Ilyas
So welcome back to “Yes, All Men”. Today’s guest is Doctor Nicole Jeffrey. So, Nicole, can you give us a little bit of an introduction about yourself?

Dr. Jeffrey

Sure, I am a postdoctoral fellow and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Windsor in Ontario, and I do research on men’s sexual violence against women and the language and social norms that men use to normalize and justify this violence.

Ilyas

Perfect and to put some context on today’s conversation, we’re really going to be talking about male perpetrated sexual violence against women and especially in high risk settings like post secondary settings. So can you give us a little bit of a context for for the the rates that happen that that happens in post secondary settings?

Dr. Jeffrey

Sure. So I I always like to say that I I do think talking about and addressing men’s victimization is is really important too. But, but yeah, today’s conversation will will be about men’s sexual violence against women. And that is partly because sexual violence is is gendered in how it takes place. So what I mean by that is that women and transgender folks are most likely to be victimized. So in Canada and the US, roughly one in five women in university is sexually assaulted. My recent research with Doctor Charlene Senn also shows that women tend to experience sexual violence that’s more harsh and severe compared to what men experience. Sexual violence is also gendered from the perpetration side, so men are most likely to perpetrate. Now, perpetration rates tend to to vary somewhat widely across research studies, but roughly one in 10 men in university perpetrate. And so although most men or sorry, most perpetrators are men. Most men don’t perpetrate. And so that’s really important to keep in mind as well. But I I do think that all men and and all people really play a role in in what we call rape culture. So this is a culture that directly and indirectly condones men’s sexual violence against women. And I think that’ll be a big part of what we talk about today.

Ilyas
Yeah. And I like the way that you framed it cause our the name of the podcast is, Yes, All Men, so we’re really trying to kind of get all men involved in the conversation, but with the acknowledgment that while most perpetrators are men, that not all men perpetrate, and in fact, you said, like the vast majority, 90% or something along those lines doesn’t, especially in these kind of like this university setting. And so. So that’s a really important thing to keep in mind as we go forward because like I know, people can often feel like targeted by by, like these sorts of conversations. But we’re kind of going in with the understanding that like there are, there are male victims too, there are male survivors, there’s males who kind of are good people and. And they also play a role in the culture, and so hopefully we can have a bit of a conversation about that as well.

Dr. Jeffrey

Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Ilyas
Yeah. And so maybe we can talk a little bit about the context of of sexual violence on campus. I I know that there are some kind of misunderstandings in general about sexual violence, and I’m wondering if there’s anything particular to the campus context that is specific to that location.

Dr. Jeffrey

Sure. So I’ve talked about how sexual violence is gendered. It also age plays a role as well. So adolescents and young women aged 15 to 24 are most likely to experience sexual violence. University students are not actually necessarily more likely than non students to be victimized, but because of that, that age factor university can be a particularly risky time for for those who do attend. Popular belief and images that kind of tend to dominate the media and the news would have us believe that sexual violence takes place by, you know, strangers who are lurking in dark alleys and parking lots to kind of violently attack. But this is not actually what most sexual violence looks like on or off campus, so most sexual violence is committed by men that women know, not strangers. So we’re talking about acquaintances, friends, romantic partners. This also means that it doesn’t usually happen outside at night in parking lots and alleys. It instead happens indoors, at parties, in the victim’s own home or someone else’s home. It also doesn’t typically involve a sort of violent attack per say or result in physical injury, so trying to persuade or guilt or insult someone after they’ve declined to try to pressure them into sex or ignoring when someone says no or gives other nonverbal signs of not wanting to have sex, these are more common forms of sexual violence. Sexual violence is is often, but not always, committed when one or both people have been drinking, but this importantly does not mean that women’s intoxication is to blame. So we know from research that men often target women who are intoxicated or even kind of encourage them to drink heavily, because maybe they’ll be less likely to notice danger cues. Maybe they’ll be more likely to agree to be alone, or even to consent to some sexual activities. My own research also finds that in the context of romantic relationships, men might use their partners intoxication to kind of coerce specific sexual acts that maybe they already know their partner doesn’t want to engage in.

