Take a famous and popular artist, one who is creative and imaginative and breaks through all kinds of walls.
Take a rather sleazy person who enjoys degrading himself and others, who abuses women and takes gross sexual advantage in a way that is so extreme that people refuse to believe it.
Can those two descriptions fit the same singular individual? Of course they can. I’d even argue that the more talented you are, the more likely you are to avoid censure for misbehavior; being talented doesn’t cause abusive personalities, but they are given far more leeway than Joe Schmoe wearing an overcoat and nothing else, with no reputation to reward looking the other way.
Read this story from just a few days ago, about Louis CK. The author praises Louis CK’s comedic ability, and acknowledges that they bias him. But he still doubts the accusations.
I cannot say with any certainty that C.K is guilty of what he’s being accused of.
Yet the current cultural climate has made it difficult to continue to give C.K. the benefit of the doubt. You can’t say “believe women” and then make exceptions for comedians and auteurs you personally admire and respect. I don’t know if C.K is guilty of the transgressions he’s accused of, but I also can’t really imagine how you would develop a reputation for masturbating in front of female comedians without, you know, masturbating in front of female comedians.
Read the comments. Here’s an example.
It’s a chewed over, tired, need-them-monday-clicks kind of discussion, but for my 2 cents until there is any kind of substance to the allegations, let alone ‘proof’, I don’t see what the point in speculating is. ‘Someone who may or may not be Louis CK may or may not have jerked off in front of Garfunkel and Oates – he says no, they say nothing’ is all we have had for years
“Benefit of the doubt” and “innocent until proven” are weirdly complicated terms that are simplified by assumptions. We will give the benefit of the doubt to Louis CK, but we will not give any benefit of the doubt to the women accusing him at all. Louis CK is innocent until every wisp of an argument against him is conclusively proven; the women are assumed to be liars until every jot and tittle is nailed down with absolute certainty in a court of law. The purpose of the “innocent until proven guilty” standard is to prevent harm to someone until their guilt is established, but somehow we don’t care so much about the harm done to the victims of abuse by a privileged, sheltered artist. We’ve been hearing these stories about Louis CK for years, but — and this is the problem — nothing has been done. No investigation, no credibility has been bestowed on the many women who bring nearly identical stories to the table, everything recedes away from the Great Man and his unimpeachable denials.
Money, power, and influence give them a shield against having to address these accusations that the poor, the weak, and the unknown don’t have. In a just world, Louis CK would not be able to stonewall and deflect these stories, and the credible, distressed women would have instantly rallied a call for closer examination rather than the excuses of “Oh, but I really like Louis CK’s work”. Or Woody Allen’s. Or Roman Polanski’s. Or Geoff Marcy’s. Or Colin McGinn’s. Or Kevin Spacey’s. Do you realize how long a list I could make just off the top of my head?
In a just world, no one would be able to dismiss a whole series of accusers with the magic words, “witch hunt”. It’s an interesting twist, that the more women come forward with testimony of a problem, the more likely the claim of a “witch hunt” will be invoked. The volume of the complaints is suddenly used as a reason to dismiss them altogether, rather than to provide evidence that there’s a potential problem that ought to be addressed.
So we wait and do nothing, we practice our denials, until something more substantial than the words and pain of mere women and victims of the powerful rises up. Like, for example, an investigation by the New York Times that reveals that maybe the ‘bitchez’ weren’t lyin’ all this time.
Ms. Corry, a comedian, writer and actress, has long felt haunted by her run-in with Louis C.K. In 2005, she was working as a performer and producer on a television pilot — a big step in her career — when Louis C.K., a guest star, approached her as she was walking to the set. “He leaned close to my face and said, ‘Can I ask you something?’ I said, ‘Yes,’” Ms. Corry said in a written statement to The New York Times. “He asked if we could go to my dressing room so he could masturbate in front of me.” Stunned and angry, Ms. Corry said she declined, and pointed out that he had a daughter and a pregnant wife. “His face got red,” she recalled, “and he told me he had issues.”
