Blog Archives
Murder-Suicide and Jock Culture
In a murder-suicide Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, Jovan Belcher, shot and killed his 22-year-old girlfriend and then killed himself at the young age of 25. Their baby daughter, Zoey, is now motherless and fatherless.
In a recent New York Times piece, Frank Bruni pondered the effect of football culture on athletes and how it may have influenced the killings:
While it’s too soon to say whether Belcher himself was a victim of that culture, it’s worth noting that the known facts and emerging details of his story echo themes all too familiar in pro football over recent years: domestic violence, substance abuse, erratic behavior, gun possession, bullets fired, suicide.
Bruni considers this range of problems. I’ll look at how the culture harms relationships and buttresses hostility and violence against women.
When sociologist, Timothy Jon Curry, spent time hanging with athletes he found a “locker room culture” that demeaned women and celebrated violence against them.
Not all guys were the same. Some talked about women as real people and discussed their relationships, usually in quite tones with a best friend. But if someone overheard, they’d get slapped down. Because any “real man” knows that men should not be dependent on or vulnerable to women.
In a hushed conversation in one corner of the locker room a guy told his best friend, “I’ve got to talk to you about my girlfriend.”
But the others jibed him:
Yeah, tell us what she’s got.
Boy, you’re in trouble now.
You’ll have to leave our part of the room. This is where the men are.
More often guys talked boisterously – and often with hostility — about women as sex objects and conquests. All to enhance their hetero manly-men images.
Girlfriends were slammed. An assistant coach held up a picture of an obese woman that he called “Frank’s girlfriend.” Another sneered, “When she sits around the house, she really sits around the house.” Or, “She’s so ugly that her mother took her everywhere so she wouldn’t have to kiss her goodbye.”
Other times the guys seemed to celebrate rape:
Hey Pete, did you know Terry is a sexual dynamo? Well he said he was with two different girls in the same day and both girls were begging, and I emphasize begging, for him to stop.
Even moms were not immune:
She’s too young to be his mother!
Man, I’d hurt her if I got a hold of her.
I’d tear her up.
I’d break her hips.
Yeah, she was hot!
So here we have male bonding, men “being men,” men being different from women and in a way that controls and dominates them.
Curry says it all makes successful, loving, nurturing relationships difficult and supports violence against women. In fact, he says, there’s evidence that years of living in this sort of culture desensitizes guys to women’s rights and supports male supremacy.
And judging from one dead linebacker, his dead partner and orphaned daughter, that’s not good for anyone.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
What Happens When You Beat A Sex Object?
Making Relationship Violence Sexy
Real Men Don’t Beat, Rape Women: A Guy’s View
Share this:
11-Year-Old Blamed For Her Rape
![rapist-victim-blaming[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/rapist-victim-blaming1.jpg?w=300&h=199)
“It should not be this hard to get it through anybody’s head that an 11-year-old child who’s been repeatedly abused is not the problem.”
That’s Mary Elizabeth Williams over at Salon bemoaning that a young girl has been repeatedly blamed for a gang rape meted out by 20 boys and men.
The townspeople of Cleveland, Texas began the indictment, complaining that:
She dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground.
The New York Times reporter who covered the case seemed to think the charge held merit, obediently recording the concerns.
Next, she was blamed in court.
As 20-year-old Jared Cruise stood trial his defense attorney, Steve Taylor, told the jury that she had never reported the rape to police. And that,
She had never shed a tear nor voiced a single complaint about her sexual encounters with any of the 20 males accused of assaulting her two years ago.
When he asked if she had been a “willing participant” she said, “Yes, sir.”
Actually, on her affidavit she said that the men had threatened to beat her if she did not do as she was told. That may have seemed to her like willing compliance.
Taylor then accused her of being, “Like the spider and the fly. Wasn’t she saying, ‘Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly?’”
Her attorney retorted, “I wouldn’t call her a spider. I’d say she was just an 11-year-old girl.”
Taylor scolded, “I hope nothing like this ever happens to your two teenage sons.”
Because, as Williams points out,
Apparently those four months of sustained sexual abuse against a child are something that happened to Jared Len Cruise and 19 other guys.
The girl’s lawyer then played the rape video, saying, “Look at how proud [Cruise] is on that video as his buddies say ‘beat that ho.’”
“Beat that ho.” Yes, that sounds exactly like what a little eleven-year-old would tempt men to do to her.
