Category: Toxic Masculinity

Posted on

How ‘sex addiction’ has historically been used to absolve white men

“It is often used as an excuse to pathologize misogyny.”

By Kimmy Yam

While authorities said Atlanta-area spa shooting suspect Robert Aaron Long, 21, told investigators he was motivated by “sexual addiction” and claimed he had no racial motivation, health specialists say the explanation falls short.

Capt. Jay Baker, a spokesman for the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, said Long — who is accused of killing eight people, six of them Asian women — indicated that the spas were “a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.” However, experts say such rationale has been used before in attempts to exonerate white men. The explanation also discounts racial dynamics and can “cause harm” in the way the public understands these issues.

White men have traditionally been given a pass when they say it — and have the privilege of overlooking how race is a factor, experts say.

“Historically, the term ‘sex addiction’ has been used by white males to absolve themselves from personal and legal responsibility for their behaviors,” Apryl Alexander, associate professor in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the University of Denver, told NBC Asian America. “It is often used as an excuse to pathologize misogyny.”

The defense of sex addiction itself, Alexander said, is a highly controversial one as those in the fields of psychology, psychiatry and sex research continue to debate whether to formally recognize it. Currently, the idea that sex addiction is a disorder is not supported by research, nor is it accepted as a clinical diagnosis, she said.

“A lot of individuals who are doing this kind of self-reports of sexual addiction are having normative sexual behaviors and urges, but they might be excessive. Or for a lot of people, it’s rooted in shame that ‘I’m having these attractions and emotional desires that are normal, but I don’t recognize them as normal,’” Alexander said.

Though the American Psychiatric Association added the concept of sexual addiction to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1987, it later retracted the term and has since rejected the addition of the idea to its later editions including the DSM–5, which is widely seen as the definitive resource on mental disorders, on the basis of a lack of supporting evidence.

Alexander said this sexual behavior doesn’t affect the brain in the same ways other addictions, including substance use and gambling behavior, do, either, calling the characterization of Long’s behavior “concerning.”

The self-identification of sex addiction, she said, is often seen in individuals who are raised in conservative and religious environments, “where there’s a high level of moral disapproval of their natural kind of sexual urges and desires.” Many of these populations are overwhelmingly white.

In examining acts of gender-based violence, Alexander said such attacks often occur at the intersection of misogyny, racism, xenophobia and homophobia. She emphasized that contrary to what Long told police, such violence “doesn’t just occur in isolation.”

Richelle Concepcion, president of the Asian American Psychological Association, said accepting the suspect’s rationale in this case erases several colliding dynamics of class, immigration status and gender that impact the communities most at risk for physical and sexual violence.

“Quite frankly, it’s really difficult to attribute the atrocious behaviors to an addiction, especially when you look at the demographics of a majority of those who were murdered,” she said. “Race and gender do play a role in this.”

“It’s really unfair to take his word as there is intersectionality that exists pertaining to the lives taken, especially when one considers that the suspect claims to have gone to these businesses with the intention of eliminating the threat of temptation,” Concepcion added.

Still, sex addiction is a common defense invoked by white men in power.

After a number of allegations emerged last year from multiple women, including several who were underage at the time, accusing comedian Chris D’Elia of requesting sexual favors, he responded with a video in February saying, “Sex, it controlled my life.” He added, “I had a problem, and I do have a problem.”

Harvey Weinstein similarly claimed in a 2017 video that he wasn’t “doing OK” and “I’ve got to get help” after numerous accusations of sexual harassment and rape. In a statement provided to NBC News, his brother, Bob Weinstein, described him as “obviously a very sick man.”

And former congressman Anthony Weiner in 2017 broke down in front of a judge after being sentenced to 21 months in prison for sexting an underage girl. Weiner, who called himself a “very sick man for a very long time,” had aimed to avoid jail time after the judge acknowledged that he had sought and received treatment for the behavior.

But controversies don’t end at the diagnosis itself, and treatments have been criticized for insufficiently addressing the role of misogyny in sexual behavior. Ideas, including society’s hypersexualization of Asian women, Alexander said, often go unexamined.

