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.
That is almost certainly temporary. Watch.
Nope. His readership is gone.
I disagree. I think that if he does a fake forgiveness tour in a year or two in which he “reflects” on his actions, he will be widely embraced by his core readership. Also, watch for PR leaks in the meantime that subtly trash all his accusers. He has the money to buy and orchestrate a planned return, and the cultlike reader pool to support that return.
I will be curious to see how it unfolds because (as I pointed out upthread) I think he and Palmer were able to conceal the extent of his behavior for years by disguising it under polyamory and "alternative lifestyle," which has a built in defense to any accusations that involve violating someone else's boundaries -- "oh they are just not open minded." I am very familiar with this method for manipulation and abuse because it happened to me. Not to the degree of what happened to some of these women (I was older and less vulnerable though still in a compromised situation which is why I was targeted), but a very similar pattern. And the use of a polyamorous community to enable an abuser is very familiar to me.
Trying to have a conversation with people from the community where I was abused about any of this wound up being pointless. If people say Palmer groomed some of these women and passed them off to Gaiman once they'd been screened/primed for him, they will be accused of "kink shaming" Palmer for being polyamorous and bi- or pansexual. If people take issue with how grotesque some of these sex acts were and how Gaiman was clearly trying to violate boundaries (he clearly gets off on making people do things that they don't feel comfortable with or that shame them, this was also a thing with the person who abused me), expect to see lots of condescending explanations about BDSM and once again, accusations that people who criticize Gaiman's actions are "kink shaming."
These people have basically created a sexuality that normalizes abuse, manipulation, disrespect for boundaries, lack of consent, and humiliation. But when you point this out, you will be told that you are the problem, that the issue is your close mindedness and intolerance.
I know there will be defenders among his ardent fans, especially those who really embraced Gaiman and Palmer as a "polyamorous power couple." I'll be curious how far this extends though. Like how complete is the communal delusion that condones this behavior as just a kink or even as a superior and more evolved approach to sex and relationships than whatever the critics engage in? We'll see.
I’m actually extremely skeptical of claims of consent from the kink community, based on my own experiences when I was young and vulnerable. IME it gives a language of excused oppression to predators.
I feel extremely sorry for anyone who needs to degrade or be degraded in order to have a satisfying sex life. I think this only happens when something went very wrong in their upbringing. I wish those people could get effective therapy to allow them to have more self respect or respect for others. I know my viewpoint is viewed as kink shaming. I think any kink that involves degradation is shameful and it’s okay to say that and to encourage those people to get help that will help them move past that limitation.
Totally agree and I wish that when situations like this came to light, it actually prompted introspection from the supposedly very open minded and progressive people who populate BDSM and polyamorous communities. But it never does. They just rely on the same argument you find in toxic workplaces where harassment and assault happens -- "oh those were just a few bad apples, but we got rid of them."
The truth is that people with major mental health issues sometimes find ways to rationalize their violent, controlling, abusive, or self-inflicting instincts as kink. And it works!
I was raped by a man in my 20s. A few months later, I revealed what had happened to a friend who was also friends with the man who raped me. She was not surprised, and told me that my rapist had told her and her husband that he fantasized about raping women, and had even had anonymous encounters with women he'd met online to "re-enact" rape fantasies. I also later found out that he had been diagnosed as bipolar, was prescribed lithium but refused to take it most of the time because he didn't like how it blunted his mania.
The kicker is that even after all this came out, this friend remained friends with my rapist. I dropped out of that social circle after all this, saw a therapist regarding PTSD, moved on. Years later I reconnected with the friend and thought we could put it behind us. And then she casually mentioned my rapist, who apparently she and her husband still see regularly, something about his work. It was like it never happened.
You can't make this stuff up. Our society just tolerates rapists. It goes so deep.
I fully expect to see Gaiman getting book deals and having his work optioned for more film and TV shows in the future. People will act horrified for a while and then it will be like it never happened. Except for the women whose lives he totally upended, who will deal with it for the rest of their lives.
I'm sorry about your trauma, but projecting it onto an entire community is hot horseshit. Plenty of us know this isn't kink, it's abuse. It's not "kinkshaming" to point out abuse and call it what it is. It's kinkshaming to make blanket assumptions like yours based in your own traumatized perspective. If it's not for you, that's fine, and your position should be respected. That doesn't make every person who has a kink you don't share someone with mental health issues rationalizing their damage as kink.
You're actually rationalizing your damage as health right now. I hope you seek and receive the help you deserve. What happened to you shouldn't have happened to you.
What happened to me would have been less likely to happen if the friend learned of this guy's "rape fantasies" had viewed that as a massive red flag and indication he might harm someone, as opposed to viewing it as an acceptable kink and believe that it is even possible for someone to act out rape fantasies without running into serious consent issues. Or to ask herself "hey can a desire to have force a woman to have nonconsensual sex even BE an acceptable kink? like shouldn't that ALWAYS be viewed negatively?"
Sorry that my personal experience doesn't back up your very strong belief that BDSM should be normalized and acceptable, or that there is no real danger to anyone if we condone these "kinks." But I am entitled to my opinion and my opinion is that BDSM normalizes nonconsensual sex and sexual violence and should be treated as a mental health problem and not just an interesting expression of sexual desire.
I don't care what you think I'm "projecting" or "rationalizing." My point was that when stuff like this happens, I've never once seen the "kink community" do some introspection on it. It's always "one bad apple." And the oh, oops, we still like that person anyway and the people he harmed are SOL.
The kink community you're not a part of, you mean? I don't regularly see the inner workings of communities I'm not a part of either. I also have the good sense to not assume I know, based on my limited perspective and personal biases.
PP here and I'm talking about the kink community I was FORCED to participate in when a man whose "kink" is rape decided to rape me. I'm also talking about the kink community that shrugged it away when I reported the rape. And the kink community that refuses to consider whether certain practices, or even certain kinks, contribute to rape culture. Because their sexual satisfaction via BDSM is more important than the safety and wellness of people like me
Guess what, everyone has "limited perspective and personal biases." That's the human condition. I know you think being into nonconsensual sex somehow makes a person more evolved and open-minded but it doesn't. I've never raped or sexually assaulted anyone, which is what makes ME more evolved that someone who gets off on nonconsensual sex, i.e. rape.
You need to get some therapy to get this worked out, because you're taking your trauma out on internet randoms on an anon board, honey.