Ilyas
Yeah. And I think that. Like these are kind of what we call rape myths, right? So like, these misconceptions or or conceptions about like sexual assault that create a narrative that isn’t entirely true. At least it’s not representative of, like, the majority of the cases.

Dr. Jeffrey

That’s right. Yeah. And we, we can talk later about how or or we can talk whenever you want about how these myths kind of play a role in in how men normalize sexual violence.

Ilyas
Maybe, maybe we can jump right into that actually. So like we we’ve talked a bit about how men perpetuate sexual violence more often and. Like you also mentioned that your your research deals with these sorts of like discourses and like how rape culture plays into the the whole kind of situation. And now we’re talking about rape myths. And so as we’re kind of introducing all of these things, can you talk a little bit about how that plays into like those specific interactions?

Dr. Jeffrey

Sure. So maybe I’ll start by giving a a tiny bit more background about a couple of my my research studies. So I have done interviews one-on-one interviews with university men who had perpetrated various forms of sexual violence against an intimate partner. I have also done focus groups with heterosexual university men who have not necessarily perpetrated but who in the focus groups just had a a conversation with other men about typical dating, typical heterosexual sexual encounters. And the part of the purpose of both studies was to look at how men talk about heterosexual sex and dating and sexual violence, and if and how they use various social norms in that talk. So so going back to this idea of rape culture and rape myths, our, like I said, our sort of dominant understanding or depiction of sexual violence is that it’s physically violent. And So what this means is that men can distance their other behaviors from this common depiction so that they actually appear to be not sexual violence. And this is exactly exactly what I found in my research. So when men were describing like verbally pressuring or coercing their partners, they would say things like oh, but I never forced her or I was disgruntled, but I wasn’t yelling. For I just kept asking her, but I wasn’t physically pushing her. So this isn’t necessarily deliberate on the part of of these participants, but again, our our typical view of sexual violence functions to minimize behaviors that don’t fit that precise scenario and and so it allows behaviors like verbal pressure to essentially become invisible.

Ilyas
And I know you’ve also talked a bit about how norms around masculinity tie into that as well, right? Like the idea, I think one of the subheadings of one of your articles is obviously, I’d insist with the understanding that like, that comes from this idea that men are kind of hypersexual and women are.

Dr. Jeffrey

Right.

Ilyas
The quote UN quote gatekeepers of these interactions and so can you talk a little bit about how that plays into men’s normalization of their assaults or how that kind of feeds into these these perpetuation or they’re they’re understanding even of like whether or not they perpetuated an assault.

Dr. Jeffrey

Definitely. So, first, maybe I’ll I’ll quickly define social norms, since that sort of plays a big role in in how I interpret my research findings. So social norms are our sort of shared standards, expectations or ideals about how, in this case, women and men and heterosexual people should act. And these social norms are often reflected and kind of perpetuated in the common ways that we talk about things like sex and dating. So yeah, maybe I’ll you’ve touched on them already, but I I can give some examples of some social norms and how they kind of work to condone, justify and normalize sexual violence. And these are social norms, yes, partly about masculinity, but but more so about heterosexuality and how both women and men sort of should behave in the context of heterosexuality. So one example is this norm or myth that men are always in the mood for sex and that they get sexually carried away because of hormones and biology. So in my research, when we were talking about sexual violence, some men would say things like like, oh, this is just how men are wired or having to stop instantly is very difficult. So this norm suggests that men can’t help themselves. And it allows men to excuse their sexual violence by suggesting that it’s normal, it’s expected, or it’s it’s reasonable. I think you gave the example of someone who had said, obviously I’d insist. So. So what he was saying there was obviously he would keep trying after his partner declined sex. But this is really only obvious that that a man would keep trying in the context of norms, suggesting that men always want sex and should get their way in sex. So it’s a it’s a taken for granted assumption. Another example would be the expectation that men are the ones who should initiate sex and women are the ones like you said, the gatekeepers who should stop sex when they don’t want it and who should basically do the work of communicating during sex. So, among other things, this this means that men are not really held accountable for for checking in and and asking. Another example would be this idea that sex should be spontaneous, or that it just starts naturally in the heat of the moment. So men in my research would say things like, you know, clothes just start coming off or one thing leads to another. That’s how. That’s how sex happens and starts. So these ideas leave little room for verbal communication. They assume, actually, that verbal communication is awkward, but that’s only because sex is assumed to take place in this kind of natural flow from, you know, kissing and sexual touching to intercourse. So it’s it’s really that assumption of the natural flow that’s the problem to begin with, it’s not the the verbal communication that’s the problem. This assumption I think also or sorry, this norm assumes that your partner wants the same thing. So in in heterosexuality or or heterosex, there’s this assumption that the end goal is intercourse. But we know from research that a lot of women prefer other types of sexual activity too. And so, so assuming that the the end goal is always going to be intercourse, you know, I think I think is is not a good one. And so all of these assumptions I I think are kind of dangerous and they create the possibility for sexual violence or or at least for unwanted sexual experiences.

