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Feminism’s Mixed #MeToo Messages
Over the weekend, feminist site “Babe” published what was meant as a takedown of comedian Aziz Ansari’s sexual offenses against a woman he went on a date with last year. Ansari just won a Golden Globe, and Babe reported,
We spoke to Grace [his accuser] last week. When we met, Ansari had just won Best Actor for his Netflix show “Master Of None” at the Golden Globes, where he declared his support for the fight against sexual assault and harassment by wearing a “Time’s Up” pin on the red carpet.
This was apparently enough hypocrisy to warrant Babe’s takedown of Ansari given his persona as a “witty, woke alternative to the stereotypical douchebag bro.” The Babe piece was apparently proof that despite his support of women against sexual assault and harassment, he himself was guilty of it.
Ansari does indeed come across as a pushy, tone-deaf jerk in the Babe piece, and admitted he acted inappropriately in a text message to the subject of the piece. But it sets a dangerous precedent: is Ansari really in the same league as other Hollywood stars at the center of similar pieces, like Kevin Spacey at BuzzFeed. There are plenty of actual rapists in entertainment; why write a story about a guy who behaved badly on a date? Because apparently, everything is rape now:
People are so quick to defend Aziz Ansari & so willing to doubt his accuser. One gets sympathy & the other antipathy. That's what rape culture is all about.
— Arjun Sethi (@arjunsethi81) January 14, 2018
https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/952568652066443264
https://twitter.com/desi_bitch/status/952549979859636224
Aziz Ansari can wear a Times Up badge on stage because men don’t know what rape and sexual assault is, even when they’re doing it.
— Chimene Suleyman (@chimenesuleyman) January 14, 2018
If you think the story about Aziz Ansari is just a "bad date" then you literally don't understand how complex rape and sexual assault can be. If a person is repeatedly telling and giving you indications they do not want to have sex w/ you, then you should stop & not try anything
— Kayla Morosco (@catsaesthetics) January 14, 2018
This is what feminism has been reduced to: women have no agency, responsibility or obligation to stand up for themselves any longer. Strangely, a feminist superhero isn’t one who fights back at grabby men; it’s a damsel in distress incapable of picking up her purse and walking out. Ansari’s accuser could have done one simple thing to get away from the situation which made her feel uncomfortable: leave his apartment. She couldn’t even choose which kind of wine Ansari served her, and so she passively accepted what was offered, according to the piece:
After arriving at his apartment in Manhattan on Monday evening, they exchanged small talk and drank wine. “It was white,” she said. “I didn’t get to choose and I prefer red, but it was white wine.”
Women are apparently so infantilized in 2018 they can’t even request which kind of wine they’d like to drink, let alone decide if she should sleep with a man trying to push himself on them.
Bari Weiss, an opinion editor at the New York Times correctly remarked on Twitter:
It sounds like a terrible night. And I'm sorry she experienced it. The idea, though, that this is assault is quite terrifying. If this is assault, than I don't know a person–man or woman–that isn't a survivor.
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) January 14, 2018
In order to combat so-called rape culture, feminists focus on fighting for the supposed rights women have to dress however they choose and go wherever they want regardless of risk instead of teaching young women strategies to keep them safer, like traveling in groups and watching their drinks at parties and bars. If Grace didn’t want to have sex with Ansari, going upstairs to his apartment was where the night first went wrong.
The story isn’t just a lesson for Grace and women like her though. Just as Grace should not have gone upstairs to Ansari’s apartment if she didn’t want to engage in intercourse, Ansari and men like him shouldn’t be inviting strange women upstairs who might then blab in a tell-all story about their supposed sexual assault. It’s pretty simple stuff: Don’t go to a guy’s apartment if you think he might sexually assault you, and don’t invite a girl into yours if she may accuse you of assault later. You don’t have to be a prude to acknowledge it’s probably best not to sleep with someone if you require a signed consent in order to do so.
Published in Entertainment
I think it’s possible for a surprise groping to be legal – if it’s a case of messages deeply mixed enough, and the groping stops immediately once there is a clear no. It’s still quite unpleasant and not morally right, though.
At best, it is incredibly tacky for a man to grope a woman he hasn’t been kissing for a while. I have only heard one account of a woman complaining that a man kissed her without her permission-and it sounds as though he was pretty forceful about it. If a man gently attempts to kiss a woman, and gives her time to avoid the kiss before it happens, that could probably avert many problems. For men to grope women during a make out session is pretty normal, and to be expected: but for a man to just grope a woman without kissing her first? Yeah, it’s weird. It’s bad form, at the very least, and should never be done.
But, if you have been kissing a man for half an hour, please do not come to me complaining that he groped you. :)