“They often don’t talk about these hypermasculine attitudes or misogynistic messages that individuals are getting, whether that’s from pornography or society at large,” Alexander said. “A lot of these so-called treatment programs often reinforce gender stereotypes. They talk about things like ‘Women are tempting you,’ ‘Women in pornography are trying to seduce you, and that’s why you need to avoid’ instead of talking about your own kind of personal attitudes and behaviors that cause you to marginalize women.”

Such framing of women as “temptresses,” particularly in reference to Asian women, in part shifts the onus from perpetrator to victim, Concepcion said. It plays into a stereotype of women as manipulative dragon ladies, fueling dangerous perceptions that make them uniquely vulnerable to violence. She explained that there’s a tendency to attribute the reasoning behind violence and murderous acts to others’ malicious intent, creating the perception that these victims who were killed intentionally provoked the perpetrator to violence.

“There have been examinations recently of television shows and even movies from years ago that depicted Asian women as temptresses, which appear to prove these stereotypes of Asian women as fact,” she said.

Alexander said larger toxic societal issues need to be unpacked in this context of treatment, in addition to other experiences that may have contributed to such behaviors.

“Those are the things that need to be addressed as underlying issues in this constellation of things that may have led to maybe sexual preoccupation,” she said. “The sexual compulsions or preoccupations are often associated with other types of underlying psychological issues, unmet emotional needs, childhood trauma or, again, power and control dynamics that contribute to oppression.”

But experts stressed that even when people exhibit attitudes that are indicative of oppression and marginalization of others, that does not often lead to committing an act of mass violence. Contrary to prevailing stereotypes, statistics show that roughly 3 percent to 5 percent of violent acts can be attributed to people who have a serious mental illness. In reality, individuals confronting mental health issues are more than 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime compared to the general population.

For people dealing with sexual preoccupation that may be causing them distress, experts recommend help and support that approach the issue with positivity. Treatments that are shame-based are never effective, Alexander said, and mitigating feelings of shame comes with comprehensive sex education. Sexuality is marginalized so frequently in culture and it’s not uncommon that people harbor difficult emotions around the subject, unsure of how to wrestle with it, she said.

“A lot of our sex education is rooted in shame and stigma, that we don’t talk about normative sexuality and how to work through that — that maybe your urges are natural,” she said.

With the resources available to help people living with mental illnesses, Concepcion said it’s never acceptable to chalk this violent behavior up to having a “bad day.”

“Many of us have bad days and yet a majority of us focus on other forms of coping to alleviate the impact of said days,” she said. “It is never justified to take lives or engage in acts of violence when we ourselves have experienced less than ideal days.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

How do young men navigate consent in a post Me Too world?

Young men are keen to talk about consent. So say sex educators, who are helping them move the conversation beyond ‘no means no’

 

by Franki Cookney

In a small classroom tucked away up a few flights of stone steps, two dozen young men are reflecting on their chat-up lines. “Sometimes I’ve gone in and told a girl she was hot and maybe I shouldn’t have,” admits one. “I might think differently now.”

The desks have been pushed back against the wood-panelled walls and the lads are sitting around in their sportswear, discussing “rugby culture”. In half an hour they’ll be out in the chilly February night, training with Cambridge University’s under-20s team. But right now, they’re crammed into what is becoming an increasingly stuffy classroom to attend a workshop on masculinity.

The session is run by Good Lad Initiative (GLI), an organisation which delivers volunteer-led workshops in schools and universities on everything from male mental health, to LGBTQ+ identity, sex and consent.

No one in the room has actually used the word “consent”, but that’s what they’re talking about. And recognising that innocuous-seeming compliments can make women feel uncomfortable is the first step towards a more nuanced understanding of it.

“Find opportunities to amplify positive and hopeful stories”, advises the World Health Organization during the pandemic. Join us in supporting the mental health of frontline workers Buy a copy of Positive News magazine for NHS staff

Facilitator Jolyon Martin, 27, first attended a GLI workshop himself four years ago when he was still a student. “People often do these things for social capital,” he says. “The workshop shows them that actually no one in the room is impressed by that behaviour.”

He’s noticed a move away from a “minimum standards” approach to consent – which focuses simply on what’s legal and what’s not – and towards a more holistic view. He also believes the freshers arriving at university have a better attitude than some of the older students.