Yeah, he’s got issues. I’ve got issues. Everyone has issues. Most of us don’t resolve them by beckoning to the nearest woman and trying to disgust and degrade her.
And yet right now there are going to be people who rise up indignantly and self-righteously declare their rational skepticism — they will doubt the accusers. They will doubt the many accusers who have everything to lose by pointing a finger at the powerful patron who could do so much for their careers. They will not doubt the wealthy and successful man who had the opportunity to abuse his power.
And still people wonder why women choose to ‘voluntarily’ leave certain professions…
Well, of course we should doubt every story until there is actual evidence of wrongdoing (oh, wait, isn’t testimony considered evidence? aren’t eyewitness accounts considered evidence?). Of course we should tread very carefully when accusations of sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual abuse or rape are made because it could ruin the life and career of the accused (oh, wait, what about all of the survivors of assault, abuse, harassment and rape? what about their careers? what about their life of remembering what happened, trying to forget what happened, trying to deal with the memories, dreams, panic attacks and PTSD from what happened?) Of course we should take eyewitness testimony with a grain of salt (oh, wait, we do, but only for the survivors — the perpetrator’s account is gospel until proven a lie beyond even the shadow of a possible doubt with unacceptable levels of proof demanded by the rational thinkers). Of course we should listen to the testimony of victims (oh, wait, she said it happened on a Monday or a Tuesday and if she’s not sure about that then we can throw the testimony out). And of course we should support the real victims of sexual predation (oh, wait, we already do, don’t we? men are the real victims, right?).
I remember trying to tell one of scout leaders what was happening to me and to others. And one of the reasons he called me a liar was that my rapist was such a good man, an upstanding member of the community with a wife and daughters, who was active in the church, active in community activities, and a professional.
Louis CK, I believe the women who are putting forth their eyewitness testimony. Admit what you have done and then make a change to become an acceptable human.
In the meantime, there’s a guy patting himself on the back for helping us female types.
I’ve pretty much believed it for awhile, due to Gawker/Jezebel’s persistence over the last few years. I guess it’s been a gut feeling up until today. The sheer vitriol of the comments on the posts also kinda steered me in that direction. One can make the argument that the posts were were mere clickbait, but it certainly seemed like there was more to the story than they could say. Here’s their summary.
I’d love to see what Jon fucking Stewart has to say now. No way he didn’t at least know about the rumors.
I have to give Nathan some credit at least for recognizing his own bias and trying to deal with it.
I’m speculating but in reading these issues in the media it seems to me there is a major dichotomy being overlooked that PZ makes in the last line. Too many people react to the sexuality of the accusations when it is really the abuse of power that truly matters. I think a lot of people confuse having sex with colleagues with having sex with superiors. Colleagues can be boorish and sexually aggressive and this is socially unacceptable. However that is totally different from a superior being boorish and sexually aggressive, which is not acceptable because of the abuse of power. Abuse of power is reprehensible because it involves theft. Plain and simple. That is the real issue. Society needs to establish that there CANNOT be consent when an abuse of power is involved: it is theft, whether it involves sex, money, status, or other benefits.
I gave credence to the accusations the first time I heard them. Not only because I’ve rarely regretted believing a victim, but also he’s the exact type of “male ally” who turns out to be a creep. Listen to his stand-up in that thread and try not to heave.
Sure, he says nice things about women, but he’s still clinging to very traditional (and openly threatening) gender essentialism, which has been found to correlate with attitudes about rape. “We men are all dangerous predators. Isn’t it awful? Oh well, now watch as I surround myself with women. Nothing worrying here.”
Along with the most recent news items (Judge Roy Goofus Filth in Alabama), the extra filthy part: the self-proclaimed Christians who are clean, upright, moral, pious, god-like (we know this because they tell us all the time) who supported Drumpfh even after the p*ssy grabbing tape was publicized. Friends-soon-to-be-mere-acquaintances of ours don’t believe the tape even though it was DRUMPFH’S VOICE AND FACE.
