That is the whole reason the phrase exists.

I almost admired the reflex of it, in a distant way, the way you might admire a magic trick you have already seen the wires of.

Because this isn’t what it looks like is not really an argument.

It is a request.

It asks the person who has just seen a thing to please distrust their own eyes, to please believe that the obvious meaning of what is in front of them is not the true meaning, to please do the work of inventing a more innocent story so that the guilty party will not have to.

And for years I had done exactly that work, over and over, without noticing I was doing it.