Alexis Jones "Locker Room Talk" says who?

In her TED Talk, “ ‘Locker Room Talk’ Says Who?”, Alexis Jones discusses advocacy for the prevention of sexual assault, as well as how the solution lies in bringing awareness to and working with boys and men. She specifically discusses her work with college athletes in their locker rooms, and the specific experiences she has interacting with them. She discusses how the majority of the time, men are seen as the issue,  but in this situation they are also the solution.

Jones argues that in our society, as boys grow up they are strongly influenced by the media portrayals of men and women, and how they should interact with women, and that specifically in our society now with the vast amount of media available at a person’s fingertips, these perceptions are being shaped more and more by the media and porn, and often times are unaware of where their opinions are coming from.

So often, boys are just allowed to go with the flow and do whatever they please, the whole “boys will be boys” mentality, but this leads to boys being boys but not knowing why they are. Jones stressed the importance of questioning that mentality then, and questioning why, and stop letting things pass by as common sense.

So often the issue of rape and sexual assault is discussed as how to help women after they’ve been raped, and how to help them protect themselves from being raped, but not focused on teaching boys not to rape. This goes back to Croteau and his discussion of the media framing ideas into falling under the ideas of common sense. People telling boys not to rape seems like common sense because rape is bad, and everyone likes to believe that their son/student/athlete or whatever is a good person and therefore won’t rape. But it is much more than just good and bad, and while it is known as bad, it is not portrayed that way in the media, specifically the media which young boys have access to. So while many people are falling under the idea that it is common sense that everyone knows that rape is bad, young men are getting opposite messages from the media, and having it be ingrained into their mind as it being “cool to fuck chicks” and natural to express themselves through violence and to get what they want, which in the end leads to sexual assault. But at the same time, I am not saying that they just don’t know that rape is bad, because they do, but they have these representations from the media which justifies it to them.