Neil Gaiman article in Vulture

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gaiman's Scientology background: https://www.mikerindersblog.org/neil-gaimans-scientology-suicide-story/

I mean, is this meant to be an excuse?

I think of it more as a partial explanation for how someone becomes the sort of person who does what Gaiman is accused of doing.

Most people who commit horrific acts of violence against other people had really messed up childhoods. It's incredibly common.

Yes exactly. That in no way "excuses" his actions or means he should treated more lightly. But it is a partial explanation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gaiman's Scientology background: https://www.mikerindersblog.org/neil-gaimans-scientology-suicide-story/

I mean, is this meant to be an excuse?

I think of it more as a partial explanation for how someone becomes the sort of person who does what Gaiman is accused of doing.

Most people who commit horrific acts of violence against other people had really messed up childhoods. It's incredibly common.

A lot of people who had really messed-up childhoods don’t commit horrific acts of violence. Don’t try to excuse the behavior.

Also, I’m not sure I’d take the word of a blogger who sounds crazy himself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think Amanda Palmer is getting enough hate on this thread. She not only served him up vulnerable young women, she was also complicit in making them vulnerable. I was so angry that nanny wasn’t paid until months later. She had no support system and no money- the power differential there would make it very difficult for her to say no.

Amanda Palmer also love bombed fans to get them to do her favors and often didn’t pay. While people were probably excited by her fame, it’s a shitty thing to do. That pales in comparison to some of the other allegations.

I find it fascinating comparing the level of hate (and death/rape threats, etc) that JK Rowling gets compared to the lack of response to Gaiman and Palmer’s actions.

What's fascinating about it? Gaiman's stuff has only been recently made publuc. I find both to be gross people who need to shut up, leave social media and do some self-reflection.

Wow insane comparison. Gaiman is an abuser -- he physically and psychologically targeted and harmed these women. JK Rowling has what I believe are misguided ideas about transgendered people. That's not the same.

JK Rowling is, at heart, trying to safeguard vulnerable women. People can disagree with her beliefs but she puts her money where her mouth is as far as protecting vulnerable women.

Gaiman, on the other hand, is alleged to have raped vulnerable women and exploited his child in a grotesque manner. The idea of anyone trying to equate the two is shocking.

PP here and I agree with you. It's actually a bizarrely comical comparison because it's like what are the standards for successful, famous women versus successful, famous men? Well for women we need them to share all our beliefs and political positions and live up to an idealized version of them in our heads that has never actually existed in real life. And for men we'd just prefer they not be rapists but also a little raping is okay, especially if they just rape women we didn't like anyway.

Right, I mean it is crazy the deference that Gaiman is getting. Rowling takes a position that is unpopular and gets thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, extremely vicious rape and death threats. Gaiman is alleged to have committed grotesque atrocities against very vulnerable women and his own child, and the literary world and readers — many of whom cheered how Rowling was treated — bands together in silence.

And you’re right, the message seems to be that for men, a little raping is okay and it was probably the fault of these women we didn’t like anyhow.

I wish we’d abandon the pretense that famous left-leaning men with power act any differently towards vulnerable women than famous right-leaning men with power. There is no difference.

[Anonymous]

Most of the times when I man sticks butter in my ass I leave.

Neil gaiman is a rapist predator and deserves to be cancelled.

But ladies- stop going back for the butter. When it happens once you’re a victim. When after trying to penetrate your ass unasked for, yo get out of the hot tub and yo call the police. You don’t stick around for titty effing and come back for the butter and shit kicking. Sorry not sorry, that is NOT victim blaming this woman was not groomed/ her first interaction with him was sexual assault and she came back for more and more.

At some point we all need to accept that what we accept, becomes acceptable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was so horrifying to read. But not a surprise to me at all that so many of these "progressive", "feminist", "kink friendly" men turn out to be utterly depraved predators. At this point it should just be a massive red flag

I disagree. One of the best boyfriends I had was a sex positive kink friendly shibari master. Know what he valued? Consent. Safe sex.

Know what most 40 -50 YO men I’ve met who aren’t into kink or sex positive? Lying, condom shaming. STD carelessness or overt lying.


IMO the kink community is one of the safest places for women to enjoy their sexuality- “traditional” men seem to be the most rapey. YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was so horrifying to read. But not a surprise to me at all that so many of these "progressive", "feminist", "kink friendly" men turn out to be utterly depraved predators. At this point it should just be a massive red flag

I disagree. One of the best boyfriends I had was a sex positive kink friendly shibari master. Know what he valued? Consent. Safe sex.

