He’s denying the worst of the claims, while admitting that he did have sexual relationships with his accusers. They were all consensual, he says.
As I read through this latest collection of accounts, there are moments I half-recognise and moments I don’t, descriptions of things that happened sitting beside things that emphatically did not happen. I’m far from a perfect person, but I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever.
I went back to read the messages I exchanged with the women around and following the occasions that have subsequently been reported as being abusive. These messages read now as they did when I received them – of two people enjoying entirely consensual sexual relationships and wanting to see one another again. At the time I was in those relationships, they seemed positive and happy on both sides.
This is the “bitchez be lyin'” defense written in the gentle romantic style of Neil Gaiman. It doesn’t add up. So he was in a happy, positive, respectful, consensual relationship with women who have all mysteriously changed their minds and started misrepresenting his sensitive style of making love as brutal sadomasochistic assaults? Why? What changed “positive and happy” to tears and trauma? There’s a massive plot hole in his fantasy.
His real sin was not being open and feminist enough.
And I also realise, looking through them, years later, that I could have and should have done so much better. I was emotionally unavailable while being sexually available, self-focused and not as thoughtful as I could or should have been. I was obviously careless with people’s hearts and feelings, and that’s something that I really, deeply regret. It was selfish of me. I was caught up in my own story and I ignored other people’s.
I’ve spent some months now taking a long, hard look at who I have been and how I have made people feel.
Like most of us, I’m learning, and I’m trying to do the work needed, and I know that that’s not an overnight process. I hope that with the help of good people, I’ll continue to grow. I understand that not everyone will believe me or even care what I say but I’ll be doing the work anyway, for myself, my family and the people I love. I will be doing my very best to deserve their trust, as well as the trust of my readers.
This is a dim acknowledgment that gosh, he did something wrong in his past relationships. He’s not sure what, but maybe he wasn’t as emotionally available as he ought to have been. Yeah, demanding that he be called “Master” is a sign of his clumsiness in relationships. But he’s learning! He’s a better person now!
At the same time, as I reflect on my past – and as I re-review everything that actually happened as opposed to what is being alleged – I don’t accept there was any abuse. To repeat, I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone.
Some of the horrible stories now being told simply never happened, while others have been so distorted from what actually took place that they bear no relationship to reality. I am prepared to take responsibility for any missteps I made. I’m not willing to turn my back on the truth, and I can’t accept being described as someone I am not, and cannot and will not admit to doing things I didn’t do.
Something sordid went on. We don’t know all the details, fortunately (the Vulture story had more than I could stomach as it is), but “Yes, I had sex with the babysitter, but it wasn’t as rough as she claims, and besides, she wanted it” isn’t the strong defense he thinks it is.
Ahhh, the “she wanted it defense.” That makes it OK to have sex with your babysitter. You can disregard everything else in your life if “she wants it.”
Wasn’t the babysitter 15 years old? Or am I misremembering?
No, I think all the women he monkeyed about with were in their 20s. He can’t be accused of being a pedo, at least.
Getting distinct Richard Carrier vibes off this guy.
Hopefully I can say that without PZ getting sued. Again.
i bet the only thing the babysitter wanted, was to get paid for babysitting
Is there anyone talented and creative who is NOT a colossal pile of shit?
Akira MacKenzie @6
I suspect that if you keep telling someone that they’re very talented and creative it turns them into a colossal pile of shit.
I was once told that first rank geniuses tend to consider themselves equal to all other people, second rank tend to look down on all others and the third rank tend to look up to everybody else.
I recently re-read Ursula Vaughan Williams’ book ‘RVW’ and he seemed a thoroughly decent and considerate human being. I suppose that his great uncle Charles would now be frowned on as racist but he seems less so than the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries.
There’s a massive plot hole in his fantasy.
Yeah, it’s the same plot hole we find in every “no, she really wanted it” defense: a woman who had a consensual relationship or affair, and then came to regret it, is VERY unlikely to go to all the trouble of suing the guy or pressing criminal charges. It’s far more likely that a woman in such a situation would simply put it all behind her, get the disappointing/asshole guy out of her life, and move on.
I’m no great understander of women, but I have heard them talk on occasion about past affairs, relationships and boyfriends that went wrong in some way or other. And what all those stories have in common is that the women wanted nothing more than to put all that crap behind them and move on to more enjoyable activities and people. Hell, even women who explicitly claim to have been violently raped sometimes choose not to press charges, for that same reason.
And yes, I know women can be cold and calculating and vindictive at times; but in cases like this, I think the cold, calculating response would NOT be to try to pursue any sort of charges against a rich and famous person who has access to better legal services than any of his accusers might. I really don’t see how even a stupid woman would see a real chance of success in such a fight; let alone one who knows who she’s getting in bed with.
So yeah, in cases like this I’m inclined to think that, while things may have started consensual, the guy crossed a bunch of lines (to put it mildly), and did a lot of harmful things the women did NOT consent to. So I’m not buying Gaiman’s defense.