The Celebrity Sexual Harassment and Rapists Thread

[deathrey]

That has come as a massive disappointment and shock

[Factotum]

On 7/4/2024 at 7:40 PM, deathrey said:

That has come as a massive disappointment and shock

There's been quite a lot of stories for some time about Gaiman. It sadly didn't come as much of a shock.

[BomberPat]

it's depressing how ubiquitous Neil Gaiman is in fantasy and sci-fi circles. I'm currently reading a Harlan Ellison short stories collection and a Leah Moore graphic novel, and both of them have an introduction from Gaiman. 

I've seen a few people (mostly on Threads, tbf, which is full of bad opinions) try and argue that stuff in Gaiman's writing is somehow evidence of his behaviour, and I really hate that rationale - the logical conclusion of it is that anybody who writes about bad things must also either be doing or secretly wants to be doing those things, or that it's a secret confession, and that's just an incredibly stupid thing to believe and an insane way to understand art. 

There's also a lot of people pointing to Gaiman as an apparent feminist and trans ally, which of course makes all of this more upsetting - the first time I recall ever encountering a positive portrayal of a trans person in any media was in an issue of Sandman. There's also the suggestion that the people breaking the story are doing so from a place of attacking Gaiman for those positions on trans rights and so on, and while it's always important to recognise motivation behind which stories like this get reported, the fact that Gaiman's defence comes down to "yes, I did get sexually involved with a much younger woman under my employment on her first day on the job" renders a lot of that moot for me.

[Chest Rockwell]

Parallels to Warren Ellis. Very disappointing but I guess not hugely surprising

[Mr_Danger]

If writers are giving clues to their various misdeeds in their writing then Stephen King is fucked.

[SaitoRyo]

1 hour ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Parallels to Warren Ellis. Very disappointing but I guess not hugely surprising

Didn't know there was another Warren Ellis and was worried I'd missed something about Nick Cave's best mate there.

[BomberPat]

I think the thing on the feminism and ally stuff is going to be how Gaiman responds to all of this - his immediate response seems pretty tone-deaf, but you have to assume it's been through a hundred lawyers. If he comes out of this seeking redemption, then it's up to his audience and the public at large to decide what that looks like and if it's deserved, but if he pivots to cancel culture grifting and blaming everybody but himself, then it's perhaps safe to assume that what seemed like his principles were never that sincerely held or important to him, and potentially were even a manipulative tactic in and of themselves.

What I think is far more likely is kind of like old punks turning right-wing; it's people who, in their youth, saw themselves as on the vanguard of left-wing or progressive opinions, and don't recognise that the world and their position in it has changed, so turn to "it's the children who are wrong". In Gaiman's case, I think he honestly believed in the causes he stood up for, and I think his mental image of himself was probably still stuck as a nerdy young writer who was amazed to find that his books were getting him attention from young women. Fast-forward decades later, and he's one of the most successful authors in the world, with an immense amount of influence in TV and movies too, and if he's still stuck in that self-image as the young writer who got lucky, he probably doesn't see himself as the rich and powerful man exploiting his position in a way he'd immediately recognise in other people. One of the dangers of being a bit too self-righteous and assured in your beliefs is you start to believe that you're The Good Guy, and it can't be wrong when you're doing it, because you're The Good Guy. You make excuses for your own behaviour, and that's far from unique to Neil Gaiman, I'm sure we've all done it about something or other at some point in time.

A few of my friends are really shaken up by this, and I think I probably would have been if it had come out a few years ago. I think there's a combination of the last few years hardening me to this sort of allegation about anyone, to the point that there's only a very small list of celebrities left that I'd be honestly upset to find out got up to this sort of thing, and generally learning a thing or two about putting people on pedestals, but also that I'd already started to find Gaiman a bit insufferable anyway, some of what he got up to during Covid certainly didn't help.

[King Coconut]

I'm only just finding out that Huw Edwards is an actual certified nonce. How did that happen with no mention of it here?

[Chest Rockwell]

I think it's because they're was such a period between the arrest and confirmation. I assumed it had already been covered in here previously but couldn't remember ..

[SuperBacon]

I am not saying Huw Edwards is innocent, far from it, but I have read some very interesting things about what constitutes "making an indecent image" over the last few days, and it's a bit misleading. Anyone that receives an image by say Whatsapp has "made an image" due to the fact it downloads on your phone and technically that is now a copy. Which seems a bit mad.

Saying that, I hope he gets the appropriate punishment obviously.

I cannot believe he's Benoited the BBCs footage of the Queen being announced as dead.

[deathrey]

The laws around children's indecent images are very very strict, and they need to be to eliminate all loopholes. In my previous job, if a young person told us that they had an indecent image of themselves or anyone else we were not allowed to look at the images to determine if they were indecent - anyone who views the image including us as staff was seen as having accessed indecent images of a child. We had to try to confiscate the phone or tell the young person not to delete the image (where appropriate) and call the police to investigate. This was the case when I worked for social services too. It did mean that sometimes the police were involved over false allegations but it's better safe than sorry.

I know personally of cases where people have been arrested for looking at an imagine on someone else's device in innocence of what they were going to be shown.

 

Edited August 1 by deathrey

[d-d-d-dAz]

9 hours ago, Chest Rockwell said:

I think it's because they're was such a period between the arrest and confirmation. I assumed it had already been covered in here previously but couldn't remember ..

I think this new story is exactly that, new.

The big blow up last year was around a 17 year old girl, but was complicated by the fact they'd met via Only Fans which gave people enough wiggle room to defend him, as he could say he thought she was 18.

This new one I think has come as a bit of a shock to everyone, not least because of how he allowed people to defend him before knowing this was in the background.

People need to reset their expectations of him doing prison time though, as the person who sent him the images only got a suspended sentence AND if you read it, each time he got a tranche of illegal images, Edwards would reply along the lines of 'don't send me the illegal stuff'. Obviously, that's not a defence as he was probably just covering his back, and he both kept the images and didn't go to the police.

I definitely think the language around 'making indecent images' is hugely ambiguous though, given in this case it covers just having been sent them via WhatsApp.

Either way, fuck him, massive nonce. But this is new noncing, that the public and apparently his mates didn't know anything about.

Edited August 2 by d-d-d-dAz