This kind of filth is demoralizing when pseudochristian Drumpfheteers stay in their religious bubble.
Society’s shock and inhibitions keep women from properly responding with “Only if I get to take pictures and then laugh”.
I would go a little further than that and say they were already simple concepts that have been simplified further, often disingenuously. What they mean is simply that the government does not get to lock people up or fine people on a whim, because a government with no such restriction on the power it holds is a tyranny. No one may be harmed in that manner by the government until it has proven to a reasonable standard that such harm is warranted.
But harm to reputation is very different. Reputations are protected from harm caused by intentional lies or negligence in fact checking, but other than that, word of mouth is absolutely fair game.
Matthew Gilbert, critic for the Boston Globe, wrote an article today in which he hand-wrings about which tainted artists works he can still watch. It’s a long and growing list he has to consider.
I divested myself from watching or contributing to any of his shows a few years back. Then Better Things came along which is a very good show, I watch it with my daughter. I just realized it is produced by LCK. Dammit.
@zoniedude #6
I’m sorry, are you seriously making the argument that the real problem with sexual assault is that it’s theft? Not that it’s violence or that it’s violence which is extra violative because of the sexual nature, but that it’s theft? Really?
This is a minor point but I don’t think the Polanski case is cogent here. (I believe the victims of Louis). As far as I know Polanski has only every been linked to one victim and more to the point every one agrees that some sort of abuse occurred. It’s also worth noting Polanski cooperated with the US judicial system up to the point the judge was about to reneged on a plea deal because of a photograph. As a non-citizen you can’t fault him if he felt because he couldn’t trust having his due process rights protected.
Polanski is a far tougher case to deal with than Weinstein or Louis because it was a one violation. I don’t for second believe it’s helpful to think one act of abuse and sexual violence no matter how horrible should forever brand someone a pariah.
One act of abuse and sexual violence can forever alter the victim’s life, but won’t someone think of the abusers?
Wow Mike.
Fuck off.
Seriously.
Mike Smith # 14
So what did you do?
@kupo
Of course. Which is why acts of abuse like Polanski’s ought to be punished. It’s utterly regrettably that a showboating judge messed up the judicial process that was bring a semblance of justice to Polanski.
While it is true that acts of sexual violence can have lifelong effects the victims, the victims themselves are capable of telling us if and how this effects have happened. In this case Polanski’s victim has, repeatedly, asked people to move on and that she has forgiven him. Which is yet another reason I don’t think the Polanski case is cogent here.
There’s a ton stuff our country does around sexual violence that makes me uneasy on due process and harm reduction grounds. Sex offenders registration is probably the big one. I really don’t think they should exist. Excuse me for seeing moral nuance.
@Chigau
Fuck off.
I also don’t think a single act of violence, including murder, should brand a person a pariah forever either. You see I like to believe that forgiveness and redemption happen.
Mike Smith
No.
Some members of the “Manson Family” did only one murder.
and are both religious concepts.
#14
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/23/roman-polanski-marianne-barnard-allegations
If you do it once, you have probably done it before and will probably do it again.
Sorry, hit post prematurely.
….
and are both religious concepts.
… in my small-church Roman Catholic childhood …
I never heard of those outside of a churchy setting.
Blattafrax #23
Yes. There is always that.
I assumed everyone knew that the stories about Louis CK were true. That’s why I’ve always been uncomfortable with him as an entertainer; he seems like a good guy, but he has that hasty streak underneath that you never know when it will come out. Even when I listened to him before I heard any allegations (at least a decade ago) there was something wrong about the way he talked about some things, specifically towards women. I didn’t know what, exactly; it just made me uncomfortable. I saw a headline about allegations towards him and didn’t even read it because I was like “that’s old news”. Finding out it’s Garfunkel and Oates in these accusations does actually change it for me from “probably true” to “pretty much definitely true with no exaggerations”. Even if they have actually said nothing.
Mike Smith @14:
The term you intended is ‘relevant’, not ‘cogent’.
