It’s Not That Men Don’t Know What Consent Is

I learned a lot in your piece today. So, thanks for that.

What most stood out to me was that the errors and inconsistencies you correctly identified regarding men and sex are errors that essentially apply to all humans on all topics.

Rationalization to maintain a positive self-image? Yea, we humans do that when we cheat, lie, steal or perpetuate anything else that we “know is wrong,” but that we, for reasons both conscious and unconscious, do anyway. (Most perversely, we tend to give ourselves the ultimate benefit of the doubt and never extend that same generosity to other people who commit identical acts: “They are bad people. I’m just a good person who one time did this one thing that made sense in the moment and is no way indicative of the ‘real me.'”)

None of this is to say that the problem you’ve identified isn’t actually a problem. It is to ask: do you see men’s behavior in sex fundamentally unique from all the other ways people learn to prioritize their own pleasure over other people’s feelings?