The Depp defamation suit should outrage and appall you - "No matter what you think about the saga of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard – whether you believe their relationship was mutually abusive; whether you think Heard lied on the stand; whether believe Depp is wholly innocent of abuse – the verdict in Depp’s defamation suit against Heard should outrage and appall you... no one should be applauding this verdict – not even people who believe that Heard is a liar and Depp never laid a finger on her... defamation suits by the powerful can be highly effective tools for suppressing speech. That is one dangerous lesson of this trial: that people who speak out about abuse might be hounded in court to the point of bankruptcy; that men with power or money or public opinion on their side – or all three – can count on a sympathetic jury willing to bend the letter of the law if it means punishing an unlikable woman. This verdict is perhaps the biggest blow to the #MeToo movement since its inception"
Holding women accountable is outrageous
Considering this is from the UK, where free speech protections are much weaker than in the US, this is especially interesting
I like how even if you think Heard was lying about abuse, she shouldn't be sued for defamation. We're still going to be gaslighted that no one said "Believe All Women" (lots of examples of that aside)
Pundits Declare Johnny Depp's Victory over Amber Heard Means '#MeToo Is Officially Over' - "“#MeToo has been used as a weapon and finally women are learning that they will be held liable for false statements against innocent men,” tweeted commentator Carmine Sabia"
Meme - "When she testifies: *looks of anguish*
when jhonny testifies: *laughing*"
On Amber Heard
She is an actress after all. But not a very good one, apparently
The Amber Heard-Johnny Depp trial was an orgy of misogyny | Moira Donegan | The Guardian - "The strange, illogical, and unjust ruling has the effect of sanctioning Depp’s alleged abuse of Heard, and of punishing Heard for speaking about it. It will have a devastating effect on survivors, who will be silenced, now, with the knowledge that they cannot speak about their violent experiences at men’s hands without the threat of a ruinous libel suit. In that sense, women’s speech just became a lot less free"
Typical feminist, lying about the facts of the case, and not mentioning the relevant facts
Holding women accountable is misogyny
Leftists Explode over Johnny Depp Verdict: 'We Hate Women So Much in This Country' - "Far-left outlet The Root took the verdict even a step further by claiming that Johnny Depp’s major legal win “sends a message to black women everywhere.”"
Women not being able to lie means the country hates women
Private Investigator Amber Heard hired claims she took advantage of Johnny Depp to further career - "Amber Heard took advantage of Johnny Depp because she wanted to boost her fledgling acting career, the actress's former private investigator said. Hollywood 'fixer' Paul Barresi, 74, was at the 'frontline' of the couple's saga and was hired by Heard, 36, to dig up dirt on Depp, 58, before his UK defamation case... During a three-month investigation Barresi interviewed 100 people across the US and Europe who worked with Depp on films dating back 30 years. Yet when Barresi couldn't find any dirt he was fired by the Heard. However, the P.I. from Rancho Cucamonga, California — who was once hired to investigate unproven claims that Tom Cruise had a gay affair — had ignited a fascination in himself and continued investigating Depp. From some of Depp's closest friends he learned the A-lister was surrounded by so-called pals who leeched off him financially and emotionally. Barresi told MailOnline: 'When Amber hired me she wanted proof that Johnny was a serial abuser for women and I couldn't find that. 'I couldn't find another women who said Johnny abused them. Barresi said he interviewed more than a dozen people whose rent, medical bills, house payments, car payments and even bail and even legal fees were paid by Johnny. He said: 'Johnny was besieged by people who ingratiated themselves into his domain. 'Once they were there, they'd scratch his back with one hand while the other took in the feed.' 'All of the people around him have been on the take for so many years. 'They feel comfortable with taking things from him. He's a very passive guy. He added: 'Even Amber in some respects was an opportunist on par with everyone else... Barresi said he realised much of Depp's fall from grace 'was his own doing' because he allowed himself to be surrounded by people who would take advantage of him... Even at the time of Heard and Depp's split in May 2016, celebrity tattooist Jonathan Shaw, who did most of Depp's body artwork, wrote: 'As a close personal friend of Johnny Depp's for over 30 years, I've only seen him be one of the kindest, gentlest, most sensitive and generous human beings I've ever had the great pleasure to know. 'The man is constitutionally incapable of raising a violent hand to a woman. 'Everything I know about Amber Heard, however (and it's a lot), seems to support the many claims that she is a lying, two-faced, bottom-feeding fame harpy, who lives by the old Hollywood code of ''hurray for me and f**k you!''
