In the hours since the New York Times has published the word "pussy," thinking men worldwide have discovered virtue. I cannot seem to find a single man in my circles that would ever say anything so lewd, so rape-ish. Not a single one of these men has ever heard a man talk about crossing a line with a woman, because apparently men do not talk like this.
This strikes me as odd, because not two months ago I heard a dude at a bar tell his buddy that he'd "nailed a chick" the night before, that she'd been "probably too wasted" but he "went for it anyway." I know it lacks the shock of a profanity, but that's, well, rape. Real rape. Discussed casually – though very politely – by two young men in suits.
Men don't talk like that, though. Men in locker rooms don't discuss women, they talk about their deodorant and how much they need a shower. Men in bars don't discuss women, it's all beer and childrearing and deep-dive discussions about responsible masculinity.
One in five women report being followed by a creepy dude on a public street. Thousands of women file sexual harassment complaints with the EEOC each year. Hundreds of thousands of women will be raped this year.
Men don't even think like that, they tell me. Don't know anyone who does. Trump's comments were not only outrageous, but anomalous.
Tending bar once, I heard a man bet his friend ten bucks that he could grab my – well, I'd use the word he did but we must maintain decorum. The man won the bet. They laughed about it with their friends.
At a metal show once, three men put their hands down my pants in the crowd. They did this to every girl they could surround. They laughed about it. They high-fived. I didn't go to another show for years, and even now if I go to a show I wear underwear a size too tight hoping it'll prevent that happening again.
A lot of the time, being a woman is deciding what sort of uncomfortable you prefer to be. Perhaps that's why it's easier for us to remember times we've heard men saying degrading, explicit things. We hear them because they're talking about us. It's a safety issue. Women listen.
Although the majority of my own experiences have happened in the minimum wage sector, this isn't a class issue: it's only a national discussion because a person who runs in social circles including current and former world leaders, one who owns mansions, said something distasteful about assaulting women. On tape.
Yet none of the men who've known Trump over the years, it seems, have ever heard a man normalise rape. None of the men around Roger Ailes had ever heard language that crossed a line. Men don't talk like that, they say.
Millions of men download and share unauthorised photos of nude women – but I guess they must do it in perfect silence, because I can't find a guy who recalls ever hearing a man say "dude, check this out, someone hacked this."
There are entire documentaries on Netflix about the sexual shaming of rape victims, in which grown men wearing badges tell the camera mournfully that some girls just really like attention. I guess it doesn't count as shocking normalisation of rape if you don't use a rude euphemism.
Some women must just rape easy, after all, because there are no men out there who know any rapists.
No, this generation of men is different, better.
Women will be raped today. Someone will indeed by grabbed by the pussy. Someone will be stalked, hacked, violated. Someone will be sexually harassed. But at least we women will have the reassurance that our assaults and sexual invasions are no longer fodder for locker room banter, apparently.
It happens, but at least we don't talk about it. I guess that's what we're calling progress these days.
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