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.”
Is’nt it the definition? It’s like saying drivers who drive fast are more likely to drive fast…
It’s called a tautology, and yes.
“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
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.
Correct. I lack those “toxic masculinity” and dating life is so hard for me. What they called “toxic masculinity” is what women seek.
That’s not true, but I’ve gone round and round with these black pill talking points enough to know that there isn’t anything I could say to change your mind, at least not here in this thread.
I implore you to seek out new content and to shut off whatever incel sources that told you this. It’s not some harsh but true reality that most people are too PC to say out loud, but a defensive mechanism to blame women for your loneliness. And tragically one that women rightfully see as 🚩 's and stay away from.
This lonely angry ideology is a self fulfilling prophecy and I can only hope that one day you understand that.
Toxic masculinity isn’t necessarily the “masculine” traits themselves. You can have traits which are considered masculine, and those traits not be toxic. Toxic masculinity has more to do with the expectations of traits/gender norms rather than the idealized traits. A trait (or lack of a trait) might make people in a patriarchial society see you as more or less of a man, and that expectation is the toxic masculinity.
Basically the toxic masculinity is just how society rewards or punishes you for what degree you meet certain normative male/masculine gender roles.
I have a lot of compassion for people who have been poisoned with toxic masculinity. The toxicity comes from a place quite abusive to men. It demands a vision of a man who is what I think of as emotionally castrated. Completely denied any exhibitions of passive sadness, outward facing compassion, grief, fear or desire for anything outside a small range of approved desires. In return they are given tools of violence, silence, denial and anger to express virtually everything. To ask for help is framed as failure. The people whom they love have to interpret their sense of love and compassion only through grandiose acts or through that narrow conduit of allowed emotional reactions… But it is so hard to connect with someone through the medium of anger.
When people are told “suck it up! Be a man!” it make those things aspirational… But it’s just the sugar around the outside of the conditioning. The inside is bitter isolation. I will always remember my Mom telling me that my Dad was so scared to have sons. He didn’t think he could do right by sons. He struggled so hard with his own conditioning but it never suited him. It never suited my grandfather to whom my Dad always felt like he communicated with always at a distance, the mask only cracking when he was sick in hospital and my Granddad never left his bedside. A deep reservoir of feeling that could never be expressed except in silence between men except under extremes. A strict taboo of self denial… For what?
Undoing that damage is so hard even when you are aware of it. The toxicity can’t always be healed and some of that damage is permanent.
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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.
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.
Then you congratulate yourself for dodging a bullet and focus your efforts on people who don’t play those kinds of games.
Someone who sends a text like that is also the sort of person to “forget” their birth control or lie about std test results. So yeah maybe you got your dick wet, but now you’re paying for child support and syphilis medication.
You assume there are people who don’t play those games.
I know there are because I go outside and meet them.
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
“Bears with teeth more likely to cause injury to people they bite.”
How do you have Toxic Masculinity? That’s not how the concept works…
How do you have Toxic Masculinity?
Yeah, it’s a flaw in the way it’s framed, methinks - it’s very easy to discern men who display behavior that are “high in toxic masculine traits” because they are the visible tip of the iceberg.
I’m glad they did the research but also duh. I’ve done an experiment on this by being a woman at a bar
Absolutely not surprising in the slightest.
Oh my, TLDR! (Statement not a summary)
sexual advances without consent by men is masculine toxicity by definition.
Toxicity is a spectrum. Some people are entirely toxic and love it. Others are slightly toxic and not aware. Yet others put in honest effort, struggling to reduce their own toxicity.
Thats not just men, that’s people.
This post right here is exactly why ‘toxic masculinity’ is a fucking shit term that should never be used.
The intended meaning of the phrase was never ‘men, who are toxic’, or even ‘men who are toxic’, even though that’s the straight-line interpretation of it.
What it’s supposed to mean is ‘overexaggerated performative masculinity required by social norms, the imposition of which upon men is toxic’.
Given that that’s a fucking mouthful and the short form is horribly misleading, I always go with “gender policing” instead.
Stop telling people how to do their gender, and a vast number of social problems will evaporate. It also places the blame on the actual cause of the problem, and expands to cover mandatory-performative-femininity as well, which is also a shit thing to subject people to.
‘overexaggerated performative masculinity required by social norms, the imposition of which upon men is toxic’
Huh, I always thought this was obvious but I can see how people can take it as “men who are toxic” since feminism is flattened down in some people’s minds to mean “women who want to dominate men” like wtf.
