Ezra Klein Meets Mao Zedong

America’s sexual revolution handed women control over their
sexual destiny while hanging on to liberal notions of justice and due process. But now affirmative
consent or “yes-means-yes” law proponents think that these notions
are inconvenient obstacles in their quest to deliver total safety
to women. Rape, they claim, is such a big problem that they have to
trade in their “ends don’t justify the means” philosophy with “by
any means necessary” battle cry.

Boosting these efforts is Ezra Klein, the champion of the hot
new genre of fact-based explanatory journalism. He declares that
this “terrible law is necessary.” Why? Because there is an ugly
“culture of entitlement” among American men and “ugly problems
don’t have pretty solutions.”

What’s truly ugly, I note in The Week, is accepting
totalitarian notions of justice to address a problem that is
nowhere near as rampant as the proponents of “yes means yes” laws
claim and that women are perfectly capable of handling on their
own.

Indeed, if the rape culture was rampant, not only would it show
up in reliable statistics, but women’s behavior too. For example, I
note:

Scout Willis, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s daughter, wouldn’t
have fearlessly strolled topless in Manhattan to protest
Instagram’s policies against nude pictures last summer. Sure, she’s
quasi-famous. But nonetheless, try doing that in the pre-sexual
revolution America or modern-day India (my native country) without
getting assaulted or worse.

Willis chose going topless as her form of protest precisely
because, contrary to Klein’s assertion, there is no longer a
“culture of entitlement” among American men. Her stunt was possible
only because social mores that used to work against women now work
for them. Far from facing any sanction, she could count on those
around her acknowledging — even cheering (like me) — her right to
wield her sexuality as she saw fit without becoming prey to jerks
who believe she’s “asking for it.”

Go
here to read the whole thing.