this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
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A team of researchers, including Binghamton psychology professor Richard Mattson and graduate student Michael Shaw asked men between the ages of 18–25 to respond to hypothetical sexual hookup situations in which a woman responds passively to a sexual advance, meaning the woman does not express any overt verbal or behavioral response to indicate consent to increase the level of physical intimacy. The team then surveyed how consensual each man perceived the situation to be, as well as how he would likely behave.

The work is published in the journal Sex Roles.

"A passive response to a sexual advance is a normative indicator of consent, but also might reflect distress or fear, and whether men are able to differentiate between the two during a hookup was important to explore," said Mattson.

The team found that men varied in their perception of passive responses in terms of consent and that the level of perceived consent was strongly linked to an increased likelihood of continuing or advancing sexual behavior.

"The biggest takeaway is that men differed in how they interpreted an ambiguous female response to their sexual advances with respect to their perception of consent, which in turn influenced their sexual decisions," said Mattson.

"But certain types of men (e.g., those high in toxic masculine traits) tended to view situations as more consensual and reported that they would escalate the level of sexual intimacy regardless of whether or not they thought it was consensual."

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[–] Xeroxchasechase 99 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Is'nt it the definition? It's like saying drivers who drive fast are more likely to drive fast...

[–] [email protected] 58 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I wouldn't say it's the definition, but I agree this is not surprising.
Toxic masculinity is much more though. Men bullying men because they do something "not manly" is toxic masculinity. It can be anything from not enjoying sports to showing emotion for any reason (even crying if a family member died).

[–] FlyingSquid 24 points 6 months ago

I was in a private elementary school for six years with the same asshole teacher who treated me like shit all the time. There were several reasons, but big ones were that I didn't like sports and I was sensitive, so I cried when something upset me.

Toxic masculinity fucked me up in a major way and it wasn't even my own father (who also didn't like sports and had no trouble showing his emotions) who did it to me.

[–] RupeThereItIs 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's a terrible term for very real problem of toxic gender roles. I'm not sure if you meant to imply that these roles are only reenforced by other men, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Men and women reenforce these gender roles against men and boys, promoting the poor behavior.

[–] FlyingSquid 12 points 6 months ago

There are definitely a lot of mothers who expect their sons to grow up to be "real men" and it's unfortunate.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago

Yeah, men who are assholes, behave like assholes. News at 11

[–] morphballganon 10 points 6 months ago

It's called a tautology, and yes.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 5 months ago (2 children)

"Men who are toxic generally are more likely to be toxic sexually"

Kind of a no-brainer. I guess it's interesting that men who exhibit toxic traits are both more likely to falsely identify behavior as consensual and are more likely to proceed even if they do identify it as not consensual, but that's not totally unexpected either.

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[–] inb4_FoundTheVegan 41 points 6 months ago (13 children)

Your daily reminder that "toxic masculinity" was a term coined by men sick of the negative mental health effects on having to conform to aggressive and dominate stereotypes.

Ya know, in case you think some other gender came up with it.

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[–] FlyingSquid 38 points 6 months ago (11 children)

Some More News did a recent episode on toxic masculinity and the lack of good role models for young men and came up with the very simple solution (sorry, spoilers) to young men who have trouble getting girlfriends:

Make a female friend. Not a friend you hope will be a girlfriend, not someone you think about fucking, just a friend. A woman you can talk to like a buddy. Learn about how to talk to women from a woman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHkhTIEe254

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[–] FlyingSquid 29 points 6 months ago (22 children)

I hate having to explain this shit to my daughter.

We were talking about the "man vs. bear" thing and about trusting strange men and how even if a man isn't horrific enough to try to assault her, many men who help her will expect sexual favors in return and would at the least harass her.

This world is so ugly and I have to show her that on a daily basis.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago

Not surprising but always good to have studies to prove these kinds of things.

[–] StaySquared 19 points 6 months ago (10 children)

Reported that they would escalate the level of sexual intimacy regardless of whether or not they thought it was consensual.