Victim-blaming often works because so many blame girls and women for their assaults.
Too many believe that women take pleasure in rape even though it doesn’t involve foreplay or clitoral stimulation. And most women need emotional connection to enjoy sex. Since men get off on straight intercourse many think it’s great for women too.
Why didn’t she report the assault to police? She may have felt ashamed or not known that she could. She may have feared the men’s further retribution. Abused kids often feel powerless and unsure what to do. And how do we know that she never cried?
Last week Cruise was convicted of assault. I guess the jury didn’t believe that an 11-year-old “wanted it.”
But if she’d been older, would he still have been convicted?
Related Posts on BroadBlogs
Community Bullies Rape Victim
Cheerleader Ordered To Cheer Her Rapist, and Other Stories
12-Year-Olds Wanted Rape, Judge Says
Share this:
Woman, Not the Sum of Flawed Parts
![anistonpubis[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/anistonpubis11.jpg)
By Linda Bakke
Star Magazine. Full of faces covered by question marks, bodies sliced up. Women diminished to the details of their flaws, circled in bold. A dissection of celebrities’ body parts.
I was working as a receptionist at a hair salon when I discovered Star. I picked it up and paged through. It was awful. I could not put it down.
One article divulged a star’s “hairy secret,” detailing the frequency of her waxing regimen and suggesting her pubic area was overly hairy. A two page spread highlighted shameful “sausage fingers.” Another asked who had the worst toes.
It all oddly evoked the serial killers who keep articles – or worse, dismembered body parts – as trophies.
And what is the triumph here? A sensed superiority over the goddess’ faults as we lie in judgment?
And who can blame us? Their supposedly error-free bodies stress us out! Destroying them and their presumed perfection just might lift our spirits.
But maybe scrutinizing them only returns scrutiny to us, as the judgments tell us we must correct our own “blemishes,” whether buttocks, breasts, fingers or toes.
The message: women’s imperfections cannot be tolerated.
As we eat it up, we fail to see how we become victims, too, unconsciously nodding agreement that this treatment of women is acceptable.
While the pictures and text underline our preoccupation with facade over character, men’s bodily foibles are untouched by these tabloids. Who can imagine placing a man in such light?
Hopefully one day we will take on realistic and healthy expectations so that women will no longer be seen as the sum of flawed parts.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Keep Your Boobs, Get Better Guys
How to Look Like a Victoria’s Secret Angel
Beautiful Women’s Hips Are Thinner Than Their Heads?
Share this:
Twilight vs. Porn
![10886003_det[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/10886003_det12.jpg)
Women often worry that porn raises men’s expectations about what their bodies should look like and what they should do in bed. And why does he want to have virtual sex with those other women, anyway? So women can end up feeling like they’re not enough or not good enough.
Men may worry that Twilight raises women’s expectations for a “one true love” that is deep and intense with a man who only has eyes for her. Who can meet to such standards?!
Men craving sex with lots of women and women wanting sex with one true love. Funny how the visions are so often at odds with each other.
In fact, the appeal of Twilight for young girls may be the opposite of porn. Porn is all about getting sex. But as Edward yearns for Bella — yet avoids intimacy for fear of killing her in vampire bloodlust — Twilight is more like abstinence porn. Sex without sex. As a writer for Psychology Today put it:
Let’s get back to the sex, or lack of it, which is what hooks girls on the first volume: female readers love that Edward sleeps beside Bella and apparently only wants to kiss her neck.
So in Twilight girls can imagine safe crushes on boys who love them, while avoiding all the complex, confusing and scary adult realities of sex.
But it’s not just naïve girls who fall for Twilight. So do their older sisters and moms. But while their male partners are turned on by hard-core porn’s over-the-top fireworks, Twilight is all about the subtlest sex. Here’s how a blogger at Huffington Post described it. Twilight is all about the:
building of sexual tension. So much so that when Edward brushes Bella’s arm, you can almost feel him brushing yours… They get to really know each other, their passion is allowed to build, we revel in the innocence, the time it used to take to truly build a relationship. Do you remember how amazing your first true kiss was?
A Salon blogger continues:
Instead of relying on tight shots of penetration, these books get their sexual spark from extreme emotional close-ups. The ‘money shot’ in these novels typically isn’t a geyser of bodily fluids but rather a declaration of love, or a man on bended knee.
