He also aspired to them. It feels like its a ghost of masculinity and sexuality following these young men around and i was hoping you could talk about them. Its almost as if theyve layered expectations on the old ones that really challenging for or eliminating the old ones so theyre in a state of conflict. Guys see women as deserving of their place in the classroom. As deserving of being leaders as they are. And yet, thats all on the public arena. In their private life, theyre still being encouraged to see the marker of a man being a sexual conquest. Hooking up without feeling. With as many partners as possible. Not treating those partners well and thats whats presented to them as debtors and fun. When you hear boys in the locker room talking, basic, when youre talking about sex, i hammered, i nailed, i found, its like they went to a construction site. A lot of the guys i spoke with were really struggling with a contradiction. I was taken by the idea as well. Talking to young men were engaged in hookup culture where these traditional facets of oldschool masculinity. At times they would tell you they were afraid of things such as intimacy. You kept finding young men who felt as if hookup culture and misogynistic cultureactually hurt them as well . I think it really did. I feel like when i wrote girls and sex, girls were have been systematically disconnected from their bodies and desires. Whereas with boys, it was like they were to systematically disconnected from their hearts. They were constantly wrestling with ideas affordability. What it meant to be vulnerable. Avoiding crying. That was a big taboo. One of the guys i spoke with said, i never cried. But his parents got divorced and he wanted to cry. But he couldnt. So he streamed three holocaust movies back to back and that worked. When we cut boys off from vulnerability and their ability to feel anything except for happiness and anger and put Everything Else behind a wall. We are cutting them off from a fundamental part of humanity. Rence brown says vulnerability is the secret sauce that keeps relationships together. I found that young men are really detached from their own emotions and being able to communicate how they feel about themselves and the world around them. I think that cuts them off from the idea of intimacy. I was captivated in your book, you would have conversations with young men and time and time again, it seemed as if the concepts you were bringing up whether it was intimacy or rewarding relationships, it seemed like you broaching the subject with them point had been the first time they considered it. At times, they seemed shocked by a. That was one of the most Amazing Things about this work. How eager the guys were to talk. I expected and worried that when i tried to talk to teenaged boys that i did end up with transcripts that consisted of, uhuh. Girls have the reputation for chatting is. Given permission and space, i think possibly because im a woman that gave the mortar mission to wrestle with their interior life and to talk about feelings and to drop that mask. They would say, i learned to put a wall of. I trained myself not to feel. These heart piercing ideas. As the author of the previous book, girls and sex. How did you feel approaching the subject. This is new territory. There are limitations in terms of gender communication. How did you feel as a researcher coming into this project . I have to say, i kind of resisted doing it at all. I read about girls for 25 years so thats where im comfortable. Nobody was talking to boys. The wedding was hearing what they had to say and its really a new era in terms of metoo and all the things we are talking about. We need to know whats going on inside their heads to best guide them to i started doing that. Metoo exploded. That put a lot of attention on boys behavior because we want to reduce sexual violence. But it also created an opportunity to engage boys in conversation about sex. About intimacy, gender dynamics. In a way maybe thats unprecedented. You bring up the metoo revolution. It seems its a shadow living in the background. The young men you talk to seems not only cognizant of it but some of them fearful of it. Some of them aware that its something they should be considering or changing their behaviors. What you finding with young men on these changing dynamics are affecting them and how they see the world and their place in it. Everything you just said. That whole gamut. Guys that were in denial. One of the issues i think is that we think that anyone who assaults is a monster and only monsters assault. As an overarching idea, that blinds us to the everyday coercion and low level and sometimes not lowlevel Sexual Misconduct that ordinary guys engage in. Everybody thinks theyre a good guy. But sometimes a good guy can do a bad thing. And thats what we have to reckon with. To me, in all of the metoo allegations, the one that was sort of the most interesting. Was the story around aziz ansari. What he did was not a matter of legality but it was a matter of ethics. It was a very everyday ordinary power dynamic. You have an overeager guy whos pushing a young woman to do something she doesnt want to do and seeing her limits as a challenge hes supposed to go to overcome. Near the end of the book where youve had these discussions and gained an idea of what was going on in this culture, you talk about this idea of the good guy. You brought up the brock turner case which is an infamous situation of Sexual Assault. You mentioned there are these letters being sent out that say hes a good guy. And the underlying inherent meeting behind these letters is that a good guy cannot commit these actions. Did you walk away from your research and your interviews feeling badly about our culture or how we respond to these situations . Or how we move forward . I walked away feeling we have to have a lot more conversations with boys. Both about what not to do and what to do. But it is true that guys tend to over perceive yes. They tend to aespecially if theyve been drinking. They see anything as a calm on. Come on. They are less likely to perceive a partners hesitation. I think we have to shift a lot of that conversation to really helping our boys understand how alcohol affects the Power Dynamics and behavior of boys. I think what youre talking about is a taboo subject. You talk about sexual education and how it is not up