American culture has a really bizarre mix of two things, which you can see playing out here.
1. Oversexualizing everything. Imagery, video, Tinder, clothing styles, everything is in your face sex all the time.
2. Remnants of a Puritan approach to sex. Absolutely nothing is okay unless explicit consent is given repeatedly. Even hugs are considered sexual harassment if not explicitly approved.
I’m not casting judgment and saying X approach to sex is the right one. But this tension is bound to result in events like the one in the link. It mostly just sounds like this guy got drunk and hit on girls with a little too much fervor. Not a great thing, but probably not something one should obsess over years later.
It was his word choice, not mine. He's been accused of bright-line violations that his apology doesn't mention, for whatever that's worth. For instance: attempting to have sex with someone too intoxicated to give consent isn't merely "pressure"; it's rape.
(I only know what everyone else who just found out about this drama today knows, from looking at Twitter threads and Wikipedia.)
The apology was posted in the context of people accusing him of specific misconduct, which allegations he does not seem to have rebutted at the time. You can be charitable and describe the apology as "self-loathing", but his clients can also take the reasonable interpretation that he's admitting culpabilty.
Happy to have someone else dig into the Twitter threads of the time and refute me on this!
The people who cut their ties with him only have his interactions from the time to go on, not what he's saying here. But I think we're going around in circles here. I'm just pushing back on the invocation of "puritanism".
1. Oversexualizing everything. Imagery, video, Tinder, clothing styles, everything is in your face sex all the time.
2. Remnants of a Puritan approach to sex. Absolutely nothing is okay unless explicit consent is given repeatedly. Even hugs are considered sexual harassment if not explicitly approved.
I’m not casting judgment and saying X approach to sex is the right one. But this tension is bound to result in events like the one in the link. It mostly just sounds like this guy got drunk and hit on girls with a little too much fervor. Not a great thing, but probably not something one should obsess over years later.
Everyone needs to lighten up, frankly.