I spent two days this week attending a workshop about research on men and masculinities. As I listened to the various presentations I began to wonder about how men could be engaged to explore issues of violence and in particular how they could be gathered as a group to address their own violence. Some of the research showed that men often behave differently in a group and in particular when they are away from home, for example men playing sport and needing to stay away over night or men working in mines and staying away from home for weeks. When in the company of other men, men found themselves doing things that ordinarily they would not do. When interviewed individually they often expressed surprise and dismay that they would engage in violent behaviour and especially in sexually violent acts when away from the normal restrictions which limited their behaviour.
It seems to me that while counselling for the individual may be very important for a man to change his violent behaviour, men also need to open up about this amongst other men, to make themselves accountable to other men and to find other ways of behaving when together and find other ways to communicate without resorting to violence, or letting themselves get to a point of being out of control through the consumption of excess alcohol. I can imagine that getting men to such a group would be very difficult. If men find it difficult to talk with other men about sex in a constructive way how will they openly talk about issues of violence?
As a man, what have your conversations with other men about sex been like? Have they followed the path of objectifying women? Have they ever been open discussions about sexuality including the difficulties of sexual expression, desire and needs? I'm wondering whether men would be able to talk more openly and honestly about violence and especially violence against women if they were also able to open up and talk together about sexuality?
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