It’s open sex war — a grisly death match that neither men nor women will win.

Ever since The New York Times opened the floodgates last October with its report about producer Harvey Weinstein’s atrocious history of sexual harassment, there has been a torrent of accusations, ranging from the trivial to the criminal, against powerful men in all walks of life.

But no profession has been more shockingly exposed and damaged than the entertainment industry, which has posed for so long as a bastion of enlightened liberalism. Despite years of pious lip service to feminism at award shows, the fabled “casting couch” of studio-era Hollywood clearly remains stubbornly in place.

The big question is whether the present wave of revelations, often consisting of unsubstantiated allegations from decades ago, will aid women’s ambitions in the long run or whether it is already creating further problems by reviving ancient stereotypes of women as hysterical, volatile and vindictive.

My philosophy of equity feminism demands removal of all barriers to women’s advancement in the political and professional realms. However, I oppose special protections for women in the workplace. Treating women as more vulnerable, virtuous or credible than men is reactionary, regressive and ultimately counterproductive.

Complaints to the Human Resources department after the fact are no substitute for women themselves drawing the line against offensive behavior — on the spot and in the moment. Working-class women are often so dependent on their jobs that they cannot fight back, but there is no excuse for well-educated, middle-class women to elevate career advantage or fear of social embarrassment over their own dignity and self-respect as human beings. Speak up now, or shut up later! Modern democracy is predicated on principles of due process and the presumption of innocence.

The performing arts may be inherently susceptible to sexual tensions and trespasses. During the months of preparation for stage or movie productions, day and night blur, as individuals must melt into an ensemble, a foster family that will disperse as quickly as it cohered. Like athletes, performers are body-focused, keyed to fine-tuning of muscle reflexes and sensory awareness. But unlike athletes, performers must explore and channel emotions of explosive intensity. To impose rigid sex codes devised for the genteel bourgeois office on the dynamic performing arts will inevitably limit rapport, spontaneity, improvisation and perhaps creativity itself.

Similarly, ethical values and guidelines that should structure the social realm of business and politics do not automatically transfer to art, which occupies the contemplative realm shared by philosophy and religion. Great art has often been made by bad people. So what? Expecting the artist to be a good person was a sentimental canard of Victorian moralism, rejected by the “art for art’s sake” movement led by Charles Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde. Indeed, as I demonstrated in my first book, Sexual Personae, the impulse or compulsion toward art making is often grounded in ruthless aggression and combat — which is partly why there have been so few great women artists.

Take director Roman Polanski, for example, whose private life has evidently been squalid and contemptible. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, founded as a guardian of industry reputation in 1927, would be perfectly justified in expelling him. But no sin or crime by Polanski the man will ever reduce the towering achievement of Polanski the artist, from his starkly low-budget Knife in the Water (the first foreign film I saw in college) through masterworks like Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown.

The case of Woody Allen, who began his career as a comedy writer and stand-up comedian, is quite different. Polanski’s chilly worldview descends from European avant-garde movements like surrealism and existentialism. In a sinister cameo in Chinatown, Polanski sliced open Jack Nicholson’s nose with a switchblade knife. Allen, however, in his onscreen persona of lovable nebbish, seductively ingratiated himself with audiences. Hence the current wave of disillusion with Allen and his many fine films emanates from a sense of deception and betrayal, including among some actors who once felt honored to work with him.

It was overwhelmingly men who created the machines and ultra-efficient systems of the industrial revolution, which in turn emancipated women. For the first time in history, women have gained economic independence and no longer must depend on fathers or husbands for survival. But many women seem surprised and unnerved by the competitive, pitiless forces that drive the modern professions, which were shaped by entrepreneurial male bonding. It remains to be seen whether those deep patterns of mutually bruising male teamwork, which may date from the Stone Age, can be altered to accommodate female sensitivities without reducing productivity and progress.

Women’s discontent and confusion are being worsened by the postmodernist rhetoric of academe, which asserts that gender is a social construct and that biological sex differences don’t exist or don’t matter. Speaking from my lifelong transgender perspective, I find such claims absurd. That most men and women on the planet experience and process sexuality differently, in both mind and body, is blatantly obvious to any sensible person.

