Reply to Neil Gaiman article in Vulture

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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?[/quote]

+100. These women are fully complicit in their own treatment.  They agreed to participate.[/quote]

I don’t think the evidence is there that they fully agreed to participate in everything that happened. [/quote]

There's no "evidence" but circumstantial evidence shows it.  Maybe they were overborne by his charisma - that means that it was consensual.  [/quote]

Some of these women were 18 or 22 at the time. One was his child's nanny. Another was a tenant on his property whose husband had recently left her and she was worried she and her children would be evicted if she didn't comply.

Also so many of these incidents took place in remote homes in the middle of nowhere. That really struck me, especially because the article talks about how Gaiman preferred being in more remote places. It's always some remote house on farm upstate or an island off the coast of New Zealand. He owns a house on the Isle of Skye. All of the worst stuff in these stories take place in locations where it would be hard for the women to flee. In some cases they didn't have cars and were driven to his location or he was their ride. That plus the age difference and the employment relationship with the nanny or the landlord-tenant relationship with the neighbor -- it's all very coercive. He clearly seems to have selected women who he thought would be more compliant because they have few other choices.

It's like how serial killers often target prostitutes because they tend to be easier marks plus everyone is happy to blame a prostitute for her own murderer. And yes that comparison is horrifying and I mean it to be. I don't think Gaiman's psychology is a whole lot different than a serial killer except he stopped short of murder -- perhaps too much to lose with his fame and fortune.[/quote]
I had a friend who left an abusive marriage. They lived in rural isolation. She commented one time that people live like that so they can do terrible things without others' notice. I agree that his isolation was helpful to him and probably deliberate.

In the past, artists got a pass when their bad behavior towards women was revealed. People argued that you can separate the art from the artist. I am in the arts and have heard this idea forever. I think though that this was just a way for society to ignore the damage it caused women. As artists have historically mostly men and academics who defend them mostly men, it was accepted or ignored. Or more recently, blamed on "cancel culture." It's a systemic problem. I feel more and more like I cannot separate the art from the artist. Recently the Alice Munro family revelations proved her to be a monster. I felt so disgusted by this and I don't want to read her ever again.

To be really successful in the arts you have be ruthless. Gaiman described himself as otherwordly-confident when starting out. I'm not surprised. He also came from a very horrible background. I think a lot of successful artists do. Having nothing to lose and few family ties means you don't care what happens on the way. And then success means you have a lot of opportunity to exploit your faithful followers. Even middling writers do this in their college departments. Or they are people like Blake Bailey.

I think women having voices, being listened to, having women journalists like the one from Vulture to write the story, are upending business-as-usual, old interpretations and excuses for this behavior and that's a positive change.

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