This nebulous "community" you reference... are you referring to actual people in your local kink community? Or "The Kink Community" as some sort of strawman?
Kink =/= nonconsensual sex, and the vast majority of the actual kink community thoroughly understands this, and would call what happened to you what it was: rape and abuse.
I’m not the poster you are responding but do you understand just how incredibly bad you are making the kink community look? I’m more persuaded it’s a community of rapists and abusers enabled by a culture of horrific exploitation after reading your posts, not less.
You already had your opinion, and will use whatever you need to confirm it rather than challenging it. That's not about me, it's about your anti-kink bias.
Actually, I didn’t have that opinion, but based on what I’ve seen over the past few years — including horrifying behavior like yours — I’m reaching my own conclusion that the kink community is in fact a community of abusers who create a language and community norms . Yours is a community that takes damaged people and exploits their damage through coercion. We all see it now and your behavior in this thread is just adding to the quickly-growing pile of evidence.
+1000
Garbage take. While there are some in the kink community who are jerks (like every community), consent is central to the vast majority of groups and organizations that practice and support kink. Sorry you're ignorant, but you are. Repeating the same tired tropes doesn't make them truths.
It’s an accurate take. The kink community harbors a lot of abusers. People see that now.
Every community harbors a lot of abusers. Name one that doesn't. There are AHs and creeps and jerks in literally any group of humans you could conjure. That doesn't make all the people in those groups abusers, nor does it mean the groups are "specifically designed to perpetuate abuse". It means that creeps creep and jerks lurk and every community needs to stay vigilant about outing and removing its worst members.
I know y'all want to make this about "if we just get rid of kink it'll all be okay", but it's not just kink. It's teachers, and churches, and cops, and politicians, and medical professionals, and... There is no "safe space".
I see the very serious problem. If you believe the bolded — and you clearly do — no wonder you are unable to have a healthy ability to identify and reject abusers, and unable to recognize that the community norms and language of the kink community are in fact designed to encourage and facilitate a culture of exploitation.
The fact is that the bolded simply is not true. Examples? There are so many. I’m willing to bet that if you go to a community of retired nurses, there are not a lot of abusers being harbored. There probably aren’t a lot of abusers being harbored by the community of orchestral harpists. There probably aren’t a lot of abusers being harbored by the community of rose gardeners. Etc. There are probably a zillion different communities where it’s highly unlikely a lot of abusers are being harbored. The point is that in no way is it true that every community “harbors a lot of abusers.”
You’ve shown who you are with the bolded, and now I have some sympathy for you. I understand better — though I absolutely disagree with it and certainly do not excuse it — why your behavior has been so vile on this thread. You have become accustomed to abuse as a community norm. That’s why you act the way you do, and why you believe abuse is simply part of being in a community. It is sad, and I wish you didn’t live this way.
retired nurses can be abusers. Orchestral harpists can be abusers. Rose gardeners can be abusers.
Are you really this thick, or is it willful for argument's sake?
DP. Anyone can be an abuser, but those communities aren't organized around facilitating abuse.
Your implication is that kink communities are organized around facilitating abuse, which simply isn't true. You continued insistence that they are, simply because you say so, reveals your ignorance. Consent is a huge part of kink communities, which you're clearly not a part of, just talking trash about.
Translation: Consent is a huge part of kink communities, except when it isn’t, and then magically it’s not part of the kink community.
Gaiman is a part of the kink community! We are proud of him. Oh wait, he’s a terrible abuser. Never mind, he was never part of the kink community.
🙄
Projection and manipulation are not translation at all. Nothing in your word salad accurately describes the point pp was making.
It's almost like you're too stupid to understand and too attached to your own opinions/biases to even try to correct your ignorance.
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.
That is almost certainly temporary. Watch.
Nope. His readership is gone.
I disagree. I think that if he does a fake forgiveness tour in a year or two in which he “reflects” on his actions, he will be widely embraced by his core readership. Also, watch for PR leaks in the meantime that subtly trash all his accusers. He has the money to buy and orchestrate a planned return, and the cultlike reader pool to support that return.
I will be curious to see how it unfolds because (as I pointed out upthread) I think he and Palmer were able to conceal the extent of his behavior for years by disguising it under polyamory and "alternative lifestyle," which has a built in defense to any accusations that involve violating someone else's boundaries -- "oh they are just not open minded." I am very familiar with this method for manipulation and abuse because it happened to me. Not to the degree of what happened to some of these women (I was older and less vulnerable though still in a compromised situation which is why I was targeted), but a very similar pattern. And the use of a polyamorous community to enable an abuser is very familiar to me.
Trying to have a conversation with people from the community where I was abused about any of this wound up being pointless. If people say Palmer groomed some of these women and passed them off to Gaiman once they'd been screened/primed for him, they will be accused of "kink shaming" Palmer for being polyamorous and bi- or pansexual. If people take issue with how grotesque some of these sex acts were and how Gaiman was clearly trying to violate boundaries (he clearly gets off on making people do things that they don't feel comfortable with or that shame them, this was also a thing with the person who abused me), expect to see lots of condescending explanations about BDSM and once again, accusations that people who criticize Gaiman's actions are "kink shaming."
These people have basically created a sexuality that normalizes abuse, manipulation, disrespect for boundaries, lack of consent, and humiliation. But when you point this out, you will be told that you are the problem, that the issue is your close mindedness and intolerance.
I know there will be defenders among his ardent fans, especially those who really embraced Gaiman and Palmer as a "polyamorous power couple." I'll be curious how far this extends though. Like how complete is the communal delusion that condones this behavior as just a kink or even as a superior and more evolved approach to sex and relationships than whatever the critics engage in? We'll see.
I’m actually extremely skeptical of claims of consent from the kink community, based on my own experiences when I was young and vulnerable. IME it gives a language of excused oppression to predators.
I feel extremely sorry for anyone who needs to degrade or be degraded in order to have a satisfying sex life. I think this only happens when something went very wrong in their upbringing. I wish those people could get effective therapy to allow them to have more self respect or respect for others. I know my viewpoint is viewed as kink shaming. I think any kink that involves degradation is shameful and it’s okay to say that and to encourage those people to get help that will help them move past that limitation.
Totally agree and I wish that when situations like this came to light, it actually prompted introspection from the supposedly very open minded and progressive people who populate BDSM and polyamorous communities. But it never does. They just rely on the same argument you find in toxic workplaces where harassment and assault happens -- "oh those were just a few bad apples, but we got rid of them."
