The "men always want sex" myth should really be addressed seriously. It's hurting everybody.

You know it's messed up when such problematic tropes become commonplace in kid's cartoons.... KID'S CARTOONS

it is rare that men come forward about being asaulted due to social stigma, the dark numbers could well be much higher

As a woman, I really DONT understand female actresses who agree to do this.. doesn’t it make them uncomfortable??

It's depressing how recent so many of the examples are

I hate “That’s My Boy” solely for that opening scene. I left the theater and asked for a refund the moment the auditorium erupted into cheers. In what world would that be a UNIVERSAL reaction to seeing a teacher have sex with a student.

"However well intended attempts at role-reversal satire may be, they ultimately fall flat because even if they were somehow successful in highlighting mens predatory behavior, they do so by reinforcing the idea that the sexual abuse of men is inherently funny and absurd." Incredible eloquence. 17:40

The 'That's My Boy' clip is so disgusting. A full ped0 scene. Who greenlit that? Why do people let Adam Sandler make movies??

Often I hear that comedy should have no boundaries. When judging the ethics of comedy, it comes to two simple questions; "Who are we laughing With, and who are we laughing At?" If we are laughing With Predators and laughing At Victims, there is something deeply wrong with that comedy.

The myth that men always want sex also plays a role in trivializing female rape survivors. The excuses "he couldn't stop himself", "he had an urge" are used very often and it's the grossest thing someone can say. How someone can justify taking someone else's body, using it solely for own pleasure and ignoring that the victim has feelings and wants it to stop, is beyond me. It's the one crime that is inexcusable and yet it's the one defended the most. I can't imagine the pain of telling someone you were violated and hurt in the most dehumanizing way, and them giving you a high-five. That breaks my heart.

Some of these clips are really disturbing when taken out of context - the context being the audience is groomed to think that sexual assault is funny in the framing of a "comedy" film.

It always amazes me how you are able to find so many examples in media

My dad told me about a friend of his who was raped by an older woman at the age of just 12. The boys around them thought he was cool but it traumatized him and it took a very long time for him to be able to have a romantic relationship. No rape or sexual assault should be taken lightly or made into a joke. It doesn't matter who the perpetrator or victim is. This video was so well done and so important.

Wtf is that’s my boy Wtf is that What the sincere hell was going through the minds of every single person who worked on it

Thank you for calling out “self-aware” comedy, they still reinforce it’s “not a big deal” 😷

another thing ive noticed in the “abhorrent admirer” trope is that the admirer in question is frequently a trans/trans coded caricature (tall, very masculine, etc) the extra layer of transphobia is even more sick.

I think a really great analogy for the “erection ≠ consent” is, most people laugh automatically while being tickled, but that doesn’t mean they’re enjoying it

I just wanted to add, that these false notions of what is and isn't sexual assault, roooted in sexism, also affect women. As a gay woman who was assaulted by another woman, the idea of going to a police to report it never even crossed my mind. Woman perpetrators are often not taking seriously or even acknowledged by the criminal justice system.

A male friend of mine was raped recently. Several people proceeded to out themselves as complete trash by claiming he’s a liar because he froze and didn’t say no, even going as far as to say his nesting partner convinced him it was rape. This conversation is so important.

ive never seen a comment section so universally not disgusting, especially on a video like this. youve built a fantastic community

The bit about meta ironic humor is spot on. It doesn't matter that you acknowledge the problem if you keep contributing to it.

Back in high school I didn't showed much interest in girls, and a lot of other students thought I was gay (I'm ace, but I didn't knew at the time). This made another student, older, bigger and stronger than me, threaten me with rape pretty much every day. That year, I skipped classes the entire year with the intention to not risk being anywhere close to that person, and the few times I went to class, I spent the interval always at the library, or very close to the teacher's room. I received a lot of heat during that year from them because from an outsider perspective I was simply a good student that started skipping classes to play videogames in the local arcade. And I was lying to myself as well, so it was not easy to open up. (Also, just typing this out still hurts and make me want to cry) This happened in the 90s. I know that I should had spoken up, but knowing my dad, I'm sure he would just say something like "fight him and put him on his place" instead of talking to the school board about it. While I successfully avoided being raped, the trauma and the fear was so deep in my psique that only very recently, 20 years later, I finally admitted to myself that I was being threatened with rape, and I should had talked to my teachers and parents.