Please listen to yourself; you want to snark, you have a bloody good target there.
“Sex offenders registration is probably the big one. I really don’t think they should exist.”
So… what’s Mikey hiding, that he doesn’t want his neighbors knowing?
chigau:
Tsk.
Yes, they are religious concepts, but they are not only religious concepts, your perception notwithstanding.
@blattafrax
Thank you. I was unaware of the 4 other allegations. That of course makes Polanski cogent to this conversation.
@Chigau
I don’t for a second believe you have never heard of forgiveness outside of church. It’s not a religious concept at all. It only means that you have moved on from wrong done to you and you have made peace with the one who has hurt you. I would be flabbergasted if you have never heard someone say forgive and forget to someone holding a grudge. (There are religious version of forgiveness but there’s basically a religious version of everything.)
Redeemition I’ll grant is more religious connected as it is closely associated with the Christ myth. However, in the sense of making up for past mistakes and/or wrongs the concept is secular. In any case that’s not a particular Hill I need to die on. Feel free to edit my statement to I believe that forgiveness and resitution happen.
Now I was unaware of the additional allegations/probably victims of Polanski. In light of that by all means throw him in with Weinstein and Cosby and C.K.
I’m still maintaining however that a single violent act damaging to one other person should never be enough to make a person a social pariah forever.
Really.
Let me rephrase that, without altering its meaning whatsoever:
“I’m still maintaining however that not matter how damaging to one other person a single violent act should never be enough to make a person a social pariah forever.”
…
Yeah.
Of course, you try to speak generally, not about this specific case. Which you implicitly exculpate.
(Doesn’t help — the obvious is obvious even to us assholes)
@Mike Smith.
Yeah, I agree. We should wait until someone has drugged and raped at least two children before we decide they are horrible people that should be shunned for the rest of their miserable existences. I mean, just one? That’s way less than two. Two is something, one is barely anything at all. One is the closest to none that you can get.
Am I making a cogent enough argument for you?
John Morales
yeah
that’s why I said:
… in my small-church Roman Catholic childhood …
*tsk*
chigau, ok.
:)
Mike Smith
Is deliberately obtuse your usual rhetorical style?
(never mind we already know that)
@28
I don’t trust the fundamentally broken judicial system to either have 100% correct conviction rate or have a definition of a sex crime that isn’t too board. A guy who urinated on a public playground at 3 in the morning when no kids were present should not be one the same list as rapists. Likewise a 16 year old who takes a nude selfie shouldn’t be on the list with actual child pornographers. Yet I know of several cases for both.
We are not even 15 yeah removed from consensual sodomy being decriminalized.
@John Morales
If you are going to condescend about my world choice at least get it right. ‘cogent’ is most commonly used to mean a clear or compelling argument (point, example). However, it also means that an argument (point, example) is germane or relevant. Do you need me to link to a dictionary?
John Morales
:)
maybe a speeling chequer
Mike Smith, never mind word choice. Point being, you attempt to make a distinction on the basis that Polanski only had one documented victim and was widely acknowledged to have done the deed, whereas Louis had multiple alleged victims and is not (yet) currently widely acknowledged to have done the deed. Easy pickings.
(I did read what you wrote)
@Chigau
Yes it’s either too late, I’m too tired or I don’t know you well enough that yeah I’m not sure what you are getting at by claiming that forgiveness is religious concept. Are you saying it’s childish?
@Pascal’s Pager
Not what I saying. I’m saying that a single act of violence by itself shouldn’t forever bar someone. There are of course other factors than besides additional violence, like lack of remorse, that might warrant treating someone as a pariah. It depends.
Now I happened to be factually wrong on the Polanski case, so let me craft a purely hypothetical case. Imagine a pedophile (in the strictest clinical sense of the term a person attracted to children) who has never acted on his desires. He hasn’t molested any kids nor used child pornography. Indeed he is so morally disgusted by his desires he does everything he can to stay away from kids in any context. He’s been doing this for years. However after a bad week (lost job, parent died, whatever) he breaks down and either uses child pornography or in the hardest case molests a kid. He then turns himself into the cops
How should we feel about such a person? I think such a person has committed a grave evil. But I’m not willing to write them off because they have struggled so much and while yes they have deeply hurt a child and should be punished accordingly, I don’t think they warrant decades of social scorn.
