Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the Washington Post has a hilarious — and terrifying — expose about the lives of dating men in the post-#MeToo world.
The piece’s title says nearly everything you need to know: “It’s tough for me to know where the line is: The #MeToo era is making dating more confusing.” The piece itself fails to disappoint. It seems that, in this increasingly woke world, men who want to share physical affection with a woman are finding it difficult to navigate intimate situations without the help of an entire team of attorneys.
It is, of course, taking all the magic out of love, which sort of explains why young people are actually having less sex than ever, and why Wednesday night’s festivities might be . . . unsatisfactory . . . for dating couples.
According to one guy interviewed, affirmative consent for every touch and tactic is now absolutely mandatory, and men fear not getting it to the degree that each movement is accompanied by a near-legal interaction.
Over the summer, Geoffrey Knight is in bed with a woman he is dating. He puts his hand on her breast, and she swats it away. “You need to ask before you touch me,” he recalls her saying. Knight apologizes, saying he had assumed it was okay because they had just had sex.
Generally speaking, that’s above and beyond even the legal definition of affirmative consent, but Knight implied later that, had he not apologized and agreed to be more careful, he could have gotten slapped with an allegation. It made him so fearful, he told WaPo, that he started trying to get verbal consent for every maneuver, even before they happened (which presented its own set of problems).
Flash-forward a few months, and Knight, a 25-year-old Washingtonian, is sleeping with someone new. He is asking “Can I touch you here?” “Can I do this?” every step of the way, and his partner wants to know what is with all the questions. She prefers a more proactive approach.
Since Mr. Knight is obviously attracted to the sort of woman with Planned Parenthood posters and Women’s Studies textbooks lining the walls of her apartment, he decided to go even further, taking a “two month discussion class on how to reject toxic masculinity” and washing and wearing his “Consent is Sexy” tee shirt when he would try to pick up women in social situations.
He now, he says, gives women his number instead of asking for theirs.
A pick-up artist quoted by WaPo suggests that men are having a more difficult time sleeping with women because “Now it’s not just a fear of rejection but a fear of being harassing,” but that might not be it.
The result of Mr. Knight’s game is both sad and creepy. It’s sad because it’s clear these guys don’t know where the line is drawn, like the pick-up artist admits, and because the line is so arbitrary, it can vary from woman to woman, leaving men in the dark about how much consent is enough consent to avoid being accused later on.
It’s creepy because these guys have begun to master a system of presenting their “wokeness” for mating the way fish blow up their faces or birds scream at each other. The “Consent is Sexy” tee shirt has become the mating call of the wild North American male feminist.
That leads to another set of problems: when do feminists realize they’re being picked up, and start demanding written consent, or stop dating altogether. Eventually, they’ll just be interested in other women because the system isn’t nearly as fraught with bizarre behavior.
So, happy Valentine’s Day, Daily Wire readers. Whether you have a significant other or not, at least, tonight, you can be glad you’re better off than a handful of woke bros.
also filled with letters containing messages such as, "We’re done. It’s not us—it’s you."
