Tag Archive for: men

Men and Boys can no longer be Invisible Victims

Upon returning to the office after hosting a successful press conference announcing our Cosmo Harms Minors campaign about 18 months ago, I received two phone calls that really changed my perspective on how we are addressing these issues. The first call was a young high school student, who rather shyly explained how grateful he is for our efforts, but he urged us to address the impact that things like Cosmopolitan magazine and other media has on young men. He spoke about the peer pressure that he feels to act as males portrayed in this media do and about his own self-esteem issues as a result. Just about an hour later, another young man called with a similar plea to us. I was completely dumbfounded.

You see, I often talk about the harms of this media to young women’s self-esteem, to their physical and emotional development, and to the choices they make. I have largely focused on how bad porn culture is for girls and women, but after hearing from these guys my heart ached over the fact that I was forgetting the fight for their dignity as well.

Just about a week later, Associate Professor Joseph Prud’homme of Washington College and a student from Georgetown asked for a meeting with out staff. They came with an agenda–again pointing out that we had left out the harm happening to boys around the country.

These bold men were the catalyst to changing some of our messaging and set us on a course to develop new way of waging this war. 

Last Friday, after months of preparation with Washington College, we hosted a consultation meeting on the sexual objectification and exploitation of boys and men. Seventeen experts and survivors came from all over the country (and one from Israel!) to present research and key perspectives on how young men are affected by our current culture. It was astounding. My heart still aches for the world that our young boys are inheriting, but I am encouraged that we will be able to lead the charge in the movement and stop ignoring these “invisible” victims. We know now, they are plain to see if one has the eyes to look.

I can’t share details with you right now, but want you to know that we are working on this issue. We must fight for the dignity of all–BOYS, girls, MEN, women. We at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation are doing all we can to this end.

My simple call to action to you today is: Will you share this article on social media to educate your networks on some of these realities?

RELATED ARTICLE: Men and Boys in Sex Trafficking Overlooked

dawb hawkins

Dawn Hawkins

EDITORS NOTE: This column is by Dawn Hawkins, Vice President and Executive Director, National Center on Sexual Exploitation Director, Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation.

Those readers wishing to donate to help protect and defend our men and boys from sexual exploitation may do so by clicking here.

Hillary and Bernie Must ‘Stop Spewing the Gender Pay Gap Myths’

SAN DIEGO, California /PRNewswire/ — The National Coalition For Men (NCFM) calls on Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and all other candidates to be honest about the gender “pay gap.”  Claiming that women “earn less” without explaining why is misleading and dishonest.  The Department of Labor funded a study that showed the pay gap is mostly due to choices, not discrimination.

Before women get married and have kids, they earn the same as men, and are also beneficiaries of quality of life choices that favor health and longevity as reflected by statistics on industrial deaths.  After having kids, women make additional quality of life choices different from males, such as more flexible hours and less managerial positions. Women have more options than men when it comes to being primary parents.  In fact, over half of female graduates of Stanford and Harvard left the workforce within 15 years of entry into the workforce.  This is not an option for most men.

Men are either primary breadwinners or on the streets. Consequently, they make the vast majority of homeless adults, job-related deaths, suicides, and incarcerated persons.

Women who were never married and are childless earn more than their male counterparts.  And as corporate executives, women now earn more than men.

NCFM calls on the candidates of both parties to be honest and tell the whole truth about the gender pay gap as well as the many gender inequalities that men face in our society, not just in terms of homelessness, workplace deaths, and suicides but also systematic sex discrimination in child custody, criminal sentencing, public health policies, and more.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL COALITION FOR MEN

Operating since 1977, NCFM is the oldest men’s group committed to ending sex discrimination. Throughout our history we have advanced step by step, across three nations, toward our goal of resolving issues which are barriers to progress and freedom. You may quickly realize that you are not alone or that an uncomfortable feeling has been revealingly discussed here. Or you may realize that your insight or skill could dramatically improve our mutual progress. We are not finished. We are a work in progress toward substance, comradeship, and freedom. We are glad that you are here, whether you are seeking help or learning how you can work with us.

