Back in October, the Harvey Weinstein scandal erupted, when the New York Times published a story detailing decades of sexual assault by the infamous Hollywood mogul. It all seemed a fine idea, at first, a noble cause – oppressed women speaking out a vile man who had forced them to sex acts they did not want to participate in.
Women should have a voice and the right to speak up for themselves, and crimes against us – or indeed, any human being – should be punished accordingly. And I remember at the beginning of the Weinstein scandal, everyone thought 'oh,rape!' and became alert to the pain these women had endured. But as you read through stories upon stories about alleged attacks, you realized that most of it wasn't about rape at all. While some of Weinstein's accusers suffered actual, physical assaults and were indeed violated, most of the accusations appeared pretty tame.
Many of these women accused Weinstein of answering the door in his bathrobe or that he asked them if they would give him a massage or tried to give them a massage. If you read through most of the stories, many of Mr. Weinstein's crimes are verbal attacks, more than anything else.
The #MeToo movement
The #MeToo movement (in which thousands of women around the world “came forward”, sharing their own stories of sexual abuse) has existed since 2014, but with the Weinstein scandal, it gained momentum.
Before we go any further, let's just get this out:
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is usually undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault.
Wikipedia
And if you click on the link for “sexual behavior”, you're taken to a page that speaks of things such as masturbation, oral sex, BDSM, foreplay and the like. Touching a woman on the knee or offering a flower...not so much.
And that's where this movement went wrong, you see. Because it t started out like a good idea – exposing sexual harassment, in order to put an end to it and give women more rights, more safety – and then turned into a frenzied witch-hunt, that deemed it just to fire men from their jobs, or to punish them in court, for smiling at a woman or hitting on her.
Sexual harassment is bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. In most modern legal contexts, sexual harassment is illegal.
Wikipedia
That's the given definition of sexual harassment and it sounds pretty fair, doesn't it? Rewards for sexual favors or coercion are indeed bad things, which should be punished. But many of the stories bearing the #MeToo aren't about that. You would see dozens of these on social media every day, after the Weinstein story broke. And a lot of these stories spoke of men hitting on women in bars or catcalls or about a co-worker asking them out for a cup of coffee. And that, to me, is just ludicrous, because that's not sexual assault or harassment.
Two years ago, a boy pulled me closer to him in the back of a cab, so that my head rested on his shoulder. He liked me and I knew he liked me. I didn't like him, however, so I pulled away. End of story.
I didn't get out of that cab traumatized by the horrific abuse I'd just endured, because I understood it wasn't abuse. My 17-year-old mind could comprehend that a boy trying to kiss you or sitting closer to you is not sexual harassment. It's normal. We're humans. Humans are sexual creatures by nature, you can't deny that. The desire to procreate is normal. We spend our lives seeking a compatible mate, with whom we can start a family. It's what all animals do and it's logical that some of those potential mates won't like us back.
I didn't like said boy, I'm sure he knew girls he didn't like, either, it's the way things work. So you can't claim you were sexually assaulted, because you didn't like the guy who was hitting on you. Think about it, the exact same behavior, if done by a man you like, wouldn't raise an eyebrow. It would be perfectly okay for your crush to pat you on the knee and try and kiss you. But coming from the class nerd, it's sexual harassment. It's a double standard, because in this scenario, it's not the behavior itself that's wrong. It's just coming from the wrong person.
Orwell predicted an anti-sex society...was he right? Image
You can't say that a co-worker asking you out is abusive, simply because you're not attracted to him. In that case, you can say 'no' to the said co-worker. But there's a difference between that and sexual abuse and the main thing that's wrong with the #MeToo movement is that it's fighting to shut this kind of behaviour down permanently.
Because if enough people say that catcalling or flirting is a crime, it will become a crime and it will be treated accordingly. If you report or sue a man for buying you a drink and that man is punished for it, then buying a drink for a woman is an offense.
For all men.
Not just for the ones you don't like. So, when you do find a man you like, you start wishing he'd ask you out or buy you a drink or hold your hand. But he won't do any of those things, because they are punishable, because other men have been persecuted for doing that same thing, perhaps even by you.
Besides, he doesn't know if he can do that. You might yell out 'rape' if he tries to buy you a drink, he might get in trouble – so why bother?
I'm not saying that we, as a society, should ignore sexual harassment or indulge sexual predators. I'm just saying that this is taking it too far and that criminalizing things that aren't crimes will hurt us, in the end.
'Enemies of sexual liberty'
Over the past two days, stories have been popping up about an open letter, signed by 100 French women in the creative industries, denouncing the #MeToo movement for exactly this mistake, demonizing tame actions of men.
The signatories of the letter, among which actress Catherine Deneuve, argued that this movement encourages puritanism and does not actually favor women, but rather religious extremists, who would see this world devoid of any sexual contact whatsoever.
“It is the characteristic of Puritanism to borrow, in the name of a so-called general good, the arguments of the protection of women and their emancipation to bind them to the status of eternal victims, poor little things under the influence of the demon patriarchy, as in the good old days of witchcraft.”
And if you look at it, that's where this hysteria is going – to the rebirth of Puritanism. It is destroying any form of human contact and the possibilty for a human relationship. We're not just talking sex here. But if people need a signed statement of consent before they can have sex and they cannot ask someone out for fear of being perceived as sexual predators, then relationships between people will become pretty bleak and basic, won't they? Men and women (because this movement seems to focus on the relationships between men and women) will have to resort to talking about the weather, probably without looking at each other.
“Rape is a crime but insistent or clumsy flirting is not, nor is gallantry a macho aggression,”
Don't you see this is destroying any form of connection that might form between us,as human beings?
That this whole movement masquerades as pro-woman, when in fact, it's anti-sex?
Because, in the new totalitarian state that is being built, sex and pleasure are wrong and undesirable. People don't need to focus on pleasure, they need to focus on doing their jobs. The only satisfaction that should matter is that of the folks on the hill.
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Besides, we're overpopulated as it is. You can see that everywhere – we need less people. The state is far too greedy to feed us all and why should the wealthy have to pay, if we – the poor – decided to have sex?
I believe that this campaign is evil masquerading as good. It's an attempt to enslave us and to tear us apart, to cause division between the sexes, so that we're too busy fighting among ourselves to see the injustices of the ruling class.
Of course, Catherine Deneuve was attacked for signing this letter. All the women who signed were. By other women, by Asia Argento (one of Weinstein's lead accusers) and by other so called women's rights activists. I wonder, don't these activists realize the double-standard in what they are doing? Don't they realize that by telling another woman to shut the hell up, they are going against everything they're supposed to represent?
Rape is not your right, whether you're a man or a woman (because no, it's not just men who do it). Rape is a crime, for which you must be punished. But flirting is not, trying to get a date is not. And by claiming that it is and demanding punishment for these things, you are only sabotaging your own freedom.