I was struck by the male/female difference when I heard Meryl Streep and director, David Frankel discuss their movie “Hope Springs.” Frankel said the movie’s themes were universal because, “Who thinks they’re having enough sex?” But Meryl Streep suggested the nuances behind the desire:
If my team were here – women – they’d say it’s not necessarily sex, it’s what sex pulls from you… brings you to. It’s connectedness, it’s intimacy, it’s being known, it’s being seen, it’s being felt, it’s being wanted. The whole thing… But yes, you can reduce it to that part.
For many women, a guy can do the exact same moves and it can feel like nothing if you don’t feel emotionally connected to him, and it can be off the charts amazing when you do.
I suspect the female/male difference is due more to nurture than nature, but it’s a pretty strong pattern. Fortunately, not all men and women fit these molds. Some girls do just wanna have the fun of porn sex and some guys do seek consummate love. Or, what’s wanted may change with context.
But too often, like star-crossed lovers whose pairing is “thwarted by a malign star,” it’s an unfortunate trick of nature – or society — that men and women so often sexually connect at cross purposes.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Men Watch Porn, Women Read Romance. Why?
Women Want Casual Sex? Yes and No
Guys Are Getting More Romantic
Share this:
Overcoming Scars of Abuse
Today I am reposting a story of one woman’s recovery (still in progress) from her traumatic ordeal of childhood sexual abuse. This story comes from HumanitysDarkerSide, and I hope it might help others.
Broadblogs wrote an article called Why We Have Sex based upon the findings of CM Meston and DM Buss at the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas. These two researchers wrote an article called Why Humans Have Sex in 2007. In their article Meston and Buss cite 237 reasons that students at UofT had listed as their reasons for having sex.
I commented on Georgia’s post and ended up being asked if I would like to write something about my own experiences and the effects of medication on myself.
One of the reasons being listed for having sex in Meston and Buss’ article is force. Sometimes sex isn’t a voluntary thing and in my case the force happened at a very early age and seriously messed up my head when it came to anything sexual. Well, not just that, as anyone who has run into PTSD will attest to.
PTSD, or post-traumatic stress syndrome is a strange thing. It is basically a severe reaction to trauma expressing itself in as varied manners as re-experiencing the original trauma(s) through flashbacks or nightmares, avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, and increased arousal—such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, anger, and hypervigilance.
In my case I experienced pretty severe nightmares and hypervigilance (and probably some anger). As I was 7 when the whole thing started, this was normal to me and I thought most people experienced life the way I did. Turns out they don’t. Some who get PTSD as adults remember life before and a state of non-PTSD. In some ways I would imagine that could be worse (although maybe not). Depends on the trauma and the psyche of the person struck down with it.
I would guess that most people would see me as a boring person with a weird sense of humor. It is that strange sense of humor that has carried me. After the awkward teens and early twenties, I came to realize that life was just one gigantic joke and the only defense was to laugh at it. Laughter has been my friend throughout my life, laughing at myself and the world and it has gotten me through some rough spots (my psyche).
Anyways, I got married and when I met my husband I was a virgin (well except for CSA that is). I’d seen some porn, read books with sexual content and talked to people. But, you know, people just don’t talk about sex and death – the two great taboos in life. I didn’t get that sex could even be pleasurable and was afraid during sex. I wanted it, got horny and all of that, but when it came to actually doing it, well.
Thankfully, my husband is the kindest, gentlest and most patient person on this planet and he worked with me and tried to make things good for me. But you know, there is only so much you can do on your own. Poor guy, living with a CSA survivor is not easy. No matter how optimistic a person is, having trouble with your sex life just hurts both parties.
I tried psycho-therapy. Hah, what a joke. Talking through the effects of PTSD as something that was supposed to help. Sometimes I wondered if I or my therapist was in need of help.
Then I found my psychiatrist – my voodoo queen – magician galore. Granted, it took years and years before I did find her, but this is my miracle person. We used three tools in getting acceptance of myself into my mind, heart and body. Cause you know, CSA people just don’t have a healthy view of themselves.
Tool one was cognitive therapy. Folks, this stuff actually works. It really does. What happens is a re-wiring of the way you think of yourself and the world. Yes, it is an ongoing process and some parts will probably have to be a life-project, but it works. I can now do this all by myself because I know how it works.