I suspect you're not liked by the men's right activists, which is deeply ironic. You do so much raising awareness about how gender roles hurt men and male victims, and MRA would see you as an ally if they really cared about helping men and not just bashing feminism.

To this day, I'm still baffled by the existence of That's My Boy. I realise I might be opening a can of worms with what I'm about to say, so I will preface this by saying that I completely agree with the statement that sexual assault victims of both genders are not taken seriously enough. However, if the film was called That's My Girl and the genders of the teacher and student were reversed, I do think there would be controversy over it and that's what SHOULD have happened with That's My Boy. But, due to the reasoning pointed out in this video, it wasn't.

I remember watching Midsommar and coming out of it and saying that the rape scene in the end was rough, and that it made me very uncomfortable that so many people were laughing through it. Only to watch an interview with the director where he didn't refer to it as rape at all, and mentioned that he definitely thinks it's a comedic moment. Even though the guy is drugged AND there are several points in the scene where the women are physically forceful, I still see so many people who didn't read it as rape...somehow... It's awful.

These videos always feel like the sex education we all needed but never got.

Anyone can be the perpetrator. This video is highly highly important. It is quite sad that we still must continue to discuss this . Any human should have the right to say no to any kind of sexual activity. Anyone can be the victim.

This was a rough on for me to watch. In collage I was sexually assaulted. I am a bigger guy. I was drunk at a small dorm party and unable to defend my self. The part that adds insult to injury was when I managed to get away the girl was very upset and left the room crying. I was then pressured by my friends to apologize to her for hurting her feelings. It really fucked me up for a long time, it was 15 years ago and I still have issues about it. I have not really shared this much, it makes me feel sick to my stomach. When I do bring it up with people I often feel I have to make light of it, but that just increasingly makes me feel gross. This is something I struggle with when in relationships, when and how do you tell a partner about this?

for a second I was like "Keanu Reeves was in Shameless?" because of how the clips went together

A close male friend of mine experienced SA from another girl at college, and I'll never forget how traumatized he was the next day. The worst thing was that he didn't allow himself to believe that he was assaulted. He just kept saying "but I'm supposed to want it" as he sat there, looking at nothing. It was heartbreaking watching him tell himself that he enjoyed this horrible thing that happened. He was usually a cheerful and upbeat guy, but he was just empty all day. He did eventually recover, but it changed the way he viewed sex and relationships. Women and girls also need more education around respecting men's sexual boundaries and not assuming they want sex 24/7 just cuz Hollywood said so.

I just wanted to say that your videos have completely changed how I watch media and entertainment. This topic in particular is sooo important. My husband was sexually assaulted/molested as a teenager, and he didn't even tell me until several years into our marriage... the damage it did to him is unexplainable, and yet he's more concerned with nobody ever finding out for fear of how they'll react. We need serious changes to happen in society, to give men a voice finally.

Every minute of this was incredibly uncomfortable. Thanks for making this.

My SO was assaulted as a teen by a few girls. He told one of his “best friends” who, at the time, had a huge crush on him. She laughed and joked about it. Eventually, he opened up to me when we first started talking and I became so furious, cried, and told him how sorry I was. I was the first person who actually treated his assault as an assault. They never dated, don’t talk anymore, and we’ve been married for almost 5 years. So I guess that’s what happens when you treat someone with compassion. Assault is assault, regardless of gender or sexuality.

I would say the statistics are a bit off since most men who are raped don't usually report sexual assault or even physical assault In fear of being mocked or dismissed especially if done by a woman.

It is so frustrating that youtube has decided to age-restrict this video, given that much of it talks about assault of children and teenagers. Boys and young men deserve to know that they shouldn't be treated like this.

