Being a dad these days is hard, right? So many things you have to remember. So much political correctness. Much of the way our dads taught us to behave no longer cuts the mustard with polite society.

I have no intention of making the process of parenting teenage boys any harder than it already is, so here's one clear and easy rule for dads everywhere. Follow this long-standing rule for raising young gentlemen, and you should be good. Huddle up, guys!

If you teach your son to cook a good steak before you teach him to respect women and treat them as human beings at all times, you have failed at life.

This is the lesson we can draw from the family of Brock Turner, the Stanford athlete who was convicted on three counts of sexual assault for raping a woman behind a dumpster — and was given a shockingly lenient six-month sentence by the judge, who is now the subject of a recall effort. Turner is scheduled for release in three months.

There are many outrageous factors in this case; for one thing, Turner, 20, is unrepentant. He still claims no responsibility for the rape. He blames it entirely on the booze, and plans to do penance by going to high schools and warning them of the dangers of binge drinking and promiscuity.

Hard to top that for shamelessness, right? Yet Turner's dad managed it with his now-infamous statement to the court in defense of his son. If there were ever an argument for sending fathers to remedial sex ed classes, here it is in all its privileged horror.

Dan Turner complains that young Brock is no longer interested in grilling ribeye steaks, despite being "a very good cook," and that this "is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action." The steaks are basically material witnesses in why his son should not go to jail, at all.

#brockturner father: son not "violent" only got "20 mins of action" shouldn't have to go to prison. @thehuntinground pic.twitter.com/IFECJs687b — Michele Dauber (@mldauber) June 5, 2016

Notice what's missing here? Of course you do: Any mention of the woman his son raped. Any acknowledgment that because she did not give consent, because she was unable to give consent, that it was rape. Any awareness that her life has been forever altered by his actions.

Let's be clear about this: 20 minutes is about 20,000 opportunities for self-awareness. Brock Turner took a passed-out woman from a party, laid her down next to a dumpster, lifted up her shirt, lifted up her skirt, pulled down her panties and penetrated her with his fingers. He treated her like a rag doll. He began humping her. Two passing cyclists had to pull him off her.

He had enough self-awareness to run from the scene of the crime; the cyclists had to tackle him to keep him there until police arrived.

This is the behavior his father denies is violence, and dismisses as "20 minutes of action," all the while asking: Please, won't someone think of the steaks?

(No, I don't think Turner senior intended "action" to mean "sexytimes," and it doesn't matter. His statement is horrific enough either way.)

Perhaps this attitude is not surprising, given that the Turner family's reaction to hearing the facts of the case was to hire expensive lawyers and fight the victim every step of the way. Clearly, somewhere along the line, Dan's parenting strategy has gone hideously awry.

To think so is not "political correctness," as Brock's childhood friend Leslie Rasmussen put it. (In her confused statement, below, Rasmussen seemed to believe rape can exist without rapists, or that it requires kidnapping in a parking lot.)

It is basic human decency. It used to be called being a gentleman.

Rape culture is a thing. I'm sorry if you bristle at that notion, guys, but it just is. Any time you put the onus on our daughters — don't wear that dress, don't get drunk, don't lead guys on — you're perpetuating it. Any time you make a rape joke, you're perpetuating it.

And any time you miss an opportunity to educate our sons about the concept of consent — even if you prefer to talk abstinence because you're not comfortable talking about sex, or if you just say something vague that conflates drunkenness and rape — you're perpetuating it.

Clarity is the key here. We don't just need to teach young men that "no means no." We need to teach them that "only yes means yes." And if the NFL is any guide, the more athletes are treated like gods, the more urgently they need to learn that they can't just take whatever they want.

Lest you scoff, look at the numbers. There are nearly 300,000 sexual assaults in the U.S. every year, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, and less than 100,000 of them are reported to the police. Why? Because too many women have been taught that it's somehow their fault, and that the system is stacked against them.

After the #StanfordVictim trial, there seems to be some confusion about what causes rape. This is the real cause. pic.twitter.com/PWXyea8sSK — Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant) June 7, 2016

Even at Stanford, which is rarely considered a party school, some 43% of women — nearly a quarter of the whole damn campus! — say they have been the victims of some kind of sexual assault or misconduct. And how many of those women reported it to the authorities? Less than 3%.

If rape were a disease, it would be an epidemic — but one where most of the afflicted were ashamed and afraid to even talk to their friends about it, let alone step into a doctor's office. And so the disease vectors, the rapists, are allowed to stay at large, while women like Leslie Rasmussen fail to notice they're standing right in front of them.

Watch enough TV and movies and you're bound to think of rapists as looking like obvious bad guys — unkempt, angry, the "kidnappers" lurking in the parking lots of Rasmussen's imagination. But that's not who they are. They're our friends, our neighbors, our family members.

Some 80% of assailants are known to the victim. Nearly half are a friend or acquaintance. Let that sink in.

SEE ALSO: Ken Starr fails miserably when probed about knowledge of Baylor rape scandal

Too often, men think of this as someone else's problem. "Well, that's not me," we say to ourselves. "I'm a good guy. I would never do that." We assume our friends and our flesh-and-blood are good guys too, that everyone we know just automatically adheres to the commandment thou shall not rape.

So we don't bring it up, thinking it's not our responsibility. Maybe we get incensed when women suggest the problem is endemic to our culture. If we're aggrieved enough, we might start protesting our own victimhood on social media with the #NotAllMen hashtag, which has rightly become a Twitter joke.

And don't focus the spotlight of your ire too much on Turner, either. Currently, social media seems to be revving up for another round of vigilantism that focuses too much on this one guy, as if he were the cause of all the world's rapes instead of a single reprehensible drop in a giant ocean.

SEE ALSO: 3 women hailed as heroes after thwarting alleged date rape attempt

Here's an idea: Instead of having dark thoughts of hunting him down and making up for what the judge failed to do, use the Turner case as an entry point into difficult discussions about rape. Have the strength and courage to break the code of silence. Listen without judgment to the experiences of your mothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends and daughters. Talk honestly to your fathers, brothers, friends.

And your sons. Most especially, talk to your sons, because no one else will have the kind of indelible impact in this area of their lives like their fathers. My father, a county prosecutor, tried rapists and abusers for a living; there was no way his son was going to grow up with anything less than full awareness of the horror of the crime and how easily it can happen.

Your sons deserve no less.

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