Know what most 40 -50 YO men I’ve met who aren’t into kink or sex positive? Lying, condom shaming. STD carelessness or overt lying.


IMO the kink community is one of the safest places for women to enjoy their sexuality- “traditional” men seem to be the most rapey. YMMV.

Quite unfortunately my personal experience is not remotely aligned with that. I actually think this idea that men in the kink community are somehow safer is dangerous gaslighting and also leads to victim-shaming.

[Anonymous]

I’m not doing anything other than sharing my actual experience.

Lien I said, YMMV. Have you dated/dealt with this and specifically what has your experience been?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not doing anything other than sharing my actual experience.

Lien I said, YMMV. Have you dated/dealt with this and specifically what has your experience been?

I’m not detailing what was a traumatic experience when I clearly said it was much in my original post. Your demand is grotesque.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think Amanda Palmer is getting enough hate on this thread. She not only served him up vulnerable young women, she was also complicit in making them vulnerable. I was so angry that nanny wasn’t paid until months later. She had no support system and no money- the power differential there would make it very difficult for her to say no.

Amanda Palmer also love bombed fans to get them to do her favors and often didn’t pay. While people were probably excited by her fame, it’s a shitty thing to do. That pales in comparison to some of the other allegations.

I find it fascinating comparing the level of hate (and death/rape threats, etc) that JK Rowling gets compared to the lack of response to Gaiman and Palmer’s actions.

What's fascinating about it? Gaiman's stuff has only been recently made publuc. I find both to be gross people who need to shut up, leave social media and do some self-reflection.

Wow insane comparison. Gaiman is an abuser -- he physically and psychologically targeted and harmed these women. JK Rowling has what I believe are misguided ideas about transgendered people. That's not the same.

JK Rowling is, at heart, trying to safeguard vulnerable women. People can disagree with her beliefs but she puts her money where her mouth is as far as protecting vulnerable women.

Gaiman, on the other hand, is alleged to have raped vulnerable women and exploited his child in a grotesque manner. The idea of anyone trying to equate the two is shocking.

+100 Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of the times when I man sticks butter in my ass I leave.

Neil gaiman is a rapist predator and deserves to be cancelled.

But ladies- stop going back for the butter. When it happens once you’re a victim. When after trying to penetrate your ass unasked for, yo get out of the hot tub and yo call the police. You don’t stick around for titty effing and come back for the butter and shit kicking. Sorry not sorry, that is NOT victim blaming this woman was not groomed/ her first interaction with him was sexual assault and she came back for more and more.

At some point we all need to accept that what we accept, becomes acceptable.

Eventually they did. It isn't as cut and dry, easy as you make it seem. These women, for whatever reason, were clear, easy targets of this man. Predators know who will stick around through some foul shit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone involved is gross. These women all agreed to consensual sex with this man until at some point it went bad. What the heck did they expect, having sex with a married man while working as his babysitter? I’m not blaming them for instances of sexual assault but let’s not pretend these are upstanding young women. This man is disgusting. If he, as my boss invited me to take a bath in his garden, that would be a hard no. Where is common sense?

(I have only read the Variety article and excerpts of the Vulture on Reddit and elsewhere as it's paywalled on my phone)

The power dynamics are really significant here. Most of these women were very young. Several were employees of Gaiman or his wife. One was a neighbor who'd just divorced. Several agreed to NDAs for shockingly low sums, indicating that even when they knew what had happened was wrong, they struggled to really believe it. He clearly preyed on women who were especially vulnerable or compromised. So that's where the "common sense" was. Many of these women were likely abused or neglected as children or in prior relationships. It's very common. And then abusers like Gaiman are good at spotting the qualities of someone with that background -- eager to please, low self esteem but responds very well to attention and flattery, willing to override their internal resistance to things to please him (until, for most of them, there came a line where their internal resistance kicked in and they said no -- I am betting Gaiman got off and trying to find where that line was and then trying to push past it).

Also Gaiman and Amanda Palmer were very vocal advocates of polyamory. I think they used this essentially as cover for Gaiman to be a straight up predator. They could draw people in under the guise of "it's okay, it's an open relationship, we're affectionate people, love is love, the human body is beautiful in all its forms so nudity isn't shameful" and so on -- it normalizes a whole range of behaviors that would not be considered okay in a more traditional community where most people are monogamous and you don't take baths at your boss's house or discuss sex with your employer. They sold this "alternative lifestyle" as better than other kinds of relationships and people really idolized them for having figured out polyamory and viewed them as more evolved or something.