Amber Heard claims Depp verdict is a 'setback for women' and says freedom of speech 'has been lost' - "She hit out at the online hate mob of trolls who said they wanted to put her baby in the microwave. Heard said: 'It's easy to forget, I'm a person.' Under cross examination Heard admitted that she had not donated her $7million divorce settlement to charity as she repeatedly claimed, including during the libel trial in the UK in 2020. Heard tried to claim that she saw the words 'pledge' and 'donate' as the same and claimed she had spent $6million on legal fees, meaning she was unable to fulfill her promises. She was also forced to explain an audio recording where she admitted to hitting Depp but denied punching him... After a fight in April 2016, Depp and Heard didn't see each other for a month – but Depp claimed that Heard left him a surprise. He told the court he found a poop in the bed of the penthouse they shared in Los Angeles and he thought it was disgusting. Depp's chauffeur Starling Jenkins claimed that Heard once told him it was a 'horrible prank that went wrong.'.. Vasquez grilled Heard on each of the incidents she testified that Depp was the aggressor, picking holes in her story aggressively and mercilessly. Why, Vasquez wanted to know, did Heard buy Depp a knife with the inscription 'Until Death' if he was so abusive towards her? Why didn't Heard take any photos of her injuries after the Australia incident, even though she took plenty of pictures of the damage to the house they were renting?"
Weird how she doesn't know that the First Amendment doesn't cover defamation
It does indeed hurt women when they are no longer able to lie
She forgot that Depp is a person too
Facebook - "Ask any man who has suffered abuse at the hands of a woman - be it physical, or more likely, emotional - virtually all of them can tell you the countless number of times people laughed in their faces, didn’t take them seriously, or told them to buck up and stop feeling sorry for themselves.  Seeing the number of people that are actually upset that Depp was awarded damages - especially among those who claim to take domestic violence seriously - it’s not hard to see why this is so commonplace.  It’s also not surprising why narcissistic women get away with this so easily. Yes in many cases, no one is going to believe the man. This is what enabled Amber Heard to get away with it for so long.  Of course *real* misogynists are happy with this outcome. So what? If real misogynists start proclaiming that 2+2 = 4, are we going to start questioning this, or getting upset about that fact of mathematics as well?  Nothing about any individual seeing justice for their abuse and defamation justifies or enables misogyny.  It is very odd to see some that are otherwise morally righteous throwing a victim of abuse under the bus in this way simply because people they dislike happen to agree with this verdict. No wonder that victims that happen to be male are so often silenced, their abusers enabled and aided by this behavior of society at large. "
Johnny Depp trial juror says revelation Amber Heard didn’t donate $7m divorce settlement was a ‘fiasco’ - "“I pledged the entirety ... I use pledge and donation synonymous with one another.” The jury was shown video of Ms Heard in a 2018 interview saying that she had “donated” all of the money. That video damaged the actor’s credibility in the jury’s eyes, according to the anonymous juror. “She goes on a talk show in the UK,” he said. “The video shows her sitting there telling the host she gave all that money away.”... The juror said Ms Heard’s demeanour on the witness stand also damaged her case. He said her “crying, the facial expressions that she had, the staring at the jury” made “all of us were very uncomfortable … she would answer one question and she would be crying and two seconds later she would turn ice cold … some of us used the expression ‘crocodile tears’”. “A lot of Amber’s story didn’t add up,” he added. “The majority of the jury felt she was more the aggressor.” The juror, who was one of five men on the jury of seven that sided with Mr Depp, said that the Pirates of the Caribbean actor was “more believable” and “real” when he took the stand. “A lot of the jury felt what he was saying, at the end of the day, was more believable … he just seemed a little more real in terms of how he was responding to questions,” he said. “His emotional state was very stable throughout.”... “I don’t know because so much, I feel like so much of the trial was meant to cast aspersions on who I am as a person, on my credibility, to call me a liar in every way you can,” she said. “That was the trial, it was a credibility contest – that was it,” Ms Guthrie said."