The truth is that people with major mental health issues sometimes find ways to rationalize their violent, controlling, abusive, or self-inflicting instincts as kink. And it works!
I was raped by a man in my 20s. A few months later, I revealed what had happened to a friend who was also friends with the man who raped me. She was not surprised, and told me that my rapist had told her and her husband that he fantasized about raping women, and had even had anonymous encounters with women he'd met online to "re-enact" rape fantasies. I also later found out that he had been diagnosed as bipolar, was prescribed lithium but refused to take it most of the time because he didn't like how it blunted his mania.
The kicker is that even after all this came out, this friend remained friends with my rapist. I dropped out of that social circle after all this, saw a therapist regarding PTSD, moved on. Years later I reconnected with the friend and thought we could put it behind us. And then she casually mentioned my rapist, who apparently she and her husband still see regularly, something about his work. It was like it never happened.
You can't make this stuff up. Our society just tolerates rapists. It goes so deep.
I fully expect to see Gaiman getting book deals and having his work optioned for more film and TV shows in the future. People will act horrified for a while and then it will be like it never happened. Except for the women whose lives he totally upended, who will deal with it for the rest of their lives.
I'm sorry about your trauma, but projecting it onto an entire community is hot horseshit. Plenty of us know this isn't kink, it's abuse. It's not "kinkshaming" to point out abuse and call it what it is. It's kinkshaming to make blanket assumptions like yours based in your own traumatized perspective. If it's not for you, that's fine, and your position should be respected. That doesn't make every person who has a kink you don't share someone with mental health issues rationalizing their damage as kink.
You're actually rationalizing your damage as health right now. I hope you seek and receive the help you deserve. What happened to you shouldn't have happened to you.
What happened to me would have been less likely to happen if the friend learned of this guy's "rape fantasies" had viewed that as a massive red flag and indication he might harm someone, as opposed to viewing it as an acceptable kink and believe that it is even possible for someone to act out rape fantasies without running into serious consent issues. Or to ask herself "hey can a desire to have force a woman to have nonconsensual sex even BE an acceptable kink? like shouldn't that ALWAYS be viewed negatively?"
Sorry that my personal experience doesn't back up your very strong belief that BDSM should be normalized and acceptable, or that there is no real danger to anyone if we condone these "kinks." But I am entitled to my opinion and my opinion is that BDSM normalizes nonconsensual sex and sexual violence and should be treated as a mental health problem and not just an interesting expression of sexual desire.
I don't care what you think I'm "projecting" or "rationalizing." My point was that when stuff like this happens, I've never once seen the "kink community" do some introspection on it. It's always "one bad apple." And the oh, oops, we still like that person anyway and the people he harmed are SOL.
The kink community you're not a part of, you mean? I don't regularly see the inner workings of communities I'm not a part of either. I also have the good sense to not assume I know, based on my limited perspective and personal biases.
PP here and I'm talking about the kink community I was FORCED to participate in when a man whose "kink" is rape decided to rape me. I'm also talking about the kink community that shrugged it away when I reported the rape. And the kink community that refuses to consider whether certain practices, or even certain kinks, contribute to rape culture. Because their sexual satisfaction via BDSM is more important than the safety and wellness of people like me
Guess what, everyone has "limited perspective and personal biases." That's the human condition. I know you think being into nonconsensual sex somehow makes a person more evolved and open-minded but it doesn't. I've never raped or sexually assaulted anyone, which is what makes ME more evolved that someone who gets off on nonconsensual sex, i.e. rape.
You need to get some therapy to get this worked out, because you're taking your trauma out on internet randoms on an anon board, honey.
This nebulous "community" you reference... are you referring to actual people in your local kink community? Or "The Kink Community" as some sort of strawman?
Kink =/= nonconsensual sex, and the vast majority of the actual kink community thoroughly understands this, and would call what happened to you what it was: rape and abuse.
I’m not the poster you are responding but do you understand just how incredibly bad you are making the kink community look? I’m more persuaded it’s a community of rapists and abusers enabled by a culture of horrific exploitation after reading your posts, not less.
You already had your opinion, and will use whatever you need to confirm it rather than challenging it. That's not about me, it's about your anti-kink bias.
Actually, I didn’t have that opinion, but based on what I’ve seen over the past few years — including horrifying behavior like yours — I’m reaching my own conclusion that the kink community is in fact a community of abusers who create a language and community norms . Yours is a community that takes damaged people and exploits their damage through coercion. We all see it now and your behavior in this thread is just adding to the quickly-growing pile of evidence.
+1000
Garbage take. While there are some in the kink community who are jerks (like every community), consent is central to the vast majority of groups and organizations that practice and support kink. Sorry you're ignorant, but you are. Repeating the same tired tropes doesn't make them truths.
It’s an accurate take. The kink community harbors a lot of abusers. People see that now.
Every community harbors a lot of abusers. Name one that doesn't. There are AHs and creeps and jerks in literally any group of humans you could conjure. That doesn't make all the people in those groups abusers, nor does it mean the groups are "specifically designed to perpetuate abuse". It means that creeps creep and jerks lurk and every community needs to stay vigilant about outing and removing its worst members.
I know y'all want to make this about "if we just get rid of kink it'll all be okay", but it's not just kink. It's teachers, and churches, and cops, and politicians, and medical professionals, and... There is no "safe space".
I see the very serious problem. If you believe the bolded — and you clearly do — no wonder you are unable to have a healthy ability to identify and reject abusers, and unable to recognize that the community norms and language of the kink community are in fact designed to encourage and facilitate a culture of exploitation.
The fact is that the bolded simply is not true. Examples? There are so many. I’m willing to bet that if you go to a community of retired nurses, there are not a lot of abusers being harbored. There probably aren’t a lot of abusers being harbored by the community of orchestral harpists. There probably aren’t a lot of abusers being harbored by the community of rose gardeners. Etc. There are probably a zillion different communities where it’s highly unlikely a lot of abusers are being harbored. The point is that in no way is it true that every community “harbors a lot of abusers.”
You’ve shown who you are with the bolded, and now I have some sympathy for you. I understand better — though I absolutely disagree with it and certainly do not excuse it — why your behavior has been so vile on this thread. You have become accustomed to abuse as a community norm. That’s why you act the way you do, and why you believe abuse is simply part of being in a community. It is sad, and I wish you didn’t live this way.
retired nurses can be abusers. Orchestral harpists can be abusers. Rose gardeners can be abusers.
