A team of researchers, including Binghamton psychology professor Richard Mattson and graduate student Michael Shaw asked men between the ages of 18–25 to respond to hypothetical sexual hookup situations in which a woman responds passively to a sexual advance, meaning the woman does not express any overt verbal or behavioral response to indicate consent to increase the level of physical intimacy. The team then surveyed how consensual each man perceived the situation to be, as well as how he would likely behave.
The work is published in the journal Sex Roles.
“A passive response to a sexual advance is a normative indicator of consent, but also might reflect distress or fear, and whether men are able to differentiate between the two during a hookup was important to explore,” said Mattson.
The team found that men varied in their perception of passive responses in terms of consent and that the level of perceived consent was strongly linked to an increased likelihood of continuing or advancing sexual behavior.
“The biggest takeaway is that men differed in how they interpreted an ambiguous female response to their sexual advances with respect to their perception of consent, which in turn influenced their sexual decisions,” said Mattson.
“But certain types of men (e.g., those high in toxic masculine traits) tended to view situations as more consensual and reported that they would escalate the level of sexual intimacy regardless of whether or not they thought it was consensual.”
“Men who are toxic generally are more likely to be toxic sexually”
Kind of a no-brainer. I guess it’s interesting that men who exhibit toxic traits are both more likely to falsely identify behavior as consensual and are more likely to proceed even if they do identify it as not consensual, but that’s not totally unexpected either.
Even if it’s obvious, it’s still good to have data to back these things up.
Fair enough, I suppose
I didn’t think we needed a study to tell us to tell us toxic masculinity leads to bad behavior, but here we are. Especially since you can just go to tw*tter/ex and find these types of people by the bucket load.
The headline is a bit misleading. What it should say is that “men who score low toxic masculinity traits are more likely to seek enthusiastic/affirmative consent”. Which is a bit of a “duh” thing.
Even the authors admit that passive response is normative consent, and as much as I love enthusiastic consent, a lot of men AND women feel very awkward when you try that paradigm since they’re used to normative human sexuality. That’s especially prevalent with older men and women like millennials and gen X. Escalating sexual behaviour with passive consent is different from escalating without consent or against consent. Perhaps when affirmative/enthusiastic consent is normalized, we can have a different conversation.
“A passive response to a sexual advance is a normative indicator of consent, but also might reflect distress or fear, and whether men are able to differentiate between the two during a hookup was important to explore,” said Mattson.
That’s the exact point. In a future study they’ll be able to see if men who score high in toxic masculinity traits are more likely to not notice or actively ignore distress or fear.
I honestly suspect yes since empathy is not a valued trait in performative toxic masculinity, but with science it’s unwise to jump to unsubstantiated conclusions, like this headline does.
I’ve had several fledgling relationships end due to not being sexually aggressive enough. I’m too autistic to pick up on subtle hints, I needed a green light if they wanted me to make a move and they didn’t give me one and then got upset when I didn’t initiate things. It seems like such a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation. I’m really uncomfortable with the “just keep pushing until I say no” expectation some women seem to have. It’s a part of why I’ve pretty much opted out of dating as a whole.
I totally relate to this. While we’re sharing personal experiences, I’d also share mine (if that’s ok):
I made very very contradictory experiences. Some girls just seem to get angry if you don’t approach them aggressively, some girls will tell you that you’re a rapist if you even dare to look at them for too long. It’s an impossible puzzle. No matter what you do, someone will always complain. That is why I don’t take these things too seriously anymore. As long as no-one gets seriously hurt, lots of things can heal. What’s important is to use your instincts to classify the situation, and act with an “open heart”. Then most things go well, and those that don’t mostly fail because of other, unrelated reasons. Such as pressure from the environment.
Here’s a tip. Everyone is shy and awkward and waiting for the other person to make a move first.
To make things happen in this world you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable sometimes. Intimacy and vulnerability are deeply connected.
Everyone is shy and awkward and waiting for the other person to make a move first.
