christian cultures (A House Divided), I checked to see if there was some new research. It turns out, there are a lot of hypotheses and very little scientific evidence connecting pornography to harmful effects. But there are some promising ideas—whatever the science reveals, there’s no doubt people in general, and Christians in particular, are troubled by pornography. Here’s my list.

1. Defining pornography continues to be a problem but it is relevant.
The word pornography carries a negative connotation to be sure. Pornography has become a generic term for depictions of nudity and sexually explicit behavior (e.g., Wright, 2013). Some writers include a reference to the motivation of the producer (e.g., to stimulate sexual arousal) but that makes no sense. Think about it—how do you know anyone’s motives? If something is morally wrong or illegal or harmful, who cares about the motive? Shouldn’t we be concerned about the thing that is morally wrong, illegal, or harmful?

The problem with a definition is important because it can lead to action.  In relatively free societies like democracies, people argue for rights of expression. When people agree to be a part of organizations that set restrictions on nudity and sexuality, the criteria are more precise. For example, R-rated movies require justification for viewing and nudes are not permitted in art classes at some Christian colleges and universities (Huffington Post). We could extrapolate from these rules to assume that nudity is porn. This seems pretty restrictive compared to what seems like an “anything goes” philosophy at state universities. However, compared to the modesty evident in Amish and Muslim clothing for women, the level of exposure of a woman’s body on Christian campuses appears risqué. (Nobody seems to care much about menswear.)

2. Porn addiction is pervasive?
Actually, reports of porn addiction are commonplace despite the lack of scientific evidence. You won’t find features of a mental disorder termed “porn addiction” or even "sexual addiction" in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (2013). But on page 481 you will see a note explaining the problem of insufficient evidence.

Stephanie Montgomery-Graham and her colleagues at Western University, London, Ontario examined the media problem of rushing to judgment about pornography and relationships (2015). They identified common themes in popular media and compared them to academic research. The conclusion, as you might imagine, is that popular stories lag behind science. Popular stories report about porn addiction. And websites propose cures. But the science is not conclusive.

Alex Kwee and his colleagues writing in the Journal of Psychology and Christianity (2007) recognize the problem of defining sexual addiction (which includes porn use) but proceed to discuss the distress experienced by men at the Christian college where they work. They report that 66% of men who saw a counselor about “sexual concerns believed or suspected that they struggled with sexual addiction, whether or not they were actually assessed to have an addiction. (p. 4).” Later the authors discuss their view of the pressures from the “purity movement” and associated abstinence teaching on these men. They note that the concept of “sexual purity” is vague and adds to distress. They express concerns about the combination of Christian teaching, “pornography dependence and compulsive masturbation (p.11).”

As you can see, porn use can be bound up with beliefs about sexual addiction and masturbation.

3. “Perceived Addiction” is a helpful concept

Joshua B. Grubbs and several researchers (2015) reported the results of two studies that might help understand the “addiction” problem. As an aside, they provide some stats noting that in the U.S. close to 87% of young men and 34% of young women use internet pornography. They note what others have—mental health workers’ belief in the problem of pornography and the lack of research.

Here’s the helpful idea. Instead of focusing on the problem of addiction, they consider the impact of “perceived addiction.” That is, the authors look at how individuals interpret their feeling of being addicted to pornography. This perception includes three key concepts: A perception of compulsive behavior that is out of control, a perception that they are letting pornography interfere with their daily routines, and the presence of emotional distress—feelings of guilt, shame, and regret. The results of two studies supported their idea that perceived addiction to internet pornography explained the emotional distress. The distress did not appear related to the level of pornography usage.

4. Pornography and sexual violence toward women

Evangelical Christians and feminists seem like odd partners in any cause. But they might sometimes focus on an issue of concern to both groups--the idea that pornography leads to sexual violence against women.

What Jodie L. Baer and her co-investigators (2015) found might help understand this perceived connection. They tested the “Confluence Model.” This model suggests that any link between pornography and sexual aggression needs to be understood in a context of other factors—Hostile Masculinity (HM) and Sexual Promiscuity (SP). In their study they looked at how these factors related to sexual coercion.

Here’s a quote from the discussion (p. 168): “Consistent with previous Confluence Model research, the current study found that pornography use was associated with sexually coercive acts among males who were predisposed toward high sexual risk, that is, those who were both high in HM and high in SP.” They add an important qualification. The men scoring high on their ratings of Hostile Masculinity and Sexual Promiscuity were users of violent sexual media compared to the men at low sexual risk.

SOME THOUGHTS

Helping people who feel distressed is a good idea.

The notion of “perceived addiction” can be useful to health care professionals if the focus can be on helping the person seeking treatment discover ways to reduce their distress.

Communities like Christian colleges and universities have a measure of control over access to porn on their networks. But, people usually find ways to access anything that’s prohibited thus an important focus ought to be on evidence-supported ways to help with perceived addiction and the accompanying emotional distress. Codes of sexual conduct and an understanding of Christian teaching about sexual purity are well known. There’s no evidence that more teaching or preaching about purity will solve the problem—perhaps these activities make things worse.

People with strong religious beliefs and values about sexuality may have more distress than others.

An awareness of how people understand what their faith teaches about sex is important to understanding their distress and need for forgiveness and assistance. Recognize there is a wide range of what constitutes “pornography” among Christians—you won’t know until you ask. One person's porn is another person's art.

Harm may be a moral foundation for restricting some forms of pornography.

The finding that certain types of pornography (violent acts toward women) may interact with other factors like hostility and low control of sexual behavior might be more helpful in understanding actual sexual violence against women. Considering the reported high rates of pornography use, it seems the rates of sexual violence would be even higher if pornography, defined as including nudity, was the only cause of sexual violence.

An awareness of whatever harms a significant number of people without conferring any benefit might be a useful basis for making changes in democratic societies. This won’t satisfy either extreme libertarians or those wanting to ban every portrayal of nudity. But studies linking depictions of sexual violence and the degradation of women and other persons suggest a way forward.

Some counselors or therapists may not know what they are doing.
A person in distress over pornography may be the victim of useless treatment if the clinician touts treatment for porn addiction. The reason of course has to deal with the lack of scientific evidence for the condition without considering how to treat the condition. But the idea of treating a perceived addiction and focusing on distress along with the ideas presented in Kwee's report may be helpful.

READ MORE about Sexuality, Morality, and Christian Cultures in A House Divided

For ideas on helping Christians, see Alex Kwee's page.

Contact Information

Facebook Page:   Geoff W. Sutton

Twitter   @GeoffWSutton


Website: Geoff W. Sutton   www.suttong.com