Parents of Boys - What/How Do You Talk to Them About Rape?

[milee]

Some comments in another thread made me realize that almost all parents of girls talk to their daughters about very specific things their daughters can and should do to protect themselves from assault/rape. Most girls have heard very explicit advice, including things like not walking alone, not leaving a drink unattended, being careful where you park, etc.

What specific things do parents of boys talk about in regards to rape? Do we mostly assume that boys won't be either victims or perpetrators so it doesn't really need to be discussed? Do we mostly assume that our boys would know enough to make good choices and not do anything so horrible as rape or do we have specific talks about consent, impairment, age differences, power, etc?

Just curious how different parents of boys handle this.

[bean29]

I have to admit, I am more concerned about DS drinking too much.

I did have conversations with DS about statutory rape, but never have been concerned about him raping a girl.

I just forwarded the story of the Fraternity FB page with the girls sleeping/drugged/ etc to DD - never thought to share with DS. DS is not in a fraternity though and I don't really want DD to join a Sorority or go to Frat parties.

DH has talked to DD about not leaving her drink unattended and I talk to her about staying with her friends etc.

[zibazinski]

Sad to say, I never had that talk with DS. I would now if he was in HS because I'm more aware of it. I spent most of those kind of talks focusing on wearing a condom and not messing up several people's lives by not wearing one. 

[ArchietheDragon]

i told my son never to do anything bad because if he does he will be sent to jail and raped there.

[Artemis Windsong]

Did you define bad?

My GrDs were coached during sports training on how to handle themselves and others.  They are party girls so what can a gramma do. 

[milee]

I'm very comfortable that neither of my boys would ever hide in the bushes, ambush a girl, knock her over the head, drag her off and rape her.

But after reading about some of the recent college rapes, it's clear to me that these were often things that happen in a very gray area and I need to start talking in very specific terms to my boys about consent and ability to consent.

Am I the only one doing this?  Hope not because some of the things that my very law abiding, peaceful 14 year old have said have been very surprising and eye opening.  I'm starting to think that yes, some of the college rapists were predators taking advantage of situations, but others were just really clueless immature boys who don't understand what rape is and if they'd been educated beforehand probably wouldn't have made the choices they made.

 

[MJ2.0]

Mine is 3.5 so haven't had that conversation yet. But I'm hoping to make it part of a larger conversation regarding respecting people's wishes regarding their physical space (to add more details as age permits). I think it needs to be geared to both genders as fraternities have some interesting hazing and initiation activities.

[ArchietheDragon]

Mar 19, 2015 13:40:00 GMT -5 Artemis Windsong said:

Did you define bad?

My GrDs were coached during sports training on how to handle themselves and others.  They are party girls so what can a gramma do. 

I kept it open ended, but I am focusing on things like not sleeping through the night is bad and throwing your bottle onto the kitchen floor is bad. 

[Wisconsin Beth]

My son is 5.5 and in K4 so right now we focus on "no = no" and stopping every time you hear the word "no" or "stop" - this means that EVERYONE in the extended family gets to practice too!  So when he's being tickled and says "Stop Grandpa!", Grandpa (my Dad) stops or has Mom and me yelping at him.  Even though we ALL know that DS is going to say "again" about 2.5 milliseconds after Grandpa stops.  And if I ask DH to stop singing the same line of a song over and over, DH is expected to stop too.  And it works on me, Dh and the kids have asked me to stop too. 

[ArchietheDragon]

Mar 19, 2015 13:42:28 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Mine is 3.5 so haven't had that conversation yet. But I'm hoping to make it part of a larger conversation regarding respecting people's wishes regarding their physical space (to add more details as age permits). I think it needs to be geared to both genders as fraternities have some interesting hazing and initiation activities.

My oldest daughter can be completely inappropriate with her younger sister, poking around and taking in the sights.   

[Wisconsin Beth]

Mar 19, 2015 13:42:28 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Mine is 3.5 so haven't had that conversation yet. But I'm hoping to make it part of a larger conversation regarding respecting people's wishes regarding their physical space (to add more details as age permits). I think it needs to be geared to both genders as fraternities have some interesting hazing and initiation activities.