Also, thanks for introducing me to “gender policing”!
You know, gender studies is arts-faculty - people who devote their careers to parsing the subtlest nuances from the gauziest wisps of meaning.
Yet when it comes to making up two-word catchphrases like [HORRIBLE] [DEMOGRAPHIC], it never even occurs to them that people might associate [demographic] with [horribleness] when they hear it.
I’m just a little bit cynical about this.
Yet when it comes to making up two-word catchphrases like [HORRIBLE] [DEMOGRAPHIC], it never even occurs to them that people might associate [demographic] with [horribleness] when they hear it.
I don’t think anyone actually believes that-- it seems like you see it from bad faith actors online/in the manosphere. No one thinks someone who hates “big trucks” hates all trucks, or “crowded places” hates everywhere, or more to the point, that someone who wants to cut “toxic people” out of their life is going to never see another human. Yet somehow applying an adjective to “masculinity” makes it really easy to be misunderstood?
If the argument is that they should’ve come up with a phrase that’s less vulnerable to corruption by bad faith actors I might buy it, but I’m willing to bet that even something as specific as “overly performative aspects of how men express their masculinity because they squash their feelings and thus become dangerous to people around them, especially women” would still magically be “misunderstood” on the internet and reduced to “feminists say all men bad”.
“Big” is not a negative adjective. “Truck” is not (mostly) an identity or demographic group. You’d have to make up some term like maybe “murder trucks” to get close to an analogy. Would you not suppose that someone who advocated against “murder trucks” thought trucks were bad?
“Crowded” - maybe mildly negative. “Places” - not an identity or demographic.
“Toxic” - Ok. “People” - This hardly seems like an identity or demographic. Maybe if martians start talking about “toxic humans” we’d have an analogy.
And that whole last paragraph is just a straw man.
Let’s consider some real analogies.
“Poisonous Hinduism” “Virulent Femininity” “Malignant Jewishness” “Destructive Liberalism” “Pestilent Blackness” “Dangerous Queerness”
I literally just looked up synonyms for toxic and picked random identity groups. Could you imagine trying to make any of these phrases academic terms?
Could you imagine trying to make any of these phrases academic terms?
That’s a good point, but (most) of your chosen identity aspects aren’t widely known for being accountable for negative things like violence. How about something like “dangerous republicanism” or “genocidal zionism”? Maybe if exaggerated (or even say, toxic) masculinity wasn’t being weaponized so much these days to lead young men toward alt right fascism it wouldn’t come up in academic settings.
irony for me is that anyone i knew in genders studies or who was a militant feminist or whatever… always always always dated the most toxic violent gender stereotype dudes.
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With the best will in the world, I think you’re still conflating the symptom with the disease.
Gender-policing is abusive, and abused people often behave in problematic and indeed shitty ways. While of course there are no excuses for shitty behaviour, it’s also incredibly shit to turn around and frame that behaviour in terms of the criteria by which they were picked out for abuse in the first place.
For intance (to get into properly uncomfortable territory), it’s fair to say that systemic racism drives poverty and disadvantage, which in turn can drive all kinds of antisocial behaviour and societal problems. But imagine for one second some sociologist coming up with the concept of ‘toxic Africanity’ (or equivalent) to describe it. They would get fucking dragged, and rightly so.
It’s not about being ‘probably one of the good ones’. It’s about looking at a bunch horrible maladaptive coping strategies, and asking what the hell it is we’re expecting people to cope with, and why we put up with that.
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Really? I’ve never once felt personally attacked as a cis man when I’ve heard the phrase “toxic masculinity.” I know when I’ve been a tool as someone will have probably told me or I feel disappointed in myself after the fact. I’m also a queer guy and on the spectrum so I’ve never really given a fuck about behaving “masculine.”
Really? I’ve never once felt personally attacked as a cis man when I’ve heard the phrase “toxic masculinity.”
Strangely enough, me neither - in fact, the first time I heard that term I knew exactly what it referred to. My problem with it is that it doesn’t go far enough.
sexual advances without consent by men is masculine toxicity by definition.
It’s a whole lot more than that.
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.
This just in, studies using modern day neologisms are likely to find more evidence of modern day neologisms.
if only there was some sort of, say, image of pikachu, that could express my feelings upon reading this
No surprise in any way at all.
