Every word Michelle Obama said during that New Hampshire speech the other day was inspirational. Arrogant, thoughtless, pig-like behavior towards women has to be slapped down and corrected, and the more decisively the better. But you know what else? There’s an atmosphere today that seems to discourage almost any kind of male-to-female flirtatiousness or come-ons in any environment outside of a bar. I’m not saying that all you have do is say (i.e., type) the wrong kind of politically incorrect thing in the wrong way and you’ll be a dead man on Twitter in a matter of hours if not minutes, but it’s almost come to that. I just have this sense of a lot of guys walking on eggshells right now.
Trump was correctly and righteously ripped for that 2005 Access Hollywood hot-mike moment with Billy Bush, but who hasn’t said something lewd at one time or another (especially if alcohol was part of the situation) or stepped over some behavioral line? I’m pretty sure I did a few times in my randy 20s, back when I often pursued a certain boozy exuberance. How many tens of thousands if not millions of guys are guilty of some kind of poor behavior at one time or another? If even half of these moments were to be hot-miked and fed to online militants, a lot of these same guys would be swinging from the gallows right now.
Animals with caveman attitudes need to be slapped around, for sure, but there is such a fierce Rose McGowan-like commitment to punishing and ruining any kind of thug male transgressor these days that celibacy is seeming more and more like the safest way to go.
No, I’m not leading up to a discussion of Devin Faraci‘s situation. Given the likelihood that the ’04 incident in question was alcohol-related (possibly a result of Faraci having some kind of alcohol problem involving blackouts, I’ve been told), I can’t be the only one who’s observed that in the space of three days Faraci went from having a life to being ostracized and finito, and without anyone talking about the concept of proportionate punishment — he half-admitted his guilt and therefore needed to be hung by a rope until dead.
It’s enough to make you think twice about talking to a woman in any way that could be even faintly interpreted as inappropriate or crass, and from saying anything above and beyond the confines of polite, super-correct formality outside of a cocktail lounge.
