Is it okay to proposition a woman for sex after drinks? To initiate a workplace romance? To behave like a Casanova and bed as many partners as possible under the catchall excuse that you’re just “playing the field”? Twenty years ago those questions would have elicited a resounding “Yes! What are you, some sort of neo-Puritan?” Today the answers aren’t so clear. I keep thinking we’ve reached the eye of the #MeToo storm, only for another powerful man to be felled by lurid accusations and another think piece to spot fresh perils of untrammeled male sexuality. The topography of our sexual landscape is changing, with little indication of what it will look like once the winds have died down.
It’s difficult to pinpoint when the storm began brewing, when our culture realized its consensus on sex had become untenable. My theory is what I like to call the “Entourage Moment.” Entourage is a since-ended HBO show that followed four witless orangutans, one of whom manages to make it big in Hollywood and the rest of whom spend their time festering like boils on his good fortune. It’s an idiot’s candy land of easy women, consequence-free hedonism, and sub-grunting male gibberish; it’s also annoyingly addictive, especially when you’re home with a high fever. Entourage debuted in 2004 to adulation; by the time the franchise movie was released in 2015, it had become one of the culture’s spikiest pincushions. Vinnie and his bros were scumbags, the critics tardily admitted, misogynists who regarded most women as sexual furniture, a viewpoint the show validated with its relentlessly amoral male gaze.
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