Dating in this climate can be hard. Throw in new rules of engagement and the process is even more miserable now than it was before. In the age of #MeToo, the new dating rules for men and women have been even increasingly more complicated. Te need to unwrap all of this and then some called PBS to create a new series, “#MeToo, Now What?”:

This past weekend at the “Women in the World” New York summit, Zainab Salbi, host and executive editor of “#MeToo, Now What,” joined Joanna Coles, chief content officer of Hearst Magazines, Teen Vogue columnist, Lauren “I Hate Billy Graham” Duca and actor and former NFL player Terry Crews in a spirited debate as to where the problem starts in the dating game. Joanna Coles says it starts with dating apps:

“What happens when you communicate with a stranger who you matched with on an app is you begin on a computer-mediated communication. “You don’t have all five senses on fire. You can’t tell if you’re going to like this person. All you can do is have a witty exchange with them.”-Joanna Coles

Teen Vogue darling, Lauren Duca chimes in:

It showed the moral panic within the #MeToo era,” said Duca who recounted a date, where the man she was with failed to take her cues and began aggressively groping and making out with her:

“When he was on top of me, with me pushed against his counter, his only goal was to seduce me, but I no longer wanted to be there. With his hands on either side of me, he asked, ‘Are you sure you’re not just trying to leave?’ I had to proceed to do a performance of drunkenness to excavate myself from this situation in order to get out in a way that felt safe and that wouldn’t incite a male rage spiral”-Lauren Duca

A male rage spiral. Okay. In comes Terry Crews:

“People have to understand that masculinity can be a cult, and when I say cult, it’s not different from David Koresh, it’s not different from Jim Jones. A guy is looking at you that is not all the way human, and there is a humanity issue here. I believed simply because I was a man I was more valuable than my wife and the other women in my life. If a woman there talks about kids or anything in her life, it’s like, Stop, stop! Because you’re becoming a human before my eyes. And I don’t want you to be a human, I want you to be an object. You’re pretty to look at, but as you talk you’re making things too real for me.”-Terry Crews

In addition to online dating apps, Joanna Coles goes on to discuss pornography:

“One of my great anxieties is the ubiquity of porn on digital devices, and it’s becoming the de facto sex education for an entire generation of young men and women. Young women often say that men expect them to behave like porn stars in bed, not understanding that porn sex isn’t real sex—it’s made for camera angles that aren’t comfortable in real life.”-Joanna Coles

Duca disagreed with Cole’s stance and said that a line shouldn’t be drawn at all pornography. So, as a loud and proud feminist some porn is okay in her book:

“(It) comes down to men having to shoulder more responsibility. The bedroom is not an egalitarian space. I don’t have to live my feminist theory while I’m getting f–ked, if that’s OK. Sexuality is not a coin to be traded, and we can all get a better handle on consent and have better sex.”-Lauren Duca

Huh? If the bedroom is not an egalitarian space and you don’t necessarily want to “live your feminist theory” there, what’s the point of this whole conversation? I mean, really?

The takeaways from all of this for the ladies? You may run into a psycho and be a victim of a “male rage spiral” if you meet up with a man you met on a dating app. You may need to realize that your date does not see you as human. And you may need to let your expectations of porn-star sex go because “it’s made for camera angles that aren’t comfortable in real life” but porn’s not all that bad.

This was supposed to be a conversation about dating rules of engagement but this train derailed bigly. So here are some solid, practical rules of engagement for you. Ready?

First rule: Ladies, if you’re meeting a guy you met online face-to-face for the first (or even second or third time), how about going somewhere public and not putting yourself in a position where you can be slammed up against a counter and groped? How about playing out a scenario in your head before you get yourself into it? Hmmm…”if I go back to his place and we are alone…what is he going to think or do?” If you don’t the answer to this, then perhaps a few more dates before being alone in a room with this person are warranted. This makes room for more conversation so you both could get to know one another and maybe, just maybe, he will see you as a human being and not as an object. And if the answer to this question makes you uncomfortable at any time, perhaps you should look elsewhere and cut ties. You want men to “shoulder more responsibility”? You’re responsible, too for dictating the climate. Just saying.

Fun fact, girls: if you state what you are about in the VERY beginning on a dating website, you can rule a lot of the riff raff out. Darn right I said “Must not be married, must not be a womanizer, must not have problems with alcohol, drugs or the law” and “must have your two front teeth” in a personal ad back in the day. It’s true. I even admitted to having a cat. I ended up with one response from one brave Marine and we are still together today.

Second rule: Accept that we all are of flesh and dating is a “mating” dance of sorts. All species do it. We’re a little more cerebral than some or at least we should be. There is nothing wrong with a man being physically attracted to a woman and vice versa. Ladies, you don’t have to go around wearing a mu-mu on a date. Wear the stilettos if you so choose. The simple truth in whether or not a man is going to be a gentleman or going to be a dog will come from his values and his upbringing which, YES, are VERY IMPORTANT to know something about before going into a situation with someone. If he’s at the club every night, calls all of his ex-girlfriends “psychos” or other expletive names, chances are you know what you’re getting into and YOU are empowered to demand more respect and not be treated like a piece of meat. If he doesn’t like it, he can walk. YOU have just freed yourself of being the victim of the “male rage spiral”!

Third rule: Porn is not okay. It is never okay. It is degrading (for both genders), unrealistic and not even the least bit sensual or creative. And if you truly believe the bedroom is not an “egalitarian space”, then what in the world is your point of arguing this bit? If you are a woman and expect your lover to behave and perform like a porn star, then you’ve got some problems and probably are a victim of reading too much trash like Cosmopolitan.

I am by no means lacking sympathy for women who have legitimately been assaulted but, come on! Masculinity is a cult?! What about the cult of toxic feminism? They’re passing that Kool Aid around liberally.