Check out our National Advisors , read about our philosophy, make a suggestion, check out our newsletter, join us on FaceBook or come back again and again. We are a select group of serious activists, but we may enjoy your membership and our work could certainly use your support. You may enjoy an event at one of our chapters. You may be interested to know if a chapter is forming in your area. Otherwise there are events at many affiliated organizations.

Learn more about NCFM.

Feminists With Sledgehammers

Smashing urinals because they are symbols of male ego, “Big Red” gets a response.

Hillary White from Life Site News reports:

In his catechesis today [April 15, 2015], Pope Francis strongly refuted the foundational tenets of “gender theory” that forms the basis of radical feminism as well as the homosexualist political movement. The differences between men and women are not a matter of “subordination” as feminist and gender theory would have it, but of “communion and generation,” he said in his weekly General Audience at the Vatican.

The pope wondered aloud “if so-called gender theory is not an expression of frustration and resignation, that aims to cancel out sexual difference as it is no longer able to face it. Yes, we run the risk of taking a step backwards. Indeed, the removal of difference is the problem, not the solution.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Pope Francis blasts ‘gender theory’ again: rejecting sexual difference is ‘a step backwards’

Equal Work? Government Has No Idea What That is

“Equal pay for equal work!” the mantra goes. “Women get only 73 cents on a man’s dollar!” These are oft-heard slogans, and we may well hear them again during the fall campaign with the War on Women afoot. Now, going beyond the rhetoric, it’s not widely known but nonetheless true that the intersex pay gap is attributable to different career choices men and women make: women tend to choose less lucrative fields (e.g., soft sciences instead of hard ones), work shorter hours even when “full time,” are more likely to value personal fulfillment and job flexibility over money, are more inclined to take time off, generally have less job tenure and more often decline promotions. But while I’ve examined these factors at length in the past, the topic today is something more fundamental. This is that there would be a problem with even a well-intended equal-pay-for-equal-work scheme:

Hardly anyone knows what equal work is.

And the government hasn’t the foggiest idea.

Recently I mentioned how women tennis players now receive the same prize money as the men at Grand Slam events (Wimbledon; and the US, French and Australian opens) and how this is hailed as a victory for “equality.” Yet since the women still only play best of three sets but the men best of five, this actually means the men must work longer for the same pay. Even this, however, doesn’t truly illuminate the issue: what actually constitutes “equal work” in professional tennis?

I’ll introduce the point with another example. The top 10 female fashion models earned 10 times as much as their male counterparts in 2013. Is this unequal pay for equal work? Not really.

While I don’t know if women models’ job is more labor intensive, I know they don’t get paid because they’re capable of posing, wearing clothing, standing under hot lights or parading down runways. It’s because their “work” helps to satisfy a market — and it satisfies a bigger market than the men’s work does.

Note here that while people today frown upon discrimination based on innate qualities, integral to doing the women models’ work is being female. If the male models were women, they might be able to do the same “work” and satisfy the market equally.

Likewise, does the “work” in tennis directly have to do with number of sets played? As an aspiring 12-year-old tennis nut, I’d sometimes play 10 sets a day under the sweltering summer sun, but no one thought of compensating me and I never felt oppressed. Professional tennis players earn money because they satisfy a market, and the men’s “work” does this more effectively than the women’s. And how would we characterize this more valued work?

It is success on the men’s tour — people want to see the grandest stage in the game.

Thus, the only way a woman in tennis could do work equal to that of Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal is to compete on, and succeed equally on, the ATP Tour. Of course, a woman who could would not only enjoy the same prize money (it’s greater in men’s tennis overall), but would become a sporting sensation and might very well receive endorsements dwarfing the men’s. So her “work” then could actually be greater.

