Czech Senator Daniela Kovářová (who was not yet a senator at the time) warned many years ago against the fanatical campaign against the harassment of women and against the growing tendency to treat ordinary, mildly erotic interactions as acts of violence. She warned that the result would be that men would withdraw, leaving women free from harassment—but also without anyone willing to ask them on a date. At the time, I regarded her argument as broadly correct, though overstated. It turned out not to be overstated at all.
In recent years, it has become entirely commonplace to hear psychologists and psychiatrists report that they are seeing young men in their practices who no longer dare to initiate contact with women for fear of being accused of harassment or violence.
“In my clinical psychotherapy practice, I’ve seen so many young men who have effectively decommissioned their erotic lives out of genuine terror—terror of being accused of something horrific. They are not pursuing women in the ways that would once have been called “chivalrous” because the former “games” of dating and romance have become amorphous.,” writes Ira Israel, for example, in the highly politically correct magazine Psychology Today. The phenomenon has become so widespread that it is now routinely covered even by mainstream media.
Many of these young men fail to move beyond the ordinary shyness of youth and instead begin down the path that leads to becoming forty- or fifty-year-old virgins, with all the consequences that entails for both their own mental well-being and the society around them.
Yet none of this should come as a surprise. When you create an atmosphere of fear, you do not intimidate violent and aggressive individuals, whether native-born or migrants. They are not easily deterred. The people you do intimidate are decent young men who needed encouragement rather than fear.
That brings us to a broader principle. If we want to prevent pathological behavior, we must first establish a clear and firm boundary between what remains acceptable and what does not. If we allow that boundary to become vague and constantly shifting—as has happened with sexual violence—the result will be only a marginal reduction in genuinely violent offenses, while behavior near the boundary is effectively eradicated.
One objection is that some people gradually become bolder, pushing the limits until they eventually commit a brutal rape. Yes, that is true of certain forms of behavior. But it is not true of flirting and courtship. Successful seducers typically end up in stable, long-term relationships; they do not become isolated violent offenders.
Incidentally, the “gender experts” who are now being dismissed from the Office of the Czech Government, or who are ostentatiously submitting their resignations, are precisely the people who promoted this approach.