Celebrity Allegations, #MeToo etc

I think after Trumps endorsement of Moore yesterday it's time for the women who accused the don of sexual assault to step forward once more. If this country really wants to change it needs to start at the top. Conservatives are a strange bunch. They will believe any old shit that comes through their FB feed yet when 10,000 scientists tell them man made climate change is real they won't believe it but when one pseudoscientist tells them it's not true they believe it unconditionally. Bottom line is if one woman or man comes forward with allegations then it tends to be one story against another but when multiple people come forward with allegations, especially similar stories then you know the accused is guilty. And before Absolutely Will jumps in, that also includes Bill Clinton and Anthony Weiner.
 
kps88 said:
Why would someone make an accusation once they got to the top? What do they have to gain? And just because you've slept your way to the top, it doesn't mean you have never been a victim of abuse.
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If you agree to perform sexual favors to get ahead, why should that be considered abuse? Would a prostitute be considered an abuse victim if they willingly sell their body to earn a living?

There are men, women and children who are victims of sexual abuse, who have no say in what is happening to them. They are not looking to get ahead in life, but just survive.
 
GiddyUp said:
I think after Trumps endorsement of Moore yesterday it's time for the women who accused the don of sexual assault to step forward once more. If this country really wants to change it needs to start at the top. Conservatives are a strange bunch. They will believe any old shit that comes through their FB feed yet when 10,000 scientists tell them man made climate change is real they won't believe it but when one pseudoscientist tells them it's not true they believe it unconditionally. Bottom line is if one woman or man comes forward with allegations then it tends to be one story against another but when multiple people come forward with allegations, especially similar stories then you know the accused is guilty. And before Absolutely Will jumps in, that also includes Bill Clinton and Anthony Weiner.
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I'm not sure what that accomplishes. Trump has proven he's Teflon. Unless there's more information we're not privy to. His press secretary flat out called all of them liars and moved on, without consequence.
 
vi1lain said:
It’s reassuring that your anecdotal experiences account for a global problem that has existed for decades.



The only people who generally think this is a witch hunt are the ones who don’t believe the accusers are telling the truth. Also probably includes a large amount of people who weren’t aware of just how common sexual violence is, therefore this is difficult to comprehend.
That doesn’t make the claims of a witch hunt legitimate.

As I’ve said many times in this thread, we can’t talk about the volume of claims being made now without discussing the fact that rape culture made it almost impossible for victims to get justice in court previously.

You can’t talk about one without the other.
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Why get butt hurt over my response when you decided to to respond to my original post. I gave my observation which you seem to be throwing out altogether as if only your opinion counts.

This may have been happening for decades, but people have been willing to do favors to get ahead since forever. If you have not seen that yourself, then you may have lived a very sheltered life so far. It happens everywhere in every profession.

Mine or your opinion is not going to change anything now or the future.
 
Synco said:
I understand by that you mean retroactive false accusations, not just the 'sleeping to the top' part. Not a rethorical question, but are you positively sure no assault has happened in these instances? Someone can cross the line to violence/rape even during what has started out as consensual sex, after all.

And concerning Hollywood, do you believe this makes up a considerably high percentage of the cases discussed here? I can imagine potential personal motives, but it would be a high-risk move in any case. The accusers would face a shameful end to their careers, high reparations and possibly jail time if it goes wrong. They would also deliberately put the public spotlight on something that tarnishes their own careers, and I imagine most people owing their success (at least in part) to something like this would rather be glad if it never comes under investigation.

All in all, I consider women (and children) actually being molested by exploitative assholes a much more plausible reason for the current outpouring of allegations than a sudden mass phenomenon of false testimony - carefully spoken. Especially after what has already come out about Hollywood culture in this regard.
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If it is consensual sexual favor, where you know what you are doing and why, how can it be an assault? I personally find it disgusting to ask for sexual favors and have never engaged in it, but I have seen it happen. As for violence during sexual contact without the other person's consent, then yes, I would absolutely consider that an assault.
 
ghagua said:
Why get butt hurt over my response when you decided to to respond to my original post. I gave my observation which you seem to be throwing out altogether as if only your opinion counts.

