#MeToo and the new puritanism

Time again to over analyze something that isn't worth discussing in the first place. I'd rather not but we're being forced into doing it by a generation of puritans of whom the Boston Herald's Jessica Heslam is today's example.

Let's begin by quoting an excerpt:

Pats quarterback Tom Brady had said there’s a “zero” chance Sunday’s Super Bowl would be his last game, so a reporter asked Gronk what number he’d use to describe the chance of this being his last season, according to the New York Post.

You guys know my favorite number. You know what I’m talking about. She knows what number I’m talking about,” Gronkowski said, pointing to the female reporter. “Ask her. That’s the answer.”

“I’ll give you a math problem,” Gronkowski said, according to the Post. “What’s six times nine plus six plus nine?”

Make that joke among friends? Funny.

Make that joke in front of TV cameras to a woman reporter doing her job? #MeToo.

Let's start with what gets this started: "...a reporter asked Gronk what number he’d use to describe the chance of this being his last season... ." Why ask? Could it be because Gronkowski has a long history of making 69 jokes? Well, yes, it just might be. So the reporter is encouraging him to make the sort of remark that everyone knows he is famous for making.

Indeed, Gronkowski acknowledges that. "You guys know my favourite number. You know what I'm talking about." And then he singles out the female reporter to underline the fact that he likes to talk about 60, to say that even she knows and not just you guys.

Is the point of #MeToo that men can't make sexual remarks in the presence of women? That merely alluding to sex acts and the fact that you enjoy them is somehow too much for sensitive little flowers to deal with? There is more going on with #MeToo than controlling exploiting like Harvey Weinstein; there is a very deliberate attempt to roll back freedom of expression too. And progressives and social conservatives are lining up on this one.