How Old Should My Child Be Before I Start Teaching Him/Her About Rape?

[jimhines]

I’ve seen variations of this question come up in the wake of Steubenville. I’ve said several times lately that it’s important to educate boys and men about rape, because we do a piss-poor job of it. We do teach girls and women, but we present a very slanted, one-sided, and often harmful picture of what rape is and who’s responsible. We need to do

Comments

[queenoftheskies]

Thank you for this post

[jimhines]

Agreed. Teaching boys (everyone, for that matter) not to rape is a good start. Teaching them to actively step in to prevent rape, and to challenge the attitudes that facilitate rape, is just as important.

[teaberryblue]

One clarification that I feel the need to make:

Rape isn't only a violent crime. It is a violative crime but most of my experience with rape was not violent. The boys/men who have sexually assaulted me in various ways have all been the sorts of people who would never, ever have hit anyone, ever, especially not a woman.

Many men who rape don't think of themselves as rapists because they don't pin women to walls while the women are fighting tooth and nail to escape. They are doing things like touching girls in a violative way while those girls are too drunk and tired to complain, which is what happened in Steubenville.

[jimhines]

I see what you're saying, and I agree with it. I'd argue that violence doesn't always have to leave bruises, but you're absolutely right that people get this idea of what rape is, and don't recognize that it can happen quietly, or that it can be done by people who don't seem particularly violent, and so on...

[deborahjross]

I think people ask that question, squirming inside, because they have been taught that rape is about sex. And, perhaps more importantly, that sexual desire is such an overwhelming force that men "can't control themselves." Both are pernicious lies.

[jimhines]

The whole underlying assumption that men can't help ourselves...I don't even have words for how messed up and damaging that is.

[baker_kitty]

I wish I could find the news story link - one story I read quoted one of the witnesses as not recognizing what was happening as rape because "I thought rape was, like, violent."

Gah.

[roseaponi]

My son is seven. He does know that girls are people (he loves hanging out with girls. Some of the coolest people he knows are girls) and we are working on "no means no" in its more innocuous forms. His little sister is two. Sometimes she wants to play chase or sword fight or tickle, and sometimes she doesn't. We are intentional about teaching him that if she doesn't *want* to play, then don't poke at her trying to aggravate her or make her change her mind. She has the right to turn him down, either verbally or with body language cues, and it's nothing personal. He has the same right. He also has a responsibility to look out for her safety and to be kind to her. She is smaller, younger, weaker, and has fewer skills and resources at her disposal - and I'm very proud of him for being a good big brother and taking those things as cues to protect her instead of license to hurt her.
And that's as far as we've gotten, really. But I hope as he grows up, he carries his skills as a good big brother and applies them to all relationships.

[tinylegacies]

Thank you, as always, for being one of the rare guys who "gets" it.