Now the Polanski case is no where near that level of conflicting intuitions even under my factually wrong rendering of it but the intuitions I feel above were kicking in to a smaller degree until I learnt if the other victims.
Since elevator-gate, I’ve pretty much taken all sexual assault claims at face value. Let’s face it, if someone told you that they were mugged last week, you wouldn’t claim that we shouldn’t pass judgement until they go to court. Nor would you claim that the victim consented to handing over their wallet, or ask the victim if their wallet looked sexy at the time.
Person A steals 100 dollars from friend 1. This is widely acknowledged. Person A also seemingly tried to make amends.
Person B is widely suspected of stealing 25 dollars each from friends 2-6. Person B also vehemently denies this.
You really don’t see why it might not be helpful when discussing the social Dynamics to group the two cases together?
”
FFS. You are bullshitting, perhaps even to yourself.
What you are saying (I here reiterate, since my claim obviously hasn’t sunk in) that you are effectively claiming that “a single act of violence by itself no matter how heinous shouldn’t forever bar someone.”
Yeah, you are discriminating between quality and quantity. Pascal’s Pager has your number.
PS
Really. Care to even attempt to substantiate this claim?
(Person A reclused themselves sufficiently to avoid the full weight of legal consequences, in acutality)
@Mike Smith
Your argument is totally invalid. Once a person chooses to sexually assault another person NO MATTER THE CONTEXT I am not going to worry about their plight. I care about the victims.
Your hypothetical is just that, hypothetical. What a Polanski did is beyond disgusting and that you have wasted so much time defending your twisted argument ought to give you pause.
I’m not here to forgive the perpetrators of sexual assault. That you so willing are is concerning.
@Mike Smith
Your argument is totally invalid. Once a person chooses to sexually assault another person NO MATTER THE CONTEXT I am not going to worry about their plight. I care about the victims.
Your hypothetical is just that, hypothetical. What a Polanski did is beyond disgusting and that you have wasted so much time defending your twisted argument ought to give you pause.
I’m not here to forgive the perpetrators of sexual assault! That you so willing are is concerning.
@43. John Morales. Huh?
Also, I didn’t mean to repost my response to that moron above twice.
Pascal’s Pager above,
Inference. You were being sarcastic, right? If so, I stand by what I wrote.
@ John Morales, that was Mike Smith that commented what you responded to.
When I say by itself I don’t mean the additional factors that warrant decades of social scorns have to be a repeated violence. When a person commits a particularly grisly murder that they proceed to lie and cover it up that’s two acts. Likewise an unrepentant rapist should be treated differently than a repent one.
If you hold sexual violence by itself is something that a person cannot come back from you are condemning a nontrivial portion of the populace to damnation. Sexual abuse is too depressingly common to hold all abuser are forever moral monsters. This is a conclusion so misanthropic that I can’t see it as anything but cheap nihilism.
And as I said before Polanski voluntarily entered a plea bargain, which he followed to a T. He was actually jerked around by the judge a few times. He only fled jurisdiction after it became clear tge judge was going to vacate the plea deal, which apart from being grossly improper means Polanski had no reason to trust the American justice system was going to honor his due process rights. Any foreign national accused of any crime would have jump ship when he did. I certainly would have. Blame the showboating judge who got annoyed at a photograph.
I’m so sad and sorry for that child rapist Roman Polanski.
NOT
@Pascal’s Pager
It is simply a false dilemma to hold you have too care about only one or the other. Of course victims take primary concern and until such time as abusers been punished yeah we should ignore them. However I don’t believe that means they are all and always unforgivable.