Turns out they are just extremely terrible people and there were a million signs along the way that people ignored because they seemed so "cool." Never been a better example of why "coolness" is absolutely worthless. Cool is deeply deceptive.

I’m a Gen X woman who has been really concerned by the normalization of “alternative” sex and “kink” that seems like just a way to degrade women by any other name. I’m not saying to prohibit consensual conduct — but acting like BDSM and stuff like c@ming in a woman’s face etc is totally normal healthy sexual behavior is not right. Even on forums like this you see a lot of people acting like you’re a prude if you think this stuff is distasteful. I think there’s a lot of young women that feel like they don’t want to be labeled a prude so they go along with stuff because it’s cool or supposed to be fun, then realize along the way that it’s not actually fun and just makes them feel crappy. For instance, the vast majority of women do not really enjoy an&l — that’s not where our best erogenous zones are. Yet there’s now tremendous pressure on women to include this as a normal part of sex lives. I think all of this pressure makes it hard for young women to draw appropriate boundaries and realize “oh, wait, a married middle aged guy who wants to dominate me and degrade me is not actually sexy, and I’m not a prude if I think that’s disgusting.”

I feel like Gen X women have been saying this for 20 years … I do think Millenial and Gen Z women were not acculturated in the same way to it being inevitably “cool” but OTOH the accessibility of hard core prn has only increased.

Yes there's a huge movement of anti-porn with younger millennials and Gen Zs, along with 4B. In a way, the revealing of male sexual degeneracy that happened during the Gen X/early millennial heyday has actually been a boon for feminism. Of course there is still a subset of Gen Z that subscribes to the Lana Del Rey, "he hit me and it felt like a kiss", "hit me daddy" type kink behavior but it's increasingly considered outdated and cringy edgelord stuff. Young women are really disgusted by a lot of the pro-kink stuff and it's one of the reasons rates of virginity and the "male loneliness crisis" are skyrocketing.

Men are reaping what they've sown.

What is 4B?
My daughter is a lesbian and part of me thinks— if I’d been exposed to prom and dick pics the way all these young teen girls have been, I definitely would have kept my distance from men.

Your daughter loves who she loves by nature. I was in an abusive relationship as a teen. He was Gaiman level sick in the head and rapey. Once I got away from him, I wished I were gay so that I never had to share space, physical or emotional, with a male. Alas, I am straight. Fortunately, most men are basically good and not abusive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think Amanda Palmer is getting enough hate on this thread. She not only served him up vulnerable young women, she was also complicit in making them vulnerable. I was so angry that nanny wasn’t paid until months later. She had no support system and no money- the power differential there would make it very difficult for her to say no.

Amanda Palmer also love bombed fans to get them to do her favors and often didn’t pay. While people were probably excited by her fame, it’s a shitty thing to do. That pales in comparison to some of the other allegations.

I find it fascinating comparing the level of hate (and death/rape threats, etc) that JK Rowling gets compared to the lack of response to Gaiman and Palmer’s actions.

What's fascinating about it? Gaiman's stuff has only been recently made publuc. I find both to be gross people who need to shut up, leave social media and do some self-reflection.

Wow insane comparison. Gaiman is an abuser -- he physically and psychologically targeted and harmed these women. JK Rowling has what I believe are misguided ideas about transgendered people. That's not the same.

JK Rowling is, at heart, trying to safeguard vulnerable women. People can disagree with her beliefs but she puts her money where her mouth is as far as protecting vulnerable women.

Gaiman, on the other hand, is alleged to have raped vulnerable women and exploited his child in a grotesque manner. The idea of anyone trying to equate the two is shocking.

PP here and I agree with you. It's actually a bizarrely comical comparison because it's like what are the standards for successful, famous women versus successful, famous men? Well for women we need them to share all our beliefs and political positions and live up to an idealized version of them in our heads that has never actually existed in real life. And for men we'd just prefer they not be rapists but also a little raping is okay, especially if they just rape women we didn't like anyway.

Right, I mean it is crazy the deference that Gaiman is getting. Rowling takes a position that is unpopular and gets thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, extremely vicious rape and death threats. Gaiman is alleged to have committed grotesque atrocities against very vulnerable women and his own child, and the literary world and readers — many of whom cheered how Rowling was treated — bands together in silence.

And you’re right, the message seems to be that for men, a little raping is okay and it was probably the fault of these women we didn’t like anyhow.

I wish we’d abandon the pretense that famous left-leaning men with power act any differently towards vulnerable women than famous right-leaning men with power. There is no difference.

