In Catch 22, Joseph Heller wrote this about child abuse:

“Yossarian marveled that children could suffer such barbaric sacrifice without evincing the slightest hint of fear or pain. He took for granted that they did submit so stoically. If not, he reasoned, the custom would certainly have died, for no craving could be so great, he felt, as to subsist on the sorrow of children.”

A related perplexity exists about the inappropriate sexual behaviour of some men. What story are you telling yourself to deflect from the fact that your gratification subsists on the sorrow of others?

Some men don't need to tell themselves any stories. They are creeps, and don't aspire to anything more. They accept that they are bad people, and their bad behaviour is not incongruous to them.

But what about men like former US president George HW Bush, or the British Secretary of State for Defence, the Rt Hon Sir Michael Fallon, or US Senator Al Franken, or comedian Louis CK? They have each been plausibly accused of or admitted to repeated unacceptable sexual behaviour. They each present or believe in themselves as decent men. Yet none seem to have been shamed by this incongruity into self-correcting their behaviour.

This article isn't about creeps - bad men who do bad things. It's not about chivalrous men, who mostly restrain themselves from doing bad things, and when they make mistakes, are shamed or remorseful enough to correct them. It's about that subset of men who believe they are good, but keep doing bad things - chivalrous creeps. Here are 3 of the lies they tell themselves to maintain this contradiction.

1. The Michael Fallon story

2. The James Bond story

3. The 'Me, Myself' story

1. The Michael Fallon Story

When Michael Fallon resigned his Cabinet post, admitting his behaviour had "fallen below the high standards we require", he followed this up with the explanation that "The culture has changed over the years, what might have been acceptable 15, 10 years ago is clearly not acceptable now".

This excuse makes total sense ... if you replace the word "acceptable" with the phrase "something you can get away with".

Believing that something is acceptable because you can get away with it is The Michael Fallon Story. It's false because moral behaviour has more to do with individual choice than external restraint. Some men tell themselves that they are not responsible for regulating their own behaviour, that the only boundaries are those which are externally imposed.

For clarity, the inappropriate behaviour Fallon was accused of was directed at adult women. Without getting into a debate about the equivalence of degrees or kinds of abuse, consider Fallon's argument in light of the fact that in the past, and in certain places (some orphanages and some religious institutions for example), institutional abuse of children was cultural and accepted. Good men, however, were still not doing it.

If something is wrong, it is wrong, whether or not somebody else stops you from doing it. Chivalrous men self-regulate their behaviour to accord to moral restrictions. Chivalrous creeps pretend that variable cultural attitudes or external restrictions are the only restraints.

A related version of this story is the She Started It story (which has a more extreme version; She Didn't Stop Me). Jane Merrick, the journalist that Fallon tried to kiss, said, "I felt humiliated, ashamed. Was I even guilty that maybe I had led him on in some way by drinking with him? After years of having a drink with so many other MPs who have not acted inappropriately towards me, I now know I was not.”

In this story, men persuade themselves that any sign of friendliness or invitation from a woman gives them permission to a wide range of intrusions. But an invitation to a professional relationship or friendship is not an invitation to a sexual relationship. Also, permissions need to be multiple and proportionate. Permission to briefly touch an arm is not permission to hold a hand. Permission to hold a hand is not permission to kiss a cheek. Permission to kiss a cheek is not ... and so on and so on. Chivalrous men wait for each permission to be implicitly or explicitly granted before venturing to new territory. Chivalrous creeps pretend that because they have been granted one, or successfully violated one, they have licence to trespass wherever they choose.

2. The James Bond Story

In the story Goldfinger, the

character James Bond forcibly has sex with a female character against her verbal protestations and physical resistance. James Bond, an icon of British masculinity, is a rapist. The book and the movie present the scene slightly differently, but the justification in both cases is that the (lesbian) female character doesn't know what she wants, and that her protestations are a sign of ignorance rather than an expression of her essential human rights.

The James Bond Story is a belief that a woman knows less about what is good for her than men do. It's false because if men really knew what woman wanted and were committed to delivering it ... well ... [insert your own witty comment here, but safe to say the world would be quite a different place].

A version of the James Bond Story is the End Justifies the Means Story, in which men persuade themselves that any number of unacceptable actions could in the future be rendered acceptable if the woman eventually changes her mind and accepts him. But women change their minds less often than these men think. And even then, often the man is self-servingly confusing forced acquiescence with consent.

3. The Me, Myself Story

In the movie Me, Myself and Irene, the character Hank is being berated by the character Irene for inappropriate sexual behaviour. He interrupts her and exclaims, "Why, just for once, can't you see this from my point of view?" She invites him to explain himself, and he offers, "I was horny."

While in the movie this is intended as satire, some men actually do use this as an excuse - as if under some circumstances they are not responsible for the entirety of their behaviour.

As a counselling psychologist, sometimes I would see men who told themselves this exact story after having punched a woman - "I got angry with my wife/girlfriend and lost control."

I would say to them, "But you wouldn't lose control in front of Mike Tyson - no matter how angry he made you." If these men really had lost control to the point that they were unaware of consequences, they would be as likely to punch someone larger and stronger as smaller and weaker. They would be as likely to punch their younger, stronger boss as they would to punch their smaller, weaker wife. But this wasn't the case. Because, despite their anger, these men still cared about consequences to themselves, they had only become uncaring of the consequences to others.

This exact logic is used by many sexually abusive men - they excuse (and repeat) their behaviour on the grounds that they are not responsible for harm done to others, because they lost control and in essence, became victims of their own arousal. But the kind of man who has lost control to the point that he is uncaring of the consequences to others, but still concerned about consequences to himself, has not lost control at all. This becomes just another version of the Michael Fallon story - these men are doing it because they think they can get away with it.

Chivalrous men vs chivalrous creeps

Good men do bad things. But they filter many of their wayward impulses, and they don't repeat many of their errors. They learn from their mistakes and those of others. Chivalrous creeps don't filter and don't learn. They tell themselves lies that make them oblivious to the incongruity of being an ostensibly good man who does repeatedly bad things. Being aware of these lies can make it easier for other people to spot and protect themselves from chivalrous creeps. And for those creeps who are interested, becoming aware of their lies could help them become a man instead.