Fear, Responsibility, and Shame in Young Men’s Sexual Lives: New study suggests that many young men today see sex as a "hazard to manage" rather than an enjoyable experience.

14 hours ago by beep to c/science

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/...

This study examines how this generation of young heterosexual men—who have come of age in the “age of consent”—emotionally experience sex. We thematically analyzed 31 in-depth interviews with men aged 18 to 32 years. The most striking finding is how rarely these men described enjoying sex. Three themes emerged. First, anxiety and vigilance accompanied sexual encounters. Second, there was a moral concern about causing harm to a sexual partner. Third, shame arose not only from accusations by others, but also from self-criticism. The themes overlap substantially, suggesting aspects of a complex, sometimes contradictory experience. The defining feature is an inward turn: a cultural suspicion of men appears to have been internalized by some young men. For these men, the question when navigating consent is often not only “does she want this?” but “am I the kind of man who could get this wrong?” Sex, as one participant put it, is “like you’re trying to defuse a bomb.” These young men have come to approach sex as a hazard to manage rather than a relational experience to share. They attributed this wariness to the cultural climate that surrounds consent.

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Oofnik 11 points 8 hours ago

I'm older than the men in this study, but I want to share my anecdotal experience as a contrast to the attitude of many in the comments, which I think are a superficial analysis of the situation. (This is assuming that the results are valid despite the small sample size. I don't really know how to assess that.)

I can really relate to these feelings when I was a younger man. I think the article nearly separates fear of being accused (self-preservation) with fear of moral harm (care for one's sexual partner). Because we live in a patriarchal society, men get the messages that women are false accusers or, equally harmful, that bad sex counts as rape according to "modern culture" or something.

Because I had people in my life willing to tolerate my younger self and teach me feminism, I know that false reports are virtually non-existent, that I shouldn't be so fucking neurotic about sex because I always care about my partner and consent in or out of a sexual context, that small mistakes don't make me a deviant monster, etc. But when I was 20? I heard the manosphere incel bullshit voices and the feminist voices, and I didn't know what to believe - I was young and naive and sexually frustrated. Thank God I made it through that without falling to red or black pill culture.

But we as feminists need better PR that educates just as much as it (justifiably) shames.

As leftists we generally think that society-wide problems have society-wide causes and solutions. We need to reach young men instead of just rolling our eyes or calling them people who just hate their sexual partners.

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paultimate14 4 points 4 hours ago

I know that false reports are virtually non-existent

This is a difficult subject to discuss, because as you point out the manosphere is saying that this is quite common, feminists claim that this is "virtually nonexistent".

The article itself says "False accusations do occur, but the evidence is consistent that they are rare (Law Commission, Citation2025; Victoria Police, Citation2017). They are far rarer than these men assumed."

So I went to the Law Commission publication looking for more info. It basically says the same thing without any data, but cites a 2023 publication from the Law Commission with the same title. And it too, doesn't have any data, just makes the claim that they are "rare" and cites a 2021 publication fron the Crown Prosecution Service.

So what does this source say? "Other complaints of rape which have not resulted in successful prosecution outcomes always mean the victim lacks all credibility as a witness.". Nothing to do with the rate of false accusation at all, but instead making the point that ant prior accusations someone has made before which failed to result in a conviction is not necessarily a false accusation and should not harm their credibility, unless there is "a proper evidential basis to allege that the complaint was false". Which is a great point, but not adequate as a supporting citation for the original claim. It does not answer the initial question: how prevalent are false rape accusations?

It is a difficult question to answer. The range that seems the most legitimate to me which i have seen cited frequently, is 2%-8%. And while I have seen this figure in more respectable sources before, i'm going to cite this site which is dedicated to debunking manosphere myths.

This site uses the word "uncommon", which i think is fair. The original article claims that false accusations are rarer than the participants assume, but fails to define either of those.

It comes down to the failure of the criminal justice systems of the world to operate adequately to earn public trust. A lot of that is a consequence of patriarchy, and one of the ways that patriarchy harms men. But it is also class-related when the criminal justice systems are biased so heavily in favor of the wealthy. As one of the participants said, "You don’t have a lot of room for mistakes, unless you come from a wealthy family.”

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TubularTittyFrog 7 points 3 hours ago

A lot of rapes and false rape accusations, never go to court.

They live in the non-legal space of he said/she said. And they still have consequences for people's lives.

You can't get data about things like this, because it doesn't exist. All that exists are people's experiences and their testimony and the fragility of their perceptions and memories.

and that is all incredibly murky and can get into very dark places of human psychology that folks don't want to acknowledge. like how much of sexual assault and sexual trauma is tied to mental illness, and how the cycle of abuse perpetuates itself and how victims often become future abusers.

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Oofnik 3 points 2 hours ago

Everything you say is sensible. But we should be careful not to let the complexity of researching this issue play into the hands of the misogynists. (There's actually a wikipedia page on this that has even more data than you tracked down - https://en.wikipedia.org/...)

Nonetheless I think that there is a mismatch between what young men believe about the likelihood of being falsely accused and the reality, and this is perpetuated by people who want to influence young men. See, for example, here: https://www.thejournal.ie/...

I definitely see the class dynamic as well. Honestly, I don't really have any critique of your comment. I think my starting point on the internet is to assume people complicating or doubting this kind of data are redpill/incel/manosphere influenced people, and so someone with a more nuanced take like yourself is really not who I was semi-ranting at.

(Sidenote - In my other comment I mentioned that I have been raped by a woman. I also think that's connected to the patriarchy, perhaps ironically. My rapist, as I was actively saying "No, I don't want to do this" said "You are hard, so I know you are lying". So there's definitely more work to be done with respect to women as well.)

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TubularTittyFrog 1 point 7 hours ago

How do you expect to reach young men when your premise is that men are inherently evil and women are inherently good?

Have you been raped? Have you been falsely accused? Have you had the threat of false accusation used to coerce you into sex?

How can you watch people's lives ruined by popular court cases in the media, which turn out to be false accusations and dismiss them as non-existent?

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Oofnik 2 points 3 hours ago

Hi. I have been raped, yes. By a woman. I'm not sure how that's relevant here. I have never had the threat of a false accusation used to coerce me into sex. Nor have I ever heard of it happening in the real world. If that happened to you, I am very sorry. But the fact is, my individual experience of being raped by a woman (and your - possibly hypothetical? experience of being threatened into sex), while awful and traumatizing and worthy of support and care, are not the systematic and institutionalized problem that the rape of women and femme-presenting people is. Nor does it really speak to the issue raised in the article or the issue I raised above.

I don't know where you got the impression that I think men are inherently evil - in fact, that's one of the things that I had to struggle against when I was an angry young man - the belief - that the manosphere and these types of folks implicitly endorse - that men cannot help themselves without sex, that we are wild animals and that women use this to exploit us with their harlot ways or whatever.

If you are a man - I promise you are not inherently evil. People are not inherently evil, and if anyone, feminist or not, made you feel that way, that was wrong. But your anger is misdirected. I promise.

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