There are endless more mundane examples. A woman gynecologist I know will only hire female assistants because she believes it makes her patients more comfortable. Not only is this an example of why sex discrimination is often justifiable, but what if she was forced to hire a man? If the patients were indeed less comfortable — and, therefore, perhaps less likely to visit her practice — would that man truly be doing “equal work”?

Now consider female police officers. Forget for a moment that standards on forces were long ago lowered to accommodate women based on “disparate impact” theory and that Eric Holder is currently suing the Pennsylvania State Police for treating women equally. Imagine a study found that people in general, and the criminally inclined in particular, found male officers more imposing and therefore were more likely to mind their p’s and q’s around them. Would, then, even a highly competent female officer be able to perform “equal work”? And if not, and reflecting the phenomenon with fashion models, wouldn’t being male (or at least appearing so, to head the “transgender” argument off at the pass) be integral to the “work” of policing?

What of a female reporter in male athletes’ locker rooms? Not only wouldn’t it be allowed if the sexes were reversed, but if those men were less comfortable and less likely to be forthcoming in their comments — or even if they just had to modify their behavior — could her “work” really be equal to that of a male reporter’s?

Next, my local hardware store provides knowledgeable workers, all men, who render valuable advice on products and how to perform various home repairs. If it was determined that people found a female in that role less credible and were then not quite as likely to buy from the establishment, would even a highly competent woman be able to do “equal work” in that capacity?

What about the little West Indian restaurant, with all-black workers, I loved when I spent a few weeks in Tampa? If hiring a white person made the eatery seem less authentic and negatively affected its appeal, would that individual be able to do “equal work”? The same, of course, could be asked about a black person working in a German restaurant. In these cases race would be integral to the “work.”

And what of a homosexual Boy Scout troop leader? If his presence made parents less likely to enroll their boys in the organization, could he be capable of “equal work”?

Of course, one knee-jerk reaction here is to say that people “shouldn’t” view female cops or hardware specialists, or homosexuals differently than anyone else. But this is a moral argument of questionable morality, as it applies a bias in selectively objecting to market biases. People take little issue with gynecologists or day-care centers that won’t hire men, with male models being paid less or with ethnic restaurants hiring only non-whites. But try only hiring only male cops or employees; compensating a male hardware specialist more handsomely; or, as with Abercrombie a few years back, valuing employees who don’t wear hijabs over those who do. You may have an experience with the DOJ or EEOC that’ll make a dance with the IRS seem pleasant.

We could also talk about how we “should” value work. If we were deific or at least angelic, we would certainly value a mother-of-four’s labors or Mother Teresa’s loving charity more than Facebook and completely devalue rappers’ vulgarity. And even though I earn less than mainstream-press profferers of pablum, I consider my work infinitely more valuable. But flawed though market determinations may be, they’re still the best guide available.

Even within this worldly context, though, some may say there’s more nuance to the matter of work than my examples express. They may contend, for instance, that female police and hardware specialists might have strengths that counterbalance or even outweigh their weaknesses. And guess what?

I agree.

My examples could possibly be lacking.

And this just buttresses the point: virtually no one — if anyone — can properly assess what constitutes equal work in every situation.

This is yet another reason why the matter of work and pay is none of the government’s business. Are bureaucrats, politicians and judges qualified to determine what equal work might be in the thousands of professions in America? Government isn’t God; it’s not even the market, which can be defined as economic democracy expressed through purchasing decisions. When it intrudes into the economy it’s more like Hitler trumping his generals during WWII and deciding on military strategy: an autocratic agency as incompetent as it is arrogant.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of students and teachers uniting on the streets to protest for equality. Picture Credit

Liberal BBC Asks, “Is Sport Sexist?” While Promoting Inequality

It long ago became clear to me that, despite all the pretense, protesting and politicking, no one who has ever seriously thought about equality actually believes in it. When making this case, one could point to how Eric Holder’s DOJ is currently suing the Pennsylvania State Police for treating women equally (how dare they!), but there’s perhaps no better example than a recent BBC writer who asks, “Is sport sexist?”