This may have been happening for decades, but people have been willing to do favors to get ahead since forever. If you have not seen that yourself, then you may have lived a very sheltered life so far. It happens everywhere in every profession.

Mine or your opinion is not going to change anything now or the future.
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I'm simply saying that whatever people do in order to 'get ahead' in life has nothing to do with sexual violence, therefore it's pointless to discuss women sleeping around.
Having sex is not akin to sexual violence.

Furthermore, the stigma around 'sleeping around' for power, only exists when it's women who do it.
There's no such stigma around Elitist Members-Only Clubs (which are usually male only) who use their exclusive networks & communities in order to hire each other into positions of power, or get into the very best universities and industries - something which happens more frequently also.
Unless of course you can prove that women sleep around for more power, more often?

Also, nobody is butt hurt - my tone is simply dry and direct in writing format.
 
ghagua said:
If you agree to perform sexual favors to get ahead, why should that be considered abuse? Would a prostitute be considered an abuse victim if they willingly sell their body to earn a living?

There are men, women and children who are victims of sexual abuse, who have no say in what is happening to them. They are not looking to get ahead in life, but just survive.
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What are you talking about? That has nothing to do with anything in this thread.
 
GiddyUp said:
feck sake pal the woman just came out and said she was not bothered and has been friends with Franken and his wife for decades so who the feck are you to tell her otherwise. She is not a victim yet you are saying she is based on your crazy assumptions.
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Other people say she was upset. And it's hard to believe that a respectable, middle-aged woman would be happy to be publicly mauled by a man with whom she's not in a relationship, and who has one hand on her tit and the other on her ass.

It must also be remembered that Arianna is embedded like a tick in the liberal community and doesn't want to be tweezered out. She has good business reasons, if nothing else, for wanting to smooth this over with minimal controversy.

At the very least the photo shows that Al Franken has a history of putting his hands intimately on women without licence, whether in jest or not, and lends credibility to other accusations.
 
KM said:
Have you even read the fecking article before making such an ill informed post? It's the person who's been accused of this has said that he's taking a leave due to unwanted hugs, the accusations against him are much more serious


http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/...-absence-after-harassment-allegations-w512411

I really don't want to take a moral highground but some of the posts have been pathetic in the last pages or so. From talking about "McCarthyism" to this.
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The article i read didnt detail the rest funnily enough, and put emphasis on the unwanted hugs.
 
Will Absolute said:
Other people say she was upset. And it's hard to believe that a respectable, middle-aged woman would be happy to be publicly mauled by a man with whom she's not in a relationship, and who has one hand on her tit and the other on her ass.

It must also be remembered that Arianna is embedded like a tick in the liberal community and doesn't want to be tweezered out. She has good business reasons, if nothing else, for wanting to smooth this over with minimal controversy.

At the very least the photo shows that Al Franken has a history of putting his hands intimately on women without licence, whether in jest or not, and lends credibility to other accusations.
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What other people? Again with the assumptions. If Al Frankin's accuser accepts his apology and a long time family friend said she was not offended and was doing a comedy skit for a show then why should people like you be offended. Al Frankin is guilty of nothing more than being juvenile. He didn't prey on teenage girls at the mall or high school football games. He didn't send dick pics to teenage girls laying next to a baby. He didn't publicly masterbate in front of a woman while in a position of power. These are actual crimes. It's getting rediculous now as I'm just finished reading about an actress that no one fecking knows going public about a "humiliation" she received from Oliver Stone. Long story short she auditions for The Doors and was told ahead of time that the audition would be intense sexually as that was the nature of the story. She claimed she ran out crying because she was asked to do exactly what I watched in the movie. Her reason for this humiliation was because of a comment she made to Stone about the power of TV after he dissed it. fecking rediculous.
Let me indulge in the rights favorite past time of whataboutism and ask you about Trump. Does he have history and should he be treated the exact same as Frankin?
 
