Alva

A female reporter tried to get a one-on-one interview with a Mississippi politician and the man demured. He told her that he'd meet with her only if another person was in the room. The reporter took the feminist line and was "outraged," suggesting that he made her feel like a "sexual object." Others believe the politician took a sensible, if a bit extreme, precaution in the era of #MeToo.

The politician took his position because of people like Alva Johnson. Who's she? Matt Walsh explains:

A former staffer for the Trump campaign, Alva Johnson, filed a lawsuit a few months ago alleging that she was the victim of "battery" when Trump "forcibly kissed" her without consent. In a teary-eyed interview with MSNBC in February, Johnson recounted being grabbed by the hands and kissed on the corner of the mouth. She says she turned away desperately, which is the only thing that saved her from a full mouth-to-mouth kiss. Using words like "terrified," "scared," and "distraught," she claimed that even months after the alleged assault, she was still "crying her eyes out" and traumatized from the experience. If this kiss had taken place privately, all we'd have is her word on the subject — a word that, we are told, must be automatically believed. Fortunately, though, it was not private.

This week, Trump's lawyers released footage of what Johnson describes as "battery." It does not show anything like the dramatic scene that she recounted. Instead, we see Trump lean in to give Johnson a brief peck on the cheek. His lips do not make contact with her mouth — nor does she lean away or in any way express any discomfort with the interaction at all. She smiles and appears to give him an air kiss on the side of the face, in return. It is just a very normal and friendly greeting between two people. No reasonable human being could possibly watch the video and describe what he sees as assault. If it is assault, then we have all been assaulted hundreds of times in our lives. A mother who gives her young son a goodnight kiss on the cheek is a child sex abuser. Late-night talk show hosts who kiss their female guests on the cheek are committing sexual assault in front of a live audience every night. Europeans who kiss everyone on the cheek are all a bunch of sex criminals. If Alva Johnson was sexually assaulted, then sexual assault is about as common and casual as a handshake.

Johnson says she called her parents immediately after the innocuous cheek kiss and had to pull over to the side of the road due to emotional distress. Is it plausible that she really reacted that way to something so utterly harmless and ordinary? Is it plausible that she was in her house "crying her eyes out" months after the fact? It's possible, I suppose. Maybe she is one of the most fragile people ever to walk the Earth. Or maybe she's lying. Maybe a combination of the two. Whatever the case, she took an innocent greeting and tried to use it to destroy Trump's political career. Trump survived because there's video, and because he's Trump. Those of us who lack both advantages may not have been so lucky.

There is a third possibility that describes Johnson and others like the infamous Christine Blasey-Ford, who without a shred of actual evidence but under the urging of Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, accused now SCOTUS justice, Brett Kavenaugh, of "rape" 35-years after the alleged "assault" occurred. Both woman may have serious mental problems driven by hatred of their target. This may be manifested by delusional thinking that turns an innocuous encounter (or no encounter at all) into sexual assault. Woman (or men) in this category honestly believe they were assaulted, but belief is not evidence nor is it reality. For example, people honestly believe they have been abducted by aliens, but that doesn't make their stories true.

When SJWs insist that we MUST believe the woman, there will be unintended consequences. Men (or woman) who believe they may be the target of a politically motivated accusation of sexual assault have every right to demand that any meeting with the opposite sex be attended by others who can serve as witnesses. It does seem a bit extreme, but not nearly as extreme as unsubstantiated claims of sexual assault like those levied by Alva Johnson or Christine Blasey-Ford. BTW, every evidence-free claim of sexual assault has the potential to ruin the life of an innocent person and at the same time, such claims devalue the legitimate claims of those who have actually suffered from a real sexual assault.