Sex or Power?

   The news is full of—overflowing with—accounts of middle-aged and older men engaging in sexual activities with (or to) women who had not consented to those acts. While I never thought that I was an “innocent,” I had no idea how widespread such behavior is. So I asked myself, why was I never tempted to engage in similar strong-arm behavior.
   I am doubtful that during my mature years I was less motivated to engage in sexual behavior than the next guy. I read pornography and had sex phantasies like, what I assume, any normal male—if there is such a creature.

   Why, then, did I not react with sympathy or at least empathy, to the revelations about a Weinstein or the many others who are now coming—or, more often, be made to come out—to confess about their “sinful” past?

   Let me get to the bottom line: because for most of them, the issue is not sex, but power. What all those stories have in common is that a “superior” male is imposing his ego on a “lesser” female.

   The relationship of men to women is a huge issue I won’t try to tackle here, but it is at the bottom of this latest squabble.