Hold The Front Page: NOT All Men Are Rapists

Upworthy recently featured a story about a woman, Maura Quint, who posted a thread on her Twitter account telling of her encounters with men (read the story) . It wasn’t the type of scare story we’ve become accustomed to hearing. Sadly, there are plenty of those, and they have to be taken seriously, but this was a little different. Each of the encounters she related ended with the man accepting that she didn’t want to take things further. And that was that. Finito. In an age when men have routinely become vilified, this, frankly, was almost shocking.

The first story tells of a time when she was in high school and she dressed a little provocatively and put on her make-up. She went to a party and she drank a few too many. A man asked if she wanted to leave. By this time she’d drunk so much she was slurring her words, and she replied maybe. “Maybe …” he replied. After a short pause,  he said “Maybe isn’t yes”. She goes on to say she went home that night, un-assaulted … “because I hadn’t talked to a rapist at a party”. Wow!

She goes on to document several other interactions which, amazingly, resulted in her not being sexually assaulted. Almost unheard of. Shocking! It’s almost as if some men were actually decent human beings, with quite a surprising level of empathy towards women.

She cites several examples of men acting decently

One example is about when she was out drinking with her friends and she was flirting with a man. He took her outside, into an alley, and kissed her. He said “Yes?”. She didn’t reply. “Go back inside then,” he said. Once again she had been lucky enough to meet a man who proved not to be a rapist. Luck really was on her side!

Let me just repeat: there are many stories at the moment of men harassing women, and sexually assaulting them. I’m sympathetic to these women, of course. I’m also aware that with so much talk of men assaulting women it can easily engender the idea that all men are closet rapists. And that idea can infect the minds of the young. Girls can grow up half believing that men are never to be trusted, and that men who appear friendly and harmless are always dangerous men who are putting up a false front.

One of the women who replied to her tweets told of a time she was so drunk she had to be helped home by a man she didn’t know. He put her safely in bed, turned the lights down low, put on classical music and then quietly left. She said she felt sorry she never got a chance to thank him for his kindness.

It’s good to hear the other side for a change

It’s good to hear tales of old fashioned gallantry and good manners. These are attributes that perhaps aren’t as widespread as we’d like, but it’s good to hear the other side. If all we hear are the dramatic and shocking stories of assault and date rape, there’s a very real danger we can all start to imagine that that’s the whole story. Which would be a very sad state of affairs indeed.