I’m intrigued to know whether you think having sex with different girls proves our masculinity. The reason for this is because the other day I overheard a conversation between a group of guys on the bus. The gist of the conversation was that to truly be a man you need to have sex with many girls. I’m curious to know whether any of you have had similar discussions with your friends. I certainly have in the past! Let’s be honest guys, we are regularly bombarded with images of women in music videos as sexual objects. I’m not sure how you feel about it but I definitely feel that many of these videos promote having sex with many women as a way to prove that I am a man.

The discussion on the bus reminded me of a similar conversation I had with a few male work colleagues. It centred around one colleague’s insistence on sowing his ‘royal oats’ amongst some of the female staff members. For him having sex with lots of women proved to him that he was a man.

I personally shared this viewpoint; that having sex with different girls proved that I was a man. I adopted this view from my time in secondary school where there was immense pressure on me and other guys to have sex with girls to prove ourselves. The pressure was placed upon me and other friends by the strongest boys in our year who often boasted about the amount of girls they slept with, as well as ridiculing us for not doing the same. As I contemplate those days, I actually proved that I was a man by not crumbling under the pressure of my environment and by standing up for myself. Being able to stand up for myself and make my own decisions for me is a true sign of strength. It’s like when you are in year 9 and you have to make your GCSE choices. Most people choose a subject because their friends are, whilst the strongest individuals make up their own choices based on where they are going in life and what they would like to do.

I was susceptible to this pressure because I lacked a father figure in my life, a genuine role model for me to follow. I’m not sure whether this rings a note for you but I can definitely say that I needed some guidance then and still do now. This lack of guidance made me want to conform to what everybody else did because I lacked a sense of identity and did not want to feel left out. I wanted to feel a sense of approval, identity and belonging and sleeping with girls was a clear way to achieve this with my peers. What I didn’t realise then was that every action has a consequence and it’s my responsibility to act wisely when armed with all the necessary information.

With that in mind my only question to ask you is ‘does having many sexual experiences prove your masculinity’?

I would say no because for me being a real man is about being confident in who I am and not in who people expect me to be or pressurise me to be.