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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   23436 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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Neil Gaiman having sexual misconduct allegations alleged against him.

https://x.com/bordigay/status/1808522316017815898

Fascinating for the usual 'she was a defenseless underaged 21 year old' tract and 'we had somewhat bad sex at some point' allegations. Reading between the lines it feels clear that Gaiman is a serial polyamorist and atleast a moderate sexpest (by modern standards), but surprising timing to go for him now.

There's been some minor backlash-backlash on grounds of the accusers being TERFs and therefore unworthy of being in the online sphere, and there's nothing explicitly criminal about the accused actions but will be interesting to see how it impacts ongoing projects like Sandman and Good Omens.

Looking at internet commentary on this, I'm seeing a lot of "she was only a third his age" and "she was only 21" talk. Also the standard power imbalance complaints. As though 20-something women are children lacking agency.

A 50 or 60 year old rich man with lots of fans sometimes has sex with 20-something women. Neopuritan progressives are disgusted and outraged. Same thing happened when they learned that Till of Rammstein sometimes has sex with his 20-something fans. A couple women said they partied with the band after shows and Till propositioned them. They declined and Till didn't ask a second time. But people were acting like Till was a rapist. Same exact talk with Till and now Gaiman about how can people enjoy his work knowing what he has done?

I'm not going to endorse having sex with your maid or nanny. Or living a rock star lifestyle partying with groupies. But I'm not going clutch my pearls over some guy leveraging his wealth and fame to get women. I'm certainly not going to conflate this with actual sexual abuse.

I am finding it funny that one of the chief defenses of Gaiman I'm seeing is 'the accusers are transphobes, therefore not meriting believe woman status'

I'm acquaintances with many of these pearl clutchers, so I see what they say. Once an allegation comes out, there's no evidence talked about, no consideration about whether the behavior is actually okay, or which side should be believed, nothing. Just a constant high pitched glee at getting to call these people rapists or villians or "literally the worst". The whole thing basically seems like the thing that the people did wrong was to be noticed, because once you're noticed, no one cares about the situation or evidence. Once you're caught by the eye of sauron, you are guilty.

The funny thing is, something that power imbalance complainers would never admit, is that a power imbalance is generally a prerequisite for a heterosexual relationship due to female hypergamy and thirst for male dominance and authority figures.

That is, if we play along with the usual conception of a power imbalance. @coffee_enjoyer makes a compelling rejection of this framing elsewhere in this thread.

I'm guessing the 21-year-old was at least mid, and even mid (and sometimes below mid) chicks have squads of orbiters. While she was bouncing on a 60-year-old man's cock, left on ignore were similarly aged (to her) but non-powerful guys texting her to hang out.

That's a devastating point there.

Any given woman is certainly going to have at least 4+ potential suitors in place she could select at one time, and if a 50-year-old guy propositions her she can say 'no' and pick another male regardless of any 'power imbalance.' There's some reason she says no to all the others and YES to this one, and power imbalance is only one possible explanation and not a likely one, since she would have had to say no to a lot of guys before hitting the older one she said 'yes' to.

The cheerleader who Bill Belicheck is banging undoubtedly had dozens of possible options blowing up her cell phone. Literally could have her pick of men and could leave Bill on read. Regardless of the age difference, wealth difference, experience difference, whatever, some factor got her to pick him as her 'best' option among MANY.

Perhaps those alternative suitors WANT to support the 'power imbalance' explanation as it is a bit less painful way to accept rejection than "she just picked the richest, most high status guy she had available and that wasn't you."

faceh: "The cheerleader who Bill Bilicheck is banging undoubtedly had dozens of possible options blowing up her cell phone."

Bilicheck: "Thousands."

*bass and percussion intensify*

There's an amusingly old connection between Stannis and Bilicheck in the GoT/ASOIAF fandom.

I'll go ahead and say it: it is increasingly difficult to take allegations of this nature seriously in this world where women are simultaneously demanding to be treated as fully agentic adults in every other decision they make, ESPECIALLY those involving their own bodies, but are infantilized when it comes to sexual interactions with an older male.

The allegations against Brett Kavanaugh were at least serious enough in nature to warrant serious disdain and distrust if proven and there was no component of 'asking for it' on the victim's part whatsoever. I can attach moral approbation to my judgment of the situation.

But hearing that a woman absolutely sought out interactions with a famous guy, made her fawning interest in him clear, expressed positive affect about the interaction(s) after the fact, and perhaps most obviously continued to seek his attentions, only to express regret years later is like a kid indulging in a candy binge and then, hours later, crying aloud that they have an upset stomach and it hurts.

I can even agree that maybe a young woman can grow and mature and look back at interactions from her earlier years in a new light and realize how her decisions were informed by unhealthy influences and urges she didn't fully understand or control.

But it'd be nice if they would express it as just that. Ill-advised flings, perhaps based on a childish crush and a naivete about human sexual politics, and while they were 'positive' experiences at the time they would absolutely NOT repeat them. Maybe demand an apology and a promise to change behavior.

If we're instead going with the idea that 21-year-olds can be 'groomed' and are too easily susceptible to the wiles of older experienced men to be allowed to interact with them, then lets build some social standards and tech around that assumption. They're just not going to like where that goes if taken to any kind of logical conclusion.

And ultimately I am having a harder time accepting that a famous, talented, otherwise beloved figure should have their legacy demolished and shunned from the public eye so that everyone else is 'deprived' of their work for behavior that isn't criminal and indeed it is doubtful has left any lasting harm on the alleged 'victim.' The loss to society is probably larger than the loss to the victim in many cases, and so economically speaking seems like a deadweight loss.

Attractive young women are functionally the most sought-after resource on the planet, and their supply is tightly constrained. Allowing these same women to 'regulate' their own market seems to be creating a lot of externalities.

If we're instead going with the idea that 21-year-olds can be 'groomed' and are too easily susceptible to the wiles of older experienced men to be allowed to interact with them, then lets build some social standards and tech around that assumption. They're just not going to like where that goes if taken to any kind of logical conclusion.

Indeed. If we're going to revisit the assumption that young women are capable of navigating their own relationships, perhaps we should do a holistic re-assessment of what young women are capable of.

Then again, we could also just continue to do what we've been doing, treating women—especially young women—like we do the disabled. The rights and status of able-bodied and able-minded men, but with greater deference, charity, and protections.

I have noticed a LOT in recent years how almost all of young females' major complaints about how they're treated by men would dissolve if they had a strong, trustworthy male figure in their life who could act as a simple disincentive for outsider males to behave badly. Not that women should have a male escort where-ever they go, but if they could simply text said male and say "hey I'm feeling uncomfortable about this situation, what should I do?" and get some advice or, if needed, immediate intervention, then there'd probably be a LOT less regret in their lives later on.

A lot can be said about fatherless women, but really I'd also guess that smaller average family size in the west makes it such that women are less likely to have brothers, male cousins, etc. who can step into such a role if needed, so they're trying to find some other male outside the family that might suffice, but other males are just as likely as not to exploit that situation for their own gain.

I'd also guess that smaller average family size in the west makes it such that women are less likely to have brothers, male cousins, etc. who can step into such a role if needed

Some other things that I think can expand on this point:

First, in addition to women being likely to have fewer male cousins compared to past generations, I have a feeling that people in general probably aren't as close to their cousins as they used to be. It seems that modern transportation (ie. cars for short-ish distance, planes for long distance) psychologically encourages people to move farther from their families when they're out of school. While the faster transportation seems like it would just extend the range at which people can maintain relationships (ie. driving 30 minutes to go a few towns away sounds like it isn't that different from walking 30 minutes to the other side of town), I suspect that's also something psychological about the distance such that a lot of people who theoretically could maintain closer relationships with their families despite the distance don't.

(There may also be dunbar-related reasons for less close adult family relations. When you live in a town of 1k people, your family is going to be part of your community that you interact with regularly, whereas as more people live in higher-density areas this is no longer necessarily the case).

The second reason is that for blue tribe women, I suspect that even setting aside any issues of fatherlessness or not having any close brothers or male cousins, the men in question wouldn't be willing to step in to intervene anyways, as private violent resolution to issues (or the threat of such violence) would be seen as wrong, and also a blue tribe woman's male relatives are also going to be blue tribe and would have a lot to lose in their personal and professional lives from having a violent criminal record.

So TL;DR: In addition to having fewer male relatives, women are probably not as close to those relatives as in the past and said relatives are going to be more reluctant to take matters into their own hands.

I have noticed a LOT in recent years how almost all of young females' major complaints about how they're treated by men would dissolve if they had a strong, trustworthy male figure in their life who could act as a simple disincentive for outsider males to behave badly. Not that women should have a male escort where-ever they go, but if they could simply text said male and say "hey I'm feeling uncomfortable about this situation, what should I do?" and get some advice or, if needed, immediate intervention, then there'd probably be a LOT less regret in their lives later on.

Or better yet, instead of merely reaching out to her father, brother(s), or other male figures for last minute hail-mary advice or to serve as a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency meatshield, if the social norm was for a young woman to pre-emptively seek and heed their advice when they tell her to not do stuff like wear slutty outfits, do drugs, or get drunk outside of the house, much less wear slutty outfits out to do drugs and get drunk.

Or you know, to not work for a man who may try to bang her in close quarters. Or to not teehee around and spend time alone with unvetted men.

However, such an alternative would be coup-complete. The current norm is that fathers and brothers (or other male family members) have no right to tell their teenage or adult daughters or sisters what to do. Her body, her choice; such advice would potentially limit her rightfully deserved FUN and FREEDOM or make her feel JUDGED. Fathers and brothers should just accept that at most, their role is limited to bailing out daughters and sisters from their coffee moments, or picking up the pieces afterward when things go awry. She's a vulnerable girl/young woman who's already STRESSED from the TRAUMA; YTA if "I told you so" even crosses your mind. If anything, you should feel honored to serve.