TikTok’s Amber Heard Hate Machine - The New York Times - "You might expect a defamation trial pitting one movie star against another to unleash a fire hose of debased memes in both directions, but that’s not what’s happening here. The online commentary about the trial quickly advanced from a he-said she-said drama script to an internet-wide smear campaign against Heard. As one of Hollywood’s most legendary heartthrobs, Depp enjoys a large and besotted fan base. But his campaign has since attracted the support of men’s rights activists, right-wing media figures, #BoycottDisney campaigners eager to capitalize off Depp’s status as a fallen Disney franchise star, sex abuse conspiracists, armchair true-crime detectives, anyone wary of “the mainstream media” and plenty of opportunists eager to draft off the trial traffic."
Female accountability is misogyny. Of course feminists shilling for Heard are fine
Department of Oncology, Feminism Wing - Posts | Facebook - "I just want to say thank you to every woman who spoke out, who recognised how this was playing out, who stuck their neck out for normal women everywhere who watched this case and saw themselves. You didn’t have to, but you spoke up when others stayed silent. I saw each of you.This case has terrified thousands of women who are in court with their exes. It followed a tried and tested formula of discrediting, mocking and positioning the woman as mentally ill. Women were watching, and they realised that was their fate too. Women were also closely watching how we all conducted ourselves as feminist thinkers and writers whilst we spoke about the use of these tactics against a woman like this. The behaviour and language of some was appalling and embarrassing during this case. Misogyny shone through. This outcome will devastate thousands of women. It will cause serious and lasting damage to justice for women for decades. Defamation cases being taken up by men will increase, as they are now emboldened. Any voice we did have, is now gone."
"Do lesbian feminists have a say about straight relationships? 🤔"
Women have no accountability. They should be able to tell as many lies as they want about men because "patriarchy"
Johnny Depp, Amber Heard: Tayla Damir claims she is a domestic abuse survivor - "Former Love Island Australia star Tayla Damir has claimed she is a survivor of domestic violence after waking up to 'triggering' news of Johnny Depp's legal victory over ex-wife Amber Heard... Ms Damir added that real victims of domestic violence 'fear that no one will believe them' and the 'world's reaction over the past few weeks [to the Depp vs Heard trial] would make many people scared to come forward'."
The truth doesn't matter. We must tell noble lies to "protect" women from "trauma"
This is basically "believe all women" - though liberals still try to gaslight us that no one ever said that
Vilifying Amber Heard Shows We Learned Nothing From GamerGate
Yes, the press learned nothing
Johnny Depp donates $8,00,000 NFT sale to charity linked with Amber Heard
Amber Heard's bid for a mistrial over alleged juror mistake was shot down by judge - "A Virginia judge on Wednesday denied Amber Heard's bid for a new trial over allegations that the wrong juror was seated — a claim she made after Johnny Depp won a $10.35 million judgment against her. "There is no evidence of fraud or wrongdoing," wrote Judge Penney Azcarate, who presided over the sensational six-week trial in Fairfax County Circuit Court. Heard's team had argued in a motion filed Friday that a summons had been sent to a 77-year-old man, but his 52-year-old son, who shares the same name and address, responded instead. The son was seated on the panel as Juror No. 15... The judge also noted that both parties questioned the panel for a full day and signed off on each juror. They were sent a jury list five days before the trial began and did not raise this issue. "A party cannot wait until receiving an adverse verdict to object, for the first time, on an issue known since the beginning of trial"... The defendant also failed to show any evidence that she had been prejudiced by the alleged mistake"
Amber Heard facing more legal woes after insurance company lawsuit | Toronto Sun - " New York Marine and General Insurance Co. has filed a lawsuit claiming they aren’t on the hook to cover any legal fees or damages after Depp won a $15-million judgment against Heard. “The jury’s factual findings establish that Heard’s liability is caused by the willful act(s) of Heard”... According to sources speaking to the New York Post, Heard has been left “broke” by her hefty legal fees and is struggling after “lavish spending, on travel, clothes, gifts and wine.” In June, she was spotted at a discount department store hunting for bargains"
Amber Heard investigated for allegations of perjury in Australia after Johnny Depp trial loss - "The 36-year-old actress is the subject of an 'ongoing' perjury investigation related to court proceedings stemming from her infamous visit to Queensland with Depp in 2015, when she broke Australia's strict quarantine and biosecurity laws by failing to declare the former couple's Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, when she flew into the country."