Thank you so much for this, particularly the section on the Abhorrent Admirers. This trope 100% has impacted me deeply. I've always been overweight, and I'm not conventionally attractive. The actresses/characters playing abhorrent admirers have ALWAYS shared physical and/or personality traits with me (pretty fat girls! Loud redheads!), and as a result... well it's not good. This shit ruins people on both sides.

I never understood Jennifer Aniston's line "calm down Jodie Foster" until now (hadn't thought of the movie in years but just put it together) and that's in reference to her movie The Accused, which has a brutal scene where she's raped. One of the most terrifying things I've ever seen in film and wild how people think the line in Horrible Bosses is funny.

I remember the Edward Scissorhands scene bothering me way back as a child, the women lost interest in him afterwards and accused him of mistreatment

I love how you raise awareness for societal issues without feeling the need to undermine other issues.

I'm surprised the Kanker Sisters from Ed, Edd, and Eddy wasn't shown. They were so traumatizing, the main characters would rather get beat up by the entire neighborhood then spend the day with them

Could you take a look at Korean or Chinese romantic (or better "romantic") drama? I feel like the tropes of predatory men as romantic partners is so strong there.

No means no. ALWAYS. There is never an excuse.

Anyone can be a victim and anyone can be a predator. Neither are owned by a singular gender.

One point missing here is how in everyday life men are conditioned and expected to have sex. A man can't say no, even in a normal relationship. Every reason and/or excuse made by a woman is generally accepted, there's no such thing for men. Here every unperformed sex, lack of it or even lack of initiation is seen as a warning signal that something is wrong - with reasons from lost attractiveness, infidelity, to sexual orientation. Very common trope is something like "what is wrong with you, are you gay or something" as a response to negative result of sexual advances or performance. Man can't say no without the fear of their sexuality being questioned. The frightening thing about this is that those situations aren't taking part in toxic relationships or assaults by strangers or boys. Men are conditioned from a very young age that there's no such thing as "no" for them when it comes to sex - they have to seek it, be always willing, always ready and feel lucky when it happens. And if they even think about breaking any of those rules, there has to be something wrong with them.

Anyone else spending 99% of the video down here in the comments, because all of these scenes are too DISTURBING to watch?

God, the movie clips just don't stop, do they? There are so many examples... it's disgusting

I think the myth that "Real men want sex all the time" has been very damaging to the current generation. It leaves boys thinking, "why am I not like this character" (or whatever it is) and they think that something is wrong with them.

Most if not all of these clips made me deeply, DEEPLY uncomfortable watching. So much so that I can not possibly fathom how the filmmakers could think that these would be anything but that and actually create humor of all things. Especially the 'meet the greek' clip was completely and utterly horrifying and I do not want to imagine what a person might feel like that went through sth similar and has to sit through that when they came to the theatre for comedy and laughter. And some of these clips are really not old at all! How is this still a thing?! And are there actually people out there - apart from apparently those that like to produce such scenes - that enjoy them? People like to complain that everyone these days is 'too sensitive', 'a snowflake' etc - yet things like this still happen on a big budgets and for a big audience and it's never been made into a scandal. It should be. If we the public do not stand up to these disgusting and dehumanizing tropes, Hollywood and Co will presume thinking that shit like this is funny and doesn't hurt anyone. I think this video shows clearly that it isn't and it does.

"Revenge is not Justice."

Weird how often Big Bang Theory shows up in these videos. 🤔

Thank you so much for clarifying the “double standards” myth! 🙏 “While it’s true that the sexual assault of men is not taken seriously, that doesn’t mean the sexual assault of women IS taken seriously.”

well. mark me as scared and disturbed. most of these "jokes" just flew over my head because they're so normalized, i never even stopped to think that they're harmful--too harmful.

Straight dude here. Was drugged by two women and assaulted in my early twenties. Also had a gay man try to assault me randomly in a bar before that. Both times I told someone, both times it brought laughter. Never telling anyone in person ever again.

This is so unconfortable to watch. I literally saw some scenes that i thought were funny a few years ago. I'm glad that it's different now but this is still happening in media and it makes me sick

The sheer discomfort of sitting through this cannot be overstated. I had to stop the video a few times every minute to give myself some breathing room. I don't think I could ever watch this in one full on sitting. I know the editing process and I commend you for taking on the extremely difficult task of having to put this together. You are a good soul for putting this out and I hope this helps spread awareness on the topic.

