Views on Sexual Jokes are Formed at Home

Conversations with a sexual tone in a chat group of 16 male students from the Faculty of Law at Universitas Indonesia have gone viral in recent days. This digital space, filled entirely with men, has transformed into an arena for verbal harassment and objectification of female students and lecturers. Many parties are questioning how a group of law students could so easily engage in conversations that demean women. A sociologist from Universitas Negeri Jakarta (UNJ), Syaifudin, M.Kesos, explains that such behaviour does not arise suddenly but is the result of a misguided socialisation process that is tolerated. “A person’s perspective on sexual jokes is not formed suddenly but through a long socialisation process in the family and friendship environments,” said Syaifudin, a lecturer in Sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law at UNJ, when contacted on Thursday (16/4/2026). In sociology, habitus leads a person to spontaneously respond to something based on repeated social experiences. Habits of belittling others that have been tolerated for years eventually become seen as normal. The family environment plays an important role in determining a child’s basic perspective on gender relations. “The family as the primary socialisation agent plays a role in instilling values, norms, and perceptions about gender relations,” said Syaifudin. “When there is tolerance in the family towards humour that belittles women, or no reinforcement of ethical boundaries, individuals tend to internalise it as something ordinary,” he explained. The absence of an authority figure at home willing to correct misguided speech will cause the child’s behaviour to sediment into an automatic reflex when socialising. “In the framework of habitus, these repeated experiences form a disposition that makes a person spontaneously consider sexual jokes as commonplace,” Syaifudin continued. In the social environment, this mindset can become stronger due to the influence of friends, or conversely, friends are influenced by the individual, which expands that mindset.