Are you really this thick, or is it willful for argument's sake?
DP. Anyone can be an abuser, but those communities aren't organized around facilitating abuse.
Your implication is that kink communities are organized around facilitating abuse, which simply isn't true. You continued insistence that they are, simply because you say so, reveals your ignorance. Consent is a huge part of kink communities, which you're clearly not a part of, just talking trash about.
Whipping, beating, torture is abuse. It doesn't matter if you procure dubious consent.
You are basically a slight step away from Catherine Mackinnon's all sex is rape argument. And also in a very irrelevant place. Who cares what other people are doing, when it comes to this story. What matters is that, regardless of whether other people can consent to being whipped or smacked, these women did not.
Exactly. Regardless of your opinions of kink, whether or not there's a kink community, whether or not all abusers are members of the kink community, etc. these women didn't have equal footing to give affirmative consent to any of this.
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.
That is almost certainly temporary. Watch.
Nope. His readership is gone.
I disagree. I think that if he does a fake forgiveness tour in a year or two in which he “reflects” on his actions, he will be widely embraced by his core readership. Also, watch for PR leaks in the meantime that subtly trash all his accusers. He has the money to buy and orchestrate a planned return, and the cultlike reader pool to support that return.
I will be curious to see how it unfolds because (as I pointed out upthread) I think he and Palmer were able to conceal the extent of his behavior for years by disguising it under polyamory and "alternative lifestyle," which has a built in defense to any accusations that involve violating someone else's boundaries -- "oh they are just not open minded." I am very familiar with this method for manipulation and abuse because it happened to me. Not to the degree of what happened to some of these women (I was older and less vulnerable though still in a compromised situation which is why I was targeted), but a very similar pattern. And the use of a polyamorous community to enable an abuser is very familiar to me.
Trying to have a conversation with people from the community where I was abused about any of this wound up being pointless. If people say Palmer groomed some of these women and passed them off to Gaiman once they'd been screened/primed for him, they will be accused of "kink shaming" Palmer for being polyamorous and bi- or pansexual. If people take issue with how grotesque some of these sex acts were and how Gaiman was clearly trying to violate boundaries (he clearly gets off on making people do things that they don't feel comfortable with or that shame them, this was also a thing with the person who abused me), expect to see lots of condescending explanations about BDSM and once again, accusations that people who criticize Gaiman's actions are "kink shaming."
These people have basically created a sexuality that normalizes abuse, manipulation, disrespect for boundaries, lack of consent, and humiliation. But when you point this out, you will be told that you are the problem, that the issue is your close mindedness and intolerance.
I know there will be defenders among his ardent fans, especially those who really embraced Gaiman and Palmer as a "polyamorous power couple." I'll be curious how far this extends though. Like how complete is the communal delusion that condones this behavior as just a kink or even as a superior and more evolved approach to sex and relationships than whatever the critics engage in? We'll see.
I’m actually extremely skeptical of claims of consent from the kink community, based on my own experiences when I was young and vulnerable. IME it gives a language of excused oppression to predators.
I feel extremely sorry for anyone who needs to degrade or be degraded in order to have a satisfying sex life. I think this only happens when something went very wrong in their upbringing. I wish those people could get effective therapy to allow them to have more self respect or respect for others. I know my viewpoint is viewed as kink shaming. I think any kink that involves degradation is shameful and it’s okay to say that and to encourage those people to get help that will help them move past that limitation.
Totally agree and I wish that when situations like this came to light, it actually prompted introspection from the supposedly very open minded and progressive people who populate BDSM and polyamorous communities. But it never does. They just rely on the same argument you find in toxic workplaces where harassment and assault happens -- "oh those were just a few bad apples, but we got rid of them."
The truth is that people with major mental health issues sometimes find ways to rationalize their violent, controlling, abusive, or self-inflicting instincts as kink. And it works!
I was raped by a man in my 20s. A few months later, I revealed what had happened to a friend who was also friends with the man who raped me. She was not surprised, and told me that my rapist had told her and her husband that he fantasized about raping women, and had even had anonymous encounters with women he'd met online to "re-enact" rape fantasies. I also later found out that he had been diagnosed as bipolar, was prescribed lithium but refused to take it most of the time because he didn't like how it blunted his mania.
The kicker is that even after all this came out, this friend remained friends with my rapist. I dropped out of that social circle after all this, saw a therapist regarding PTSD, moved on. Years later I reconnected with the friend and thought we could put it behind us. And then she casually mentioned my rapist, who apparently she and her husband still see regularly, something about his work. It was like it never happened.
You can't make this stuff up. Our society just tolerates rapists. It goes so deep.
I fully expect to see Gaiman getting book deals and having his work optioned for more film and TV shows in the future. People will act horrified for a while and then it will be like it never happened. Except for the women whose lives he totally upended, who will deal with it for the rest of their lives.
I'm sorry about your trauma, but projecting it onto an entire community is hot horseshit. Plenty of us know this isn't kink, it's abuse. It's not "kinkshaming" to point out abuse and call it what it is. It's kinkshaming to make blanket assumptions like yours based in your own traumatized perspective. If it's not for you, that's fine, and your position should be respected. That doesn't make every person who has a kink you don't share someone with mental health issues rationalizing their damage as kink.
You're actually rationalizing your damage as health right now. I hope you seek and receive the help you deserve. What happened to you shouldn't have happened to you.
What happened to me would have been less likely to happen if the friend learned of this guy's "rape fantasies" had viewed that as a massive red flag and indication he might harm someone, as opposed to viewing it as an acceptable kink and believe that it is even possible for someone to act out rape fantasies without running into serious consent issues. Or to ask herself "hey can a desire to have force a woman to have nonconsensual sex even BE an acceptable kink? like shouldn't that ALWAYS be viewed negatively?"
Sorry that my personal experience doesn't back up your very strong belief that BDSM should be normalized and acceptable, or that there is no real danger to anyone if we condone these "kinks." But I am entitled to my opinion and my opinion is that BDSM normalizes nonconsensual sex and sexual violence and should be treated as a mental health problem and not just an interesting expression of sexual desire.
