Patrick Dele Cole

HARVEY Weinstein has denied all nonconsensual sex. But he seems to be accused of “sexual assault and inappropriate sexual behaviour”. What are we talking about? And he is ostracised not really for making love or having sex with these accusers but for masturbating in front of some, wearing a bathrobe, etc.

Again we reach the height of  hypocrisy. One woman said that Harvey Weinstein assaulted her  three times – 2010, 2011, and 2013 in her own house!! Did he invite himself to her house? If her experience was bad in 2010, why did she go to see him at the scene of the crime one year after?

Only one African American woman has accused Harvey. Was he discriminating? It is no wonder, so few African Americans get top jobs!!

One Jew, one black, Bill Cosby have been the focus of this power of persecution that women now have over men which have left otherwise sensible people quaking in their boots.

Sex

It is now so embarrassing that every A-list actress must claim to have been molested by Weinstein otherwise it is impossible to explain any actress’ success. Perhaps, there are other Weinsteins in the closet to come out. But a necessary part of any actress’ CV must now include how these starry-eyed young girls and women came to Hollywood and had the couch treatment  as part of a rite of passage to success.

One thing is clear. Harvey Weinstein delivered on his promise that is why so many elite stars are queuing with allegations. Will all these actresses return the money and fame which followed their encounter with Mr. Weinstein on the couch?

What about the  timing and the repercussions? It seemed so highly orchestrated that there was no rhyme or reason following the accusations. The reaction was precipitous, swift and violent; I suppose the trauma suffered by the victims of such attacks demand summary judgment in their favour.

The reaction says more about what women and men regard now as unacceptable behaviour than the gravity of these offenses. Even men, after having slept with a woman sometimes regret doing so. But he does not pursue an orchestrated vendetta against the subject of his indiscretion.

I am told that asking a woman to shop with you is a power game. Any sensible person who lives in a city knows what part of that city you do not go at night. The ladies of Hollywood, to quote President Trump, “knew exactly what they were doing when they went to Hollywood”.

The place was not a holy sacristy: it was a cesspool of unmitigated sex, drugs and any outrageous behaviour that pushed the borders. The journalists who are now gleefully exposing Weinstein and Cosby knew exactly what was happening, why did they not write it then and now devote inordinate time and space to name and shame sexual “predators”.

Journalism itself is a place of hedonism and low sexual morals, deviant behaviour which they have now pushed the public to accept lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) – as legitimate relations.

Yet, they live in the United States where the illegal immigrant is subjected to precisely the same routine as the stars. If we are to go back to history to deal with inappropriate sexual behaviour, how many white men took  advantage of black women who worked for them? In many cases, they had their babies – not one but several. It had started over 500 years and still continues today.

How do we recompense these? There was no Netflix or the Oscar Academy or the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, BAFTA, to punish men who live on a daily basis with such sexual power over black or immigrant women. This same power relationship exists in several professions to-day: – Nurses and doctors, captains and air attendants, men and women who work in radio/television and communication networks, banking and financial services, etc.

In Nigeria, I wish the women would grasp this nettle and expose their unscrupulous bosses, Governors, Presidents, Ministers, Commissioners, Permanent Secretaries, Directors, etc. Few men would not lose their jobs if that was the punishment to be meted out to irresponsible bosses who see every skirt as a lawful prize

In Europe today, the women are so aggressive they do the chasing, men run away.  The young ones get drunk and approach even old Biddies with inappropriate behaviour or sexual assault. A wise man quietly checks that his under pant is in place or flees for dear life: if you don’t and the woman decides that you were aggressor – that is when you realise that justice is not as blind as presumed if colour comes into it.

I realise that sexual liberation has produced this hybrid of androgynous beings – men marrying men, women marrying women, adopting children in these circumstances. Some people who are clearly men or clearly women do not want to be so classified; some toilets in Europe and the US do not contain male/female only; some are marked with the symbol for those who believe they are trapped in the wrong body.

To tell a woman these days that she is beautiful or she should not be emotional, or her dress is nice may be construed as inappropriate sexual behaviour. When you are in the underground in London during rush hours the only place you can keep your hand while standing is up on the overhead rails.

An itch in your boom and you want to scratch and turn into a woman in a packed train next to you – be careful – you have committed inappropriate  sexual behaviour. But how about the woman who because, of the crush in the train have her breast in your chest or behind you?

Indeed, now men have to have their videos on and their office doors open when a woman walks in because he is not sure what she might accuse him of.