Yeah, we're working on people's space too.  Some days I swear the kid is trying to be absorbed back inside me. 

[MJ2.0]

Mar 19, 2015 13:46:46 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

Mar 19, 2015 13:42:28 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Mine is 3.5 so haven't had that conversation yet. But I'm hoping to make it part of a larger conversation regarding respecting people's wishes regarding their physical space (to add more details as age permits). I think it needs to be geared to both genders as fraternities have some interesting hazing and initiation activities.

Yeah, we're working on people's space too.  Some days I swear the kid is trying to be absorbed back inside me. 

Same here. Haven't nursed him since he was 3 months old but he's mysteriously interested in my boobs again.

[Artemis Windsong]

Mar 19, 2015 13:44:45 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

Mar 19, 2015 13:40:00 GMT -5 Artemis Windsong said:

Did you define bad?

My GrDs were coached during sports training on how to handle themselves and others.  They are party girls so what can a gramma do. 

I kept it open ended, but I am focusing on things like not sleeping through the night is bad and throwing your bottle onto the kitchen floor is bad. 

My DD told me not to do anything that could hurt myself or my property, someone else or their property or anything defined as illegal.  I took the advice to heart while he and my brothers drove drunk and had numerous immoral and illegal activities.

[imawino]

Mar 19, 2015 13:40:34 GMT -5 milee said:

I'm very comfortable that neither of my boys would ever hide in the bushes, ambush a girl, knock her over the head, drag her off and rape her.

But after reading about some of the recent college rapes, it's clear to me that these were often things that happen in a very gray area and I need to start talking in very specific terms to my boys about consent and ability to consent.

Am I the only one doing this?  Hope not because some of the things that my very law abiding, peaceful 14 year old have said have been very surprising and eye opening.  I'm starting to think that yes, some of the college rapists were predators taking advantage of situations, but others were just really clueless immature boys who don't understand what rape is and if they'd been educated beforehand probably wouldn't have made the choices they made.

 

I agree with this, and it's very scary. I am not a parent, but have my sweetie's two sons living in our house part-time. If it were up to him, I think his conversations would really just be "wear a condom, wear a condom, wear a condom", but I worry about a lot of other things. I can't really get too involved in the discussions for various reasons (it makes the boys hella uncomfortable and their mom also then calls up my honey and screams at him    ) But I do beat him over the head over and over that he needs to also discuss feelings, and readiness, and how impaired women cannot give consent, and how no means NO, it does NOT mean "try to be more persuasive".  And also that it does not matter how far along you've gotten...I don't care if everyone is naked and in bed and fooling around already - stop means STOP NOW.  No exceptions.

Because we are all selfish creatures looking out for number 1, I try to get him to explain that breaking any of these rules is not only bad for the girl, it has the potential to ruin their lives.

[Lizard Queen]

Mar 19, 2015 13:45:12 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

My son is 5.5 and in K4 so right now we focus on "no = no" and stopping every time you hear the word "no" or "stop" - this means that EVERYONE in the extended family gets to practice too!  So when he's being tickled and says "Stop Grandpa!", Grandpa (my Dad) stops or has Mom and me yelping at him.  Even though we ALL know that DS is going to say "again" about 2.5 milliseconds after Grandpa stops.  And if I ask DH to stop singing the same line of a song over and over, DH is expected to stop too.  And it works on me, Dh and the kids have asked me to stop too. 

My oldest just turned 5, so I didn't think this applied yet, but this is a great idea for this age.

[Wisconsin Beth]

Mar 19, 2015 13:56:57 GMT -5 Lizard Queen said:

Mar 19, 2015 13:45:12 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

My son is 5.5 and in K4 so right now we focus on "no = no" and stopping every time you hear the word "no" or "stop" - this means that EVERYONE in the extended family gets to practice too!  So when he's being tickled and says "Stop Grandpa!", Grandpa (my Dad) stops or has Mom and me yelping at him.  Even though we ALL know that DS is going to say "again" about 2.5 milliseconds after Grandpa stops.  And if I ask DH to stop singing the same line of a song over and over, DH is expected to stop too.  And it works on me, Dh and the kids have asked me to stop too. 