Ilyas
And I think it puts a lot of emotional labor on women, too, right? Like the idea that, like, they have all of this responsibility put on them in terms of consent, in terms of, like, being able to to guide the the man throughout the whole process. And so like, that’s a that’s a level of like responsibility that, like, doesn’t really seem fair to be putting on one person in that situation.

Dr. Jeffrey

Yeah, definitely. And and that kind of comes out too in a lot of different ways in, in how men talk about sex and dating. You can kind of see that there’s this just this, like, implicit assumption that that when we talk about consent and communication, what that means is is women stopping sex when they don’t want it. Men don’t often talk about or think about the other side, which is that you know someone needs to do some asking and and checking in and and also that men too like don’t always want sex and so they too can and should communicate like a like a decline or a refusal.

Ilyas
Yeah, and these these norms, we talked about it a little bit in the in the previous episode, but they they can kind of like turn into like scripts where even the man feels uncomfortable in those situations, like feeling like they have to pursue and not to take away any of the the real pain and kind of like effects that these events have on women. But for those 90% of men who don’t perpetuate sexual violence. They it. It’s a strange situation to be in and and we I mentioned there the effects that sexual violence has on on women and and potentially on men and on like the relationships and especially in this whole kind of heterosexual dynamic. Can you talk a little bit about that like what? What are the effects of having kind of sexual violence perpetuated on you or in perpetuating it as a as someone as a perpetrator.

Dr. Jeffrey

Sure. So I mean, decades of research have told or has told us that there are lasting negative effects of being victimized by sexual violence, both physical and and mental. So illness, depression, post traumatic stress disorder, self blame, substance abuse. And then in the context of romantic relationships, we see like reduced relationship satisfaction and commitment, lost trust. My research and and other research as well highlights that you know, words hurt, so sexual violence does not need to be physically violent to be harmful. Verbal coercion can be harmful too, and and sometimes actually more so. So I I had a woman in one of my interview studies talk about how her partner would would sort of belittle her and and sort of try to dominate her when he would pressure her into sex and that that was a lot more harmful and impactful on her than when he, you know, essentially held her down and raped her. And importantly, I think sexual violence also, it really violates women’s rights to make free and autonomous decisions about when and how to engage in sexual activity, which is a choice that is already often kind of imbued with guilt. And and maybe internal pressure to to please their partners or to put their partners wishes above their own, because that’s often what women are taught to do from a young age. You also asked about like harms on men who perpetrate. So I don’t think we actually know a whole lot about that. But I think it’s pretty clear that perpetrating sexual violence clearly limits men’s ability to have meaningful and trusting relationships that are marked by care and empathy and equity. And we do know from research that adhering to certain traditional ideals about masculinity, such as self-reliance or power over sorry power over women in relationships, we know that these can be harmful to men. They can result in poor relationships or physical and mental health outcomes such as depression. And some of that is probably a result of, you know if if you hold these strong ideals about traditional masculinity, you might be less likely to seek help for things like mental and physical health issues.

Ilyas
Yeah, that idea of like Stoicism is really strong and that traditional form of masculinity, right, like not being. Showing any sort of like vulnerability or weakness, and I want to touch on because you brought up the idea of verbal coercion a few times. I know that’s like from your studies, like far and wide, the the most prominent form of sexual violence, right. And I’m hoping maybe you can explain it a little bit more and give us a like an idea of what that is cause.