There's also a chicken-and-egg problem. If the norm is that fathers and brothers or other male family members have no right to tell a teenage girl or young woman what to do, then they'll be less inclined to try. If they're less inclined to try, that means there's an increased chance of her getting into thotty hijinks. Her thottery leads to her male family members quietly quitting from her life even further to preserve their own mental health, which leads to more space for her to operate and get herself into thotty hijinks.

It’s worth noting that that’s a very blue tribe mentality. The core red tribe expects that fathers have the right to get up in their adult daughter’s love lives, veto marriage partners, scare off boyfriends who need to be scared off, set dress codes for co-resident daughters, etc. They don’t see it as absolute like in trad societies but it’s not seen as overstepping boundaries to have strong opinions about such things and express them with the serious expectation that she actually listens.

There is still some reserves of social capital left in the red tribe, but they are being depleted at an alarming rate. Red tribe loves television, but Hollywood writers and producers are all blue tribe, so every modern show pushes feminist memes, sexual liberation memes, pro-college memes, and rootless cosmopolitan memes. And people only watch modern shows.

Red tribe fathers who proudly quote the rules "for dating my daughter" cheerfully send their little princesses off to college without a second thought, where they will very predictably spend four years away from any male relative supervision getting covered in cum from head to toe by men who have zero chance of committing to them. A father forbidding a legally adult, academically successful daughter from attending a far away university over fears of promiscuity would be outside even the red tribe Overton window; at that point, his wife and family and friends and preacher would turn against him for stifling his daughter's future.

Even if his society is with him, a patriarchal red tribe father has no legal leg to stand on. Threatening a cad with a shotgun to get him to stay away from his daughter is assault; actually shooting the rake is murder. Physically grabbing his daughter away from a party where she is likely to end up banged and locking her up in her room is liable to end up in a cop showing up to white knight for her. If you cannot drag your daughter/wife home by the hair when she is out acting like a slut and give her a good beating and have your society, your church, and your law enforcement agency back you up and agree that you acted correctly, you cannot control your women's sexuality.

Red tribe fathers who proudly quote the rules "for dating my daughter" cheerfully send their little princesses off to college without a second thought, where they will very predictably spend four years away from any male relative supervision getting covered in cum from head to toe by men who have zero chance of committing to them.

Some fathers even pay a quarter mil or more for such a privilege.

Is the second link in the quoted portion what you meant, though? I suppose, in its stead the parent comment to the above link could also work, for getting covered in cum from head to toe (in addition to a well-diversified portfolio of other bodily fluids).

My (deeper red than most)extended family has gotten away with shit fairly recently; the idea that the literal letter of the law always be dictating what actually happens is suspect.

Also to the point, you’re massively overestimating the amount of promiscuity young women want to engage in. Daddy’s rules are a fallback reason for why not when that young woman believes her dad gets to make the rules. That article by the Muslim porn star that got posted a while back talked about this- the evangelical girls didn’t sleep with every guy that took them on a date because they had a reason not to do the thing they didn’t want to do in the first place(evangelical is probably a pretty good proxy for red tribe here; red tribers who go to college at least pretend to be religious).

Unfortunately, the inability to thot-patrol daughters and sisters due to modern social and technological headwinds is not limited to the American blue tribe.

The struggle is real for fathers and brothers, ranging from working class Sao Paulo to bougie Shanghai.

American red tribe fathers and brothers can posture and bluster, but there’s hardly any guarantee their daughters/sisters will listen. The headwinds are just so against them.

It’s been a while since I looked into it, but I believe that American red state whites don’t have lower single motherhood rates than blue state whites. If anything, higher, especially for non-Amish and non-Mormons.

If you put a 60-year-old man in the room with an attractive 20-year-old woman, the one with all the power is the young woman. She possesses a quality that motivates every male mammal, sexual charm. Given her age, she has greater cognitive flexibility, resilience, and mate choice. The old male is motivated by something so deep in his nature that it evolved before humanity even walked the earth. But the young woman is motivated by vanity, greed, fame, and self-image. By any serious consideration, the young woman has power over the old man. And her motivations are less excusable as they are conscious and vain. The male motivation exists outside the plane of morality, which is why history’s moral teachers do not say “don’t seduce” but “stay away from any context in which you could seduce or be seduced”. That’s the lever of moral control here, well before you are lead into temptation. (Islam is right about women?)

No one in history really conceived of a level of self-control that would permit you to be alone with an attractive young woman for an extended period of time. The most well-trained monk was still barred from being alone with a nun. The absurdity today stems from the typical mind fallacy. Unhealthy men whose sexual drives are damaged or reduced imbue their lack of vigor onto vigorous men. Men with vitality are often successful and successful men often have vitality. So the lacking man mistakes his impotency for self-control, when in fact he experiences 10% of the impulse that the healthy man experiences. It’s like a starved man and a hungry man deliberating cannibalism — it’s no virtue to abstain from the flesh when you’re merely hungry. So we aren’t criticizing immorality here, we are criticizing health and nature, and in an especially dumb and gross way.

The best solution to solve the social neuroticism: you can no longer accuse a man of rape if you willingly spend time with him alone. This solves a vast amount of rape and the only drawback is that a woman can no longer pretend to have a platonic friendship with a “guy friend”.

The best solution to solve the social neuroticism: you can no longer accuse a man of rape if you willingly spend time with him alone.

Your solution seems utterly incompatible with the way of life of most societies.

Perhaps you think a strong gender segregation like traditional Islam has would be enough to solve the scenario of your uncontrollable men, but it is not.

Even in traditional Islamic countries, I think there is a presumption that men can constrain themselves from rape in some contexts. A man might trust his brother to chaperone his wife without raping her, or his son to chaperone his daughter.

Of course, if we were to excuse rapes of women in voluntary 1-vs-1 situations because real men don't have self-control, why should we stop there? What about chance encounters, they might not be willing, but at least negligent? If we blame women for getting into situations where they are get violently overpowered, should we not also blame them for entrusting themselves to a chaperone who gets overpowered by some rapist? And if you can't trust one man not to rape one woman, why should you be able to trust n men to not coordinate to rape k women?

Also why should only heterosexual rapists get a pass when gay men can get just as horny? The logical conclusion would be that in any gathering, whatever subset of people can violently overpower the others gets to do as they please.

Luckily, your 'vigorous men' who are so high-T that they can not control their impulse to rape whenever a plausible opportunity arises are exceedingly rare today. Even in ancient societies, where being rapey was an adaptive trait, there was doubtlessly a selection for men who were might rape enemy civilians in wartime or slaves, but had enough restraint to not rape their chieftains daughter or a temple virgin.

Today, millions of women and men encounter each other as strangers 1-vs-1 in taxis, while jogging and in countless other settings many million times a day. Almost none of these encounters lead to rape. Empirically, this puts sharp limits on the prevalence of your 'vigorous men' who would rape at every opportunity in the wider world, outside of monasteries and prisons.

Men can resist raping. A woman’s discomfort or scream or admonition or disgust (or any other clear biological signal of disinterest) is an immediate turn off to a normal human male. What is unlikely is if they can resist seducing, which can become rape at the whim of a woman because most seduction does not involve affirmative consent. My rule doesn’t give men a pass to rape; after all, a lot of men are trustworthy. But it establishes a right to seduce (attempt), and it requires women to check who they spend time with alone. We can call it the “Baby it’s cold outside” law. Or the “black and white” law, a play on the fact that so many old black and white movies illustrate seduction with zero consent. The important thing is that it deletes immediately this whole neurotic grey area where a man is either icky or a rapist for seducing a woman in a context with no evidence. It does this by putting the responsibility on women to consider who they spend time with alone.

A woman’s bother-in-law is not considered eligible mahram in traditional Islam, so a woman cannot spend time alone with her husband’s brother. (I must once again sincerely ask: is Islam right about women?)

For chance public encounters, yeah, people don’t even assume their wives and girlfriends outside, so that’s obviously not an issue.

Even in traditional Islamic countries, I think there is a presumption that men can constrain themselves from rape in some contexts. A man might trust his brother to chaperone his wife without raping her, or his son to chaperone his daughter.

In Islam, you are only supposed to trust her immediate blood-relations; a woman's father, brothers, and sons can all be safely assumed to not want to fuck her, nor is she likely to want to fuck them. Brothers-in-law are not included, for good reason; there is no biological reason stopping your brother from having sex with your wife, so you don't even give them the chance. Cousins are right out, given that they are permissible marriage partners.

If you put a 60-year-old man in the room with an attractive 20-year-old woman, the one with all the power is the young woman. She possesses a quality that motivates every male mammal, sexual charm. Given her age, she has greater cognitive flexibility, resilience, and mate choice. The old male is motivated by something so deep in his nature that it evolved before humanity even walked the earth. But the young woman is motivated by vanity, greed, fame, and self-image. By any serious consideration, the young woman has power over the old man. And her motivations are less excusable as they are conscious and vain. The male motivation exists outside the plane of morality, which is why history’s moral teachers do not say “don’t seduce” but “stay away from any context in which you could seduce or be seduced”. That’s the lever of moral control here, well before you are lead into temptation. (Islam is right about women?)

It's fascinating to me that you interpret anything a man might do as merely obeying ancient biological imperatives over which he has no control, while anything a woman might do is basically women being evil whores with full awareness and control over what they're doing.

Yeah, (straight) men find young women hot and fuckable, and for as long as there has been civilization (and contrary to what some Bronze Age Gor fetishists), even in the most restrictive societies where women were basically chattel (which was not, in fact, most of them), there was still some expectation that men can control wanting to fuck any young woman they can get their hands on, even if she doesn't happen to be property of the king.

Really now.

Male motivation does not exist "outside the plane of morality." Morality is what you use to govern yourself and how you act on your motivations.

No one in history really conceived of a level of self-control that would permit you to be alone with an attractive young woman for an extended period of time.