The author, Aimee Lewis, poses the question because there are still sports where the women’s categories don’t precisely correspond to the men’s; for example, she mentions how women gymnasts and swimmers don’t always compete in the same kinds of events, the no-contact rule in women’s lacrosse and how in tennis, “While men play five sets at Grand Slams, women can only compete over three sets.”

Now, the last example well illustrates the convoluted thinking underpinning much of the equality movement. Is the correct way of framing this that “women can only compete over three sets”?

Or it is that men must compete over five?

This is especially relevant since the equality police long ago lobbied for, and succeeded in getting, equal prize money for women at the Grand Slams (Wimbledon, French Open, U.S. Open, Australian Open). In other words, the male players must now work longer for the same pay and thus are actually earning less per hour than the women.

Equality?

The head of the Women’s Tennis Association, Stacey Allaster, was asked about this recently, called it “an old discussion” and said, “[W]e’re ready, willing and able to play five sets if that’s what they’d like us to play.”

Question: Years ago, did Allaster merely say, “We’re ready, willing and able to accept equal prize money if that’s what they’d like to offer”?

No, she zealously lobbied for it.

Why isn’t she lobbying now for equal work for her players’ equal pay? Sure, it’s human nature to want the benefits others have but not their liabilities. But if you really believe in Equality™, you don’t just shout the word in an effort to institute a different model of inequality, one that benefits you or your agenda.

Having said this, I agree with Lewis’ implication: sport is “sexist.” After all, there is a separate realm of athletics that’s protected from the best competition and is only available to one sex. It is, of course, called women’s sports.

This isn’t just snark. There’s a simple answer to any feminist complaint about inequality in sports: You want the men’s money, exposure, standards, respect or something else?

Compete in men’s sports.

And women have the opportunity. Golfers Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Wie have received “sponsor’s exemptions” to play in PGA (men’s) events. Women have tried out for the NBA and have attempted to work their way up to baseball’s major leagues through the farm system. The door, Ms. Allaster, is open — you just have to be ready, willing and, most importantly, able to walk through it.

The point is this: It’s silly and hypocritical to lobby for equality within an inherently unequal system while simultaneously supporting that system. And if you do, do you really believe in equality in principle? Or only as ploy?

To arbitrarily say that female athletes should earn the same as male ones is like saying that lightweight boxers should have the same purses as heavyweights. It’s like saying the best handicapped “differently abled” athletes (as in the Special Olympics) should not only get paid, but they should earn the same as the able-bodied. And what of elite high-school athletes? The mile record for 15-year-old boys is better than the women’s world record, and the boys’ American high-school record is considerably better. And with some variation, these gaps hold across sports, yet most of these hard-working male athletes will never succeed in the men’s professional ranks and will never earn even what the women do. Should these young sportsmen not only be paid but be compensated as handsomely as the pros?

The answer is simple: If the market — which is just economic democracy expressed through purchasing decisions — valued events for the handicapped or juniors as highly as it does professional men’s sports, those arenas would command the same revenues. The same is true of women’s sports, of course, but in that case we’re expected to offer a special dispensation from the market forces that apply to anyone and everyone else. We’re also supposed to ignore professions in which women are paid more, such as modeling, in which 2013’s 10 top-earning female models commanded 10 times as much as their male counterparts.

Equality?

The reason why heavyweight boxers have always received more money and exposure (satisfied the market more) than lightweights is because the heavyweight world champion is the world champion. This is the same reason men’s professional sports command greater revenue and exposure than athletic arenas for juniors, the handicapped or collegians — or for women. The best male athletes are the best athletes. Other sports categories exist to provide other people with opportunities to compete, have fun and build character. They are not jobs programs.