FP. It is the silence of the crackling fire of his books burning and his TV show contracts being rewritten or cancelled.

[Anonymous]

Just for perspective, he's an author. So don't buy his books or support his art. On the other hand, we have people who have done these very same things in high positions in our country. With no ramifications. It's nauseating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had been a fan of both Gaiman and Palmer and was shocked to read the article. I feel sorry for the victims and the child.

Palmer is clearly a narcissist.

Just look what she told Spin magazine.

https://www.spin.com/2013/04/amanda-palmer-boston-marathon-bombing-suspect-poem/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone involved is gross. These women all agreed to consensual sex with this man until at some point it went bad. What the heck did they expect, having sex with a married man while working as his babysitter? I’m not blaming them for instances of sexual assault but let’s not pretend these are upstanding young women. This man is disgusting. If he, as my boss invited me to take a bath in his garden, that would be a hard no. Where is common sense?

(I have only read the Variety article and excerpts of the Vulture on Reddit and elsewhere as it's paywalled on my phone)

The power dynamics are really significant here. Most of these women were very young. Several were employees of Gaiman or his wife. One was a neighbor who'd just divorced. Several agreed to NDAs for shockingly low sums, indicating that even when they knew what had happened was wrong, they struggled to really believe it. He clearly preyed on women who were especially vulnerable or compromised. So that's where the "common sense" was. Many of these women were likely abused or neglected as children or in prior relationships. It's very common. And then abusers like Gaiman are good at spotting the qualities of someone with that background -- eager to please, low self esteem but responds very well to attention and flattery, willing to override their internal resistance to things to please him (until, for most of them, there came a line where their internal resistance kicked in and they said no -- I am betting Gaiman got off and trying to find where that line was and then trying to push past it).

Also Gaiman and Amanda Palmer were very vocal advocates of polyamory. I think they used this essentially as cover for Gaiman to be a straight up predator. They could draw people in under the guise of "it's okay, it's an open relationship, we're affectionate people, love is love, the human body is beautiful in all its forms so nudity isn't shameful" and so on -- it normalizes a whole range of behaviors that would not be considered okay in a more traditional community where most people are monogamous and you don't take baths at your boss's house or discuss sex with your employer. They sold this "alternative lifestyle" as better than other kinds of relationships and people really idolized them for having figured out polyamory and viewed them as more evolved or something.

Turns out they are just extremely terrible people and there were a million signs along the way that people ignored because they seemed so "cool." Never been a better example of why "coolness" is absolutely worthless. Cool is deeply deceptive.

I’m a Gen X woman who has been really concerned by the normalization of “alternative” sex and “kink” that seems like just a way to degrade women by any other name. I’m not saying to prohibit consensual conduct — but acting like BDSM and stuff like c@ming in a woman’s face etc is totally normal healthy sexual behavior is not right. Even on forums like this you see a lot of people acting like you’re a prude if you think this stuff is distasteful. I think there’s a lot of young women that feel like they don’t want to be labeled a prude so they go along with stuff because it’s cool or supposed to be fun, then realize along the way that it’s not actually fun and just makes them feel crappy. For instance, the vast majority of women do not really enjoy an&l — that’s not where our best erogenous zones are. Yet there’s now tremendous pressure on women to include this as a normal part of sex lives. I think all of this pressure makes it hard for young women to draw appropriate boundaries and realize “oh, wait, a married middle aged guy who wants to dominate me and degrade me is not actually sexy, and I’m not a prude if I think that’s disgusting.”

I feel like Gen X women have been saying this for 20 years … I do think Millenial and Gen Z women were not acculturated in the same way to it being inevitably “cool” but OTOH the accessibility of hard core prn has only increased.

Yes there's a huge movement of anti-porn with younger millennials and Gen Zs, along with 4B. In a way, the revealing of male sexual degeneracy that happened during the Gen X/early millennial heyday has actually been a boon for feminism. Of course there is still a subset of Gen Z that subscribes to the Lana Del Rey, "he hit me and it felt like a kiss", "hit me daddy" type kink behavior but it's increasingly considered outdated and cringy edgelord stuff. Young women are really disgusted by a lot of the pro-kink stuff and it's one of the reasons rates of virginity and the "male loneliness crisis" are skyrocketing.

Men are reaping what they've sown.

What is 4B?
My daughter is a lesbian and part of me thinks— if I’d been exposed to prom and dick pics the way all these young teen girls have been, I definitely would have kept my distance from men.

It’s a movement that began in South Korea and espouses not having sex or children with men and not dating or marrying them.

The four items above all begin with a “b” sound in Korean, I think.