February 28th, 2018

     Isn’t it amazing to see how one incident related to sexual deviance can create a worldwide phenomenon? Harvey Weinstein opened Pandora’s Box!  (That’s a horrible one liner, especially taken out of context.) When women started reporting the gross behavior of Weinstein, the #metoo movement was born.  Women from all walks of life, in all types of professions, came out the closet and spoke about how men in power have sexually mistreated them.  These confessions have taken place in the news industry (Matt Lauer at NBC and Bill O’Reilly at Fox), politics (congressmen using tax dollars to settle sexual assault cases), charitable societies (Oxfam and even UN relief efforts in Syria), gambling industry (Stephen Wynn in Las Vegas), pro athletics (Jerry Richardson owner of the Carolina Panthers), the United States judiciary (Alex Kozinski Federal appeals court judge), entertainment industry (Dustin Hoffman and Steven Seagal), just to name a few.  Bill Clinton and Donald Trump may have contributed to the phenomena. Even the Saudi King recently appointed Tamadar bint Yousef al-Ramah, a woman, to become the deputy minister of labor and social development, a rare occurrence in a Muslim country dominated by men. (I wonder what she had to contribute.)  What does all this repressed and unreported sexual activity mean?  We know that many men are sexually deviant animals.  But sex does require two consenting adults.  Are women to blame too? Granted all of these men were in authoritarian positions who had something to offer these women, other than sex. But it seems that these women quietly participated in these deviant male charades for years without a word.  Did women acquiesce in this deviant sexual activity with an expectation of a return favor from the man in charge? Who is really to blame?