I don't care what you think I'm "projecting" or "rationalizing." My point was that when stuff like this happens, I've never once seen the "kink community" do some introspection on it. It's always "one bad apple." And the oh, oops, we still like that person anyway and the people he harmed are SOL.
The kink community you're not a part of, you mean? I don't regularly see the inner workings of communities I'm not a part of either. I also have the good sense to not assume I know, based on my limited perspective and personal biases.
PP here and I'm talking about the kink community I was FORCED to participate in when a man whose "kink" is rape decided to rape me. I'm also talking about the kink community that shrugged it away when I reported the rape. And the kink community that refuses to consider whether certain practices, or even certain kinks, contribute to rape culture. Because their sexual satisfaction via BDSM is more important than the safety and wellness of people like me
Guess what, everyone has "limited perspective and personal biases." That's the human condition. I know you think being into nonconsensual sex somehow makes a person more evolved and open-minded but it doesn't. I've never raped or sexually assaulted anyone, which is what makes ME more evolved that someone who gets off on nonconsensual sex, i.e. rape.
You need to get some therapy to get this worked out, because you're taking your trauma out on internet randoms on an anon board, honey.
This nebulous "community" you reference... are you referring to actual people in your local kink community? Or "The Kink Community" as some sort of strawman?
Kink =/= nonconsensual sex, and the vast majority of the actual kink community thoroughly understands this, and would call what happened to you what it was: rape and abuse.
I’m not the poster you are responding but do you understand just how incredibly bad you are making the kink community look? I’m more persuaded it’s a community of rapists and abusers enabled by a culture of horrific exploitation after reading your posts, not less.
You already had your opinion, and will use whatever you need to confirm it rather than challenging it. That's not about me, it's about your anti-kink bias.
Actually, I didn’t have that opinion, but based on what I’ve seen over the past few years — including horrifying behavior like yours — I’m reaching my own conclusion that the kink community is in fact a community of abusers who create a language and community norms . Yours is a community that takes damaged people and exploits their damage through coercion. We all see it now and your behavior in this thread is just adding to the quickly-growing pile of evidence.
+1000
Garbage take. While there are some in the kink community who are jerks (like every community), consent is central to the vast majority of groups and organizations that practice and support kink. Sorry you're ignorant, but you are. Repeating the same tired tropes doesn't make them truths.
It’s an accurate take. The kink community harbors a lot of abusers. People see that now.
Every community harbors a lot of abusers. Name one that doesn't. There are AHs and creeps and jerks in literally any group of humans you could conjure. That doesn't make all the people in those groups abusers, nor does it mean the groups are "specifically designed to perpetuate abuse". It means that creeps creep and jerks lurk and every community needs to stay vigilant about outing and removing its worst members.
I know y'all want to make this about "if we just get rid of kink it'll all be okay", but it's not just kink. It's teachers, and churches, and cops, and politicians, and medical professionals, and... There is no "safe space".
I see the very serious problem. If you believe the bolded — and you clearly do — no wonder you are unable to have a healthy ability to identify and reject abusers, and unable to recognize that the community norms and language of the kink community are in fact designed to encourage and facilitate a culture of exploitation.
The fact is that the bolded simply is not true. Examples? There are so many. I’m willing to bet that if you go to a community of retired nurses, there are not a lot of abusers being harbored. There probably aren’t a lot of abusers being harbored by the community of orchestral harpists. There probably aren’t a lot of abusers being harbored by the community of rose gardeners. Etc. There are probably a zillion different communities where it’s highly unlikely a lot of abusers are being harbored. The point is that in no way is it true that every community “harbors a lot of abusers.”
You’ve shown who you are with the bolded, and now I have some sympathy for you. I understand better — though I absolutely disagree with it and certainly do not excuse it — why your behavior has been so vile on this thread. You have become accustomed to abuse as a community norm. That’s why you act the way you do, and why you believe abuse is simply part of being in a community. It is sad, and I wish you didn’t live this way.
retired nurses can be abusers. Orchestral harpists can be abusers. Rose gardeners can be abusers.
Are you really this thick, or is it willful for argument's sake?
DP. Anyone can be an abuser, but those communities aren't organized around facilitating abuse.
Your implication is that kink communities are organized around facilitating abuse, which simply isn't true. You continued insistence that they are, simply because you say so, reveals your ignorance. Consent is a huge part of kink communities, which you're clearly not a part of, just talking trash about.
+1 (new poster who has been watching this thread go off the rails)
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.
That is almost certainly temporary. Watch.
Nope. His readership is gone.
I disagree. I think that if he does a fake forgiveness tour in a year or two in which he “reflects” on his actions, he will be widely embraced by his core readership. Also, watch for PR leaks in the meantime that subtly trash all his accusers. He has the money to buy and orchestrate a planned return, and the cultlike reader pool to support that return.
I will be curious to see how it unfolds because (as I pointed out upthread) I think he and Palmer were able to conceal the extent of his behavior for years by disguising it under polyamory and "alternative lifestyle," which has a built in defense to any accusations that involve violating someone else's boundaries -- "oh they are just not open minded." I am very familiar with this method for manipulation and abuse because it happened to me. Not to the degree of what happened to some of these women (I was older and less vulnerable though still in a compromised situation which is why I was targeted), but a very similar pattern. And the use of a polyamorous community to enable an abuser is very familiar to me.
Trying to have a conversation with people from the community where I was abused about any of this wound up being pointless. If people say Palmer groomed some of these women and passed them off to Gaiman once they'd been screened/primed for him, they will be accused of "kink shaming" Palmer for being polyamorous and bi- or pansexual. If people take issue with how grotesque some of these sex acts were and how Gaiman was clearly trying to violate boundaries (he clearly gets off on making people do things that they don't feel comfortable with or that shame them, this was also a thing with the person who abused me), expect to see lots of condescending explanations about BDSM and once again, accusations that people who criticize Gaiman's actions are "kink shaming."
These people have basically created a sexuality that normalizes abuse, manipulation, disrespect for boundaries, lack of consent, and humiliation. But when you point this out, you will be told that you are the problem, that the issue is your close mindedness and intolerance.
I know there will be defenders among his ardent fans, especially those who really embraced Gaiman and Palmer as a "polyamorous power couple." I'll be curious how far this extends though. Like how complete is the communal delusion that condones this behavior as just a kink or even as a superior and more evolved approach to sex and relationships than whatever the critics engage in? We'll see.
