The Penn State football culture seemed to be more passionate about preserving and performing in the game of football than to do well and be responsible in the Game of Life. They had one of their colleagues sexually exploiting and abusing young boys on their watch and in their showers. Why didn’t they throw the flag for encroachment? In the Game of Life, you aren’t supposed to step over that line. Not only is it a rule among a civil society, it’s against the law. Why didn’t the rules for the Game of Life trump success in the game of football? It may have caused a loss of a good football coach, or it may have created temporary negative publicity on the program. But, it would have shed light on more than a few good men doing the right thing.

Throwing the flag and calling the authorities is the right thing to do for the man who lost his playbook in the Game of Life. It is the right thing to do for the young powerless boys who needed protection from a blitzing human being aimed at getting in the backfield of sexuality. Unfortunately, we have predators in our midst and it up to us to protect the powerless from them. Football is fun to watch, but it loses it attraction when men lose at the Game of Life while trying to build a winning program. Are we ready for some football? Yes. And only yes, if football programs are following the rules of the Game of Life first and foremost.

Because of our gender constructed views on sexuality, what isn’t being discussed is the toll this sexual experience has on the young lad. We saw glimpses of this toll throughout the movie. He experienced profound hurt and sadness after he was temporarily rejected by his adult lover, while he anxiously waited for her acceptance of him again. We saw how he became estranged from his same-age peers as he became more and more preoccupied with his sexual relationship, thus relegating swimming and other fun adolescent activity for clandestine afternoon sexual escapades. He also became increasingly distant from his family while attempting to hide the sexual relationship and make sense of it all alone. After her sudden departure and resulting abandonment of him, years later he discovers her again while in law school. He painfully sits through her trial as a law student emotionally agonized and alone, never letting his classmates or professors inside his emotional armor. Finally, we view him later in life experiencing a divorce for being emotionally closed off, aloof, preoccupied, and pained. Glimpses into the seismic impact were subtle, ancillary, and not part of the national commentary on this movie.

This inappropriate sexual experience took an immense toll on this young lad. I imagine he experienced similar confusion, loneliness, and pain that other adolescences experience when sexually exploited by an adult. An additional layer of confusion and pain is the subtle societal message that he somehow is lucky to have been sexually “mentored” by an adult female. The impenetrable armor of male stoicism serves to keep his dark secret in the cavern of his soul, only to cast an ominous and harmful shadow on his life.

Imagine the outrage and discussion if the gender roles were reversed with an adult male and female adolescent. Most likely, the discussion would have focused on the inappropriateness of this sexual arrangement, the inherent power differential, statutory rape concerns, the manipulative and offensive predation of the adult male, and the insidious negative impact on the adolescent female. In fact, given the astute, judicious, and compassionate eye of pro-feminist constituents, such a movie may well have failed in its popularity, as it should. The Reader didn’t even come close to failing. In fact, the female perpetrator won an Academy Award for best female actress. The acting was incredible and poignant in telling a story, but the story of certain tragedy for this young lad was virtually ignored.

This illustrates that we have a long way to go in our society in understanding male sexuality. It will be a good day when we can understand the emotionality and vulnerability behind male sexuality and adolescent posturing. These young boys, despite their emerging sexual energy, need to be respected and protected just as we protect female adolescents. Even though male socialization has tried to remove emotional vulnerability from males, they remain vulnerable underneath the tough guise. Just because some boys want to drive cars fast, binge on alcohol, and skip school, we as a society strive to not allow or condone it. As adults, we strive to provide a safe and healthy environment for our children as they aren’t old or mature enough to do so for themselves.

In real life, we have laws and policies to protect girls and boys. Our cultural ethos on gendered sexuality may at times not support such laws equally. Although our boys may not cry out and tell us about it, their lives will speak for them.

Normalizing the female sexual perpetration of adolescent boys in the cinema isn’t working toward creating a healthy and safe social environment, anymore than going to Hooters for a “good meal” does.

I AM outraged at the particular sexual theme in The Reader, I hope you are too, because WE ARE Outraged is much louder and influential.