GiddyUp said:
What other people? Again with the assumptions. If Al Frankin's accuser accepts his apology and a long time family friend said she was not offended and was doing a comedy skit for a show then why should people like you be offended. Al Frankin is guilty of nothing more than being juvenile. He didn't prey on teenage girls at the mall or high school football games. He didn't send dick pics to teenage girls laying next to a baby. He didn't publicly masterbate in front of a woman while in a position of power. These are actual crimes. It's getting rediculous now as I'm just finished reading about an actress that no one fecking knows going public about a "humiliation" she received from Oliver Stone. Long story short she auditions for The Doors and was told ahead of time that the audition would be intense sexually as that was the nature of the story. She claimed she ran out crying because she was asked to do exactly what I watched in the movie. Her reason for this humiliation was because of a comment she made to Stone about the power of TV after he dissed it. fecking rediculous.
Let me indulge in the rights favorite past time of whataboutism and ask you about Trump. Does he have history and should he be treated the exact same as Frankin?
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I didn't follow Trump's issues closely at the time, but, from what I know, his behaviour seems worse than Franken's. On the other hand it's now largely moot, since all the accusations were in the public domain and the American people still made the decision to elect him president.

As far as Franken goes, if nothing more serious emerges, I don't think he's obliged to quit, and probably won't. His electorate will have their say when he comes up for re-election.

For me the really serious cases involve abuse of power, and that's the saving grace for Franken - none of the women were his subordinates and didn't have to put up with any crap. Plus he seems to have behaved appropriately with the women who worked for and with him.

Even though it hasn't gotten as much publicity, the accusations against Disney's John Lasseter are a good example of serious wrongdoing. The story of the woman in a meeting sitting beside him twisted into a defensive posture with her arm across her thigh to prevent his hand 'traveling upwards' from her knee, is shocking. No one should have to put up with shit like that at work.
 
ghagua said:
If it is consensual sexual favor, where you know what you are doing and why, how can it be an assault? I personally find it disgusting to ask for sexual favors and have never engaged in it, but I have seen it happen. As for violence during sexual contact without the other person's consent, then yes, I would absolutely consider that an assault.
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Because even if it all has started out as planned, unwanted sex practises can be enforced at a later point. I guess this is quite common when it comes to sexual assault. So having consensual sex at first is no automatic guarantee a later accusation must be wrong, which is how I understood your argument. Except - that's what my question was about - you can be positively sure this was not the case there.

But the main argument of my post (going beyond singular instances) was the second and third paragraph anyway.
 
vi1lain said:
I'm simply saying that whatever people do in order to 'get ahead' in life has nothing to do with sexual violence, therefore it's pointless to discuss women sleeping around.
Having sex is not akin to sexual violence.

Furthermore, the stigma around 'sleeping around' for power, only exists when it's women who do it.
There's no such stigma around Elitist Members-Only Clubs (which are usually male only) who use their exclusive networks & communities in order to hire each other into positions of power, or get into the very best universities and industries - something which happens more frequently also.
Unless of course you can prove that women sleep around for more power, more often?

Also, nobody is butt hurt - my tone is simply dry and direct in writing format.
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My original post was not about sexual violence, but people who do whatever to get ahead and then claim this and that. There are millions of people who are suffering sexual abuse, men, women and children for me to belittle something so disgusting as sexual abuse.

Also, sleeping around for promotion is not just exclusive to women, I have seen men to do quite often.
 
kps88 said:
What are you talking about? That has nothing to do with anything in this thread.
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It has everything to do with this thread. People are making allegations which may be true and may not be, but it may never be proved. People who are being accused will have their reputations ruined forever without ever being proven guilty.
 
"Sleeping your way to the top" consensually is not nearly as bad as sexual assault. However

1. In an industry where exchange of sexual favors for promotions/perks isn't frowned upon, there will be room for sexual harassment, assault, and all the inconveniences that sex brings. So a zero tolerance policy of all sexual interaction that conflicts with company interests is best.

2. People who don't want to have sex with their colleagues/superiors are disadvantaged, even if their qualifications are comparably good. That dynamic coerces some into doing things they wouldn't naturally do.
 
Synco said:
Because even if it all has started out as planned, unwanted sex practises can be enforced at a later point. I guess this is quite common when it comes to sexual assault. So having consensual sex at first is no automatic guarantee a later accusation must be wrong, which is how I understood your argument. Except - that's what my question was about - you can be positively sure this was not the case there.

