How we are screwing up boys with violence, porn, drugs and alcohol

What’s happening to our boys?: Maggie Hamilton’s new book

When I first began turning my attention to the sexualisation of girls in the media and popular culture, a book that significantly echoed my own thoughts was What’s happening to our girls: Too much too soon, how our kids are overstimulated, oversold and oversexed (Penguin, 2008) by author, publisher and teacher Maggie Hamilton. Not long after, I approached Maggie and asked if she would be willing to write a chapter for my book Getting Real: Challenging the sexualisation of girls (Spinifex Press, 2009). I was delighted when she agreed. In her chapter ‘The Seduction of girls: the human cost’, Maggie combined research and her own thoughtful observation to analyse the impacts of the onslaught of sexualised messaging on girls. She explored the decline in imagination, slowing cognitive development, plummeting self-esteem, self-harm, performance culture, sexual assault and how girls were socialized to be objects. Since then Maggie and I have shared a few platforms and friendship has developed. I am blessed to have the support of a woman of her calibre.

Maggie has now turned her attention to what we are doing to boys. What’s Happening to Our Boys?: At Risk, how the new technologies, drugs and alcohol, peer pressure and porn affect our boys will be launched  in Sydney today at a private event, following by public events during the week.

Increasingly, as I traverse the country speaking about the effects of a toxic culture on the health and wellbeing of girls, I’m asked about boys. What can be done for boys? It has been helpful to be able to point to Maggie’s book and say, this will be a good place to start. What’s happening to our boys? is a major and in many ways overdue resource to help us address the problems boys are facing, which cannot help but improve the situation for girls.

This is an interview I did with Maggie in the lead up to the launch.

Maggie, what inspired you to write this book?

While we’re increasingly conscious that girls are vulnerable to a whole range of issues, we do tend to assume that boys can cope with whatever they’re faced with. But this isn’t necessarily the case.. Parents were constantly telling me really sad and concerning stories about incidents with their boys. Many were distressed they hadn’t seen these issues coming and, because they hadn’t faced these things themselves, were unsure of how best to respond. So it seemed like a good idea to take a closer look at our boys’ lives. I’m so glad I did – it’s given me a much more intimate sense of what boys are dealing with.

What is happening to our boys?

The marketers have realised boys are the last untapped demographic, so they’re spending millions to market to boys. We’re going to be seeing this in everything from the entertainment industry, to fashion and toiletries, to name but a few. Already this push is impacting our boys. We’re seeing a growth in anxiety around looks and possessions from preschool on. The boys as young as eight or nine who I spoke with were very preoccupied with having the right gear, and worried that if they didn’t they’d be seen as a loser. So by the time boys hit their teens we’re starting to see a spike in body issue concerns and self esteem problems. Basically our boys are going down the same track as girls in experiencing anxiety and self-loathing – perfect for advertisers, but not so great for our kids.

We’re also seeing the growth of secret lives as there’s so many ways boys can do their own thing, often right under parents’ noses. The growth in violence in video games is also affecting our boys, as is their growing addiction to online gambling and other unhelpful activities.

Do you think we have been ignoring the welfare of boys?

One of the big problems for boys is that there’s a whole range of issues we hadn’t dealt with for boys before the 21st century issues bit. We still have a long way to go to nurture boys more. Before they can be strong and independent, they have to be nurtured. Yet we tend to be more hands off with boys, which means they have to find their own way. We also need to pay more attention to promoting reading and communication skills from early on in the home. This can make a huge difference to a boy’s confidence, but still isn’t happening to nearly the level that’s needed. Boys also have the right to a rich emotional life, especially as they’re living in a far more emotionally complex world than previous generations. When you then add in the challenges of cyber-bullying, increased levels of violence in games and in the playground, the pressure to look a certain way, act out, concerns around body image, the pressure to drink and how to operate in an increasingly sexualised environment, you begin to realise this is a lot for any kid to deal with especially when parents aren’t up to speed.

Why have they been so neglected do you think?

Boys (and men) tend to keep on going regardless, which isn’t always ideal. So when we look at them we assume everything’s fine, when this mightn’t be the case. We’ve also become a little blind where many male issues from health to relationships are concerned. When we neglect our boys, everyone is impacted – families, future partners and children.

