I’ve been too busy with work recently to keep up with the Weiner affair, but I did catch that Rep. Anthony Weiner admitted yesterday to engaging in sexually explicit electronic communications with half a dozen women. As I skimmed the RSS feeds of the blogs I follow, a theme quickly emerged: How could such a smart, progressive guy do something so stupid? And the answer: hormones, of course! Dude was suffering from testosterone poisoning! Or thinking with his little head instead of his big head! You know what guys are like! Always looking for ways to get laid. Unlike us ladies, of course. Because: hormones!

Even some of the feminists I read appear to be on board with blaming Weiner’s male biology for his screw-up. Strange. Because it seems to me that arguing dudes are slaves to their hormones is just around the corner from everyone’s favorite sexist standby “boys will be boys.” After all, if male (mis)behavior is dictated by irresistible hormonal urges, well, that’s just the way it is then, isn’t it? Nothing we can really do about that.

Except, no. Not buying it. Because I see the culprit somewhere else: male socialization and the male entitlement thinking it encourages. Even “regular” guys often feel entitled to relationships with multiple attractive women. Indeed, a great deal of the resentment certain men feel toward women stems from their belief that they are entitled to relationships, specifically sexual ones, with us. Resentment builds every time a woman they feel entitled to rejects them or hooks up with someone else.