Real Boys

by William Pollack

  * The story of Abraham and Isaac is most clearly centered on God’s command to Abraham to bring Isaac, his only son, to be sacrificed. God calls upon Abraham to have his son killed presumably to test Abraham’s faith in his newfound God. In the original Hebrew rendition of the tale, the story is called the “binding” of Isaac, referring to Isaac’s attachment to the sacrificial pyre prior to the angel’s interventio and the substitution of an animal by God in order to save the father from such an intolerable loss.

  — 7 —

  THE ADOLESCENT CRUCIBLE:

  GROWTH, CHANGE, AND SEXUALITY

  “I think there is a ‘thing,’ that boys should be tough and mean. . . .

  There are girls that are tough; and just because you are a boy

  doesn’t mean that you have to be the strongest kid in the world

  or the tough guy.”—Ken, age fifteen

  “You’ve gotta really keep your guard up. If you don’t, the guys

  will . . . tell people that you’re not cool.”—Ian, age fourteen

  THE SECOND TRAUMA OF SEPARATION OR THE FIRST STEP

  TO ADULT INDIVIDUATION

  During adolescence a boy naturally seeks to define his own identity, establish his independence, and determine what kind of man he intends to be. The conventional view of society is that, to do so, a boy must separate from his family and learn to stand on his own. My view, however, is that a boy can become a distinct and unique individual without separating from his family. In fact, I believe that the best and perhaps the only way he can successfully define a strong, independent, and individualistic masculine identity is with the help, support, and love of his family, friends, teachers, and caregivers.

  You would not expect a baby to stand up and take his first steps unassisted, to tough it out no matter how many times he falls over or how many pieces of furniture he crashes into. You would not plunk your five-year-old on a bike and expect him to ride to the next county. You would be there for the toddler and the tyro bike rider—to protect them from harm, to stabilize them, to teach them how to balance, encourage them to keep on trying,

  praise them when they succeed, rejoice with them when they master the skill. Yet, many of us expect our teenagers to face the far more daunting complexities of sexuality, relationships, career choice, peer pressure, and academic performance without similar support, guidance, and “being there.”

  The idea of adolescence has changed enormously over the years. Since the turn of the century, when the term was first used, adolescence has been considered a safe haven, a period between boyhood and manhood when boys would be sheltered and protected, eased out of the world of toys and books into the world of work and family.

  But, today, adolescence is anything but a time of safety and protection—it often is, in fact, the most perilous and confusing time of a boy’s life. These are the years when a boy attempts to develop a firm sense of self, of who he is, of what “makes him tick,” and of what he hopes for in life. The psychoanalyst Erik Erikson suggested that during adolescence the child must choose between forming a coherent identity or falling prey to a sense of despair and confusion.

  As my recent research findings on male adolescence reflect, this adolescent confusion and peril is due primarily to two underlying psychological factors. First, boys receive conflicting messages about men and masculinity from society, their peers, and even their parents. During adolescence they become especially susceptible to the double standard of masculinity, which, as we’ve already discussed, challenges boys throughout their lives. On the one hand, society tells boys they should be cool, confident, and strong. At the same time, society tells boys they should be egalitarian (particularly in relation to girls), sensitive, and open with their feelings.

  It is not impossible to be both manly and empathic, cool and open, strong and vulnerable, but it is certainly a difficult and complex task. Most boys have a very difficult time trying to sort out these conflicting messages and determining what masculine model to pattern themselves after. This is a painful process of self-clarification, much of which, however, occurs outside conscious awareness.

  Second, boys have ambivalent feelings about male adulthood—they’re not at all sure that being a man is going to be such a great experience. They may not see any male role model that appeals to them and they feel is within their reach. Must they spend their whole lives chained to a job they don’t love in order to support a family? And they may suspect that the double

  standard will not abate in its influence as they become adults, that they will be expected to navigate through dating, marriage, work and family-making (or choosing not to do those things) while being bombarded by similarly conflicting messages about how the ideal man behaves.

  A boy’s ambivalence toward manhood and his confusion about the double standard are further complicated with the emergence of his sexuality and its concomitant dangers such as fatherhood, sexually transmitted diseases, especially AIDS. Is it any wonder that boys are in intense need of support, guidance, and love from their parents?

  But, as difficult as adolescence can be for boys and their families, it can also be a particularly wonderful and rich time for both. As a boy broadens his intellectual and emotional reach, parents find that their relationship with their son can become newly intriguing and rewarding. A boy begins to articulate his own and original ideas about people, society, and the world that may stimulate a parent’s thinking in some new way. A boy may take part in activities that the parent finds genuinely gratifying to watch and encourage—anything from sports to community volunteering to academic studies to artistic achievement. A boy may begin to truly excel at some pursuit, bringing a rush of pride and respect that will surprise a parent. During adolescence a boy begins to make a personal contribution to the world; a parent learns that the son is genuinely valued by his friends, teachers, and members of the community. It is during adolescence that all the prior years of parenting begin to show tangible result—you begin to see the outline of the man you have helped to create. The boy, too, can feel a new sense of self-esteem during adolescence, as he understands that he is his own person and he is valued—not just as a member of the family but as a member of the community at large.

