For some people, the #MeToo movement has left them with a sense of shock: How could these implicated men have crossed such seemingly obvious lines without thinking there would be repercussions?
Well, some of that mystery might be removed simply by looking at the popular story lines of porn, which in many cases forms a large part of young people’s education about sex.
In fact, the scenarios acted out in most widely available porn are so virtually indistinguishable from the stories surfacing through the #MeToo movement that men given descriptions of them in a new video by Be Frank couldn’t tell them apart.
Having a think: A group of men are given a number of scenarios and asked to guess whether the story is from porn or from the #MeToo movement
Picking and choosing: The men are made to read the cards and make their guesses, with this man assuming that a story of a plumber seducing a customer must be from porn
The clip from the new YouTube channel features a group of men being given a series of story lines written out on cards and challenged to guess: Porn or #MeToo.
Each of the stories are told on the cards from the woman’s point of view and contain tales based in various environments but with all ending in sex.
One man in the video reads from a card: ‘I was masturbating and my brother’s friend walks in. Umm… awkward. He says I look hot and asks if I need a hand. We end up having sex.’
The man thinks for a moment after reading, ultimately deciding that it sounds like ‘a porn situation to me.’
A little far: As the video progresses, the scenarios appear to get darker, some without explicit consent being given by the women
Another man reads a story about a woman being propositioned by her plumber and all the interviewees agree that it too sounds like porn.
‘I think I’ve seen that porno,’ remarks one of the guys.
But then the scenarios take a darker turn, with one describing a young woman coming home late from a party and her step-father insisting he needed to ‘punish’ her by having sex with her.
The man reading the card winces as he gets to the end of the story, saying: ‘That may be a #MeToo story… that’s kind of f***ed up.’
The next story sees a woman sleeping in her dorm room set upon by two strangers coming in and having sex with her, and her not saying a word.
No bones about it: The men appear in agreement that some of the story lines feature men crossing the line – but then learn that all of them are from porn
Taken aback: One of the interviewees is seen grimacing as he reads one of the scenarios
The interviewee reading the card immediately feels that the scenario ‘is sexual assault,’ because ‘there’s nothing even funny about that.’
Eventually, a number of the men appear to realize that each and every one of the story lines is from porn, with not a #MeToo tale in sight.
The video ends with a summary of the core problem with porn that made the challenge so tough, offering the statistic: ‘88.2 per cent of porn scenes contain some form of physical aggression against women.’
The new Be Frank channel was created by Damayanti Dipayana and Camilla Borel-Rinkes, who told Huffington Post that they are hoping their work helps ‘men to be part of the conversation and the solution.’