Why Men Are Only Sorry When They Get Caught

Sorry. Five letters, a little word. Not if you are a man accused of abuse. Then it is a big word. A hell of a big word and one that you must not utter.

There are other words you can use instead, you can accuse the woman accusing you of lying, you can say she is crazy, you can say she is attention seeking, or a golddigger and accusing you to get rich quick or advance her career. You could even say she’s a jealous ex. Any and all of these words used against women work wonders.

In fact, P Diddy did just that. When four women including his long-term former partner Casandra ‘Cassie’ Ventura filed lawsuits accusing him of sexual and physical assault, he wrote them off as being ‘individuals looking for a quick payday.’

Many other words there, not one of them sorry.

But he had more, including these: ‘Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged.’

How many times have we heard these absolute and complete denials? From pop stars to presidents, they are never the guilty party… until well, they are.

Last week a video emerged that put paid to P Diddy’s denials. It shows him chasing Cassie down in a hotel corridor, throwing her to the ground, kicking her violently multiple times before throwing vases at her. This is just what we see, she says worse happened behind closed doors.

P Diddy’s ‘heartfelt’ apology

And yesterday, P Diddy had a few other words in a video he released on Instagram:

‘It’s so difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life, but sometimes you gotta do that. I was fucked up. I hit rock bottom, but I make no excuses. My behaviour in that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions on that video. I’m disgusted. I was disgusted then when I did it, I’m disgusted now. I went and I sought out professional help, got me going to therapy, going to rehab. [I] had to ask God for his mercy and grace. I’m so sorry, but I’m committed to be (sic) a better man each and every day. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m truly sorry.’

Ah, finally, that little word sorry, complete with the little quiver in his voice at the end, tears for the victim maybe? No, no, that’ll be tears for himself.

You see, I don’t actually understand why P Diddy finds it so hard to reflect now, when he’s had all this time – EIGHT YEARS – to reflect. Yet given all that ‘reflecting’ he could have been busy doing, he just denied everything, and since the lawsuits were filed against him in November, he has been calling the women involved liars and accusing them of being golddiggers. Doesn’t sound very ‘reflective’ to me.

So what are we supposed to think of the other things he’s accused of doing now that he has proved himself such an honest guy, because some of those allegations are pretty serious, rape and sex trafficking? Well, I shall leave that to you to make up your mind.

I wrote last week about Donald Trump’s court case currently ongoing in New York, here again was another man who has accused women of lying while he was quietly paying them to be silent.

And during this same court case, we have heard of other payments made via the National Enquirer to buy the rights to other women’s stories of abuse, Mark Wahlberg was mentioned, Arnold Schwarzenegger was mentioned. David Pecker, the publication’s former CEO, has told the court quite candidly of all those women’s stories that have been bought up to protect the rich and famous. Why hasn’t more been made of these admissions? So many famous faces paying women they’ve never met not to say things about them that they never did.

And once that cheque is banked, well these men are allowed to say what they like about these women, see all the adjectives listed above for a start.

It’s strange isn’t it, that while these men accuse women of only being in it for the money, they’re desperate to hand it over to them. And presumably then they can tell themselves with all honesty that yes, these nasty women were in it for the money, it’s extortion, not compensation.

But you see in my experience, the money is less important to these women than their reputation. We mostly just want to be heard, have our experiences validated, and though we might go public, the only person we really want to acknowledge all this wrongdoing is the man who perpetrated it against us, not the public. A sorry would be worth its weight in gold. And yet we very rarely hear it, I mean, can you think of one single case where a guy volunteered that he was a wife beater, when he walked into a police station and handed himself over? I can’t.

And yet P Diddy did utter the word sorry, twice in fact in his video on Instagram, but I’ve noticed a little pattern here. You see men – and I hope my male followers will know I don’t mean ‘all men’ – are generally only sorry once they’ve been caught.

Men who are having affairs left, right and centre, who are putting their wife’s sexual health at risk, who are gaslighting her that she is paranoid, aren’t sorry. No, they’re having a whale of a time. Until they’re caught.

And the men who are violent, they’re not sorry when they’re quite literally punching down on a woman cowering from them in a hotel lobby, no, they’re anything but sorry, they’re angry, and actually, they’re the victim here because she pushed him to do it, or so they tell themselves. It’s them who should receive the apology.

P Diddy wasn’t sorry six months ago when he insisted Cassie was lying, he wasn’t sorry last week before we all saw the video for ourselves. No, he’s only sorry now because his career might be over.

So he’s not sorry for what he’s done, he’s simply sorry for himself, because if there is one thing that all these men have in common it is that they are the one and only victim in this narrative they have written about themselves.

Poor them.

But, I have good news for P Diddy. I see people this morning are writing that his career is over, au contraire! As I wrote last week, the #metoo movement rarely harms men. Cassie’s lawyer has responded to P Diddy’s video calling it a ‘pathetic desperation’ and that’s P Diddy’s biggest problem, as well as all those other men who have denied allegations and instead paid women to shut their mouths, they are and will remain pathetic. And the reason they hate women so much is because deep down they know it.

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