In Britain they call a certain sort of guy/dude/boy/man a lad.
I was reading an article in the Guardian today that deals with the new ads being put on British TV, they deal with date rape. Lad culture corrupts men as much as it debases women, where the author is saying that these ads are not going to be very effective because of the lab culture, and the kind of magazines that they are reading and advice they are getting.
The ads supposedly-I obviously have not seen them-have a picture of a woman's crutch wearing skimpy underwear and a no entry sign. Already is I think is a bit rubbish, since as the article states, it might make sense to these executives in the Home Office, bas to a bunch of lads its just a picture of a woman's crotch!!!! The slogan is even better if you ask me, "If you don't get yes, you don't get sex" how simplistic and naive is that? I think its great that the British government is working to try and end this horrendous crime, but I also think that one needs to look at the British culture in general-and maybe all cultures-where as the article so perfectly says that the young men don't know how to deal with women they are: "someone old enough to have wildly insistent sexual urges, but too young to have developed the emotional sense to know how best to deal with them; old enough to have heard of feminism, but too inexperienced to know whether this means that holding doors open and basic chivalry are no longer required."
This means that for us to really end date rape, rape in general, men have to start to reevaluate how they view the women around them. Where even if the lads are drunk and horny and a woman is dressed sexually, that does not mean that these women are saying come and get it. Lads magazines seem to be pushing men to act a certain way, they give advice to men, they say things like " Fingers, elbows, shoes and anything else pointy pointing at you? She likes you. She plays with her hair? Even better. She comes home with you? Result. She says no? She's playing hard to get. She says no again? She doesn't want to come across too easy. She says no a third time? What are you, a man or not ... take control of the situation, she'll love that."
I for one can't say for sure that this is what Lad culture is about-since I am not a man-and maybe some comments will explain this better-but I really do think that there must be an element of truth in what this article is saying. Maybe the young men of our generation, are just unsure how to deal with the new woman, and maybe because they feel as if they are losing the control that traditionally they had on the women in their lives, they end up feeling that they need to 'show these women' even if this is on a sub-conscious level. I am not sure, but I do know that rape is not about sex it is about power, it is about the fact that you can over-power someone-in this case women-and force them to do what you want.
