That didn’t take long.  Louis CK did a “surprise” stand up set in NYC.  Matt “button under the desk” Lauer is reassuring people he’ll be back on TV soon.  Aziz Ansari’s (certainly the least skeevy, yet still gross of the three) doing a low-key Midwest comedy tour.  It’s only been a few months since these men were found out to be at the most benign, unsure about consent, to the worst outright abusers.  Well-meaning (male)  Twitter pundits are asking if the #metoo movement has a path for redemption for men caught up in it.  Between the scripted and carefully legal (and non-confessional) apologies, these men made and the road to redemption is the part no one is talking about.  Repentance.

Now, I’m not talking about apologizing. We all say “I’m sorry” a hundred times a day. How often do we really mean it?  Let’s be honest.  How many of the apologies these men have made sound like anything other then they’re sorry they got caught? It’s also not them feeling sorry for themselves either.  As a Buddhist, I’m sort of in the empathy business.  Have they actually looked at the impact they had on the lives of the women they hurt?  Have they considered the damage done, personally, professionally, emotionally in a really profound way?  Have they made an attempt to do anything other than hiding and wait it out hoping the outrage will fade?

All of this had made me think a lot about penitence and redemption.  My boss is a devout Muslim and we have the best conversations. I asked him today about forgiveness and redemption.  He told me that as a Muslim you need to do two things to be forgiven for a sin or crime.  One, you must humble yourself before God and ask for forgiveness from him.  You have to let go of your ego and be honest about how you’ve hurt someone. Two, you must go and do the same to the person you’ve wronged.  You go with an open heart and humbly ask for their forgiveness.  Them forgiving you or not is not the point. It’s not about gaining anything.  You are promising God and yourself that it won’t ever happen again.

This is what we’re missing with these men. Where is the remorse?  Where are the heartfelt apologies?  If they’ve had a “come to Jesus” moment they’re not talking about it. What have they done to help the women they’ve hurt? Nothing as far as I can see.  They want to zoom right from the “I’m sorry” to the redemption without doing any of the hard ugly work that has to happen in between.  These fucked up men have made the very very selfish decision to pass on their pain to innocent women.  They have inner work to do and lots of it.  Giving them redemption without that happening does nothing to inspire them to change.  Someone asked if Louis CK needed to wander in the desert for 40 years.  Maybe or not.  What is the path for redemption for these men?  They could start by asking the women they’ve harmed for forgiveness.  Let’s start there.