Except when they’re not ready for that yet and you misread a signal and they go gossip to their friends about how you were trying to move too fast.
The whole dynamic is ass backwards. If I’m dating a woman then I’m open to having sex with her. I wouldn’t have asked her out in the first place if that wasn’t true. All the men I’ve talked to about this have been the same way. That usually isn’t the case for women in my experience. It takes time for them to get comfortable with you before they are ready for sex. Even after having had sex with you in the past they’re not always in the mood to do it again. That’s perfectly okay but they are the one setting the pace for when things happen so they should be the one sending the green light. They pretty much have a constant green light from me so don’t need to worry about any awkwardness from getting rejected.
One more tip kids.
If you aren’t comfortable talking about something, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.
You can just ask “is it ok if I kiss you?”
You can talk about sexual desires, you don’t have to just blindly stick your mouth out and hope for the best. Use words.
Do you know what I have found that “women want”?
A partner who understands their own emotions and desires and can talk openly and honestly about them.
Exactly.
Being open and communicating clearly are probably the most attractive features in the world.
You do realize that asking can follow misreading a signal? Which is what happened in the instance I was referring to. I’m more than happy to communicate desires. That’s literally what I’ve been suggesting here just that it should go both ways.
Best practice is to communicate before taking action.
It’s the same with building a house. Imagine you put one brick onto another, and only after that draw a plan. Kind of a waste of energy.
Talk first, act second.
You realize that if you ask and the answer is “no” that’s ok
It’s the literal point of communicating But go on living in a world that is impossible to figure out.
I never once have said saying no is not okay. If someone isn’t comfortable doing shit with me I absolutely want them to say no. I’ve never held that against anyone. The thing I have issues with is that “no” often isn’t the only consequence to trying to move forward before they are ready as in the example I gave where I interpreted a signal wrong and suggested we go to the bedroom, she shot me down, the evening continued on without any further pressure from me on the issue and then a week later I find out that afterwards she was complaining about me trying to move too fast to several of her friends. Which makes me look like an asshole in our shared social circle. That I do have a problem with and it’s hardly the only experience I’ve had where it was difficult to get a woman to communicate on the subject with me.
Exactly.
Effective feminism is when women make the calls.
“n = 357” is a much larger sample size than I expected for such a specific survey.
Isn’t that kind of a core aspect of toxic masculinity?
If they don’t truly respect themselves how can they respect anyone else? Truly sad for all involved.
I’ve heard of a similar study that showed conservative women don’t actually respect their spouses either. They put on a front for an audience, but it doesn’t extend to their actions.
Sure. But I stand by my position that the best I can do is what women consistently tell me they want me to do.
You just spent an evening out with Alyssa, a girl you think is really attractive. You’ve been dating her for several weeks. You think Alyssa looks really sexy. She’s wearing a short skirt and a blouse that shows her cleavage. You know that Alyssa has had casual sex with several guys since she’s been in college. Although you haven’t had sex with Alyssa, you’re really hoping you’ll get the chance to tonight. During your date, both of you had several alcoholic drinks. After your outing, the two of you go back to your place where you have some privacy. After chatting for a while, you and Alyssa start kissing. After a few minutes of making-out you’re feeling really turned on, so you start to reach under Alyssa’s shirt. Alyssa stops responding but doesn’t resist you in any way.
Oh are we role playing?
Ok let’s see.
You’ve put me in a tricky situation.
I don’t know whether we have ever made out before. What about alcohol tolerance? Is she drunk? Am I drunk? How big are her titties? Does she have a BBL? Is she dressed all slutty? Is she asking for it, if you know what I mean? Are the walls think enough to muffle her if she screams for help?
Oh how about this. This is a stupid scenario that people shouldn’t find themselves in because they talk about intentions and expectations during the beginning phases of a relationship. Really, that’s first week of dating stuff.
So what if she’s casually slept with other guys? Maybe she had a traumatic experience with the last one. Maybe they were liars. Maybe she doesn’t want sex with the current guy. Maybe she does and she’s not ready. Whatever her reason, there needs to be real, non-intoxicated consent before sexual contact.