Really insightful and thought provoking. I always felt really uncomfortable with the Jennifer Aniston character in "Horrible Bosses", and sadly that is the first time I considered sexual assault against men in cultural media.

I didn't finished the video yet, but I want to add to the part of "some men are not really interested in sex". My ace heart thanks you for this. I'm not a man, but hearing that from someone with an audience really makes me feel good. Not everybody feels sexual atraction and not everybody wants sex. Aspec men, you're cool, we're cool, , we're not weirdos. Rape culture is a fucking nightmare, inclduding corrective rape or forcing yourself to have sex because "it's the normal thing to do, everybody wants sex, so I have to want to have sex!". Boys, men, even though society is always telling you to be sexually active, to be open for everything, YOU DON'T HAVE TO, IT'S YOUR FUCKING BODY. YOU DO YOU

I wonder what was the environment on the set when they were shooting these scenes. Did the actors really think it was funny, none of them was unconfortable? What about the rest of the crew? A lot of the tone of the scene is given by the soundtrack, but in the set there isn't any music, right? So they're just watching this played straight, and are ok with it?...

Also. I am a female. First raped when I was just 8 years old. Suffered so so so so much abuse from men in this life. I make a lot of male rape jokes. "Two wrongs don't make a right." I hear you. I'm going to stop.

This pulled open some deep wounds of mine. Thank you for talking about this. It needs awareness. Even in areas where the statistical difference is smaller, this is often ignored.

I’d love it if Hollywood would come up with a way to show a woman in control that isn’t damaging

this was incredibly hard to watch. it's distressing how so much media can treat the subject like that...

I never laughed at any of these "jokes". Thank you for the video.

I have never heard of or seen "That's my Boy" before, and the scenes shown here are absolutely disgusting.

Are there any positive examples in movies/shows where the assault itself and the emotional aftermath are dealt with properly?

What was going on in horrible bosses.

Or being called/accused of being gay if you don’t like the woman’s advances. Good vid!

There needs to be more positive examples in popular culture of a woman taking control in a sexual situation and the man enjoying it, where it's consensual. That way men and women who like that dynamic could enjoy the titillation of it without the toxic messages that women in control is humiliating for men or that rape against men is funny or doesn't matter. We need to do better as a society.

the perks of being a wallflower is such a great movie, I'm so glad it had a male character actually reacted realistically after an older woman raped him. its so rare, but its really needed.

The movie #TheWrongMissy is sexual assault against a man played for laughs, who ends up falling for his abuser. I felt ill watching it. The most tone deaf movie Adam Sandlers company has ever created in my opinion. And if the producers were trying to "subvert" anything through their antics it failed. It was so uncomfortable to watch. Netflix didn't even tag it properly.

I felt physically sick watching this Seeing so many scenes of rape and assault where it was mocked, ignored or even celebrated was disgusting Especially those scenes that I have seen before and thought nothing of… Forces us to look inward and realise we’ve already been a part of the problem

As a 16 year old male teen I was aggressively perused by a 40+ female neighbor. At first, I thought I had to believe I had "hit the jack pot", being inexperienced, and wanting for any interaction. I found the additional invitations to be frightening for a lack of consensual dialog. I ended up hiding until she lost interest. I assumed something was wrong with me. I hated myself for years.

I remember finding the wedding crashers scene uncomfortable for me when I was a teen, but I ignored it because I didn't understand why it would make me uncomfortable. That feeling was easier to ignore since I didn't have a problem and even found a lot of similar scenes funny, and also because she was hot. A lot of my teenage years understanding of sex was from raunchy comedy movies and a lot of those have been depicted here. Another movie that sticks out to me filled with these problematic jokes is Sorority Boys from 2002. It has a scene where a man dresses up like a woman to get something from another mans room, but he gets drugged and then it is heavily implied (to the extent I'm not even sure if you could call it implied) that he got raped. It wasn't depicted as an "ok" thing to do, but it wasn't that "problematic" either since the victim couldn't remember the incident and was too dumb to put 2 and 2 together and because it was "funny" that the assaulter wanted to have sex with such an ugly "woman". Also the punishment for the assaulter was that he found out that his victim was a man...