I am very confident that I could spend any amount of time alone with an attractive young woman and still not try to fuck her. And yes, I am a straight male with a normal, healthy sex drive.

I mean, if you're talking about "literally the last people on Earth stranded on a desert island" or "trapped in a rocket ship hurtling off into the void forever".... well, maybe I'd at least make a play, but I remain confident that if she said no, I could avoid, you know, becoming a rapist.

The best solution to solve the social neuroticism: you can no longer accuse a man of rape if you willingly spend time with him alone. This solves a vast amount of rape and the only drawback is that a woman can no longer pretend to have a platonic friendship with a “guy friend”.

Or you could treat men as moral agents.

A man can be reasonably expected to be up to no good towards any woman not outside of his immediate family, and indeed that is the norm everywhere in the world except in the West and very recently. Both men, young and old, who really should know better have again and again been tripped up by biological impulse. Indeed, feminism of a certain wave tarnishes the entire sex as morally culpable.

Because most men can be manipulated with sex, women who do so are rightfully shamed. Because it is a obvious weakness that takes incredible reserves of willpower and fortitude to resist, but trivially little effort to tempt. You say 'be moral' as if it is a meaningful statement. But even with direct financial and reputational incentives to not fool around, men do it anyway. You are ignoring the biological reality of the procreative urge.

Does the pithy dismissal 'do better?' form on your lips?

Testosterone is one hell of a drug. Traditional societies know this as a truth of which our modern ones fervently deny. Don't be alone with strange men! Don't even create the temptation! Because the inevitable will happen, no matter how moral they are. Don't put your hand on the stove. Don't put your dick into an hole smaller than its circumference. Obvious best practice to avoid harm, ignored for egalitarianism. Well, in this case, our ancestors really did know better. They knew better than to moralize the whole business and focused on outcomes.

A man can be reasonably expected to be up to no good towards any woman not outside of his immediate family

If you do not believe you are capable of controlling yourself, I will not argue with you. But you should not typical-mind yourself into believing that no man can resist fucking a woman if he thinks he can get away with it. If this were true, there would be almost zero fidelitous married men in the modern age, and rape would be much more common than it is.

We are subject to many primal urges. Greed, lust, gluttony, pride, etc. Maybe lust is the strongest, I don't know, but yes, "be moral" is actually the response to those asking "How can you expect me to resist temptation?" "Lock the temptation away and keep it tightly controlled" is not.

Yes, men can be manipulated with sex, and women can be manipulated with promises and threats, and I agree that the current state of affairs (driven heavily by modern feminism) is not healthy, but "retvrn to treating women as property" is immoral, impractical, and frankly, ahistorical.

You misunderstand me.

In many workplaces, there are requirements to wear steel-toed shoes to prevent crush injuries to the toes. Not because there is an inherent moral judgement involved, or that we are all clumsy idiots, but that we are obliged to laws of nature that do not care for our reasons or intentions at all.

If people didn't have accidents, then we wouldn't need PPE. To extend this analogy, if all men were gentlemen and kept their marriage vows, we wouldn't need laws and customs to prevent rape. I am of an ideology that reasonable concessions for safety can be made at the price of liberty. If, indeed, a woman can go into the public space with the reasonable expectation that she not compromise herself then we can take her at her word when she claims that she has an unwanted suitor.

You misunderstand me.

I don't think I do. You think "I couldn't help banging a pretty young girl/pressuring her into having sex with me" is equivalent to "I couldn't prevent something from falling on my head."

Your behavior, unlike gravity, is something over which you have control. Traditionally, we punish people who are unable to control themselves, we do not blame whatever triggered their lack of control.

To extend this analogy, if all men were gentlemen and kept their marriage vows, we wouldn't need laws and customs to prevent rape.

And if no one was violent or greedy, we wouldn't need laws against assault, murder, theft, etc.

I am of an ideology that reasonable concessions for safety can be made at the price of liberty.

Sure. Most people believe that, but where we set that on the sliding scale between "absolute freedom" and "absolute safety" is pretty important.

If, indeed, a woman can go into the public space with the reasonable expectation that she not compromise herself

And here is the sticking point. What, to you, is a "reasonable expectation that she not compromise herself"? What is "compromising herself"? Showing too much skin? Smiling? Appearing in public without a male chaperone? Voluntarily entering a room alone with a man (which, according to others in this thread, means he should thereupon have the legal right to rape her)?

Even back in Ye Good Old Days of whichever century you think was the height of sexual propriety, the rules for a woman in, say *Victorian England were quite different from the rules for a woman in, say, modern Afghanistan, and what with the "Islam is right about women" memes I am not encouraged that you want to place essentially all responsibility on women to not tempt men.

* Fun fact, the Victorians were actually stricter than previous generations. Even the Regency era, about which Jane Austen wrote, allowed women much more freedom to socialize and appear in public, hence several of her novels showing her heroines going to parties and thus being placed in compromising situations. Yet even writing in the 19th century, Jane Austen, hardly a modern feminist, was able to view both men and women as having both agency and responsibility with more nuance than our "Make women property" advocates seem to.

You don't need to go back to the Victorian era. You can talk to people who live in your country right now as to functioning rules of propriety. (The Pence rule is quite illustrative.) It is a reciprocal responsibility. Is it prudish? Is it backwards? Perhaps. But compared to the current state of being, which you recommend assigning moral valence and blame, which has brought about untold chaos and perhaps the permanent alienation of the sexes from one another, it is indeed perferrable, less our societies reap the fate of South Korea and the country dies out in three generations.

I prefer axiomatic rules that do not assign culpability or blame rather than wading into the hazy morass of he said, she said. Perhaps that's the autism speaking. Let it be stated this way. Rather than women being property of paterfamilias, she is keenly aware of the possession of her chastity and virtue is indeed a valuable thing that she injures at her own peril. And we have a word for a man who would do her harm, we call them cads, decievers, rapists.

And if she decides to associate with disreputable men, she cannot cry foul that she was taken advantage of. She knew perfectly what she was in for! You, who put so much value into judging men morally, don't say anything about this particular stained flower of Gaiman: who willingly had an affair with a married man. What do you make of her morals, who made herself a slave of this celebrity sex pest?

If she is a feminist, she should own up to her own actions, and if she is not, she ruined herself of her own volition, against the advice of men who actually care for her. As much as you dislike this worldview, it makes sense and is internally consistant. I am completely uninterested in adjudicating individual blame and responsibility because I have no need to. Both of them are in the wrong, and thusly the matters is beneath public interest.

No one in history really conceived of a level of self-control that would permit you to be alone with an attractive young woman for an extended period of time.

This is complete bullshit. While "The most well-trained monk was still barred from being alone with a nun." type of rules exist because people designing such institution have seen fit to avoid obvious temptations, this temptations can be in fact resisted.

you can no longer accuse a man of rape if you willingly spend time with him alone

Are you serious? This rule as you propose is blatantly idiotic, starting from fact that fathers occasionally have daughters.

But yes, also in cases you likely intended: yes, you can stay with attractive girl, alone, and do not rape her. I have honestly no idea why you think it is impossible.

Outside the church it was also a rule that young people of separate genders do not spend time alone, so the idea was not limited to that institution. Re: the church, if monks believed that they could overcome temptation, surely “avoid obvious temptation” would no longer be necessary? In any case, I think this a typical mind problem. And the problem is exacerbated as lifestyle differences and health increase between elite men and the rest. I am not like Neil Gaiman or Donald Trump but I would hazard a guess that their lifestyle is higher testosterone than the typical Twitter feminist pundit. Socially dominant people have higher testosterone, they are healthier, they are probably less likely to use pornography, they are preselected to ruthlessly pursue social rewards (including women — especially women). I think it’s impossible to conclude it can be resisted unless you’ve been there, and our ancestors who have been there and done that seem to believe it can’t be resisted — hence rules. I can imagine resisting from the comfort of my desk right now but that’s just that, imagining. I am not a tired Neil Straightman returning home from a stressful interview to find a nanny in my bath begging to be spanked (per texts). I can easily imagine that being irresistible and I have a third of their vitality, sorry.

starting from fact that fathers occasionally have daughters.

This isn’t remotely similar, humans also evolve to not find their kin attractive. I think through scent? But yeah, just don’t pull a Woody Allen. Or an Errol Musk.

What is your explanation for masturbation being taboo for most of history instead of being considered a mildly effective release valve for good Christian men who don't want to accidentally sin? After all, many observe the correlation between the sexlessness of our society and the rise of habitual porn use.

What it looks like to me is that a significant portion of "high testosterone man literally cannot resist the temptation of pussy" is male status propaganda. It's not that a powerful man alone with a woman (or a less powerful man alone with a low-status woman) fucked her because he thought/knew he could escape consequences, it's that he couldn't resist because he's just so vital. It's not that a single man wouldn't masturbate because it was low status to do something a man with pussy on tap wouldn't have to do, it's that he was too high T for it to work. And so on.

I agree that between a 60 year old man and a 20 year old woman, she has leverage. Not mind control. "He literally could not resist his ancient instincts" is fake, it's just that resisting ancient instincts is very hard and most men don't consciously want to, in a situation where they can be indulged.

I know that in the Catholic tradition, masturbation was seen as a “worse” sin than going to a prostitute because a prostitute was closer to what God intended than masturbation (which lacked the woman part of sex). Aquinas and Augustine defended the legality of prostitution because without it lust would topple society. I know the Taoists believed that if you masturbated you lost vital energy, and so did the Victorians. Not sure about other cultures.

So that’s why it was seen as wrong to masturbate. But did you mean, “why didn’t they become overwhelmed with a desire to masturbate?” Those weren’t pornographied times. You could go months without seeing a woman’s ankles. As for today, I just think high status men have a habit of not masturbating because they are instead fixated on social rewards, like the attention of women, as a primary driver of their elite behavior. If you had two Gaimans and one of them “release valves” himself every night, but the other looks forward to the attention of women acquired through his writings, the latter is going to be be motivated to write harder and faster. So top performing men in a given domain are IMO likely to just not use pornography or masturbate, though I am conjecturing here.