“I’ve been in workshops where an older guy has said something and the 18-year-olds have called him out on it,” Martin says.

For Matt Whale, consent wasn’t something he gave much thought to as a teenager. “In my head, saying ‘no’ was in response to a violent act by a stranger, or a random man being creepy,” the 24-year-old admits.

At 18 he moved to London to study and began to hear stories that undermined this view. Friends told him about being sexually assaulted on dates. Others talked of the pressure they felt to appease their partners. “The frequency of this has completely blown my mind,” he says.

These conversations are to empower young men to want more for themselves

Like most people his age, Whale’s school sex ed consisted of basic biology and an assertion that ‘no means no’. But as the Me Too movement and the recent conviction of disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein shows, consent is more complicated than that.

Very few young people are taught what it means when someone equivocates, changes their mind or doesn’t say anything at all. In 2018, Childlike reported a 29 per cent increase in teenagers seeking advice on peer-on-peer sexual abuse. The organisation noted that callers lacked understanding about consent and how it applied within relationships. Meanwhile, a 2019 survey of 5,649 university students by sexual health charity Brook found that 56 per cent had encountered unwelcome sexual behaviour.

But while many may appear fearful or defensive about their ignorance, few are apathetic. Contrary to the typecasting, boys and young men are keen to participate in conversations about consent.

For her recent book, Boys and Sex, journalist and author Peggy Orenstein spent two years interviewing young men in the US. She feels optimistic about their willingness to discuss consent. “I saw so much in them that was so interesting and valuable,” she said in an interview with Time magazine. “They were really ready and eager to engage in all of these issues.”

And me

Nathaniel Cole is a London-based writer, speaker and sex educator, who works with organisations such as Sexplain UK and GLI delivering workshops to children aged 8 to 18. He says the key to opening up consent conversations with young men is not by lecturing students, but by listening. “These conversations are not just to tell them what they’ve been doing wrong, but to try to empower them to want more from themselves,” he says.

This is what workshops like GLI’s aim to do. “Boys have been taught that to survive in the harsh world of dating you need to learn some tricks,” explains director of GLI, Dan Guinness. “We want to open up space that people can say these things, then discuss what that would feel like for the other person. It’s about trying to shift the perspective.”

The students attending today’s workshop seem confident and engaged, but you might expect that from Cambridge undergraduates. However, youth worker Glen Wiseman, who delivers sex education in state secondary schools, says teens are just as eager to talk.

“They’re desperate to have these conversations,” he says. “Whenever they’re asked what they’d like to cover next, they always say they want the sexual health or relationship sessions.”

Wiseman is part of Bracknell Forest local authority’s sexual health team in Berkshire. As well as facilitating discussions and offering advice, they give out free condoms, offer pregnancy tests and STI screening, and prescribe contraception.

The team runs 300 sessions a year and in 2019 saw 5,000 teenagers come through their doors. “We’ve moved on from the basic consent stuff,” Wiseman says. “We talk about accessing pleasure and communicating how you want it to be.”

Historically, relationships and sex education (RSE) in British schools has focused on the mechanics of sex and on contraception. The 1999 Teenage Pregnancy Strategy brought government funding into areas like Bracknell Forest, which had one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the country at the time.

Justin Hancock remembers the initiative well. He has worked with young people for more than 20 years, first as a youth and social worker and then as a dedicated sex educator. Boys’ desire to talk about consent isn’t new, he says; but society’s realisation that those conversations matter is.

“Young men have always been fascinated about consent and wanted to talk about what it is that they’re supposed to be doing,” he says. “They’ve always been very aware that, generally speaking, they will have the most power in a sexual situation, and they want to make sense of it.”

As the 10-year strategy came to an end, for a lot of places the money dried up. Further cuts to local governments caused RSE to drop down the list of priorities. Continued financial support to his area allowed Wiseman and his colleagues to adapt their clinics and workshops in line with shifting attitudes and priorities, but many schools do not have that luxury.