People can establish good non-verbal communication that is sufficient to grant consent. But it takes longer than dating for a few weeks. And the first time having sex needs to be double and triple checked to make sure you didn’t misunderstand in your excitement.
This is literally one example scenario used by the researchers.
I think in the example I would have asked, “Are you OK?”
(then she says no, before she proceeds to vomit into my bed or something like this ;-))
It doesn’t make it any less stupid.
I mean, if someone stops responding to you, something is clearly wrong. Either they’re not into it or there’s more going on than meets the eye and in the first case you shouldn’t proceed, and in the 2nd you should try to help them, not fuck them. Either way, I wouldn’t even ask them if they wanted to continue, I would stop and ask them what was wrong.
“You alright, yeah?”
How do you measure toxic masculinity. What makes these traits masculine? This study is just loaded with biases.
And I think consent it highly contextualized on the precious social history of the two people.
Is’nt it the definition? It’s like saying drivers who drive fast are more likely to drive fast…
I wouldn’t say it’s the definition, but I agree this is not surprising.
Toxic masculinity is much more though. Men bullying men because they do something “not manly” is toxic masculinity. It can be anything from not enjoying sports to showing emotion for any reason (even crying if a family member died).I was in a private elementary school for six years with the same asshole teacher who treated me like shit all the time. There were several reasons, but big ones were that I didn’t like sports and I was sensitive, so I cried when something upset me.
Toxic masculinity fucked me up in a major way and it wasn’t even my own father (who also didn’t like sports and had no trouble showing his emotions) who did it to me.
It’s a terrible term for very real problem of toxic gender roles. I’m not sure if you meant to imply that these roles are only reenforced by other men, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Men and women reenforce these gender roles against men and boys, promoting the poor behavior.
There are definitely a lot of mothers who expect their sons to grow up to be “real men” and it’s unfortunate.
This is the true original definition of toxic masculinity, thank you for saying that.
Yeah, men who are assholes, behave like assholes. News at 11
It’s called a tautology, and yes.
Your daily reminder that “toxic masculinity” was a term coined by men sick of the negative mental health effects on having to conform to aggressive and dominate stereotypes.
Ya know, in case you think some other gender came up with it.
Its not how it is used now. EDIT: Why am I getting downvoted? Its literally how languages work.
Correct, now its mostly used as a lighting rod strawman that defensive insecure men attack while ironically complaining about how poor men’s mental health is.
Which is exactly what the 60’s men liberation movement was trying to avoid.
It gets thrown around by liberals plenty of times in order to simplify complicated gender issues. I try to be a better person, but the more I try the more I feel everything I do is wrong. I did not feel that why when I was more conservative.
bingo… as a guy anything i do that anyone else doesn’t like is because of my ‘toxic masculinity’.
seriously been told that i am a ‘toxic male’ for riding a bike. shit’s wild.
.
I’m intelligent enough to be a descriptivist rather than proscriptivist.
Some More News did a recent episode on toxic masculinity and the lack of good role models for young men and came up with the very simple solution (sorry, spoilers) to young men who have trouble getting girlfriends:
Make a female friend. Not a friend you hope will be a girlfriend, not someone you think about fucking, just a friend. A woman you can talk to like a buddy. Learn about how to talk to women from a woman.
Never really thought about this but reflecting back on it nonsexual intimate conversations with women when I was a teen definitely gave me a lot of insights on a woman’s perspective. Not only with friends but cousins around my age too, that was especially great around middle school because I was pretty nervous around girls then.
That being said I don’t think it will help a ton with getting a girlfriend in the first place necessarily, but it will definitely help once you are in a relationship afterwards and just in any interaction with a woman.
