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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.
If you put a 60-year-old man in the room with an attractive 20-year-old woman, the one with all the power is the young woman. She possesses a quality that motivates every male mammal, sexual charm. Given her age, she has greater cognitive flexibility, resilience, and mate choice. The old male is motivated by something so deep in his nature that it evolved before humanity even walked the earth. But the young woman is motivated by vanity, greed, fame, and self-image. By any serious consideration, the young woman has power over the old man. And her motivations are less excusable as they are conscious and vain. The male motivation exists outside the plane of morality, which is why history’s moral teachers do not say “don’t seduce” but “stay away from any context in which you could seduce or be seduced”. That’s the lever of moral control here, well before you are lead into temptation. (Islam is right about women?)
No one in history really conceived of a level of self-control that would permit you to be alone with an attractive young woman for an extended period of time. The most well-trained monk was still barred from being alone with a nun. The absurdity today stems from the typical mind fallacy. Unhealthy men whose sexual drives are damaged or reduced imbue their lack of vigor onto vigorous men. Men with vitality are often successful and successful men often have vitality. So the lacking man mistakes his impotency for self-control, when in fact he experiences 10% of the impulse that the healthy man experiences. It’s like a starved man and a hungry man deliberating cannibalism — it’s no virtue to abstain from the flesh when you’re merely hungry. So we aren’t criticizing immorality here, we are criticizing health and nature, and in an especially dumb and gross way.
The best solution to solve the social neuroticism: you can no longer accuse a man of rape if you willingly spend time with him alone. This solves a vast amount of rape and the only drawback is that a woman can no longer pretend to have a platonic friendship with a “guy friend”.
This is complete bullshit. While "The most well-trained monk was still barred from being alone with a nun." type of rules exist because people designing such institution have seen fit to avoid obvious temptations, this temptations can be in fact resisted.
Are you serious? This rule as you propose is blatantly idiotic, starting from fact that fathers occasionally have daughters.
But yes, also in cases you likely intended: yes, you can stay with attractive girl, alone, and do not rape her. I have honestly no idea why you think it is impossible.
Outside the church it was also a rule that young people of separate genders do not spend time alone, so the idea was not limited to that institution. Re: the church, if monks believed that they could overcome temptation, surely “avoid obvious temptation” would no longer be necessary? In any case, I think this a typical mind problem. And the problem is exacerbated as lifestyle differences and health increase between elite men and the rest. I am not like Neil Gaiman or Donald Trump but I would hazard a guess that their lifestyle is higher testosterone than the typical Twitter feminist pundit. Socially dominant people have higher testosterone, they are healthier, they are probably less likely to use pornography, they are preselected to ruthlessly pursue social rewards (including women — especially women). I think it’s impossible to conclude it can be resisted unless you’ve been there, and our ancestors who have been there and done that seem to believe it can’t be resisted — hence rules. I can imagine resisting from the comfort of my desk right now but that’s just that, imagining. I am not a tired Neil Straightman returning home from a stressful interview to find a nanny in my bath begging to be spanked (per texts). I can easily imagine that being irresistible and I have a third of their vitality, sorry.
This isn’t remotely similar, humans also evolve to not find their kin attractive. I think through scent? But yeah, just don’t pull a Woody Allen. Or an Errol Musk.
Monks are expected to believe that they are the worst of sinners and are unusually corruptible as a form of humility. Making rules like this for themselves is thus expected, and does not necessarily mean that the medieval or renaissance church believes men find sexual temptation impossible to resist.
Fine. How about the ever-clairvoyant Saint Bernard, that absolute dog, Dante’s final guide in the highest heaven —
Remember that the Divine Comedy is a piece of fiction written as a political polemic by someone who was famously sexually frustrated. If Twitter existed in 14th century Italy, he would have been relentlessly mocked as an incel (yes, I know he married and had children, but that's not the way he presents himself in his work). I would take Dante's pronouncements on desire and sexual morality with a grain of salt.
I don’t know how many layers of celestial trolling we have ascended, but (1) that’s a real passage by Bernard, (2) I am situating Bernard in his historical significance, being Dante’s final guide, (3) the Comedy being a creative work does not deny its significance but heightens it, (4) the Comedy is considered one of the greatest works of Catholic writing, (5) it was not written as a political polemic, though it includes aspects of polemic, (6) he had children, ergo was not frustrated, (7) you are probably misunderstanding his relationship with a possibly fictitious Beatrice, (8) I do not care if he was a “misogynistic incel” as this would simply place him in even more legendary creative company.
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