quince
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Post by quince on Mar 19, 2015 16:37:12 GMT -5
I don't think I'd tell a child not to be alone walking home in the dark: I don't think that's the most dangerous thing ever. They could use their common sense, I hope. I am not looking forward to these conversations, starting with the age-appropriate ones about privacy and personal space. I think the conversations will be mostly the same for a son or daughter, but tailored to what is going on in society at the time they take place. Who knows what it will be like in 5 or 10 years? I think I might look for materials to go over with our child(ren). A good place to start is probably something as small as not tickling someone unless they are OK with it, as silly as that might sound.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2015 17:26:48 GMT -5
Oh definitely. Personal boundaries and ownership over ones body is a conversation starting much earlier.
It's also why on subjects like, should you make kids hug or talk to adults... I'm for kids wishes bring respected...
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justme
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Post by justme on Mar 19, 2015 17:31:21 GMT -5
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. I'm guessing you haven't ventured over to the thread that started this, but a recent study has it more around 70% are totally decent. nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/01/lots-of-men-dont-think-rape-is-rape.html
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NastyWoman
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Post by NastyWoman on Mar 19, 2015 19:36:01 GMT -5
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.See that's where the danger lies: when yes means no! And when the fact the girl had 8 tequila shots makes it so, yet we expect the boys who had a similar number of tequila shots or more are held responsible for not walking away. Under those circumstances is the boy the rapist? What if he is more drunk than the girl? Does she then become the rapist? What if a boy and a girl hook up early in highschool and the boy is two years older and they are having sex. Does the boy become a rapist the first time they have sex after he turns 16? And what if the girl is older? These situations are not clear cut in my mind and they are the scary the gray areas. FWIW, the HS situation played out with the son of one of my friends -> she took my warnings very seriously and removed her DS from "temptation" and shipped him off to her xH before problems developed.
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alabamagal
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Post by alabamagal on Mar 19, 2015 20:33:52 GMT -5
DD24 DS22 DS20 in college
No issues yet!
With DD we just to to her to be careful. All the emphasis about no means no is fine, but if you go out and get so wasted that you pass out you are putting yourself in a bad situation.
With boys it was about respecting women, but be careful and DO NOT get a girl pregnant because it will ruin your life
Worked out fine so far
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plugginaway22
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Post by plugginaway22 on Mar 20, 2015 5:38:32 GMT -5
I believe having sisters is huge for young men and understanding women. My 2 DDs were older than my DS and they adored him and he idolized them. My teenage DS coaches his friends about dealing with girlfriends, etc. It is all about respect for women.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 20, 2015 8:23:12 GMT -5
I believe having sisters is huge for young men and understanding women. My 2 DDs were older than my DS and they adored him and he idolized them. My teenage DS coaches his friends about dealing with girlfriends, etc. It is all about respect for women. I agree. I would love to find out if they've ever done a study on the impact of having a sister on the likelihood of a guy committing a sexual crime. Most of the assholes I knew in college didn't have sisters close to their age.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Mar 20, 2015 8:56:52 GMT -5
That might be something to that. I know DS loved tormenting his sister but I still remember him pummeling the boy next door who put his hand down DD's shirt when she was only 8. That kid did go on to have more "issues." So glad we moved away from there.
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Mar 20, 2015 9:04:38 GMT -5
My DS dated a lot, starting in late middle school through HS and college. Couldn't seem to go more than a couple months without a GF.
I remember having the facts of life talk on a couple occasions - not so much how babies get here, but how, once babies get here, he is now a dad and obligated to pay child support (and don't expect mom and dad to pay the bill or raise the baby - he would be on the hook, and life would be a lot harder).
I also gave him a big box of condoms when he went off to college and cautioned him that there are certain girls who would lie and say they are on BC when they aren't in order to get pregnant - either because they want a baby, or because they think having a baby with DS would cement their relationship. (I knew, as an engineering student with a well paid internship (e.g. - with cash to spend) he would be considered a 'catch' to some women). I told him if he was having sex in college, he had to be responsible for his own fertility and use a condom. I did caution him about having sex with drunk women, in that a woman who wasn't capable of deciding to have sex might later decide she had been raped, and that would get ugly.
I never had a talk with him about 'no means no.' I don't think I believed DS would be capable of raping someone - in retrospect, a naive point of view, I'm sure. But also, he went to a tech based college (engineering, computer science, etc) and the student population was 80 percent male - plus the Greek live was minimal (I always think a lot of the worst behavior takes place in frat houses - also probably naive). I figured since women were so scarce, when he and his buddies did run into them, it would be more like The BIg Bang and less like Animal House - nervous geeky guys just happy to find women to talk to them.
In retrospect I didn't do a good enough job, I don't think. It was a mistake to assume my kind, well adjusted nice son couldn't also be a rapist - as I'm sure many moms of rapists could tell me.
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Mar 20, 2015 10:55:56 GMT -5
I don't have kids... but many of the people in the groups I play games with do. And their kids have joined us in 'game night'. We've had some lively discussions - with the kids present (in the 13yo and up range) about 'date rape' and what not.
I was kinda out of my element - cause nobody EVER talked about sex in my family- EVER. As a girl I was told it was my duty to 'do the right thing' without ever really being told what that might be....
I'm pretty sure the boys from my 'game night' families got a pretty good idea of what's acceptable and what's not... and that it's best to avoid the 'gray areas'. I'd guess if we were discussing it at game night - the parents also were willing to talk about this kind of stuff at home.
I find it kinda funny that people are like "ah, my son won't do that - I dont' need to tell him" but girls need to be taught how to 'protect' themselves. What does that say about women's place in society?
For you parents who's son's 'won't do that kind of stuff' -- maybe you need to talk to your sons about how to STOP or discourage the other guys who do do that kind of stuff. 'Cause I bet your son knows some guys that HAVE done that kind of stuff.
You know, it's not just a girl's/woman's responsibility to STOP/Discourage guys from behaving badly - other guys need to make their thoughts on the subject known too.
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justme
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Post by justme on Mar 20, 2015 11:00:48 GMT -5
"I find it kinda funny that people are like "ah, my son won't do that - I dont' need to tell him" but girls need to be taught how to 'protect' themselves. What does that say about women's place in society? "
And that pretty much sums up the whole thing.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2015 16:59:30 GMT -5
I have to admit it has never occurred to me to tell or teach my sons not to rape a woman ... I assume(d) they will/would have picked that up along the way along with a moral center, a conscience and a knowledge of right and wrong. DS1 is 28.5, DS2 is almost 27, knock on wood, no issues, ever. I have always told my boys growing up that boys can be victims of rape too ... so not to walk alone late at night (I'm not stupid, I know that at a certain point I could no longer control that), to go out in groups, NEVER to leave their drinks unattended, and that (all things being equal) a closed bottle of beer is probably safer than a cocktail. If they are in a club, someone has to stay back to watch the drinks. DD told me, that's old advice. Now we finish our drinks, dance, and then order new ones. My DS1 and DS2 are only 20 months apart, so they got that info at the same time. Then later, DD (now 22) got it. DS3 (amost 17) was younger than DD but the two Big Boys were significantly older than both DS1 and DS2 growing up. I rarely excluded DS3 from those conversations with DD, so he has grown up with that knowledge too. ETA: The drinking age is still 18 here, so a lot of kids turn 18 during their senior year of HS.
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