Alexandra Petri: Instead of changing men’s behavior, why not just lock all women underground?

Everywhere, United States of America • Good news! The #MeToo movement has penetrated the national consciousness, and changes are being made.

“We figured there were two possible outcomes,” said Ellen Harph, a feminist activist. “The first option was that in the private sphere, men would be willing to sit down and do the difficult work of understanding why for many women, sex — even when consensual — can be kind of an unpleasant experience, and then we would all work together to guarantee a much better time for everyone involved. And in the public sphere, workplaces would just have some very simple conversations about what not to do and then everyone would continue as usual, but feeling more confident they could complain if there were problems. This just seemed like an obvious win for everyone. The second option was that men would decide it would be easier if they just arranged never to have to talk to a woman again and ignored all feedback suggesting that they were not the love gods they had previously anticipated.”

“I don’t know why I expected them to take the first option,” Ellen continued. “I think I’d been reading too many books with male characters written by women.”

“I know in my heart that I am, like, very good at sex,” said Dean Groober, an investment banker who inexplicably felt no compunction sharing his name. “That is why they call me the love table-saw!” Dean likes to boast of his sexual feats to his male friends using verbs that sound like he failed to hang a painting and then became upset (pounding, nailing, hammering, banging until she screams). When confronted with the information that literally none of his partners had found any of these moves pleasant, Dean replied, “Listen, I can tell. You can tell.” Asked how he could tell, Dean responded that he had “watched a lot of porn.”

“I have never been so uncomfortable in my life,” one of Dean’s former partners, who asked only to be identified as “Cat,” told us. “It was like watching your parents trying to copy-paste something from the Internet,” she said while eating at her favorite brunch spot. “I both wanted to help and was just curious how anyone could get something so fundamental so wrong.”

Asked why she had permitted the encounter to continue, Cat said that she “had nowhere else to be” and “at one point I turned onto my side so that I could see all the things on his bookcase and I hunted for all the letters of the alphabet in the titles, which kept me occupied most of the time, and, like, I’ve had worse evenings.”

Had she signaled her discomfort at any point? “Literally at every point,” Cat said. “I made a noise like a cat that had gotten its tail stuck in a garbage disposal.”

Everyone in Cat’s brunch group agreed that this was far from the worst experience any of them had ever had. They drank three whole bottles of wine, as usual.

At a nearby table, a group of men who refused to give their names said they were very worried about being in the dating scene in the aftermath of the Babe.net Aziz Ansari story. “It’s just a minefield,” one said. “How can you tell if your date is enjoying herself? You literally can’t. It is impossible. Women are incapable of speech, and you are not allowed to ask them! And if they do tell you, everyone knows that the words of a woman are LIES!”

“I don’t think that’s right,” one of the other men in the group timidly suggested, but then the other attendees called his sexuality into question.

In workplaces across America, a similar struggle is playing out. Gropius Pendergast, who runs a family business, says that he was worried about the impact of the movement. “We have banned all jokes and smiles from the workplace,” Gropius said, “lest they be misconstrued.”

Asked if that wasn’t overkill, Gropius shrugged and threw up his arms. “I don’t know!” he said. “I don’t know anything anymore! And I certainly cannot ask.”

Gropius explained that he hired a consultant on “female stuff” who told him the only way to nip these things in the bud was to ”‘make some minor changes to your corporate culture or, ha, I guess you could lock all the women in a windowless vault,’ so I did as she suggested! This way, no men are tempted to approach them, grab them or pen offensive poetry in their honor!” Asked to explain the lack of windows, he mumbled something about “distractions” and “better safe than sorry” and did not elaborate. We rode the elevator out of the oubliette into the Men’s Wing, where everyone was eating lobster and offering one another priceless mentoring. “This is the kind of equal workplace I think this movement was going for!” Gropius smiled. “And look how comfortable everyone is.”

Tool manufacturer Dave Grobler agrees. “We found that in our office women felt uncomfortable when men made comments on their attire,” Grobler said, “so we came up with a new set of guidelines! For what women should wear. We made these really nifty bonnets and full-body red robes with the company logo on them, and so far we have had ZERO attire-based comments from our office men, although Karen at the front desk has complained that she cannot see anything in her periphery.”

“But,” Dave continued, “it’s worth it to make everyone feel comfortable. And by everyone, I mean the men.”

Alexandra Petri writes the ComPost blog, offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day. She is the author of “A Field Guide to Awkward Silences.” Follow her on Twitter, @petridishes.