General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The truth about what young men knew about rape years ago. [View all]LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)you were just lucky. You're right, most boys don't rape, but some DO and that's the problem.
You got a lecture on respect from your father. When I was 14 and 15, I had a couple of friend's fathers hitting on me. I'm sure I don't need to emphasize that the message their sons got was a little different than yours. These people seem to have a real talent for finding each other; then you had a group of guys that all believed the same thing and reinforced that belief in each other. And in the scheme of things (my high school had about 2000 students when I attended) sure, it was a very small group but one is too many and two is downright dangerous. Dismissing the idea of "peer pressure" as ridiculous out of hand, as several people did in the original thread, is a mistake for that very reason; having a peer group that all believe in the same ideas does create the illusion that the ideas are correct or acceptable. To a teenager, and even to a lot of adults, that's a potent force. How to break that cycle is a discussion that definitely needs to be had, and it's hard to do if we won't admit the problem even exists.
I suspect the author of the OP may have been trolling, but either way it's a bad idea to dismiss what he said and insist that every boy or man "just knows" the way most here did. No, they don't ALL just know, because they weren't all brought up the way you were or most of the men here were, and from that small percentage that weren't come our rapists. I think if we can get past the shock and anger that the other post generated, there's some important information in there and it would be a good idea to see what can be done with it.
Just my 2 cents. I'm glad you had a good father, and that the rest of the men here did as well. Not everyone does.