A Call To Men CEO Tony Porter spoke to Penn State students about ending violence against women and girls in a lecture at the Forum Building Wednesday night as part of Red Zone Action Week.

Porter routinely engaged students during his presentation, asking for their opinions and thoughts on many of the topics he covered. He took command of the room, walking back and forth to more directly address as many people as he could.

He swiveled between imploring the audience to weigh in on tough topics, to cracking jokes to lighten the mood in the room. Porter effectively utilized statistics — some of which were quite shocking — throughout his speech to help underline the points he was making.

“When value lessens, rape increases. That’s why one out of two indigenous women in our society will report being raped,” Porter said. “95 percent of women that are sexually assaulted know their attacker. It flips the other way around when you talk about indigenous women; most of them do not know their attacker.”

According to Porter, a main cause of domestic violence is how our society raises its boys. Boys are raised to be strong, tough, “not like a girl,” and to show no fear or weakness. Porter says that maybe more men need to learn how to ask for, and accept help.

“You take the average 16 year old boy that is looking jammed up and you say, ‘Son, you okay?’ His first response almost has to be ‘I’m good,'” Porter said. “It’s like everything that he has been taught up to this point is telling him that he has to say ‘I’m good,’ and if you only ask him once he’s not going to tell you.”

It’s this inability to ask for help, or show fear that causes many men to be emotionally distant. Porter raised a thought provoking question to the crowd.

“When is the last time you told one of your best friends that you were scared?” Porter said.

Fear is not a topic that most young men directly address, especially with each other. Porter says this is because to show any sign of fear is considered being weak and being weak is the opposite of most people’s idea of masculinity.

At the end of his informative speech Porter concluded the evening with a powerful message for the audience:

“We can do better, we are better, and the time is now.”