The 16-page report outlines the interviews between police and the members of the team, as well as their parents. It shows varying degrees of difference from interview to interview as far as what was taking place in locker rooms and trips off school grounds.

While the report centers mostly around allegations of students poking each other between the butt cheeks as well as an incident in which one student was allegedly held down to be poked in the same manner, other allegations arise. From an incident in which one student urinated on another, to an allegation of a team member touching others with his penis, police looked into several accusations that in the end resulted in no criminal charges being filed.

One alleged victim’s mother told police that her son was being targeted by the other members of the team. Meeting with police on Dec. 15, 2009, the mother said her son “wants more than anything to be friends with the other players” and because of that, “he does not want them to get in to any trouble.”

It is statements such as that, said psychologist Randy Flood, that reveal a distinction between “normal locker room behavior” and “bullying.”

“There is a power differential,” Flood said. “There’s coercion and one person is experiencing fear, harm and damage — emotionally or physically.”

Behavior that would be considered “normal” to Flood would be between two parties with equal power and would be reciprocated by both parties. In some instances within the West Catholic boys cross country team, that was not the case.

Police questioned team members about an RV trip in 2009. One teen told police some team members were taking others into the back of the RV and simulating sex acts on them over their clothes, while others held them down. In one instance, one teen told police an alleged victim came out of the back room with a bloody nose and without his jeans. At that point, other team members tried to drag boy back into the room, but the alleged victim hit his head, so the others stopped.

Flood said the reports are disturbing for obvious reasons, but also because of the positive steps schools have taken since the 1990s to prevent such behavior.

“A case like this hopefully will increase the awareness and help students, teachers, coaches and athletic directors to do a better job at training,” Flood said. “Hopefully, boys and other students will see this is a serious matter.”

Despite the prosecutors’ decision not to file charges against anyone allegedly involved, cross country coach Dennis Scully did not have his contract renewed.

School officials are sticking to the cancellation of the upcoming competitive season. They’ve said from the beginning, despite the outcome of the criminal investigation, they wanted to send a very clear message that this type of behavior would not be tolerated.

Watch Randy’s Interview with Wood TV 8

Watch the news clip on Infidelity in the Digital Age

Psychologist James Gabarino, Ph.D., discusses how violent media is a social toxin that affects everyone exposed, but it manifested primarily in the more emotionally vulnerable people. In other words, individuals who have problems with aggressiveness, impulsivity, limited empathy and emotional connection to others are more likely to act out behaviors that they vicariously perform in the violent games.

Additionally, the repeated exposure to violent games impacts a person’s brain structure and emotionality in that it grooms a person for violence. Why allow our children to engage in an activity that lessens their sensitivity to violence? Just because your child is resilient or healthy, why expose him/her to it?

Do we willingly and repeatedly expose our children to air or water pollution with the rationale that they seem to be fine afterwards, manifesting no immediate problematic signs? No, most parents typically do what they can to safeguard children from water and air toxins, yet may overlook social toxins.

It seems that we would want to do all we can to inoculate our children from perpetuating and condoning violence and abuse in the 21st century, as we have just left the most violent century in history.

We need to do all we can to condition and preserve children’s sensitivity and morbidity to violence particularly the painful impact on victims.

To do so, perhaps, will provide the next generation with the emotional and intellectual skills to diminish violence, oppression, abuse and injustice in our families, schools, communities and world, bringing us a little closer to “peace on earth and goodwill to all”.

Grand Rapids Press, 2003

Historically, we have tried to convince ourselves that domestic violence is a family problem, a private matter. But, in just one month, we were reminded how it affects the whole community. This was made particularly clear when the streets of Grand Rapids were lined with citizens and filled with droves of police officers mourning a fallen officer who was killed while responding to a domestic violence call.

Domestic violence creates significant collateral damage. It affects families and communities. That being said, we can stop domestic violence by working as a community on the very issues that perpetuate it. There are many means of prevention and intervention such as an improved criminal justice system, changing attitudes toward women, and raising boys differently. The primary intervention, however, is getting help for the men and women who themselves are abusers.