There is no ‘rape culture’ in schools - "the speed with which we are treating allegations as fact, and the blind acceptance that reported incidents barely scratch the real extent of the problem, suggest we are not in the middle of a scandal but a moral panic... We need to keep in mind that, despite headlines that conflate the two (such as The Times claiming that rape is ‘normal’ at private schools), ‘rape’ and ‘rape culture’ are not the same thing. While rape is a very serious criminal offence, punishable by lengthy prison sentences, ‘rape culture’ is used as a catch-all label to describe an environment that objectifies women – the normalisation of pornography, sexist insults, degrading jokes, for example. Not nice – but not rape, either. It’s also worth remembering that most teenagers are now in school until past their 18th birthday, taking them beyond the legal age of consent. There are no suggestions that sexual harassment of girls is being perpetrated by teachers or older adults in these accounts. What’s being alleged has come to be termed ‘peer-on-peer abuse’ – in other words, between youngsters of roughly the same age. That teenagers are interested in sex is hardly revelatory. With hormones raging, it’s a time when most people discover their sexuality, practice flirting and experiment with hooking up. This is often encouraged – or at least recognised – by progressive sex educators who far too rarely tell young teenagers simply to say no to having sex. Today’s teenagers live in a strange world where they watch sex and talk about sex but must only actually do it if they follow more rules and procedures than a game of chess... Too much of the current discussion presents girls as being naively preyed upon by predatory boys. But girls are not so innocent. Many enjoy dressing provocatively and attracting the attention of boys. Teenage girls are just as capable as boys of getting drunk and behaving recklessly. Of course, being drunk and scantily clad is not an invitation to sex. But absolving girls of all responsibility for their own behaviour does them few favours in the long run... It’s also worth considering why all the focus is currently on schools. Most of the incidents being discussed on the Everyone’s Invited site did not occur at school but in bedrooms, gardens, bus stops and parks. The relentless focus on top private schools suggests there is something more political going on – an opportunity to bash institutions that have long been loathed as bastions of privilege and elitism. Posh white boys are considered fair game by just about everyone. Posh, north London private-school girls are in a similar position. They are likely to score the best exam results, win places at the top universities, volunteer on gap years and find that the doors are open to them for the best careers. In a society that trades in victimhood, they find – much to their distress – that they do not have much currency. Being a victim of rape culture may alleviate you of at least some privilege points."
Facebook - "I’ve often received emails from women complaining that they miss having men approach them to court them. Well, since a courtship attempt can now be construed as "verbal rape," is it any wonder that men are terrified? Tough predicament for a sexually reproducing species."
Meme - Erick Erickson @EWErickson: "In Light of the Weinstein Situation, Let's Re- Visit Mike Pence's Rule About Meeting With Women Alone"
Susan Hennessey @Susan_Hennessey: "If the only thing preventing you from sexually assaulting someone is other people being in the room, please seek professional help."
Do feminists get upset at doctors who ask for chaperones when examining female patients too, since that deprives women of the chance to make false accusations?
