Poor Leonardo DiCaprio. Megastar gazillionaire he may be, but what good is any of that if the world won’t, in today’s parlance, accept his authentic self? And in DiCaprio’s case, that self is an indefatigable shagger of models under the age of 25. DiCaprio’s habit of breaking up with his girlfriends before they reach their mid-twenties, even after he long ago saw his own mid-forties disappear in the rear-view mirror, has become a tabloid joke. Ha-ha, Leo would rather go down with the Titanic than touch a decrepit hag of 30!
But last week the “ha” changed to “ew” when it was reported that the 48-year-old’s latest girlfriend, Eden Polani, is a model (of course) and all of 19 years old. “She wasn’t even born when Titanic was released!” gasped the internet. People, she wasn’t even born when Catch Me If You Can was released. The reaction was so resoundingly negative that DiCaprio’s people released a statement that the two were not — to use that great American euphemism — dating, although they declined to comment if they’d ever “dated”.
If you want an illustration of how dramatically sexual politics has changed in recent years, then just look at the travails of DiCaprio. Lauren Bacall was 19 when she met 44-year-old Humphrey Bogart on the set of To Have and Have Not, and the only person who was bothered by that was the film’s 48-year-old director, Howard Hawks — because he’d had his eye on Bacall, too.
This has all changed now, as the #MeToo movement brought a greater understanding of power abuse, coercion, grooming and exploitation. Many women, me included, have re-evaluated their past and marvelled at what they once accepted as normal or just inevitable. As a result, a successful man in his late forties who would have once been grinningly saluted as a playa for dating a teenage model now just looks sleazy and weird.
This has been a genuine sea change, and one only needs to look at, for example, the still jaw-droppingly low conviction rates for rape to understand why so many women feel empowered by it, now able to rely on collective public attitudes where the legal system has for so long failed them.
But with this kind of social revolution there is always a risk of overcorrection, and we are starting to see the effects of that. In The Sunday Times last weekend the psychotherapist Julie Lynn-Evans talked about the number of schoolboys she was seeing who were traumatised and even suicidal after being accused of predatory behaviour because they had put “a hand on a bosom” while “slightly drunk”. Such accusations largely happen online, for instance on the Whisper app and the site Everyone’s Invited, where they can be posted anonymously. Sandra Paul, a defence lawyer, said she had worked with dozens of families of boys who had been accused: “Even if the allegations are not proven, the boy usually has to move school or college to try to start again. He will have been ostracised by his peers and is guilty by association.”
No doubt some of those boys have done bad things and deserve the consequences. But many have simply been caught in a web of childish awkwardness on their side and nervy confusion on the girl’s. They are the first post-#MeToo generation, having to navigate new mores that few adults understand either. When does making a move become an unwanted advance? Is asking for consent thoughtful or presumptuous? Add alcohol, inexperience and teenage hormones to the mix and you have a blazing fire of misunderstandings. Some will argue these boys are justified collateral damage, that a few innocents being embarrassed is small beer compared with how often true guilt has gone unpunished. And it is true that damning by allegation will be the only way some girls and women get justice, no question. But it’s still unfair.
This kind of public shaming has shifted power balances. Also last weekend the actor Armie Hammer gave an interview to the online newsletter Airmail. Now, Hammer is not a figure who attracts sympathy in the way, say, a suicidal schoolboy does, given he comes from a wildly wealthy family and was, until recently, a successful actor. But two years ago he became a global joke when several women claimed he got off on sharing cannibalism fantasies. Rape allegations followed, and his career vanished.
Yet the rape allegations were dubious at best, at least one of his accusers had never even met him and the kinky fantasies were, according to the evidence presented in the Airmail piece, shared consensually. In the interview Hammer acknowledges “the power dynamics were off” in his relationships with women, because he was a rich celebrity and they were unknowns. But if his reputation could be totalled by shaky accusations, this redistribution of power looks less like justice and more like a modern version of The Crucible.
Again, some will argue this doesn’t matter: wronged women will always far outnumber the wronged men. But the recent positive changes can be sustained only if we acknowledge that there has been an overcorrection, and some have suffered because of it, and we need a balance. It means listening to allegations but not confusing them with proof. And it also means never forgetting that fortysomething men who date teenagers should be treated how Rose treated Jack in a movie I’m old enough to remember: they should be pushed into the sea.
сегодня увидела. говорила, что всё везде работает отлично и сглазила( с хрома на телефоне и компе сайт пока что работает исправно. но у меня уже начинается паника... нужно что-то делать и спасать сайт...
Боюсь дышать и спугнуть,но при втором заходе появилась сетка сайта!!!Спасибо на всякий случай и тьфу тьфу тьфку,Штоб не пропало 
