Are we failing the next generation of men?

As a new report finds that more than 1 in 4 boys look for more info about sex through porn, I investigate why relationships and sex education classes are not working.

Masculinity today is a blurred line that is defined more by where boys spend their time online than the environments and classrooms they grow up in. As a new report finds boys are feeling “pressured by gendered norms” and are “turning to the internet for information about sex and relationships”, are we in danger of creating a confused and isolated generation of men?

The report published by SafeLives, a UK charity dedicated to ending domestic abuse, finds relationships and sex education (RSE) is “falling seriously short” of what young people need, despite the curriculum receiving its first update in twenty years in 2019.

In that time we have seen a sea change in attitudes towards sex and masculinity. From the decline of the lad mag culture in the early noughties, providing men and boys an out-of-the-box identity rooted in cars, sport and sexualised images of women, to a growing incel community today that has spawned groups of men who seek to “reclaim” their masculinity and who feel rejec…