Dr. Jeffrey

Right, yeah.

Ilyas
Speaking as someone who has learned about this for a little while like that, that always stands out to me as being something that I mean, you’ve identified in your research research, but it really kind of like comes from these sorts of myths around, like heterosexual relationships or even like masculinity and femininity and all of these things.

Dr. Jeffrey

Right. So so when I say verbal coercion, I’m I’m talking about a whole range of things, really any sort of verbal attempt to obtain sexual activity. When the other person doesn’t want to, maybe they have already declined and the person is persisting, or they have demonstrated some sign of disinterest or non consent. So it could involve trying to guilt someone into sex, so that might look like you know, your partner declines and you say something like ohh, but I haven’t seen you in a long time. It could involve insulting them, so for example like no other man is going to want you if if you can’t provide. It could actually, even at times, involve complimenting someone. So maybe your partner has declined and you say things like ohh, but you look so pretty tonight. Can’t, can’t we, you know, do this, this one sexual activity. So it might be framed in that sort of positive way, but you’re you’re still kind of taking away the women’s right like I said before, to to make free and autonomous decisions. You’re you’re putting pressure on her. And sorry, I think I lost track of your your other question in there.

Ilyas
It’s OK the the thing that kind of pops to mind as you’re saying that especially with like the the compliments thing is that it’s very similar to like love bombing in that effect, right? Like the idea of like in those like relationships just constantly giving like this especially early on like affirmation and affirmation and then using that to like wear down someone’s will to like to resist. Is that would you say there’s like a similar there?

Dr. Jeffrey

Yeah, I would. I’m. I’m actually not familiar with the term love bombing, so I’m not sure. How much I can speak to that, but.

Ilyas
Yeah, and yeah, we don’t, we don’t have to go too far into it. It is. It is interesting to me just in terms of like, love bombing being especially in.

Dr. Jeffrey

OK.

Ilyas
Exploitative, like explicitly exploitative relationships, like it being kind of like giving constant, like positive attention and like gifts and like words of affection and using that as like a a foundation to later on kind of like exploit someone more kind of directly and have them hold on to like a past version of the the perpetrator who was like giving them all these things that they wanted.

Dr. Jeffrey

Yeah. And maybe this is going in a in a slightly different direction, but I said earlier that my my recent research finds that women’s victimization tends to be more kind of harsh and severe than men’s. And part of that is that for women, sexual violence is more often not always, but more often than men it happens in the context of an otherwise perhaps coercive relationship. And so that that’s kind of what I’m I’m hearing you talk about is perpetrators who, you know have maybe have maybe a pattern of coercive control in the relationship. And sometimes that is framed kind of positively. Including compliments, gifts that are that are then used against the woman. And part of that too stems from norms about, like heterosexual dating, like it’s framed as romantic to sort of keep an eye on your partner or to to always be giving her gifts and and compliments.

Ilyas
Yeah, and. I think. To to move in a little bit of a different direction as well, like the the idea of like emotional labor, consent, and like the the patterns of problematic behavior, potentially problematic behavior all seemed like dovetail into one big thing, and I know that one thing that you’ve talked about is like. There’s there’s different types of consent in terms of, like someone might feel in the face of verbal coercion, like they may they might provide like, quote UN quote consent later on. But it’s past the point at which it would actually be like verbal coercion. And that can tie into. Like men’s per perceptions of like the event as well. So can you tell talk a little bit more about that?

