Sexual Assault & Hypermasculinity

How could sexual behaviour be socialized into males?

The biggest factor when it comes to social norms and imitating thoughts as well as actions of the world while a child/youth starts growing up is the media. First rules in the media that any news channel, commercial, ad or magazine follows is that 'if it bleeds, it reads' and sex sells. Because of these reasons youth today are growing up in a sexualized culture with the exploitation of women being broadcasted on a day to day basis while growing brains sit back and become desensitized to the feelings and actions of the adult world. Another example of this is porn. Porn has the same effect on the brain. It convinces young boys that this is how sex and relationships work in the world. These things are teaching children at a young age the actions of adults, because of this, and their age, they cannot comprehend or exercise the knowledge and repercussions of their thoughts and actions.       

What is hypermasculinity?

Hypermasculinity is a psychological term used for the exaggeration of stereotypical male behaviour. Such as aggression, body odour, emphasized strength and virility.

As stated above, the media, the internet, social networking, it all plays a role in today's culture. This is  where I also feel that boys learn the behaviours of hypermasculinity. The way that male roles are portrayed in movies and TV shows play a large part in how a male individual expects and strives to be perceived by the female population. They want to get the girl and they've be shown by the media that they are to take what they want and when that doesn't work they must fight, drink, become aggressive and take freedom from the female.   

I think that most men who commit a sexual assault show signs of hypermasculinity and some may very clearly be but not all. There are 3 main drives behind any level of sexual assault. Power & control, anger and sadism. I could see that for some sexual assault offenders that fall under the power and control or anger category would commit a sexual assault to compensate for a loss of power or a certain aspect in their life that is spiralling out of control. An example for each would be an overbearing female authority figure (in professional or personal life), The loss of a job or to exact revenge on a certain female. If that female is unattainable then another woman could fall prey to the attackers imagination.