William Pollack, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School who wrote “Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons From the Myths of Boyhood” (Owl Books, 1999), argues that the way we talk to boys and young men about sex often stereotypes them and hurts their feelings.
“One boy said, ”˜They treat us like we’re perpetrators ”” we have sexual needs but we also have other needs,’ ” Dr. Pollack told me.
Somehow, there has to be a way to talk about sex and relationships beyond the anatomical details, and a way to discuss what happens in school and what happens on the cover of People magazine.