Young men have always been fascinated about consent

From September 2020, RSE will become statutory in all secondary schools in England. The curriculum guidelines mention consent, but how these lessons will be taught depends on the available resources. “Schools either don’t have enough money or they’re not allocating enough money towards RSE,” says Hancock. “They’re not sending their staff on training because they can’t afford to pay for cover staff. And they can’t afford to pay for external workshops.”

Talking the talk

Harvey Weinstein was sentenced in March to 23 years in prison, after being found guilty of a criminal sexual assault in the first degree and third-degree rape. During the trial his defence lawyer, Donna Rotunno, told the New York Times’ The Daily podcast that, if she were a man, she would ask women to sign consent forms before sex.

Both the high-profile trial and Rotunno’s controversial words – which outraged many – have helped to keep the topic of consent firmly in the public sphere. Generation Z boys and young men, growing up with access to a wealth of information and ideas on social media, are switched on to that.

Whale says he’s never had a conversation with a group of male friends about consent, but tells me about an Instagram account he follows which has helped his understanding. Everyone interviewed for this piece agreed the Me Too movement had made a huge impression, raising awareness of consent among teenage boys, but not always in the way you might expect.

“Me Too has also had a negative effect in that boys are starting to question it and ask if it can be true,” explains Cole.

Guinness agrees: “People get defensive. It’s that idea of, ‘You can’t do anything anymore,’ or, ‘You put your arm around someone and you go to jail’.”

The key, Cole says, is to try to meet their challenges with compassion. In his 2019 talk for TedxLondon, he explained that allowing boys to talk about their fears and frustrations was a crucial part of consent education.

According to Cole, society is finally cottoning on to how valuable education around consent can be; and where schools have brought it in, they’ve seen good results. “More talks and workshops are being booked proactively,” he says. “Rather than waiting for boys to go down a certain path, they want to have the conversation now.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

How To Raise Boys Without All The Stereotypes About Gender & Masculinity

By Kelly Gonsalves

These days in countries like the U.S., it’s a lot easier than it has been in the past for girls to pursue hobbies, careers, and preferences once thought exclusive to boys. There’s, of course, still much work to do in creating truly equal opportunities and access, but the good news is that there’s much less of a push to shove all girls into traditional caretaking and homemaking roles. Some parents may even be eager to support and celebrate their daughters’ interest in sports, science, adventure, and the like.

How about our sons?

Ask yourself this: How would you feel about your son wearing skirts and makeup, joining the cheerleading squad or ballet, and spending a lot of time giggling on the phone talking with his friends about schoolyard crushes?

Why many parents struggle to let their boys be “feminine.”

A 2018 study in the Journal of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity found parents tend to be more uncomfortable with their child having gender-nonconforming behaviors when their child is a boy than when their child is a girl. Parents were also more likely to try to change boys’ gender-nonconforming behaviors than to try to change girls. In other words, parents are way more OK with girls doing “boy stuff” than with boys doing “girl stuff.” (Those words don’t actually mean much, of course, but we’ll get to that.)

That discomfort from seeing boys display traits we associate with femininity stems from a combination of sexism and homophobia, explains Jesse Kahn, LCSW, CST, director and sex therapist at the Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center in New York.

“Sexism is rooted in the belief that men are superior to women and masculinity is superior to femininity,” they tell mbg. “As such, ‘male qualities,’ or masculinity, is inherently more acceptable and desirable. Boys deviating from masculinity are then viewed as offensive and inferior.”

The above study also found that parents who showed more “warmth” toward their son were more likely to try to change his gender-nonconforming behaviors. The researchers posited that this finding suggests parents who intervene to guide their sons back toward traditional “boy” behaviors might be doing it because they think it’s good for him. For example, perhaps these parents feel like their son will get bullied or shamed for their “girly” behaviors, and so they believe steering him away from those behaviors is the right thing to do for his well-being.

But in truth, denying a child’s authentic self can create major physical and mental health problems for them down the line: everything from social alienation to lack of proper health care access to increased suicide risk.

“Protective instincts are rote and innate, and they tell us that when something feels dangerous, we should take the easiest and quickest route to restore safety,” sex educator and crisis counselor Cavanaugh Quick, LMSW, tells mbg. “The problem is that restoring safety isn’t inherently the same as eliminating the threat. Confronting the negative behaviors from others, reinforcing positive reception and love with our young people who experience them, and encouraging an expanded possibility for this kind of expression in our boys both restores safety and targets the threat directly.”

