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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'
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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.
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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.
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