SOCIAL MEDIA CAN THROW UP SOME strange juxtapositions. Scrolling on X (formerly Twitter), I recently saw a clip in which a hairdresser asks her client’s permission to touch her hair. The message is that consent matters at all times — though one might think, if you’re already sitting in the salon, that part is already implied. It’s hard not to view scenes such as this as an example of post-#MeToo overreach. Can’t anything be taken as read these days? Is every single thing a potential assault?
This was shortly followed by a clip in which a female hostage released by Hamas after almost two months in captivity discussed her constant fear of rape. No one, we can safely assume, had been asking her whether she consented to have her hair touched. The comments that followed — many from good liberals, the very types to approve of the earlier scene — were remarkable. No one actually raped her though, did they? Wasn’t she weaponising an unfounded fear to justify
