Another Canadian Icon Sullied (2014 Jian Ghomeshi sexual assault discussion)

she says "I hadn't been raped" but I'd disagree with that assessment based on what she described happened.

(that was w/r/t the Reva Seth article)

It's understandable that AP would have a hard time with speaking truth-to-power, given her own history

Whatever it's called, she paints a clear picture of why someone would rather just say "bad date, move on" than turn it into a criminal charge, and how ordinary a thing that is in our world.

Josh, I think wiser people than myself can answer your questions, there. Like an entire community with a rich history that probably exists, should you choose to read about it instead of conjecturing.

Google pretends it is a submissive, getting off on people telling it what to do, but we know who has the real power.

Navigator has dropped him now: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/10/30/jian-ghomeshi-navigator-pr_n_6078334.html

Talk about a sign he is TOTALLY radioactive. Even if their hands were forced.

I am so glad! That of all the interesting debates this situation could have stimulated (the use and abuse of power by well-connected media men; the ways in which female communities protect and fail to protect women from predators; the lines between BDSM and abuse, and the known and oft-identified how creepy-doms often use 'BDSM' as an excuse to cover abuse) ILX has now chosen to dwell on and discuss the single most salient and interesting and important aspect of this whole mess!

Indulging its collective grudge-crush on Amanda Palmer!

I am so relieved that we have identified the ~real~ menace here.

^Activist Zero for the next backlash

sucks that you have Eazy akm mh Josh in Chicago doug watson and Ned Reggett killfiled

wait who is Ned Reggett

I don't have any of those people killfiled. But I don't think it's a stretch to say that actually, ILX's relationship with 'Amanda Palmer' is 'deeply dysfunctional'.

xp

Maybe I've forgotten the name and the address
Of everyone I've ever known
It's nothing I Reggett

I have no interest in her but idk she's an asshole who says dumb shit to the internet in order to get precisely this kind of response, I'm not surprised ilx has a thread to point and laugh (like that lefsetz guy). A few posts itt noting that a famous person with lots of loyal fans just publically defended a rapist doesn't seem that off too me

*to

There is no violent, abusive action of a man so horrible, so repugnant, that the good people of ILX cannot find a way into deflecting onto criticism of a woman. (Any woman will do, but ILX is particularly obsessed with AP.) If a male celebrity has done a violet, repulsive, horrible thing, cherchez la femme! This is the true, appropriate target for your criticism, rather than male violence itself.

Reggetts, I've had a few

Nearly all of this discussion here has been revulsion at Ghomeshi, and I don't think anyone would have bothered with Amanda Palmer at all if she hadn't previously booked him for an appearance in Canada next week. When this came up on Sunday, she gave an initial statement saying the appearance was still on; now that more people have come forward, and given that this would have been Ghomeshi's only scheduled public appearance at all in the near future, it's not surprising that there's been a further statement from her. That the statement seems to be a bit of flailing on her part is kinda her burden to bear; the vast majority of commenters ON the Facebook post have been urging her to drop him from the appearance.

Meantime, more background info:

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/behind-the-cbcs-decision-to-fire-ghomeshi/article21396998/?service=mobile&click=sf_globefb

And more about the PR decisions:

http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news/gta/2014/10/30/jian_ghomeshi_dumped_by_pr_firm_over_lies_sources_say.html

It's a little interesting/surprising to compare the discussion here and on my FB feed, where most people have accepted that he is guilty by now, with the comments section on even a recent CBC story on this issue: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/jian-ghomeshi-allegedly-choked-beat-n-b-woman-with-belt-1.2818879

Plenty of commenters still regard this as a vengeful smear campaign by the CBC to get back at a former employee who is suing them and are question the credibility of the women who are making these allegations. I'm usually hesitant to assume someone's guilt in these sorts of situations but, at this point, when eight different women have come forth with similar allegations, and two have put their names to it, I find it pretty hard to not believe them.

Is it possible that AP has kept him on the 'show' 1) because he has some explaining to do and 2) if she sacked him off, she'd still have to pay him?

(bear in mind I know not what the 'show' is)

"... are questioning the credibility ..."

jeet heer thinks about the "political economy" of JG

https://storify.com/JeetHeer1/the-political-economy-of-jian-ghomeshi

has she made up her mind to keep him on the show?

Someone was giving Queen Latifah shit for dropping Bill Cosby as a guest just as/because of renewed rape talk making the rounds, saying she should have kept him on to call him on his shit. But had she kept him on, she still would have gotten shit. At this point I sort of want AP to keep this asshat on whatever her show/panel thing is she's doing, just to see what happens, how it further reflects on him and her. Given the response in the post comments and given his day by day increased notoriety, I can't imagine he can stand on a stage without someone at the least shouting him down, at the most throwing something at his head. And I'm curious how she carries herself, too. Obviously Amanda Palmer thrives on self-righteous defense, but clearly that isn't working in this case (again, judging by fan responses to her comments). Or maybe nothing will happen. Or maybe he will drop out.

I think AP should drop out, and Jian and Bob Lefsetz should take turns interviewing each other until everyone leaves and/or one of them drops dead. Maybe they can get Gene Simmons in the mix, too.

