As a woman who has been through child sexual abuse, rape in my late teens, and worked as a female security guard at college bars before moving into the corporate world, I find the #metoo movement an interesting one. I find it both empowering and completely disenfranchising.

It is says that any sexual advance that I did not consent to is abuse. While I certainly used to get annoyed and disgusted that drunk men used to think that it was ok to pinch my arse or cop a feel while I was working security, I don't feel, unlike many of my colleagues, that it would count as part of the metoo movement but when a client (who was a lawyer) did it when I was working corporate then I felt powerless and I could start to see their point. This was based on the power imbalance and the setting and how much I could lose by standing up for my rights which for many women would have made them voiceless.

I do however feel that in some ways the metoo movement has made it seem like the abuse of women is so widespread that I have seen many people roll their eyes or say things like "oh no, did he dare say he liked your dress! How horrible" to women, when they didn't even ask what the event was, with such venom and sarcasim that you see them retreat further than the movement allowed them to reach out. I also know some rape and csa survivors/victims/'choose your term' who feel their experience is now often met with phrases like oh metoo only to relay a experience of sexual harassment not assault.

I also fear their world my future sons/nephews/etc are going to grow up in, while I am 100% for consent and no at any stage means stop, so often we are hearing the scenario of she said yes last night and today she says I forced her, not by force but emotionally, coercion, or “took advantage of me in my weaken state”. Now I do not mean fall down drunk, a friend recently had his name smeared as he slept with a girl on the rebound and she regretted it the next day, another got hit in the separation proceedings with emotional sexual abuse for saying to his then partner "I don't know I can stay with our current sex life". I know both these women and have heard their sides and it matches the guys versions! Do we need signed agreements of consent prior to holding hands with a checkbox for each step? There seems to be a trendiness to it that is more than concerning as well as a culture self-victimisation.

It is for this reason when I hear about the metoo movement the first thing I think is NotMe!

Men need to stand up for each other, not in the way frat boys put "bros before hoes" but in the way rational men stand up for reasonable outcomes and social narratives. Part of this is calling out men when they are wrong, loudly, the other is by calling out women when they are wrong. Next day regrets shouldn't cloud the issue of sexual harassment or assault and bad dates don't need the courts to butt in.