Do you agree with Henry Cavill's reasoning for being afraid to approach women in today's dating environment?

Question

In a lengthy interview with GQ Australia, Henry Cavill opened up about how the #MeToo movement has had a direct impact on his love life. “There’s something wonderful about a man chasing a woman. There’s a traditional approach to that, which is nice. I think a woman should be wooed and chased, but maybe I’m old-fashioned for thinking that,” he said. But Cavill says it’s “very difficult” to pursue a woman that way “if there are certain rules in place.” “Because then it’s like, ‘Well, I don’t want to go up and talk to her, because I’m going to be called a rapist or something,’” he continued. “So you’re like, ‘Forget it, I’m going to call an ex-girlfriend instead and then just go back to a relationship, which never really worked.’ But it’s way safer than casting myself into the fires of hell, because I’m someone in the public eye, and if I go and flirt with someone, then who knows what’s going to happen?”

FMJ_Guy · Accepted Answer

I think that the #Metoo thing has really blown up, and scares a lot of guys. Originally, I thought it was about women that were abused, confronting it, the men that did it, and so on.
Now, for many, it seems like a 'Witch Hunt' where just about any guy is accused of 'something inappropriate'!! I think a lot of guys are going to the position of 'I don't need this' and are focusing their time on being with guy friends, more sports, cars, and so on.
I think that #Metoo actually has hurt a lot of women, that have never been abused, and made the nice guys, the respectful men, that would have approached those, reconsider, especially when someone like Henry comes out with something like this.

Pineapple_Boy · Accepted Answer

He's a public figure and a huge target. I totally get where here's coming from. Obviously the women in the comments here aren't going to understand because they only see men are perpetrators and women as victims. However in the celebrity world , men are the biggest target of blackmail/extortion when it comes to shit like this.

yasii · Accepted Answer

Understandable. I've just red on instagram that if a men lies to get a women to sleep with him it's rape. And almost all the comments on this post agreed with the statement. There are soooo many crazy women out there who think their ridiculous opinions are justified because enough women believe the same shit. I get what he means.

MrsCJW · Accepted Answer

I don't blame him. It seems like everyone is raping out there and they're always presumed guilty before innocent. The woman's side is always taken as soon as she opens her mouth. It's a dangerous place for a man to be dating these days.

JSmuve · Answer

I think he probably embellished things when he compared flirting/approaching with being accused of rape, but the fact that many women on social media blew up over this comparison kind of proves his point in a roundabout way: women tend to misconstrue things and blow things that weren't meant to be offensive way out of proportion.

We all know that women get uncomfortable easily and nowadays harassment is being defined as "how someone feels" and not "what you actually did", so in a guy's mind, you could just walk up to a random girl and say "hey I think you're attractive and wanted to come over and get to know you more," and if she feels uncomfortable that you approached her or how you approached her, even if you're polite and well-intentioned, she can say you "harassed her", even though to any reasonable person, you didn't. And all she has to do is go on social media and post "OMG, this total creep came up to me today and tried to hit on me," and everyone would believe her. She'd get sympathy comments denigrating this guy for doing nothing more than approaching her. Now how often does this happen? I don't know. There's this
www.telegraph.co.uk/.../
and this
www.cbc.ca/.../...lse-assault-allegations-1.797780
But the fact is, there are some immature women out there that are either emotionally stunted, socially inhibited, or just downright cunts that can't tell the difference between a guy actually harassing her and a guy wanting to get to know her.

Women have the power to ruin a man's reputation with the click of a mouse button and no guy wants to be on the receiving end of that. Going into an approach, you have no idea how you're going to make her feel or how it's going to be received. It doesn't matter if a guy does his best to be polite, if she feels uncomfortable, that's all people look at. He gets lumped in with sexual harassers, predators, rapists, etc.

I think you'll see a lot less stories like Henry's when society actively shits on women for being ridiculous about being approached when he wasn't legitimately harassing her instead of jumping to her support every time they make an unsubstantiated claim on social media. I imagine it's worse for celebrities because they're scrutinized more than the average person, so any story, however untrue it may be, will fuck them over.

Celq532 · Answer

He's terrible at explaining his reasoning. I get the gist of it, and ultimately I disagree on most of his points.
Any form of imbalanced expectation, including "woman should be wooed and chased", is what caused gender inequality. Because the mentality behind it "only X should be A, Y should do B". You are encouraging this kind of thinking. The same kind of thinking of any discrimination or false expectations.
Everybody is different. There are (small number of) girls who like to do the chasing, and there are (again small number of) guys enjoyed being wooed and prefer to be chased. Who on earth is Henry to say "no, that's not right. Because men should do the chasing, and girls should be wooed?" Denying these minorities?
The fear is semi true-ish. Fear of being judged wrongly is an immature reaction. You're not being confident enough to be sure what you're doing and be able to justify/defend yourself. But rejection is simply a negative outcome that nobody likes to bear regardless of what. Because it destroys dreams and potential happiness. Fearing such outcome is a logical and appropriate reaction that anyone should have. And if you don't have such fear (of rejection), then can you say you genuinely cared and loved? These are my opinions.

