27 June

A trend I’ve noticed is the growth of female ‘whisperers’ online. Women who give advice to men on how to understand, relate to and seduce women. Contrast with the consent debates, the ‘no means no’ idea. These two movements are surely pulling in almost opposite directions? To the whisperer community, no means ‘try harder, learn how to do it’. I’ve suggested a few times here that our ideas about consent leave no meaningful way to understand seduction, which can often mean trying to convert a no into a yes, as these influencers make their money saying. Or even just flirting. Human relationships are only rarely yes and no. They’re much more ‘maybe…maybe not..o wait, maybe…’. Again social media turned it into a black-and-white binary, so that there were then two teams in rivalry, slugging it out. Lives have been ruined.