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My memory is that Neil Gaiman's name occasionally pops up around here (edit: here). New York Magazine pulled no punches today. Headline?
The headline is false, though maybe not for the reasons you would immediately guess. As far as I can tell the story itself is not a scoop so much as a rigorous summary of things already known. It's difficult to know where to begin, commentary-wise; probably this belongs in the long tail of 2017's "#metoo" movement? But maybe we should begin with Sandman.
If you don't know who Neil Gaiman is, he's... a writer! A talented writer--not so talented a comic writer as Alan Moore, not so talented a novelist as Neal Stephenson, not so talented a screenwriter as Joss Whedon, but what makes him remarkable is that he is almost as good as every one of those writers within their respective mediums of mastery. He became Alan Moore's protégé; he collaborated with Terry Pratchett (Discworld) on Good Omens (1990). But it was his new take on an old DC character, Sandman, that became his own personal magnum opus. Running from 1989 to 1996, the book briefly outsold even Superman and Batman as DC's top title.
If you read it today, you'll see a lot of English punk, a gothic flair, deep cut literary references, edgy takes on stuff that 21st century Westerners now take culturally for granted... and a whole, whole lot of not-even-repressed sexual deviance, both of varieties that have since become more culturally acceptable, and varieties that have not. Hence my suggestion that the headline is false; as near as I can tell, Neil Gaiman never hid the darkest parts of himself from anyone, ever.
In fact, owing to decades of involvement in fringe geek fandoms, I have had a handful of glancing personal encounters with Neil Gaiman. The first thing to know is that he basically sweats charisma. Where Alan Moore is a spectacle, where Joss Whedon is a douche, Neil Gaiman is patently avuncular. He is warm and articulate, a storyteller every second, and when you meet him you know immediately within you, down to the marrow of your very bones: this man fucks.
And as far as I could tell, he made absolutely no secret of it. By no later than 2010 I had heard multiple totally separate stories from women claiming to have accompanied Gaiman to his home for playtime, hippie-style (or rationalist style, if some of the things I hear about San Francisco group homes are true). It is entirely possible that some or all of them were lying! Certainly they were all boasting. One was very clearly imagining that this would be her big break into the literary world, which seems like a strange hope to express if you are lying about the sex.
This is not the sort of behavior I want to encourage from anyone, for a variety of reasons, but it's probably worth noting, very clearly, that this did not seem at all surprising to me. I remember Bill Clinton, I remember Bill Gates, I know what a groupie is. Famous, powerful, wealthy, men have for all of history been inclined toward promiscuity, and women have been inclined to indulge them that.
The article seems to confirm my own, limited historical experiences:
Inevitably, it seems, in such contexts there is never any shortage of... misunderstanding. The article gets into pretty explicit detail concerning accusations of outright rape--often, however, with women who had been involved with Gaiman for some time, and continued to be involved with him for some time afterward. His second marriage (to a C-list celebrity in her own right) was "open"--
Indeed!
That sort of thing only lasted a few years. Eventually, Palmer was pregnant and decided to try to close the marriage. This seems to have been the beginning of the end of that, and the New York Magazine story could be viewed through the lens of "hit piece intended to influence the drawn-out divorce proceedings." I do not (and cannot) know the truth of these events for myself, but it probably doesn't matter; his career has been drying up for a while now, and once studios milk the requisite profits from their current investments in his IP, those contracts seem likely to be among his last. Well, he's in his 60s and he has plenty of money (even if Palmer absconds with half of it), I don't feel too badly for him.
But the whole charade does remind me once more of the peculiar way in which Western culture has come to insist that there is nothing problematic about sexual promiscuity. Marriage is just one choice among many! Homosexuality, polyamory, open marriages, monogamish couples, as long as it is consensual then it's fine, right? Except that, unlike the terribly old-fashioned practice of "celibacy when single, monogamy when married," the clarity of consent seems to break down in the absence of clearly-delineated relationship boundaries. Gaiman's putative victims do not say that they unequivocally rejected his advances; some, indeed, texted him after the fact with reassurances that their encounters were in fact consensual.
That's the kind of evidence that keeps Gaiman out of jail, regardless of what social media mob justice decides on the matter. Even assuming she was being completely honest when she later said, in effect, "I texted him lies because I was scared," there's no evidence of what she was thinking at the time, except what she actually wrote. A world with clear relationship-grounded boundaries around sexual activity alleviates such ambiguities!
I am sort of peripherally aware of some of the "sex pest" stories that occasionally circulate in rationalist circles, and certainly I am aware of the polyamory (and e.g. Scott's occasional defense of it). Apparently it can work, for some people, at least for a time. But more often it seems to end up like this: if you want an open marriage, probably you don't really want a marriage in any robust sense of the term. And wealthy, powerful men who do not commit themselves to monogamy wholly and from the outset, Pence style, will be promiscuous, and it will eventually create headaches for them, of one kind or another.
Hm. Maybe someone should write a comic book about that.
Stuff like this makes me think that "consent", as a binary yes/no, is not a good model of human relations. Like, we all agree that having sex with who's falling-down drunk is wrong, even if she enthusiastically says yes. And there's no clear line for "how much alcohol is too much." For age, there's a clear legal line, but most people still think it's creepy for a too-old man to have sex with a too-young woman. But everyone has different opinions on how much age gap is too much. A supervisor at work dating their employee is also not inherently illegal, but there's a lot of guidelines about it and situations where it can be considered into sexual harassment.
