One of my December columns reprinted a list from Jackson Katz's book, The Macho Paradox, of the things women do regularly to protect themselves from being raped; it's 27 items long.

The don't-get-raped list, though exhaustive, isn't working: sexual assault is still rampant in Canada, to the tune of 426,000 rapes per year, with only 3 per cent of rapists ever being convicted. It's au courant to say that instead of trying to teach girls and women how not to get raped, we should be teaching boys and men not to rape. I wonder, however, if well-intentioned lessons about consent and alcohol come too late, just as teen scorn and skepticism have arrived on the scene, and years after boys' ideas about sex and power have set up residence in their neural pathways. Whether it's the drunk rape, the drugged rape, the gang rape, the violent rape, or the videotaping of any of the above, these are very dark places where basic human empathy has been destroyed. How the hell is a typical sex-ed chat supposed to counter that?

We need to start earlier, when a boy's ideas about the world are taking shape. Here's a another kind of list, this one for parents of sons.

This is a world of the default male. Don't believe me? Take notice of people observing animals — dogs, cats, squirrels, mice, birds, etc. — and see how often they call the animal "he." We've all been trained to expect that the characters at the centre of our attention are male, as if their needs and desires were more important than those of females. So when you read your son a book with a male protagonist, make sure the next one has a female protagonist, and if he must watch them, do the same with movies and TV shows.

Don't dress your son in clothing that celebrates male violence, like T-shirts featuring comic-book action heroes or words like "Future Tough Guy" as if this were somehow cute. Refrain from saying things like "boys will be boys" and "big boys don't cry," or anything that suggests to your son that bad behaviour is a normal part of masculinity, or that being a boy means being rough and insensitive.

If your son grabs, hits or holds down another child, ask him if he had permission to touch him or her that way, and tell him that we never touch other people in ways they don't like. Do this every damn time.

Never critique a girl or woman's appearance — positively or negatively — in your son's presence. If you hear him critique a girl or woman's appearance, remind him that she's a person, not a body, and we need to pay attention to her actions and words, not how she looks.

Don't allow your son access to media (music videos, video games, magazines, etc.) that sexualize girls or women, because they build an expectation that they're primarily sexual bodies, rather than human beings.

Don't allow your son access to media picturing men with giant muscles who get what they want by using force, because they build an expectation that men be physically dominant, rather than communicative.

Demonstrate resistance to things that dehumanize or disrespect women. Hyper-sexualized song lyrics? Provocative advertisements? R-rated music videos? Mention that these things are misleading and disappointing; women aren't just bodies, after all. Model resistance to misogyny by commenting on it and criticizing it.

When he gets older, talk to him about sex as normal, healthy and exciting, but only if it's something both he and his partner really want to participate in equally, with equal pleasure, and if both parties are safe from harm. Never associate sex with furtiveness or secrecy by talking about it as if it were dangerous or dirty.

Make every effort to keep porn out of his reach, because the vast majority of porn shows men physically dominating women. The more he sees of it, the more it will become part of his ideas about sex. Keep computers and other devices out of his bedroom; start a family ritual where everyone drops their phone in a basket on the kitchen counter before bed (say that it's so everyone gets a better night's sleep … which would be true … failing that, you could tell him that a porn habit can give him erectile dysfunction … which is also true).

Instead of lecturing boys about not raping, let's raise them so that it's not even something they would consider in the first place. Sadly, this is no modest undertaking in a culture that seems hell-bent on sending them the opposite message.

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