Likewise I can hold Brock Turner to have gotten off with far too light of a sentence for super gross reasons while still being queasy that his picture with the subtitle of rapist is in a criminal justice textbook published recently. Apart from anything else one might say about that Brock Turner was not convicted of rape under California law. As a legal text book that’s just not correct despite how it might square with our folk (or other) definition of rape.
Mike Smith, #14
I don’t know what you mean by pariah in this case. But should the victim of sexual violence and abuse be discouraged from speaking out and telling people what happened? No, right? So you agree that the victim (let’s say it’s a woman) should be able to speak freely if they choose to and spread the word about what happened if that’s what they want to do. Okay, then once they’ve spoken up about it and the word has spread, are you saying other women should force themselves to have normal contact with them even if it makes their skin crawl? Are you saying that men should continue to hire the attacker and place him in contact with women where they aren’t able to avoid him? What exactly do you mean by the person shouldn’t become a pariah?
Unless you’re saying victims should be silenced, the pariah-hood of the attacker is an automatic and natural occurrence (and with good reason).
Also, your inclusion of “no matter how horrible” is extremely fucked up.
“If you are going to condescend about my world choice at least get it right.”
I love Muphry’s Law.
Mike, you still haven’t fucked off. You really should. Because you’re digging one heck of a fuckin’ hole here.
Mike Smith,
Let’s look at it another way:
What shouldn’t be happening to Brock Turner, say, five years from now?
@42 I don’t know Mike, was Friend 1 dressed provocatively. Maybe they consented to being robbed. I think it’s too early cast any judgements on this, and shame on you besmirching Person A’s good name. You should think of the harm you’re doing to Person A’s reputation with your wild accusations.
I think it would be really helpful if you define your terms “social scorn” and “pariah”.
For this case, would “social scorn” include parents never letting their children near this person or not inviting him to a birthday party? How about parents deciding to take their kids and leave a gathering abruptly when this person showed up? How about people telling their kids to stay away from him?
Why is it, when a topic about the odious behavior of powerful men comes up, there’s always somebody who’ll start wallowing in hypotheticals to excuse their behavior?
Someone who is not disposed to being a predator would not all of a sudden turn to child porn or decide to rape a child because they are having the worst damn week ever, and they are just all kinds of stressed and depressed. “Oh what could possibly make me feel better? I know, I’ll rape a kid!” Christ onna stick, shut the fuck up.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that men are too governed by their emotions to be allowed to have any sort of authority. I suspect we should consider having them restrict themselves to look after the home for a while until all these messes get sorted out.
We don’t really need more reality-warped eejits posting from their basements!
Reading a rad-fem (non-TERF; (TIRF?)) site, the writer proposed the crazy idea that an action is sexual violence if the victim says it is. For conciseness, let’s use “rape” for sexualized violence, “he”/”him” for assailant, and “she”/ “her” for victim. If a fan or fellow entertainer accuses a popular or influential figure of rape, then it’s rape. If she makes the accusation five years later, it’s still rape. The assailant faces the full penalty of the law. If the rapist claims that it was a consensual interaction, it’s still rape because she said it was. The assailant faces the full penalty of the law.
Being a feminist, I read it and thought, “Now wait a minute, that isn’t fair! Women might lie to get back at their ex, or…” and, “This is why people don’t take feminists seriously.” I spent some time frowning about how the trend in my thought was demonstrating distrust in women – not *good* women, certainly not people I know. Just those backstabbing, vindictive ones that make it reasonable for the onus of proof to be on all women.
But wait a minute. What the “rape is always assumed to be rape” argument does is put the onus on the assailant. It puts the onus on men. There’s no reason he can’t prove reasonable assumption of consent, if it exists. If a guy doesn’t want to be accused of rape, he shouldn’t STICK HIS DICK IN SOMEONE HE CAN’T TRUST, either now or five years down the line. If he doesn’t want to be accused of harassment, he shouldn’t PULL OUT HIS DICK IN FRONT OF SOMEONE OR ENGAGE IN SEXUAL CONTACT WITH SOMEONE HE CAN’T TRUST , either right now or at a later date. One could respond that it’s hard to tell if someone will turn vindictive after a falling out or be unethical to begin with. What’s a guy to do? Hmmm, maybe AVOID COMPROMISING CONTACT OR BEHAVIOR until he’s confident that his “partner” is trustworthy and take every effort to explicitly acquire and, if necessary, document consent.