Comment (elsewhere): "If the only thing stopping you from lying about someone to destroy their life is someone else being in the room, please seek professional help"
The death of intimacy - "This isn’t the free love of the sexual revolution, nor the sex positivity espoused by the commitment-free hookup culture that reigned in the early Noughties. It’s something new, and also something post-#MeToo, and perhaps not entirely unrelated to our contemporary obsession with consent as the primary (sometimes only) framework for determining if a given encounter was good or not. Meeting strangers on the internet went in a generational spasm from being maximally unsafe to the only way to do things, as the existence of dating apps rendered the old ways of connecting not just quaint, but creepy. Our pre-internet rituals were especially fraught with the risk of approaching someone who didn’t consent to be seen as a romantic prospect. Now, every interaction is preceded by the assurance that your crush has contractually agreed to be lusted-after, that no boundaries are being violated... having been released from the social obligation to say “no” lest you be labeled a slut, a new pressure emerged to say “yes”, lest you be tarred with the stigma of the sex-negative prude. The result was a generation of women engaging in sex that was, yes, consensual, but also not much fun, especially when it was happening at the behest of a generation of men whose idea of sex was heavily influenced by internet porn. Women cast off the mantle of the sexual gatekeeper only to find themselves in a world where your boyfriend’s idea of first-date intimacy was to engage in a little light choking before ejaculating all over your face… oh, but consensually, of course. When you consider how many women have been foundering around for years in the vast grey chasm of sex that is technically consensual but not remotely enjoyable, it’s no surprise that the act itself took a reputational hit. The emerging perception now is that sex is dangerous, dicey, probably not worth the risk — especially as concepts like “trauma” and “abuse” have expanded to include everything from the sting of a lover’s betrayal to the heartbreak when a consensual relationship ends. (See also: the increased use of the word “grooming”, once reserved for the sexual predation of children, to describe flirtatious relationships between consenting adults.) Under this rubric, the idea that someone might engage in physical intimacy for fun seems practically absurd. Young women in the post-MeToo era are taught that they can’t let their guard down for one single moment, while young men are told that they’re always just one misread cue or mixed message away from committing a rape. It’s hardly surprising under the circumstances that this generation would take refuge in the safety of dating apps, or, for that matter, in the certainty of transactional sex. Whatever the pratfalls of subscribing to a freelance porn star’s OnlyFans the way some people used to do with Playboy, paying for intimacy outright at least eliminates the dangerous ambiguity that plagues an ordinary dating relationship, where the line between asking and coaxing, or coaxing and coercion, might shift at any moment and leave you standing with your pants down on the wrong side of the line... All of this is happening against the backdrop of a radical shift in how we conceive of sex, sexuality, self. In the age of social media, sexual orientation is something you identify into, a public performance that requires no partner and no physical follow-through. (Consider also the odd proliferation of straight-married women who identify as “queer,” based on what seems mainly like a conviction that they’re just too interesting to be plain ol’ heterosexual.) It’s all identification, no action, a complete decoupling of sexual identity from the act itself. If this is a sexual revolution, it’s the chastest one we’ve ever had."
'Men are afraid to ask women out at work,' claims sex worker - "An escort who works at a legal brothel in Nevada, US, has revealed that more blokes are using her services because they’re afraid to ask out the women who they work with. In a blog post released on her official site this week, Roxanne Price explained that men “fear being cancelled” or accused of harassment if they act on any crushes they feel on women in their lives. The sex worker, who was awarded “Lover of the Year” in 2017, noted that many customers ask for the “Girlfriend Experience” a “pay-for-play encounter where the sex worker provides the client with more than merely erotic stimulation"... "A client may candidly open up to the sex worker and unload his deep-seated frustrations, freely reveal his most intense yearnings, and safely indulge in his fetishes. “This combination of unrestricted emotional release and nonjudgmental sensual permissiveness makes the GFE incredibly addictive.”... “As the definition of workplace sexual harassment gets broader and broader, men are becoming increasingly apprehensive to seek a fling with a colleague. "CEOs and men in positions of power are particularly fearful to make romantic advances, as one false move can jeopardize their position and turn these men into pariahs, ostracized via cancel culture. “ She claims that these men would prefer to visit a brothel and pay for sex than risk their career."