to the level we need to have in order to find a new way forward or educate young men or anybody for that matter. You bring up the fact that abstinence education talks about it as a problem. Sexual education talks about how to prevent problems. Can you talk about what your idea of how sexual education or how our discussions in this realm should work . We tend to as americans, focus on risk and danger. I think we need to make a shift to responsibility and joy. I have to say, i understand that most parents would rather put themselves poke themselves in the eye with a four then talk to their sons about sex and about sexual pleasure and reciprocity. The fact is we dont have the luxury anymore of remaining silent about these issues. When we dont talk to our kids in todays world, they will be educated by media and by porn. Its also talking about media messages and gender dynamics and consent and these other issues. This book was the first time i was more prescriptive at the end of the book. In the past, ive taken the reader into a scene or place or a person who exemplifies what i think would be a way forward. After nine years of writing about adolescence and sexuality, i felt like i had something to say. File a substantial claim in the book that parents have abdicated their responsibility and talking to sons about sex. Our point, you say despite their eye rolling and your plugin, teenagers do want information about sex. The heart of the book says how that conversation isnt happening because of awkwardness or fear. You mention at some point, an eyeopening contrast between american and dutch culture were dutch children begin Sex Education as early as four. As teenagers, they have family sanctioned sleepovers with their significant others as early as 1415. Results have shown dutch teenagers have better relationships and have sex at later ages. I was wondering if you could talk about thatbecause i find that interesting concept. Fewer partners too. There was research that compared dutch and American College students, this was girls. It was an apples to apples demographics comparison. Looking at their early sexual experience. The dutch girls basically had everything that we say we want for our kids. Prepared for the experience responsibly. Lower rates of pregnancy and lower rates of stds. Lower rates of regret. They were less likely to be drunk. They enjoyed it more. And they said they could community with your partner. Everything they had, americans didnt. When they dug deeper, what they found was that dutch students said their parents, teachers and doctors talk to them from a very early age about sex, emotional intimacy and about sexual pleasure. It made me think a lot as a parent myself that americans tend to frame discussions about sex, when we have them at all, solely in terms of risk and danger. It made me think about shifting that conversation to talking about responsibility and joy. Im a parent myself. That shifted my mentality perhaps more than anything else i ever read about Sex Education. I think thats really telling because it sounds like the way americans approach conversations about sex, particularly between parents and children is with apprehension and fear. When i read these conversations that youre having with young men about how they are approaching their first sexual encounters or while they are navigating the politics of the whole thing. Our in the world. Its always happening outside of parents purview. Happening at parties. Happening at unsupervised gatherings where there is alcohol involved. When you reach your descriptions of it, it actually sounds pretty sinister and frightening for the people involved. There are a lot of miscommunications for situations where people can make bad decisions or be put in danger. Feels like applicationof that conversation is really having an effect. I think thats really true. Theres a lot of ambivalence and a fair amount of trauma. When you say kids roll their eyes and plug their ears, thats kind of what we are doing as parents all the time. Another thing i found about the dutch, they use the opportunity of doing things like negotiating the terms of that sleepover with the significant other as another way to be in reinforce their values. It creates a kind of soft control over kids. That we dont have. In American Culture, we just dont talk about it and we pretend its not happening. The results are not great. I have to say, even having an open conversation on television feels revolutionary at times. It sure does. With the guys themselves, they would say to me all the time, ive never said this to anybody before. Ive never talked like this to anybody before. Ive never admitted this to anybody before. This is like therapy. I got a lot of that. They would say this conversation meant so much. I love the guys stay in touch. I thought, im a stranger. Imagine if they can have these conversations with the adults in their lives or with their peers. Even in their own heads. When you are having these conversations in the book, it really struck me that it feels like you really found a level of intimacy with these young men to speak about things they had never talked about. One of the things that keeps coming up in these conversations and i think is notable, is the idea of fear. This insecurity. Fear of being judged, not fitting in, being excommunicated from their groups. I feel like you were able to move beyond that and find at the heart of this thing, fear. Yeah. Fear of vulnerability. Fear of shame. Fear of exclusion. I think its a rare opportunity for the boys i talked to to have those conversations with somebody in the protected space where, nobody they actually knew was going to hear them talking about it. It was a timeout of time for them and allow them to have those conversations. I think the conversations you are having a lot of the time revolved around the idea of p or pressure. It feels like young men especially in a vacuum of their parents and their elders talking to them about sexuality. A lot of the peers were filling that vacuum of the conversation. It sounds like a lot of these conversations are inherently dangerous at times. The idea of locker room culture definitely plays into rape culture and misogyny in the world. I was wondering if you could talk about the role of male insecurity and p or pressure and how it perpetuates these ideas. That mailbox is very small and it has