Men are typically responsible for the more serious acts of domestic violence. Male socialization trains men to hide or act out their pain, not ask for help. So, when men are in crisis, they are less likely than women to seek professional help. Men often will enter a therapist’s office for “rock bottom” therapy. They come at a time when it seems like it can’t get any worse, when they may have lost an intimate partner, a job or their freedom to choose counseling. When a man is ordered by the courts to seek counseling, this gets him through the door, but not necessarily into his heart and head.

We’ve all been told that the first step to getting help is to recognize that you need help; then, you must ask for it. Unfortunately, the problem for many men is that asking for help is antithetical to the masculine identity. Instead, men in pain are more prone to work, drink, aggress, play, isolate and generally “suck it up” or “act it out” than share their feelings. This is a lethal formula in some men. The thought process is, “If you humiliate me, I’m angry and therefore entitled to punish or stop you from causing me hurt and shame.”

People get humiliated and angry all the time. The key here is the sense of entitlement. This entitlement shows up in men who abuse women.

These men believe that their intimate partner fundamentally doesn’t have the right to humiliate or shame them, and so they have the power to stop or punish that partner. Some men will go as far as killing to punish individuals deemed responsible for their pain. To kill an intimate partner is just a lethal version of a common male formula: “I will do anything except introspect and feel.”

A desire to blame others

This male formula subtracts a man’s accountability, while adding the desire to blame others for his problems. When a man lives this out, the pain, shame and anger he experiences is understood and addressed through critiquing, fixing and punishing others. The missing links are his culpability and empathy. Consequently, when certain men experience rejection from their intimate partner, they begin drowning in shame, pain and powerlessness. They desperately seek relief via self-talk: “How could you do this to me, you can’t do this to me, this is not going to happen, I will put a stop to this.”

This talk often leads to hurting others, destroying families, and, as we’ve recently experienced, affecting whole communities. The way out of this downward spiral is to face the man in the mirror.

Asking for help

Whatever the situation is that ails a man, whether it is getting lost in Chicago, his career, his relationships or his life, he needs to not be afraid to ask for help. It can be easy for the male chorus to bellow out the line, “he needs help” when discussing murderers, abusers and molesters. The remaining men, who need help, are left to sing quietly alone in the shower, “Help, I need somebody, not just anybody.”

I have a profession that affords me the opportunity to journey with men into their hearts and souls. In a sense, I help hold the mirror. So many men fear being a wimp or a loser, hence equate the need for counseling to an inferior status.

However, the men with whom I’ve worked are the business owners, attorneys, engineers, doctors, Marines and plumbers of our everyday life. These men explore the interior landscape of their souls in order to navigate the evolving requirements of what it means to be a fit male in the 21st century.

They are my heroes because they have the courage to evolve into compassionate and strong men — men for the new millennium — soulnauts.

Soulnauts seek understanding

These soulnauts seek to understand better what is going on inside themselves in order to connect emotionally to their partners. They are learning more effective and respectful ways of parenting. They are learning to become emotionally literate and to manage their emotions in stressful situations. They have the guts to discover the craters in their character, the wounds in their hearts, the fire in their belly and the gifts of their humanity.

I have seen soulnauts become better fathers, intimate partners, business owners, attorneys, electricians and teachers. There is not a loser among them. They are entering into the next frontier for men, their own heart and soul.

As society evolves and changes, so must men. The fittest men in the new millennium will need to be in touch with and know how to manage their interior world as much as they have been masters at their exterior world of gadgets, organisms, territories and equations. Each person that enters a new frontier has to face the fear of the unknown and unfamiliar. The fittest male overcomes the fear and takes the next step just as the pioneers, innovators and visionaries of the past did.

