Canada: In the age of Internet porn, teaching boys to be good men

Submitted by anthony on Sun, 2012-04-22 20:24

Article here. Excerpt:

'WiseGuyz, run by the Calgary Sexual Health Centre (which gave Mr. Spence his training), isn't just sex ed with an update. It's part of a new wave of initiatives to intervene in a young, male culture that is giving many adults cause for concern. Long-term, the aim is to combat the rates of domestic violence and sexually transmitted infections. Short-term, the goal is to tutor young men in healthy relations with women and non-destructive masculinity.
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In many ways, these programs are a junior version of the Men Of Strength (MOST) Club: Now a decade old in the United States, the 22-week curriculum for 11-to-18-year-olds emphasizes “healthy, non-violent masculinity.” A college incarnation, Campus MOST, is now pushing bystander intervention in sexual assaults.

“It does a good job of portraying the well-rounded, healthy, chivalrous man, the real masculinity. It's not just your jock – the media portrayal of what a man should be,” says Adam Middleton, a freshman at George Washington University who attends Campus MOST.'

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Indeed, helping boys form a healthy self-image as men is a necessary endeavor. Question is, what assumptions are being made about boys in certain such programs? And what ultimately are they being taught about themselves and girls/women? Those are questions needing answers and unfortunately these days, the answers are often not too comforting for MRAs. After all, when you start with the assumption that boys are fundamentally in need of "fixing" and girls don't need any such effort, what is that saying to and about the boys that undoubtedly they are picking up on? And what effects does it have on them? Mentoring programs are necessary and good in concept. Their content is what needs scrutiny.

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Submitted by Matt on Sun, 2012-04-22 21:21

noticed the usual false stat about women earning less than men, w/o the reasons also brought forth. and i have yet to see a 'religious' based mentoring program mention what feminism and the courts have done to destroy marriage.

i would be willing to give odds that subjects like false accusations of rape, molestation, and d.v. are not even broached, or at least from a male being victimized position.

the problem with trying to mentor anyone w/o having a firm grasp of the actual facts is that it will backfire. when i was in high school they showed us films about people smoking pot and then jumping out of 10th floor windows. as soon as we figured out they were selling b.s., we didn't trust anything else they were peddling. iow, you wind up doing more harm than good.

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Submitted by daveinga on Mon, 2012-04-23 02:15