How do we stop boys who become drunk being labelled as sex predators?

Becuse NotSpaghetti if both parties are incapable of proper judgement why is the emphasis on one party to take absolute responsibility leaving the other to be free to claim they were not responsible? Isn't responsibility at some point shared?

Using a ‘what about the boys’ argument is a way of minimising what girls and women experience, rather like saying all lives matter. Many cases of sexual harassment/assault of girls takes place in school. Presumably neither party is drunk at the time.

Yes, and many cases of sexual harassment of boys takes place in school.

To point that out is not to diminish the harassment of girls but to say that until we accept that all sexual harassment is wrong, we will not prevent it.

If we make light of harassment because it happens to those of a different gender to us, we have no defence if men take the same view.

We are not safe until we are all safe?

Well no trisher I am sure those girls are many things, students, daughters, etc etc but they have also experienced assault.

I don't want to make light of anyone who has experienced sexual assault and I don't want to dismiss the experiences they have reported as either unacceptable or untrue I just want to understand what is happening. Do those people insist all males are predatory and take advantage believe that is what their own male relatives would do? Or are all the boys described someone else's family?
I think boys who feel threatened or harrassed by girls would find it much harder to report. Does it happen? I have no doubt it does. And a group of teenage girls can be very threatening.

How would we know about our Male relatives. We hope not and assume not. But we cant know. They are all some ones family.

I do think it is interesting that previously girls were always warned not to get drunk because some boy would 'take advantage' of them, but now it seems we have to tell boys not to drink, because they need to remain absolutely certain of events, and in control of the situation.

trisher

I don't think that most boys are rapists and I think we should try not to confuse the issues. These girls feel they have been abused, perhaps they have, but we only have one side of the story. It is well known that witnesses give widely different accounts of any incident they witness, are we saying these encounters are different and only one side of a story is to be considered?

But this, Trisha, is why only a minute % of rapes get to court, let alone get a conviction.

Most of those girls WERE assaulted. That is what the #metoo movement is about.

I don’t think all men/boys are predatory. However, women are unable to tell apart the predators from the non-predators so they will all get lumped under the one label. Sadly, non-predatory boys and men are also victims of the misogyny that women endure. The solution to that is for no men to be predators.

Some very valid points here. I'm wondering how much the internet is to blame for some of the behaviour we see in both boys and girls. Being on display and under peer pressure online to look and act in certain ways 24/7, plus viewing of porn and also of video games where females, too, watch other females acting out fantasies as if this were how we normally behave – it's bound to have an ongoing effect on our young people, with or without booze. Certainly things have to change, but maybe we have to step back even further to start the change? Hello, by the way. I'm new here!!

trisher

Becuse NotSpaghetti if both parties are incapable of proper judgement why is the emphasis on one party to take absolute responsibility leaving the other to be free to claim they were not responsible? Isn't responsibility at some point shared?

But if one party is not instigating sexual contact, you really can't blame that party.

Gagajo the reasons why many rapes do not go to court are many and various and include jury prejudice, but I don't want to get into that here. I have no doubt that if a man or boy has sexual intercourse with an unconscious women it is rape. However I am less cetain about assault and the giving of permission for contact. I think we all know that alcohol can affect memory.
EllieP welcome! I think you have a point and many boys will think girls enjoy it really and just protest for show because that is what happens sometimes in porn.

when I was a young 18 yr old in the early sixties I had a silent crush on a boy older than me that I saw in his garden as I passed every day on my way home from work, we never spoke at all I was very shy One day he offered me a lift home we stopped outside my house and in a flash his hand shot up my skirt.........I fled indoors and didn't tell and went home a different way from then on......Thinking back I think he done it to teach me a lesson, though i'd said and done nothing . he was so handsome and always playing volare'. nasty wasn't he.

The .boy' was a man in my eyes. 20s

How do we stop boys who get drunk being labelled as sexual predators?
The simple response is to bring our boys up to understand that being drunk is no excuse for losing control, whether that’s in an aggressive or violent manner.
I believe easy access to pornography from a young age, is dangerous.
20 years ago, my 15 and 16 year olds were invited to birthday parties where the parents hosting their child’s 15 or 16th birthday party were providing alcohol. Many others bought alcohol for their children to take to the party. I’m talking about ‘respectable’ parents living in expensive homes

trisher

Becuse NotSpaghetti if both parties are incapable of proper judgement why is the emphasis on one party to take absolute responsibility leaving the other to be free to claim they were not responsible? Isn't responsibility at some point shared?

So we are both drunk and you physically attack me with your fist. Why would I share the blame? You are not supposed to attack people or does it change because of the instrument you use to do it?

