Most men aren't abusive - but all should confront their darkest core predatory urges
Three news stories in one week demonstrate how misogyny pervades our society
In an interview with the Boston Herald in 2009 about his novel The Death of Bunny Munro – adapted for television last year – author and songwriter Nick Cave was asked about the experience of creating the central character, who is sex-obsessed, misogynist, and at times “loathsome.”
His answer was refreshingly honest: “I thoroughly enjoyed it. It felt kind of good to reveal something about myself that I didn’t really find in a lot of literature. The sort of sexually predatory nature that exists, I think, in all men’s reptilian brains. There are some men that will admit it and some that won’t.”
I wish more men would.
This past week brought a trio of news stories which, though different on the surface, have as their shared core men’s predatory desire to control women. Unspoken, downplayed, in the first two stories. In the third, wholly unignorable.
First, last Tuesday, the Scottish parliament’s failure to vote for the principles of Ash Regan’s Unbuyable Bill, which would have decriminalised prostituted women, criminalised abusive men who pretend consent can be bought, and committed to exit strategies for women caught in an industry that exists purely due to male sexual entitlement.
Survivors of prostitution, who report being spat on, choked, trafficked, raped: all ignored, as the parliament voted 64 – 54 against, with 11 MSPs declining to vote.
During the debate, Maggie Chapman MSP of the Scottish Greens described ‘sex work’ as akin to any other job. In the presence of survivors, she warned against “stigmatising” their abusive “clients”.
It’s over 70 years since Simone de Beauvoir wrote: “The oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed.” If we ever forget that truism, Ms Chapman, and women like her, routinely provide a reminder.
Simultaneously, the ongoing legislative battles of For Women Scotland against the Scottish government. For those blissfully unaware, last week, your taxpayer monies were spent defending the right of male murderers to be housed in women’s prisons. The government’s main argument is it might make them suicidal not to be if they ‘identify’ as women.
“Give into my demands or I’ll kill myself!” is a grimly familiar refrain for many survivors of domestic abuse. To hear it used as the central argument of one’s government against the rights of incarcerated women was obscene.
The third story, of course, concerns the ongoing revelations from the release of the Epstein files. Headlines have been dominated by the impact on politics, particularly Keir Starmer’s tenability as Prime Minister, given his trust of Peter Mandelson, solid pal of the convicted paedophile King of a network encompassing men from all industries, across the political spectrum.
There’s been a keen urge from some quarters to paint Epstein and his acolytes’ predilections as the preserve of the super-rich. Their attitudes to women both young and old, and their sexual entitlement and predation as out of the ordinary.
Not all men?
Certainly, their capacity to act on those desires might be extraordinary. But, as bestselling feminist author Milli Hill questioned in the headline to a blistering polemic on her Substack last week, which quickly went viral: “Not All Men? I’m Losing Faith in That Concept.”
Cave’s Bunny Munro is a fictional character. In our “cancel-culture” prone era, I must make plain I don’t think using an observation about one’s own never-acted-upon illicit desires, extrapolated to fictional extremes, is a reflection of the author’s character.
In fact, I welcome the rare honesty of Cave’s admission. As Milli Hill experienced, woe betide any woman who suggests similarly, “Yes, probably all men, actually.” Alongside much agreement, the angry reflex of online misogynists for even posing the question swiftly provided evidence in support of her proposition.
Most men won’t kill, rape, or abuse the women in their lives, and wouldn’t ever wish to.
Cave’s comment is about a rarely-spoken, carnal darkness, an urge for possession, however, that men who are honest with themselves might hold their hands up to having experienced at some point.
Hill’s point is, given the horrors women know about – amongst other things – online networks of “ordinary” men, such as the abusers of Gisele Pelicot, the statistics on violent porn consumption, and much more, it’s very difficult not to feel “the time for fairness and making allowances (for men) is over.”
Women live with the knowledge of men’s capacity for violence and sexual entitlement every day, though often downplay it for their own happiness. I’ll turn 44 next week. In my lifetime, woman-hatred has increased exponentially. An online world birthed new ways for the most rank old misogyny to spread. It’s all men’s job to address that reality.
The male friends worthy of my trust, time, and affection, are those who do. They know sexual consent is either enthusiastically given, or is absent, opposing Maggie Chapman’s apologia for pimps and punters.
They know fine well why putting male murderers – men of any kind – in women’s prisons is an abusive insanity.
They don’t find it remotely strange why women ask: might it be all men? They’ve asked it of themselves, seen the dark cruelty of peers, and, crucially, addressed their own porn consumption.
I value these men. Not to the level of awarding gold stars or anything. It’s the bare minimum women deserve.
I’ll leave the last word to Milli Hill, summing up a hideous week in the continuing backlash against women: “I’m tired of the constant way in which female voices of dissent at the way men are conducting themselves are met with a chorus of ‘not all men’, or are shamed and silenced … labelled as militant feminist killjoy man-hating spoil sports. Call me that this week. I don’t care. I want to spoil their sports. All of them.”
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