Charting new territory

Imagine what the world would be like if men could experience pain and shame without feeling entitled to stop or punish those whom they deem responsible. A world where boys are raised to unclench their fists and open their hearts. A world full of heroic men, courageous and strong enough to not only be astronauts, firefighters and linebackers, but soulnauts able to go into the fire in the building and in their belly, into a board room discussion and into an intimate bedroom discussion. This world would solve complex problems differently and less violently.

Perhaps Grand Rapids wouldn’t have lost four lives to domestic violence if the alleged killers had sought help upon feeling rejected. On a grander scale, when we were all dealing with the fear and powerlessness after 9/11, perhaps the leaders of our great nation would not have led us to the war in Iraq.

The more we are able to identify, soothe and resolve the shame and pain in our interior world, the less it is destructively expelled onto others in the exterior world. The more we have the courage to ask for and receive help, the more fit we can become. As this process increases for men, I believe the world will be a better place.

Grand Rapids Press, August 5, 2007

A July 2007 Time Magazine article estimated there to be 16 million Americans addicted to sex, the majority being men. Many will never get to the point of infidelity, use of prostitutes, or having sexually explicit conversations with actual persons, much less someone underage, via chat rooms.

By means of video technology and the internet, pornography has become a multi-billion dollar industry. According to Internet Filter Review, in 2006 the revenues of the sex and porn industry worldwide were 97 billion greater than the revenues of Microsoft the NBA, NFL, and Major League Baseball combined.

At least, pornographic images contribute to the objectification of women leading many men to believe they can act out sexual fantasies outside a caring relationship by viewing porn on the internet, participating in sexually explicit chat rooms, seeing prostitutes, or having an affair.

At worst, pornography, especially hardcore porn, further removes sexuality from the realm of care and respect and reinforces the normalization of sexual violence toward women.

At the Men’s Resource Center, we often see men lost in the cyclone of sexual addiction. Have you ever met anyone who told you that they made a choice to become addicted? It is unlikely you have because addiction doesn’t work that way.

It is crucial for communities, ours included, to recognize and acknowledge the role of pornography and the internet in the development of sexual addictions. Clearly, sexual acting out behavior that threatens innocent and especially underage persons needs to be addressed. We must work with sexual addicts before they reach the point of no return.

Many men begin using pornography as a distraction from their loneliness, sense of isolation, or feelings of inadequacy. These motivations begin a pattern of use much like how someone begins using/abusing alcohol or drugs. Participating in the behavior provides relief from the stress or anxiety that plagues them. Although many are married or involved in a significant relationship, this doesn’t guarantee intimacy skills, nor protect from addiction. Through internet pornography, they can pursue euphoria and false intimacy, which can distract and give pleasure in the moment, but fails to give the satisfaction and experience of closeness that an actual relationship provides.

There are also men who may simply be curious about internet pornography and who are involved in what they would describe as a satisfying intimate partner relationship. These men can also develop a pattern of use that involves many hours per week and takes them away from their partners. This pattern of use, and the deception involved in hiding it, becomes a toxin to the user and his intimate relationships.

Whether a man begins using internet pornography as a distraction or type of medication, or whether he begins more out of curiosity, the process can escalate. Men can move from seeking some type of connection or mood altering experience on the internet into an addictive pattern. The process begins to take on a life of its own. Weekend use can move to daily use and start to create problems with self-worth, health, employment, legal and financial issues.

Sexual addiction, like an addiction to gambling, is considered a “process addiction,” in which a person, instead of ingesting a substance, is involved in an “acting out process” that provides a significant neuro-chemical high characterized by preoccupation and increased acting out in spite of risky consequences.

As with substance addictions, process addictions involve a hijacking of the brain where the neuro-chemical changes that take place result in a compromised ability to make rational decisions based on outcomes or consequences

While most sexual addicts who struggle with pornography may not escalate to committing sexual assault, or even to sexually explicit chat room conversations, they need to become aware of the potential danger AND invited to receive help. Unfortunately, admitting one has an addiction is often viewed as an excuse or a cop-out from responsibility. Additionally, a social stigma is often attached to people who admit to addiction problems.

