Why Powerful Men Prey

There’s an obvious explanation for the pervasive culture of predatory sexual behavior brought to light by #metoo, but we’re too busy medicating the symptoms of the sickness to address its cause.

When we ask questions like “how was Harvey Weinstein able to get away with assaulting so many women for so long?” or “how was Donald Trump elected president, despite bragging about being a serial sex offender?” we avoid owning up to our shared complicity in a culture of sexual predation.

For centuries, young women have been raised on fairytales of beautiful, helpless princesses being rescued by heroic princes. The implied aphorism is that if a girl is beautiful enough, charming enough and kind enough, she’ll get to marry the most eligible bachelor in the whole kingdom — an appealing fantasy, compared to the mundane reality of many real world marriages.

The reason these stories don’t resonate with boys is that there is a much more appealing fantasy, seemingly playing out in the real world. From a boy’s perspective, in the fairytales, if a prince is handsome enough, noble enough and heroic enough, he gets to marry the most beautiful princess. But apparently, in the real world, if you’re rich enough, famous enough and powerful enough, you get to fuck all the beautiful princesses.

At a primal level, all (straight) men want to fuck all (attractive) women.

Yes, that’s a provocative statement that may seem at odds with the sophistication we’ve achieved as a species — and yet its truth is undeniable. This drive is encoded in our DNA as an evolved trait to maximize the efficiency of what Darwin dubbed survival of the fittest. In prehistoric times, it amplified the genetic legacy of the most successful members of each generation. It’s quite likely that we would not have got to where we are as a species, without it. But now that we’re here, it’s impeding further progress.

We need to own up to these primitive tendencies in order to control them. Fundamentally, the social compact that underpins civilization is an agreement to suppress our basest urges in return for others doing the same. And, with the very fabric of human society at stake, it’s fortunate that most people are able to keep themselves in check. In the case of the urge to kill, it’s pretty clear-cut and we generally agree not to kill each other, most of the time.

But when it comes to sex, it’s not so black and white. Sex, at its best, is a mutually enjoyable, entirely beneficial activity. At its worst, sex is a violent and utterly destructive desecration of one person by another.

The crucial caveat is that almost all of the “grey area” in between is also one kind or other of sexual assault.

The idea that men can’t be expected to control their sexual urges underscores most well-intentioned instances of victim-blaming. If you buy into the notion that men are powerless in the face of female sexuality, then logically it must fall to women to moderate their own behavior and attire, lest they force some poor, innocent man to rape them.

That is, of course, absurd. All men are perfectly capable of the minimal restraint necessary to not commit rape. Unfortunately, we’ve recently learnt that certain men are able to operate in the aforementioned “grey area”, with a clear conscience. Apparently they’ve been able to convince themselves that because they aren’t using physical violence or overt threats against their victims, it is somehow consensual. But the power imbalance is, in and of itself, an implied threat that any refusal will have consequences.

The most revealing part of Donald Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood boast was his choice of verb: “when you’re a star they let you do it.” With that one word he acknowledged that his actions were unwelcome assaults; ones that his fame and power enabled him to commit. Similarly, he bragged to Howard Stern about barging into the changing rooms at the Miss Universe pageant to see the contestants naked. In his mind, it was a badge of honor to have seen these beautiful women naked and their protestations only served to prove the value of the prize. The way he has treated his wives and his daughter, Ivanka, reinforces the contention that he considers women to be little more than trophies for men.

Unattractive men are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to attract attractive women. Arguably, Trump, Weinstein and many of the other rich, powerful and famous sexual predators we’ve learned about recently are rich, powerful and famous in large part because they were motivated by the belief that being rich, powerful and famous would make women want them. But in the meantime, what women want continues to evolve and such men are increasingly unattractive.

Being powerful doesn’t make you a sexual predator.

But being male does give you the instinctive impulses of a sexual predator. Being raised in a patriarchal culture that glorifies masculinity and male sexual prowess, nurtures those natural predatory instincts and being taught that women are attracted to wealth, fame and power instills a sense of entitlement in men who go on to attain those credentials.

The solution to all of this is very simple and it mostly comes down to comprehensive sex education. Teens should be taught how the full spectrum of healthy sexual relationships function. They need to learn about respect, consent and boundaries and to fully understand the consequences for all parties in unwanted sexual advances. We need to keep raising women up to be on an equal footing with men in all areas of life.

We’re never going to stop men from wanting to have sex with people who aren’t interested, but we must do everything in our power to make them less likely to act on those impulses. Liberals and entertainers in the US are applying a zero tolerance policy to abusers in their own tribe, while conservatives and evangelicals still seem willing to turn a blind eye to theirs.