Re: the church, if monks believed that they could overcome temptation, surely “avoid obvious temptation” would no longer be necessary?

Monks are expected to believe that they are the worst of sinners and are unusually corruptible as a form of humility. Making rules like this for themselves is thus expected, and does not necessarily mean that the medieval or renaissance church believes men find sexual temptation impossible to resist.

Fine. How about the ever-clairvoyant Saint Bernard, that absolute dog, Dante’s final guide in the highest heaven —

To be always with a woman and not to have sexual relations with her is more difficult than to raise the dead. You cannot do the less difficult; do you think I will believe that you can do what is more difficult?

Remember that the Divine Comedy is a piece of fiction written as a political polemic by someone who was famously sexually frustrated. If Twitter existed in 14th century Italy, he would have been relentlessly mocked as an incel (yes, I know he married and had children, but that's not the way he presents himself in his work). I would take Dante's pronouncements on desire and sexual morality with a grain of salt.

I don’t know how many layers of celestial trolling we have ascended, but (1) that’s a real passage by Bernard, (2) I am situating Bernard in his historical significance, being Dante’s final guide, (3) the Comedy being a creative work does not deny its significance but heightens it, (4) the Comedy is considered one of the greatest works of Catholic writing, (5) it was not written as a political polemic, though it includes aspects of polemic, (6) he had children, ergo was not frustrated, (7) you are probably misunderstanding his relationship with a possibly fictitious Beatrice, (8) I do not care if he was a “misogynistic incel” as this would simply place him in even more legendary creative company.

Re: the church, if monks believed that they could overcome temptation, surely “avoid obvious temptation” would no longer be necessary?

You are conflating "obvious temptation" with "temptation impossible to resist". It is not the same thing.

This isn’t remotely similar

And your rule would legalize paedophilia.

you can no longer accuse a man of rape if you willingly spend time with him alone.

We could achieve much the same effect by simply saying that a man has no legal defense against an allegation of rape if he chose to spend time with the woman alone, but I presume that would not please you in the same way.

The sexual revolution is over, you can’t fuck unlimited numbers of young groupies and not risk getting MeToo’d anymore. Oh well, it’s not an issue that affects 99.9% of not extremely rich or famous men and I don’t consider it a huge tragedy that this deleterious state of affairs is ending.

The historical status quo was that 'she consented' wasn't normally a defense against rape charges- seduction was still a crime. OTOH raping a prostitute wasn't usually a serious crime.

So we see, historically, societies in which spending time alone with women opened you up to legal liabilities, but in which not having had sex with a woman you'd spent time alone with was a defense against accusations and different women were afforded different levels of protection under the law, with virgins given the most protection and prostitutes the least. Fornication was de facto criminalized.

My rule is preferable because male sexuality is the aggressive risk-taking sexuality. This is evidenced by history and ape studies. Because male sexuality involves more risk-taking, your rule allows women to victimize men by continually inviting men alone who will take the risk. (Men are more likely to meet strange women than vice versa, more likely to swipe on dating apps, etc). My rule makes sense according to human nature: women take less risks and seek for fewer mates and are more cautious, so are less likely to be tricked into being victimized. Your rule gives women even more power, my rule equalizes the power of the genders by requiring the careful gender to expend due care. Ultimately what we want is less total sum victimization and stress. I think every sophisticated civilization from the Middle East to Europe and Asia abided by a rule like this: when determining rape they would consider the conduct of the woman.

you can’t fuck unlimited numbers of young groupies and not risk getting MeToo’d anymore

Well, inform the millions of years of biological equipment that cause the dominant man to be dominant that it needs to turn off its evolutionary engine. That’s the issue. The sexual instinct is stronger and older than the shame instinct. If you devise an unnatural standard you are going to find a lot of violations to the standard. Yelling and shaming a man for doing what a man is designed to do (procure consent of fertile woman, seduce) is ill-conceived. It just makes everyone more stressed. A simple rule can delete that stress efficiently without burdening the legal system.

Historically seduction of a woman was literally considered a crime, unless she was already the town bicycle. 'She consented' wasn't a defense. Pre-first sexual revolution courting, with the calling cards and chaperones, worked fine before the invention of the telephone.

'She consented' wasn't a defense.

And today, should "she consented" happens to be an effective defense in a similar case (as pointed out downthread, this is basically the Jian Ghomeshi case all over again), the laws will be changed so that it can't be considered a defense (as they were after his exoneration).

Seems like nothing changed after all.

Seduction laws were much more specific, no? They were applied in cases of misrepresentation or pregnancy usually

The victim had to have been moved “by some promise or artifice, . . . by his flattery or deception.” Likewise consent, or failure to resist, or evidence that “she had previously prostituted herself to the embraces of other men” could be a defense for the man

that “the person seduced must have been previously of chaste character — that she has yet preserved that priceless jewel that is the peculiar badge of the virtuous unmarried female.”

Lewd women, bawds and adventuresses were not welcome in courts, nor were prostitutes or immoral characters.

22 of 37 state laws requiring that the “prosecution must show either a promise of marriage or a feigned or pretended marriage.”

https://time.com/5776805/seduction-law-history/

I agree courting works fine.

So having sex with a virgin was only a crime if you misrepresented your intentions or buttered her up first? This seems like it covers most cases. Certainly most cases in which the man is later accused.

I think every sophisticated civilization from the Middle East to Europe and Asia abided by a rule like this

A rule that stated that a woman who happened to be alone with a man (say because her car broke down and someone stopped to help, or because she was the only customer in a store run by a man) had no recourse if she was raped by him? I’m not aware of that being a common policy in most trad civilizations.

In any case, in the example in the OP, the woman arrived at Gaiman’s house having been hired by his (essentially) wife as a babysitter, only to find he was the only person in the house. I do not sympathize with her and don’t think he’s guilty of a crime, but her mere presence in his home ought hardly to have given him the right to rape her.

Well, inform the millions of years of biological equipment that cause the dominant man to be dominant that it needs to turn off its evolutionary engine. That’s the issue. The sexual instinct is stronger and older than the shame instinct. If you devise an unnatural standard you are going to find a lot of violations to the standard.

And yet monogamy exists and functions, at least mostly and in many cases for many years. Sexual instincts can be tamed by civilization, that is arguably the point. Civilization is about tempering and overcoming the biological imperative, almost any kind of savagery and barbarism can be justified by your logic here. ‘Dominant men’ succeed every day in remaining faithful, it is no impossible expectation to believe they can hold themselves back from fucking groupies. I have seen it done.

“Happened to be alone” is an exceptional case, not a normative case. So such an exceptional case is unique and would need to be considered uniquely. The rule in traditional societies, from what I recall reading, is that no one would believe a woman regarding rape if the woman by her own volition went off to meet a man. I’m not sure what’s up with the specific nanny allegations. According to Twitter the alleged texted him “I think you need to give me a huge spanking very soon. I'm fucking desperate for my master." So there is more to the story than “happened to be alone”. It certainly throws a wench into the allegations.

monogamy exists and functions

It only ever functioned when there were strict rules about gender mingling. That’s my point. Does it function well today? I don’t know, divorce stats don’t look good. I know that kings were quite promiscuous in European history, because they had the power to override gender mingling rules.

Civilization is about tempering and overcoming the biological imperative

Hard disagree. But it’s interesting that we may have found a key point of divergence. I think civilization is about orienting, redirecting, confining and filtering our instincts. This is probably not very Christian of me, but I do not actually believe that you can overcome the sexual urge except with limited Herculean cognitive effort. The monks had to keep themselves away from women, after all, and yet even Peter Abelard fell for Heloise. The monks would fast and rejoice in their self-control but really their low caloric intake reduce the sexual drive.

Dominant men’ succeed every day in remaining faithful, it is no impossible expectation to believe they can hold themselves back from fucking groupies

Gates, Musk, Bezos, Trump… I really don’t know. I think the ones who succeed are the ones who eschew any context where temptation may arise.

It certainly throws a wench into the allegations.

Too great to ignore, lol

I'm glad you pointed it out; I might had missed it otherwise.

That could be the greatest pun or Freudian slip I've ever seen.

We had “esprit de corpse” crop up here some time ago.

We could achieve much the same effect by simply saying that a man has no legal defense against an allegation of rape if he chose to spend time with the woman alone, but I presume that would not please you in the same way.

It would please me fine, but it's notable that attempting to comply with such rules unilaterally has been argued, both by the media, by Blue Tribe social consensus, and even by prominent members of the Motte, to be icky deplorable sexism that should never be tolerated. The reaction to the Pence Rule both in the broader culture and among commenters here was another of the incidents that convinced me that peace between Reds and Blues is impossible.

Pence was attacked for the Pence rule because he was Red, not because of the rule. You could frame the Pence rule in a completely NYT-opinion-column appropriate way and I personally know many libs who follow and extol that rule in their own lives.

We could achieve much the same effect by simply saying that a man has no legal defense against an allegation of rape if he chose to spend time with the woman alone, but I presume that would not please you in the same way.

The presumption of innocence favors disqualifying accusations over disqualifying defenses.

Thankfully, nybbs, this pesky but minor issue—if it’s an issue at all—can be easily resolved by simply codifying into law the custom of eschewing presumption of innocence when the accuser or alleged victim is female and the accused is male with regard to any alleged crime in general, legal or social. Well, a white male at least.

I’ll go ahead and close the ticket.

It’s not disqualifying the defense, it’s invalidating it as conceptually possible and certainly relevant, much in the same way that ‘interference’ with a young woman was once socially unacceptable regardless of what she may or may not have thought about it.

It’s not disqualifying the defense, it’s invalidating it as conceptually possible and certainly relevant

Invalidating it is disqualifying it.

