If Taron Egerton really can't tell the difference between flirting and sexual harassment, then he’s exactly why we need #MeToo

Poor men. The Me Too movement has left them in a bit of a pickle.

After years of being silenced, victims of sexual harassment and assault – the majority of whom are women – are finally speaking out and holding their perpetrators accountable. This is a good thing, of course, but the question that keeps getting rehashed by contrarians at dinner parties and beyond is, “where does this leave men?”

Somehow a global movement that primarily seeks to give women a voice has become about men. If that’s not a sign of a patriarchal society, I’m not sure what is.

This week, actor Taron Egerton joined the long list of men who feel that #MeToo has left them feeling confused. The Robin Hood star told Radio Times that the movement has made him rethink his relationships with women: “There are certainly situations where I avoid being alone with certain people, definitely," he said.

Why would he do that? Let’s assume that the 29-year-old is a decent bloke and isn’t afraid of being with women alone because he’s concerned he might just suddenly force himself on them. Let’s say that Egerton can control himself. What is it, then, that he can’t control? The women? The women who are so high on feminism they can’t enjoy one-on-one male company without sounding the klaxon and shouting “Me Too” with Crucible-like histrionics?

Funnily enough, I have spent time alone with men who, against all odds, have managed to succeed in being in my company without harassing me, but perhaps they were unicorns.

Whatever Egerton meant by his brazen claim, one thing is clear: he’s worried. And he’s not alone.

In November, shortly after the allegations against Harvey Weinstein emerged, BBC Radio 4 host John Humphrys expressed similar concerns and soon after that, Matt Damon famously said men “who don’t do this kind of thing” would be adversely affected by the Me Too movement. Line of Duty star Daniel Mays is bearing the brunt too, telling The Independent he won’t even give his female makeup artist a hug goodbye now because he’s “more conscious”. Lest we forget when Henry Cavill chimed in to say he doesn’t know how to approach women he finds attractive without being called “a rapist or something”.

These men are expressing different anxieties, but one ubiquitous thread unites them: The Me Too movement has raised the stakes when it comes to male-female relationships. An inappropriate remark about someone’s outfit at work is no longer just dismissed as “banter”. A drunken “encounter” will no longer be forgotten and crimes of sexual assault will no longer be brushed under the rug by non-disclosure agreements.

The movement is holding people to account. What it is not doing, however, as some of the aforementioned men suggest, is blurring the lines between flirting and harassment.

Those lines are far from blurry – in fact, they’re razor sharp, and suggesting otherwise, as Egerton has done, illustrates the exact reason why #MeToo started in the first place.

It demonstrates a gross dearth of perception: an inability to read verbal and non-verbal cues, to use your intuition to identify what is and isn't appropriate and to recognise when your advances aren’t being reciprocated.

This is the same lack of cognisance that may lead one person to harass or assault another under the impression that they have consented when they have not.

If Egerton and co don’t understand how to be around women now, perhaps they never did.