Sexual Misconduct in Men

A few words about sexual misconduct in men.

It would take gallons of ink to print all of the commentary about the #metoo movement.

It is tragic the number of careers and individual reputations lost or damaged as a result of recent revelations about sexual misconduct in men. How did we get to this place? Many men feel they can’t even be friends with women anymore for fear of being misunderstood and inappropriately accused.

The answer to how we got this way is relatively simple, I think. As men, we were never taught by our fathers or anyone else how to appropriately relate to the opposite sex. With raging hormones as teenagers, we decided the best approach was to “see what we could get away with.“ Therefore the reference to first base, second base, etc. Unfortunately we carried that behavior into adulthood and the workplace.

Tragically, women learned to acquiesce to that behavior because that seemingly was the norm. And the behavior encouraged them to become coy teasers instead of genuinely relating to the other gender.

Whatever you may think about the current state of male/female relationships, it is clear things need to change. My recommendation is that we begin by teaching our sons how to appropriately relate to females. This is a job for both parents in tandem. And we need to teach our daughters how to insist on respectful treatment.