How the Aziz Ansari Allegations Opened Up a New Frontier in the #MeToo Conversation

In the wake of a week when #TimesUp and #MeToo again dominated headlines—starting at the Golden Globes and continuing with allegations against James Franco—a new frontier in the conversation around sexual consent and coercion opened up over the weekend following unsettling allegations concerning actor and comedian Aziz Ansari.

In a report posted January 13 on Babe.net, a woman—who gave her story under the pseudonym "Grace"—shared that she went out on a date with Ansari in September 2017. When they returned to Ansari's apartment after dinner, Grace says things "escalated" quickly, to the point where she felt deeply uncomfortable. According to the Babe story, "when Ansari told her he was going to grab a condom within minutes of their first kiss ... [she] said something like, ‘Whoa, let’s relax for a sec, let’s chill.’” Grace says even though Ansari seemed to at first understand and acknowledge her discomfort, she says he continued to pressure her into hooking up by following her around the apartment as she moved out of his way, asking her several times when he could have sex with her, and still making sexual advances even after she expressed discomfort. She finally insisted on leaving.

Ansari responded to the allegations late Sunday night, effectively confirming the series of events Grace told. Ansari said when he received the text message from Grace, he was "surprised and concerned" that what he perceived as "by all indications...completely consensual" sexual activity "was not the case for her." He added that "I took her words to heart and responded privately after taking the time to process what she had said." (You can read Ansari's full response here.)

Babe editor Amanda Ross also told Glamour.com about the process of making sure the published account was as accurate as possible: "There was a ton of fact-checking that went into this story," she said. "We were really careful to not take either side at face value: We couldn’t dismiss this girl because we loved Aziz, nor could we just immediately assume she was telling the truth because we want to believe women. We conducted lots of interviews, reviewed texts (not just screenshots but the actual, saved text threads) and made sure the numbers were verified. Every possible fact that could be checked was checked — and it all checked out."

Once published, Grace's allegations—and his response—sparked a heated conversation on social media and online, with some women seeing the allegations as a new, necessary discussion around consent, and others seeing the whole dust-up as overwrought—or worse, an unfair character assassination of Ansari, who has won accolades (including a recent Golden Globe award) for his show, Master of None. Some are even saying that claiming this type of experience as assault justifies calling the #MeToo movement a witch hunt and that it undercuts the stories of women who have been raped or experienced “more serious” sexual misconduct.

A piece titled "The Humiliation of Aziz Ansari" published by The Atlantic took this critical view one step further, comparing Grace's approaching a website with her allegations to revenge porn. The writer of the piece, Caitlin Flanagan, stressed that this kind of behavior was not only normal but expected when she was a young adult—an odd twist on the defense Harvey Weinstein actually used in the wake of the allegations against him last fall.

Flanagan also takes some damning shots at Grace and the journalist who told her story, saying "Together, the two women may have destroyed Ansari’s career, which is now the punishment for every kind of male sexual misconduct, from the grotesque to the disappointing.” She goes on to make an even more generalized attack on the young women most prominently making noise in this #MeToo moment:

"Apparently there is a whole country full of young women who don’t know how to call a cab, and who have spent a lot of time picking out pretty outfits for dates they hoped would be nights to remember. They’re angry and temporarily powerful and last night they destroyed a man who didn’t deserve it."

On Ross' part, she says that most of the critiques accusing the Babe piece of falling under the "revenge category" are from "mostly men." "It seems like they’re doing it to justify their own actions," she told Glamour.com. "We’ve gotten some flack for including the gory details, but I think they need to be out there. I can’t even tell you how many tweets and comments we’ve seen from girls saying 'I’ve been Grace. I am Grace.'"

For many women, the description of the interaction was a frustratingly familiar one: a date that turns awkward; a sexual encounter that one party felt was coercive and the other party felt was consensual. It's one of the reasons that Grace's story—and Ansari's response—has ignited such a frenzied debate. Sure, this kind of behavior is the kind of thing that many women have dealt with—and, in many cases, created systems of managing—but does that make it OK? Writer Arnesa Buljusmic-Kustura captured the divide thusly on Twitter: "I saw someone tweet something like 'if what Aziz Ansari did was sexual assault then every woman I know has been sexually assaulted' and like yeah, actually."

This experience sounds normal because it is a common experience for so many women. But the fact that it is common is really an example of how much we have normalized these situations—often putting the responsibility on women to get themselves out of (or avoid) uncomfortable situations, instead of making others accountable for their pushy, coercive behavior.

Let's be clear: The point of the #MeToo movement is not to destroy men, but to create a safe space for women to share their experiences of sexual misconduct and hopefully give validation to the scores of other women who have been grappling with similar situations that have haunted them. While some people may have read this woman's account and thought, "That's not assault," others have argued—justifiably—that this is, in fact, exactly what being taken advantage of sexually feels like. And no matter what, our default posture should be to believe and listen to these women.

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