My oldest just turned 5, so I didn't think this applied yet, but this is a great idea for this age.

I don't remember where it was pointed out that we do stuff with/to kids and then ignore their "no" or "stop" which sets them up to ignore other people's "No/stops" in their lives. 

And Dad is free to start tickling DS again but we're pushing everyone has to stop when they hears "no/stop"  DD will toss in "I can't breathe" which tends to also get people to stop too. 

[The Captain]

Mar 19, 2015 13:42:28 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Mine is 3.5 so haven't had that conversation yet. But I'm hoping to make it part of a larger conversation regarding respecting people's wishes regarding their physical space (to add more details as age permits). I think it needs to be geared to both genders as fraternities have some interesting hazing and initiation activities.

Sororities do as well. 

[Lizard Queen]

Mar 19, 2015 14:04:14 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

Mar 19, 2015 13:56:57 GMT -5 Lizard Queen said:

My oldest just turned 5, so I didn't think this applied yet, but this is a great idea for this age.

I don't remember where it was pointed out that we do stuff with/to kids and then ignore their "no" or "stop" which sets them up to ignore other people's "No/stops" in their lives. 

And Dad is free to start tickling DS again but we're pushing everyone has to stop when they hears "no/stop"  DD will toss in "I can't breathe" which tends to also get people to stop too. 

We do stop, but we've never made it an explicit rule before.  I think making it very clear will be beneficial.  Thanks for the idea.

[NastyWoman]

Mar 19, 2015 13:37:23 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Sad to say, I never had that talk with DS. I would now if he was in HS because I'm more aware of it. I spent most of those kind of talks focusing on wearing a condom and not messing up several people's lives by not wearing one. 

 I admit I failed on this too. The only times I ever even mentioned rape was along the lines of "I love you from the bottom of my heart but there are a few things I could propable never forgive.  Really bad ones like..."  Rape was in that quite short list along with murder and DV.  As for the risk of them (2 sons) getting raped, the closest I ever got to mentioning it was when they just started going to the men's room by themselves (dad wasn't there or he would have gone with). I didn't use the word rape but just said , I'll wait here and if anyone so much as touches you start screaming and I'll be in there so fast.    

All this to say, I failed as a mom and we got lucky -

[milee]

Mar 19, 2015 14:10:14 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

Mar 19, 2015 13:37:23 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

All this to say, I failed as a mom and we got lucky -

  If they're good guys as adults, you didn't fail.  This is all new territory for a lot of us - especially since our knowledge of rape is changing all the time.  It makes me feel like I'm 100, but when I hear the word "rape" I still think of the old stereotype of stranger in the bushes even though I know very well that's not what is happening in many -if not most - cases now.

I'm not at all excusing any of the college rapists.  Their actions are wrong and there is no "but".  I also think that at least some of them were immature and didn't have the knowledge they needed to make better choices.  I'm trying to figure out how I can give my boys the information they need.  And praying that they're mature enough to be able to use it.  Glad your boys turned out well.

[Shooby]

Don't do stupid things while drinking. And, as a man, you have the responsibility to control yourself and your physical abilities. You cannot take advantage of a girl in an inebriated state, even if YOU are inebriated because that is your responsibility.

[souldoubt]

The "rape is wrong" talk is one I never had to have with my mom because I guess I never showed any signs that she needed to have that talk with me.  She did make it clear any time something in the news came up where a parent made excuses for or tried to hide their murdering/raping/terrible child that she would be the first one to call the cops if I ever did something I shouldn't so I guess it fell under that umbrella.  Anyways I'd say the vast majority of the time the people that would do something like this are sociopaths or people that have some kind of mental issues and no talk is going to fix that.  I sat next to a kid the last 2 years of high school in our honors classes and he was one of the smartest people (book smart) in our graduating class.  We were friends as much as you're "friends" with a lot of classmates when you refer to people you see and talk to at school on a daily basis.  A guy I had known for years was friends with him and was the leader of their little group so we hung out a few times and did some class projects together.  

