There is one way out of this, which is to give genuine democracy a try (arroding to the original meaning of the word, not its misuse over the last couplf of hundred years). Wherever it’s tried around the world, which has been happening increasingly over the last 20 years, it is incredibly successful. It even enabled the most Catholic country in the world – the Republic of Ireland – to find a way to reduce the numbers of deaths and injuries resulting from their outlawing of abortion under any circumstances in 1983.

Because I have one which maybe could be called a “tangled knot” although I’m not sure that’s the best description. It’s when two or more other problems produce a new emergent issue, like the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Thanks for explaining your point of view. I adjusted the language of each section to refer to people engaging in each behavior based on the category the question itself asked them about, rather than calling them “perpetrators,” which I agree with you doesn’t apply to all the cases here.

The reason I am upset is that I see a (probably ideologically motivated) move in public discussion to dilute the meaning of certain sex crime related words more and more. Which does not serve anyone, least of all the victims of real cases. There are people equating the case of a horny 17 year old male student having sex with their female teacher out of his own will with a seedy man snatching a girl from the street into his van and forcing himself upon her, by insisting that both cases should be called rape. While the prior case should arguably be punished as well, there is just no way these two cases do even remotely the same level of harm, so these should have different levels of punishment as well as different terms for them.
Another example is, whereas the word “harassment” inherently means something repeated and incessant, we are now at a point where should a guy invite an attractive female colleague to a coffee after work even a single time, there is bound to be a guy who steps in saying “Hey, that’s sexual harassment, pal!”. Creating an HR case out of a situation where a woman can just plainly say no of her own accord and settle it with that, is also disempowering to women.

People are lumping up non-offences and mild annoyances with actually serious and heinous crimes by insisting to use the same terms on all of these and I find this deeply problematic.
Sex crimes have severe punishments as it should be, and also further consequences to the perpetrators career and life. That is why we should not light-heartedly keep on including broader and broader ranges of actions into this serious category.
You started out your article foreshadowing serious crimes and giving trigger warnings. What I see is women (or as you call them, female perpetrators) jokingly slapping some of their male acquaintances ass, people name-calling each other in a fight, cat-calling (which could be an annoyance, sure), people messing around a single time in a somewhat sexual way etc. Should all these people be treated as sex offenders?

I can see how someone who perpetrates any kind of action can technically be called a perpetrator and the party suffering any kind of annoyance technically a victim. But due to the sensitivity of the issue and the seriousness of these accusations, I think there ought to be a more nuanced terminology.

Once there was a sexual revolution where we tore down a lot of the taboos concerning sexuality, leading to a freer and happier society. Now we seem to be building sexual taboos up again, as anyone daring to say something sexual is at risk of being called a perpetrator.

Hi Bodnar, thanks for the feedback. I’m sorry to hear my writing upset you. What did I say that you felt was “condemn[ing] all the people in these mostly mild and harmless examples as perpetrators”? I’ve updated the wording in the essay to make it clear that not all of these behaviors people report are bad – indeed, some are very, very bad whereas others are not bad and others are somewhere in between. It really depends on the behavior and the situation. They are best thought of as what examples people report having engaged in when asked about each of these categories.

You unironically and without nuance condemn all the people in these mostly mild and harmless examples as perpetrators. Even with that example where there was a back and forth and the feeling was mutual. There is already a loneliness epidemic out there and people like you are making it worse by prudishly punishing any form of sexual expression.

Well, have fun restoring Victorian morality. I hope you will be SAFE from any female “perpetrators” ever making an unsolicited compliment on your body.