Did Bill Cosby deserve to go free? - "A longstanding tenet of justice, in the US and elsewhere, is a maxim known as Blackstone’s ratio: “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”... his 2018 conviction for aggravated indecent assault — a landmark moment in the #MeToo movement — was overturned this week on a legal technicality... Cosby’s acquittal should still be welcomed — not just because it upholds an important principle, but because it sets a precedent for other cases, including those of sympathetic (or even innocent!) defendants who might otherwise have been railroaded by prosecutors. For in reality, this is how it often works. As Andrew Fleischman, a defence attorney who works on behalf of wrongfully convicted clients in Georgia, told me: “Many of our most important rights come from people who suck.” The Miranda warning, for instance — the one that starts “you have the right to remain silent” — stems from the case of Ernesto Miranda, who kidnapped and raped a teenage girl in 1963. Miranda was totally guilty of a heinous crime (and he was convicted again at a second trial, despite the exclusion of his illegally obtained confession). But in overturning his first conviction, the court created a vital protection for all Americans, including people who are young, poor or otherwise vulnerable to being manipulated by the cops into incriminating themselves. Now, every person placed under arrest must be verbally instructed that they have the right to shut up and ask for a lawyer. Meanwhile, the law that protected Cosby also protects people with far less wealth or resources, in a system where the state already enjoys immense power to wreck the lives of people who get caught up in the criminal justice system. Fleischman notes, for instance, that it’s not unusual for people charged with a crime — even something minor like marijuana possession — to have their children taken away by the state (a process that prosecutors often trigger intentionally, so that they can leverage the possibility of being reunited with the child to convince distraught parents to cooperate.)... If anyone should recognise the value of a due process victory, even for a terrible person like Bill Cosby, it’s American progressives (for whom criminal justice reform and decarceration is usually a central concern.) Instead, many are outraged over the acquittal. Partly this reflects a tendency on the Left to talk out of both sides of one’s mouth on the issue of crime, where decarceration and restorative justice is great, right up until it benefits someone we don’t like. (Take the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, when the same people who’d downplayed crimes like looting and arson during the summer protests of 2020 suddenly developed a wild enthusiasm for throwing the book at lawbreakers.) But it’s also a failure of imagination: even as many progressives would readily agree that our law enforcement officers have too much power and too little accountability, that too many people receive draconian punishments that don’t fit their crimes, or that innocent people get railroaded every day by overzealous prosecutors who just want to put someone in jail, they’re also sure, deep down, that the someone will always be someone else. Not them, or someone they love."
Feminists want to gut the legal system to punish men after all
Am I Complicit in My Own #MeToo? - "men had more power but they also had things that I wanted. To get the things, I manipulated those men in power by various means, yet mainly by the means of being a woman. So when I slapped the #MeToo hashtag on my social media in the wake of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s downfall, I felt conflicted. Because, in a way, I also felt complicit... I have dressed, undressed, talked, and walked with the intention of getting men I wanted something from. Was I asking for it? Yes. Maybe not so consciously as a child, but I was definitely manipulative with men as a teenager and as an adult. I have an encyclopedia of potential #MeToos, but in so many of those instances, I truly didn’t feel victimized—sometimes just the opposite. For example, for a short while in my twenties, I was with a man I didn’t like who treated me like a rare pink diamond. He made my life easier—he set me up with a lucrative writing gig at some point—and he made my life more sophisticated. That’s precisely what I wanted then as a student living in near poverty. I loved hanging out with my peers and slamming down pitchers of shitty beer in the Green Room or dancing in the Dance Cave. But I also wanted to sleep in the five-star rooms at the Soho or the Windsor Arms and drink extravagant $20 cocktails and take fun trips and do cocaine. It beat ramen and student-loan collectors screaming in my ear on the phone. I ditched that man when I got back together with my previous boyfriend. The man was upset—I had even told him I loved him, although I had said it out of guilt—so I blocked his number and that was it... I orchestrated (manipulated, mastered) so many of the encounters that were questionable. I’ve dressed sexily for job interviews with men. I went for drinks with sleazebags because they had job connections. I modelled nude. I picked an author photo for both my books that was flattering, and men sent me copies of it to sign. Most recently, I flirted with a potential landlord who asked for a hug, which I didn’t give, because my son was there, but which I would possibly have given him had my son not been there. I really wanted the apartment. I have joked with men about awful things that men do/ have done to women, more specifically, to me. I used myself as an example like it was nothing. And I did it again and again. I am not traumatized over it. I’m not traumatized over any of it. I don’t really feel badly about the eleven-year-old me, the fifteen-year-old me, the sugar baby me... Now that I’m forty and I’m perhaps wiser, I’m somehow cured from being validated by the world. I no longer feel like a fraud, but, yes, I still believe that I have contributed to my #MeToos—not because I didn’t call those men on it but perhaps because I didn’t call myself out on it. So I would like to report myself for a #MeToo. And I am sorry for the damage I caused to me."
