Justin Trudeau is in an awkward spot for suspending two MPs accused of sexual misconduct. But before criticizing his reaction to the NDP’s claims, tell me what he was meant to do.

Hush it up? Say boys will be boys and she probably asked for it? That’s neither smart politics, good feminism nor human decency. Especially with Jian Ghomeshi all over the news.

Justin Trudeau may or may not be a smart politician. That bulb kind of flickers. But he is a good feminist and he seems like a pretty decent guy. And he made the fair and decisive choice to suspend and investigate.

Fairness matters. As my colleague Warren Kinsella says of this situation, it is important to “audi alteram partem,” to hear the other side. Investigations don’t just expose the guilty; they also clear the innocent. And people have a right to answer serious charges which, in this case, include adultery even if there wasn’t assault. So they must be heard.

This requirement alone leaves Trudeau in an awkward spot because MPs of both sexes are generally powerful people more likely to commit than suffer harassment so the investigative apparatus is not well developed here. But that’s hardly his fault.

Nor is it his fault the claims sound increasingly peculiar. Even the NDP’s nitpicking over how to investigate smacks of partisan politics and bad conscience. But consider how the accusation unfolded publicly after Trudeau’s decision.

The Huffington Post interviewed an NDP MP willing to name others but not herself who “says she never intended to destroy the reputations of the two Liberal MPs, only to let Trudeau know what kind of people he had in his caucus.”

Give me a break. How can you “let someone know” their colleague sexually assaulted you without destroying their reputation if you are believed? Feminists spent years arguing that sexual assault is serious, and now the NDP is bent out of shape that Trudeau acted exactly as they should have expected and wanted him to.

This accuser also claims she and a Liberal MP belong to a sports league whose members often went out for drinks after games. One night, he invited just her to his room to continue drinking and, she didn’t realize, more.

Are you fresh off the farm? When you’re drinking in a group and a man invites you to drink solo in his room at 2 a.m. he isn’t planning to make a pass at you. He’s making it now.

She says if she was a man it wouldn’t mean that. But she’s not. And it might anyway. Adults know such things.

She also says when she did figure it out she “froze” too badly to say no and he did sex that hurt for days afterward. Some press reports claim she handed him a condom. But, she complains, he failed to obtain explicit consent.

I guess you’re meant to take a clipboard into the bedroom these days. But what’s Trudeau meant to do?

Sexual assault is traumatic and a victim may not want to lodge a criminal complaint, because they think they lack evidence or feel unable to face the proceedings. But whatever happened, you can’t go to the guy’s bosses and whisper he forced himself on me, don’t want to embarrass him, just get the rapist some therapy, let him explain that to his wife but keep him in his job, no biggie.

You certainly can’t expect Trudeau to go along with this outrageous suggestion, on political, feminist or moral grounds. Sexual assault charges are far too serious to ignore or to believe without a hearing.

So tell me what else you’d have done, or don’t criticize what he did.