One of my college friends recently posted a meme on Facebook that read:

Every mother of boys should be TERRIFIED that at ANY time ANY girl can fabricate ANY story, with no proof, & RUIN her boy’s life.

And she shared her own comment on it: “Regardless of where you stand on the Kavanaugh issue, this is the reality many of us are coming to understand.” As it happens, she’s the mother of three young boys. Accordingly, she must be “TERRIFIED” that inheritors of the #MeToo movement will one day vindictively “fabricate” a story (“ANY story”) and “RUIN” life for one or more of her sons.

The background picture suggested by this meme is that the norms the#MeToo寻求落实的运动将使男子付出严重代价。这幅画背后隐含的思想——不管是不是虚伪的——很容易理解:如果社会的默认是相信那些声称自己遭到性侵犯的女性，那就会让男性面临猖獗的虚假指控，而女性(几乎不加掩饰的潜台词:像克里斯汀·布莱西·福特这样的女性)会利用这些指控来达到恶意的目的。甚至还有一个#保护男孩(#ProtectOurBoys)运动致力于推动这种想法。In short, on this picture, because of#MeToo, men in the 21stcentury will be as susceptible to false accusations of sexual assault asBlack men werein America for most of the 20thcentury.

That thought gets a lot of things wrong. First, it overestimates the likely rates of false accusations, which are at presentvery low. Second, it overestimates the gullibility of those in the future who would hear the “fabricated” accusations. Would people really believe “ANY” story from “ANY” girl at “ANY” time? According to that, people would believe incoherent accusations that go contrary to widely known facts. But most people aren’t that gullible. In the worst case, one might err on the side of believing a plausible accusation that hasn’t been proven, which is a far cry from the hysterical picture painted by the meme in question.

Those two points have been widely rehearsed in public discussion, so I don’t want to expand on them here.

Rather, I want to question the zero-sum logic of the thought behind the meme itself. That logic says that any move in the direction of trusting the accusers/victimsinevitablyincreases the possibility and likelihood offalseaccusations that do actual damage. And I want to address that zero-sum logic, because I think it is tacitly accepted not only by opponents of the changes#MeToowould bring about—but also by defenders. For the opponents, like my friend, that logic is a reason to reject#MeToo. For defenders, it is a cost worth bearing, given the much greater moral benefits that would come from a culture of trusting victims.

The point I want to advance here, however, is that the zero-sum logic is questionable and likely wrong. The norms and changes that the#MeToomovement seeks to put in place would likely leave us with social habits that make menlesslikely to be susceptible to false accusations. If so, then my friend should be happy that her boys will come of age in a post-#MeTooera.

One of the key points of #metoo and related movements is that sex requires consent and good communication generally. Boys will now grow up hearing this. Contrast that with the message I got in high school and college in the 1990s. I recall being in a nightclub in 1999 when I heard an older male advise me: “Don’t ask. Just grab her and kiss her!” I’m guessing his approach to sex was not that different: don’t talk first. But such a lack of verbal communication eventuates in sexual situations in which there hasn’t been a decisive moment of consent. And not only are such situations likelier to actuallybemoments of sexual assault; they are also situations that are more susceptible to malicious characterization than are situations in which consent has been explicitly given or denied. If there has been a decisive moment of consent, then a false accusation would have no plausibility. If there has not been a decisive moment of consent, then a male following post-#MeToonorms would not attempt a sex act. Either way, the greaterclarityof consent that will be normal in the post-#MeTooera will help stop males from doing things that evencouldbe falsely construed.

My general reasoning here is that reducing the prevalence of ambiguous situations—those in which the male doesn’t definitivelyknowhow willing a potential partner is—will not only reduce incidence of actual assault but also the possibility of false accusation. If we are concerned with false accusations (as my friend was), then we shouldwantas much clarity as possible, since lies are less likely to thrive in contexts where communication has been clear.

And the point about reducing ambiguity generalizes beyond the bedroom. A big part of what#MeTootries to do is improve professional life for women, which includes combating sexual harassment in the workplace. That involves having stricter standards of professional communication: avoid sexual jokes, flirtation, etc.unlessall parties are clearly comfortable with it, and even then proceed with caution and be prepared to back off. But a male following that norm is less likely to say or do something that could be wrongly construed as harassment. So that means that the norm that#MeToosupports for the workplace will reduce the kind of ambiguous situation that even could provide fodder for a false accusation. So this norm, in point of fact,helps男人:循规蹈矩，不容易受到诬告。(再次强调，请记住，我并不是说一开始就有可能出现虚假指控;I’m saying that following#MeToonorms will make males even less susceptible to them, however likely they may be.)

There are several other ways I think#MeToonorms are helpful to men (andwomen in positions of power(就这一点而言)超出了可能的诬告范围。Better awareness of the impact of power relations on theabilityto give consent, for example, will help keep supervisors from crossing into territory where theythinkthey’ve been given consent but haven’t been (the number of cases that that point describes is staggering).

So the general theme is clear:#MeToonorms will help males avoid being actual aggressors, help them avoid ambiguous situations that would leave them susceptible being falsely perceived as such, and help them avoid mistaking power relations for consent. All of that is good for men. So instead of besmirching the#MeToo运动，焦虑的小男孩的母亲应该拥抱它。