Desire and Guilt

The good thing about the #metoo movement is that it has forced us to reexamine our views on the dynamics of male-female interaction in a sexual setting--shine a torch into the bedroom, so to speak. Topics that would have been previously considered personal, behaviours that were previously acceptable, are up for discussion and dissection now. Some of the stories that have come out have been of unambiguously predatory behaviour, some have been about behaviour that involved mind games and manipulation. But, patriarchy is far more complicated than men exploiting women, although that is a big part of it.  There are instances where women can exploit men, inadvertently or deliberately. Deliberate cases, such as false complaints of sexual assault are a very rare, according to the data, and are of little intellectual interest to me. It is the second category that piques my interest.
I read a column today abut how incredibly difficult it is for women to own their sexual desires, to be the pursuers, and not always the pursued. So, in some cases where the woman initiates sexual contact, guilt bubbles up in the aftermath of the encounter and the encounter is recast in her mind as one that she hadn't enthusiastically consented to.
I remember having a discussion with a female friend about this. She had brought up a similar issue but I had dismissed it as victim-blaming the woman. I now see that she may have had a point there. It is easy to see men as predators and women as the prey because that is so often the case. But, a true revolution in gender relation would involve going beyond the black and white cases and deep into the realm of the grey.