Dr. Jeffrey

Sure. So. This is bringing me to, I guess, the idea of consent education. As as a way to both prevent sexual violence and promote ethical and equitable sex. So I I think this sort of trend of consent education has been really good for starting the conversation. You know, you’ve probably heard messages like yes means yes. No means no. Consent is sexy. So you know, I I don’t necessarily like those messages, but I I do think they have been really good for, you know, spreading widely. And like I said, starting conversation. But I think this is a really kind of bare minimum standard for like good, ethical, equitable sex. And to my understanding, it doesn’t actually stop sexual violence. Sort of going going back to the things you’ve brought up, one of the reasons I think consent is much too low of a standard is because people can consent to sex that they really don’t want or really don’t enjoy and people can obtain consent by pressuring and coercing. So I mean none of those things are very ethical or equitable. Sexual violence is also rarely about misunderstanding consent, contrary to to what we might think. So there is lots of research, including my own, that shows that men understand all kinds of ways that women refuse. Sex, both verbal and nonverbal. And that’s partly because even in everyday life. People rarely refuse things by just kind of flat out saying no. We decline all kinds of requests in much, much gentler ways. And so, so men typically understand when when women decline things more gently during sex. And so this means that teaching consent is really not going to stop sexual violence. Sexual violence is about people, often men, leaving the work of refusing to women rather than asking and checking in. It’s about men choosing to ignore refusals, pushing boundaries until they get quote, UN quote consent and prioritizing their own desires. And it’s about men’s feelings of entitlement to sex and women’s bodies. So I think this is where our focus needs to be, not not so much on on educating about consent. And I think also touching on on something you said earlier, I think a lot of people have tried to kind of expand the concept of consent to include for example, new requests for every new sexual activity. So we call that ongoing consent. Or they’ve tried to emphasize the need for enthusiastic consent. And I think these efforts are all great, but that consent can only be stretched so far, and I think it it always kind of comes down to one partner’s agreement in response to another’s request. And I think that that is not nearly enough.

Ilyas

Yeah, and. There’s there’s a direction I want to go in in terms of your literature, which one of the people talked about the idea of cloudy consent. But before we go there, can you tie this back into. So we’ve been talking about social norms. We’ve been talking about masculinity in terms of heterosexual relationships, the role of the man, all this sort of things. So can you tie these sorts of like, these sorts of conversations into like potentially what the discourse about masculinity is right now, so in terms of like you’ve mentioned, that men, the problem is like men’s feeling of entitlement to sex. So can you tie that back to maybe some of the norms you’ve noticed either in your research or in the literature, that kind of reinforce this this feeling of entitlement?

Dr. Jeffrey

I think it at least partly goes back to. The idea that we talked about how men are sort of seen as always wanting sex and that that it’s a kind of biological need that they are constantly seeking out sex, which is a myth, obviously. And so all of that kind of stems from men as the subjects of sex, whereas women are kind of the passive recipients or like you brought up earlier, the gatekeepers of sex, who are really just there to control men’s sexual desire and to stop unwanted sex. Yeah, I’m not sure if that fully answers your question.

Ilyas
Yeah, the the word that comes to mind, there is, like objectification. So like women becoming like the objects of a man’s sexual pursuit and.

Dr. Jeffrey

Yes, yes, exactly so. So women are the objects of sex rather than the subjects, like men. They are just there to to please men. Women don’t have their own sexual desires sexual wants, which again is a myth.

Ilyas
Yeah. And I think it’s important to keep reiterating these things because. A lot of these kind of messagings for for men or for women, for like people in general, and especially in heterosexual relationships like. If we look at like some of the like cultural norms that come in, especially like in the Western, like pop culture and all these things are gradually starting to shift, to acknowledge some of these conversations. But a lot of the messaging is still like not not coming from a great place in terms of recognizing like everyone is subjects and and if this is beyond kind of the scope of our podcast, but even like, politically speaking, there’s like all these discourses going around about, like how much control should people have over themselves or over the the people around them, and that’s beyond the scope. But I I think it’s important to just mention that I think we’re both aware of those conversations, but. Going back to the idea of like consent. And men potentially using it as like. A justification for their coercive. Control essentially like. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Dr. Jeffrey

Yeah. So, so I think this is one of the limitations of consent as a a kind of standard for for ethical and equitable sex. So. So yes, in my research I found. That men sometimes talked about the importance of consent, so that that sounds really great at face value and and clearly consented education and and messages about consent had reached these participants. So that’s a good thing. However, these same men also, like you said, used consent to actually kind of further justify their own or other men’s sexual violence perpetrated. So they used the importance of consent to blame their sexual violence on their partner for not clearly refusing sex or for giving cloudy responses. So the the argument here is their partner didn’t do consent well. So the fact that they went ahead with sex anyway is reasonable or or was reasonable. So in my mind, consent is actually giving, giving an excuse for sexual violence, and especially in conjunction with these norms about consent and communication being solely women’s job.