Kahn adds, “A lot of research has shown us the power of acceptance from one’s parents. The strongest protection a parent can offer is supporting their child, which begins with examining their own judgments.”

How to raise sons without pigeonholing them into gender stereotypes.

1. Remember that “boy” doesn’t really tell us anything specific about someone’s interests or habits.

Don’t assume you know what your son will like or how he’ll act just because he’s a boy. “Boy” doesn’t really mean anything in particular, after all—we have associations about what being a “boy” and a “man” mean, associations that we’re taught growing up and that get reinforced by our culture and by the media. Then we start teaching them to our children. Research has shown us time and time again that parents treat girls and boys differently, affecting everything from their color preferences to their emotional intelligence to their STEM skills and much more.

“Listen to and stay curious about your child’s interests; if they deviate from your gendered expectations, challenge yourself to both allow your child to engage in that activity as well as be supportive (as supportive as you would be of something you deem more acceptable),” Kahn says. “If a parent is nonresponsive, appears uncomfortable, less interested, or less excited about something their child is doing that is considered nonconforming, the parent is reinforcing their beliefs regarding gendered expectations. Kids pick up on that information.”

Do your best to avoid making assumptions—or being outwardly surprised if your son does something outside of your assumptions. Just remember this: There’s nothing innate about boys liking blue, trucks, sports, girls, or action movies, nor is there anything innate about boys being unemotional or bad at cooking and cleaning. If most boys are like that, it’s because we’ve collectively taught them to be like that. There’s nothing wrong with them developing those traits, of course, but there’s no reason to actively push your child into any of them just because he’s a “boy.”

2. Actively offer your son the “feminine” options.

Just like with the word “boy,” the word “girl” doesn’t really mean anything unless you make it mean something. Whatever it is you typically associate with girlhood, make sure your son has a real opportunity to choose that if it appeals to him.

“That means not just saying ‘I’m OK with it if you want to do this’ but actually making stuff available and actively participating in offering expanded options to your young people,” Quick explains. “Take them down every aisle in the clothing/toy/school supply/etc. store when you’re shopping and just ask them what they like. Make space for them to make decisions when possible, instead of being directive. Support and encourage them when and if they pick stuff that you think isn’t masculine.”

3. Watch your gendered language.

Watch out for things like “man up,” “be a man,” “tough guy,” and “boys will be boys.” And when boys and men around your son do something that conforms to your familiar definition of masculinity, try to avoid making comments about that behavior that imply it’s inherently masculine. (Some examples: “Boys always play so rough!” or “Of course all the dads stayed home to watch the game tonight!”)

“When speaking to children, parents unconsciously use feminine adjectives to describe their daughters and masculine adjectives with their sons,” Kahn adds. “Don’t use language that boosts gendered expectations about how people of specific binary genders are ‘supposed’ to act.”

4. Introduce your sons to people who are gender-nonconforming.

Kahn also recommends introducing your kids to gender-nonconforming and trans people, whether in their lives, in history, or in the media or TV shows. That exposure can help kids start to understand gender for what it really is—not something set in stone based on body parts but rather something that’s just about what behaviors and traits feel comfortable and authentic to any individual.

“Teach [your] children that gendered constructs are not facts, and successfully communicate that their interests, identities, [and] presentations don’t have to be confined to an assigned gender or role,” Kahn explains.

5. Keep educating yourself.

“You can’t teach what you don’t know,” Quick points out. “Talk with yourself about what your gender (nonconforming or not) means to you and why it’s important. Why do you make the choices you make? How do you feel when someone forces you into something different? … Asking and exploring these things for yourself gives you more insight and helps you model that exploration for your young ones.”

If you have no idea where to start, pick up a book about gender to read in your downtime. Kahn adds that seeing a gender-affirmative therapist can also be a really helpful way for parents to educate themselves and figure out how to best support their child, especially if their child is queer or trans.