I’m actually extremely skeptical of claims of consent from the kink community, based on my own experiences when I was young and vulnerable. IME it gives a language of excused oppression to predators.
I feel extremely sorry for anyone who needs to degrade or be degraded in order to have a satisfying sex life. I think this only happens when something went very wrong in their upbringing. I wish those people could get effective therapy to allow them to have more self respect or respect for others. I know my viewpoint is viewed as kink shaming. I think any kink that involves degradation is shameful and it’s okay to say that and to encourage those people to get help that will help them move past that limitation.
Totally agree and I wish that when situations like this came to light, it actually prompted introspection from the supposedly very open minded and progressive people who populate BDSM and polyamorous communities. But it never does. They just rely on the same argument you find in toxic workplaces where harassment and assault happens -- "oh those were just a few bad apples, but we got rid of them."
The truth is that people with major mental health issues sometimes find ways to rationalize their violent, controlling, abusive, or self-inflicting instincts as kink. And it works!
I was raped by a man in my 20s. A few months later, I revealed what had happened to a friend who was also friends with the man who raped me. She was not surprised, and told me that my rapist had told her and her husband that he fantasized about raping women, and had even had anonymous encounters with women he'd met online to "re-enact" rape fantasies. I also later found out that he had been diagnosed as bipolar, was prescribed lithium but refused to take it most of the time because he didn't like how it blunted his mania.
The kicker is that even after all this came out, this friend remained friends with my rapist. I dropped out of that social circle after all this, saw a therapist regarding PTSD, moved on. Years later I reconnected with the friend and thought we could put it behind us. And then she casually mentioned my rapist, who apparently she and her husband still see regularly, something about his work. It was like it never happened.
You can't make this stuff up. Our society just tolerates rapists. It goes so deep.
I fully expect to see Gaiman getting book deals and having his work optioned for more film and TV shows in the future. People will act horrified for a while and then it will be like it never happened. Except for the women whose lives he totally upended, who will deal with it for the rest of their lives.
I'm sorry about your trauma, but projecting it onto an entire community is hot horseshit. Plenty of us know this isn't kink, it's abuse. It's not "kinkshaming" to point out abuse and call it what it is. It's kinkshaming to make blanket assumptions like yours based in your own traumatized perspective. If it's not for you, that's fine, and your position should be respected. That doesn't make every person who has a kink you don't share someone with mental health issues rationalizing their damage as kink.
You're actually rationalizing your damage as health right now. I hope you seek and receive the help you deserve. What happened to you shouldn't have happened to you.
What happened to me would have been less likely to happen if the friend learned of this guy's "rape fantasies" had viewed that as a massive red flag and indication he might harm someone, as opposed to viewing it as an acceptable kink and believe that it is even possible for someone to act out rape fantasies without running into serious consent issues. Or to ask herself "hey can a desire to have force a woman to have nonconsensual sex even BE an acceptable kink? like shouldn't that ALWAYS be viewed negatively?"
Sorry that my personal experience doesn't back up your very strong belief that BDSM should be normalized and acceptable, or that there is no real danger to anyone if we condone these "kinks." But I am entitled to my opinion and my opinion is that BDSM normalizes nonconsensual sex and sexual violence and should be treated as a mental health problem and not just an interesting expression of sexual desire.
I don't care what you think I'm "projecting" or "rationalizing." My point was that when stuff like this happens, I've never once seen the "kink community" do some introspection on it. It's always "one bad apple." And the oh, oops, we still like that person anyway and the people he harmed are SOL.
The kink community you're not a part of, you mean? I don't regularly see the inner workings of communities I'm not a part of either. I also have the good sense to not assume I know, based on my limited perspective and personal biases.
PP here and I'm talking about the kink community I was FORCED to participate in when a man whose "kink" is rape decided to rape me. I'm also talking about the kink community that shrugged it away when I reported the rape. And the kink community that refuses to consider whether certain practices, or even certain kinks, contribute to rape culture. Because their sexual satisfaction via BDSM is more important than the safety and wellness of people like me
Guess what, everyone has "limited perspective and personal biases." That's the human condition. I know you think being into nonconsensual sex somehow makes a person more evolved and open-minded but it doesn't. I've never raped or sexually assaulted anyone, which is what makes ME more evolved that someone who gets off on nonconsensual sex, i.e. rape.
You need to get some therapy to get this worked out, because you're taking your trauma out on internet randoms on an anon board, honey.
This nebulous "community" you reference... are you referring to actual people in your local kink community? Or "The Kink Community" as some sort of strawman?
Kink =/= nonconsensual sex, and the vast majority of the actual kink community thoroughly understands this, and would call what happened to you what it was: rape and abuse.
I’m not the poster you are responding but do you understand just how incredibly bad you are making the kink community look? I’m more persuaded it’s a community of rapists and abusers enabled by a culture of horrific exploitation after reading your posts, not less.
You already had your opinion, and will use whatever you need to confirm it rather than challenging it. That's not about me, it's about your anti-kink bias.
Actually, I didn’t have that opinion, but based on what I’ve seen over the past few years — including horrifying behavior like yours — I’m reaching my own conclusion that the kink community is in fact a community of abusers who create a language and community norms . Yours is a community that takes damaged people and exploits their damage through coercion. We all see it now and your behavior in this thread is just adding to the quickly-growing pile of evidence.
+1000
Garbage take. While there are some in the kink community who are jerks (like every community), consent is central to the vast majority of groups and organizations that practice and support kink. Sorry you're ignorant, but you are. Repeating the same tired tropes doesn't make them truths.
It’s an accurate take. The kink community harbors a lot of abusers. People see that now.
Every community harbors a lot of abusers. Name one that doesn't. There are AHs and creeps and jerks in literally any group of humans you could conjure. That doesn't make all the people in those groups abusers, nor does it mean the groups are "specifically designed to perpetuate abuse". It means that creeps creep and jerks lurk and every community needs to stay vigilant about outing and removing its worst members.
I know y'all want to make this about "if we just get rid of kink it'll all be okay", but it's not just kink. It's teachers, and churches, and cops, and politicians, and medical professionals, and... There is no "safe space".
I see the very serious problem. If you believe the bolded — and you clearly do — no wonder you are unable to have a healthy ability to identify and reject abusers, and unable to recognize that the community norms and language of the kink community are in fact designed to encourage and facilitate a culture of exploitation.
