No sooner does it feel like our sons are starting to grasp their times tables than experts say it’s time to start weaving consent, sex and pornography into household conversations.
With eSafety Commissioner research showing four in 10 surveyed adolescents first encountered pornography before they turned 13, there’s a good chance our boys are seeing explicit content far earlier than we realise, and developmental paediatrician Dr Billy Garvey says it could be giving them a dangerous idea of sex and consent.
“A lot of parents don’t realise just how vulnerable kids are to pornography being the educator,” says Garvey, founder of Guiding Growing Minds and author of Ten Things I Wish You Knew About Raising Boys.
“If we don’t talk about it and leave [sex education] to pornography, then there is a risk that violence within sex is normalised and role modelled, then their beliefs and behaviours are influenced completely external of us, often without our knowledge.”
This comes as new University of Melbourne research found teenagers hold more hostile attitudes towards women than older generations, which is seen as a strong predictor of violent extremism.
The survey of 2307 adults and 1122 young people found 32 per cent of 13- to 17-year-old boys thought Australia has gone “too far” in attempts to give equal opportunities to women and 25 per cent believe feminism is damaging to our society and should be resisted with violence if necessary.
In addition to this research, recent findings from the Australian Child Maltreatment Study revealed teen boys have now overtaken adult men as the most likely perpetrators of sexual violence towards under-18s.
If you’re wondering how to make sure your son doesn’t become a statistic, Garvey suggests you start having age-appropriate conversations with boys as young as nine, and keep having them regularly.
“A lot of our parents sat us down before we went to a party and talked about drugs and alcohol and safe sex [but] this idea that one conversation will give them the skills to navigate it is just ridiculous,” Garvey says.
“We know most kids see pornography three years before their first sexual experience, and 50 per cent of boys [see it] without seeking it out. It can be a very traumatic experience for these kids, especially if there is taboo talking about it. Then they sit in isolation with that experience, and it influences their beliefs, their expectations and how they feel about it; it normalises that stuff.”
It might take a few false starts to get these open conversations flowing but Ben Vasiliou, chief executive of The Man Cave and author of the forthcoming book Better Man: Reclaiming Masculinity For Good, urges parents to keep trying.
“I have a 16-year-old daughter and a 20-year-old son, and I’ve had many a conversation with my kids that just didn’t land,” he says. “But instead of being frustrated or just avoiding it, which I can understand, I just keep showing up and trying, chipping away.”
Healthy role models are vital
Some good news for parents wanting to raise respectful men: you have more power than the manosphere.
“The research says that young people are more inclined to listen to the role models and adults in their life than online influences,” Vasilou says. “Don’t feel like you’ve lost your kids to the digital world – you are still important, you are still respected, and you still have a role to play.”
Garvey agrees that positive real-life relationships can be incredibly protective.
“If you have healthy role models in the home, you can play the most violent video games and not become violent … and it’s the same with violent pornography,” Garvey says.
“It’s the protective relationships that sit around these kids that [lead to] really healthy versions of masculinity. But if you have violence in the home, that’s when you’re at risk.”
If you can share some of your own memories of navigating sex, relationships and friendships as a young person, Garvey says you’ll help set your son up for success.
“Self-disclosure is really important. A lot of parents are nervous about saying what they were really like, but it’s really important for boys to hear our stories of anger, insecurity, fear, rejection and jealousy,” he says.
“A boy might go, ‘My mates are saying they’re having sex with people’ or ‘Do I be derogatory to women to prove myself?’ and a dad who can say, ‘This is what it was like for me when I was 14, I remember the pressure and I learnt that a healthier version would be this’ … that’s really powerful.”
Accountability with care
Garvey says most teenagers and men who engage in antisocial behaviour and violent acts “shot up hundreds of flares” throughout their childhood and adolescence to show they were struggling and needed more help.
“Violence erupts out of them because of insecurities and fears and anxieties and rejection and all that stuff that they haven’t learned how to handle well,” he says.
Vasilou says today’s parents have a responsibility to ensure their sons have a deep understanding of consent.
“Teaching consent is about enthusiastic participation – if someone is silent, frozen, intoxicated, frightened or resisting, that is not a green light; it’s a red flag,” he says.
“The goal is to raise boys who can recognise another person’s humanity, can read boundaries, can handle rejection and ultimately can intervene when their mates cross the line.”
If you’re flabbergasted by something your son has said or done, starting with questions can be a good way to learn about the motivation behind his behaviour –and the peer pressure or culture he might be up against – then enforce accountability.
Vasilou says open-ended questions can help parents understand where their children are coming from, which can then help them enquire further and dig deep.
“We can’t just accept accountability as an apology after the fact – we need explicit accountability, which means we can’t be euphemising harmful behaviour, laughing it off or calling it banter because we are seeing those things leading to pretty harmful [outcomes],” he says.
“Accountability involves recognising the harm and consequences, changing behaviour and where appropriate, repair [of] that particular situation.”
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Kimberly Gillan is a Melbourne journalist who covers wellbeing, social trends, parenting and travel.