Opinion | The Real Problem With Sex Between Professors and Students - The New York Times - "Policies prohibiting professor-student sex — “consensual relationship policies” as they are usually known — are now common in the United States. A 2014 study found that 84 percent of the American universities surveyed had some prohibitions on professor-student relationships. In 2010, Yale strengthened its restrictions: Previously, it had prohibited relationships between professors and students whom they supervised (or were likely to supervise), but now it imposes a blanket ban on all relationships between faculty and undergraduates. Many other universities, including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and Duke, followed the move to stricter, all-out bans. U.S. universities began regulating student-teacher sex only in the 1980s. This shift was an outgrowth of the feminist campaign against sexual harassment that began in the 1970s, which sought to establish that unwanted sexual advances in the workplace were a form of discrimination “on the basis of sex” and were therefore a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. “Unwanted” sexual advances would seem not to include consensual relationships. But in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that acts of apparently consensual sex, when involving parties marked by a significant power differential, can in fact be instances of harassment... Despite the bans’ origins in feminist activism, some feminists at the time denounced these prohibitions as a betrayal of their principles. To deny that women students could consent to sex with their professors, they argued, was infantilizing and moralizing. Were women university students not adults? Were they not entitled to have sex with whom they pleased? Did such policies not play into the hands of the religious right, which was all too keen to control women’s sex lives?... in recent years our interest in consent has become single-minded. The habit of viewing all kinds of exploitative, creepy or troubling sex solely through the lens of consent has left us unable to speak, in many situations, about what is really going wrong. T he problem, I think, with many teacher-student relationships is not that they don’t involve consent — or even real romantic love... there are also many students who consent to sex with their professors out of genuine desire. As defenders of teacher-student relationships like to remind us, many professors are married to former students (as if we were in a Shakespearean comedy, in which all that ends in marriage ends well). The question, I want to suggest, isn’t whether genuine consent or real romantic love is possible between teachers and students. Rather, it is whether, when professors sleep with or date their students, real teaching is possible. Teachers, as teachers, understand how to do certain things; students, as students, want to understand how to do those things. The tacit promise of the classroom is that the teacher will work to confer on the student some of his knowledge and understanding. In the best case, the teacher-student relationship arouses in the student a strong desire, a sense of thrilled if inchoate infatuation. That desire is the lifeblood of the classroom, and it is the teacher’s duty to nurture and direct it toward its proper object: learning. The teacher who allows his student’s desire to settle on him as an object, or the teacher who actively makes himself the object of her desire, has failed in his role as a teacher... The feminist writer Regina Barreca, speaking to female professors, asks, “At what point … did the moment come for each of us when we realized that we wanted to be the teacher and not sleep with the teacher?” Her point is that female students tend to interpret the feelings aroused in them by their professors as feelings of desire for the professor. Male students, meanwhile, tend to interpret their feelings toward their male professors as they are socialized to do: as a desire to be like them... According to the conventional legal understanding, discriminating “on the basis of sex” involves treating women and men differently. Clearly, the male professor who has sexual relationships only with women students does just this. Bisexuality poses a problem for this understanding of sex discrimination. (Can it be sex discrimination if a boss hits on both his female and his male subordinates?) This is one reason to favor an alternative understanding, sometimes invoked by the courts, of what it means to discriminate “on the basis of sex.” For Catharine MacKinnon, Lin Farley and other feminist pioneers of sexual harassment theory, the essence of sex discrimination lies not in differential treatment but in treatment that reproduces inequality. Take the boss who hits on his secretary, a woman. The problem isn’t that the boss doesn’t also hit on his male underlings but that his unwanted sexual advances, as Ms. MacKinnon puts it, “express and reinforce the social inequality of women to men.” The same, I think, can be said of some consensual professor-student relationships... Given the lack of data, we cannot know for certain that Title IX disproportionately affects marginalized groups, but there is good reason to think that it might. Janet Halley, a professor of law at Harvard, has spent years documenting the unseen costs of campus sexual harassment policies, including accusations that unfairly target men of color, undocumented immigrants and L.G.B.T.Q. students. “How can the left care about these people when the frame is mass incarceration, immigration or trans positivity,” she asked, “and actively reject fairness protections for them under Title IX?”"
Equity logic means that the door is open to endless accusations of discrimination, since everything reproduces the status quo.
So according to intersectionality, basically only white straight cis men should be targeted by #MeToo