The truth is that not just sport but all of nature’s and man’s world is a place defined by varying degrees of quality, not equality. This is no doubt why the Bible barely mentions the notion, except when referring to weights and measures. It’s also why I tend to doubt that anyone who has ever pondered equality deeply actually believes in it. It sure is a great rallying cry, though, when trying to overturn the status quo and institute a special-interest-group favoring system of inequality.

For this reason it actually would be beneficial to eliminate sex-specific categories in sports, let everyone compete together and allow the cream to rise to the top. After all, to use a twist on Lincoln’s observation about laws, the best way to eliminate a bad social movement is to apply its tenets strictly. If we actually had to live with the reality of “equality” instead of just its rhetoric, lobbying for equality might go out the window really, really fast.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

Liberated Women and the Traditional Family

Photo from Best of Feminist Memes.

My generation, born in the late 1930s and the 1940s, has witnessed a dramatic change in the role and the rights of women in America. A significant result of the women’s liberation movement is a change in the role of traditional marriage that was reported in early September.

If you count a generation as spanning 20 years,” wrote Terence P. Jeffery, an editor of CNSNews.com, “then approximately 36 percent of the American generation born from 1993 through 2012—which has begun turning 21 this year and will continue turning 21 through 2033—were born to unmarried mothers.”

By comparison, Jeffrey noted that “Back in 1940, only 3.8 percent of American babies were born to unmarried mothers. By 1960, it was still only 5.3 percent.” There was a time when being a single mother was regarded as a reflection of the woman’s moral values. How a society deals with issues affecting the family as its single most important factor reflects its attitudes regarding marriage.

“It is a statistical fact that the institution of the family,” wrote Jeffrey, “has been collapsing in American over the past 45 years.”

Another statistic has significance as well. Today 51% of the U.S. population is single. A new generation of Americans, men and women, have decided that a committed relationship holds little allure.

The call for women’s rights has a long history. In 1794, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Women.” She would have felt at home in today’s society. After affairs with two men, giving birth to a daughter by one of them, she married William Godwin, one of the forefathers of the anarchist movement. She died ten days after giving birth to a daughter, Mary Shelley, who grew up to be the author of “Frankenstein.”

Militant political action in Britain began with the formation of the Woman’s Social and Political Union in 1903. Following World War I when women participated in the war industries and support services, they were granted the right to vote in 1918, but it would take until 1928 for the age to be lowered to 21. In the United States in 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton led a Women’s Rights Convention followed in 1863 of the Women’s National Loyal League by Susan B. Anthony who wrote and submitted a proposed right-to-vote amendment in 1878. It would take until 1920 for it to be ratified as the 19th Amendment.

feminist-meme23

Photo courtesy of Best of Feminist Memes.

The women’s rights movement as we know it gained momentum in the 1960s. It was led by a feminist, fellow writer and friend, Betty Friedan, who was also a committed Leftist and, in 1966, she would help create the National Organization for Women (NOW). In 1971, the National Women’s Political Caucus emerged, led by Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, and Gloria Steinem. Other groups were created as well. The effort to secure an Equal Rights Amendment, however, failed.

Aside from political rights, the issue that most concerned feminists was reproductive rights with the repeal of laws against abortion being the priority. The issue was decided, not by Congress or the states, but by a 1973 decision of the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, that ruled 7-2 that the 14th Amendment extended a right of privacy and by extension the right of a woman to opt for an abortion.

That decision freed women both within and outside of marriage to abort an unwanted child. Unforeseen by the Court, was the rise of single-parent families led primarily by women.

As Jeffery noted “In the latest annual report to Congress on “Welfare Indicators and High Risk Factors,” the Department of health and Human Services pointed to the high rate of births to unmarried mothers, saying ‘data on non-marital births are important since historically a high proportion of welfare recipients first became parents outside of marriage.’”

We have reached a point in just over a few decades in which the government, through bad economic policies and a myriad number of programs, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, and others, has produced 109,631,000 people receiving benefits. They represent 35.4 percent of the overall population.