The fact is that the bolded simply is not true. Examples? There are so many. I’m willing to bet that if you go to a community of retired nurses, there are not a lot of abusers being harbored. There probably aren’t a lot of abusers being harbored by the community of orchestral harpists. There probably aren’t a lot of abusers being harbored by the community of rose gardeners. Etc. There are probably a zillion different communities where it’s highly unlikely a lot of abusers are being harbored. The point is that in no way is it true that every community “harbors a lot of abusers.”
You’ve shown who you are with the bolded, and now I have some sympathy for you. I understand better — though I absolutely disagree with it and certainly do not excuse it — why your behavior has been so vile on this thread. You have become accustomed to abuse as a community norm. That’s why you act the way you do, and why you believe abuse is simply part of being in a community. It is sad, and I wish you didn’t live this way.
retired nurses can be abusers. Orchestral harpists can be abusers. Rose gardeners can be abusers.
Are you really this thick, or is it willful for argument's sake?
DP. Anyone can be an abuser, but those communities aren't organized around facilitating abuse.
Your implication is that kink communities are organized around facilitating abuse, which simply isn't true. You continued insistence that they are, simply because you say so, reveals your ignorance. Consent is a huge part of kink communities, which you're clearly not a part of, just talking trash about.
Translation: Consent is a huge part of kink communities, except when it isn’t, and then magically it’s not part of the kink community.
Gaiman is a part of the kink community! We are proud of him. Oh wait, he’s a terrible abuser. Never mind, he was never part of the kink community.
🙄
Projection and manipulation are not translation at all. Nothing in your word salad accurately describes the point pp was making.
It's almost like you're too stupid to understand and too attached to your own opinions/biases to even try to correct your ignorance.
Ah. You’ve resorted to tantruming and flinging insults. You’ve lost the argument and are having a fit because people widely see now how the kink community promulgates abuse. Gaiman was just following the norms of his community. He is saying as much, in fact. Gaiman wasn’t an aberration, and everyone knows it.
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.
That is almost certainly temporary. Watch.
Nope. His readership is gone.
I disagree. I think that if he does a fake forgiveness tour in a year or two in which he “reflects” on his actions, he will be widely embraced by his core readership. Also, watch for PR leaks in the meantime that subtly trash all his accusers. He has the money to buy and orchestrate a planned return, and the cultlike reader pool to support that return.
I will be curious to see how it unfolds because (as I pointed out upthread) I think he and Palmer were able to conceal the extent of his behavior for years by disguising it under polyamory and "alternative lifestyle," which has a built in defense to any accusations that involve violating someone else's boundaries -- "oh they are just not open minded." I am very familiar with this method for manipulation and abuse because it happened to me. Not to the degree of what happened to some of these women (I was older and less vulnerable though still in a compromised situation which is why I was targeted), but a very similar pattern. And the use of a polyamorous community to enable an abuser is very familiar to me.
Trying to have a conversation with people from the community where I was abused about any of this wound up being pointless. If people say Palmer groomed some of these women and passed them off to Gaiman once they'd been screened/primed for him, they will be accused of "kink shaming" Palmer for being polyamorous and bi- or pansexual. If people take issue with how grotesque some of these sex acts were and how Gaiman was clearly trying to violate boundaries (he clearly gets off on making people do things that they don't feel comfortable with or that shame them, this was also a thing with the person who abused me), expect to see lots of condescending explanations about BDSM and once again, accusations that people who criticize Gaiman's actions are "kink shaming."
These people have basically created a sexuality that normalizes abuse, manipulation, disrespect for boundaries, lack of consent, and humiliation. But when you point this out, you will be told that you are the problem, that the issue is your close mindedness and intolerance.
I know there will be defenders among his ardent fans, especially those who really embraced Gaiman and Palmer as a "polyamorous power couple." I'll be curious how far this extends though. Like how complete is the communal delusion that condones this behavior as just a kink or even as a superior and more evolved approach to sex and relationships than whatever the critics engage in? We'll see.
I’m actually extremely skeptical of claims of consent from the kink community, based on my own experiences when I was young and vulnerable. IME it gives a language of excused oppression to predators.
I feel extremely sorry for anyone who needs to degrade or be degraded in order to have a satisfying sex life. I think this only happens when something went very wrong in their upbringing. I wish those people could get effective therapy to allow them to have more self respect or respect for others. I know my viewpoint is viewed as kink shaming. I think any kink that involves degradation is shameful and it’s okay to say that and to encourage those people to get help that will help them move past that limitation.
Totally agree and I wish that when situations like this came to light, it actually prompted introspection from the supposedly very open minded and progressive people who populate BDSM and polyamorous communities. But it never does. They just rely on the same argument you find in toxic workplaces where harassment and assault happens -- "oh those were just a few bad apples, but we got rid of them."
The truth is that people with major mental health issues sometimes find ways to rationalize their violent, controlling, abusive, or self-inflicting instincts as kink. And it works!
I was raped by a man in my 20s. A few months later, I revealed what had happened to a friend who was also friends with the man who raped me. She was not surprised, and told me that my rapist had told her and her husband that he fantasized about raping women, and had even had anonymous encounters with women he'd met online to "re-enact" rape fantasies. I also later found out that he had been diagnosed as bipolar, was prescribed lithium but refused to take it most of the time because he didn't like how it blunted his mania.
The kicker is that even after all this came out, this friend remained friends with my rapist. I dropped out of that social circle after all this, saw a therapist regarding PTSD, moved on. Years later I reconnected with the friend and thought we could put it behind us. And then she casually mentioned my rapist, who apparently she and her husband still see regularly, something about his work. It was like it never happened.
You can't make this stuff up. Our society just tolerates rapists. It goes so deep.
I fully expect to see Gaiman getting book deals and having his work optioned for more film and TV shows in the future. People will act horrified for a while and then it will be like it never happened. Except for the women whose lives he totally upended, who will deal with it for the rest of their lives.
I'm sorry about your trauma, but projecting it onto an entire community is hot horseshit. Plenty of us know this isn't kink, it's abuse. It's not "kinkshaming" to point out abuse and call it what it is. It's kinkshaming to make blanket assumptions like yours based in your own traumatized perspective. If it's not for you, that's fine, and your position should be respected. That doesn't make every person who has a kink you don't share someone with mental health issues rationalizing their damage as kink.
