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Notes -
Neil Gaiman having sexual misconduct allegations alleged against him.
https://x.com/bordigay/status/1808522316017815898
Fascinating for the usual 'she was a defenseless underaged 21 year old' tract and 'we had somewhat bad sex at some point' allegations. Reading between the lines it feels clear that Gaiman is a serial polyamorist and atleast a moderate sexpest (by modern standards), but surprising timing to go for him now.
There's been some minor backlash-backlash on grounds of the accusers being TERFs and therefore unworthy of being in the online sphere, and there's nothing explicitly criminal about the accused actions but will be interesting to see how it impacts ongoing projects like Sandman and Good Omens.
Liveblog of the podcast with the details from someone skeptical about the allegations (she's only done the part with the first accuser so far):
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1808514093323587854.html
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1808604076650660238.html
The highlights would be the Whatsapp messages. Like this one after the day when Neil Gaiman allegedly sexually assaulted her on her first day as a nanny:
And this one a few days later after the weekend when he allegedly "anally penetrates her, she says, without asking and without using a condom and she says he uses butter as a lubricant.":
Or these messages to Neil, also from shortly after the alleged anal rape:
Or these after he messaged her about her supposedly telling people he raped her and she planned to MeToo him:
Or the general description of the year of messages following her meeting Neil, a relationship that supposedly started with him sexually assaulting her on the first day they met and anally raping her the second day:
In summary:
EDIT: Liveblog of episodes 3 and 4:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1808683675984302279.html
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1808707805915889918.html
The only known case in the universe in which butter was used as an anal lube was in last tango in paris. And him going to the kitchen to take the butter stick out and applying it to one's asshole gives plenty of opportunity to ask "what the fuck are you doing".
Or on your first day in the job at some point you could raise an eyebrow at the invitation to bathe naked with your new boss, as well.
Gotta say, this isn't a good look from him. It sounds like he didn't do anything illegal but he sure did take advantage of a young, inexperienced woman who was both star-struck from meeting a rich celebrity and also working for him. She had very little sexual experience and he was instantly leading her into some sort of intense sub/dom thing.
This is the sort of thing where I think "me too" actually makes sense. He doesn't deserve any legal repurcussions but I'm OK with trashing his public reputation over this. Especially since it apparently wasn't just this one woman but at least 14 according to his wife (herself a famous feminist celebrity).
you know how the internet likes to take old-fashioned words and re-use them? Words like "lewd" and "grinch" and "ruse?" I wish we could do that with "cad." It's the perfect word for the modern age. A guy who didn't actually do anything illegal but still behaved immorally towards women.
I can't help but disagree here. Lots of 21-year-olds like kinky sex. Not to mention with a celebrity! WhT a bonus! Where's the immorality?
lots of 21 year olds like heroin, too, but I would feel, you know, kind of bad if I was a rich guy trading them heroin for sex. Just because someone likes something in the moment doesn't mean it's ok to make an elaborate effort to set up an environment where they feel good temporarily but feel terrible in the long term.
Their long-term feelings are their responsibility, no? The idea that a man should refrain from enjoying a multi-year relationship with a woman, which she also enjoys at the time, because he somehow knows that she'll feel bad after, is rank paternalism.
If you really did somehow know... Then yeah. Build memories with others that they will cherish not memories they will regret. Intentionally exploiting the naive and shortsighted is rotten behavior.
But from everything I've seen in this thread it looks like Neil had every reason to believe he was building positive memories here. It brings to mind traumatic pains I myself have felt- the buyer's remorse of realizing that the things I did to bring other's happiness has brought them pain is just awful.
I'm just projecting here but- empathetically I imagine Gaiman as going through something similar. We have a duty to at least look back in post and imagine whether that pain might have been prevented. Might be preventable in the future.
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The actual social conservative response to this is yeschad.jpg. The idea that a resource as socially valuable as access to prime-age pussy should be under the absolute control of people as irresponsible as teenage girls is obviously silly if you start from the basic moral perspective of pre-liberal conservatism. Under herder* culture patriarchy, fooling around with a girl in a way which leaves her as damaged goods is treated as a property crime against her father or husband (which might be forgiven if the perp was sufficiently high-status relative to the victim). Under Christian patriarchy, it is treated as spoiliation of a community resource and (in times and places where the system of Church-led community justice worked as intended) the remedy was making the man clear up the mess through some or all of shotgun-marrying the girl, paying her "dowry" to bribe the village herb into marrying her, or acknowledging and supporting the bastards.
Feminists, like tradcons, are clear-eyed that a functioning society needs to stop lotharios manipulating silly girls into relationships which, while good for the lothario, are net-negative for society. They just have to take some extra steps in order to obfuscate the hate-fact that most prime dating-age women are silly girls.
* The mods have asked me not to call it goatfucker patriarchy, so I won't.
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