To put it bluntly - when I drunkenly fell asleep on a ‘friend’s’ couch, after he’d been encouraging me to drink past my limits (which I do take partial responsibility for), my drunkenness didn’t lead me to do anything except lie there. He was drunk but less drunk than I was, able to get erect, and able to rape me twice. He’d never have tried it if we were both sober, but his drunkenness disinhibited him enough to commit a crime whereas all I did was fall asleep still wearing my clothes (at least initially - he was sober enough to remove some of them as well).

How could our individual actions be considered the same?

I suppose that should be appendage rather than instrument.

My young female family member (don’t want to clarify who she is for privacy reasons) has had a recent experience which falls within the remit of this discussion.

She was 15 and went to a party where alcohol was consumed. She wasn’t drunk, but had a couple of drinks. Debate about the wisdom of this decision aside, she was sexually assaulted. Now in terms of how “bad” it could have been, it could be described as minor. She had her breasts repeatedly groped and he twice touched her vagina over the top of her trousers in an effort to put his hand through the holey jeans she had on and actually get to her underwear/skin. All this by a boy she has known since infancy who was drunk. She moved away 4 times and eventually slapped him and moved outside to get away. The same boy then followed her and the friend she left with and proceeded to take his penis out and attempted to masturbate in front of them.
The whole situation unfolded over a 20 minute period. She called an adult and was brought home and the police were informed.
She had her clothes taken, DNA swabs taken, her mobile phone removed and was interviewed 3 times by different officers over the next 48 hours - so it was pretty traumatic.
The outcome? Nothing. Nothing happened - in fact 3 of the officers involved seemed to be less than encouraging about proceeding (nothing overt, but the language and tone used made it very clear - I witnessed this). One offficer said he was a nice boy from a good family and this was a “blip”. His parents were informed and that’s all.

The aftermath involved meetings with school because his rights had to be respected to be educated - it took a huge fight from parents to ensure she wasn’t going to be scheduled in a class with this boy.

Now I myself was shocked, as I said this boy had been known to us since infancy, and he does have a decent home. But he touched and attempted forced sexual contact on this girl WITHOUT CONSENT! That’s not a blip, that’s assault.

Drunk or not, boys should know about consent, this is the failure in my eyes.

Also, to “blame the drink” doesn’t undo the months of gossiping, nightmare and trust issue which still linger for this young girl.

The boy who did this behaved like a sexual predator, he wanted sexual contact and aggressively pursued it. Maybe my bias is prejudicing me here but boys/men like this deserve the shame of that label.

A VERY large part of the reason rapes don't get to court is our male dominant society trisher. Which is exactly the same reason that males know that they can get away with forcing sexual contact on females.

They know they can get away with it, when they are sober. They act on that knowledge when they have lost some inhibitions after drinking alcohol.

My hypothesis is that if ALL men knew sexual assault would automatically result in a (for example) 10 year prison sentence, the amount of sexual assault would massively drop.

Let's face it. Women have been taking precautions since time immemorial to avoid rape. It STILL happened. Clothes, level of inebriation from blotto to stone cold sober, saying no, not walking alone at night... on and on. Getting women to take care doesn't work.

Stopping the ones that do it, has a better chance.

Gagajo My hypothesis is that if ALL men knew sexual assault would automatically result in a (for example) 10 year prison sentence, the amount of sexual assault would massively drop.
Much the same ideas were around in the 18th century when taking anything even a handful of bread to feed a child resulted in deportation to the colonies and guess what? People still stole things.
No matter how terrible the crime automatic jail sentences for any thing are wrong, because sometimes the accused person is innocent.

Let's face it claims of assault are getting much more frequent so whatever has been going on isn't working. Perhaps it's time to start rethinking it.

PippaZ

trisher

Becuse NotSpaghetti if both parties are incapable of proper judgement why is the emphasis on one party to take absolute responsibility leaving the other to be free to claim they were not responsible? Isn't responsibility at some point shared?

So we are both drunk and you physically attack me with your fist. Why would I share the blame? You are not supposed to attack people or does it change because of the instrument you use to do it?

PippaZ So we are both drunk I start play wrestling with you and there is a period of pushing and shoving. You raise your hand and it catches my nose as I come towards you. I then pass out. I wake up and accuse you of assaulting me, because my nose is sore. Is it true?

My 14-year-old grandson has been a bit worried by some of the things the girls in his class have been saying about the boys. He hasn't really explained but I gather that the girls say the boys are looking at their bodies. He says that a few of these girls used to be his friends but now he doesn't want to bother with them. He is a kind and gentle boy (yes I'm biased) but he doesn't want this kind of thing going on and I think it actually worries him. I just wish so much wasn't made of all this and if only we could rid the internet of porn. I feel so sorry for youngsters today as I think a lot of them are confused by what they read and see both online and on TV.