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But environment probably has a much greater influence than hormones. Says Kim Gandy of the National Organization for Women: "Our children are learning that it is acceptable to victimize women." It starts at home. "Ideally, kids learn about sexuality by watching loving parents," observes Arnold Goldstein, director of the Center for Research on Aggression at Syracuse University. "Unfortunately, all too often, rather than kissing the wife, the husband yells at her." Or beats her. Teachers feed youngsters the facts of sexuality but cannot convey the emotional complexities.
Even when parents and schools provide sensitive teaching, it is undermined by social signals. "Sex and violence have become inextricably confused in the minds of young people," says sociologist Gail Dines-Levy of Boston's Wheelock College. Instead of pajama parties, youngsters today attend "gross-out" gatherings, where the entertainment is rented "slasher" films that erotically depict the torture, rape and murder of women. Notes psychologist Daniel Linz of the University of California at Santa Barbara: "The first sexual experience for many boys is at a slasher movie."
Rock lyrics blare out perverse messages, which are often reinforced by music videos. Motley Crue's Too Fast for Love boasts, "I'll either break her face or I'll take down her legs, get my ways at will." And in Predator a few years ago, Genocide sang of a "heart ripped from the chest decapitated, a meal of vaginas and breasts." Advertisements for apparel, meanwhile, feature thinly disguised images of female bondage or subjugation.
The result of the media barrage is adolescent males who are desensitized to women's pain and suffering. It is an infectious malaise that not only enables attackers to do as they will but also allows bystanders to watch and do nothing, and still others to hear of brutalities and not be horrified. That psychic numbness, predict experts, will have consequences far beyond the increasing victimization of women. If young people do not have a feeling of connectedness with other human beings and if they have no empathy, guilt, shame or sense of responsibility, then ultimately the value of human life will be lost.