It’s become a slow news week when a media figurehead hasn’t been accused of sexual misconduct. Harvey Weinstein has essentially become the first domino in an intricate Rube Goldberg machine, knocking over one powerful man after another for varying degrees of harassment and assault. Whether that’s exposing themselves to women without their permission, abusing their power to take advantage of underage boys, or coercing women into sex, they’ve been universally reviled for the most part. That’s what has made the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements so easy to get behind thus far. When we read about deplorable and morally unambiguous behavior like this, wagging a finger at the likes of Louis CK or Dustin Hoffman is second nature. But it also doesn’t teach us anything about rape culture that we don’t already know.

If you’ve gone on social media at all in the past week, you’ll know that another famous figure is currently staring down the barrel of sexual misconduct allegations, but this one is different. If you haven’t read the piece in babe yet, I strongly suggest you do with the disclaimer that it may make you sick to your stomach. Hell knows it did to me.

Actor and comedian Aziz Ansari hails from the camp of the super “woke” — a feminist and activist who literally wrote the book on modern relationships. So seeing him be taken to task by a pseudonymed woman (“Grace”) for what she describes as the “worst night of her life,” is enough to prove that nothing is sacred.

But that isn’t the only thing that separates this case from the Kevin Spaceys and Harvey Weinsteins caught in the #TimesUp crosshairs. The night Grace describes is one of subtle coercion, where her attempts to pump the brakes on an escalating sexual encounter have her finally leaving in tears. It isn’t overt assault in the red flag way of the cases that came before her, the apparent abuse of power that birthed #MeToo.

In some ways though, it’s more insidious, not just in what it represents, but in the way the world has responded to it. According to the New York Times, all Aziz is guilty of is not being a mind-reader. Caitlin Flanagan at The Atlantic tore into Grace for penning what she deems “revenge porn.” Everywhere people are dragging this story as the death blow for the #MeToo movement. This narrative is perhaps the most troubling part of the whole ordeal.

Whether what Aziz did constitutes sexual assault or not isn’t the issue. What is clear from Grace’s testimony is that he traumatized her by repeatedly ignoring her boundaries. That alone should have been the driving force behind this whole discussion. Instead, as David Klion puts it, the story has become a litmus test for who sees sexual misconduct as clearly a legal issue and who is concerned about improving the overall culture surrounding sex and dating.

The public at large has been so quick to pounce on Grace — shaming her for not removing herself from the situation, not voicing her discomfort loud enough, and drawing attention away from “more serious” forms of assault. What she describes is simply a date gone bad, a hookup she regrets. It’s an everyday situation that Ansari approached like any guy would.

Yes, this is a common enough scenario, and that should terrify you.

People are scoffing at Grace not because they don’t believe her, but because they’ve lived her story. They shrug her off because they see her experience as an all-too-recognizable slice of an average dating life. It’s a crappy date, one of the messy, poorly conceived transactions that litters the lives of millions of women. It can’t be assault because it just describes the way things are. Men are expected to chip away at boundaries and women are supposed to maneuver around them. This is what a date is supposed to look like. What did she expect?

#MeToo shouldn’t just be about overt cases of assault — the Brock Turners that drag women behind dumpsters in the dead of night. It should also address attitudes like these. It should challenge the dominant mindset that dating is a battle between an aggressive man and a nimble woman. Why should a culture of sexual coercion be what we consider normal? And why are we putting the onus on women to be better gatekeepers of their own bodies?

It’s because the alternative is a scary prospect. If we admit that all the bad dates, all the gross feelings of appeasement are what they’ve always been, then suddenly we can’t convince ourselves that these experiences are the expected product of a normal dating life. In her blog, KatyKatiKate, Katie Anthony draws a straight line between the backlash and this fear. “If we begin to call all sexual assault what it is, we will have to voluntarily admit more pain into our lives, pain that we have up to this point refused to let in the door.” That’s a difficult road to cross, but at the same time, it’s the kind of self-evaluation that could lead to meaningful, lasting change. “If we call this kind of sexual encounter an assault,” she continues. “Then women who have been weathering what they call bad sex will suddenly have justification for the icky feelings and shame that follows them home in the cab.”

Sex and dating shouldn’t come with all of this baggage, all the not-technically-assault-but-still-tearful-cab-ride-inducing scuffs and bruises. We should read Grace’s story and be willing to draw a new line in the sand where we never realized one should be. Instead of pouncing on her and spinning a narrative about female helplessness or calling it inferior to the “serious” cases of assault in the media, we should question the socialized attitudes that make her story so commonplace. Men are socialized to take charge and push boundaries. Women are socialized to “be more responsible” about the situations they allow themselves to get into. And we are all socialized to uphold this structure, one that puts a woman’s pleasure dead last in favor of a man hurdling toward a sexual goalpost.

Grace performing various sex acts with Aziz doesn’t change how violated she felt. It doesn’t mean that she should have put up more of a fight. It doesn’t mean Aziz was in the clear. Imagine if instead of critiquing Grace for her inability to better diffuse or leave the situation, we took to task our collective acceptance that coercive sex is normal.

The reaction to Grace’s story is a teachable moment. It’s easy to look at the Harvey Weinsteins of the world and condemn them. It’s harder — and more meaningful — to take a look at the culture and say “no.” We have an opportunity to look at the way men approach sex and women — not just the most dangerous predators, but average guys for whom a date like this is normal.

Instead we’re reposting the Times, Hollywood Reporter, and Atlantic, yelling “not that bad” and “harmful to #MeToo” without realizing that that is the voice of the patriarchy. This is how we reinforce the status quo. This is how things never change.

I’d like to live in a world where “bad date” means that the conversation was awkward and the restaurant gave me food poisoning, not that someone’s boundaries were repeatedly tested. Wouldn’t you?