One year after the movement went viral, though, male survivors are beginning to feel a sense of community, protection, and acceptance—perhaps best exemplified by Crews’s experience. After learning last November that Venit would return to work after roughly a month’s suspension, Crews brought a civil case against Venit and WME, which the parties settled last month. The case was dismissed on the condition that Venit resign, without the possibility of returning to the company in any capacity, and that WME alters its employee-conduct policy to adequately address sexual assault and battery by WME employees against clients. (An outside attorney will be responsible for approving the policy, as well as its implementation.) Employees will also be required to receive training regarding those policies annually.

“I told everyone, and I continue to say it,” Crews said. “I was ready to spend a million dollars to win one dollar . . . This is not about money at all. But the fact is that I wanted [Venit] to be gone.”

“The higher up you are, the more accountable you are,” the actor added. “It doesn’t work the other way.”

Crews noted that male accusers can both benefit and be hurt by pre-existing notions about masculinity and sexual politics. People seemed quicker to believe his claims against Venit, he said, because he is a man—but some skeptics also shrugged off Venit’s actions or blamed Crews for misconstruing Venit’s intentions (a charge that can be lobbed at any accuser, male or female). Others asked why Crews didn’t simply punch the guy—ignoring the consequences Crews could have faced for that.

For many men who have faced sexual abuse, the problem is still more elemental: “I don’t really recall hearing about male survivors,” said Gaston, when asked if he believes #MeToo has shifted the conversation surrounding male accusers. A day after Crews’s tweets, Gaston told his own story, tweeting that just as Crews was groped at an industry function, Gaston was also assaulted in a professional setting. Gaston was in his late twenties, he said, when a director groped his groin during rehearsal for a new play. Both a stage manager and a young assistant director were present for the incident, Gaston said. At the time, he responded by swatting the director’s hand away and making a joke. “But I never complained to management,” he wrote on Twitter last October. “I was terrified. And I was humiliated. I had violent fantasies about the man for years.”

It was 25 years before Gaston felt ready to speak about the incident publicly; at the time, the actor said he only confided in one close male friend. “We weren't particularly emotionally sophisticated. . . At the time, it was just, like, put your head down, get to work, get out of New Haven when this thing is over, and get on with our lives, which we did,” he said. Years later, he learned that two other actors he knew had been harassed by the same director: “It was a perfect three out of three.”

Although the memory of being groped gradually receded in Gaston’s mind, he still felt dark emotions he couldn’t fully understand or process; the two others told him about similar experiences. There they were, three usually nice guys, all boiling with rage. “It really, really affected us in lots of different ways, I think,” Gaston said. And as the actor typed out his story on Twitter last fall, it all came rushing back.

“I might have just stopped and not done it, if I’d thought about it more—but in the moment, my heart was pounding,” Gaston said. “It really was weird. At one time in my life, I’ve had what could be described as a panic attack, and this was about half of that. Just as I was writing, you know, I really felt hot and short of breath. And it was 25 years later.”