I'm sure everyone has now heard the leak takes of GOP candidate Donald Trump talking about sexually assaulting women. Since this happened a myriad of defenses have come up. People denying he actually did anything so what he said did not matter, this was just "locker room talk" between buddies, he was younger (fifty-nine years old) and did not know better, and that all men talk this way. Somehow people are accepting men as just animals that have no self control or moral compass, that men just have to have women. Obviously this is horribly dangerous for women and rape culture 101. But, there is another narrative which we need to also talk about: How horribly degrading this is towards men.

Men are humans meaning they have human emotions, and lust is one it would be silly to deny that. But that does not mean they lack self control or empathy or respect or boundaries. It is insulting to them as humans to act like they do. All this view of men does is bind people to notions of toxic masculinity. It degrades men back to their animal instincts and strips them of humanity. Not to mention that it completely ignores other sexuality since a "real" man has to have a women. What does that teach our sons? That they have to have sex, regardless of if they want to with that person or not because men have sex. That they don't have to ask first but just take whatever they want.That if they do not feel this way something is wrong with them. We are not even going to get into how it supports this ludicrous idea that men cannot get assaulted. I do not accept any of these things as true about men, and most men do not either.

Michelle Obama addressed this concern in her speech. That the defenses used for Trump's sexual assault and harassment of women is degrading towards men. This normalization, and almost expectation, of sexual assault is disgusting. She also addressed the need for men to speak out about this. To talk about how they too feel disgusted by this behavior. We do need that, but we also need a whole lot more.

One thing we need to do is have mandatory consent training in all schools. We need to stop allowing rape culture to occur. It does not matter what the person was wearing, how drunk they were, where they were at, how they were dancing, if that person cannot or does not say "yes", then the answer is no. We have to hold everyone to that same standard. We also cannot allow lewd comments about anyone to occur, especially when they are aimed to make people uncomfortable. One example would be a candidate telling a reporter that she would "Look good on her knees". Then people allowing that because he was "just being a man".

We need to not allow these kind of actions to continue. It is dangerous to women and it is insulting to all men.