America has always been a hotbed of fads, conspiracy theories, and over the top reactions to perceived wrongs, injustices and abuses of power. None has been more compelling than the recent revelations concerning Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby. Hundreds of women have come forward and have accused not only Mr. Weinstein and Mr. Cosby but other people and have leveled charges of abuse that occurred more than twenty years ago. For me the apex of this primal scream from women around the country was the WTF moment when some ambitious nobody accused President George H.W. Bush of sexual assault the other day because he played a little grab ass with her. How far are we going to carry this ridiculous scenario?

I get it that some guys carry their aggressiveness too far and come perilously close to rape and maybe rape itself but that is not what we have come to. We have come to an ex- president of the United States who is 90 years old in a wheel chair being accused of and apologizing for sexual assault because in his seated position he couldn’t put his arm around her waist and grabbed her ass instead.

When I was a young man, If a man wasn’t aggressive with a girl, she would never put out unless one established a long relationship with her. Women always liked the aggressive, confident bad boys over the stable nice guys and they still do. They had to be pushed into sexual relations because “they weren’t like that” or they were saving it “until they got married”. One of the heroes of my era was Clark Gable who would grab a girl like Scarlett Ohara and kiss her while she was fighting him all the way. After a few moments she would relent and throw her arms around him for a passionate kiss. Another was Errol Flynn who always played the affable rogue in his pictures. In his private life he was considered a womanizer and generated the expression “in like Flynn”. Is that sexual abuse? According to today’s definition I suppose it is. But some dumb fuck who looks more like Ernest Borgnine than Clark Gable or Errol Flynn and is less suave and less confident than Gable or Flynn who tries that gets slapped or yelled at and then accused of sexual assault.

Since 1968 and the sexual revolution, women have become more liberated and more open to sexual contact which would seem to give men more license to pursue women knowing that they probably do not have any reluctance to participate because of social mores. The conundrum now is that when she indicates that she is attracted to someone and the man starts contact and at any point before penetration she says no, then WTF is the guy supposed to do. When one is all fired up and ready to go, it’s awfully difficult to stop and cede to her protestations. She has come too far.

At any rate feminine power is beginning to emasculate men in our society and the effects of this sea change in the male-female relationship may be long lasting and may be a good thing and maybe a not so good thing. I think that our DNA does not really change. Men and women will slowly have to adjust to the new regimen. But in the meantime, destroying someone’s life and reputation for something that he did 20 years ago when this conduct was at least tolerated and in my day almost accepted seems unfair and unjust.