Ghomeshi being dropped by his crisis management firm makes me wonder whether firms like that have anything equivalent to attorney-client privilege. Are clients protected if they disclose lots of illegal activities? It seems like there might me a strong incentive against disclosing more to the firm than you have to, or more than what's already in the media.

there's undoubtedly non-disclosure agreements but i can't imagine publicist-client privilege has the same legal standing as attorney-client

in this case there'd be no point to putting his publicists on the stand anyway. a lot of what they could say would be hearsay, and it's unlikely ghomeshi is confessing to the victim's accounts as someone else comes up with the defense he posts on facebook. those rationalizations are clearly his own.

If a male celebrity has done a violet, repulsive, horrible thing, cherchez la femme!

If it had been Mark Kozelek wandering into the situation even tangentially, the reaction would have been identical.

his PR people have (anonymously) told reporters that he lied to them

Palmer confirms Ghomeshi will now not be at the show:

https://www.facebook.com/amandapalmer/posts/10152578178708375

good, though i'm curious if ghomeshi was even planning to attend otherwise at this point

Yeah tcote was wondering on Twitter if he's even IN Toronto. I'd heard some rumor he's lurking in LA.

WELP.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/10/31/jian_ghomeshi_showed_cbc_video_of_bondage_beating_sources.html

Extending some of the Globe and Mail stuff from this morning. But more excruciatingly.

I can't tell if Jian earnestly thinks he's done nothing wrong and that hitting women without their consent is all just fun and games, or if he's cynically exploiting BDSM as a craven defense.

Functionally that's not a useful distinction, really, but I'm curious as to whether he's an opportunistic sociopath or just someone who's always had a poor grasp of the concept of consent who has never been forced to change.

christ, i would think calling a meeting with your employers and giving them your sex tapes would be grounds for firing alone

He might be pathologically deluded, or trying to prove that.

Another rep dumps him:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/10/31/jian_ghomeshi_dumped_by_agent.html

I think Dan Savage's theory yesterday was right, that he may have thought (like a misguided frat kid) he was getting consent through being forward with his actions and seeing if they resisted.

Savage:

The woman with whom I spoke is having a difficult time squaring the Jian Ghomeshi she knows with the Jian Ghomeshi she's read about this week.

But I think I can square the two Ghomeshis.

The woman with whom I spoke doesn't live in Toronto. She and Ghomeshi flirted via text and Skype for weeks before finally meeting up to have sex. And in that time—over those long weeks of flirting—a mutual interest in BDSM was established (file under "lucky coincidence") and she consented to the things Ghomeshi was floating in their texts and chats. The woman who was interviewed on As It Happens, on the other hand, lives in Toronto. Ghomeshi flirted with this woman in person. And instead of telling her what he was into—instead of talking with her about BDSM—Ghomeshi chose to show her what he was into: He grabbed her hair in the car and asked, "Do you like this?" When she hung out with him again, when she came back to his apartment with him, Ghomeshi concluded—erroneously and self-servingly—that the answer to the question he asked her in the car was yes. Yes, she liked it. Yes, she liked it rough.

This part from the Star story is REALLY interesting:

By early October, with Ghomeshi still doing his show five days a week, CBC and Navigator thought the storm had passed, sources say.
Two weeks ago, podcaster Brown tweeted that he was working on a “monster” story that would be “worse than embarrasing for certain parties”. Brown has told the Star that he was referring to a different story, and it had nothing to do with Ghomeshi. Sources connected to CBC and Navigator said they now understand this to be the case.
But when Brown’s tweet came out, Ghomeshi’s concern over imminent publication prompted him to ask for a meeting with CBC late Thursday, Oct. 23. At that meeting, according to sources, he presented “material that we had not seen before.”

So basically if Ghomeshi hadn't reacted as he did...something might still have come out eventually (one would hope) but we wouldn't be talking about it now.

Also, slight addition:

https://twitter.com/JesseBrown/status/528302819397632000

Small clarification to @_kevindonovan. Story suggests Big Ears tweets started my investgtn in April. I was contacted by a source in March.

http://canadalandshow.com/article/exclusive-cbc-stonewalled-snowden-story-says-greenwald

the story brown says he was talking about. apparently journalists should subtweet more often.

if you've got a bunch of stories that are going dry, just tweet "oh man the other shoe has dropped, watch out you-know-who" and see who freaks out

I know there's a world of difference between "explaining" and "condoning" but jesus christ, Dan Savage of all people should know better than to float that kind of bullshit.

I still don't buy it. Creepy-Dom (the guy who gets an actual kick out of the act of violating people's consent boundaries, and uses BDSM as a cover for it) is such a known figure even in the tiny bits of the kink communities that intersect with my world.

The amount of 'benefit of the doubt' you'd have to extend the guy to believe that kind of story. Just... no.

But I guess I shouldn't be surprised at yet another example of Dan Savage being RONG! about things.

my god it's a irl "fly, all is discovered" (http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/1485798)

Well, there's also this in the next paragraph of Savage's post:

But the only explanation that reconciles the stories of the now four women who claim they were assaulted by Jian Ghomeshi with the story of the one woman I spoke to today is this: Ghomeshi isn't a safe, sane, and consensual kinkster. He's a reckless, abusive, and dangerous one who has traumatized some women and lucked out with others.