Anyways I remember one time while doing a class project our senior year at someone's house he snapped at me over absolutely nothing and went from this shy quiet kid to cussing at me and threatening me.  Everyone in the group was kind of taken back (I still remember their looks) and I just let it go because there wasn't any reason to get pissed or egg the situation on.  He went to school to a well known local 4 year university and his junior year he pretended to be someone else online, met up with an underage girl and ended up raping and beating her.  He got caught when he tried luring out a second victim literally with all the same tools/items on him and is now serving life.  As smart as that kid was he was wound so tight and socially awkward that it never surprised me that he was capable of something like that.  I'm not saying everyone who snaps is like that because we all have bad days but do a complete 180 and try to get violent over nothing was a big red flag.     

[Pants]

Mar 19, 2015 13:55:16 GMT -5 imawino said:

Mar 19, 2015 13:40:34 GMT -5 milee said:

I'm very comfortable that neither of my boys would ever hide in the bushes, ambush a girl, knock her over the head, drag her off and rape her.

But after reading about some of the recent college rapes, it's clear to me that these were often things that happen in a very gray area and I need to start talking in very specific terms to my boys about consent and ability to consent.

Am I the only one doing this?  Hope not because some of the things that my very law abiding, peaceful 14 year old have said have been very surprising and eye opening.  I'm starting to think that yes, some of the college rapists were predators taking advantage of situations, but others were just really clueless immature boys who don't understand what rape is and if they'd been educated beforehand probably wouldn't have made the choices they made.

 

I agree with this, and it's very scary. I am not a parent, but have my sweetie's two sons living in our house part-time. If it were up to him, I think his conversations would really just be "wear a condom, wear a condom, wear a condom", but I worry about a lot of other things. I can't really get too involved in the discussions for various reasons (it makes the boys hella uncomfortable and their mom also then calls up my honey and screams at him    ) But I do beat him over the head over and over that he needs to also discuss feelings, and readiness, and how impaired women cannot give consent, and how no means NO, it does NOT mean "try to be more persuasive".  And also that it does not matter how far along you've gotten...I don't care if everyone is naked and in bed and fooling around already - stop means STOP NOW.  No exceptions.

Because we are all selfish creatures looking out for number 1, I try to get him to explain that breaking any of these rules is not only bad for the girl, it has the potential to ruin their lives.

As the parent of 1.7 (soon to be 2) girls, I think it's also important to have conversations with consent with women - if someone else says stop, stop, etc. We let women off the hook a lot here and I think it can be very damaging to men who wind up in date-rape situations as well. And there's this idea that they can't possibly be raped or taken advantage of by a woman, which is false. 

On the other side, it's very important to have conversations about giving consent and protecting yourself with both boys and girls. Guys and girls both find themselves in situations where they are pressured and don't know how to get out of. 

I guess what I'm saying is I think it's important to have both sides of the conversations with both genders. I think teaching your sons about getting enthusiastic response is an important step forward, but so is teaching your sons to get out of situations where they are being pressured and aren't comfortable with where things are heading. And the same for girls. 

[milee]

Mar 19, 2015 14:21:38 GMT -5 souldoubt said:

The "rape is wrong" talk is one I never had to have with my mom because I guess I never showed any signs that she needed to have that talk with me.    Anyways I'd say the vast majority of the time the people that would do something like this are sociopaths or people that have some kind of mental issues and no talk is going to fix that.  