The modern sexual revolution began in the Jazz Age of the 1920s, when African-American dance liberated the body and when scandalous Hollywood movies glorified illicit romance. For all its idealistic good intentions, today’s #MeToo movement, with its indiscriminate catalog of victims, is taking us back to the Victorian archetypes of early silent film, where mustache-twirling villains tied damsels in distress to railroad tracks.

A Catholic backlash to Norma Shearer’s free love frolics and Mae West’s wicked double entendres finally forced strict compliance with the infamous studio production code in 1934. But ironically, those censorious rules launched Hollywood’s supreme era, when sex had to be conveyed by suggestion and innuendo, swept by thrilling surges of romantic music.

The witty, stylish, emancipated women of 1930s and ’40s movies liked and admired men and did not denigrate them. Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Lena Horne, Rosalind Russell and Ingrid Bergman had it all together onscreen in ways that make today’s sermonizing women stars seem taut and strident. In the 1950s and ’60s, austere European art films attained a stunning sexual sophistication via magnetic stars like Jeanne Moreau, Delphine Seyrig and Catherine Deneuve.

The movies have always shown how elemental passions boil beneath the thin veneer of civilization. By their power of intimate close-up, movies reveal the subtleties of facial expression and the ambiguities of mood and motivation that inform the alluring rituals of sexual attraction.

But movies are receding. Many young people, locked to their miniaturized cellphones, no longer value patient scrutiny of a colossal projected image. Furthermore, as texting has become the default discourse for an entire generation, the ability to read real-life facial expressions and body language is alarmingly atrophying.

Endless sexual miscommunication and bitter rancor lie ahead. But thanks to the miracle of technology, most of the great movies of Hollywood history are now easily accessible — a collective epic of complex emotion that once magnificently captured the magic and mystique of sex.

The fall of Harvey Weinstein and other celebrity sex monsters feels like a cultural turning point. The social contract between men and women is being rewritten before our eyes. There is a new resolve to make the workplace more respectful and equitable for women - for everyone.

But there is also panic in the air, which could ruin this #metoo moment.

The harassment scandals have prompted frenzied reactions:

Farhad Manjoo at the New York Times says he has reached the point where "I seriously, sincerely wonder how all women don't regard all men as monsters to be constantly feared." Does Manjoo include himself? Are his female colleagues at the Times suddenly in constant fear of him?

Niobe Way, a psychology professor at NYU, told NPR that the only way to address the harassment blight is to resocialize little boys: "We essentially raise boys in a culture that asks them to disconnect from their core humanity."

The panic has even struck the Girl Scouts, who warned parents that their daughters don't "owe anyone a hug" this holiday season. Parents who insist a little girl give grandma or grandpa a hug for a present can set her up to believe "she 'owes' another person physical affection because they bought her something."

Before we consider all men guilty of harassment or abuse until proven innocent, a reality check is in order. Most of the sensational harassment cases in the media involved high-profile men working in unusual environments with little or no accountability. That suggests they are atypical.

In an office or company where the boss and personnel director insist on civility and respect, where there is a clear policy against harassment, and where there is system for reporting bad behavior, serious problems are far less likely to arise.

Statistics on workplace harassment are all over the map. A recent Newsweek/Wall Street Journal poll found that 48% of American women had been sexually harassed at work. Time.com ran with this statistic in a video showing American women at work in laboratories, factories and offices.

It then declared: "Almost Half of the Working Women in America Have Been Harassed on the Job," accompanied by images of a menacing Harvey Weinstein — suggesting that vast numbers of American women are plagued by Weinstein-like predation.

Except upon closer scrutiny, the Newsweek/WSJ poll showed nothing of the kind. It defined "harassment" very broadly. And women were asked if they had ever received "unwelcome sexual advances" at any point in their working lives. It did not distinguish between minor incidents and more serious cases of actionable harassment. And no time limit was given.

The General Social Survey is one of the most trusted sources of data in the social sciences. In 2014, a random sample of Americans was asked a straightforward question: "In the last 12 months, were you sexually harassed by anyone while you were on the job?"

To that question, only 3.6% of women said yes. That is down from 6.1% in 2002. These results do not suggest an epidemic. Nor even a trendline moving in the wrong direction.

