#MeToo vs #HimToo?

An unflattering picture of both Dr. Ford and Justice Kavanaugh. AFP.

AFP had a story up about the continuing drama on twitter between the feminist #MeToo movement and those that feel that #MeToo has gone to far. As far as mass media goes it's fair in that it actually gives coverage to both sides, but it's still biased. 

The drama comes from the #HimToo hashtag which was apparently spawned by a concerned woman who was afraid her son would be falsely accused of sexual assault. The tag was quickly overrun with liberals who harassed the mother and eventually the son came out against her. 

Normally this kind of twitter drama would fade into the background very quickly and it has for the most part as the country got distracted by a major hurricane and Kanye West. That being said, I still wanted to talk about the idea of #HimToo. Should men be concerned about false accusations of sexual misconduct? 

The article said that between 2 and 10% of sexual assault claims are found to be false. I think this is misleading for several reasons. First of all, that's only cases where those claims were proven to be false. Due to the nature of sexual assault allegations (more on that later) the actual numbers are likely much higher. It also doesn't include good faith cases where the accuser is mistaken about the identity of the accused. Given how many people have been cleared later by DNA evidence I think that scenario too is a major problem. 

Cultural differences play a role as well. For example, many upper class and European people greet each other with kisses on the cheek, but for someone outside that culture it could be considered sexual harassment. Alcohol use and sex is another major example as people in the left wing feminist bubble seem to think that buzzed sex is the same thing as having sex with an unconscious person. Legally, that's not the case in my state but if you were someone that had sex with a person that believed otherwise you could find yourself in legal and civil trouble for doing something perfectly legal and relatively normal. 

I also think that the general failure to teach young people anything about dating is part of it as well. It's very hard for young and inexperienced men to not cross the line when they don't know what the line is. The truth is that in order to have any success with dating at all you have to make people uncomfortable until you figure out what works and what doesn't. So much of dating is non-verbal. Dating advice tends to say that men should wait until the woman makes the first move or to ask for everything up front and to never be spontaneous. Doing so is a sure way to end up alone. 

And sexual assault is notorious for being hard to determine the truth. Sexual assault and harassment usually happen behind closed doors and in privacy so there are rarely witnesses. Not that witness testimony is reliable which is also a huge problem as oftentimes in these cases there is no other evidence available. Even things like rape kits can only determine if sex has occurred, not if it is consensual. 

I also think there is a disturbing trend on the left where being a victim is seen as a badge of honor. The belief that you have been assaulted, when false, gives you an excuse for all of the problems in your life. If you fail, it's not because you suck, it's because something bad happened to you. It also gives you credit with other far-leftists and makes people take your ideas more credibly. It moves you up on the progressive stack as being a victim of sexual assault even trumps being a minority. 

Still, how big of a threat is this? Should young men just stop interacting with women entirely? Is the threat of false accusation worth changing behavior over? And just how bad is it to be falsely accused of sexual assault? 

For the last question I have spoken to a few men about it. Many of them said that they would much rather be sexually assaulted than have to deal with false claims of sexual assault. The idea being that if such a thing did happen it would be over and done with and would likely not be revealed to friends and family unless you decided to seek criminal or civil charges for it. 

However being accused of sexual assault would be ruinous to people. Your entire life can be ruined by sexual assault allegations. You will lose massive amounts of money defending yourself and could lose your job, your friends and your family. And if you fail you could either go to prison and/or lose thousands of dollars in court fees. Even if you are cleared the damage to your reputation could be permanent. 

That being said I think avoiding women all together is a major mistake as well. Only a minority of a minority of women are the kind of people that would falsely accuse someone of sexual assault. Even most social justice warriors wouldn't go that far. I think most women understand that doing so is just plain evil and would never do it. Some women do think that way and those are the ones you should avoid at all cost. If you must interact with those kinds of women then the Mike Pence rule where you are never alone with them is probably a good idea. 

So what kind of women are we talking here? Probably just social justice warriors. They are the ones with the the most to gain from a false accusation. They also interpret the world in vastly different ways. A gesture of kindness to you might be a deadly insult to them. You should avoid anyone on the far left if possible and if forced to interact with them then take the same steps you would when you are around a small child. Try not to be alone with them and do whatever you can to avoid them when in public. 

All that being said I do think that the #MeToo movement has lost a lot of it's steam. The Brett Kavanaugh fiasco did a massive amount of damage to it's credibility, even after other high profile nothingbugers like the Aziz Ansari and Louis CK accusations. Far from making people believe all accusations of sexual assault, I think skepticism is higher than ever. Indeed, I fear that the pendulum might swing to far the other way...