  THE DOUBLE STANDARD OF MASCULINITY

  As discussed above, our society has unknowingly created two dominant and opposing images of masculinity. The traditional image is of the man who does not express his emotions freely and favors a traditional role toward women; the “new man” is empathic, egalitarian, and sensitive. As with all such stereotypes, no one fully believes in them, nor does any man completely embody them. Yet it is difficult to argue that these images do not exist and do not influence our thinking. Our boys are constantly matching their own behavior, and that of others, to the stereotypes to see how it conforms and where it differs. At the same time, peers, teachers, parents, and society “in general,” do the same thing—we assess how our boys measure up to the stereotypes. The process is mostly unconscious, and even if we are aware of it and try not to make comparisons, it is a very difficult habit to break.

  It’s as if our sons are unwittingly mirroring back to us our own adult ambivalence about masculinity and trying in vain to accept and internalize two diametrically opposed views of manhood.

  My research shows that many adolescent boys are crumbling under this millstone of our adult ambivalence about masculinity, and that the confusion and uncertainty these boys feel about becoming men is eroding their self-esteem.

  “Lots of times I feel like I’ve got to be two different people,” Jamie, a sixteen-year-old, told me.

  “What do you mean exactly?” I asked him.

  “In our social studies class, we had a forum on gender roles. The teacher brought in a female airplane pilot and a male makeup artist. After we listened to the speakers, we had discussion groups and then wrote an essay. I wrote something I knew the teacher would like about equality and all that.”

  “But how did that make you feel like t
wo different people?” I inquired.

  “Because my discussion group was all guys. Our real reaction to the makeup artist was, ‘Oh my God. What a wimp this guy is!’ None of us would ever want to do a job like that. But I knew that I couldn’t say that in the essay. I knew I had to say how I learned that a man or woman can do any profession, that men and women should be equal when it comes to work and pay, and that lots of people do jobs that you wouldn’t expect them to. My real reaction was that I never wanted to be a makeup artist, and thought the guy was a jerk, but I knew what our teacher wanted to hear. So, I had to be two different people—one with the guys, one with the teacher.”

  I imagine that this exercise had merit, in that it broadened the students’ thinking about professional gender roles. But, for Jamie, the learning was overshadowed by his discomfort with having to play two conflicting roles. Perhaps that discomfort will eventually lead him to think more deeply about his reaction to the makeup artist, but for the time being it made him feel irritated and confused. The difficulties associated with this inner struggle can be even more acute for other boys because many of them will remain completely unaware that it is taking place. And because they can’t

  tell where their unhappiness is coming from, they may become even more lost and afraid.

  THE DOUBLE STANDARD AND SEXUALITY

  The double standard becomes especially hard to deal with when it comes to issues of sexuality. What other area causes boys to be so vulnerable, so open, so naked before girls? In what other area are boys so scared, yet seen as such aggressors?

  On the one hand, the boy is becoming a man, with a man’s body and a man’s sexual appetites. He feels pressure, from society and his peers, to perform as a man—to make out, have a girlfriend, have sexual intercourse. On the other hand, we as parents and teachers encourage our boys to focus on the emotional bonds they can develop with girls and young women. We ask them to respect their female peers’ feelings about what sexual behavior feels appropriate, comfortable, and right. As a result, adolescent boys wonder when and whether it is appropriate to begin having sex and how they should go about it. What will their peers think of them if they respect a girl’s wishes and “wait”? What will their parents think if both girl and boy agree to have sex?

  “At school,” Ralph, sixteen, told me, “they teach us to respect girls. We’re supposed to treat them like women. They also teach us about AIDS, which is very scary. They say we shouldn’t rush into sex. But, if we do have intercourse, they tell us, make sure you wear a condom. Everybody listens very carefully, and agrees in class. But, then, a lot of guys go around bragging about how many girls they’ve done it with. Everybody wants to know if you’ve scored or not. There’s just a lot of pressure to have sex with a girl.”

  “How do you handle the pressure?”

  “Well, I think I want to wait, but I’m not really sure why. I feel pretty messed up about it.”

  The decision of whether and when to have intercourse is perhaps the most daunting one, as regards sexuality, that a teenage boy may face. But his life is made up of a thousand other concerns and questions about how to behave in situations that involve girls and sexuality.

  Much of the fear and uncertainty he will feel may have to do with the difference in physical maturation rates between boys and girls in general. Especially around the ages of twelve to fifteen, girls are physically and, sometimes, emotionally more mature than boys. Unlike girls, whose sexual maturity is clearly marked by the onset of menstruation, boys have no clear idea when they’re actually physically capable of having sex. The onset of puberty for boys is slower, the physical changes more subtle. His voice changes. He begins to develop pubic hair. His muscles and torso increase in size. But there is no change in boys’ bodies that directly lets them know they’re capable of sex and reproduction. Indeed, the only real way for boys to know they can have sex is to have it. This increases the pressure to have sex as proof of maturity and amplifies the anxiety surrounding that first act. Boys worry that they won’t be good at making love, and the fear of impotence—the ultimate humiliation—runs through every boy’s mind.