In a story on sexual harassment, The Economist reported that "even before the Harvey Weinstein story broke the dam," the number of cases received by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had risen by 5% since 2014."

That too is sleight of hand. The EEOC handles all sorts of disputes in the workplace, including harassment involving age, race, religion and disability. Since 2014, there has been a 5% increase in total harassment cases, but there's been a decrease in sexual harassment cases.

In 2016, the EEOC received 6,758 sexual harassment complaints, approximately 100 cases fewer than in 2014. In 2010, they received nearly 8,000. In 2010, sexual harassment cases made up 27% of its harassment caseload; By 2016, they were down to 22%.

But even if we are not coping with an epidemic, we do still have a serious problem. There is a clear need for reform in Hollywood, in newsrooms and, apparently, in certain state capitals.

We also need to expand our concern beyond white-collar workplaces. Both the Huffington Post and the Washington Post have documented widespread harassment endured by hotel maids, waitresses and other women working in the service industry. Often, the harassment comes not from coworkers or supervisors, but from crude patrons and customers.

But we'll never have the great awakening we need to have if we succumb to the forces trying to turn this instead into a sex panic.

New Yorker writer Masha Gessen, a victim of sexual violence, welcomes a new era of accountability. But, as she wrote, "I am also queer and I panic when I sniff sex panic."

Sex panics are mass movements that arise in response to perceived moral threats to society - threats that are vaguely defined and wildly exaggerated. They breed chaos and persecution and create a generalized sense of danger. In the 1950s, there was a panic over gay men and women working in the federal government known as the Lavender Scare. Gays were thought to be "deviants" susceptible to blackmail. Thousands of innocent people lost their jobs.

In the 1980s, a panic over Satanic abuse in day care centers put many innocent people in prison.

Soon after the Weinstein scandal broke, an anonymously sourced "S---y Media Men" list began circulating on social media. The blacklist accuses more than 70 male journalists of sexual harassment.

But the charges range from "weird lunches" to rape. The informants collapse important distinctions between criminal predation and unwelcome flirtation. The men couldn't defend themselves - and anyone who tries can be accused of not believing victims, even anonymous ones.

Fortunately, the blacklist received criticism — especially from leftists who pointed out that these tactics can destroy innocent lives. But prominent feminist Jill Filipovic dismissed the scrutiny as "backlash." Writer Roxane Gay disparaged "all the hand-wringing about …the ethics of anonymous disclosure." As she explained in the New York Times, American women live in a state of siege. She suggested all men confess to "how they have hurt women in ways great and small."

The feminism of Gay and Filipovic is not mainstream, but its influence is growing. Teen Vogue writer Emily Lindin said on Twitter that she doesn't care about false accusations: "If some innocent men's reputations have to take a hit in the process of undoing the patriarchy, that is a price I am absolutely willing to pay."

Of course, it will not be Lindin who pays the price.

The New York Times' Michelle Goldberg recently discussed the accusations against Sen. Al Franken, stemming from a USO tour more than a decade ago, when Franken was still a professional comedian.

Goldberg wrestled with the fairness of destroying his career by retroactively imposing today's standards on such past actions. Whatever one believes about Franken — there are now more accusations of groping, which he denies — Goldberg's reason for wanting Franken to resign is chilling.

She claimed to need to see him fall because, otherwise, "the current movement toward unprecedented accountability for sexual harassers will probably start to peter out."

In other words, it doesn't matter if he's guilty: The revolution could stall without more decapitations. Goldberg said Franken disabused her of the notion that there are any "good guys," and concluded, "Franken Should Go."

Not only is it wrong to tar half of humanity, but indiscriminate, overzealous condemnation of men will hurt a necessary and worthy cause.

Vice President Mike Pence has a rule: He never eats alone with a woman other than his wife. It was widely mocked as prissy just a few months ago.

But now, in the aftermath of the scandals, some think it might be a good way to protect women. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat finds the Pence Rule too sweeping, but he does say "some modest limits on how men and women interact professionally are useful checks on predation."

Maybe so. But they could also hurt young women, who need the support and mentorship of male supervisors. In many industries, this means the kind of after-hours collaboration that has always advanced young men.