Tool two was EMDR. What the hell is EMDR, you ask. Before I tried it I put it in the same category as homeopathy. But it’s just a kind of hypnosis light. It should be tried with a therapist that knows what on earth they are doing and it does not work for everything. However, research in Holland and Germany shows that it is good with PTSD. Just do a search on Google for Dutch and German research on EMDR and you will have plenty of articles to choose from.
Tool three was medication. People, you know this, but it cannot be stated enough times. No new psychological medication without therapy. There are side-effects with every bleeding medical product out there and you might need help coping with them.
At first we tried beta-blockers. My god. The first time I tried them this super-tense feeling in my chest lessened and I fell asleep from sheer relief. I’d walked around being hyper-alert all of the time and that really isn’t good for you. My world changed, but tension around sex was still high. No wonder, as this was my major trigger.
Then a miracle happened. And I am serious about this. A major miracle happened. My psychiatrist suggested that I try something called venlafaxin – an efexor depot medication. Instead of being scared every time I had sex I was loving it. Sure, it had taken years for me to get there and my husband had had to endure my pain for a long time, but I have actually gotten to experience the joys of having sex. How cool is that? And we all know that my husband has been having the time of his life along with me.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Past life
Making Violence Against Women Sexy
Real Men Don’t Beat, Rape Women
Share this:
What Women Want: Twilight
A lot of men take my women’s psych course because they want to know what women want.
Maybe they should watch Twilight instead.
A woman I know of named Tracie Lamb was surprised that her daughters were more engrossed in Twilight than in their Hawaiian vacation. She knew the book series had soldover 100 million copies and that the films have made about a billion dollars. Curious, she started reading and became absorbed, herself. Wondering about the book’s allure, she made a record of what made her “tingle” and amassed a cornucopia of “invaluable information for the opposite sex.”
Here are her musings from a piece called, “Wanna Know What Women Want?”
Women want to captivate the men they love as Edward is captivated by Bella. He gazes at her. He watches her sleep. A sexy waitress flirts with him, but he only has eyes for his love:
She smiled at him again. “You have a nice evening.” He didn’t look away from me as he thanked her.
Later he tells her, “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever known. You fascinate me.”
Edward also listens to Bella, and he wants to know everything about her.
He seemed engrossed in our conversation… He says, “I want to know what you’re thinking – everything.”
Edward is completely devoted, telling Bella that, “You are my life now… I will always want you forever… You’re like my own personal brand of heroin.” (Well, love has been described as being like a drug.)
And instead of being on a quest to satisfy his sexual hunger he seeks to control it because he wants to protect Bella. (He fears he will drain her blood with his vampire instinct unless he controls himself.) That may make him sexy-safe for girls who are just discovering their sexuality, but his desire to protect, generally, is itself a strong draw. He’s not just strong, but his strength is directed at aiding his love. He’s always there for her. And she is more important than his own self and his own wants.
Now mind you, women may want to take care of themselves and their men, but they also like a man who takes care of them and who makes them feel safe and secure. So it goes both ways.
Edward’s brand of love may not appeal to every woman, but it sure appeals to a lot of them.
Tracie concludes with these words:
When a man looks at a woman, he sees the woman. When a woman looks at a man, she sees herself reflected in his eyes. What’s important is not how you look to her, but how you look at her and how you look out for her. It’s how you make her feel: fascinating, cherished, protected.
Next week: Twilight vs. Porn
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Hookup Culture
Pleasuring A Woman
Surprises in Indiana University Sex Survey
Share this:
Vibrators & Women’s Sexuality are Out of the Closet
Vibrators, once steeped in shame and secrecy, are going mainstream. Does this mean women’s sexuality has thrown off the covers, too?
As a culture, we are of two minds.
Vibrators were once illegal in several states, including Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama, or found only in seedy sex shops. But as the New York Times reports, today they may be purchased at your neighborhood drug store. Out in the open, even Oprah has pitched the helpful tool. And who can forget the “Rabbit Pearl” popping up in Sex and the City?
And yet, they aren’t quite out of the closet.
As one seller described the problem, “I can sit with my 10-year-old daughter during prime-time TV and watch a commercial for Viagra,” she said, “but I can’t advertise our OhMiBod fan page within Facebook.” Nylon Magazine won’t run her ads and the Small Business Administration refused her loan application because vibrators are a “prurient” business.
Ambivalence over tools and meds that enhance women’s sexuality reflects the larger cultural view. On the one hand the media glamorizes women’s sexuality. And plenty of porn approvingly portrays women with voracious sexual appetites.
