How we talk when we talk about sexual wrongdoing

You might have seen that there is a spreadsheet in circulation describing the sexual behaviour (to use a neutral word) of various Tory politicians. It is being published in redacted versions, but bits of information can be put together to name names, and presumably the whole thing will become (even more) public in due course. I have no idea whether any of the accusations are accurate: I would ask you to bear in mind that false rumours are not exactly unheard of in politics, and that putting statements into a spreadsheet does not thereby make them true

Anyway, what I thought was interesting was the words people are using to talk about this behaviour.
The spreadsheet itself has some interesting choices of words. "Inappropriate" features a lot. That is not surprising. "Inappropriate" is a popular word for this sort of thing nowadays: it is pretty vague in extent but quite clear in implying "bad". It's probably quite a good word if we are talking about things like unwelcome knee-patting or making personal comments with a view to causing embarrassment; I suspect it is far from being the right word in the case of someone who has apparently obtained an injunction against "inappropriate" behaviour.

The spreadsheet also uses "impregnated" and "fornicated". Have you ever asked someone whether their father "impregnated" their mother or "fornicated with" her? Me neither, and I don't recommend it: it would almost certainly be "inappropriate". These words are only used in connection with impropriety.

"Handsy" is a great word. But, as with "fornicate", doesn't its use suggest that we are talking about the sort of men that the Mitford sisters were warned about in the 1930s rather than people today? You'll see references to men "not being safe in taxis" in the links as well. Is it possible that when the redactions come out we will discover some shocking things about Neville Chamberlain's Cabinet?

I am also fascinated by the way the reporting of the spreadsheet has tried to distinguish between more and less serious matters. How about this:

"Not all the MPs on the spreadsheet are accused of acting improperly. It includes two MPs named in Sun stories who have had relationships with staff where no misbehaviour is alleged.

Justin Tomlinson had a relationship with his younger researcher and Steve Double had an affair.

No sexual wrongdoing is suggested on the part of either."

I see what they are getting at - Mr Double's sexual advances were welcomed - it was mutual handsiness! - but surely "Steve Double had an affair ... No sexual wrongdoing is suggested" is just wrong? Or am I being terribly old-fashioned?

If I were trying to be sententious about all this (and this is not the right context for such an effort) I would suggest that these interesting linguistic choices are the result of the inherent difficulties in having just one openly-accepted test for whether sexual behaviour is right or wrong, i.e. whether the immediately present participants are consenting, while people are quietly aware that there is more to it than that. "Impregnated former researcher and made her have an abortion" you say? I'm sure he didn't force her at gunpoint, so it's all just consenting adults, isn't it? Well, of course it isn't, and it may take a lot of (rightly) angry women making a feminist fuss about "inappropriate" behaviour to re-teach us some things that our grandparents knew. But that is for another day.