Ilyas
Yeah, I was just gonna say I think the the norms around consent being purely explicit kind of come into there too, right? Because all of the implicit or like non verbal communication that if we’re talking about women in this situation, that women are doing isn’t being taken as like non consent, it’s being overridden by potentially them caving to coercion. Which would then be like the explicit consent that the messaging is kind of aiming for, right?

Dr. Jeffrey

Right. That’s right. And so. We we know that a lot of communication during sex is nonverbal and and that’s not necessarily a bad thing because, like I said before, men actually and and all people actually tend to understand that that communication. The the problem is, is men then not taking that that communication seriously or ignoring it, and instead choosing to prioritize their own desires.

Ilyas
And so when we’re when we’re talking with men about this, when we’re having these sorts of discussions, let’s say we’re in the proverbial locker room and things are being said, like, how can men challenge or how do men challenge these sorts of discourses? And have you found anything that’s like effective or that people can do, or men can do that will actually have an effect on, like the people around them?

Dr. Jeffrey

So I’m going to back up for a second and say that research tells us that most men seek consent and are uncomfortable with language and behavior like locker room talk, that objectifies and hurts women. But a lot of men, I think, probably find it difficult to speak out when they hear this harmful language, partly because doing so might make other people question their own masculine or question that person’s masculinity and heterosexuality. And on top of that, I think some men probably sometimes use language and social norms that condone sexual violence, even if they personally don’t hold those beliefs. And and so what that does is it tells other men who maybe are inclined to perpetrate sexual violence, that that’s OK. And so This is why we all play an important role in in kind of flipping the script. Now to to answer your question. I don’t think we actually currently know a whole lot about how men do challenge, if, if and how men do challenge these negative social norms. So we already talked about how in my research they sometimes used seemingly positive discourses. About consent. But then how that actually didn’t really work to challenge negative norms and instead just further perpetuated sexual violence. Currently, I am conducting focus groups with young men to look at this a little bit more closely. So, on these focus groups, they’re having conversations about sex and dating, and and what that typically looks like. And I’m I’m looking to see if there are cases where, you know, say for example, the group is having a conversation about how men, men always want sex and men can’t help themselves. And that’s why sexual violence happens. I’m looking to see if other men jump in and say hey, like, no, that’s not true. I am also looking to see what happens when the focus group facilitator steps in to challenge that that type of conversation. So he might say something like. Well, actually, the belief that men always want sex as a stereotype and sexual drive varies from person to person and across time and context. So then I I as a researcher and and looking to see at how participants react to that, do they take up this new view? Or do they instead continue to argue that no men are biologically programmed to always need sex? So. So yeah, I don’t, I don’t think we have a ton of answers to that yet, but I’m I’m trying to look at what strategies might be effective so that we can then educate men on on how they might challenge these things when they come up, you know, with friends and family, for example.

Ilyas
Yeah, and. I I think that is really important stuff to know because if the average man doesn’t condone these, if they don’t, if he doesn’t kind of feel comfortable with this sort of discourse, but he’s participating in it like there’s there’s some sort of cognitive dissonance there.

Dr. Jeffrey

Right, right. And like I said it it tells. It tells maybe the one man in that group who is likely to perpetrate it tells him that the rest of the group is OK with that, or or at least that the rest of the group is is OK with some of the the kind of norms that allow sexual violence to happen. So. By not speaking up. You are essentially, you know, allowing that sort of thing to continue.

Ilyas
Yeah, it’s implicit consent, but then there’s a quote that I I find is really. Like really powerfully captures the idea of this like hegemonic masculinity, this idea of like power based and kind of mostly problematic for the people who hold it and for the people who have it enacted upon them. And and it’s that masculinity is hard won and easily lost and. I think that that to me speaks of like those dynamics that might go on in the focus groups where someone might have like a a hard time counteracting these. Cause if these are the the social norms around masculinity, if someone hasn’t kind of made their bona fides or whatever, they they haven’t shown their manliness, then if they challenge these, they might feel like they’re losing their masculinity and that. That, to me would be like a very interesting thing to explore. Is like if these men have like the desire to push back but are afraid of like losing some sort of themselves or some sort of like masculine status by doing so. I think as as like a man in like the conversations I’ve had. I’ve worked through a lot of things that have to do with masculinity, but there’s often times these discussions where. Like you, you want to say something, but you’re not quite sure how, and it could even just be like a passing remark where it’s like someone says something and then the conversation moves somewhere completely different and so being able to figure out that that way of like just interjecting effectively and being like, hey, that’s not OK even if it’s just that. I think, yeah, that that research is definitely worthwhile.