But porn is off-limits. And women are told “Keep your legs together,” as if open legs were an open invitation.
Male sexuality is something to brag about, but female sexuality is something to hide. Men are praised as players and pimps. Women are called sluts, whores, tramps, and skanks… What positive word applies to women who enjoy sexuality?
Slang for penis and vagina says a lot, especially “cock” and “down there.” Cock: Cocky, boastful, swaggering. “Down there”? Unspeakable. Shameful.
This all reminds me of Zestra’s difficulty getting ads on TV for a product that arouses women. TV networks, national cable stations, radio stations, and Web sites like Facebook and WebMD all resisted. Yet “An erection lasting more than four hours” is O.K.?
Is it any wonder that sex surveys find mixed experiences among women when it comes sexual pleasure?
Indiana University’s comprehensive survey found that while 91% of men had an orgasm the last time they had sex only 64% of women did. These numbers roughly reflect the percentage of men and women who say they enjoyed sex “extremely” or “quite a bit”: 66% of women and 83% of men. Only 58% of women in their 20s had “the big O” on their last occasion.
As I’ve recently posted, 30-40% of women report difficulty climaxing. Women who lose virginity are also likely to lose self esteem, largely because they’re so focused on how they look (bad, they apparently think) and so unfocused on the sexual experience. And one-third of women under 35 often feel sad, anxious, restless or irritable after sex, while 10 percent frequently feel sad after intercourse.
On the other hand, many women do enjoy sex a lot, and frequently orgasm.
Does all this reflect that ambivalence, with enjoyment perhaps affected by which message gets most drilled into a woman’s mind?
Women’s sexuality kept in shadow and suspicion has an effect. Time to come out of the closet!
Ms. Magazine cross-posted this May 16, 2011 I first posted this piece May 9, 2011.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Women: Climax Less Likely in Relationship Sex
Men: Climax More Likely in Relationship Sex
Sex Lessons from Mom and Dad
Share this:
Women’s Rights: Distracting, Shiny Objects?
With all the rightwing nuts running about, I must make a post mortem on the election and women’s rights. Which would be comical, if it weren’t scary. Ok, both.
Let’s start with Katherine Fenton, scolded for asking how the candidates would ensure equal pay for women in the second debate. All hell broke loose in Wingnut-Sphere where the “femanazi question” was deemed illegitimate and Fenton became the “Whore of Babylon” inciting “Twitter hate masturbation” as Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon put it.
Nearly every Republican congress member knows better, having voted down the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
The loony right’s insensitivity to rape has been widely panned, but deserves a brief review. Representative John Koster cavalierly called it “The rape thing.” Mike Huckabee sees rape as an alternative baby delivery system and Paul Ryan minimizes rape by calling it a “method of conception.” In fact, Paul Ryan co-authored a bill with Todd Akin (victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant) to narrow the definition to “forcible rape.” Richard Mourdock found forced pregnancy through rape “a gift from God” and told folks to “get over it.”
Feminist, Caroline Heldman wondered how pregnancy from rape could be a gift from God if raped women can’t get pregnant?
Meanwhile, Republicans voted time and again against contraception and abortion (even to save a woman’s life) even though contraception prevents abortion.
And if women die because they can’t get the procedure legally and safely, who cares, says Mississippi State Rep. Bubba Carpenter:
They’re like, “Well, the poor pitiful women that can’t afford to go out of state are just going to start doing them at home with a coat hanger.” That’s what we’ve heard over and over and over. But hey–you have to have moral values.
Laws that lead to women’s deaths are moral?
In other news most of the GOP refused to protect all women in the U.S. from domestic violence.
And, they pushed to block cancer screenings and HIV testing for underprivileged women.
Women’s rights just aren’t important says Eric Fehrnstrom, senior campaign adviser for Mitt Romney. They’re just “shiny objects” that are used to distract voters from real issues as he explained to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos:
Mitt Romney is pro-life. He’ll govern as a pro-life president, but you’re going to see the Democrats use all sorts of shiny objects to distract people’s attention from the Obama performance on the economy.
First it’s women as objects. Now it’s women’s rights as objects.
These guys haven’t got a clue. And they lost, big time.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Spilling Sperm Harms Unborn, Law Says
Rush’s War on Women is No Fluke
Why Do Right-Wingers Hate Sex?
