One of the most striking aspects of the #MeToo movement is the sheer number of women coming out as victims.
Perhaps this has to do with our ever-broadening definition of “sexual assault” and now the increasingly popular phrase “sexual misconduct.” The terms themselves are incredibly Orwellian. Who determines what type of sexual conduct is acceptable?
In today’s society, men who are not sexual assailants still run the risk of being vilified for “sexual misconduct,” which is used to describe anything rude, distasteful, or otherwise something a woman finds to be less than 100 percent pleasurable. Some reference “power dynamics” when defining sexual misconduct, which is a phrase that is used to invalidate any sexual interactions in which the participants have overlapping professional lives. Even if a man expressly asks for consent, it is unacceptable to engage in sexual activity with a woman if there is a chance she might “admire” him. Placing a woman in a “predicament” labels you a sexual predator.
Women have been experiencing unwanted advances since the beginning of time. This is nothing new. However, it is a recent phenomenon that many women now consider these interactions to be acts of aggression.
In teaching young women that they are embedded in a patriarchal society of “rape culture,” universities rob young women of their personal agency to make their own decisions regarding sexual partners. Young women are taught that being put in a situation where they may have to say “no” to a man is something they should never have to experience and that any man who puts them in such a situation believes he is entitled to her body. Once upon a time, if a man made a crass advance toward a woman in a bar, she threw a drink in his face. Now, it’s more likely that she will tweet about being “victimized.”
A most prominent example of this phenomenon is the story of actor and comedian Aziz Ansari, who faced backlash and allegations of sexual abuse after an anonymous woman told her now-viral detailed account to Babe.net of an evening which could be summed up as nothing more than an extremely bad date. The woman claimed that, even though she willingly participated in sexual acts with Ansari, he was not picking up on “nonverbal cues” that should have told him she was uncomfortable and needed to stop. When the woman finally did tell Ansari to stop, he stopped, and she left.
After the account was published, Ansari was publicly shamed and deemed a sexual predator. While the piece did convince me that I never want to be alone in an apartment with Ansari, it did not convince me that he was dangerous. This story shows men that in today’s society, it is unacceptable to engage in sexual activity with a woman even after expressed consent or reciprocal action, if there is a chance she might change her mind the next day.
The worst part about this amorphous #MeToo movement is that it completely undermines the experiences of victims of actual sexual assault. Women who experience violent sexual assault are now effectively being lumped into the same category as women who get “catcalled” walking down the road, or women who choose not to remove themselves from an awkward, regrettable sexual encounter. That is not OK.
If we want to prevent sexual assault and help victims unfortunate enough to have already experienced it, we need to make sure we are addressing a defined problem. Having sex and regretting it later is not being sexually assaulted. Agreeing to sex you weren’t 100 percent sure you wanted to have is not being sexually assaulted. Having consensual sex under the influence of alcohol is not being sexually assaulted. We owe the victims of violent sexual crimes that very important distinction.