6. Be an advocate in your community.

Your son might have the most traditionally “boyish” gender expression ever (whatever that means); that’s totally cool. Just remember it still doesn’t give you a pass to go back to passively or actively supporting stereotypes. No matter your kids’ gender identities, raise them so they know how to actively question the gender norms they’ll inevitably encounter outside the home, so they can choose for themselves who they want to be. Support their growth into open-minded and accepting young people who’ll be able to support the gender identities of their peers, whatever they may be. That also means correcting your kids when they’re making gendered comments about their classmates or about TV shows.

You should also stay engaged in conversations around gender, especially around your children’s schools and your family’s larger community. Does your kids’ school have a weird, gendered policy about girls being allowed to wear nail polish but boys aren’t? Or about which uniforms or bathrooms trans kids are allowed to use? Use your voice to advocate for freedom, expression, and inclusivity.

“I believe in focusing on changing the environments we live in so that a gender-nonconforming child doesn’t have to fear being teased, bullied, or have to change as a means of protection from judgment,” Kahn says. “That change starts at home.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

Living and dying in the shadows

Louis Kenneth Neu, 26-year-old cabaret singer of Savannah, Ga., left, is pictured on trial, Dec. 15, 1933, in New Orleans for the slaying of Sheffield Clark Sr., a Nashville, Tenn., businessman, in a New Orleans hotel. His attorneys set up an insanity plea for defense but Neu, claiming to be “perfectly sane”, has repeatedly expressed the wish that “they would hang me quick and get it over with.” He confessed to beating Clark to death just a week after he had similarly killed Lawrence Shead, a theater manager of Paterson, N.J. Others are unidentified.

By

The world treated them like criminals. And that made them victims.

In an America where their very existence was illegal, gays were forced into dangerous shadows. At a time when being out meant being arrested, lonely men looked for love in dark parks, public bathrooms, and Times Square bars.

Often, they only met their murderers.

James Polchin’s “Indecent Advances” tells the grim tale. Advertised as “A Hidden History of True Crime and Prejudice Before Stonewall,” it focuses on what it meant to be a gay man in the first half of the 20th century: A target.

Polchin begins his story after World War I, as millions of American soldiers and sailors returned home, ready to celebrate. The Jazz Age was starting, and young men were eager to join the party.

Author, James Polchin

Having defeated a foreign threat, though, the American establishment now turned its attention to domestic ones. While the government hunted down political subversives, police departments and the armed forces searched for “sexual deviants.”

That crusade pushed the propaganda that gay men were dangerous perverts, eager to molest children and recruit innocent youths. It fed a paranoia that justified almost any action against them, from legal entrapment to brutal vigilantism.

In 1919, worried about corrupting influences, the Navy asked sailors to catch off-base seducers by going undercover. Some were even urged to go under the covers. In Newport, R.I., sailors were told that just going home with a man wasn’t enough. Only a “full act” would guarantee a conviction.

The practice was eventually dropped, but only because of public outrage at what good clean American boys were being asked to do. Ridding the streets of homosexuals was still seen as a moral crusade.

Ernest Kehler, right, 24, Canadian-born boxer, is shown as he was brought to New York police headquarters from Toronto, Dec. 20, 1939, to face charges in of slaying Dr. Walter Engelberg, first secretary of the German consulate in New York. Man at left is an unidentified police officer.

It was a growing one, too. In New York in 1918, there were 238 arrests for homosexual solicitation. Within two years, that number more than tripled. Police regularly raided bars in Greenwich Village. Sweeps of Bryant Park, a popular cruising spot, were common.

Being gay in public was a crime. But being gay in private could be fatal.

The stories were grisly. In 1933 in Paterson, N.J., Lawrence Shead, a movie-theater manager, was found in his apartment, beaten to death with an electric iron. When the killer was nabbed, he claimed self-defense. Shead had made a pass, the killer explained.

New Jersey declined to prosecute, allowing the suspect to be extradited to Louisiana, where he was wanted for killing a wealthy businessman. In that case, though, robbery, not sexuality, was seen as the motive. The suspect was convicted and hung for that crime. Getting away with murder was possible.

The message was clear: Gay lives don’t matter.

In 1945, ballroom dancer Burt Harger disappeared from his Manhattan apartment. Then his body started showing up, in pieces. Police arrested his roommate, who confessed to killing Harger with a hammer and cutting him up in the bathtub. He said he’d just thrown the last piece, the torso, off the Staten Island ferry.

