A divorced man calls every woman he's ever had romantic or sexual contact with to ask whether he's ever crossed a line. We know the shortcut on our phones to call Since last October, when a wave of Hollywood actresses began coming forward with sexual assault allegations against film mogul Harvey Weinstein, more and more women have shared their own accounts of sexual mistreatment at the hands of men in various industries.
According to an October poll by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal , this public reckoning has changed the way both men and women view these issues β nearly half of the women surveyed said they felt more encouraged to speak out about their own experiences. Here are the perspectives of six people on how the MeToo momentum has played out in their dating lives as they attempt to navigate the cloudy waters of consent.
A political science major, Ayla Bussel is well-versed in the evolving conversation around MeToo. Like many women, Bussel says she and her friends have experienced various forms of sexual violence.
But with a renewed personal dedication to activism, Bussel is hopeful about the future, provided that men β on-campus and off β start involving themselves more tenaciously in these conversations. Karen B. Would you like me to do this? For this reason, he was shocked when MeToo escalated as it did. It [took] me out of that bubble, exposed how raw and horrifying it was. He recalls asking them, "Hey, if I did something wrong, let me know. There's no feel-good example anywhere of what authentic, loving, caring, dating situations should even be like.
Breault still considers herself somewhat lucky when it comes to her experiences with men. She remembers one man who communicated about consent in a way that felt especially healthy.
