How about the sexualization of boys?
Much popular attention is given to the impact that our culture has on girls. But I wonder about the impact it has on boys? Boys certainly don’t escape cultural definition of what or how they should be. There is a pervasive cultural assumption that all adolescent boys want to have sex all the time - and I know many of you are saying, “Well they do!” But that is sexualizing boys by the definition presented as sexualization in the APA report on girls. Not to mention, I am very suspicious of any cultural dictum that says all people from a certain group want to do anything all the time.
March 13th, 2007 at 2:24 am
As a former adolescent boy, I can say that sex does tend to dominate the idle thoughts of most young males. I’m don’t think that boys are sexualized to the same degree as girls, nor as early, but they do receive a whole package of gender messages - men are strong, dominant, sexually agressive, powerful, etc.
I think Power, not sex, is the main idea that is pushed on boys. Men are powerful. To be a man, you must be powerful. Agressive sexuality is just one of the ways that adolescent boys try to express their sense of power.
March 13th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
As a social worker, I work today with many adult males and we talk about sexuality, today and in the past and how it manifests in their lives. Many of these men tell me that sexuality did not dominate their thoughts EXCEPT as far as they believed it was the sociatal expectation that it WOULD dominate their thoughts and therefore, they felt less than because it did not. I belive this dynamic has increased in the years since these men were adolescent boys and that this dynamic does our young men a grave disservice that can only be undone with lots of talk about sexuality and expectations.