But the main argument of my post (going beyond singular instances) was the second and third paragraph anyway.
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I will keep it simple, there are many, many people who are willing to do whatever to reach their goals, even if that involves sexual favors. What you are referring to is sexual abuse. If a person disagrees with anything that happens during sexual intercourse, they have every right to say no.
 
ghagua said:
It has everything to do with this thread. People are making allegations which may be true and may not be, but it may never be proved. People who are being accused will have their reputations ruined forever without ever being proven guilty.
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It's like you keep making points that are in no way related to the post I was responding to. Please explain what sleeping your way to the top has to do with assault/harassment and false allegations.
 
Doctors taking advantage of young kids, what an abuse of a position of trust, that's worse than even the Spacey accusations for me. I wish him the worst, bastard.
 
Will Absolute said:
I didn't follow Trump's issues closely at the time, but, from what I know, his behaviour seems worse than Franken's. On the other hand it's now largely moot, since all the accusations were in the public domain and the American people still made the decision to elect him president.

As far as Franken goes, if nothing more serious emerges, I don't think he's obliged to quit, and probably won't. His electorate will have their say when he comes up for re-election.

For me the really serious cases involve abuse of power, and that's the saving grace for Franken - none of the women were his subordinates and didn't have to put up with any crap. Plus he seems to have behaved appropriately with the women who worked for and with him.

Even though it hasn't gotten as much publicity, the accusations against Disney's John Lasseter are a good example of serious wrongdoing. The story of the woman in a meeting sitting beside him twisted into a defensive posture with her arm across her thigh to prevent his hand 'traveling upwards' from her knee, is shocking. No one should have to put up with shit like that at work.
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Apart from the accusations against Trump being moot I agree with everything you said.
 
Will Absolute said:
That was always on the cards, wasn't it?

The low profile hasn't kept other women from coming forward. The public psychology of scandal is peculiar, but a constant drip drip of accusations could take him down.
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I'm of the opinion now that it should be left up to the voters at the next election, or a special election if possible.
 
Raoul said:
Another one bites the dust....

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That's a weird one. Unless you count infidelity, he didn't actually do anything wrong. It was adults having a consensual relationship, she seems to have been the one willing to use private images as revenge porn.
 
Kentonio said:
That's a weird one. Unless you count infidelity, he didn't actually do anything wrong. It was adults having a consensual relationship, she seems to have been the one willing to use private images as revenge porn.
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Agreed, going by the wapo article he's very much the victim in this. He has every reason to go to the police if she shared revenge porn of him. She even explicitly says she used his sexuality to her personal advantage.
 
Kentonio said:
That's a weird one. Unless you count infidelity, he didn't actually do anything wrong. It was adults having a consensual relationship, she seems to have been the one willing to use private images as revenge porn.
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Yeah but if he threatened her then could be in trouble as well
 
Raoul said:
Yeah but if he threatened her then could be in trouble as well
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From the article it seemed he threatened her with the police. It's apparently not an offense in Washington but is in Texas, so he's at least got plausible deniability there. Also the moral highground considering it should be illegal everywhere.

Carolina Red said:
Party of “family values” and what not.
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Yeah, politically he's fecked, it's just unusual to see a Republican actually be the kind fo innocent party for a change.
 
SteveJ said:
Not directly related to these cases, certainly, but troubling - and typical of Hollywood - nonetheless:

Is all forgiven? The strange, troubling resurgence of Mel Gibson

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/nov/23/mel-gibson-hollywood-road-rehabilitation
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Former US Presidents who have committed various war crimes and killed thousands are welcomed and applauded when appearing on hollywood talk shows so of course Gibson is welcomed back. And although I think Gibson is clearly a massive arsehole, isn't most of it verbal outbursts when he's been pissed ? I mean jesus just look at the fecking nonsense Morrissey says when he's sober(Have to image he's a BNP member by now)yet people are going to see live and reviewing he's music.

With all these's people coming forward there has to be actually structurally change(Women in higher positions of powers, some form of unionising)rather than just hoping people will just be nicer.
 
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Granted, but the victims of his behaviour are often women (even his mother). Besides, I was making the broader point that the Hollywood establishment is often very forgiving...of men.
 
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