David Brooks wrote about sexual misconduct, forcing Yas to do the same, here. But he doesn't really want to get into it.
But he sort of does want to get into it:
I might be interested in asking why it is that the current crop of stories of men abusing women fall so neatly into two categories, those involving men wielding immense political or financial power from Dominique Strauss-Kahn (a socialist, but that didn't stop me from denouncing him) through Harvey Weinstein (a noted supporter of liberal causes, but I'm not impressed) to Roger Ailes and President Trump, and those involving men who tell jokes for a living. With the peculiar overlap case of the man who used to tell jokes for a living and later became a Senator from Minnesota. What's up with that?
My reply:
The reason for the categories of men who get exposed?
Media ethics.
Reporters are not inclined to have views about what is proper behavior. Even if they were so inclined, to express it is against the rules. Political reporters claim to be experts in politics and proudly announce that they don't vote. If that makes sense to you, then it's obvious that sex itself is not news.
What is news?
Hypocricy.
So the categories that get exposed are those that men that we expect to be:
A. Not rapists, and
B. Honest about sex.
Category A excludes a lot of Republicans, including Trump. Category B is basically the definition of comedy.
ETA: Roger Ailes and Blake Farenthold in Texas show that if you are an elected official or in media, you are expected to not be rapey, even if you’re a Republican.
