Originally written by Ochre Bunyip at The Punch. Reposted with permission

Under a metal tree topped with neon leaves, the older man sits with a circle of young men. He is dressed in work clothes, clean but plain whilst his young audience is dressed in peacock-finery. It is darker here in this shadowed corner of the square, he knows what the assembled youths do not, that women look suspiciously upon all-male gatherings. So he will be quick.

He points towards the bright lights of the shops and nightclubs, the coffee houses and restaurants and begins.

“That is the Neon Jungle. When you enter you will be assumed to be a predator, a paedophile, a rapist simply because you are a man. You will also be treated as prey, the contents of your wallet fair game for any women who can charm free drinks out of you with the illusion that she is offering you affection or hinting there may be a sexual reward if you are nice enough to her. She will not buy you a drink, the game doesn’t work that way. Beware! The female of the species must make the advance, otherwise you will be tagged as a creep and a stalker.

If you make any undesired approach to a woman she will treat you like a criminal and will declare she was “almost raped”. She’ll use it as an excuse to humiliate you, throw a drink in your face or strike you. I know, I know you think you are strong and that a woman can not really harm a man, but there is more. In that brightly lit jungle is another danger, the White Knight. Males who are so desperate for sex, so conditioned by their lives within the Neon Jungle, they don’t even know they’ve sold their souls to a lie. These men are as strong as you or I, and they will leap to the defense of a woman regardless if she is wrong, drunk, drugged or lying. They do this in the hope of a reward, like the well-kept pets that they are. They were once like you, while you might pity them they are no less dangerous.

Then there are the Clowns; you can recognise them by their gang colours, their prominently displayed weapons; they travel in pairs, or as the night lengthens in fours. They will always side with the female, even though over half of the Clowns were once men such as you or me. They serve the Magistrates and so they are not your friends. They have been trained and conditioned to always treat the woman as a victim, men are always the oppressors, ever the aggressor. A woman can attack you with a weapon and it will be excused but if you strike her even once, with a mere open hand, you will be arrested. If you protest your innocence, that you were defending yourself, they will most likely beat you while arresting you.

Some of you, in time, may find a woman that is willing to return your desire for affection; she may even agree to sex. You all have your phones, take photos, record what she says. For the mind of woman in the Neon Jungle is not like those of men. The morning after, she’ll remember she has a husband or boyfriend, or in a month when her tide does not turn she’ll realise she’s pregnant. Then she will denounce you as a rapist because she will desire above all things to avoid her own culpability. Your name will be called from all corners of the Jungle and you will be tried and convicted in the court of public opinion before a single fact is even heard by the magistrates. You will lose your job, your friends and even face physical danger. When you are proved innocent of wrongdoing, you will receive no recompense not even an apology; in fact the women of the Jungle will make snide innuendo that you “got away with it”. Your false accuser, the liar, will be forgiven by the magistrate because she is frail, she was confused, she was emotional.

The neon Jungle is not Eden. It is a dangerous violent place where you will be painted as predator but in reality treated as prey. It is normal for men of the prides to enter the Jungle, some survive in their own way. Some return to the shadows and pass on the next generation the warning I just gave you.”

The older man watches as the youths leave the concealing shadow and approach the Neon Jungle. He notes that one strikes out on his own, heading for his own shadow seeking his own light of truth. The older man smiles; so few of the young men believe the elders when they warn them but if only one out of a pride does then he will spread the word. Across the edges of the Neon Jungle, many such enclaves gather and all about the perimeter there are young men, in ones and twos, realising the threat the Neon Jungle holds for them, and making their own choices.