Successfully starting a relationship is hard as fuck. It’s a mixture of confidence, reading cues, timing, perseverance, and a ton more. The only sure way to learn how to do it is to try, take no for an answer, don’t be pushy, accept rejection it will happen a lot, and TAKE BREAKS. It’s pretty soul crushing when it doesn’t work out and it probably isn’t going to a majority of the time for many reasons. After getting consecutively rejected for so long you can start to develop some negative thoughts. When you start to feel like this just stop trying for a few months until you’re mentally right again.
All that said I would 100% advocate for having a personal platonic relationship with a woman, it just may not be too helpful in learning how to get a relationship started.
It is sad that great role models for men don’t really exist right now. Who would most men look to for guidance? An actor? They’re fine and all, but they’re not usually symbols of greatness, they’re actors…
Politicians? Definitely not, we all know there isn’t a single politician that anyone can really look up to.
Corporate leaders? Selfish people at the least, destructive at worst. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos aren’t anybody anyone should be going to for advice.
Online pundits? That’s where men are finding themselves because those are the only people talking to men specifically. Their guidance is flawed (an understatement), but when they’re the only ones addressing the problems men have, of course many young guys are going to gravitate toward them.
There are plenty of good men out there. Teachers, bosses, coaches, etc.
Nobody gives a shit about them, because they aren’t famous, rich, or complete piece of shit. Those are the only ‘men’ anyone looks up to.
The issue is that not there are no good male role models, it’s that we have decided the only ‘good’ men are famous, and anyone else is subpar. Our cultural assumption is that all men are bad by default, and that only the best of the best rise above it.
Personally, I’m sick of this nonsense. The vast majority of men I have ever known are good men. But society loves to shit on them because they aren’t sexy, popular, or wealthy. And we love to focus on the POS men who are, who cheat, lie, and steal their way to the top.
It’s quite similar to the issue women faced (face) for so long with old role models like blonde Barbie, etc etc. not equating experiences but it’s all about what media is trying to push as a standard. It doesn’t help that society does often look down on men expressing emotions (beyond anger) and other behaviors that are seen as feminine coded. I’m glad I have people around me that I do and live where I love so I can be myself a bit more.
the standard that blows my mind is achievement gap.
a woman goes to college, gets an office job, gets a mid-managerial position, etc > she is amazing, awesome, superstar.
a man goes to college, gets an office job, gets a mid-manager position, etc > what a pathetic loser/failure
this is why we are setting so many men up to just give up at life. we have made the basic super hard to achieve for them, and told them that even if they obtain that, they are still pathetic losers… so why even try?
I agree. I don’t know if I care personally the standards set for women as compared to the ones set for me that I don’t like. The issue with standards in certain areas for men can easily stand on their own. I only say that because I’ve found it reverts to a fight about other standards held against women that ARE terrible and well documented. They are still 100% valid, just not the topic at hand per se. I’m probably rambling but just throwing out some of my own thoughts as I’ve worked through the things we’re talking about.
He talks about that in the video. I actually brought it up in that post you replied to, the lack of good role models for young men.
My role models, the people I aspired to be like as a kid, were always fictional characters.
The Doctor from Doctor Who, Jake from Animorphs, Tyrion Lannister.
I definitely never had anyone from real life who’d I consider worth emulating.
Same, but I also see a trope of men often being dumb or evil or both in a lot of current media. And that really doesn’t help create role models
At least they still have uncle Iroh
National Tea Appreciation Day, anyone?
I hate having to explain this shit to my daughter.
We were talking about the “man vs. bear” thing and about trusting strange men and how even if a man isn’t horrific enough to try to assault her, many men who help her will expect sexual favors in return and would at the least harass her.
This world is so ugly and I have to show her that on a daily basis.
about trusting strange men
Fair enough but the problem isn’t just “strange men.”
I agree, and we’ve talked about that issue as well more than once, but this was specifically in regards to that whole “what would you be worried about more if you’re alone in the woods, a strange man or a bear?” thing that was spreading around where lots of women said they would be more worried about the strange man.
The reason it really happened was that my daughter said to me that she would pick the man because the man would help her get out of the woods, so I was explaining to her why many women say they wouldn’t trust the strange man.
