Women learn early that wanting something is a liability. Men learn that taking something is negotiable. That is the opening lesson, delivered without ceremony, reinforced without pause.

A woman chooses someone. Suddenly she is a case study. People inspect her decisions like fingerprints at a crime scene. They measure her clothes, her habits, her intentions. Consent becomes evidence. Desire becomes diagnosis. The shame arrives before the explanation.

A man forces himself on someone. The world clears its throat and starts arranging cushions beneath him. Maybe he was confused. Maybe he misread. Maybe this is being blown out of proportion. His future becomes a fragile object that must not be disturbed, even as someone else is still bleeding from his certainty.

The imbalance is not hidden. It is routine. A quiet cultural trick where guilt is assigned by gender and not behaviour. Women are told to prevent being judged. Men are told to prevent being inconvenienced. Everyone acts as if this is a natural law carved into the bone of humanity.

People call this era enlightened. As if improved lighting changes the shape of old shadows. The judgement hasn’t evolved. It has simply learned better vocabulary. Women are shamed for consenting. Men are shielded from accountability. The world claps for progress while practising the same arithmetic.

The strangest part is how quickly women internalise the formula. They learn to pre-empt the accusations. To apologise for their wants. To shrink before anyone asks them to. Meanwhile men move through life with inherited immunity, protected by a culture that treats their desires as default and their violations as debate topics.

Every scandal repeats the pattern. A woman speaks. The world investigates her. A man responds. The world protects him. Everyone acts shocked. No one changes the equation.

And somewhere beneath it all is the belief no one wants to say out loud: female desire is suspicious, male violence is negotiable. That is why shame flows in one direction, even when the harm flows in the other.

The ledger keeps its own order. Women lose dignity for saying yes. Men keep theirs after taking what was never offered. The shame that belongs to one is quietly reassigned to the other. And society keeps pretending the math is fair.