We don't live in that conservative world any more where young women (at least of sufficient social class) are put up on a pedestal for good or for ill. We're not getting it back. If it were to somehow come back it would have to come as a package, including young women being denied (by chaperones, by men, by other women, all endorsed by society) the opportunity to be alone with men. If you want young women to be protected as fragile flowers of feminity, they will also have to accept that the protection will often feel stifling and will absolutely deny them opportunities, freedom, and agency.

Alternatively, we could get what we seem to be getting, where young women demand it both ways and most people give it to them.

This only works until we get outbred and replaced by a more Gnon-compliant civilization, like the Muslims are taking over Europe.

What can't go on forever, won't. One way or the other, women will lose their freedom, because no civilization with free women can reproduce.

Maybe I'm just outing myself as a sexually enervated low-T guy but I honestly don’t relate to this at all. When young women act flirty with me in any vaguely work-related contexts, I generally find it quite annoying, like they’re trying to trick me into extending professional favours to them. Maybe when I was a horn-dog 20-something I would have reacted differently, but these days the most important women in my life are my wife, mother, and daughter, and I channel my energy into building my assets, progressing my career, and working on our home. Perhaps I just haven’t been tempted very strongly but I remember feeling utter contempt in grad school for the older male professors who were in the thrall of pretty female students and did them favours and I very strongly imprinted on not becoming that sort of guy.

When young women act flirty with me in any vaguely work-related contexts, I generally find it quite annoying, like they’re trying to trick me into extending professional favours to them.

What?! Surely young women would never do that.

Perhaps you should give yourself a little more credit; some of them were/are probably legitimately attracted to you because of the *clutches pearls* power imbalance given you were/are an authority figure. You’re married, even better. Thus, you might be more attractive to young women than you think.

High T and finding young women annoying to deal with are certainly not mutually exclusive. Hence the constant joking (or not-so-joking) remarks by those in online bodybuilding spaces about Upping the Tren until they find men fuckable.

Maybe I'm just outing myself as a sexually enervated low-T guy but I honestly don’t relate to this at all.

I don't think you're outing yourself as anything. The premise that sexual urges are just too strong to control is bullshit. Men can, and do, control their sexual desires, even if they are very strong.

This is my experience too, but there's been a lot of discussion lately about typical mind fallacy. Trans people supposedly feel their gender directly, and I have no such experience. I'm not being flippant here, there is some possibility that it's just the case that we're missing out on some kind of widespread experience that many other men have. Like that theory from a while back that bronze aged stories about conversing with gods wasn't metaphor but the actual felt experience of the people involved.

I feel like it depends on the context and how hard they go.

While I really struggle to understand the professors enthralled by light flirting or the guys that did women's homework for barely even that, I do feel like people might not appreciate how hard it can be to say no when you're directly sexually propositioned by someone young and attractive in a context where sex clearly is an option and you're drunk.

It is clearly possible to control these urges but I don't think it's easy. I don't think it's typical minding going on here as much as it's an experience that many people have not had (or only very rarely and not as intensely) and therefore cannot fairly evaluate the difficulty of.

"And you're drunk" is a hell of a caveat. Self-control is strategy. Internal emotional strategy and external material strategy. Self control is about having the experience required to avoid and/or mitigate mind-controlling influences in situations where their effects may be catastrophic.

I don't think this is easy either to be clear. Right Action is teleological. Results oriented. The unwise are always going to make myopic mistakes in the process of learning their lessons, and all new humans start out unwise.

I think that typical minding is a real thing for sure. The unfortunate problem is, it doesn't tell you much useful in cases like this. Perhaps most men really are possessed of sex drives so strong that it is literally beyond their control, as @coffee_enjoyer claims. On the other hand, perhaps that's just an excuse for bad behavior, as I claim. While both could be true for different individuals, they can't both be true as a rule of thumb for the population.

Liveblog of the podcast with the details from someone skeptical about the allegations (she's only done the part with the first accuser so far):

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1808514093323587854.html

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1808604076650660238.html

The highlights would be the Whatsapp messages. Like this one after the day when Neil Gaiman allegedly sexually assaulted her on her first day as a nanny:

She sends Neil some what's-app messages about childcare and then adds, "Thank you for a lovely, lovely night. Wow. Kiss."

And this one a few days later after the weekend when he allegedly "anally penetrates her, she says, without asking and without using a condom and she says he uses butter as a lubricant.":

Hello darling. I've had a crazy weekend. To getting bitten by a spider, to ridiculously crazy and rough and kind of amazing sex.

Or these messages to Neil, also from shortly after the alleged anal rape:

Now they're telling us her What's App message the next day: "Do you feel like a rain bath? smiley emoji"

The next day: "I am consumed by thoughts of you, the things you will do to me, I'm so hungry. What a terrible creature you've turned me into. I think you need to give me a huge spanking very soon. I'm fucking desperate for my master." That's from Scarlett to Neil.

If I've got it right, they met on Friday, and she sent that to him on Monday. He says she was into "mild BDSM," I guess describing that kind of message. She says he groomed her (over a weekend?)

Or these after he messaged her about her supposedly telling people he raped her and she planned to MeToo him:

I feel like bawling my eyes out. I would never Me Too you. I don't where that came from, and I have told Amanda that even though it began questionably, eventually it was undoubtedly consensual and I enjoyed it. Heart is pounding too.

Or the general description of the year of messages following her meeting Neil, a relationship that supposedly started with him sexually assaulting her on the first day they met and anally raping her the second day:

The journalists say that the What's App message they have from Scarlett's phone cover her entire relationship with Neil Gaiman and go back and forth for an entire year afterwards. ?!?!!?!

"The messages are friendly, often affectionate or supportive."

Journalist: "It feels like a very different story, not so black and white, like we're viewing the offense from the other end of the telescope." They're presuming there is an offense to view.

Journalist: "It really throws me, because when I read the What's App, Scarlett comes over to me as besotted."

Other journalist: "Messages like these appear to be evidence of consent in black and white."

In summary:

The journalists ask experts "How can we reconcile her What's Apps to Neil Gaiman with her account to us of what happened?" That is not the right question to ask. The right question to ask is, "Is she telling the truth?"

They seem to be working from the assumption that her account is truthful and then trying to justify why the evidence doesn't fit it.

EDIT: Liveblog of episodes 3 and 4:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1808683675984302279.html

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1808707805915889918.html

They are talking to a woman in Atlanta, in the US. She's the second accuser, they call her K.

The first quote they have from her says "I never wanted any of the stuff he did to me, including the violent stuff, but I did consent to it."

Neil says they had a two-year consensual relationship and exchanged hundreds of emails for years afterwards, and none of the emails indicate a problem.

And this one a few days later after the weekend when he allegedly "anally penetrates her, she says, without asking and without using a condom and she says he uses butter as a lubricant.":

The only known case in the universe in which butter was used as an anal lube was in last tango in paris. And him going to the kitchen to take the butter stick out and applying it to one's asshole gives plenty of opportunity to ask "what the fuck are you doing".

Or on your first day in the job at some point you could raise an eyebrow at the invitation to bathe naked with your new boss, as well.

Gotta say, this isn't a good look from him. It sounds like he didn't do anything illegal but he sure did take advantage of a young, inexperienced woman who was both star-struck from meeting a rich celebrity and also working for him. She had very little sexual experience and he was instantly leading her into some sort of intense sub/dom thing.

This is the sort of thing where I think "me too" actually makes sense. He doesn't deserve any legal repurcussions but I'm OK with trashing his public reputation over this. Especially since it apparently wasn't just this one woman but at least 14 according to his wife (herself a famous feminist celebrity).

you know how the internet likes to take old-fashioned words and re-use them? Words like "lewd" and "grinch" and "ruse?" I wish we could do that with "cad." It's the perfect word for the modern age. A guy who didn't actually do anything illegal but still behaved immorally towards women.

I can't help but disagree here. Lots of 21-year-olds like kinky sex. Not to mention with a celebrity! WhT a bonus! Where's the immorality?

It seems pretty clear from the fact that this is coming up at all that she didn't like it. It is not, at all, difficult to imagine a boss pressuring his 21 year old domestic servant girl into sexual activities she didn't really want to do. This is not an uncommon scenario, and our prior for twenty one year old nannies having sex with their married bosses is that the poor girl probably didn't want to do it.

Look, he's not fucking groupies off IG and then ghosting- that's deplorable behavior, but the girl shouldn't have gone along with it. This is a case where it was simply not a realistic expectation that she could have held out under pressure, and that comes with extra ability to judge him for misbehavior. Like the comment below, he's clearly a cad in that he's not doing anything illegal, or at least not seriously illegal(if he makes a habit of this as it seems like he has been then he's almost certainly given alcohol to a twenty year old) but it's clear that he's doing things that are dickish.

I agree that we should bring back "cad" as a condemnatory term.

This whole case makes me see nothing but bad faith on all sides. Lefties want women to be able to retroactively retract consent for sex that days, months, or years later they decided they didn't like. Righties don't want men to be held responsible ever for wanting to get their dicks wet, not even to the degree that we might say "Tut tut" and socially shun him. Or I guess we can do that but if and only if we also agree that women are property.

( * Not all lefties, not all righties. Just the ones who seem to have very strong feelings about whether it's okay to criticize either Neil Gaiman's life choices or his ex-lovers'.)

Righties don't want men to be held responsible ever for wanting to get their dicks wet, not even to the degree that we might say "Tut tut" and socially shun him. Or I guess we can do that but if and only if we also agree that women are property.

You cannot accuse a man of trespassing upon a public road.

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Righties don't want men to be held responsible ever for wanting to get their dicks wet, not even to the degree that we might say "Tut tut" and socially shun him. Or I guess we can do that but if and only if we also agree that women are property.

"Righties" is doing a lot of work here.