The reason for this gruesome crime? Harger came on to him, the roommate said. Convicted of manslaughter, his sentence was 10 to 20 years.

It practically became a pattern. In 1948, there was a rash of hotel room murders in New York: a merchant seaman in Times Square, an NBC executive in Albany and a Canadian businessman in the Waldorf-Astoria. Nothing connected the crimes, except the perpetrators’ excuse: Self-defense. The other guy made a pass.

Some prosecutors pushed back, insisting these were premeditated crimes. Robbery was the underlying crime; smart thieves knew that gay men were reluctant to go to the police. Prosecutors argued that these were cold-hearted killers, taking advantage of their victims’ own isolation.

Yet juries sympathized with the killers.

For example, the victim at the Waldorf-Astoria, Colin MacKellar, always stayed at the posh hotel when he was in town. He also always drank at the bar, known as a discreet pick-up joint. One night the middle-aged MacKellar befriended a hunky 19-year-old patron. After several rounds, the older man invited the younger one to his room.

The teenager beat MacKellar to death. Then he went to the movies.

When arrested, the suspect’s defense was the older man propositioned him. He was just protecting himself, the teen insisted. That might have gotten him released, too, if the prosecutors didn’t discover the kid had a long history of haunting bars, meeting older men, and robbing them.

Even then, he, too, was only convicted of manslaughter.

The homophobia grew, convincing many Americans that the scariest problem wasn’t gay bashing, but gays. In 1954, a handsome airline steward, William Simpson, was found in a lover’s lane in North Miami, shot to death. His wallet was missing. Police eventually arrested two young men.

They admitted to “rolling” gay men, first hitchhiking along Biscayne Boulevard, then robbing whoever gave them a lift. “Getting money from perverts,” they called it. The defendant who shot Simpson said he panicked, thinking the man was going to rape him.

The press and public couldn’t help but sympathize – with the defendants.

“Third Sex Plague Spreads Anew,” Brevities (November 2, 1931)

“Good Guys – Not Toughs” the Miami Daily News editorialized. “5,000 Here Perverts, Police Say” the Miami Herald reported. Other stories warned of a secret colony of sexual deviants. Politicians vowed to “run them out of town.”

Once again, the defendants were convicted only of manslaughter.

Even when people worried about crimes against gay men, they weren’t concerned about the victims. No, people were far more concerned with gays in the neighborhoods bringing down property values. And they feared how homosexuals endangered heterosexuals.

In 1955, in his syndicated column “Dream Street,” Robert Sylvester churned out hard-boiled prose about a rapidly decaying Times Square, home to sleazy bars and short-stay hotels. “The Bird Circuit,” he called it, were gay hangouts where thugs waited for gay men to pick them up, go back to their rooms and rob them.

It was a terrible thing, Sylvester wrote because it put truly innocent people at risk. “It probably isn’t important if a homo is roughed up by some hoodlum,” he concluded. “The important thing is that when there are no available homos, any unprotected citizen makes a satisfactory substitute.”

By the ’50s, some gay activists, notably the members of the Mattachine Society, began to push for acceptance. The movement


Illustration from Psychopathology by Edward Kempf (C.V. Mosby Company: St. Louis, 1920)

grew. In 1967, after the police raided the Black Cat Tavern in San Francisco, supporters politely protested. Two years later, when cops tried the same thuggish tactics at the Stonewall Inn, patrons fought back in the streets.

Times were changing. When the Supreme Court ruled, in 1972, that state governments could refuse to employ homosexuals, a Daily News editorial agreed but made a modest plea for tolerance from private employers. “Fairies, nancies, swishes, fags, lezzes – call ’em what you please – should of course be permitted to earn an honest living,” the editorial stated.


Ralph Edward Barrows, 20, formerly of Grand Rapids, Mich., smiles and waves his hand, which is handcuffed to that of another prisoner, in a train at Hoboken, N.J., March 7, 1950, as he leaves for the state prison at Elmira, N.Y. Barrows was sentenced to 40 years on a manslaughter conviction for killing wealthy Canadian businessman, Colin Cameron MacKellar of Montreal. MacKellar was found dead in his Waldorf Astoria suite on Nov. 5, 1948.