The problem is that if you start getting into the details of the college cases coming up recently, not only was there no sign that anyone would have needed to talk to the boys  - heck, some of the boys met the girls while they worked together for feminist causes - but the boys don't really sound like sociopaths or people with mental issues. They sound a lot more like drunk, immature, entitled boys. They sound like boys that didn't understand that just because a girl is aggressively coming on to them and they'd had sex before, that since the girl (and the boy) was too drunk to consent, that by definition the girl had not given consent and the sex was nonconsentual... aka rape. That's the problem - I'm not worried about the psycho types because I know that's not my boys. I'm worried they won't understand that even if the girl is trying to take their pants off like they've done before, and even though the girl is saying she wants sex, if she's had 8 tequila shots, he needs to walk away.

[Deleted]

Mar 19, 2015 14:21:38 GMT -5 souldoubt said:

The "rape is wrong" talk is one I never had to have with my mom because I guess I never showed any signs that she needed to have that talk with me.  She did make it clear any time something in the news came up where a parent made excuses for or tried to hide their murdering/raping/terrible child that she would be the first one to call the cops if I ever did something I shouldn't so I guess it fell under that umbrella.  

Your mother had repeated discussions with you about rape being wrong. I love how she did it.

[Deleted]

It comes up in different ways.

I was very upfront when I censored the longest for sexual violence that one reason is that it's a fact that exposure to sexual violence during developing sexuality years can lead to weird misfirings in attraction. Boobs be boobs wherever, and sometimes it's hard for growing peoples to see body parts and separate from the context.

We talk about how no means no, always. Anywhere, any time. And if a person can't say no because of being pressured or intoxicated or too young, etc... That doesn't count as yes. Yes is only yes if it's loud and clear and no external factors influence.

Also, and this is the hardest having a boy and a girl, but sometimes someone might decide later that they only said yes because of some external factor. Like it or not, it can happen. So reinforcing last paragraph, if you are not beyond a doubt sure of the person and the situation, best say no yourself.

As far as as a boy being raped. I don't know that we've either specifically mentioned it or excluded it. Rape is when someone is forced /coerced to have sex they do not want... They know sex can occur between all genders of people.

[Phoenix84]

I talked about it a bit with my folks, but not a whole lot. We did talk about no means no, but that was about the extent of it. I think my folks knew I wast likely to rape someone. We did talk a lot more about how not to get a girl pregnant and using protection.

[ArchietheDragon]

I don't think my parents talked shit to me about shit. if they did, it didn't have any impression on me.

[Deleted]

It honestly never came up. My son was Super Nerd. He started dating my DIL when they were 15. She was his second date, and neither of them ever dated anyone else. (They are 36 now.)  Honestly, if it wasn't for her, he would have had no social life. 

We did talk about sex with him, particularly after two fellow fifteen-year-olds at the small private school they attended became parents.  But we never talked about the possibility of sexual violence.  We just didn't think about it because it was so not his personality. 

I'm sure we come off as naïve, but we really weren't.  We were very aware of the distinct possibility that they were having sex before they graduated high school and definitely before they graduated college.  Like others, we have always expressed verbal disapproval when stories of sexual violence came up . . . like Robin Givens, to give an example from his generation.  But it wasn't anything specific to him . . . just sexual violence in general.

I do talk about it with my students.  Chris Brown, for example, was a teachable moment.  Rhiannon (did I spell that right) getting back with him was another.  My students at the time really knew Jameis Winston personally.  We discussed that a lot.  I don't mean in class.  We have "advisory groups" that are sort of like old-fashioned homerooms, but they meet for 25 minutes in conjunction with lunch.  We are supposed to talk about issues the kids want to discuss.

[Robert not Bobby]

Well, I am a dad of two boys...youngish men actually.

I have never had a conversation with them about rape, in any explicit sort of way, but I have had plenty of conversations with them about respecting women and boundaries. They look at me with this quizzical look like...duh dad, "as if we didn't know".

If you instill the proper values and appreciation that everything you do with a loving partner, or someone you imagine might fill that role, must always be by consent, I think the incident of rape would diminish.

Look, there will always be damaged, twisted guys out there...sad but true.

So your precautions to your daughter are a good start. Still...in defense of my gender, 99.8 per cent of us are decent.