By Nancy Tartaglione
Deadline
January 10, 2018
A collective of about 100 women has signed an open letter published in Le Monde today rejecting what it sees as a new puritanism in the wake of the sexual harassment and assault scandals. “Rape is a crime,” the women write. “Insistently or awkwardly hitting on someone is not.” Lamenting that the #MeToo campaign has led to “expeditious justice” for men who “may have touched a knee, tried to steal a kiss” or “spoken of ‘intimate’ things during a professional dinner,” the women further say they “defend a freedom to importune, which is indispensable to sexual freedom.”
Among the signatories, who include a number of doctors, sex experts, journalists and artists, the most famous name is Catherine Deneuve. Art critic and The Sexual Life Of Catherine M author Catherine Millet is also there.