"Longtime reader here. Hope you and the readers here can help me. My gym restricts by age - you have to be 12 in order to belong. My son is old enough and has been going with me. I want him to grow up body positive like you've suggested. Last time a group of young guys guessing college age made jokes about him becuse he popped a boner in the showers. They mostly went over my sons head but still irritated me. How do we respond without causing trouble?"
First, let me commend you on your efforts to help your son not only with body positivity but in promoting healthy exercise. He's got a winner for a dad.
That's a damn good question. I'd simply ignore them. It might be best to let your son know that there will always be dudes who make dick jokes. Especially guys still in high school or college.
A discussion about spontaneous blood oxygen boners would help. (If you haven't read posts about those, you can search this blog for the tag BOE.) Let him know that he has no reason to be ashamed or embarrassed because "boners happen."
18 comments:
I admire the father for all he did. As a former teacher's opinion, it is best to ignore the older boys. Tell him boners pop up at any time and it will happen again. How his dad deals with the situation will help his son in dealing with the situation. If the dad is relaxed about the comment it will help the son not to get upset.
Let's revisit what the father is asking; "How do we fix the gym's culture?". The article makes a silent assumption that nothing can or should be done about the toxic body shaming behavior, and it seems like the father/son can only choose from some coping/absorbing techniques. Can we do better?
You already covered it quite well.
Or you could encourage your son's natural impertinence by teaching him answers such as "at least I do not need a lingerie catalog to rise it up..."
:-)
It sounds like the son had no clue. As the dad, unless the son is just openly staring at the other bodies in the locker room, I would just store that for future discussion.
I managed never to sport wood in gym, but it happened several times at the YMCA, much to nobody's comment. And several times, I saw other men harden, in the showers and in the pool. We swam naked back then. My dad's has long since taught me a hard on was nothing to be ashamed of. While I was NOT an exhibitionist, I felt no need to attempt a cover-up. Me of The Great Generation we're much less ashamed of their cocks, nor surprised by them. This Dad is pretty smart, and I have a feeling he will do right by his son. As my Dad did by me.
I think I agree with your comment Pat. I think of the father has a discussion now about spontaneous boners, and how everyone gets them whether we initiate them or not is not a bad thing. I mean we all know the penis out the mind if it's own. As far as talking to those guys, I probably just ignore them.
The father is doing the right thing Pat, I agree. As long as he’s given his son a general idea of what can happen, the son can handle almost any surprises. The son may even be tempted to tease too as he gets older, and he can be reminded how he felt about that.
Hugs and bisous.
I think it is a matter of cultivating a "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me" attitude to every external denigrating comment or criticism and letting it just be water off a drakes back. We encounter many instances in life where someone has a bone to pick over their own issues and targets some innocent to take it out on.
Something I read which has always stuck with me and served me well is to treat anything anyone says about you as telling you something about them, not yourself. It's quite interesting to turn it around into an internal analysis of them instead, but to otherwise ignore their flapping gums.
Society has yet to appreciate that offense is manufactured in the brain of the person feeling subjectively offended: it doesn't even necessarily have anything to do with the stimulus. Words can't harm, only people's actions (including taking the words to heart), and for those we have self-defense classes.
Joking about someone else is often just bravado to cover up insecurity in the source: striking first to draw attention to the other person and away from the source. Those college guys were likely insecure about their own masculinity and borderline homophobia and such a shame we still use symbolism to represent reality instead of understanding the truth of the matter. A boner isn't necessarily a symbol of sexual attraction in the circumstances and can't be confidently extrapolated to anything.
It would have been a great retort for the Dad to also get a boner and be unconcerned: the college guys would be unlikely to tangle with a mature confident man. Or to say "aren't you guys old enough to get spontaneous erections yet?"
When I was a kid I always got a boner on the bus to school. Don't know if it was the vibration of the bus ride or something else and to my knowledge no one ever noticed. I did have to, many times, have to hold my books in front of me as I got off the bus to walk into school. Sadly, being the child of divorced parents, there was no one to talk with about what was going on with my body. These days I think I might ride a bus just to get a boner, at my age it is not all that common an occurance.
I go to the Y 4 times a week and there is usually a father and his son working out. It seems the few times I end up in the shower with them the son is always rock hard, he's probably 15. The father looked at me one time saying we've had the talk and I've told him there is nothing wrong with you being hard in the shower & there will be times when you won't be the only one.
A very laid back attitude, which I thought was good.
From decades of experience (not from getting boners in the locker room, but other stuff from boys of all ages) it's best to ignore it, especially if the comments are coming from children or teenagers. I could write a paper regarding the stuff guys have said to me - that I ignored - but had mighty fine comebacks to.
Sorry to continue, but I agree to let your son know it's normal and to ignore them.
I agree with the commenters above and your comments. I do think we can "do better" as one commenter said but I don't think that the dad should make it more difficult for his son. If comments ARE made to others, then it should be done in private away from his sons' ears. I commend the Dad for his efforts and would take the opportunity to make sure his son understands why he gets boners and what to do about them and where and when that is appropriate for his age.
@ Moran-Newman - It was likely a combination of hormones and the vibrations of the bus. Hiding the wood under books was the "go-to" for most guys in school. It certainly was for me.
@Anon 1:49 AM: Spot on. Thank you for the relevance of your comment.
I don't think the Dad can do much about gym culture in specific instances as there will be far too many of them, except to point out that boners are natural and nothing to be ashamed about and didn't their Dads ever tell them that. It's a sign of a healthy male body that is doing what it should.
The single point of focus is the individual involved in each case, so that is the most efficient element to address to ensure they are more resiliant to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune they are likely to experience throughout life.
erections happen! so true!!!
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