THE SEXUAL PREDATOR STORM

      The hurricane of accusations against famous men, including some much-admired figures from entertainment and politics, gives the impression that most men are hiding histories of molestation, harassment, pedophilia, or even rape. The effect this windstorm is to paint the majority of  men as brutal and bestial. I have lived for 78 years and I have never known a friend or acquaintance whom I would suspect of any such behavior.

Let us start with my father. Perhaps he was better than most men, but he was the first man I ever knew and he was as humane and decent a man as this world produces. I have tried throughout my life to pattern myself after my father, but he was too kind, loving, honest, and faithful a man to copy. I have three brothers, and each of them, in his own way, has modeled his life after my father. It is beyond human credibility to imagine that any of them would ever be a sexual predator.

Over the decades of my life as an attorney I have made many friends drawn from the law firms and professional ranks of New York, Connecticut, and Ohio. Sure I have heard locker-room talk, but never the kind admitted to by Donald Trump on Access Hollywood. No friend or acquaintance I have ever known has bragged of non-consensual sex with a woman, especially someone underage. I have never heard a friend or acquaintance speak of sexual interest in someone underage. The only such confessions I have ever heard have been by criminal defendants.

I feel a great deal of respect and admiration for those brave women who have come forward to expose the male predators who apply their power to debase and humiliate innocent female victims. Those predatory entertainers should all be fired and the politicians should resign or be impeached. Many of such men should go to jail.

It is a matter of concern, however, that some men are caught-up in the whirlwind for the most minor offenses. I am thinking particularly of former president George H.W. Bush. The minor pats, in front of his wife, by an old man in a wheelchair, should not be the cause of an outcry. His distinctive leadership of this country should earn him a little slack.

 I go back to the life of my late beloved father. He once phoned me at the office, and while talking to the receptionist he called her “Dear.” She rebuked him for using that term and told this good and gentle old man that he was a “male chauvinist pig.” My father was not used to being spoken to in this manner and was quite shaken by it. He apologized to the receptionist. The next time I saw him he was in tears speaking of the rebuke. He was not a man of the modern world, and did not understand that there were new rules of discourse. Even now that I am an old man, my heart is heavy thinking about that incident.

I feel it is important that we remember that not all men are pigs. Most men, as they struggle through this harsh world, try to behave decently. We must be careful not to let good honest men like George H.W. Bush and my father be swept-up in this tempest of accusation.