Manifestos for torturing men

Douglas Murray at the Spectator says there can’t be any sex any more because of all these women persecuting men for THE TINIEST THINGS.

We are in the middle of a profound shift in our attitude towards sex. A sexual counter-revolution, if you will. And whereas the 1960s saw a freeing up of attitudes towards sex, pushing at boundaries, this counter-swing is turning sexual freedom into sexual fear, and nearly all sexual opportunities into a legalistic minefield.

The phrase “sexual opportunities” is interesting. Often that’s the issue: the way some men see women in a work environment as “sexual opportunities” when the women are there to work and don’t want to be seen as “sexual opportunities” rather than competent colleagues.

The rules are being redrawn with little idea of where the boundaries of this new sexual utopia will lie and less idea still of whether any sex will be allowed in the end.

Don’t be schewpid.

But it is away from the law — tied up in the ‘#MeToo’ movement that followed Weinstein’s downfall — that the real revolution is happening. Accusations of genuine and monstrous abuse are being mixed with news that a cabinet member touched a woman’s knee many years ago. This week The Crown actress Claire Foy was forced to issue a statement saying she had not been offended after angry Twitter users pointed out that actor Adam Sandler had touched her knee — twice — during their appearance on The Graham Norton Show.

I don’t believe she was forced to. Who would have forced her, and how? He means she felt like it. She is free to say she doesn’t mind, and we are free to say that assuming women are fair game for casual touching is part of the problem.

A new generation is being encouraged to redraw the lines of acceptability in a way that goes too far. What once was gauche has now become unacceptable.

God, the smug blindness.

Yes, the people with more power considered sexual harassment merely “gauche,” but that’s the whole point. What’s “gauche” to the groper is not necessarily merely “gauche” to the gropee. Murray is talking as if the only point of view is the male one, and women are just objects – objects can’t have a point of view.

Foremost propeller of this is a form of modern feminism which is in fact barely disguised misandry. Take an essay from the sociology professor Lisa Wade, which argues that ‘We need to attack masculinity directly. I don’t mean that we should recuperate masculinity — that is, press men to identify with a kinder, gentler version of it — I mean that we should reject the idea that men have a psychic need to distinguish themselves from women in order to feel good about themselves.’ Or, as Lara Prendergast has noted in this issue, other women writers have taken it upon themselves to issue strict instructions for men on how they must behave. This ‘feminism’ isn’t producing guides for helping men. It is producing manifestos for torturing them.

By expecting them to treat women like fellow human beings as opposed to “sexual opportunities.”

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