She’s (almost) 14. She doesn’t really understand how some men will end up preying on her yet.
Sounds like your daughter has good common sense to me
You’re missing the point. Of course being lost in the woods with another human is preferable to a bear. The point in choosing the bear in the hypothetical scenario is that women have felt so uncomfortable around men for so long, that it’s almost preferable to risk the bear than risk the man. It’s making a statement about how women feel they’re being treated by too many men every day.
Maybe listen to the women who say they choose the bear, they’re telling you something is wrong with how they’re treated.
And the worst part is that some men’s reactions prove the women’s points
In posts to social media that I have chosen not to share, men have made gleeful memes of women being savaged, ripped apart, bloodied, mauled and eaten by bears.
They’ve shared videos of bear attacks with captions either mocking women or saying they deserve this fate for choosing the bear. “What did they expect?” these men claim, unwittingly echoing the very mindset women are protesting against.
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/man-vs-bear-debate-reactions/
There have also been the men responding by saying they hope that women get F***ed by a bear or murdered for daring to feel that a bear is less of a threat than a random man.
https://medium.com/@SpencerGall/man-vs-bear-how-are-so-many-men-missing-the-point-0345d4c2de0f
The self-awareness of those guys is non-existent. How can you be so obtuse as to fall into the exact behavior you’re being called out on?
It baffles me
The bear or man meme thing made me realize a lot of people don’t seem to have passed 10th grade English. They get so caught up in like the literal evaluation of the text and don’t even think about the subtext or deeper meaning. They probably think Dracula is just a story about a dude that bites people, and star trek is just about space ships.
I just find it amusing that a kid is spouting out a common sense answer but dad is like “well ackshually”
Yes I know why women pick bear
But I also know the actual correct answer is man, if we are taking this situation literally, lol. I grew up on the east slopes of the rockies, I’ve been charged by a grizzly, yeah no thanks on that shit
Can’t believe you’re getting downvoted for being rational. These people are unhinged with their misandry.
A 13 year old child doesn’t have this level of terminally online brain rot yet and hasn’t yet forgotten that bears are our natural predators
Which makes me wonder about your gender…
Weird
FYI, this user was sharing the racist ass incel “men prefer the bear because it’s brown, tall and abandons their children” image in threads about man or bear.
Food for thought if you think they are making a good point here (they aren’t).
You can go read the full thread of that in the mod history, the image perfectly proves that misandry is ok on here but racism is not, if you think I literally stand by that meme then there’s nothing I can do about that lol
Actually I remember debating you on that, you just hate men
I wouldn’t say guys wanting to fuck equals an ugly world.
“Guys wanting to fuck” because they did a woman a favor is the issue.
How would you like it if every time someone did you a favor, they not only expected sex in return, but treated you like shit if you turned them down?
I guarantee you plenty of women on Lemmy can tell you stories about that happening to them more than once.
Not surprising but always good to have studies to prove these kinds of things.
Reported that they would escalate the level of sexual intimacy regardless of whether or not they thought it was consensual.
Gentlemen, the moment you’re questioning in your head if the girl is consenting, you use your voice and ask something along the lines of, “do you trust me?” or, “keep going?”, or “do you like this/it?”
Fkin no brainer. smh
until she says ‘no’. you stop and take her home.
then she messages you the next morning ‘i don’t date pussies who take no for an answer’.
plenty of women have the toxic idea that their consent should and must be violated to prove your worth as a man, or equally, her desirability.
It’s a lot better not to participate in rape culture and risk committing sexual assault, rather than submit to a woman perpetuating toxic masculinity, ngl. I wouldn’t want to be the person to get raped just because other people think that accepting “no” for an answer is for pussies.
dating is participating in toxic everything.
Jesus Christ, no. don’t listen to this guy.
“You wanted me to rape you, on the off-chance that you were into that?”
“yes, and you’re a pussy for not doing it. I don’t date pussies.”
wanna cyber