Dr. Jeffrey

Yeah. So I I think we do know that or at least in my research the the few men in the focus groups that I’ve done already who seemed like they were trying to challenge the negative norms that were coming up. They would often try to challenge them gently. Because that’s how we tend to do disagreements in in everyday talk. You know, we don’t want to insult someone, we want to sort of keep an even keel or keep consensus in in a group conversation. However, I can see in my focus group research that that’s not necessarily an effective way to kind of flip the script in a in a conversation, so to speak. So so yeah, helping men to to to do that kind of challenge in a more effective way, I think is a future direction of my work. My work anyway.

Ilyas
Yeah, I like the the idea of the practice of calling people in as opposed to calling people out, just like opening up a discussion. But maybe that’s something that, uh, we can explore in a future future podcast or an article for our our resource library. Once you have more information about that.

Dr. Jeffrey

Yeah. I mean one thing I’m thinking of when you say that is. You know, no one wants to think of themselves as you know, sexist or or whatever it is, and so. I I think. You know, having conversations like we are today where we’re talking about how, you know, not all men are are bad and perpetrators, but but still I think all men need to to see themselves as part of the solution and and so that I think is is kind of similar to this idea of calling in.

Ilyas
Yeah. And to build on that, I think we’ve talked a lot about like the ways in which masculinity and social norms around men and heterosexual relationships can lead to sexual violence. What about the flip side? What about these 90% of men who don’t perpetuate and want to like, be an ally, want to be helpful, want to be like a good man, so to speak? Like do you? Do you have any sort of like direction or any sort of like even protective factors that that might that they might be able to to look for or kind of foster within themselves from from the the research you’ve done or from the literature you’ve read or.

Dr. Jeffrey

Well, I guess I just want to be careful because yes, that 90% of men don’t don’t perpetrate as in like, use sexual violence but. Many of the men in my focus group research, for example, probably have never used sexual violence, but they are still using these these negative social norms about masculinity and heterosexuality that that allow it or that condone it, even if in very subtle ways. Yeah, I’m not sure. I’m not sure how to answer the rest of your question though.

Ilyas

OK.

Dr. Jeffrey

As far as protective factors.

Ilyas
Yeah, I think from what we’ve talked about like being able to take on some of that emotional labor in in like sexual activities being able to challenge some of the rape myths and and challenge rape culture in general. I know that’s been kind of the framework of today’s conversation is like those structural factors and from what I’ve learned so far from our conversation, it seems really important for men to play a more active role in like whether we call it consent or whether we call it culture, whether we call it like communication, just to be able to take on a bit of that responsibility. Because right now it seems like a lot of it’s being farmed out to women who are already under kind of tremendous social pressures and to take this one on and like to be put in a situation where they’re like the absolute gatekeepers of an interaction. That that doesn’t make sense to me necessarily, because uh, yeah, it’s.

Dr. Jeffrey
Right.

Ilyas
It’s like. It takes two people to tango, so the saying goes. So yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey

Right. As I said before, like I, I do think everyone has a role to play in challenging these things, women included. But men hold a particular responsibility, I think, to change the script because. Because they hold more power in society and and often in relationships, they’re also more often the ones who are perpetuating these negative social norms through their words and actions. So. So yeah, I I agree, men. Need to try to step up recognizing women as equal humans and equal sexual subjects would be a start. And yeah, exactly like you said, like sharing a a lot more of that responsibility for for having open and honest conversations about navigating like equitable sexual experiences.