Andrew Tate and Ben Shapiro look similar to their outgroups but have totally different values.

One group wants infinite women to abuse and so don't want to be blamed.

Another group simply thinks you can't fix this shit the way feminists want (blaming men and creating cyclical witch hunts) and so you have to let people face the consequences of their actions and learn the hard way. Given that women are the selective sex, they have to deal with it and be circumspect. They don't really admire or like men like Tate but those men will always exist and are easier to check when women are onboard.

It's not significantly different from their view on say...welfare. No one made you get that kid. You're not foisting the problems unto us.

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Or I guess we can do that but if and only if we also agree that women are property.

Isn't treating women as though they are responsible for their own actions the opposite of saying they're property? This is what's so incoherent about the feminist approach to this issue, it's positively patriarchal, which is the only reason you can get away with telling people "I don't even believe that you don't actually believe Neil Gaiman did anything wrong".

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Righties don't want men to be held responsible ever for wanting to get their dicks wet, not even to the degree that we might say "Tut tut" and socially shun him.

I am entirely happy with men being held responsible for wanting to get their dicks wet in pretty much every circumstance. I'm even entirely happy if the social theory used to achieve this end isn't one I believe in, so long as it doesn't impose a bunch of other results I also disagree with. I'd bet ya Hlynka would agree as well. I don't disagree that there's a bunch of people, here and elsewhere, commonly percieved as "righties" who would disagree with us vociferously, but it seems to me that they often disagree vociferously with a lot of my other opinions as well. This is the sort of thing that drives the Hlynka thesis. Obviously the thesis is both fraught and inflammatory, but it's the way these sort of out-of-step moments keep recurring that gives it such endurance.

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Taking a "both sides wrong" stance here, as usual, supports the side that is actually more wrong. Which is to say the ones accusing Neil Gaiman of misconduct because they regretted the relationship long after the fact. Neil Gaiman need only be "held responsible" if what he did is wrong, and he's only wrong by a conservative view that no one involved held.

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I've been using Whoremonger a lot in conversation to refer to someone like Deshaun Watson. I like that it cuts through the "Is it her fault?" question and gets to the point: regardless of her behavior his is still blameworthy.

he's not doing anything illegal

I suspect it qualifies as workplace sexual harassment - which while not criminal is definitely illegal. The details of sexual harassment law differ by jurisdiction, but convincing your employee that her continued employment depended on saying "yes" qualifies almost everywhere.

(if he makes a habit of this as it seems like he has been then he's almost certainly given alcohol to a twenty year old)

If this happened in the UK, the drinking age in private homes is 5.

If this happened in the UK, the drinking age in private homes is 5.

I thought that was just if a relative was providing it, not in-general? EG in most US states it's legal to give your own child alcohol, but not someone else's.

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lots of 21 year olds like heroin, too, but I would feel, you know, kind of bad if I was a rich guy trading them heroin for sex. Just because someone likes something in the moment doesn't mean it's ok to make an elaborate effort to set up an environment where they feel good temporarily but feel terrible in the long term.

Their long-term feelings are their responsibility, no? The idea that a man should refrain from enjoying a multi-year relationship with a woman, which she also enjoys at the time, because he somehow knows that she'll feel bad after, is rank paternalism.

If you really did somehow know... Then yeah. Build memories with others that they will cherish not memories they will regret. Intentionally exploiting the naive and shortsighted is rotten behavior.

But from everything I've seen in this thread it looks like Neil had every reason to believe he was building positive memories here. It brings to mind traumatic pains I myself have felt- the buyer's remorse of realizing that the things I did to bring other's happiness has brought them pain is just awful.

I'm just projecting here but- empathetically I imagine Gaiman as going through something similar. We have a duty to at least look back in post and imagine whether that pain might have been prevented. Might be preventable in the future.

because he somehow knows that she'll feel bad after, is rank paternalism.

The actual social conservative response to this is yeschad.jpg. The idea that a resource as socially valuable as access to prime-age pussy should be under the absolute control of people as irresponsible as teenage girls is obviously silly if you start from the basic moral perspective of pre-liberal conservatism. Under herder* culture patriarchy, fooling around with a girl in a way which leaves her as damaged goods is treated as a property crime against her father or husband (which might be forgiven if the perp was sufficiently high-status relative to the victim). Under Christian patriarchy, it is treated as spoiliation of a community resource and (in times and places where the system of Church-led community justice worked as intended) the remedy was making the man clear up the mess through some or all of shotgun-marrying the girl, paying her "dowry" to bribe the village herb into marrying her, or acknowledging and supporting the bastards.

Feminists, like tradcons, are clear-eyed that a functioning society needs to stop lotharios manipulating silly girls into relationships which, while good for the lothario, are net-negative for society. They just have to take some extra steps in order to obfuscate the hate-fact that most prime dating-age women are silly girls.

* The mods have asked me not to call it goatfucker patriarchy, so I won't.

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I would be more than happy to slot him in with Joss Whedon as examples for the rule: "The more a male celebrity is feted for his feminism, the more likely he is to have done skeevy things with young women."

Indeed. We're at the point where I genuinely assume that any famous male who boldly adopts the 'feminist' mantle is going to be outed as having a sordid sexual history even if none of it is illegal or nasty to the degree that, say Weinstein's was. Its enough of a pattern that I can't help but update priors.

My favorite recent example being Dan Price who gained accolades as that guy who was a 'conscientious' CEO who tried to prove that paying employees more and executives less was a viable business practice and thus most corporations were exploiting their employees.

I do question how much of this is 'intentional' predatory behavior where they disguise their intent in order to lure young women in by appearing 'safe' to be around and able to offer sexual mentorship, vs. just an incidental outcome of modern social mores contradicting more basic instinctual drives.

I don't think most of them wear the feminism as camouflage strictly speaking.

I would guess its mostly because any male that genuinely followed certain feminist tenets such as "enthusiastic consent," letting the woman dictate all the terms, taking 'no' for an answer and refusing to engage with women who appear 'vulnerable' makes you repellent to women's sexual desires. So those few famous men who actually keep those tenets are probably having fewer encounters with women in general which just means they're less likely to catch an accusation.

And these guys are getting access to women by the truckload due to their status, and if they want to get laid they have to act like a masculine 'alphas' in these interactions, which means pushing boundaries and treating women's stated desires as suggestions rather than ironclad edicts so as to actually arouse her interest. The contrast between their publicly stated values and persona and their private conduct is less hypocrisy and more switching 'roles' to what the women are actually looking for once mutual interest is established.

So famous feminist males are getting access to females in either case, but those who seriously adhere to those rules are less likely to get laid (and less likely to get Me-tooed) than those who know (or figure out) they can discard those rules when a woman finds him attractive.

‘Preaches virtue in public but realises they can get away with vice privately’ is pretty much the classic definition of hypocrisy though.

I do question how much of this is 'intentional' predatory behavior where they disguise their intent in order to lure young women in by appearing 'safe' to be around and able to offer sexual mentorship, vs. just an incidental outcome of modern social mores contradicting more basic instinctual drives.

From an external perspective those are pretty much the same thing. I think you’re right in at least some cases, but that sounds awfully like those men are deluding themselves into believing what’s convenient to believe at any given moment.

If they do it once and are horrified that they fell to temptation, okay. But otherwise they implicitly know that what they say about how men and women interact is a lie, and they are choosing not to think about it too hard, all the while coming down heavily on other men.

I think one can end up constructing an mostly cohesive internal narrative where the context of what they're preaching as social norms and the context of what you're doing in individual interaction can be considered different enough that there's no actual contradiction of words and behavior.

For a very rough example, you can imagine someone who is a staunch anti-gambling advocate, campaigns hard to keep gambling and similar vices out of their town and state, to keep kids from engaging in gambling activities, etc. And yet takes their yearly trip to Vegas and goes on a moderate gambling spree while there, and justifies in on the idea that it's fine to do gambling when you go to Las Vegas but you are still against its spread and consider it, overall, a social ill.

Its worth noting that the reason the problem exists is because women often won't be publicly honest about what they actually find attractive and actually want from males when interacting with them.

Its the collision of female-driven social standards with the female driven desire to get high status males to give them attention.

Okay, that's oversimplifying, but if you frame it like that, a famous man who is preaching the female-preferred social standards AND engaging in the female-preferred behaviors when dealing with a romantic partner is still being consistent as to the female perspective.

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I have a different theory for why feminist men often have wild sexual histories.

Feminists by definition progressives. Feminists are generally sex-positive. Feminists, in mainstream feminism, see casual sex as perfectly acceptable and even empowering for women.

This means that, all things considered, if you showed me a variation on that classic question on Linda the bank teller, and asked me whether a specific unknown person who had and approved of casual sex (regardless of gender) was either a feminist or opposed to feminism, I would say they were more likely to be a feminist.

Feminist men, being true believers in feminism, believe the same things about sexuality that feminist women do. They believe casual sex is perfectly acceptable and empowering for women, with there being no reason for anyone to judge a woman for having it or for the woman in question to feel ashamed.

Thus, feminist men believe a lot of things about society, sexuality, and women, that encourage them to engage in casual sex with them. It's not surprising that feminist men are more likely to have casual sex, and therefore more likely to have casual-sex-related scandals!

I don't believe that most male feminists are lying, or using feminism as cover for their misdeeds. I think most are sincere. And their sincerity is actually damaging, because the belief system they're sincere about is false!

I also think this has to do with a lot of male feminists — the ones who are explicitly described that way, not normie dudes who endorse feminism like Chris Evans — being nerds, part of nerd culture.

Nerd culture, if you’re at all familiar with it, is filled with horny sex freaks. It’s also filled with a lot of awkward introverted weirdos who don’t communicate well. And many of these people are the same people. This is a good recipe for misunderstandings and miscommunications around sex. As well as crazy, out of the norm sex choices that people end up regretting.

