“The World has lost its soul, and I my sex.” – Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch

The other day on social media – that glorious platform designed to elicit white hot burning, incandescent, self-righteous rage over clickbait and hashtag ground movements – I was perceived as having abandoned my sisters in favour of inferring that women could cool it a little.

When, a few days after the Harvey Weinstein sex spectacle, female Facebookers started posting #MeToo, I felt concerned that an overcorrection was occurring and men were copping it a bit. And so, I expressed as such in a social media post.

What happened next was a curious thing. Apparently, I hit a nerve and a spring of male gratitude burst forth. That was a surprise. And then what happened was a powerful, frothy geyser of female fury (and some support) exploding over the comments – and I was suddenly controversial.

I probably could have refrained from using the word “strident” when talking about certain women, but it’s a difficult, chewy, gaze-focussing word, so I bit down on a leather strap and used it anyway.

Here’s what I said:

“I’m reading the strident reports by women saying ‘hashtag me too’, who recall some edifying moment a man showed them his dick or attempted to kiss them etc. Meanwhile, I am sitting here wondering whether I will ever get a date on a Friday night, or whether men will be too scared of litigation and give up real women, settling instead for the antisocial activity of swiping right and left on Tinder.

“I have never met a person who has not had a mild-to-moderate form of unwanted sexual experience. From the moment we are born, male and female, we are in the world without a map, without a compass, and for the large part, off to fend – and fend off – for ourselves … born to parents who are just people too, who stuff up, who miss critical signs and signals, and who have experienced their own sexual narrative to varied results.

“Sex and reproduction – and even just the human race – isn’t always nice, from mythical cavewoman-dragging, to hunting outside the tribe, to being sized up on the street. It’s not ‘nice’ but it’s part of the whole rock n roll.

“The current era of fixation on people’s sexual proclivity is distasteful: who is doing what with whom, and should or shouldn’t they? It’s at once prudish and overt. Obscenity is the new normal.

“All of our negative experiences substantially influence our worldview, and the stories we tell ourselves. Freud probably started it, and Harvey Weinstein probably finished it, with the middle bit teased out by overpaid psychologists encouraging their clients to be angry and not accept the treatment they have received.

“I hate the list of sexual misconduct I have been at the receiving end of. However, I live in a chemically reactive world, and for the list of hated moments, I have a lovely list of loved moments. I wonder if people did not ever experience some snippet of misconduct, would the species go to hell in a handbasket? Because one may not be able to have one without the other. And by snippet I’m talking a slap, a grope, a leer, a kiss, an indecent exposure, a whatever – not rape, or institutionalised abuse.

“The emasculation of men, the looming shadow of litigation, the strident tones, the outrage, and the merging of the sexes into one is really ruining my prospects for Friday night.”

Well. The responses were urgently heartfelt. Women fiercely chastised me, sent me emails of abuse, and men thanked me for saying words they feel they are not to say out loud. I have never seen such a divided set of comments where males were meekly appreciative and females were out for blood.

The current version of the #metoo movement has created yet another divide, in a world increasingly divided. Men feel marginalised and a loud majority of women feel the burning spear of unforgiving righteousness. The digital castration has begun, the email eunuch is born.

There are specific events that have triggered the movement. Donald Trump’s abusive and unpunished sexism is one event: a ticking bomb if ever there was one. The death of female exploiter / liberator Hugh Hefner, a quiet affair with women’s eyes mostly dry, is another. And Harvey Weinstein, a producer who did what we always suspected is the norm in Hollywood, is the third.

But there is a nagging hypocrisy in the events that have catapulted warrior Diana to her spear. It had to be high profile American culture that really ticked everyone off and got them sitting on television news panels decrying the inner world of every single man on the planet. Until then, a woman being stoned to death, having one’s face burnt off with acid, or being burnt alive, were all National Geographic tragedies. Something to send donation support to, to sign an online petition about, or to discuss at dinner parties, or to set off and attempt to help, one small location at a time. It had to be white, American, and pop for the shining blade of justice to be seriously drawn.

The #metoo movement is one massive unmonitored, potentially damaging, public therapy session that may trigger a landslide of new business for the therapy business. It’s boom time for psychologists, and hopefully not end times for men.

The upshot? The mob stir of social media is disciplinarian and only allows for a narrow deviation from the accepted moral code, and when rebelled against the hunt can be scary.

Bickering about complex and multifaceted issues on the global and unfiltered platform of social media has reduced critical thinking and debating down to knee jerk reactions and simplified thought processes. I face castigation for imploring a less aggressive approach to complex issues of our times, and imploring for less divide. Hopefully, like all critically important issues, it will blow over next week when somebody in the USA does something else that garners gasps of indignation across every social media platform – and we collectively forget this week and focus on the new blue jeans.

Note: Original story posted on Friday, October 20, 2017 at 6.06pm has been updated and expanded on Saturday, October 21, 2017 at 12.13pm. New material begins at end of italicised section, starting from “The current version of the #metoo movement…” and continuing till very end of story.