I once saw a play in the theatre in which there is a scene where a young man is raped by an old woman. It was framed to be a joke and the entire audience laughed and at the end gave a standing ovation. Things like this make me lose hope in our society. I was the only one not clapping and just sitting there.

OMG even RIO?!?!? Nothing seems safe from this harmful joke. And also a movie from 2019?! I wouldn't be surprised if we would see a movie in 2020 with this joke in it as well. I do hope people can start looking at jokes like these in a different light. Terry Crews was so brave to talk about his assault and I remember that there were people who made fun of him for it... because they only saw it as a joke. Anyways another great video! Always looking forward to your videos! You always bring great insight to issues like this.

Kudos to whoever had to watch all those crappy tv shows and movies to get these clips. Now I know a dozen things I don't want to watch.

An incredible close friend of mine let me know that he had been raped (by a woman). He had tried to seek help for it afterwards, but never experienced being taken seriously by those around him. Those that don't think that these kind of tropes in our entertainment affect - or at the very least confirm - our mindsets, are simply wrong.

Wtf. THAT'S where "baby it's cold outside" came from? I'd only heard covers before. In those covers they were generally sung as the woman really wanting to stay but thinking she can't, and the man saying yes please stay, until the woman happily accepts that her desire to stay with a person she loves is the most important thing. It's always sung with a loving tone, in harmony, when I've heard it on the radio. But that original... my gosh that's creepy. I had no idea that's how it originated! I was thinking the whole controversy around the song was stupid, but knowing the original makes the situation a lot more complicated than I'd thought.

I'm really looking forward to the "men can only find redemption through death" video essay. I have so many thoughts and feelings about this topic.

Can't wait for the "redemption in death", this is actually a super interesting topic! Also, thank you for this video, I've been thinking about it since it was announced months ago, great work as always! I even forgive you you didn't include the Brooklyn 99 scene (-:

As russian, I can say that here rape is being used by police service as a torture. I suppose this kind of jokes resulted in such practices, not only here in Russia, but worldwide. Thank you for this vid.

There is a fine line between femdom and rape. That line is often referred to as "consent".

All of these scenes made me deeply uncomfortable, none of them were funny at all. This is a real problem that doesn't get addressed often enough. A lack of consent is rape no matter the gender of the parties involved. It's not like sexual assault of women is taken seriously all the time but if the roles were reversed, most people would definitely see the scenarios in this video as rape. It's scary how many people think that men can't be raped or can only be raped by men.

"That's my boy" always freaked me out because of this

The amount of guys who don't realise they were assaulted is honestly so disgusting and sad. Like, my friend lost his virginity when he was 15 to his piano teacher.... THAT'S NOT OK. Just because he wasn't kicking and screaming doesn't mean he wasn't assaulted.

This is excellent, but also you have a wonderful voice

You should do a video essay on black women's portray in Hollywood.

A prominent example of this I found was the four Great Fairies in Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The fairies in that game upgrade your armor with materials you provide them, but the cutscenes that play get more disturbing the higher level the upgrade. For one, two, and three star upgrades, they blow some magic wind at Link, kiss their finger and touch it to him, and then straight-up kiss him on the face. In the last example Link is clearly shown cowering in fear. But during a four-star armor upgrade, they grab Link, pull him down into the depths of their fountain, and the game fades to black. Then the fairy laughs, and Link stands back up on the pedestal from a crumpled position, as if he had taken knockback from an enemy. The Great Fairies, giant, scantily clad magical women have always been a disturbing feature of Zelda lore, but in Breath of the Wild they managed to make them even worse.

