My column at Jezebel comes early this week: Creepy Dudes Who Can’t Take No For an Answer Are Fair Game for Mass Ridicule. Excerpts:
Was it the justified outing of a minor celebrity cheater or a cruel and dishonest act of self-promotion? The debate over model Melissa Stetten’s now infamous tweets about soap actor Brian Presley’s clumsy, malapropism-laden attempt to hit on her during a cross-country fight has gone viral. In case you missed it, the 22 year-old Stetten put her inflight WiFi to devastatingly clever use the night of June 6 as she flew on a Virgin America redeye from LA to New York, livetweeting every embarrassing detail of her married seatmate’s adulterous come-ons. By the weekend, People, Glamour and the Guardian had picked up the story, and Presley –- a 34 year-old father and star of the old ABC soap Port Charles — issued a blanket denial on his Facebook fan page of Stetten’s account of the flight…
Near the end of her tweet stream, even Stetten wonders if she’s gone to far, asking self-consciously: “Did I just ruin Brian Presley’s life via twitter?” Judging by the public reaction, many people agree she has. But by asking the question, Stetten herself is buying into the notion that because she’s a woman, she’s somehow charged with protecting a man from the consequences of his own recklessness. Even if Presley’s life is “ruined,” which seems highly unlikely, it’s a mistake to hold a woman responsible for that destruction simply because she had the audacity to tell the truth. Why should a stranger on a plane have greater respect for his reputation and his marriage vows than he himself is willing to display? Can we please stop assuming that men have a right to outsource both their self-control and their discretion to every random woman who has the outrageous audacity to be attractive in public?
Read the whole thing. For a very different take, check out Alexandra Gekas at The Frisky today: In Defense Of Brian Presley (Or Why Melissa Stetten Comes Off Like The Jerk For Live-Tweeting Their Conversation).