It always amazes me how people scratch and claw to be able to avoid the obvious.
There's a desperation here to declare that it must be mental illness or some combinations of other factors. Anything to avoid admitting the obvious that we live in a society that places men's feelings above women's safety, that we still live in a misogynistic culture where women are still frequently perceived as simply the item/the prize at the end of a male conquest, a concept that is repeated and repeated in popular culture, even harmless videogames. It must be anything but this because if it's this, you'd actually have to pay attention when womem criticize your favorite game, or movie, you'd actually have to admit that these discussions matter. Better to grasp on to any other explanation, that way you don't have to deal with reality that male dominated culture breeds entitlement, better to grasp on mental illness because then it's not that men and boys can't take no for an answer it's that this girl had the misfortune of saying no to a mentally ill child, and it was just random and not systemic or symptomatic of a greater cultural misogyny problem. That the solution isn't the deconstruction of male dominated society but just simply a mental health issue, that it's not cultural or political but brain chemistry. That way folks can say don't be hyperbolic to women when speak they speak up about how saying no is scary because we never know how it's going to be taken, that way you can dismiss our safety concerns and prioritize your feelings.