Ilyas
And I think a lot of that goes against the the traditional sort of masculinity where you don’t, you don’t be vulnerable, you don’t expose yourself to situations where you could be hurt or rejected or whatever it may be and really acknowledging that like we’re equals in this kind of endeavor, whether whether you’re looking at like these sorts of intimate relationships or partnerships in general, or even just like societally like we’re we’re kind of trying to all work together to make like this world a better place. And for men right now, we have like a a good portion of like influence and power in society, and like you mentioned in these relationships and being able to recognize how we’re using that currently and to try and do better, for lack of a better word like to. There’s. There’s only so much you can know that you don’t know. It’s the idea of like known knowns versus unknown unknowns. And like, I think these sorts of conversations might bring up some unknown unknowns and at least make them into known unknowns so that if people are interested they can look more into it, look more into your research, which we’ll we’ll be linking into the discussion here and yeah, just learn more about how to take that responsibility on. And so.

Dr. Jeffrey

I liked what you said about. How men taking on more of this responsibility of of consent or or of communication during sex, how that kind of goes against the traditional view of masculinity. And yeah, I think that’s right. I think we need to. I think we need to make the the norm or the expectation that men care about and and listen to women’s sexual desires. And that their their sexual and non sexual needs matter as as much as men’s. So it’s really a more a more sort of caring. View of both sex and masculinity, I think.

Ilyas

Yeah, and. This might be a bit more of a rhetorical question at this point, but do you think there’s hope for masculinity? Like is it so deeply entrenched with rape culture that, like it, it can’t be saved? Or is there, like, a, a masculinity that is healthy and can be kind of good for society?

Dr. Jeffrey

I will say this, I think that we need to dramatically change what it means to be a man, to act and interact as a man, to use one’s body as a man. And I’ll I’ll just leave it at you know, you know, all of us need to challenge the normative versions of both masculinity and heterosexuality and and even femininity that we’ve talked about today.

Ilyas
Yeah, and I’ll. I’ll pick up a bit of that mantle and just talk about through through doing this podcast through the conversations I’ve had through the research I’ve done, I’ve personally learned so much about, like, my role as a man and like, how I’ve been enacting that and not that I think every man has the same resources to do that, or has the same kind of like capacity, just time, whatever it may be. But being able to listen to these conversations and then try and figure out ways to like integrate them into their lives into. his life is really important because often feel like they they they’re kind of losing out on something from the conversations that with men I’ve had in my life. Like there’s there’s a strong desire to be, like equal. But there’s a feeling of like a feeling of loss, almost, but recognizing that with like sharing these this power, it only grows because. If we’re going to talk about, like, hegemonic masculinity and that idea of like dominance and power and over all else. I think power is really relational and if you can form positive relationships and if you can have like a healthy connection to to your partner, to your, to your wife, to your whomever it may be to your girlfriend, anyone in society, then that power actually grows and people are actually given more agency and more more effect on this world by having like a a positive outlook or being able to engage with people in non dominance based forms. Cause tyranny only works when everyone’s afraid and yeah, if people want like real healthy relationships, there needs to be some sort of.

Dr. Jeffrey

Right.

Ilyas
Connection and like co-creation of the future.

Dr. Jeffrey

Yeah, exactly, I think like. This conversation often is framed around, you know, benefiting women by by sort of ending these things. But of course there’s a a huge benefit to be had by men as well in exactly what you’re talking about. You know, more meaningful relationships, for example.

Ilyas
Yeah. And I read a statistic the other day that said the majority of men don’t know why they got a divorce. So, like if they did like a survey of like men who were married and got divorced, and the women, like the vast majority had, like, a very concrete reason and the men, like the majority, didn’t know why. Their answer was like, I don’t know. And I think that that speaks to like some of the hegemonic masculinity or like these power base cause you if you can’t kind of open yourself up. To have these conversations and to like, understand the people in your life and how your actions might be affecting them, then it’s it’s going to hurt you, it’s going to hurt them, it’s going to hurt kind of everyone involved in that system. Yeah. So. Do you have any kind of final thoughts for today to to wrap us up?

Dr. Jeffrey

I don’t think so.

Ilyas
It’s alright, well, this was a great conversation. Thank you again for for joining us. And yeah, I I really appreciate you taking the time.

Dr. Jeffrey

Yeah, it’s been a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.