When I was in the eighth grade, I witnessed sexual harassment for the first time. I had just packed up my locker and joined the milling current of students headed out to the buses when I was abruptly pushed aside. One of my classmates, a short, brace-faced boy with curly hair, lunged through the gap.

With a stiff arm and a full palm, he wound up and smacked the butt of the girl walking directly in front of me, then squeezed. She whipped around, and the look in her eyes might have bored a hole in the wall at the far end of the hallway. I shrank in confusion and did my best to look innocent, but she heard the boy who had done it running off ahead and turned around.

I might have imagined it, but I think she smiled and shook her head as she turned forwards. I can’t be sure that I saw her face relax, watched her resign herself to the awful refrain of “boys will be boys.” But I know I saw her face in the moment of shock right after it happened, and I still remember that first expression of rage, panic and confusion.

I didn’t say anything at the time. The two of them knew each other and hung out in the same circles. Perhaps they were dating, I rationalized. At fourteen, I didn't have the vocabulary to describe what I had just seen. I couldn’t even be completely sure it was wrong. It had been done brazenly, in the middle of a crowd of other kids; surely, if it was wrong, the boy would have been more afraid of reprisal... right?

Thus began a long career of standing by to sexual harassment.

I have always considered myself a “good man"— respectful of boundaries, careful about consent. And for a long time, I thought that was all it took. I know victims of sexual assault, and I am privileged to know their stories. I was sympathetic, but to me, they were like survivors of some kind of natural disaster. Sexual assault was simply a fact of life and they were victims of circumstance; trying to stop it from happening would be like stopping a hurricane. Only recently did I realize this is wrong.

Speaking up against a prevailing culture is hard. If it were easy, we wouldn’t have the double standards, the safety seminars, the blue-light systems in college parking lots. I like to assume the best in other people, which generally means not assuming other men to be predators. However, that desire to see the best in people has led me to dismiss warning signs.

Had I trusted my gut, I might have done some good.

At this point, I would love to put my hand on a Bible and swear “never again," but I am only beginning to appreciate the depths to which my own complacency goes. I’m only mortal, after all, and in just the past few months, I’ve already slipped up.

This is where the deposition of Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men could mark a turning point. As more and more habitual offenders are dragged into the limelight, we are finally seeing consequences for rampant assault. The hope is that this sends a message to other offenders that a reckoning is coming for them too; but if you’re a habitual bystander like me, hopefully, you’ve also gotten the message that we’re not off the hook.

Think about all the incredulity around how widespread and obvious Weinstein’s pattern of assault was. The implication is clear; if you know, and you don’t say anything, you’re also to blame. Perhaps you don’t get prosecuted for it, but the culpability is there all the same. The most important part of the Weinstein case and others like it for bystanders like me is that we can’t have a clear conscience any longer about our role in enabling sexual assault.

So now it falls to us, those among my gender who like to think of themselves as “good men," who thought we were good simply because we would never rape anyone, to learn from the mistakes of the anonymous bystanders that allowed these high-profile assaults to continue. As they are to blame for the suffering of Weinstein’s victims, we are at fault for the actions of our peers.