That’s a long way from the traditional family and it means that half of the working population is providing the funds for those who are unemployed or have stopped looking for work thanks to a stagnate economy.

The single-parent family led by women has denied generations of the young men they are raising the male role models they need to understand that being a father is as great a responsibility as being a mother.

Men have become dispensable except as sperm donors.

Male values of courage, comradeship, and leadership have to be learned from sources outside the single-mother unit.

Then, too, the feminist goal of being in the workplace also frequently means that pre-school children’s early formative years are handed over to strangers in childcare centers whether they come from one or two-parent families. The economy has required that both parents have to work—if work can be found in a society where more than 92 million Americans are unemployed or have, as noted above, ceased looking for a job.

This is not a screed against women’s rights. It is a look at the consequences of the goals feminists have fought to achieve over the past decades.

It’s not about their right to vote or to secure an education to achieve success in the business sector.

It’s about generations of young men and women growing up in a society where a “father” is not an integral part of the “family” and the price our society pays for that.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Traditional families are still best

The War on Poverty Has Been a Colossal Flop

Carly Fiorina is redefining feminism

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is from the Best Feminist Memes.

Why Black Men Need More White Women

Black women constantly complain about the dearth of “eligible” Black men to date and marry. Noted sociologist William Julius Wilson has argued that “the increasing levels of non-marriage and female-headed households is a manifestation of the high levels of economic dislocation experienced by lower-class Black men in recent decades.”

He further argued that, “When joblessness is combined with high rates of incarceration and premature mortality among Black men; it becomes clearer that there are fewer marriageable black men relative to black women who are able to provide the economic support needed to sustain a family.”

Then you add in the unfortunate increase in homosexuality within the Black community and you have a recipe for disaster.

This is why Black men need more White women like Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. Even though they are conservative media personalities, they have done more to promote the well-being of Black males than many of the very women who stridently complain about the lack of “eligible” Black men.

Coulter is a friend and I find her comments regarding the Black community very insightful. Look at what she said two years ago on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” She said, “Groups on the left, from feminists to gay rights groups to those defending immigrants, have commandeered the Black civil rights experience.”

She continued, “I think what – the way liberals have treated Blacks like children and many of their policies have been harmful to Blacks, at least they got the beneficiary group right. There is the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws. We don’t owe the homeless. We don’t owe feminists. We don’t owe women who are desirous of having abortions, but that’s — or — or gays who want to get married to one another. That’s what civil rights has become for much of the left.”

Stephanopoulos asked, “Immigrant rights are not civil rights?” Coulter responded, “Civil rights are for Blacks…what have we done to immigrants? We owe Black people something…We have a legacy of slavery. Immigrants haven’t even been in this country.”

Earlier this year, she said, “I mean my whole life I’ve heard Republicans hate Black people, I’ve never seen any evidence of it until I read Marco Rubio’s amnesty bill. We are the party that has always stood up for African-Americans. Who gets hurt the most by amnesty, by continuing these immigration policies it is low-wage workers, it is Hispanics, it is Blacks.”

I don’t know Ingraham personally, but I like what she had to say last month about Democrats and Blacks. “

[Congressman] Steve Israel is reprehensible in what he said [on alleged racism in the Republican Party]…Nancy Pelosi, throw her into the ring [for similar comments]…I say this is a race to the bottom…The Democrats have failed the Black youth in this country with their terrible economic approach. Do we call that racist?

“…They turn their heads away from the millions upon millions of Black babies slaughtered in the womb over 10 years… Is that racist?…Is it racist that they allow inner cities to continue to crumble as families decay across the board in America – especially hard hit is African-American families…It is reprehensible and it’s all about November…This is not about ‘They care about Black people.’ They care about their majority eroding away.”

So, let me make sure I understand. Black women complain about the state of “eligible” Black males to date and marry, yet they support the policies of a president who is going to make the problem much worse.