to be policed and reinforced in a lot of ways. One way guys stay in it is by being silent in the face of something they know is wrong or violates their morals. Or in the face of misogyny or homophobia. I had a lot of compassion for how difficult that was, especially for teenaged boys with no support. In one case, a guy was telling me on his crew team, he and a friend tried to stand up to a slightly older boy who was saying something despicable about girls. The other boys just laugh at them. They mock to them. So the boy i was talking to had stopped talking. And his friend continued to challenge sexism and misogyny when it came up in this boy said to me, and i watched while he was marginalized. The other boys stopped liking him as much and he lost his social capital. Here i was sitting with buckets of social capital but i wasnt spending it. Then he looked really pained. I really bake a jockey guy. He looked at me with agony in his eyes and said, i dont want to have to choose between my dignity and being part of this group of guys. But how do i make it so that i dont have to choose . I had that exact quote written down. It struck me as getting really to the heart of a lot of situations. Men put on personas in order to mask their insecurity. The men around them are insecure as well and it turns on to a competition. To see who can be the worst or the least caring. In this case, it was a young man you named coal for your book. It felt like he was really lost in your conversation. It felt very much like this was the young man who understood the morality and ethics at the heart of the debate in this situation. But felt powerless. For you to talk to a young man like that and get to the cut of this, i thought was truly remarkable. Thank you. And i like what you say about that sort of insecurity being underneath that competitive culture. Another place i saw that was i got interested in the word, hilarious. And how guys use that word. Thats another place where that acts as a deflected shield or that mask. If you hear something that is reprehensible or uncomfortable or inappropriate or you know is wrong. Or just violate your morals to where you know its misogynist or sexist and you dont want to say anything. If you do, you will be targeted or ostracized. You can always default to saying, thats hilarious. Its another way guys are cut off from their authentic selves. Its also another way that subverts a more compassionate response when girls and women are the subject of whatever reprehensible disgusting thing they are saying is hilarious. At the far end of that spectrum, i became interested in reading and listening to stories of these high profile stories of Sexual Assaults by High School Students. So often, their defense when theyre caught is, we thought we were just being funny. We thought it was hilarious. I think that word encapsulates this way that you learn to disconnect. Put up a shield. Find a space. If its hilarious, theres no problem and certainly you dont need to feel empathy. One thing that kept coming back around with your interviews people that would say these awful things that were covering up their own insecurities. These were people that did not feel as if they were safe and kept coming back around to the idea of they had to pretend in public. Whats the disconnect there . Whats happening with young men who would make fun of these things but are seemingly in search of their own safe places. You want to be accepted and part of the group. You dont want to be ostracized. I think boys need a lot of support and encouragement and discussion to stop start breaking that culture down. I just got an email today from a boy to read the excerpt of a book that was in the atlantic. He was 16. A junior in high school. He wrote to thank me because he said it made him feel really validated. Like he could move forward in a way from having heard the voices of these other boys. Thats what i hope is that it can be a tool. Maybe open up a more meaningful dialogue between themselves and their peers or just within themselves. I think theres an aspect of the book. There was a portion where you talked to young men actively engaged in hookup culture and were seeking sexual conquest. They were having problems with intimacy. They felt detached from themselves. There was a profound loneliness and sadness. You mentioned that even some of them in a couple rare cases were actually victims of Sexual Assault or taken advantage of. They were unable to express that. In some cases, the men around them even congratulated them for what they were doing. The selfharm in these situations where they were harmed by others. I thought that was really telling. Said i would never tell that to my friends. As a guy, its got to be great. And yes, when the issue of unwanted sex came up. We think about that as just an issue with girls. Sometimes they would brush it off or make it into a joke. Especially if it had been there first time. Especially if they wanted it to be significant and caring with somebody that meant something to them. If they had been taken advantage of they were incapacitated, they reacted very much the way girls react. They spiraled downward. They got depressed. Had trouble with their schoolwork. There was no place for them to discuss that. One of the guys said to me, when i tried to talk to the girl about it, she said, dont give me that. All guys want sex. If you cant say no, you dont have agency. If you cant say no, im not sure you will be to hear it. I think thats an important repercussion. In the confusion and unwillingness to really engage with it. I thought this was a telling section of the book. You wrote that jock culture informs schools, fraternities, wall street, and that it justifies misogyny and hostility. I was wondering if you could talk more about that and what you think repercussions are of these problems. Going out into the world and beyond young boys and sex. It becomes a smokescreen. I was particularly talking about sports and how sports can be wonderful. Team spirit. Camaraderie, learning how to problem solve. Learning about life. Its fun. But that culture that builds character, can in some circumstances become a smokescreen for the worst kind of thug culture where theres bullying. Where guys bond by bragging about the ability to control the female body. [indiscernible] that locker room talk for some certainly goes beyond that. O