As we grow up we develop our personalities and our behaviors based on a whole bunch of stuff. Things like what our families are like and how they act, what our friendship circle find acceptable we also find acceptable, what the people that we look up to choose to do also influences what we choose to think is “cool” or a “good” thing to be doing. There is a group influence that causes us to think in a certain way, to feel in a certain way about things, and to think that one way of acting is okay when another is either embarrassing or even plain rude.
Role Models play one of the biggest roles in this
The people that we look up to, that we revere as our chosen role models play a bigger part in this than anything else. A single person that we look up to strongly enough, can over ride behaviours that the rest of our upbringing and culture have imprinted on us over a lifetime. These role models hold huge sway over their followers, and their influence cannot be underestimated. It is for this reason that I am so angered and annoyed at some of the most terrible role models that I have ever seen being presented to young men, and specifically the messages that they send about sex and relationships. Let’s go straight to an example.
Twilight – Edward Cullen has a lot to answer for
Edward Cullen is a 100 year plus old vampire. He lives forever, can stalk the night, is super strong and has the additional wisdom that his 100 year old life lends him with which to navigate the world of both day to day life and the pitfalls and traps of relationships. This guys should be the daddy, the alpha male of boyfriends. Is he? Is he fuck, the guy is a complete pussy. He meets an extremely young girl, who would fall into his arms at the click of his fingers, and what does he do to win her over? He turns into obsessed controlling stalker guy. She wakes up and he is standing there at the foot of her bed looking down on her as she sleeps – without her permission. The worst part? She then likes this and falls for him... thus telling all the viewers that the way to get a hot girl is to be the weird stalker guy. If he had grabbed her vampire style and just taken her willing and nubile body back to his that would have been a far better message, but know he goes all controlling and stalker.
Spot it, recognise it, so you can ignore it
We are so easily influenced as humans, we can’t help it, it’s how we are made. So when you see things like this try and spot it and consciously recognise what you are looking at. That way you can reject the bad sexual message that they are sending, and get back to being the awesome guy that you are.
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