What was the most confronting thing you learnt about what boys were doing?

The explosion of pornography and the very easy access boys have to this material – sometimes at home, on their phones or at a friend’s place. It’s more than concerning when you realise just what they’re accessing – everything from bestiality to the deflowering of young girls. Studies show that repeated exposure to porn shuts down a boy’s feelings, and may even lead him to become a sexual abuser. Scratch the surface and you see just how many boys are viewing porn, and increasingly as a group activity. This isn’t just an activity high school boys are into. Increasingly primary school boys are getting into porn, and boys are also watching it together. Porn gives them a new language, a new way of relating, which can lead to significant harm. 

I understand you had to take a break in the middle of writing the book because what you were finding out was so disturbing and you weren’t entirely prepared for that. Can you tell us more about what that time was like for you?

This has been a very hard book to write in some ways. I love working with boys and find them astonishingly expressive, but sometimes when you’re aware of what they’re up against it can seem overwhelming. I kept asking myself how come we moved so far from our duty of care? It was a pretty dark time, but then I had to remind myself that we can’t afford to despair. Ultimately I believe there’s lots we can do, but we can’t be complacent. We need to act on everything we see that we know is unhelpful to our kids. It’s not just the seduction of billboards, magazine and movie ads, and MTV clips we need to be concerned about. We need to be aware of how easily young boys can access porn, for example. “We’re now seeing kids sexually active way under ten, because of access to porn, or their parents’ own behaviour”, John, who works with troubled youth, told me. “I’ve seen many cases where porn is readily left around the home, where it’s part of the family culture. Then you’ve got parents who carefully stash their porn away, and kids have a way of finding it”.

How is boys’ behaviour impacting on girls?

I think boys and girls are equally vulnerable – especially in the sexual arena. While boys can’t get pregnant and don’t face the same slurs a girl who is perceived to be overly sexually active faces, and have more ways of protecting themselves, we can’t be naive about the fact that boys are increasingly vulnerable to sexual assault. This doesn’t in any way lessen our concerns around the growing predatory behaviour we’re seeing towards girls. We have to face the fact that boys are now also stalked by determined often aggressive young girls who are encouraged by cultural messaging which teaches them to act in predatory ways . They send countless inappropriate texts to boys to try and gain their attention. It’s not just photos of low tops girls are sending around. This makes it very difficult for boys to know how to respond as it can seem very enticing. At the same time, boys consuming porn can place our girls at risk – and not just teenage girls. In one Brisbane primary school a seven-year-old girl was sexually assaulted over two months by a boy her age. Hitting her and threatening to kill her if she spoke out, the boy repeatedly forced this young girl to perform oral sex. In another school a group of six-year-old boys banded together and were forcing classmates to perform various sexual acts on them. According to one youth worker, “We are now seeing children grooming younger kids for sex, there’s a real seduction pattern going on. A lot of this appears to be exposure to porn”.

What is your message to parents of sons?

Love and nurture your boys, encourage them to be part of all the good things the new technologies and popular culture have to offer them, but don’t be naive about the dangers.

To educators?

I think there’s no doubt we need more men in the education system. Our boys lack good role models. There’s no substitute for a wealth of good men in their lives. What a wonderful thing it would be to have a positive recruitment drive for bright engaged young men – good for boys and girls.

To policy makers?

More work needs to be done on the 21st century issues boys face and how we can protect them. Making the Advertising Standards Board more accountable and more aware of the new issues we’re facing would be an excellent start. The growing violence in video games needs to be regulated and soon, as does the increasing blurring of sex and violence in games. We also need a strong and clearly drawn regulatory framework with which to deal with pornography now so available to our children.

To the community as a whole?

For too long we’ve seen boys as problematic. We get cross when we see skate-boarders and boys involved in other activities. Strong communities are inclusive. They accommodate and celebrate the needs of their citizens – and that includes our boys. It’s not hard, but it does need time and effort – resources that are well spent. The role of adults has always been to protect our young – that still stands, so we need to have the courage to be good gate-keepers, to question material we know to be harmful to our kids – if we don’t then who will?

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/12218933[/vimeo]

See also: Violence, sex and the little boys lost, The Australian, May 22, 2010

For Maggies book launch events click here.