Why Do People Think Women Owe it to Creepy Guys to Protect Them From Their Own Bad Behavior?

Yeah, she "totally made it up." Who makes up shit like this?

By now you’ve all heard about Melissa Stetten, the model who was on an airplane when soap opera actor Brian Presley clumsily hit on her.  She tweeted everything he said, having no idea who he was, thinking he was just some drunk, married, douche hitting on a hot girl who was a captive audience by virtue of being on an airplane with him.  Some of her followers figured out who he was, and tweeted back his IMDB page and an article in Christian magazine about how he’s sober and faithful to his wife.   Presley is now claiming it never happened, although why a young model would go out of her way to “ruin” a soap opera “star’s” life on Twitter is anyone’s guess.

Jezebel posted an article about this very matter, and while the article itself is brilliant, including the best quote on the subject I’ve ever heard:  “Why should a stranger on a plane have greater respect for his reputation and his marriage vows than he himself is willing to display? Can we please stop assuming that men have a right to outsource both their self-control and their discretion to every random woman who has the outrageous audacity to be attractive in public?”  The comments were pretty full of fail, with people claiming that Stetten must by lying, to people saying that even if she isn’t, she should have just kept quiet about it.

Why?

As the person who wrote the article asked, why the hell are we expected to keep quiet about the bad behavior of others, particularly when it involves ignoring our own boundaries?  This goes for asshats clumsily flirting with disinterested girls, as well as rapists.  Whenever women talk about the bad behavior of men, particularly if that man is famous, the default setting of society is that we’re lying.  And that goes for children, as well as grown women.

And frequently even when we get people to believe us, they’ll tell us to be quiet about it.  “You don’t want to ruin that nice young man’s life over this (whatever “this” may be, from flirting to out and out rape).” Well, then maybe he should have thought of that before he engaged in X behavior.

Not to mention Stetten didn’t accuse Presley of anything other than being a slightly drunk creeper, who removed his wedding band in the bathroom as though she hadn’t already seen it.  I mean really, the guy’s an actor.  I think it’s gonna take a teeny bit more than that to ruin his career.  For fuck’s sake, they still let Mel Gibson out in public and look what that jackass has done.

Now, this is not a screed against actors, it’s a screed against this supposed vulnerability of the male reputation, that we womenfolk just need to hush ourselves up lest our “accusations” RUIN SOMEONE’S ENTIRE LIFE, DESTROY CHRISTMAS AND TAKE AWAY THEIR BIRTHDAY!

Look, Presley learned a lesson:  don’t assume you can skeeve all over anyone and not have it get back to your wife, while pretending to be an upstanding, sober, Christian husband.  I haven’t heard word one about the soap dumping him, although he has deleted his IMDB page.  I’m betting he comes through this just fine, he’s Christian, they love that redemptive sinner shit* (as proven by the magazine article talking about his sobriety).  He’ll get down on his knees, accuse Stetten of being an agent of Satan sent to tempt him from the true path, cry, beg his wife, his church and Jesus to forgive him, and go on as he always have, hopefully a little wiser for the experience (although I am not holding my breath).

But can we please quit accusing Stetten of being a liar and a schemer?  Fuck, this happens any time a woman calls a man out on bad sexual behavior, and we need to knock this shit off if we ever hope to move to a culture where all sex is consensual and enthusiastic.  And women don’t feel constantly under siege.  And Dudes, seriously, call out your friends when they accuse women of being lying sluts, instead of maybe considering that someone they thought was a nice guy, maybe isn’t such a nice guy if you have a vagina and a couple of drinks in you.  It’s way more common than you realize.

And can we PLEASE quit pretending the sex is something that women control on behalf of both themselves and men.  That’s bullshit.  Men are people and as such have all of the same capacities and capabilities for keeping it in their pants that women do.  First person to says he “just couldn’t help himself” because she was hot, gets mailed a pound of shrimp in a plain brown envelope, no refrigeration.

*The way I feel about the fundamentalists and their “Save the Sinner” dog and pony show would take many more blog posts.  Let’s just say, I find their rehabilitations suspect and leave it at that for now.  I know that there are many good Christian people out there, I count several as friends, so this is not the post for a big “Nuh uh!”, ok, guys?