Boys & Sex

Boys & Sex shares the best insights that Peggy Orenstein had after two years of asking young men about their sex lives, including why stereotypes make life harder for them, how hookup culture is destroying relationships, and what we as a society can do to help these boys have better, healthier views about and experiences with sex.

When Orenstein asked boys what they looked for in the ideal woman, she expected stereotypes like big boobs and blonde hair. Many of them actually listed positive descriptors like “ambitious” and “intelligent.” That surprises Orenstein.

But when she asked them about what an ideal man would look like, they listed old stereotypes like someone who was strong or emotionally reserved.  This shows just how prevalent these old stereotypes of what a man needs to be are.

Orenstein says the problem is that these stereotypes are negatively affecting the mental health of young men. Emodiversity, or the ability to feel and express a myriad of emotions, is essential to mental health. When young men feel like they have to suppress their emotions, it severely limits their emodiversity.

Statistics show us how this negatively affects young men’s health. But yet there is pressure from a young age to hold emotions in. Studies have consistently shown that parents use more empathy and emotional vocabulary when speaking to their daughters than their sons.

This only continues into school years, where young men feel their peers will see them as weak if they show emotion.   This “strong man” image needs to stop if we want to help young men been mentally and emotionally healthy.

It seems the youth of today have decidedly “swiped right” on hookup culture and mostly rejected emotional commitment. Fueled by this culture are Dating apps and booze-filled one-night stands. And it is having big consequences. In these types of hookups, emotional intimacy isn’t the point. The goal is to be sexually active without vulnerability or attachment. Boys who didn’t keep things casual and expressed feelings to a partner or thought about their own performance often reported being ostracized by their peers for this. The stereotypes that college males should be both sexually active and confident, combined with the stereotype that they should be emotionless contributes to the insistence on keeping sex and intimacy separate. Worryingly, this “transactional” sex encourages young men to see and treat women as sexual objects. This is evident in statistics such as the Online College Social Life Survey, where only 51 percent of college-aged girls reported climaxing in their most recent hookup while 81 percent of boys did. What’s more, many of these young men admitted being distant from their partner to maintain a masculine image. Young men also report…