And with our sons, fellas. Maybe especially with our sons.


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Take your teenage sons to see Eighth Grade and have a conversation with them about what's wrong with the car scene and why it's wrong, in a way that they can understand.

Take them to see Blockers and have a long conversation with them about the arc with John Cena's daughter. Talk about implied versus explicit consent and ongoing consent and intoxication and inhibition and trust. And in particular about the ridiculous lie being sold everywhere in our culture, from debates about alcohol and sexual assault on college campuses to our favorite romantic comedies: that robust, ongoing, real-time consent somehow takes the fun or the romance or the thrill or the magic out of a sexual encounter.

Hours and hours and hours of conversations and follow-up conversations. Conversations about Aziz Ansari. Conversations about the difference between consent and submission. About the difference between a female partner giving in and letting you do what you want vs doing what she wants and only what she wants. About the kinds of behaviors you as even a trusted male partner or friend can engage in that might cause her to freeze up or feel like she's not in a position to robustly and unambiguously withhold or withdraw consent.

Conversations about sexual fear and sexual pressure—about the subtle ways that our culture can make especially younger women feel obligated to subordinate what they want to the sexual desires of the boys and men they interact with. Conversations about how sexual encounters that are technically consensual can still be unethical, immoral, and damaging for an only barely willing female participant, or one who is so preoccupied with not pissing you off that she can't afford to even be fully conscious of what she wants in the first place.

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