This Is What They’re Swimming In

In one way or another, you were probably made aware over the weekend of CNN’s undercover report on what they are calling “online rape academies,” which were visited 62 million times in just one month.

If you don’t have time to read the full report, here’s the best attempt to summarize what’s being uncovered:

A recent investigation revealed a sprawling international network where men trade detailed tutorials on how to drug, manipulate, and sexually assault women. These communities operate in hidden digital spaces and treat sexual violence like a skill to be learned, offering step-by-step guidance while also sharing ways to avoid detection. The reporting was sparked in part by the trial of Dominique Pelicot in France, which showed how these forums are not just theoretical spaces, but connected directly to real-world harm.

Why should this matter to you as a coach of male athletes? Because this is the environment our young men are growing up in. Even if you believe the best about the guys in your locker room—and I do too—this at minimum shows what they are surrounded by. It reinforces something we’ve said for a long time in this work: if we are not consistent, intentional sources of interruption, the echo chamber of society will bathe them in manbox ideology.

You could push back and say, “62 million views doesn’t mean 62 million men.”

That’s true.

But it also becomes a familiar deflection. The focus shifts away from what is actually happening and onto a numbers debate that doesn’t change the reality of the behavior. I could ask what number would make it serious enough, or what it says about repeated visits to spaces like this, but that conversation usually doesn’t go anywhere useful. At some point, we have to stop negotiating with the existence of the problem. What matters is whether we are willing to face it. That means accepting the environment our players are navigating and recognizing the influence we have within it.

Coaches are not bystanders here. We have daily access, language that carries weight, and a setting where beliefs get shaped and reinforced. That’s where the responsibility sits. This has always been the core of the work with TeamsOfMen, and it’s not changing.

“Not all men” doesn’t move anything forward. “None of our men” is a better place to start.

Coach Prompts

• What messages about women and power are your players exposed to outside your program?

• How often are you intentionally interrupting harmful narratives versus assuming players will “figure it out”?

• Where have you seen deflection show up when these topics are brought up?

• What responsibility comes with the daily access you have to your players?

Player Prompts

• What kind of content about women and relationships shows up in your feeds?

• How do those messages influence what you think is normal?

• What responsibility do you have when you see harmful behavior being normalized?

• What kind of teammate do you want to be in moments where something isn’t right?