Unfortunately, a new puritanism seems to be ascendant. Timothy Noah of Politico suggests we could limit sexual harassment by making meetings with anyone behind closed doors a fireable offense.

Suddenly, office Christmas parties and happy hours are under a cloud. There is talk of replacing alcohol with game rooms.

Such suggestions are silly and infantilizing. We need rules to rid ourselves of creeps, not purge every workplace of all interpersonal risk.

The advertising giant Interpublic Group has ordered its 20,000 employees to undergo sexual harassment training before Jan. 1. Employees will learn how to react to all manifestations of sexual impropriety, such as a co-worker discussing "his weekend sexual exploits."

But context and intent matter. I can see innocent situations where good friends of the opposite sex talk about their sex lives consensually. If a friend started talking to me in this vein, it would be easy to wave him off — "Sorry: too much information!" — unless I happened to be interested.

Why do we assume women lack the power to draw lines?

Awkward flirtation, raunchy humor, even an unwanted advance may be breaches of decorum, but they are not necessarily harassment. We must be able to make distinctions between truly unacceptable behavior and lesser annoyances.

Interpublic's training will also include what to do if an employee "comes on to a colleague's girlfriend after hours." Good luck with abolishing that with a few PowerPoint slides.

There are more than 150 million men and women in the U.S. workforce. And despite recent scandals, most of them appear to be working together in relative harmony.

They manage to hold meetings, plan product launches, attend conferences, travel, share stories and even go to office parties where libations are served, mostly without incident. Occasionally, they even fall in love. According to a Stanford sociologist, between 16% and 19% of married people met their spouse at work.

Federal laws against sexual harassment were enacted to protect workers from pervasive, severe bullying, coercion or extortion — not from normal human interactions.

As the Supreme Court made clear in Oncale vs. Sundowner Offshore Services (1988), "the prohibition of harassment on the basis of sex requires neither asexuality nor androgyny in the workplace; it forbids only behavior so objectively offensive as to alter the 'conditions' of the victim's employment."

That NBC/WSJ poll I mentioned at the beginning did carry some good news: It found that a majority of men — 78% — say they are now more likely to speak out if they see sexist mistreatment in the workplace.

Please, please, please: Let's not squander this moment. Women and men of good will have a profound opportunity to speak honestly and work together to begin to write the next chapter in the quest for equality and dignity. If only we can pull ourselves out of the Great Sex Panic of 2017.

A new survey, aiming to establish what people believe constitutes sexual harassment in a number of European countries, has unearthed some baffling results.

The YouGov survey interviewed 8,490 men and women from Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden.

The survey posed a number of questions to respondents in an attempt to discover what constitutes sexual harassment. Some answers to the questions were expected, however, some could be seen as worrisome.

According to the survey, four out of five Britons (82 percent) believed dancing with a woman at a party or in a club could be considered sexual harassment. 73 percent of respondents from Sweden and Norway, agreed. 71 percent of the French respondents also believed dancing was sexual harassment but only 50 percent of Germans and 53 percent of respondents from Finland thought it was going too far.

The largest difference was found in humor. Only one in six (17 percent) of Danes thought that telling a woman a sexual joke equated to sexual harassment. 35 percent of Swedes and 38 percent of Germans agreed.

69 percent of the British respondents thought sexual jokes constitute sexual harassment. 67 percent of Finnish respondents agreed with the prudish belief.

According to the survey, the respondents would be more outraged if a man told a sexual joke to a woman than if the man stared at her breasts.

50 percent of respondents from the UK believed staring at a woman’s breasts equated to sexual harassment. 51 percent of the French and 47 percent of the Finnish respondents agreed. Only 29 percent of Germans believed it to be sexual harassment.

Perhaps the migrants are integrating better than first assumed.

Taking an up-skirt picture, grabbing a woman’s behind and men exposing themselves are all sexually harassing actions according to the survey.  

Nearly all of the Europeans polled agreed that winking at women was fine, except for the French. 23 percent of French respondents believed winking was also sexual harassment.

Considering the information, it is no surprise the Sexodus is happening. Porn doesn’t sue.

Saw this on Facebook in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein situation, and I really appreciated the fact it also acknowledges male victims of sexual harassment/assault.