"I feel lucky to be raising a boy now, in this moment. Boys today are on their way to learning a lesson that my generation was never really taught: that every person gets to decide whether they want to be touched or not. A whole army of children across the country are now growing up hearing parents and teachers tell them, over and over, that their bodies are their own. Yes, that means society will hold my son accountable for his sexual behavior in a way that earlier generations never had to deal with. But I don't see that as a loss.I hope that the growing concern about sexual violence will be accompanied by real change: recognition that our sons need better sex education, earlier, as well as frank conversations about porn, consent, and handling rejection. And I hope now that more people are questioning their assumptions about boys and pushing back against old-fashioned ideas about how we teach them to be men, our sons will have more latitude to explore who they want to be and what life they want to create."
Boy

January 1, 1970