Edit: It occurs to me that I wasn't clear enough in what I said here. My point is not that we should be conducting shame festivals against promiscuous women or strapping scarlet letters on people, that's not what I'm talking about. My point is that there are real and enduring sex differences in how the sexes experience, desire, and remember casual sexual encounters. I believe casual sex is destructive for men as well as women. But it's clear to me that women desire it much less, enjoy it much less, and often recall it with intense negative emotion, even if they don't believe they were taken advantage of. They don't like it as well as men. They see its destructive power in a way men tend not to. The big lie, the false belief of feminism that I'm criticizing here, is the idea that it's empowering for women and the only reason why people don't think so is patriarchal social customs that can be destroyed through ideology. That's simply not true. This stuff is dug deep down in the sex differences between men and women.

Aye. I think "weird nerds aren't real people" is the most important lesson I picked up from the 2010s.

When you only interact with a group online, you (or I) default to listening to them. All that feminism etc drama gave me enough exposure to notice what kind of people it all was.

Wasted a lot of time trying to make sense of nearly subhuman creeps...

I can see why you blocked me.

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The contrast between their publicly stated values and persona and their private conduct is less hypocrisy and more switching 'roles' to what the women are actually looking for once mutual interest is established.

Male feminist code-switching :skull_emoji:

Yeah, there is some selection bias. We hear less about famous male feminists who privately treat women as equals in agency and accountability getting #MeToo’d, because they get laid less—if at all—in the first place.

In fairness, we do occasionally hear stories about evangelical(I'm using this as a general term for socially conservative American Christians because that's basically what it means in practice) men treating their women well. Some of these are kissy-face stories about a sportsball player's loving marriage and the lengths he goes to to reassure his wife he's not cheating like all his teammates, some of these are about Mike Pence, but it doesn't seem like there's any equivalent among male feminists.

This is the sort of thing where I think "me too" actually makes sense.

It would make sense if we had any semblance of coherence in the rules governing the relations between the sexes, but you can't do this "all bets are off, only consent counts" free-for-all, bash people for "taking advantage of" inexperienced women, as you're declaring anyone claiming there are differences between men and women to be sexist.

who is "you?" me? I didn't make the rules. No one does, it's a massive freewheeling anarchy. Let's just look on the bright side and be happy that it has some positive benefits, even if overall I hate feminism and anything related to it.

Besides the reporter who gets a pelt, who is this benefiting? Who gains in the long run?

Many high status men will continue to sleep with young women regardless , many aren't as public-facing and woke as Gaiman so have less to fear from this particular form of reactive punishment. (Andrew Huberman just had a recent case of "hell hath no fury" journalism and he just...ignored it) Many women like this will probably continue playing these games, come to regret it and they'll never get even that brief moment of vindication when stories like this going viral before having to go back to their anonymous lives.

It certainly makes no difference to the great mass of humanity if a rockstar discovers that 19 y/o groupie isn't as easy a target as they assumed.

This is akin to saying that there're "positive benefits" if you burn someone's mother-in-law as a witch and she turned out to be absolutely awful at PTA meetings. It's not a benefit, it's a coincidence. If it was a benefit, it wouldn't be anarchy.

Hopefully the positive benefit would be that one fewer young woman suffers emotional distress from getting pumped and dumped by an older celebrity. It's hard to measure that benefit, because it's hard to see "could have been a victim, but wasn't, thanks to a well-functional society" but it's still there.

Alternatively, fuck it, let's just give all our young women to the upper class in a giant harem, like the ottoman empire of old. The rest of us can be eunuchs or die in foreign wars. That sounds like a great society!

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who is "you?" me? I didn't make the rules. No one does, it's a massive freewheeling anarchy.

I don't think this is true. There are people who make the rules, though I accept you're not one of them. But you do seem to be supporting the rules, so I am addressing you.

Let's just look on the bright side and be happy that it has some positive benefits

It doesn't. The incoherence of the rules is causing massive damage to society, and I haven't seen any upside to it.

I don't know, what are "the rules" of society here? I don't even know anymore.

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I've dated in these sort of fanfiction-enthused circles, and whilst I agree it's something a lot of the girls with somewhat grow out of there's a lot of.. uh... tangled desires towards the Fifty Shades of Grey stuff that comes with limited romantic experience, exposure to older men and especially with people in some sort of fandom roles.

I agree he was cringe and should have known better, but I also feel that this is clearly a matter of retroactively revoked consent a decade later. I wouldn't want my daughter hanging out with him, but this is standard horny nerd stuff to me.

Also he and his wife had an open relationship and there's texts of them communicating about their various affairs.

a matter of retroactively revoked consent a decade later.

She was his employee. I have a policy of not reading salacious details beyond what is necessary to form judgement, but my wife tells me that the specific sex acts involved were such that the prior on "my boss made me do it" is higher than "I thought it was a good idea at the time". I don't think the sex was euvoluntary in the first place.

She was his employee.

There's a solid argument to be made that "my boss made me do it" is embezzlement, because it's personal gain for one of the employees on the company dime that should be buying the best person for the company, not the best ass for individual managers to benefit from (and judged for something far outside meritocratic performance, too).

Actually, I think that's the best lens under which to judge sex pests in the workplace outside of pound-me-too since it doesn't come off as pure selfishness by women-as-population (as this is an instance of a woman trying to create a crime out of thin air ex post facto) that way.

I'm not convinced that same concept applies to this kind of sole proprietorship (under which she was employed).

There's "if I refuse I will be black balled from acting forever" my boss made me do it. There is "I have to pay rent or get evicted tomorrow and my boss offers pay in advance exclusively for sex" my boss made me do it. Finally, there is "if I refuse I might have to apply to one of 100s other employers" my boss made me do it, and I really do believe an adult woman should and does have the agency to refuse that last kind of ultimatum.

I really do believe an adult woman should and does have the agency to refuse that last kind of ultimatum.

Empirically, they don't. I employ nannies, and I have had young women working in my house who would not have been able to say no to a well-executed "question expecting the answer yes". As well as the threat to employment (and housing for a live-in nanny) and the possibility of a bad reference (references are essential for childcare employment for obvious reasons), it is easy to add a plausibly-deniable implicit threat of violence. Plus 19-year-old girls just don't have as much agency as adult men.

Even if she did have the agency to say no, having to do so would be expensive in financial and reputational terms - particularly for a nanny who relocated to take a live-in role (as Gaiman's did, and so did some of mine). In general, managing the risk of shitty behaviour by a counterparty sometimes requires people to avoid trades that would be mutually beneficial. (This is why high-trust societies are richer than low-trust ones).

If it was common for men in my position to engage in quid-pro-quo sexual harassment of nannies, I wouldn't be able to hire nannies, and my wife would have to give up her freelance business, with a knock-on impact her clients' businesses. (She is one of <10 skilled technical writers in a niche subspecialism). Empirically, where quid-pro-quo sexual harassment is tolerated, it is common. So, with the greatest possible respect, Gaiman should FOAD. If the events happened as described, regardless of whether it was formally consensual, I would cheerfully hang him myself.

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Finally, there is "if I refuse I might have to apply to one of 100s other employers" my boss made me do it, and I really do believe an adult woman should and does have the agency to refuse that last kind of ultimatum.

Even from a libertarian point of view, that should be unacceptable under real world conditions. The "boss" probably isn't the CEO and if he fires someone for not having sex with him, that's a principal/agent problem; the boss's boss doesn't want him to fire people for this reason.

You'd need a situation where either 1) the boss runs the whole company and doesn't answer to anyone or 2) the people who the boss does answer to approve of the boss firing people for refusing to have sex with him. Furthermore, to avoid bait and switch (which is a form of fraud), having sex would have to be part of the job description. And the boss would not be permitted to claim that he fired the person for some reason other than refusal to have sex (though he could stay silent if he wished). This will never happen.

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It sounds like you more-or-less agree with me? Except I'd go beyond "cringe" and say he was an asshole. Also I'm not concerned about his wife, but I do care about the string of women who consent and then end up badly emotionally hurt.

I agree, but like on the other hand I feel like 'weird dom-sub stuff with angsty older male artiste' is the female equivalent of falling in love with a stripper and nobody's cancelling strippers for taking advantage of impressionable young men.

"Stripper" is almost as low-status a title as it's possible to have, there's nothing left to cancel.

Honestly I've got a close female friend who's prettymuch an exemplar of this, and even prone to fandom-adjacent 'whirlwind romances'.

Everything is either 110 or 0, and 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'

I will never ever ever forgive the people who got The Expanse character Alex killed off because the actor who played him had the audacity to sleep with some woman at a convention who was attracted to him.

Good. The more rapidly these people get woken up the better. Maybe we’ll get some good art out of it.

Hey! Spoilers! I was binging that this week! ahhh well. I am watching it a bit late I suppose.

Gah... I like Alex.

Thing with Cas Anvar is he was the guy who seemed the most enthusiastic about the show and his role on it and portrayed himself as this honest, approachable guy who was a genuine part of the fandom.

Saw him at a convention once and he was playing up the enthusiasm, hyping the audience, acting like the biggest fanboy in general.

But how much of that was him literally just him leaning into the spotlight so as to grab the attention of female fans? Hard to say.

From the perspective of the books, Alex IS actually the least 'critical' character to the plot. He is literally just the guy who ferries them all around to do the stuff they need to do. He has no major arcs after like, book 7. Killing him does not alter the story's outcome one iota.

Contrast to say, if Holden or Amos had to get killed off because of the actors' misconduct.

I thought that was worse than Trevor Bauer, who is my current litmus test for sexual misconduct allegations (true, embarrassing, and she wanted it). Am I wrong?

His death was literally the worst moment on the show. He died from G, in a clearly post production scene. What?

His death was literally the worst moment on the show. He died from G, in a clearly post production scene. What?

"I have to go now, my planet needs me"

There is some Epic Handshake meme potential there between Trevor Bauer and Cas Anvar.

