It’s not a magnifying glass. It’s an ice pick.

The sweeping arc and thrust of sexual misconduct allegations, untested and unchallenged. Uncharged, need one add. Which apparently doesn’t matter a fig in these caustic accusatory times.

Throw in an “alleged” here and there — the media’s doing, not the politicians who rushed to the podium on Thursday — and, hey, all fine. Let’s move on to the instant repudiation, the character evisceration, the career annihilation.

Another brick in the wall for women’s empowerment? Another brick through the window of basic fairness, I’d say, and the fundamental principle of innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Patrick Brown isn’t Harvey Weinstein or Louis C.K. Shockwaves emanating from Queen’s Park strongly suggest an entire community that had not heard even whispers about inappropriate sexual behaviour in the now ex-leader of the provincial Conservative party’s past. The slag came out of nowhere, about a man who’s been in the public eye for nearly two decades.

To be perfectly hard-boiled about this: where is the sexual misconduct, exactly?

Because what I’m seeing is sexual malice. Or political malice if the stunning downfall of Brown, who seemed on the verge of becoming Ontario’s next premier, has been manipulated by masters of dark political arts — a conspiracy theory loudly promoted on social media, for what’s that worth. I don’t give it much worth, actually, in the absence of any evidence — a concept, evidence, which has been woefully denigrated by the Uzi #MeToo movement splatter. But the timing, five months before a provincial election, is suspicious, arising from allegations that stretch back a decade.

I don’t know Patrick Brown. I don’t know if he’s a wolf. I don’t know if he’s a man of dubious or admirable repute. And I am most emphatically not a Conservative. Although if I were a Tory, I’d hope to have bigger balls than anything that’s been demonstrated over the past 36 hours.

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Brown is a man ruined, on the word of two anonymous complainants whose allegations have been accepted as prima facie facts, their assertions bathed in the glow of authenticity and virtue.

It is not brave to speak from the shadows. It is not courageous to vilify anybody from within bubble-wrapped camouflage. Alleged victims of sexual crime are never identified in court unless they explicitly seek to make their names public. But we’re not in the courts, only the court of public opinion and I’m not sure how that can be accurately measured when the breaking news is barely one step ahead of the mushroom cloud fallout.

There is arguably no crime here, even if every word, every detail, is accepted as unvarnished truth.

These stories, as delivered to CTV and broadcast Wednesday evening — a short time after an ashen, dishevelled Brown appeared at a hastily arranged news conference and a couple of hours before he resigned as leader of the Conservative party, via a middle-of-the-night statement — do not remotely rise to the level of criminality.

The accusations may be investigated by police. The head of Toronto’s sexual assault unit did not return my call Thursday. Instead, spokesperson Meaghan Gray said in an email: “We can’t make that determination based on reports in the media. If anyone makes a complaint we would investigate and charge, if appropriate. If they don’t want to report the incident to police they can seek support from one of the many organizations in the community.”

It’s hard to see what there is to criminally investigate: no alleged violence, no coercion, no intimidation, no exploitation and only the flimsiest hypothesis of sexual harassment, more so, if by a hair, with the complainant who worked in Brown’s office when he was a federal Conservative MP. Only way this ever comes before a judge is if Brown sues for defamation.

This is the part where we insert Brown’s firm denial: “First I want to say these allegations are false. Categorically untrue. Every one of them. I will defend myself as hard as I can, with all means at my disposal. It’s never OK. It’s never OK for anybody — for anyone — to feel they have been a victim of sexual harassment, or feel threatened in anyway. Let me make this clear: a safe and respectful society is what we expect and deserve.”

I’m diffident about what is deserved here. Everyone is entitled to believe what they wish, precisely because we are not in a courtroom. But I’ve always cleaved to the healthily agnostic in he-said-she-said — or he-said-she-said-she-said — scenarios. That equation doesn’t change when the allegations are sexual in nature.

Or, as NDP Leader Andrea Horwath snapped Thursday, when a reporter almost apologetically raised, you know, that presumption of innocence thing: “I really have two words — Jian Ghomeshi.”

Here’s two other words: “Not guilty.”

And if Horwath followed the trial, which I presume she did, she would know why the prosecution of the creepy CBC star fell apart: the complainants were not credible; at least two of them seemingly colluded before testifying; all three withheld from police crucial information about their relationships with the defendant. The case should never have come to court.

“The justice system is failing women,” continued Horwath. “It really is. And that’s the reality. Let’s not pretend we have a justice system that’s actually protecting women and making sure that women see justice.”

At its worst — and I’ve seen it at worst — that’s sometimes true. Defence lawyers can fillet complainants on the stand, depending on how far a judge will allow cross examination to go. But, at heart, the law does not draw gender distinctions. Male and female complainants are treated equally. That’s what some activists want changed, a hysterical and intolerable demand.

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About Brown’s nights of . . . what? Sloppy seduction? Rampant horniness? The inability to read a woman’s mind?

Kisses in one case, dropping trou in the other. Teenagers, both of them.

The first, a high school student in Barrie, met Brown at a bar. Drunk, by her own admission, while no alcohol had crossed teetotaller Brown’s lips. Brown allegedly invited the young woman to his home and offered a tour of the place. Jump then to the bedroom, where Brown did not drag the girl or otherwise bully her into a provocative situation, at least not as described by this complainant in the CTV interview. “He pulled down his pants, said . . . I don’t know if he said ‘suck my d---’ or ‘put this in your mouth,’ but something along those lines.”

Brown allegedly asked for oral sex and she provided it. Then she left.

Show me a male over the age of 16 who hasn’t asked a female (or another male) to “Suck my d---.”

I am not blaming this girl, if this incident occurred. I was 18 once too, more often stupid than prudent. But by her own account, the sexual act was consensual. The legal age for sex in Canada is 16 (as of 2008). Brown did not take her to the bar where she was drinking underage. Not his job to ask her for ID. Single then, as he still is, Brown would have been considerably older. Not a good look, hitting on girls; age-inappropriate bar slumming, yet commonplace. Doubtlessly poor judgment by an individual in the genesis of his political career. Not a crime.

The second complainant was a university student when she first met Brown on a plane, she told CTV. He gave the woman his phone number and allegedly the names of Barrie bars where he might be later that night, offering to help her skip any lineups. She didn’t take him up on the offer but contacted him months later, looking for a summer job, hired to work in his constituency office. At an after-party following a charity event she’d organized, he — and others — plied her with drinks. She was invited back to his home. Eventually, why gee, there they were, alone, sitting on his bed.

“The next thing I know he’s kissing me. Sitting beside me, kissing me and then I was . . . I kind of just froze up. He continued to kiss me and he laid me down on the bed and got on top of me.’’

She told him to stop.

He did.

He drove her back to her parents’ house.

Again, where is the assault? Where is the intimidation? Where, even, is the harassment? Idiotic, probably, to hit on a staffer. Difficult to tell, from the description, if he manoeuvred the woman into his bedroom. But that’s not a crime either. Not my place to advise anybody on how to get laid.

On the spectrum of predatory sexual behaviour, neither alleged incident, between a man and a woman in the bedroom, moves the needle anywhere towards assault or misconduct. No assault and no abuse, unless we’ve suddenly reverted to the sexual corset of the ’50s.

To declare otherwise is to infantilize women.

We are not children. We are not made of spun sugar. We draw our own boundaries.

If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the bedroom.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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