  Now put a boy with these kinds of confusions with a girl who physically matured several years earlier and you can only imagine how intimidated he will feel. Unfortunately, as we know, the more insecurity boys feel, the more compensatory bravado they’ll exhibit. Hence, there is locker-room talk, reducing girls to objects, and bragging about conquests.

  And even worse, the motives of a young boy and a young girl thinking about having sex for the first time are very different. Girls look at sex as signaling an act of love and the ultimate connection. Boys tend to view it, at least partially, as a way of confirming their masculinity. Boys only relax and become emotionally vulnerable after they are able to feel secure about their sexual ability and feel secure that the act of sex won’t shame them in any way. Girls want boys to be emotional and loving, before sex. Boys, with a very different pace and philosophy around emotionality, often find they can’t open up until after sex—sometimes long after sex. Before that time comes, it looks to girls as if boys don’t care.

  The silence of teenage boys on emotionally laden topics and their defensively macho approach to sex has gained them a spotty reputation among girls and parents, who too easily come to view them as sexual predators, interested only in stealing the hearts and virginity of young girls, then slipping back into the underbrush. In our current discussions of safe sex, date rape, and sexual harassment, boys are seen, more than ever, as sexual aggressors, driven by their frantic biological urge for sex into all sorts of uncivilized acts.

  But it’s important to understand the attitude of teenage boys toward sex. It’s important to remember that they’re operating under a different,

  sometimes difficult code. Their behavior is a compromise between a desire for connection and the fears of rejection, additionally fueled by unconscious shameful fears of earlier abandonment, of which the boy is not consciously aware. They’re passing through an extraordinarily difficult phase of life, when the ultimate humiliation as a man is possible and the least amount of real honesty is allowed.

  Now, I’m not suggesting that, in our sympathetic attitude, we convey the message to our boys that it’s OK to be sexual aggressors. My point is only that if we want to reach our boys and help them develop mature and responsible attitudes toward sex, we need to understand their motivations. As a culture we are much more aware of and sympathetic to the pressures around sexuality that girls feel. The confusion boys feel is hidden, hidden under their own masks of macho posturing and under the weight of our misconceptions of toxicity about boys. We are all too ready to offer advice to girls and to blame boys. If you doubt this, I suggest you attend, as I have, any of the educational groups on high school and college campuses that focus on safe sex, sexual harassment, or date rape. All too often, girls are legitimately encouraged to explore their feelings and to communicate assertively. Boys, however, are lectured at and told that their job is to respect a girl when she says “No.” The attitude seems to be that boys don’t have their own confusion, as if they’re sexual machines, poised and ready to go at all times.

  Martin, age seventeen, has left such sessions confused about what behavior is acceptable, afraid he might be perceived as dangerous. “They told us to always ask a girl before you even kiss her. And it’s not mutual. The girls don’t ask. Seems like it’s the guy’s responsibility to make all the moves. Only the guy is worried about doing something the girl doesn’t want and only the guy has to think about doing something the girl does want. The whole society seems to feel that way. You know it’s strange, very old-fashioned in a way that the idea that the guys are the active ones who do everything and the girls just take it or reject it.” Martin feels helpless to change the situation. “You just have to deal with it and take it and live with it and if you don’t you are going to get into a lot of trouble.”

  Here again is the double standard of masculinity that pushes boys to
feel they need to “prove themselves” sexually and then castigates them when they do so. Listen to Peter: “Being a guy, wow. You don’t know when you are going to offend someone—you always have to be watching yourself. It’s harder in relationships. Oh, it’s still always got to be the guy who approaches the girl, takes the first step. Earlier on, when you’re thirteen or fourteen, maybe even now, you don’t know exactly what to do. But you still have the urge. You want to talk to a girl but you don’t know. You’ve never done it before. All the pressure is on you, and you’ve got to do it.”

  This is not to say that there are no boys who take advantage of their greater physical strength to perpetrate sexual violence on girls. Any educational program should of course condemn the use of physical force in any context. But most boys are not like this. Most boys are honestly seeking connection and are capable of real relationships.

  Mitchell, for example, is the son of Dick and Jennifer Harrington, friends of mine who live in a middle-class, socially “progressive” suburb of Boston. Both Dick and Jennifer work full-time, Dick as an accountant and Jennifer as a public relations executive at a large Boston firm.

  One Saturday, Mitchell and his classmate Liz went out for an evening of pizza and the movies—the first “real” date for both of them. When Mitchell got home, his father asked how it went.

  “OK,” Mitchell told him, looking a little embarrassed and shell-shocked. “A little weird.”

  “What do you mean, weird?” his father asked.

  “I didn’t know if I should pay for the pizza or whether we should split it.”