Along with "Abhorrent Admirer", it's important to note how often comedies use the same trope to demonize trans women, and to make jokes about how "this character was tricked into having sex with a man". Or even if the women isn't outright stated to be a trans woman, but is seen as "ugly" since she has masculine features that line up with transgender stereotypes used throughout hollywood. This specific take on that trope is incredibly harmful and sinister, especially because that concept of being "tricked" is an excuse men use to enact violence against trans women. And the tropes harm women as a whole, since they push the notion that masculine women are inherently ugly and as such, not of worth. There are a lot of tropes with trans women to unpack, and I feel a good amount of them fall adjacent to "Abhorrent Admirer". The jokes that come from these tropes hinge on the punchline of men being "tricked" and taken advantage of, and the idea that trans women are inherently disgusting. Even when the "trick" is successful in these jokes, they're set up in a way that the audience is expected to laugh at the dramatic irony of a character being cartoonishly horny and in love with a man dressed up as a woman. This trope is pretty much just a more specific take on "the woman that raped you was ugly, BECAUSE she was fat/old/a man/etc.", and each variation has had further versions where the woman "tricks" the victim into thinking they're conventionally attractive. What adds a few extra layers is when the trans woman joke focuses the perpetrator being a man. We can look at part 1 of this video series to see how the media handles men raping other men, and because media is often transphobic and views trans women as just men dressing up, those tropes can bleed into this one. The way these jokes treat the victim of the sexual assault varies, but it is most often seen as some sort of comeuppance. I suppose in comedies the victims are treated how the "Abhorrent Admirer" trope treats them, as pathetic or stupid, while in dramas they're treated more like how media treats men being raped by other men are treated. I feel like you mayyyy have touched on this in other videos. Possibly in the first part of this video series, since again, transphobic media tends to treat rape by a trans women in a similar light as being raped by a man. But I also feel this video would have been a perfect place to bring it back up, because of the nuance and overlap with the "Abhorrent Admirer" trope. Though, you probably could talk for hours about the nuance about each specific trope featured in this video.

24:02 And some men may not be interested in sex with certain women. He simply may not be attracted to some women while being attracted to others

This video reminds me of a case of pedophilia by a music teacher here in Argentina. Lots of people laughed at the boy and the situation, saying he was lucky, asking if she was sexy. Everyone laughed like it was an anecdote, downplaying it

So, this video was taken down for a bit right? Got stopped in the middle of watching it. Happy it's back up.

had to take a break multiple times bc of the anxiety this gave me..it's important for society to realize this tho. rape is NEVER funny

As a man that was sexually assault by a woman, it does certainly feel weird. I never thought to find myself here at all, no one ever thinks to find themselves as the victim of something like this.

There have been many moments in my life where I was told to "not have any sense of humour" because of not laughing at such scenes or similar jokes, and it breaks my heart to think of all the people growing up thinking this is "ok". We really need to enforce more positive behaviour and world-views in media! I've been sexually abused around the age of seven and it's sickening to think that sexual assault, abuse or rape is still not really taken serious in our society... is it a lack of empathy? Lack of actually reflecting on it? I don't get it!

Thank you so much for this. Rape is rape and rape is cruel no matter which genders are perpetrators or victims.

I really like the way the trauma of rape on a man is portrayed in the series Outlander, even though is a man raping another man, the way the PTSD Is portrayed on the main character is realistic and upseting, it shows you a vulnerable hurt man, trying to heal.

I’m genuinely disturbed by how much film and TV footage was in this video.

This trope reinforces this idea that all boys and men want is sex, not romance, companionship and meaningful emotional connections. Like some of the other comments I found the "That's My Boy" that most sickening - a school teacher/student affair like that is 100% predatory. While a teenage boys hormones may be raging, the relationship can never be legitimate, and the power imbalance and situation means there is no level playing field for emotional connection or intimacy. The emotional harm done to a boy from being used like that is incredibly damaging. Disgusting to watch that kind of content being greenlit in a hollywood movie.

Thank you for including Asexual men in this video essay! Arospec and Aspec people are often not acknowledged in media. Aspec-coded characters are often sexually harassed, and sometimes sexually assaulted, because of the disgusting misconception that “All people-especially men-feel sexual attraction and crave sex.” That view perpetuates Arophobia and Acephobia in a major way.