Emily Crockett explains this in detail at Vox for all the “just locker-room banter” and “it’s just harmless flirting” Trumpists who want voters to ignore Donald Trump’s own words about how he “just grabs” women he’s attracted to whenever he feels like it: Trump surrogates have started normalizing sexual assault in a terrifying way.
These Trump surrogates’ blank stares when “grabbing women by the pussy” is accurately described to them as sexual assault are just particularly high-profile examples of how most of the world refuses to recognise sexual assault for what it is, and how that feeds into sexual predators all too often operating in plain sight without consequences. FYI, Trump denigrating a woman he sexually desires as “it” – blatantly reducing her to an object rather than a person – is also a massive sexual predator red flag.
Slide from a presentation by researcher David Lisak on Rape Culture, Bystanders and Facilitators
Also in Vox, former NFL player Chris Kluwe made it clear that Donald Trump has (surprise!) no clue what athletes actually talk about locker rooms anyway – Dear Donald Trump: I played in the NFL. Here’s what we really talk about in the locker room. Complex Sports has a round-up report of many more professional athletes responding to the Trump campaign’s repeated “locker-room talk” excuse with a resounding “Nope”.
Here’s just one of the many tweets highlighted in that article from pro athletes refuting the “locker-room talk” descriptor:
I’m heartened to see these men calling out the casual normalisation of rape culture here, standing against the traditional social pressure to be bystanders or facilitators for other men’s dehumanising aggressions against women they regard only as sexual prey and value purely for trophy points in their sexual competition with other men. We need these sports icons’ positive example of requiring and respecting sexual consent to nurture empathy and reciprocity in young and impressionable minds who look to sports celebrities as models for their own path to manliness. Hats off as well to all the non-celebrity men out there standing up for consent and reciprocity where the media doesn’t see. Thank you.
Categories: ethics & philosophy, gender & feminism, media, Politics, violence
Hoyden About Town 
I’m finding it impossible to get my mind around the conversation about this, as it’s playing out in the US media.
Trump: “I grope women.”
Women: “Yes, that’s true, he did it to me.”
Trump/supporters/commentators: “Liars!”
Me: goes to freezer for ice pack for head.
As I said elsewhere, the Trump threats of a lawsuit against the NYT must surely mark the first time a US presidential candidate has threatened to sue someone for pointing out they were being truthful…