Male behavior toward women may change significantly in the aftermath of Weinstein’s involuntary “exposure” earlier this year. 2017 will be the year that heterosexual men were “outed.” At long last, a bright line can now be said to separate men from women, making gratuitous verbalizations and uninvited hands-on contact very clearly out of bounds, not to mention behaviors that were already illegal like sexual extortion and forcible sex. Unspoken but clearly on the Jumbotron now are the words: “We all know what you’re doing, so cut it out.”
What an education the male world is getting already–these behaviors fall somewhere along the spectrum of uncool, unethical, and illegal. Or did men already know this but find it sexually stimulating to cross those lines anyway? Either, we are on notice. Cut it out.
But will men be able openly to discuss pre- and post-Weinstein sexual ethics publicly, the way it is occurring, and has occurred for decades (millennia?)? We never were before. Talk about self-exposure!
And will college chaplains, or parish ministers and priests, have any way to open such conversations–face to face conversations? Given the bad history on this subject of religious communities, particularly Christian ones, we don’t start with much credibility.
But if it were possible to bring men into the public domain where everyone else is talking, what a relief that should be to both women–and men. If men couldn’t help ourselves before, under the daily and hourly pressures of the id, participating in the dialogue should should only aid us to keep in check.
There have been calls for men to have the frank conversations, heretofore unknown, about “the rhinoceros in the basement.” You know, that creature which we hide away, feeding it secretly, trying to calm it until it just has to be taken out eventually for its “walk.” The men’s movement was about celebrating male energy, not discussing it. Drumming not talking.
So here is a challenge for clergy and religious leaders to take up: create public space for this conversation. The blogosphere (like this one), Facebook, op-ed pieces are not enough.
What might we do to contribute to the advancement of the human race on this issue? Let me know–I’m looking for ideas.