As a result of their #BelieveWomen allegations, Bauer went from the Los Angeles Dodgers to eventually the Diablos Rojos del México; Anvar went from a main character on The Expanse to a bit part in Gwen Shamblin: Starving for Salvation.

I hope this takes off so they go back and tear through all his 90s work hunting for "problematic" content.
It's a rich vein even putting aside the avant garde kid sex stuff, and it would be a good reminder to artists that the rewards of collaboration are treachery and betrayal the second you're more useful as a punching bag than an "accomplice"

It's a rich vein even putting aside the avant garde kid sex stuff

Are you thinking of Lost Girls?

I might be mixing things up a little, my media consumption in the early 00s was kind of a blur.

Anyway that was Alan Moore, not Neil Gaiman.

I mean I'd be willing to bet that he's a very horny man who has probably been improper (especially if measured through the TurboVictorian lens of 2024 cancel culture) to women at some point. I'd also be willing to bet that nothing he's done has crossed the line of light coercion and taking advantage of fangirls.

TurboVictorian

You know, we have a new monarch on the throne, so it seems like the time to coin a new adjective here, but "Charlesian" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

Although Elizabeth II doesn't really have a good unique one either that I've come across.

Third Caroline Period

Wouldn't the term be carolingian?

That's already reserved for the German Karlings.

🎶 Sweet Caroline 🎺 🎺 🎺 Good times never seemed so good 🎵

Today I learned. Thanks!

Nothing crossing the line in reality, sure, but I’m not sure that there probably isn’t anything else to whatever transgressive-shit he was into a few decades ago. The issue is that all ‘artists’ who were ever interested in those things in the past that have eventually cultivated some cultic fan club of ever-appreciative groupies buried whatever they could and ignored the rest, hence why Steve Albini was heralded as some wholesome sweet-hearted genius when he died recently despite all the evil trash he put out at the height of the punk scene.

Hmm… I mostly only recognize his name as one of those authors that for some reason is discussed a relatively fair amount in the nerdsphere but for whom’s writing I could never get into, like a minor case of Stephen King.

However, that’s not necessarily a knock upon him, as it’s tough for me to sit through a book.

That being said, obligatory “she was only 21, you sick fuck.”

its_all_so_tiresome.jpg

Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Palestine have nothing upon the forever war that is the #Fightfor35

The usual Schrodinger’s Feminism: Young women are Strong and Indendepent #GirlBoss Queens that should be listened to, yet vulnerable damsels in distress that can be groomed at a moment’s notice like children.

I read Coraline and enjoyed it quite a lot, although my understanding is it's something of an outlier in his oeuvre.

#Fightfor35

Can you expand on this hashtag?

Raising the age of consent to 35, one of the funnier troll ops of the last few years. There is or was a website for it.

The original was Fight for 25, a campaign to “End adult grooming. Raise the age of consent for women to 25.”

However, it got quickly rendered obsolete by stories such as this, where a reknown cancer researcher was Canceled for grooming a 29 year-old researcher and seasoned carousel rider*:

Knouse, Sabatini remembers, had ongoing flings with men who she referred to with nicknames like “anesthesiologist fuck buddy,” “finance bro,” and “physics professor,” and she wanted to keep it that way.

Reality outjerking satire once again.

Chuds and Noticers, being the kind, Decent Persons they are—and wanting to join hands with progressives—eventually started a grassroots campaign for 35 as a more appriopriate age of consent for women to protect them from the manipulations of men and their pedophilic shittiness.

* She was a definite WOULD, aside from the hoetry (other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?). It’s a shame. For the uninitiated, it should be kind of black/red-pilling, that even the nice-looking, pretty red-headed cancer researcher is taking dick left and right and has thousands of miles on the odometer.

That's why I couldn't find the website! Thanks, for a few hours there I thought I'd gone nuts and imagined the whole thing.

Due to the lack of website nowadays, there are probably quite a few poor souls who think the original website was “Fight for 35” all along, like a Berenstein/Berenstain Bears situation.

Berenstain still looks wrong to me.

However, it got quickly rendered obsolete by stories such as this, where a reknown cancer researcher was Canceled for grooming a 29 year-old researcher and seasoned carousel rider*:

She was a junior employee in the department where he was a lab head, and the Whithead Institute had an explicit policy prohibiting consensual sex between lab heads and junior employees. He wasn't cancelled for grooming anyone, he was cancelled for violating a black-letter rule. You may think it is a bad rule - I, personally think it is a good one. But there is a big difference between "sex between old men and younger women is inherently abusive" and "sex between powerful men and women whose careers they have a high degree of control over is inherently abusive."

The fight for 25. Linked archive because it's registration lapsed.

Sandman was good. I liked Good Omens (probably I liked the Terry Pratchett parts more than the Neil Gaiman parts). Most of the other stuff of his I've read has been "meh," and struck me as a bit on the pretentious "Look at me, an Artist, making Art" side.

As far as people digging through his "problematic" material, he got some flack even back in the 90s for the character of Wanda, a transwoman, who was positively portrayed, but at one point couldn't participate in a magic ritual because the moon goddess or something didn't recognize her as a woman. (Transphobic goddesses!)

I did kind of notice that in American Gods, the main character's wife dies while blowing another guy in a moving vehicle. Like, that's the sort of narrative detail that is, um, a choice. And it was not the first or last time I noticed that Gaiman makes these sorts of choices in his stories, so him turning out to be a little skeevy doesn't surprise me. That said, I admit to being rather skeptical of these "abuse" allegations (which sound to me a lot like "Never meet your heroes and definitely you shouldn't fuck them"), and finding considerable irony in that it seems to be the TERF brigade who dragged them out and is currently boosting them most heavily on social media (because Gaiman has been quite vocal about being pro-trans rights).

And it was not the first or last time I noticed that Gaiman makes these sorts of choices in his stories, so him turning out to be a little skeevy doesn't surprise me.

Every writer who is trying to be edgy, particularly ones who are trying to be both literary and edgy, is going to put something like that in their work.

(Especially for a writer who learned his trade writing comics, where the medium has traditionally been for kids, so writing like that is subversive and artistic and an especially good signal of literary merit.)

Hmm… I mostly only recognize his name as one of those authors that for some reason is discussed a relatively fair amount in the nerdsphere but for whom’s writing I could never get into, like a minor case of Stephen King.

However, that’s not necessarily a knock upon him, as it’s tough for me to sit through a book.

Me too. My feeling about Gaiman is that he has a very uh... "feminine" approach to writing. Highly emotional, lots of beautiful imagery, very little focus on what the hell is actually going on. There seems to be a lot of scenes like "woah is me, I'm trapped by the cosmic horror of a malevolent demon and there's nothing, absolutely nothing I can do to save my soul from this beast!"

...So yes I can see how that kind of guy would attract a lot of teenage female fans and potentially end up in some sketchy situations with them.

For conventional writing, Coraline and Good Omens (collaboration with Terry Pratchett) are some of the easier ones to get into, maybe followed by MirrorMask and American Gods. Much of his influence is elsewhere, though: he's been massive part of the comic sphere. Pretty much every worthwhile Endless (aka Sandman) comic and a majority of the not-awful Constantine ones are his work or related to one of his works, and that's had downstream effects on a lot of writing and tabletop spaces (eg Exalted and especially Nobilis/Chuubo's).

On the flip side, his long presence in the tumblr sphere as one of the few authors that Just Shows Up in fandom mentions was always unusual, as was his pronounced defense of Alan Moore's Lost Girls; the man had been holding a lightning pole up in the rain for a while.

I've been playing Sunless Skies again after playing Sunless Sea for the first time and deducing it's just an inferior early version of Skies, really, and the Gaiman influence shows strongly there too.

The game play is much better in sunless skies, but the writing was way better in sunless sea. Funny enough I think the OG writer, Alexis Kennedy, got pushed out of the company in between games for sleeping around the office.

I played Sunless Sea some time after it came out, and found it epochal.

Sunless Skies was fine, I guess. Better than 'a house of many doors', which was also ok.

But going from "you and your crew are living on some steam boat on a subterranean ocean" to "you and your crew are living on a steam locomotive driving through the void without tracks" somehow broke my suspension of disbelief.

House of many doors felt like a first draft of a game. I liked the world and the characters a lot, but so much of the game just plain old lacked polish. The combat was very rough, and the mechanics barely made sense. The vibes powerful at least, though not as good as Sunless Sea.

Good Omens is Pratchett book, at least 51% if not more like 80%. I'm not sure what Gaiman ever brought to the book. The four horseman are already in Discworld, although I notice they left out Mr Soak the milkman.

This is praise. Pratchett is one of the best to ever write and the high quality of his prodigious output is astounding.

If you don't like fantasy, the Long World with Baxter is fantastic.

But now we're in the Friday Fun thread, What Are You Reading.

I felt that you could usually tell whether you were reading a Pratchett section or a Gaiman section by the tone of the writing.

Pratchett is essentially a satirist and a humourist, and nothing really terrible ever happens to the people in the Discworld books. Even when people do suffer (like the murdered dwarves in Thud!) it happens offscreen or is skimmed over.

Whereas Gaiman is a dark fantasy / horror writer. When something really grim happens, like the telemarketers being eaten alive by worms or people ripping each other to shreds because War is in the room I'm pretty sure that's Gaiman.

Telemarketers being eaten alive is "I fantasize about my outgroup getting hurt".

Oh, sure. But one of the things that made Pratchett so readable (until he started losing his touch near the end, around or just after 'Going Postal') was that he didn't usually feel the need to indulge in those fantasies. I'm sure he had them - he had a lot of pent up rage against the world - but he was self-aware enough not to let them come out in print. Even Lord Rust, who is usually treated as an absolute buffoon, has a way of dealing with problems that makes Vimes "darkly impressed". He's not humiliated, or cast out from society, or eaten alive.

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If in doubt, please post it!


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