Anonymous · Answer

Ok first what he needs to do is grow a pair of balls and learn to take a few risks life is to short. You’re never gonna know if a woman likes you unless you go out there and start talking to them. Second in his case he needs to keep it low key and use a fake screen name to meet women online. His problem is he’s to nice to wimpy and a pushover with no balls to take risks he needs a choir girl 24 hour going church girl because if he goes after a woman who’s into street gangbanging thug guys or tough guys she will chew him up and spit him out emotionally and mentally and he will be so drained by her that he’ll leave and he won’t be able to keep her in check or be able to fight back verbally to her when he needs to stand up for himself. He’s to much of a whimp when it comes to women and to much of a nice guy which is both a good and bad thing. He needs to make a fake online account and talk to people online that’s the only way to know if he’ll be compatible with someone. The guy is to much of a pushover and I can’t see him settling down with someone who isn’t an advocate church goer and a virgin or very few sexual encounters. That’s just the impression I get when I see this guy or hear about this guy on the news. He suffers to much from shyness.

vishna · Answer

Henry is so damn fine. Like so damn fine. When he was rescuing those oil guys in the beginning of Man of Steel, my ovaries FIRED. And then when he was angrily eyeing the Flash in Justice League, my cervix widened... I was ready. take me Henry.

But nah, I think he stuck his foot in his mouth. Unless you're coming at women all wrong, you have nothing to be afraid of. Ya know, like what is his game plan? What does he usually do, what does Henry usually do to approach a woman. Bc I wanna be chased and shit, but like not by a sleazy guy and even though I think he's hella hot, if he came at me sleazy (oh my this would NEVER happen) I would be upset.

But god damn, Henry I'm here.

bubble_tea · Answer

I find it ironic that he as an successful actor seems to think he's incapable of reading body language and facial expressions of women who are open to being wooed and chased vs. those of women who don't want it, or at least not from him.

No one's going to call anyone a rapist for saying hello. But if you insist on wooing and chasing someone who clearly shows no interest in you, then sorry, handsome or not, you are a creepy narcissist who doesn't care what the object of your desire feels and wants.

DinaM · Answer

If you regularly get called a rapist every time you approach a woman, then you MIGHT want to re-evaluate the way you approach women. There IS a line between flirting and, you know, harassment.

It's actually very easy: No means no. If you start flirting with me and I tell you I'm not interested, then that doesn't mean I'm playing hard to get, it means I'm not interested.

MOST guys seem to get this just fine, at least the ones I've met. If they tried to come onto me and I said no, then they didn't decide I needed to be "chased." Quite the contrary; they respected that I wasn't interested and left it at that. You know, like decent human beings.

AuroraRoseat · Answer

... I have to comment that this man is SO gorgeous. Love him.

But as for your question, I do think that's he's right. I feel like (at least in America) a lot of men are afraid to say what they feel because they might be labeled and scrutinized harshly. So many men don't even compliment women at the workplace because of numerous sexual harassment complaints (and just for the record, a man telling a woman that she looks nice is NOT harassment. Ladies, if you have some issue with a man giving you a compliment, the issue lies with yourself.)

On the other hand, I don't feel what he says applies to himself. Cavil is considered overwhelmingly attractive and I doubt he'd receive the same reaction as an unattractive man would.

soyboy999 · Answer

Yes. I find it outrageous that he was forced to apologise for it.

My whole life, the messaging has been "guys are creepy", "guys are old dirty bastards", "look what this creepy guy did", and "oh the poor woman", "girl power", "how can we help women achieve more equality", etc.

So on top of having to initiate and fearing failure or public humiliation, women as a group have also made it very clear that they view men with suspicion and general skepticism.

I understand that guys do horrible things. I suppose the fear and mistrust will never go away.

But I'm tired of only women being allowed a voice in the public debate. Men are immediately shamed and blacklisted if we give our perspective.

truthbeknown · Answer

1000%, yes, thousand! He is handsome, rich and famous. Women would throw themselves at him. If something doesn't go right or he pisses her off, the avenue of Metoo is too wide and easy to take and society is way too quick to ruin and destroy men's lives and their careers. Like he said, simply saying "hi" can be misunderstood and be interpreted as sexual harassment, buying her a drink can be interpreted as sexual assault. This isn't all women, but you won't know how she will respond until after you ask or offer her. So again, men take all the risks. Better to hold back and say/do nothing.

Anonymous · Answer

Yeah, we're in the strange social place now where people can't be honest without some millennial SJW jumping down their neck to collect a pound of flesh.

Henry did absolutely nothing wrong - he expressed an opinion. And the usual bunch of fucktards pretended to lose their shit and he had to do a reversal/apologise/etc... in an attempt to soothe the savage beasts.

We're in the third stage of the #MeToo movement, where false and stupid accusations are going to bring the movement to ridicule and disrepute. That's the last stage before it dies and goes away, and the abusers start to feel free to abuse women again.

Celtero · Answer

For me, it just desexualizes women and makes them seem like they dislike sexual attention from men. Like... they don't pursue guys either, so I can see why there's theories on the internet that women are all aesexual and only use their vaginas to trap men who can provide for them.

