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He competed with friends to collect the most phone numbers from girls, buying into a culture that encouraged deceiving and leading on multiple women.
It's a macho culture that Rogers said is glamorized not only in the movies and music videos but through teens' personal role models, like older brothers and friends.
"We see that he keeps a bunch of girls, and we want to be like him," Rogers said. "But when you get into it, you realize all those good things aren't really good like that."
The MOST club, which launched at Beaufort High and Lady's Island Middle schools last fall, works to help teenage boys develop respect for women and understand ways traditional masculinity perpetuates gender inequality and contributes to sexual assault and other forms of violence.
The national program provides a structured space for young men to discuss the effects certain behaviors have on women. The high school and middle school groups meet separately once a week, said Jamie Fleming, who coordinates both groups and works for Hope Haven of the Lowcountry, a Beaufort rape crisis center.
At a meeting Thursday, Fleming asked seven Beaufort High students to discuss ways certain behaviors common to high school-age boys could be harmful to women. Behaviors included:
• Watching pornography.
• Giving drugs or alcohol to girls to reduce their inhibitions.
• Referring to a girlfriend as "my b
-."
• Calling a man a "b
--."
• Blaming a woman or girl for being raped if she wore revealing clothing.
Fleming says the object is to present scenarios that challenge members to take a deeper look at those behaviors. Some club members at first said they weren't sure why using the b-word would be worse than other insults.
But Fleming asked them to think about what the word means and what's being suggested when you apply it to a man: "Is that to say that women are soft?To say that women are beneath us, that woman are objects?"
The idea of whether a woman invites rape by wearing revealing clothing sparked debate. No girl should ever be blamed for being raped, Rogers said.
"But a lot of guys around here think that if you wear tight clothing and hang with girls who are sexually active, you are talking the talk," he said. "They're going to expect that you walk the walk."
Student Michael Pope said although meetings involve discussion of uncomfortable topics, he's at ease with the other members of the group because they are all male.
"We're going through the same things," he said. "We all understand each other."
The MOST program began in Washington, D.C., in 2000 and is part of the international Men Can Stop Rape organization, which provides schools and other agencies with training in sexual assault prevention.
The two MOST clubs in Beaufort County are the only chapters in South Carolina and have 20 members between them, Fleming said. He said he hopes to expand the club to other schools in the Lowcountry and get members involved in community outreach projects.
Most sexual assault prevention programs focus on women and self-defense techniques, Fleming said.
"But in order to begin to stop rape and other sexual assaults, you need to include men," he said.
Pope said the MOST club is raising awareness of the issue.
"We are taking time out of our day to learn to be better men," Pope said. "And if we become better, we can pass that on to the next generations. It might have a domino effect."
By the Numbers
• 32 cases of rape were reported in Beaufort County in 2008. Most rape incidents are not reported.
• 34.5 percent of rape victims are between 10 and 17 years old.
• 8 percent of South Carolina students in grades 7 through 12 reported in 2008 that they have been hit by a boyfriend or girlfriend.
• 38 percent of girls and 46 percent of boys in South Carolina reported in 2007 they had had sex by age 15.
Source: S.C. Law Enforcement Division and Hope Haven of the Lowcountry.