We believe that education and treatment is key. The insidious presence of a sexual addiction in one’s life without treatment will eventually destroy everything in its path. Relationships fail, work suffers, and individuals begin drowning in shame and guilt. The journey into recovery requires commitment, strength, and honesty. We have experienced men from all walks of life crack their denial, understand their problem, and open their heart and mind to a more loving and intimate life. Although the hardest and the biggest step is the first step; one moves from isolation, shame, and chaos into a therapeutic community offering hope, joy and restoration.

We view sexual addiction as a reality to be accepted and treated. Men who struggle with this addiction and problems with pornography don’t get better by denying the problem. They get better by becoming accountable, admitting to the addiction, and doing something about it. It is our hope that men who are struggling will step forward and face their own sexual addiction problem – not just for their well-being but for their family’s and society’s as well.

Gender socialization is the process in which young people learn how they are supposed to think, feel, and behave as men and women. There are many causative variables discussed in the analysis of violent criminal behavior, but the one that remains invisible is the toxicity of male socialization.

Men commit most homicides

The fact is that men, not women, across all socio-economic levels, races, families, and cultures are the primary perpetrators of violent crime. This illuminates the power of gender socialization. If poor education was the primary cause of black criminal behavior, then why are most of our homicides committed by men?

If poverty is the primary cause of violent black criminal behavior then why don’t we have as many females in prison as men? If a dysfunctional family with ineffective parenting, abuse and neglect is the primary cause then why do men account for 90 percent of the domestic violence offender population? If racism is the primary impetus for black male criminal behavior, then why are white males committing violent crime at about the same male to female ratio as their black counterparts?

If “kids are killing kids” in the school shootings then why have all of the shooters been male students? In addition, most of these boys were also white students in intact families attending good suburban schools. Male socialization is the missing link in the analyses of black male violent crime and violent crime in general.

Boys aren’t born brutes or beasts genetically programmed to be violent. Rigid male socialization is a social toxin to men’s humanity and the most vulnerable in our society will manifest symptoms of the toxin.

Think about air pollution. Air pollution is a physical toxin to asthmatic patients. These patients become symptomatic, manifesting complications in breathing when in polluted climates.

Individuals raised in environments with racism, poverty, dysfunctional families, unemployment, and poor education end up psychologically asthmatic, vulnerable to social toxins such as male socialization. These boys feel vulnerable, powerless, and marginalized. However, the male code tells them to “tough it out,” “suck it up,” and “don’t talk about it.”

Toughness equated to manliness

Manliness is equated with being tough, strong, aggressive, powerful, and always in control. Boys get called names such as weak, wuss, or sissy when they behave outside the masculine box. They get disrespected and ostracized. The pressure to fit in is huge. The result is that boys squash their humanity.

Men look for ways to prop themselves up to appear more powerful, more intimidating, more competitive, essentially, more manly. Affluent white boys may be able to do this with money, cars, houses, degrees, and social status, while those less fortunate may be left to prove their masculinity with violence, guns and even murder.

In effect, the male socialization process teaches men to externalize painful emotions and avoid states of vulnerability. Consequently, some men act out their rage and pain onto others in acts of criminal violence. After all, to kill someone is the ultimate act of control and power.

We also don’t talk about the broader impact of male training on our boys. It is frightening to see how poorly our boys are adapting and fitting into society. Not only are they more violent, but also they are less likely than girls to go to college, more likely to drop out of high school or be placed in special education, and twice as likely than girls to die in a car accident.

We need to continue working to improve education, unemployment, parenting, and racism. We also need to raise our boys to be more fit, more humane. If we give them permission to talk, feel, and emotionally connect to others they are less likely to loose their souls in oppressive conditions. The enemies of violence are empathy, compassion, sensitivity and humility; so let’s encourage this in boys too.

We need to stop leaving the issue of male socialization out of our discussions on violent behavior. And, let’s work on socializing our boys to stay in touch with their humanity. Then, and only then, do boys have a chance to refrain from violent behavior in difficult circumstances and a challenging world.

Grand Rapids Press, 2005