Under Obama, Blacks have regressed on every economic, social and moral indicator that is tracked. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the current Black unemployment rate is 11.6 percent; for Blacks aged 16-19 it is at 36.8 percent.

However, the average Black unemployment rate during the terms of the last three presidents, as well as the average over the past 30 years, are noteworthy. Under Clinton, it was 10 percent; under George W. Bush, 9.3 percent but under Obama, 14 percent for the total time he has been in office. The 30-year average for Blacks is 12.4 percent.

Campaign slogans notwithstanding, this isn’t the kind of change we have been waiting for.

Obama has done more for same-sex marriage couples than he has for his same-race brothers and sisters. In fact, Newsweek dubbed him our first gay president – not for his sexual orientation, but for his relentless pandering to homosexuals.

He has also advocated amnesty for those in this country illegally, which will only continue to increase the unemployment rate in the Black community, especially among low and under-skilled Black workers. This will further decrease the pool of potential Black men for women to date and marry. Let’s face it, our women are not going to marry someone who is unemployed or underemployed.

Historically, Black women have been notoriously protective of their men and children. It is ironic that Coulter and Ingraham, two conservative White women, are now assuming that role. We Black men need more White women like Coulter and Ingraham, not Black women who will give a pass to a failing Black president.

CDC: 94 to 95 Percent of HIV Cases among Boys and Young Men Linked to Homosexual Sex

CDC funds “gay” activist groups like GLSEN that promote acceptance of behavior tied closely to HIV.

The following is a graphic from a CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) online slide presentation, “HIV Surveillance in Adolescents and Young Adults” [1]– breaking down the incidence of HIV among young men ages 13-24. In 2011, an astonishing 94.9 percent of HIV diagnoses among teenage boys (13-19-years-old) were linked to homosexual (“male-to-male”) sex. And 94.1 percent of the cases among young men ages 20-24 (more analysis follows graphic) were from “gay” sex:

HIV-Young-Adult-Males-2011-CDC

With the incidence of HIV among men so closely tied to homosexual sex, shouldn’t the government and all concerned and compassionate adults be urging young men and teenaged boys NOT to engage in or experiment with dangerous homosexual behavior? And yet, the CDC and other pro-”gay” institutions (including many schools public and private) are doing exactly the opposite, as they focus instead on affirming “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender” youth as a “sexual minority.”

Feds Fund ‘Gay’ Youth Activist Groups

Another CDC document, “HIV and Young Men Who Have Sex with Men” (June 2012), reports that in 2011, the CDC awarded funds to two homosexual activists groups — the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network (GSAN) — “to assist CDC-funded public health and environmental changes to help schools and communities meet the health and medical needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth.” See this CNSNews article on the CDC grant.

With HIV rates growing among YMSM (young men who have sex with men), the CDC’s focus on building self-esteem among LGBT youth and creating a “positive school climate” for homosexuals — includes forming “gay”-affirming clubs in schools — seems disconnected from reality. The aforementioned CDC report on HIV and YMSM states:

“Gay-straight alliances (GSAs) are one approach being used to create safe and welcoming school environments. Research has shown that in schools with support groups such as GSA’s, lesbian, gay and bisexual students were less likely to experience threats of violence, miss school because they felt unsafe, or attempt suicide than those in schools without such groups.”

In the same report, the CDC identifies the behaviors among young homosexuals that are causing the escalating HIV rates:

“A CDC analysis of data from 13 YRBS [Youth Risk Behavior Survey] sites found that sexual minority students, especially those who identified as homosexual or bisexual, were disproportionately likely to engage in many health risk behaviors, including sexual risk behaviors (such as having sexual intercourse for the first time at younger ages, having multiple sex partners, and not using condoms); tobacco, alcohol, and other drug use; and behaviors related to attempted suicide.”

