Talking to Sons About Sexual Assault: How Parents Can Start the Conversation at Home
He opened the car door, dropped his school bag between his feet, and said, “We learned about sexual assault today.” My hands stayed on the wheel. “Oh?” “Yeah. It’s when someone touches you and you don’t want it.” He said it like it was a new vocabulary word. For him, it kind of was.
I had been thinking for years about when to have the conversation about consent. I had articles saved. I had a mental list of phrases I wanted to use. But I had never actually said the words “sexual assault” to my son before that afternoon. I wasn’t scared of giving him too much information. I was scared of saying it wrong. So I mostly said nothing, and I kept waiting for a better age.
There isn’t a better age. There is only the age you have in front of you.
Since that day, I’ve talked to other parents, and most of them do what I did. They talk to their daughters about staying safe. They tell daughters that their bodies belong to them. They check in after sleepovers. But when it comes to sons, the conversation tends to stay vague. “Respect girls.” “Keep your hands to yourself.” “Don’t be like those guys in the news.” Good messages, but too empty to help anything.
Boys need more. And they need it from an early age, in smaller pieces, not one giant talk.
This is what I’ve realized and what I’m still trying to put into practice.
First, boys are also victims. That’s hard for a lot of us to hold. We think about sexual assault as something that happens to girls. But boys get hurt too—by coaches, relatives, babysitters, older kids, sometimes by people their age. Many don’t say anything because they think a guy should have been strong enough to stop it, or because they don’t even know what to call it. One of the best things I did was tell my son, in a car, without looking at his face, “You can tell me about any touch, any secret, anything that felt wrong. Even if it’s confusing. Even if you feel like it’s your fault. I will believe you.”
He didn’t need that information right then, but he needs to hear it regularly. So does every boy.
Now I talk about consent as something he has and something he has to recognize in other people. It’s not just about sex. It’s about touching a friend’s phone, borrowing a sweatshirt, putting an arm around someone. I’ve started saying things like, “Ask before you give someone a hug,” and “If she says stop, you stop. No but.” He rolled his eyes at first, but he stopped rattling off what he wanted to watch until I said yes.
When a scene in a movie has a character who won’t take no for an answer, I ask, “What is he doing there? What should the other person do?” When a public story comes up, I bring it into the room instead of changing the subject. It’s not always comfortable, but comfort is not the main goal.
A friend of mine, a teacher, tells her middle school boys: “If you have to say ‘I was drunk’ to explain what happened, or if the other person was drunk, then you don’t actually know what happened. So you stop.” She doesn’t use the word “sober” or “consent” in a legal way. She says, “Drunk people can’t choose. You wait.” That’s much better than what my son gets from locker room talk. I’ve borrowed it.
Another practical shift: I stopped pretending that dangerous people are strangers in parking lots. Most kids who get hurt are hurt by someone they know and trust. I don’t want my son to be terrified of neighbors, but I want him to understand grooming. So I’ve taught him the actual rule: “No adult should ask you to keep a secret from your parents. No adult should touch you in ways that make you feel small or uncomfortable. If that happens, you come and tell me, even if the adult said you would get in trouble.”
We’ve also practiced what to do as a witness. This is the one I didn’t think about until later. I was so worried about protecting my son that I forgot he spends time in spaces with other boys. Boys talk. They show each other pictures. They laugh at things that aren’t funny. They sometimes go along with something because they don’t want to look soft.
So I asked him once: “If your friend brags about hooking up with a girl who was too drunk to walk, what do you do?” He said, “I mean, not my business.” I said, “It is your business. Because that girl is somebody’s daughter, and one day she could be somebody you care about. And you’re the person who was standing there.” He went quiet.
I didn’t hand him a script. I gave him one line: “You don’t have to be a hero. Just say, ‘That’s not cool, man.’” That’s usually enough to break a moment. Saying nothing is what lets things keep happening.
I’ve learned that the phrase “I don’t agree” is not as powerful as a specific response. So we role-played. In the kitchen, while he ate a bowl of cereal, I said, “Try this: ‘Wait, she said no. We’re leaving.’” He laughed. But next time it might feel less weird because we practiced it.
One thing still bothers me: how few conversations exist for boys about being sexually abused by other boys or by women. We spend so much energy on the “don’t become a predator” message that we forget sons can be victims, and then they carry it alone. My son has a lot of adults around him. But if he ever needs to tell, I want to be the first person he thinks of. That doesn’t happen by accident. That happens because I say, again and again, “Whenever you want to talk, I’m here.”
I’m not a therapist. I don’t have a perfect curriculum. I still stumble over words and sometimes wait too long to bring things up. But we’ve had more talks since that day in the car. Not the Big Talk, just small ones. At dinner. While walking the dog. After he tells me about some stupid thing a teammate said.
The other night, he mentioned a guy at school who grabbed this girl’s arm and she had to pull away. My son didn’t laugh. He just said, “That’s so wrong.” Then he moved on.
That’s not a full victory. I don’t know what he’ll do in a complicated situation. I don’t know if he’ll always ask before acting, or if he’ll ever have the courage to talk back. But I know he’s starting to see his own role in the story. That’s enough for now. We’ll keep talking. That’s the only way I know.
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