Gentlemen, the moment you're questioning in your head if the girl is consenting, you use your voice and ask something along the lines of, "do you trust me?" or, "keep going?", or "do you like this/it?"

Fkin no brainer. smh

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[–] gedaliyah 19 points 6 months ago

"Bears with teeth more likely to cause injury to people they bite."

[–] Kachilde 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

How do you have Toxic Masculinity? That’s not how the concept works..

[–] masquenox 15 points 6 months ago

How do you have Toxic Masculinity?

Yeah, it's a flaw in the way it's framed, methinks - it's very easy to discern men who display behavior that are "high in toxic masculine traits" because they are the visible tip of the iceberg.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Oh my, TLDR! (Statement not a summary)

sexual advances without consent by men is masculine toxicity by definition.

Toxicity is a spectrum. Some people are entirely toxic and love it. Others are slightly toxic and not aware. Yet others put in honest effort, struggling to reduce their own toxicity.

Thats not just men, that’s people.

[–] TheBananaKing 50 points 6 months ago (7 children)

This post right here is exactly why 'toxic masculinity' is a fucking shit term that should never be used.

The intended meaning of the phrase was never 'men, who are toxic', or even 'men who are toxic', even though that's the straight-line interpretation of it.

What it's supposed to mean is 'overexaggerated performative masculinity required by social norms, the imposition of which upon men is toxic'.

Given that that's a fucking mouthful and the short form is horribly misleading, I always go with "gender policing" instead.

Stop telling people how to do their gender, and a vast number of social problems will evaporate. It also places the blame on the actual cause of the problem, and expands to cover mandatory-performative-femininity as well, which is also a shit thing to subject people to.

[–] Lemminary 20 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

‘overexaggerated performative masculinity required by social norms, the imposition of which upon men is toxic’

Huh, I always thought this was obvious but I can see how people can take it as "men who are toxic" since feminism is flattened down in some people's minds to mean "women who want to dominate men" like wtf.

Also, thanks for introducing me to "gender policing"!

[–] TheBananaKing 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

You know, gender studies is arts-faculty - people who devote their careers to parsing the subtlest nuances from the gauziest wisps of meaning.

Yet when it comes to making up two-word catchphrases like [HORRIBLE] [DEMOGRAPHIC], it never even occurs to them that people might associate [demographic] with [horribleness] when they hear it.

I'm just a little bit cynical about this.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (13 children)

The headline is a bit misleading. What it should say is that "men who score low toxic masculinity traits are more likely to seek enthusiastic/affirmative consent". Which is a bit of a "duh" thing.

Even the authors admit that passive response is normative consent, and as much as I love enthusiastic consent, a lot of men AND women feel very awkward when you try that paradigm since they're used to normative human sexuality. That's especially prevalent with older men and women like millennials and gen X. Escalating sexual behaviour with passive consent is different from escalating without consent or against consent. Perhaps when affirmative/enthusiastic consent is normalized, we can have a different conversation.

"A passive response to a sexual advance is a normative indicator of consent, but also might reflect distress or fear, and whether men are able to differentiate between the two during a hookup was important to explore," said Mattson.

That's the exact point. In a future study they'll be able to see if men who score high in toxic masculinity traits are more likely to not notice or actively ignore distress or fear.

I honestly suspect yes since empathy is not a valued trait in performative toxic masculinity, but with science it's unwise to jump to unsubstantiated conclusions, like this headline does.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (5 children)

boy this terminology is wierd. I think advances are always without consent. They are first moves. Assuming they mean making advances after already recieving some sort of no then its more like that is a sign of toxic masculinity.

EDITED: yeah reading it I see they mean advances like advancing from a stage so that makes more sense. still seems a bit chicken and egg to me though.

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[–] captainlezbian 12 points 6 months ago

I’m glad they did the research but also duh. I’ve done an experiment on this by being a woman at a bar

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

if only there was some sort of, say, image of pikachu, that could express my feelings upon reading this

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