You're actually rationalizing your damage as health right now. I hope you seek and receive the help you deserve. What happened to you shouldn't have happened to you.
What happened to me would have been less likely to happen if the friend learned of this guy's "rape fantasies" had viewed that as a massive red flag and indication he might harm someone, as opposed to viewing it as an acceptable kink and believe that it is even possible for someone to act out rape fantasies without running into serious consent issues. Or to ask herself "hey can a desire to have force a woman to have nonconsensual sex even BE an acceptable kink? like shouldn't that ALWAYS be viewed negatively?"
Sorry that my personal experience doesn't back up your very strong belief that BDSM should be normalized and acceptable, or that there is no real danger to anyone if we condone these "kinks." But I am entitled to my opinion and my opinion is that BDSM normalizes nonconsensual sex and sexual violence and should be treated as a mental health problem and not just an interesting expression of sexual desire.
I don't care what you think I'm "projecting" or "rationalizing." My point was that when stuff like this happens, I've never once seen the "kink community" do some introspection on it. It's always "one bad apple." And the oh, oops, we still like that person anyway and the people he harmed are SOL.
The kink community you're not a part of, you mean? I don't regularly see the inner workings of communities I'm not a part of either. I also have the good sense to not assume I know, based on my limited perspective and personal biases.
PP here and I'm talking about the kink community I was FORCED to participate in when a man whose "kink" is rape decided to rape me. I'm also talking about the kink community that shrugged it away when I reported the rape. And the kink community that refuses to consider whether certain practices, or even certain kinks, contribute to rape culture. Because their sexual satisfaction via BDSM is more important than the safety and wellness of people like me
Guess what, everyone has "limited perspective and personal biases." That's the human condition. I know you think being into nonconsensual sex somehow makes a person more evolved and open-minded but it doesn't. I've never raped or sexually assaulted anyone, which is what makes ME more evolved that someone who gets off on nonconsensual sex, i.e. rape.
You need to get some therapy to get this worked out, because you're taking your trauma out on internet randoms on an anon board, honey.
This nebulous "community" you reference... are you referring to actual people in your local kink community? Or "The Kink Community" as some sort of strawman?
Kink =/= nonconsensual sex, and the vast majority of the actual kink community thoroughly understands this, and would call what happened to you what it was: rape and abuse.
I’m not the poster you are responding but do you understand just how incredibly bad you are making the kink community look? I’m more persuaded it’s a community of rapists and abusers enabled by a culture of horrific exploitation after reading your posts, not less.
You already had your opinion, and will use whatever you need to confirm it rather than challenging it. That's not about me, it's about your anti-kink bias.
Actually, I didn’t have that opinion, but based on what I’ve seen over the past few years — including horrifying behavior like yours — I’m reaching my own conclusion that the kink community is in fact a community of abusers who create a language and community norms . Yours is a community that takes damaged people and exploits their damage through coercion. We all see it now and your behavior in this thread is just adding to the quickly-growing pile of evidence.
+1000
Garbage take. While there are some in the kink community who are jerks (like every community), consent is central to the vast majority of groups and organizations that practice and support kink. Sorry you're ignorant, but you are. Repeating the same tired tropes doesn't make them truths.
It’s an accurate take. The kink community harbors a lot of abusers. People see that now.
Every community harbors a lot of abusers. Name one that doesn't. There are AHs and creeps and jerks in literally any group of humans you could conjure. That doesn't make all the people in those groups abusers, nor does it mean the groups are "specifically designed to perpetuate abuse". It means that creeps creep and jerks lurk and every community needs to stay vigilant about outing and removing its worst members.
I know y'all want to make this about "if we just get rid of kink it'll all be okay", but it's not just kink. It's teachers, and churches, and cops, and politicians, and medical professionals, and... There is no "safe space".
I see the very serious problem. If you believe the bolded — and you clearly do — no wonder you are unable to have a healthy ability to identify and reject abusers, and unable to recognize that the community norms and language of the kink community are in fact designed to encourage and facilitate a culture of exploitation.
The fact is that the bolded simply is not true. Examples? There are so many. I’m willing to bet that if you go to a community of retired nurses, there are not a lot of abusers being harbored. There probably aren’t a lot of abusers being harbored by the community of orchestral harpists. There probably aren’t a lot of abusers being harbored by the community of rose gardeners. Etc. There are probably a zillion different communities where it’s highly unlikely a lot of abusers are being harbored. The point is that in no way is it true that every community “harbors a lot of abusers.”
You’ve shown who you are with the bolded, and now I have some sympathy for you. I understand better — though I absolutely disagree with it and certainly do not excuse it — why your behavior has been so vile on this thread. You have become accustomed to abuse as a community norm. That’s why you act the way you do, and why you believe abuse is simply part of being in a community. It is sad, and I wish you didn’t live this way.
retired nurses can be abusers. Orchestral harpists can be abusers. Rose gardeners can be abusers.
Are you really this thick, or is it willful for argument's sake?
DP. Anyone can be an abuser, but those communities aren't organized around facilitating abuse.
Your implication is that kink communities are organized around facilitating abuse, which simply isn't true. You continued insistence that they are, simply because you say so, reveals your ignorance. Consent is a huge part of kink communities, which you're clearly not a part of, just talking trash about.
Translation: Consent is a huge part of kink communities, except when it isn’t, and then magically it’s not part of the kink community.
Gaiman is a part of the kink community! We are proud of him. Oh wait, he’s a terrible abuser. Never mind, he was never part of the kink community.
🙄
Projection and manipulation are not translation at all. Nothing in your word salad accurately describes the point pp was making.
It's almost like you're too stupid to understand and too attached to your own opinions/biases to even try to correct your ignorance.
Ah. You’ve resorted to tantruming and flinging insults. You’ve lost the argument and are having a fit because people widely see now how the kink community promulgates abuse. Gaiman was just following the norms of his community. He is saying as much, in fact. Gaiman wasn’t an aberration, and everyone knows it.
Gaiman was way outside the norms of the kink community, which you'd know, if you were either part of the community or willing to check your own biases and do some basic research. Nobody is "tantruming" by pointing this out to you, again. There's no argument to have; you're never going to be willing to see/know/do better, and you're also not ever going to be in the community you're trashing.
The only question left is what, if anything, do you hope to gain by continuing to derail a thread about a specific individual with your sweeping judgments of an entire community (and persistent personal attacks on those on the anon board who you claim are members thereof)?
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