To tie back to the post, if women are coming forward with accusations against this guy, I’m ethically obligated to believe them unless HE CAN PROVE OTHERWISE. I’m not overly aware of Louis CK’s work or the entertainment industry in general. He might be brilliant, but that doesn’t make him infallible. Maybe people can still enjoy his work knowing that he’s gross to women, but it will definitely inform my opinion of it, if I ever come across it.
@ Mike Smith,
I empathize with part of your position. The sexual predator list laws are apply to things that shouldn’t and don’t catch all of the people who commit crimes that should be covered. An acquaintance of mine will forever have his life made more difficult because he was 19 and his girlfriend was… not. He’s turned out to be a good guy who doesn’t deserve the hassle. On the other hand, another acquaintance was in the same situation and avoided the list by the skin of his teeth. He went on to victimize a number of other girls before he was listed. If he’d been listed, the other girls or their parents may have made different choices. He really deserved to the penalty. It doesn’t make it any less miserable for the first guy though.
“A guy who urinated on a public playground at 3 in the morning when no kids were present should not be on the same list as rapists.”
In my state Level 1 sex offenders are not on the public register.
@Mike Smith
If I’m understanding you, you are arguing for context when determining crimes and wrongdoings, and you are arguing for appropriateness of penalty for the crime that was committed. That we should be careful saying things like “sex offender” because the response is so high when it’s something that should more appropriately be called “disorderly conduct” in the case of the urinating play-grounder. Fair enough.
So let me tell you this- when the story is “Women aren’t believed because men abuse good faith and talent” and you bring up the example of someone you believed to be judged in bad faith instead of presuming good faith, your saying it is right to disbelieve women. Because this is the context you are posting in.
Context absolutely matters. You’re just not demonstrating that very well.
@saad
Shit person I don’t know with the Brock Turner case. Oh wait… let’s start with not having him the picture definition of a rapist in a criminal justice textbook because he wasn’t convicted of rape.
Likewise I don’t think a man should be social shunned if he is convicted for rape because he had sex with his 17 girlfriend when he was 19 for the rest of his life. So for example if he was working in an office (no kids) for 15 years and his past came up somehow yet not once even remotely crossed the line again in any way I think any icy behavior from virtually anyone or worse yet a calls to have him fired are wrong.
I also flatly oppose sex offenders registration in any form. So let’s start with that.
@Professor Myers
I don’t know why ethicists use case examples and hypotheticals to get at underlying principles. I’m also completely baffled why scientists use experiments to get at underlying reality.
I just saw on msn.com where LCK “Breaks Silence and the storeis are true.”
Here’s Louis CK’s statement: https://www.avclub.com/louis-ck-admits-to-sexual-misconduct-apologizes-1820338122
He says that the accusations are true. Good apologies (this is one of the better ones I’ve ever seen from a public figure) don’t absolve anyone whatsoever — it just means that he’s no shittier a person than he was yesterday. If there’s a chance for such a shitty person to become a non-shitty person, I suppose it would have to start with an apology like this, but he denied and hid from this for years and years. I’ll note that he didn’t admit to other instances, which almost assuredly occurred, even if other women haven’t come forward yet.
Louis C.K. has confessed.
Follow-up to shadow@68, Louis CK responds to sexual misconduct allegations: ‘These stories are true’:
His full statement is apparently much longer, but the quoted excerpts seem to suggest a genuine apology, and some understanding of at least one cause.
Do you really not see that you have made quite clear that you are not arguing in good faith here? A man of 19 who had sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend (assuming consent from her), should not be convicted of any offence whatever, and so should not be on a sex offenders’ register. If you want to argue against the principle of such registers, you need to explain why they are wrong for those convicted of multiple violent rapes.