The #MeToo movement should be called the #MeTwoFaced movement.
But don’t get me wrong. #MeToo originally had a valid point. No doubt some men can behave abysmally. Men like Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer probably deserve the scorn and ostracism that they have received. And don’t even get me started about the contemptible Bill Cosby.
But #MeTwoFaced has gone too far.
It has morphed from a movement for the expression of legitimate complaints by women about the sexual misbehavior of some men into a two-faced juggernaut that allows any man to be accused, tried, and sentenced in the court of public opinion, hounded out of his job, and made a social pariah without a shred of due process, often by anonymous accusers.
And the movement fails to recognize women’s own corresponding bad sexual behavior or of the female contribution to men’s sexual misconduct.
#MeTwoFaced desperately needs to address its own raging hypocrisy.
Five Examples of #MeTwoFaced Hypocrisy
Let’s start an examination of this “#MeTwoFaced” hypocrisy by considering five examples: The Vagina Monologues, Lena Dunham, Asia Argento, former congresswoman Katie Hill, and a twofer, Monica Lewinsky and Helen Gurley Brown.
The Vagina Monologues
The Vagina Monologues provides a premier example of the double standards applied to women’s bad sexual behavior. This crude and vulgar play denounces rape and “violence against women” yet, incredibly, glorifies the lesbian rape of a 13-year-old girl by a 24-year-old woman in a disgusting monologue called The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could. (Prepare to gag. Also note that “coochie snorcher” is slang for vagina.)
A 2007 article, Vagina Monologues do more harm than good for women (from which this article’s epigraph was taken), describes the rape scene:
“The lady invites the girl over to her house, gives her vodka to drink and a ‘teddy’ to wear. She then proceeds to kiss the young girl, teaches her to bring pleasure to herself and then asks her to demonstrate what she had learned.
“Wait a second. Isn’t a 24-year-old getting a minor drunk while sexually taking advantage of her considered statutory rape in most states?
“How can a play that gives proceeds to rape funds actually condone this type of behavior?
“The levels of hypocrisy here are unfathomable.”
Even more unfathomable is the monologue’s final declaration, “… if it was rape, it was a good rape.”
So, #MeTwoFaced, the rape of a minor is a good thing, as long as it’s a woman who’s doing the raping?
Lena Dunham
Lena Dunham, best known for her HBO TV series Girls, is a self-admitted pedophile. In her memoir, “Not that Kind of Girl” she confesses to sexually abusing her sister:
“As [her sister] grew, I took to bribing her for her time and affection: one dollar in quarters if I could do her makeup like a ‘motorcycle chick.’ Three pieces of candy if I could kiss her on the lips for five seconds. Whatever she wanted to watch on TV if she would just ‘relax on me.’ Basically, anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl I was trying. [emphasis added]”
Dunham is also a false rape accuser. In her memoir she accused a “campus Republican named Barry” of raping her. Unfortunately, her claim has been proven to be false.
So, again, #MeTwoFaced, the abuse of an underaged sister by a self-admitted sexual predator is OK, but only when it’s a female who’s doing the abusing? And making false rape accusations is OK, but only if the accuser is famous?
Asia Argento
You may know Asia Argento as the girlfriend of Anthony Bourdain, the American TV celebrity chef. (Bourdain committed suicide, some say, over his difficult relationship with Argento.)
Or you may know her as the #MeTwoFaced woman who accused Harvey Weinstein, 20 years after the alleged incident, of performing oral sex on her against her will.
Or, less likely, you may know her as the hypocrite who, even while spreading the #MeTwoFaced gospel to the world, paid nearly $400,000 to child actor Jimmy Bennett, who claimed Argento sexually assaulted him in 2013 when he was 17 and she was 37.
One of few articles to challenge #MeTwoFaced’s hypocrisy had this to say about Argento calling the young male victim a liar:
“Imagine, please, that the accuser was a woman [who] was treated the way that Asia Argento, the strident Joan of Arc of the #MeToo movement, was treating [the male] actor who, at the age of 7, had played her son. We would have hordes of ladies in black dresses and linked arms singing some random song from Lilith Fair.”
Former Congresswoman Katie Hill
Then there’s the stunning #MeTwoFaced hypocrisy of Katie Hill, the disgraced former congresswoman, who had to resign after revelations of her bad sexual behavior — including a three-way affair with a 22-year-old female congressional staffer and a (one-on-one) affair with a male campaign aide. Oh yeah, there were also photographs of the good congresswoman (for God’s sake!) showing off a Nazi-era tattoo while smoking a bong, kissing her female staffer, and posing nude on “wife sharing” sites.
If that’s not enough for you, Hill’s breathtaking hypocrisy was on full throttle in her resignation announcement, where, instead of introspection, she blamed her husband, “misogynists”, and everybody but herself for her X-rated downfall.
Monica Lewinsky / Helen Gurley Brown
#MeTwoFaced, and women generally, are quick to condemn men for the male role in sexual misconduct. But what they really need to do is to think about the female contribution to this male misbehavior.
Monica Lewinsky, who vowed “to bring my presidential knee pads” before leaving for Washington and nearly destroying a presidency, and Helen Gurley Brown, editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, are classic examples that illustrate women’s own contribution to sexual misconduct between the sexes.
Lewinsky’s case is living proof that “power is the best aphrodisiac”: Would she have performed oral sex on, or even been interested in, Clinton if he had been, say, a farmer from rural Arkansas? Was Lewinsky herself complicit in the scandal, or should we give her a pass for simply being female? Oh, that’s right, they did.
And Brown wrote two books, “Sex and the Single Girl” and “Sex and the Office” that encouraged women to dress sexily at the office and to use their sex appeal to get ahead. A chapter in the first book titled Nine to Five was subtitled Mother Brown’s Twelve Rules for Squirming, Worming, Inching, and Pinching Your Way to the Top“. Shouldn’t we hold women who dress in overly sexual ways or who “squirm, worm, and pinch” at the office accountable for their contribution to the problem at hand?
So far, the answer is a resounding I-Am-Woman-Hear-#MeTwoFaced roar: “Hell no!”
These five examples are only the most egregious of many thousands available that illustrate #MeTwoFaced’s thundering hypocrisy.
By Stephen Bond on October 3, 2022.
Exported from Medium on February 28, 2023.