I think of the story with Aziz... Girl had his dick in her mouth, yet somehow she felt this was sexual assault even though she didn't say anything? And she could have just bitten his dick off if it was rape. What did she say again? Something along the lines of "he was ignoring my nonverbal queues."

I can understand his stance on this since he's a public figure, but average guys shouldn't be as worried.

I also know it's wrong to grope or touch a woman in a professional setting, but in a casual setting women don't have to tolerate unwanted advances and can just leave.

Ярило · Answer

I understand what he's saying, but I think he could've worded it MUCH better. The way he uses the word 'chase' makes it come across as a little outdated and creepy. I think if he had just said he thinks a man should instigate a relationship and put in effort to win over a partner I don't think it would've come off as bad.

I don't really understand what he's getting at about being afraid of being called a rapist. If he means that because he's in a public position he's afraid someone could lie and wrongfully accuse him, thus staining his reputation then I get it. But if he's just saying he doesn't know how to interact with a woman appropriately then that's his own problem.

Selena2418 · Answer

I don't necessarily agree... being very direct in asking a woman her expectations and what she wants isn't difficult... I've noticed men have started doing this and I think it's a great thing. The last person I slept with did this, we were making out and things were getting hot and heavy. We had been dating for a couple months by this point. He simply asked "Are you okay with sex being on the menu tonight?" A simple yes or no response required... and being direct puts the man at ease. I think there are plenty of ways around it.

KAF87 · Answer

F No!

Women do not think you are some kind of rapist for simply approaching them and trying to woo them.

Being wanted feels good no matter what gender you are.

As long as you take no, not interested as an acceptable answer and leave it's fine.

Why would you go back to something dysfunctional when an amazing person could be waiting for you to ask?

Most people I suspect are "me too" because they've been rejected a lot or don't have the courage to ask. If you are good at asking, attractive and experienced at dating, why would you join that movement? Total BS

CurLyF · Answer

I understand what he means as I'm very close to my brother and have witnessed how many girls nowdays have become unaproachable because they are all like "I'm independant, why do you come flirt with my, I'm getting coffee you macho!", and stuff like that, but deep down they still want to be porsued... I'm deeply sorry for the women who have been victims of abuse and harrassment and they have my complete support, but not the women who fall in excesses and condemn other inocent men.
P. S. Henry Calvill can woed at me any time he likes hahaha had to be said.

Anonymous · Answer

all the women on here saying he's wrong because he's hot. he has nothing to worry about. haha. What about if he wasn't so good looking? We all know you scream sexual harassment whenever a guy you don't find attractive asks you out. That's his point. He's not saying that "no girl would ever turn me down because i'm famous and hot". He's standing for every guy (ugly ones included) until women stop thinking "eye rape" is a real thing. Sorry ladies, but asking you for a date isn't a crime, isn't harassment, and isn't your punch card into the "mee too" bullshit movement.

TripleAce · Answer

Hahah. he's got a point you silly girls lol. You want old fashioned well its old fashioned for us to talk to girls 😛
Oh wait. Its true. Girls are only old fashioned when it comes to money 😂

Men taunt the pussy, women flaunt the pussy. Has always been that way 🙊

winterfox10 · Answer

Honestly, yeah... and it wouldn't even be that bad if the rules were consistent, but they change with every woman, and they change in every situation. Fuck. That.

That's the same thing that actually stopped me from dating and hooking up in college. I've had so many life experiences with women doing full 180's on me like nothing, that the thought of hooking up with a totally consenting girl, and then having her call me a rapist to save face the next day or something, literally paralyzes me with fear.

I'm in the entertainment industry as well, so as a future public figure; that threat is especially present.

hellionthesagereborn · Answer

Yep. I've seen how this can destroy lives first hand, you can read accounts of it everywhere. They keep saying "just don't be a rapist" except that they have accused men of rape even as they admit that they willingly had sex with them, accused them of rape even though they never even met the guy or their was no physical contact so yeah, he would have his life destroyed more then likely. Turns out women can be crappy people too, who knew?

jason_1233 · Answer

Yes I do because.
If it's in person, you have to:

• Make eye contact
• Walk up to her
• Say Hi
• Ask her questions and build interest
• Ask for her number
• Text her
• Ask her out on a date
• Pay for the date
• Ask her out on another date
• Go in for the kiss
• Make escalating moves that lead towards sex
• And so on...

If it's online via a dating site or app like Tinder, you have to:

• Send interest
• Message her
• Ask her questions and build interest
• Ask her out on a date...

I think you get the damn picture.

You have to make all the first moves!

And that's a lot of work to invest in one woman who could toy with your emotions for fun or simply reject you because she has so many suitors.

Do you agree with Henry Cavill's reasoning for being afraid to approach women in today's dating environment?

Most Helpful Opinions

Most Helpful Opinions

What Girls & Guys Said

Do you agree with Henry Cavill's reasoning for being afraid to approach women in today's dating environment?

Most Helpful Opinions

Most Helpful Opinions

What Girls & Guys Said

We're glad to see you liked this post.