It is interesting that in all the accusations of inappropriate behaviour or sexual harassment – there is no mention of the unfaithfulness of Weinstein or indeed of anybody else – it is as if the power of women to bring top people down is now more important than the earlier perception of what a terrible thing it is to be unfaithful to a spouse.

President Clinton was partly saved by the admitted and open anger of Hillary Clinton. But she forgave him.

Are there two concepts of wrongdoing? In President Clinton’s case, the whole sordid details of his sexual peccadillos are fully reported seriatim in the Special Investigator Robert Stark’s report. For people who want that kind of sexual titillation for powerful men and manipulative women, they should see the Stark report for literal scintillating pornography at that high level in Government.

But President Clinton was exposed, he apologized, was impeached but he was freed. Today, you are guilty before you are proved innocent.

A lady in England complained that a minister put his hand on her knee for seconds at a lunch 30 years ago. The Minister lost his job. Another minister, the deputy PM, was accused of a similar indiscretion which he denies, but pornography was found on his laptop – he should now also leave office.

Amazon women are complaining. In the US – Judge Moore has over 9 women accusers, all of which he denied, despite undisguised clear evidence produced by the women. His wife says it does not matter; he should stand the election for the Senate!!

All this is an age where homosexuality is legal and two men or two lesbian women can marry legally and even adopt children.

In Nigeria, women are as aggressive as their European counterpart but so far they have not started naming names. But when a woman wants something from you – a job, an account, an introduction etc. you should hear what they promise – they are ready for anything.

In most cases, nothing really happens. But some sick women both here and Europe would make up stories of their sexual advances sometimes for sadistic reasons, sometimes for the hell of it, most times for the publicity. As President Clinton said of Monica Wilensky – “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

The place where sexual exploitation in Nigeria seem rife are in businesses, banks, financial services, universities, etc. a young woman is desperate for admission to the university and that desperation is exploited with callous zeal by those who control the admission process.

On getting into the University her travails assume a bigger course: her lecturer wants either money or sexual favours. She cannot report them because she would lose her position even where she has proof of recordings or videos of the lecturer’s philandering. At the end of her course, she now needs to pass out of the university, they tell her that there are subjects she had not sat for or her papers are missing.

This time it is the Academic Registrar and the staff who want money or sex. She gets to NYSC and has to be posted somewhere, the posting officers of the military are at it asking for the same things. She finishes the Youth Service and then she finds out that all what she had suffered was child’s play. She gets a job in a bank, insurance or any company – usually in marketing where her employers set impossibly high standards for her to meet.

A bank says to its staff that by next week they must get N7 billion in deposits. She rallies herself up again and starts making the rounds, hopeless she is willing to play ball. In the process, she becomes the mistress of some married man, or HR boss or Accounts Director of a business or members of the National Assembly or Governors.

But this is only half her story. Her parents are on her to help them and their other siblings and the only way to get the money is to sleep around or tell her rich boyfriend some stories. She would be unable to get her job except she has a flat and a car.

To keep up appearances she tells men so many lies and assumes so many personalities that Nollywood actresses are no match for her. She tells the man that her mother has died or is sick with some horrible disease – diabetes, tuberculosis, heart failure etc. if she is able to wean some money from some people, she tells them 6 or 7 months later that her mother has died.

“But last year you told me your mother had died” She replies “Yes, that was so but the person who died last year was my father’s first wife whom we all called mama; but the person now in the mortuary is her birth mother”. If you know her for a further 3-6 months more calamities fall on her, food, car repairs etc. then she tells you that her other mother just died, killed by one of the father’s brothers, the police are asking for this and that. Of course, stories of continuous calamities and obligations follow, she has typhoid and malaria, her younger sister or brother has no school fees and so on

Finally, let me tell you what happened at a University. The story is told of a young woman at the university who had a sex crazy teacher who would not allow the girls rest. This young lady had to do half of a module which was compulsory for her degree.

In year one he started pestering her and she refused. He would not release her result or even failed her, although she passed the higher levels of this module in year 2, 3, 4. But she could not pass half of a year one module.

The lady reported to the father who went to the University. Although he knew the vice chancellor and the Head of Department, he did not go to them because he wanted to know the basis of his daughter’s problem.

As he got to the department, the lecturer had heard the news that he was around. The lecturer escaped by jumping through the window of the office. There is no need to recount how this matter was settled through the intervention of the Head of Department and the Vice Chancellor. But why should their intervention wait for nearly four years?