In this case, there's all sorts of things that create a power imbalance. The guy was rich, famous, and apparently charming. He had legions of fans reading his stuff when they were teenagers, so he was effectively "grooming" them without even having met them. He liked to play dom during sex, and had a lot of experience in it, while he was meeting young women with very little experience. It seems like he met a lot of women who were enthusiastically into it, to the point where he might be genuinely confused that someone wasn't consenting with him.
I wish there was a middle ground. Something in between "he's guilty of rape, send him to prison for 20 years" and "he did nothing wrong, so let him off scott-free." A fine seems meaningless when he's so rich. Maybe a good dose of social shaming is the right punishment. Even rich people still care a lot about their social reputation, and this can be a good lesson to everyone about some of the darker sides of human sexuality. Maybe sex-ed classes could include a lesson on the dangers of falling in love with a celebrity.
If you want to treat women as having agency, you have to assign blame for the consequences of their decisions to them. There was no power imbalance tantamount to force here; Gaiman was rich, famous, and (apparently) charming but he had no authority over them. Writing books read by the public is not "grooming"; calling it such casts doubt on the concept of grooming. A woman's later regret does not make a man's actions any sort of offense against her. If you don't think women have agency, you may as well join the "Fight for 25".
Certainly there are conservative-morality reasons that it's wrong for an old celebrity to have sex with starstruck young women. But either such moral systems treat women as being lacking in agency, or the offenses aren't against the woman (or both).
There are many forms of power besides just physical force, which is the entire reason we have laws against underage sex or sex with drunk people. Please don't tell me you think it's fine and dandy for a boss to tell his female employee that she must have sex with him to get a job because "she has agency and can say no."
What deals with her employer is she allowed to consent to, in your view? Or, why is sex special? Why can she consent to any terms of employment at all?
A not entirely unreasonable point. Our economic system gives too much leverage to employers; if Alice hires Bob, Bob has a lot more to lose than Alice does; thus Alice can make unreasonable demands knowing that: 1. Bob will probably back down first, and 2. if he refuses, she won't have any difficulty finding someone more desperate. If we try to patch specific abuses with rules like 'don't make sex with one's boss a condition of employment', we end up playing Whack-a-Mole as Alice keeps finding more indignities to inflict on Bob, and campaigns against any intervention with the argument that Bob 'voluntarily' agreed to her terms, in the same way as the victim of a highway-man 'voluntarily' agreed to hand over his valuables.
Under full employment, however, if Alice demands that Bob offer her sexual favours, or forgo safety equipment in order to work faster, or stand up for his entire shift even though he could do his work just as well sitting down, or answer his phone at zero-dark-thirty for something could have waited until morning, or refrain from eating rice on Tuesdays, &c. &c., Bob is more likely to leave, and, having done so, is less likely to experience financial hardship as he can readily find a more reasonable employer, while Alice, less able to find anyone who will accept her onerous terms, will be incentivised to be more reasonable herself.
In such a system, the libertarian argument that Alice and Bob mutually agreed to whatever terms would be much more likely to hold water.
Does this apply to all aspects of employment contracts, or only to sexual favors? Is Bob bound by anything in his employment contract, or can he break it as he sees fit because he is being held hostage by reality?
It applies to unreasonable provisions, i. e. ones Bob only accepts because Alice can afford to hold out longer.
It doesn't apply to 'doing the task for which he was hired, to a reasonable standard'.
Why doesn't it apply to doing the task for which he was hired? Certainly, in a wage dispute, Alice's ability to hold out longer is equally if not moreso present.
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An that's why I always say the best anti-rape policy is to lower the minimum wage and fight the unions.
Doesn't the US have full employment already, therefore Bob was not raped?
But then you have the problem of people who work full-time who still can't afford the costs of an existence worthy of human dignity.
That goes in the wrong direction; unions are an attempt to solve the very problem I am alluding to, namely the gross imbalance of power between Alice and Bob!
Perhaps 'full employment' was not the exactly correct term; I am referring to the balance of power between management and labour, and economic circumstances in which the lack of an agreement has similar costs to both sides.
I don't think that's a real thing. What about a 15k$/year life is below human dignity? The only real indignity is starving, plus maybe not having a (small) roof over your head. And minimum wage workers are far from that. In most western countries, even those who refuse to work, who are supported by the rest of society, are far from that.
Only the imbalance between union members and the boss. The unemployed are screwed. It creates a new class of protected workers who cannot be fired, and so make hiring more risky and expensive, increasing unemployment.
So essentially, you admit there's full employment, yet there's still no way to get you to accept that workers have agency/they aren't raped when they have sex with their boss? Only if there's a new system, full communism or something.
I think achieving the lack of any real unemployment in a society (like the current 4% in the US) is of primary importance, and a great boost to the agency, bargaining power, and psychological health of workers. So I'm very sceptical of any attempts to help workers that could increase unemployment (raising minimum wage, anti-firing legislation, etc). What they gain in salary or security, they lose in bargaining power - that's not a good trade over the long term.
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