On predators who won’t accept they are predators.
And how to interrogate if you are one.
TW: Sexual assault, transphobia, racism
In the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s very delayed, but now very public shaming for repeated acts of rape, harassment, and sexual assault, men are being called out and dressed-down for their inaction. This often happens after a serial predator has been outed. After games journalist Nick Robinson stepped down from his post at Polygon this summer, amid numerous complaints of sexual harassment, the sub-cultural reaction was much the same: men were cautioned to listen to women, and to think about whether they’d given male friends a pass for bad behavior in the past. This is as it should be.
Public discussions about sexual assault have evolved, even while the actions of certain predatory people remain primordial as ever. Men are now urged, repeatedly, to trust and listen to the concerns of women. Men are dressed down, eventually, for refusing to acknowledge when their buddies have been repeatedly making people feel unsafe. In the more enlightened corners of the web, men are now called to interrogate, proactively and personally, whether it’s possible any of their best-good friendos might just maybe be a rapist whose crimes they’ve been ignoring.
