The oversexualization of boys

Everyone talks about how girls are “sexualized” at a young age.

I want to turn this idea inside-out, if even just for a moment.

Maybe society is sexualizing boys, and maybe that sexualization is leading to an oversexualization that primes boys and men to become obsessed with sex and their ability to use their penises as tools and weapons, making them a danger to girls, women, each other and society.

The making of monsters

The Cornell gang rape investigation flooding social media outlets and news coverage and fueling a lot of discussions actually took place in 2024. Most of us didn’t hear about these horrific allegations until recently because sexual assault rarely gets reported publicly.

My students were eager to discuss this case and talk about sexual violence on college campuses in general. I teach about education, so I contemplated ways to enter this conversation that could be reparative, or healing for all of us affected by the language and actions of sexual violence.

I also wanted to enter the conversation in a way that was pedagogical or offering lessons about how children’s informal and formal education experiences in childhood are not neutral and can at least partially explain how such monstrous acts become possible, even anticipated and normalized.

Do you think our society sexualizes boys?

It was a simple question, but one that most people have never considered. My students reported they hear about how society sexualizes girls a lot, but never how society sexualizes boys. However, they quickly offered examples about how even very young boys receive messages that combine relationships with girls and women, dominance, sexual behaviors and violence.

For example, family members talk about infants and toddlers as “heartbreakers” and “ladykillers,” and say, “He is such a flirt!” when a child giggles and looks away. This kind of language is so normalized that most of you might think it’s cute, harmless and that people like me — perhaps — are overreacting, but the messages are dangerous. They assume boys will hurt people rather than have meaningful, kind, consensual, long-term relationships with people.

Being a “Ladykiller,” the killer of ladies, takes this message even further.

Another example is a 5-year-old boy having a friend at school of a different gender. Adults often romanticize or sexualize the friendship, sending a message that being friends with a girl is not valued, but acquiring a girlfriend is admirable.

Showing off sexual dominance

This sexualization of boys expands and gets even more distorted as they age.

Consider the “firetruck game” played in many elementary and middle schools. It goes something like this: A boy puts his fingers on a girl’s leg and starts moving his hand upward until she says “stoplight,” but then the boy responds, “I’m a firetruck, I don’t stop at stoplights!” and he forces his hands toward her private areas.

If that game doesn’t shock you into realizing that our boys are oversexualized, consider a game some middle schoolers play where boys compete to see who can slap more bottoms of girls on any given Friday at school.

Again, boys are creating — and pressuring other boys to play — a game that violates basic respect for other people’s bodies and bodily autonomy. They don’t ask permission to hit girls’ bodies, they simply exert their sexual dominance over them and are rewarded in their social groups (and largely ignored by adults at school) for doing so.

A peculiar obsession with penises, penis “play,” and penis talk starts young too. The way our society sexualizes boys tells them that their genitalia is what makes them powerful and their penis is a tool — and weapon.

Many boys hit each other in their “privates” as punishment and humiliation, grab themselves and gesture at people as a show of power, and “hump” on people to exert intimidation and dominance. And even young boys get the very bizarre and unhealthy idea that they should take pictures of their penis to send to girls (and of course, other boys) on text, snap, in DMs and other platforms without warning, without solicitation and often without much comment.

The centrality of boys’ and young men’s focus and emphasis on their penises and sexualization is not “normal,” but rather cultivated by a society that oversexualizes them.

Stop sexualizing boys

What should we do?

Stop telling boys they are valued for attracting, pursuing and dominating girls.

Stop telling boys they are expected to harm people, as heartbreakers and ladykillers.

Stop telling boys their power comes from their genitals, and they can use it to shock, intimidate, threaten, compete, violate and show off for others — especially other boys and men.

I am a strong advocate for consent education beginning with very young children, but lessons on “consent” wouldn’t have stopped the alleged Cornell assault or numerous other cases of rape and sexual violence.

Many college-aged young men can speak about consent and sound knowledgeable and informed. The oversexualization of boys, the emphasis on their sexual promiscuity and domination and dehumanizing girls and women as “body counts” is a recipe for the making of monsters.