Elsewhere in the CDC report it touts CDC funding for “school health professionals … to help them understand the needs of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth and shape behavioral messages accordingly.” But those behavioral messages apparently do not include discouraging students from engaging in homosexual sex.

Elephant in the room

The chasm between the obvious and extreme health risks associated with “gay” male sex and the CDC’s politically correct, pro-homosexuality mindset reflects public policy malpractice on an Orwellian scale. “Gay” activist ideology and assumptions — including intrinsic (many would claiminnate) “gay”/bi/transgender identities — go unquestioned at the CDC. Ironically, the most direct answer to the HIV-youth crisis — teaching young people NOT to practice unhealthy homosexual sex — is the one thing that is essentially forbidden.

All across America, “gay” activists and their straight liberal allies are advocating “gay”-positive lesson plans and strategies in response to anti-homosexual bullying. However, while everyone can agree that all bullying is wrong, many “anti-bullying” programs double as pro-LGBT affirmation programs. This is troubling because:1) bullying can be discouraged with neutral messaging that does not promote “out and proud” homosexuality and transgenderism; and 2) in the name of “safety,” educators and cultural elites are advocating a sexual lifestyle that has continually been shown to be dangerous, particularly for males.

Reference:

[1] Produced by the CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD & TB Prevention, a division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. Data is for 2008-2011.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is an edited version of the IPSF HIV/AIDS Campaign Logo created by Amrsobhy. The use of this image in no way implies endorsement of the author or content of this column. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

Shock survey: Men would rather be men

Recently the Los Angeles Times lamented that “the gender revolution has passed men by.” While women have broken into fields once dominated by men such as business, medicine and law, men have remained in stereotypically “male” jobs. Oh no!! This is terrible news for the progressives trying to re-engineer society.

But it gets even worse! According to Reyes:

In a recent survey, 51 percent of Americans told the Pew Research Center that children were better off if their mother was at home. Only 8 percent said the same about fathers.

Say it isn’t so! And what does this mean for same-sex couples raising children? (I guess it’s okay for the lesbian couples, because they’ve got two mothers to choose from.)

But it took a Harvard professor (no less) to come to the conclusion that “boys stick with typically masculine toys and games much more consistently than girls adhere to feminine ones.”

Gee, well maybe it’s because that’s the way it’s supposed to be!

As a female, I am personally delighted I’ve grown up in a generation where I can vote, own property, choose not to have a family and choose from many different career options. However, as we wrote about women in the military, there are simply some things I will NEVER be able to do as well as a man. And I’m totally okay with that.

I never thought I would find myself enthusiastically agreeing with über-feminist Camile Paglia, but even SHE recently wrote about the “defense of masculine virtues.”

Paglia says ignoring the biological differences between men and women is undermining Western civilization – in fact she says, “What you’re seeing is how a civilization commits suicide.”

According to an interview Paglia gave to the Wall Street Journal, this feminization of our culture is occurring because “manliness” is no longer valued.

She starts by pointing to the diminished status of military service. “The entire elite class now, in finance, in politics and so on, none of them have military service—hardly anyone, there are a few. But there is no prestige attached to it anymore. That is a recipe for disaster,” she says. “These people don’t think in military ways, so there’s this illusion out there that people are basically nice, people are basically kind, if we’re just nice and benevolent to everyone they’ll be nice too. They literally don’t have any sense of evil or criminality.”

Paglia says the feminizing indoctrination starts as early as kindergarten:

“Primary-school education is a crock, basically. It’s oppressive to anyone with physical energy, especially guys,” she says, pointing to the most obvious example: the way many schools have cut recess. “They’re making a toxic environment for boys. Primary education does everything in its power to turn boys into neuters.”

You know, a couple years ago, my boss (whom you might know), was pilloried by the Left when he suggested liberal progressive women and policies were neutering men. Turns out even a liberal progressive woman who voted for Obama agrees with him. Funny how that happens.

Boys will be boys and men should be men because that’s the way nature (and God) intended it.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.