The fact that a politician on our side is addressing this is huge to me

[redqueen]

Yang said he would commit to having "a massive national initiative around figuring out why so many of our young men are not developing in healthy, consistent ways, as far as where sexuality is concerned."

One issue he believes is behind some men's unhealthy attitudes toward women: "rampant access to pornography at young ages."

"I'm not someone who's going to say, 'Hey, government should do this; government should do that; we have to come in and take over,' " Yang said. "But as a parent of two young boys, I'm deeply concerned that they're going to come home and, at age 12, 13, and have seen all sorts of crazy stuff online that's going to have ended up screwing up their young minds and make them more likely to do something heinous or awful."
...
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/01/18/andrew-yang-evelyn-women-march-sexual-assault-iowa-campaign-trail-2020/4513727002/

So many people - the vast majority - just don't want to even recognize that this is an issue, let alone address it.

[Mike 03]

1. This conversation needs to begin.

There is something going on, not just here. Lately I've seen related discussions about male development in Japan and India.

[pscot]

7. I've been wondering if the pressure of our increasing numbers

has something to do with this. Reproducing is no longer an imperative but the sex drive is undiminished. If young men can't find normal sexual outlets that energy is going to go somewhere. It's not too surprising that it emerges in self-destructive or sociopathic forms. I don't think this is a problem that can be solved, given the way we live now. Disclaimer here: i read about John Calhoun's experiments with rats back in the '70s and it made a lasting impression. The Behavioral sink is a thing.

[dewsgirl]

2. It is definitely access to porn at such a young age.

I swear they can get around every cyber sitting program there is.

[guillaumeb]

3. How does a militaristic culture contribute to the misogyny?

Given that the US has been engaged in nearly non-stop war since its inception, and given that currently, approximately 60% of the budget is war-related, does this fixation on war contribute to the generalized misogyny of the country?

[50 Shades Of Blue]

4. That's an issue worth pursuing but IMO, it's too many religious belief systems that

Are a bigger problem than porn when it comes to developing misogyny. That warping starts from birth.

[redqueen]

5. Agree that misogynistic religious beliefs are definitely a problem,

but a much, much harder one to tackle. I don't know how that aspect can be addressed from the government or via politics.

[ThoughtCriminal]

12. I strongly suspect that many male members of these belief systems

are probably some of the biggest consumers for porn privately, even as they denounce it publicly.

[ariadne0614]

6. Peggy Orenstein wrote a groundbreaking book on this subject.

It was just published this month. Here’s a Goodreads link about the book:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43452877-boys-sex. And here’s a Fresh Air interview with the author: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/17/797285207/best-of-martin-scorsese-boys-sex.

[bucolic_frolic]

8. Dehumanization for profit

No body's teaching real world consequences, decision-making, relationship building. Porn is porn, the preachers are all teaching Rapture guilt and money-raising, the parents are working to service their greed and divorces. No one is raising the kids, so the internet is exploiting them.

[bobbieinok]

9. The porn I've read online is hatred and contempt for women with physical pain for being women

It is not a complex of attitudes a same society wants boys to be exposed to or immersed in

[Warpy]

10. Rampant access to religion at an early age is just as bad, if not worse

because that is where the worst attitudes toward sex as sin and poisoning the relationship between the sexes originates. Without all the robed charlatans teaching people that sex defiles us and that one sex is the natural slave of the other, and that virgins are pure and sexually active women are poisonous and all the other vast pile of utter hogwash they use to get us by the balls and keep us there, one wonders what pornography would be like. Hell, we might even have eroticism, instead.

I don't think pubescent kids of both sexes looking at nakedness is all that bad, curiosity is natural, especially when your own body is going through so many changes. Religion is what supplies the plot, that males "need" what little girls have. but in order not to be shamed and reviled, little girls need to stay "pure" and if you don't think that's where much of the rage comes from, you haven't been paying close attention.

Yes, some of the porn out there is degrading and nauseating beyond belief. However, that's only part of the conversation that needs to happen. Addressing the men who supplied the plot line, codified into law and set into stone over thousands of years, you're not going to get far.

[redqueen]

11. A lot of online porn is not Playboy. Though the messages in Playboy were bad enough.

It is not just naked people. It is far worse.

Again, the government going after religion is a non starter. Yes, misogynistic religious messages are a huge problem. However I do not think it's one that politicians can address.

[Warpy]

13. Sticking a bandaid on the symptoms

without addressing the underlying disease won't get you anywhere.

The best you can do is shove some of it underground and only temporarily.

Politicians who crusade against porn are just more of the same, trying to climb to power over the backs of women.

[redqueen]

14. "crusade against porn"

Interesting framing there.

I'm glad ANYONE is talking about it, man or woman.

Shamefully, I don't see many Dem women politicians stepping up to the plate on this.