I do wonder, when will we see any serious engagement with the thought processes of the men and boys who really do wish they had been raped by a teacher?

(In case you’re wondering, she was redheaded, Californian - to me, exotic - and used my favourite William Blake quote unprompted.)

This isn’t just being edgy, or even mucky. There’s plenty of analysis out there about women’s rape fantasies, many desperately trying to verbal-diarrhea it into somehow being Woke and Feminist. But for men, there is far more of an impetus to want to be raped beyond finding the idea arousing.

Men in particular are told to see sex as both rite of passage and confirmation of their moral worth. And, something that’s probably related, men are in the modern milieu actively discouraged from being sexually aggressive - so, for het men who have internalised that idea, having a woman be sexually aggressive is a neat way of cutting that Gordian knot. To have her actually rape them is merely pushing that dynamic a little further (and, who knows, maybe adding an extra frisson).

How many incels, red-pillers, PUAs, and other facets of the broader sphere of dissatisfied men started out with the vague idea that women were likely to make the first move? In fact, screw these labels, how many men in general had that idea thrust upon them? If you’re knocking about this corner of Tumblr you can probably cite a few. And let’s not fuck around here, this is not some funny idea they picked up from watching too much My Little Pony, this is something that was inflicted on them - often by the media, often by well-meaning feminist authority figures - either way, it is this that has rendered them pathetic, kissless, handholdless, friendzoned incels. It is this that has made them something society at large loathes. So, and maybe this is a silly question, why not just stop? Why not just stop foisting these obviously harmful ideas on them? You don’t like what happens when they internalise these ideas - so why not just stop?

Doubtless some will want to lay the blame on the men and boys (who, helpfully, it’s acceptable to victim-blame) who were credulous enough to go along with this stuff. Hey, you know all that stuff we told you through your formative years? You know when we told you ‘if you behave in (x) way it will result in (y)’? Yeah, it was a big joke! Good luck!