Kavanaugh, sex & modern masculinity

Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh raise important issues about how the persistence of traditional masculinity can lead to sexual assault or harassment, misogyny and lies.

I need to preface this by saying we don’t know what happened 35 years ago, and likely never will. But the reactions to the allegations are intensely revealing.

At a time when many men feel confused and angry due to conflicting messages about what it means to be a man, the stilldominant norms of James Bond-style masculinity extol the virtues of sexual virility. Sixty percent of millennial men said they get the message that guys should have sex with as many women as possible, a 2017 survey found.

Such beliefs underpin some Kavanaugh defenders who say, “Boys will be boys.” Harmful but normative ideas about masculinity suggest that pushing women and teenage girls to have sex is a natural part of being a real man. Of course, some “pushing” is rape or assault, which are heinous crimes. If Ford is telling the truth, Kavanaugh’s behavior would fall close to, if not in, that category.

This sordid Washington drama also highlights another ugly side of many men’s thinking about, women. Ford reportedly “has been the target of vicious harassment and even death threats,” and had her email hacked.

Such misogyny is all too common, especially on the internet. Anonymous warriors, overwhelmingly male, threaten female journalists and other women with rape and murder. Men post “revenge porn” of their exes.

At the extreme end are men like Elliott Rodger, a mass-murdering young man who killed six people and injured 14 others in California in 2014. Before his rampage, he posted on YouTube that he wanted to “slaughter every single, spoiled, stuck-up blond slut I see.” Rodger is a hero to a fringe cadre of men.

As some people talk about “second chances,” I think of millions of formerly incarcerated men who have paid their dues and should be given better second chances than America currently provides. But many others ask: Even assuming Kavanaugh did what he’s accused of, why not forgive him? Haven’t we all done something in our teenage years that we would never do again?

The problem with this argument is that Kavanaugh was never tried; he never faced consequences. If he had acknowledged wrongdoing, then lived an exemplary life, I’d be more sympathetic to the judge. If lies and evasion of responsibility are compounding his initial act, that’s even worse.

So it all comes down to who is telling the truth. Ford’s defenders say: Why would she call for a thorough investigation if she were lying? This brings us to a final troubling aspect of masculinity. Who have been the most noted liars about sexual conduct in recent years? Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, Mark Sanford, Gary Hart and many other men outed by the #MeToo movement.

Most research suggests that women lie as much as men, but a study by psychologist Bella DePaulo, author of “The Psychology of Lying and Detecting Lies,” found that women are more likely to tell “kind-hearted lies” (e.g., “you look great”), while men are more likely to tell “self-serving lies” to avoid blame, embarrassment and punishment.

There’s so much we don’t know and will probably never know about Kavanaugh and Ford’s past. But we can see with increasing clarity the way our gendered moral culture operates.

Yarrow, a journalist, historian, and policy analyst, is the author of the new book, “Man Out: Men on the Sidelines of American Life.”