Share this:
Why We Have Sex
Psychologists Cindy Meston and David Buss of the University of Texas, Austin, asked nearly 2,000 people why they had sex and assembled a list of 237 reasons.
Strangely, a few had sex “to get rid of a headache.” It’s No. 173. Aren’t headaches an excuse to avoid sex?
Other reasons include exercise, revenge, a sense of duty, adventure, an ego boost, desiring a gift, drunkenness, to keep warm, so my partner won’t have an affair, wanting a child… the list goes on, ranging from, “So my husband will put out the trash” to “It’s the closest thing to God” (perhaps explaining shrieks of “Oh God!”).
While evolutionary psychology claims women are more likely to have sex to get resources, men were actually more likely to do this. Men were also more likely to have sex to gain status. But then, women often lose status when they have sex, becoming “loose” sluts, whores or skanks…
This one’s interesting: Men were more likely to have sex because “the person demanded it.” Is that because men are more inclined to have sex for any reason, anyway?
Regardless of the reason, the researchers found that men were more likely to cite it, except for “expressing love” or “realizing I was in love.” I suspect women were also more likely to have sex to avoid taking out the rubbish. Consider that 84% of women admitted they’d had sex so her guy would do household chores or to put an end to sex-nagging. Older women were especially likely to have sex from a sense of duty. It’s what a wife does, they felt.
The good news? Men and women ranked the same reason most often: being attracted to the person. Actually, most of the top 10 were the same for each gender, including expressing love, being sexually aroused and having fun.
The psychologists placed the motivations into four general categories, as laid out in the New York Times:
- Physical: “The person had beautiful eyes” or “a desirable body,” or “was a good kisser” or “too physically attractive to resist.” Or “I wanted to achieve an orgasm.”
- Goal Attainment: “I wanted to even the score with a cheating partner” or “break up a rival’s relationship” or “make money” or “be popular.” Or “because of a bet.”
- Insecurity: “I felt like it was my duty” or “I wanted to boost my self-esteem” or “It was the only way my partner would spend time with me.”
- Emotional: “I wanted to communicate at a deeper level” or “lift my partner’s spirits” or “say ‘Thank you.’ ” Or just because “the person was intelligent.”
It is remarkable to see how often the motivations for sex lie outside of the pleasure of sex, itself.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Wanting “X” from Sex, but Doing “Y”
Is Male or Female Sexuality Better?
Cartoonish vs Authentic Sexuality
Share this:
Raping, Shaming Girls to Impress Guys
Felicia Garcia
Young men at Piedmont High near San Francisco were caught “drafting” female schoolmates (unbeknownst to most of them) into a secret “Fantasy Slut League.” Upper classmen earned points for documenting their sexual exploits and used social pressure to manipulate the girls’ yearnings to feel attractive, included and popular. Sometimes they plied their targets with alcohol to impair judgment and control, that is, to commit rape.
Meanwhile, in the Stanton Island borough of New York, 15-year-old Felicia Garcia of Tottenville High had sex with four football players. The escapade was recorded and passed around the school as football players bragged about their conquest. Two of the ball players involved began tormenting her, and as news spread through the school, bullying spread, too.
One of Felicia’s friends told the New York Daily News,
Kids are saying she had sex with some guys from the football team at a party after the game. Later on, they wouldn’t leave her alone about it. They just kept bullying her and bullying her.
The young women of Piedmont High were left shamed and humiliated, and too many of them were sexually assaulted. Felicia killed herself on October 24 when she jumped in front of a Staten Island train as 200 students watched in horror.
You have to wonder why so many young men are willing to harm so many young women.
The answer likely revolves around guys trying to feel like men.
Michael Kimmel is an expert on men and masculinity who has studied “guys” at the cusp of manhood. He says that too often guys hurt themselves or others as they latch onto the more negative notions of manhood like aggression, violence, dominance and being tough.
Meanwhile, women are often objectified and seen as “things” that are all about sex. If they are things, and not people, you don’t have to worry about their feelings or their lives.
The young men at Piedmont High and Tottenville High were working to create a culture that painted men as aggressive and dominant, and women as silenced and humiliated victims who were made to feel lower in status… and who may even end up killing themselves.
Surely there are better ways to be a man.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Yale Fraternity Chants “No Means Yes.” Men? Or Scaredy Cats?
Frats Invite Sluts, Bitches; Women Accept Degradation. Why?
It’s Ok To Be A Tomboy But Not A Sissy. Why?
BroadBlogs 