4 June—So 83-year-old Bob Chatfield, ever-popular mayor of Prospect for 48 years, is being investigated by Connecticut State Police for sexual assault—what the fuzz call “a suspicious incident”—allegedly because he spontaneously and compassionately hugged a female town employee, the alleged accuser, presumably without her permission, last month, after they had worked on some project or other, to console her after she had lost a loved one.

Note carefully what we allege and presume.

If that’s all there was too the incident—which is likely the case—what the hell is wrong with the woman, the police, and contemporary society? Besides everything else, old farts have a terrible, absolutely disgraceful habit of comforting people whom we perceive as needing to be comforted. And hugging is a traditional and convenient way to do that. Bottom line (pun intended), it’s unlikely that Mayor Chatfield put his hands anywhere near the alleged accuser’s buttocks.

In all events, all men aren’t sexual predators like Donald Trump was—and may still be, if only in his dreams. Because these days, Trump himself is very likely harmless in that respect, given his advanced years and poor health. Despite what his flunky quacks tell the public.

Sort of reminds us of Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination hearing back in 1991 when Anita Hill accused him, her former boss, of sexually harassing her—not because he’d ever laid a hand or anything else on, in, or near her or dropped his drawers to impress her or even showed her dirty pictures, but simply because he’d talked about things like that, as many men have a bad habit of doing (sometimes with the wrong people), thus offending her unquestioned purity and sexual innocence.

(It’s a pity Clarence got confirmed, but that’s another matter.)

In conclusion, then, women are less likely to sexually assault men if only for purely physical reasons. And of course it’s gospel that women are psychologically and discretionally incapable of sexually harassing men. Sure . . .