Compared to some attitudes, this was practically liberal.

The cries for real liberation were growing louder. As Stonewall proved, gay people were no longer worried about what was permitted. Instead, they were intent on what was owed.

They were no longer going to be quiet and ashamed, they were determined to be loud and proud. And that pride, already on display, will be on the march next Sunday.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

Men are mentors in program for adolescent boys about healthy relationships and sexuality

By

Social media campaigns such as #MeToo have brought tremendous attention to the issue of sexual violence in North American society, igniting the call for violence prevention programs that challenge traditional gender norms and promote healthy relationships.

Given the gendered nature of sexual and dating violence, targeting boys with these programs early in adolescence may provide an opportunity to shift core beliefs about masculinity, sexuality and violence.

Unfortunately, there is a lack of programming for boys, particularly interventions focused on promoting healthy and positive constructs of masculinity. Of those that do exist, there is limited evidence on whether they are effective. My doctoral research addresses this gap on engaging boys in masculinity issues and promoting healthy masculinity by examining the benefits of having participated in WiseGuyz, a male-only sexual health and healthy relationship program in Calgary.

Meet the WiseGuyz

The WiseGuyz program, run by non-profit agency The Centre for Sexuality (formerly known as the Calgary Centre for Sexual Health), is a school-based healthy relationship and sexual health program that targets boys in Grade 9 (ages 13 – 15) in several schools in the Calgary area. WiseGuyz consists of four core modules — healthy relationships, sexual health, gender and media and human rights — facilitated over 15 weekly, 90-minute sessions. Issues of sexuality, gender and relationships are explored.

Early in my doctoral program, I became aware of the potential for comprehensive school-based sexual health education as a way of engaging young men in gender equality and gender-based violence prevention efforts. The challenge with this approach, however, is that traditional, school-based sexual health education programs fail to consider ways in which gender ideologies contribute to sexual and dating violence. Years of research on sexual health education in schools also pointed to the fact that engaging boys can be incredibly difficult. Given these factors, I was curious how the WiseGuyz program managed to engage young men, and whether the program was producing positive outcomes.

Men as mentors

Building and maintaining a safe space is critical to the program’s ability to engage young men in challenging conversations. Focus groups with the boys identify how the program structure allowed them to feel safe and explore topics regarding sexuality and masculinity without the fear of being judged. Creating a sense of safety is important, as it supports an environment whereby the boys can begin to openly discuss masculine stereotypes, pressures and expectations.

The program is facilitated by men in their mid-20s to early 30s, whom boys in the program see as mentors, role models and friends. Having these kinds of facilitators is important, as young men from numerous studies say typical sex education is delivered by staff with limited credibility. By deliberately choosing young, socially relevant male facilitators, the centre has been able to engage program participants in conversations about sexuality, masculinity and relationships.

Supporting boys to critically reflect about gender is an important part of the program. According to boys, once they began to examine masculine norms and stereotypes, they began to understand how they were influenced by them. Young men speak about gaining greater awareness of the ways in which language is used to police behaviour. For example, one shared that “you don’t realize the destruction that it does” to be called derogatory names that challenge or question your masculinity.

Empowering boys towards healthy adulthood

Survey data collected in the program shows boys agree less with traditional masculinity ideologies after the program as compared to when they started the program.

Boys spoke about the way the program supported them to think about masculinity differently. For example, although boys may enter the program aware of the differences between themselves and other group members sometimes with negative judgment, during the program they appear to increase their respect for these differences. This can lead to a greater acceptance of a wider range of qualities and behaviours from both themselves and others.

My preliminary research suggests that WiseGuyz is a promising program in reducing boys’ endorsement of traditional masculinity ideologies that contribute to dating and sexual violence.

Providing boys with skills to address, examine and challenge beliefs around traditional masculinity ideologies allows young men to resist and re-define the highly gendered expectations they face regarding their identities and behaviours.

By empowering boys with the confidence and skills to resist societal constructions of masculinity, WiseGuyz is supporting the young men they work with to attain emotionally healthy adulthood.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!