A new book looks at American masculinity and the dangers posed by disgruntled guys.
For Kimmel, dismissing rough stuff like bullying, porn addiction, hazing, binge drinking, hooliganism, gay-bashing and date rape as typical male behavior, or accepting that "boys will be boys," makes you an accomplice to Guyland's evils. While it seems obvious that these behaviors are unacceptable when they happen in other communities, Kimmel cites many cases in which those directly involved look away--including the community in Mepham, Long Island, who in 2004 leapt to the defense of a football team whose hazing process included sodomizing frosh players with "pine cones, broom handles, and golf balls ... coated with [Ben-Gay equivalent] Mineral Ice"; or the guys in Glen Ridge, N.J., who infamously snuck away when their fellow athletes gang-raped a "slightly retarded" girl in a basement, but never notified authorities, and refused to betray their teammates once the scandal broke.
In addition to date rape and gay-bashing, these people undoubtedly are responsible for many of the attacks on Latinos, Muslims, and Indians. And they're also the disturbed individuals who shoot up schools like Columbine and Virginia Tech when they don't get their way. All these factors are tied up in their sense of "thwarted entitlement"--the notion that they're not benefiting as much from white privilege as they used to.
For more on the subject, see Why White Boys Keep Shooting.
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