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

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.

That is, admittedly, less bad.

(To be fair, I did not read the full thing because I do my best not to give clicks to Dan Savage.)

We might as well post his update after the other interviews came out as well

UPDATE 2: As I continue to read more about Ghomeshi... I now think my interpretation—my attempt to reconcile the experience of the woman I interviewed with the allegations of the eight women who now report being assaulted by the radio host—was entirely too charitable.

I love that a tweet and his own narcissism brought him down.

If he didn't assume everyone was talking about him, he wouldn't have panicked and set the whole domino chain in motion.

I also love that he was done in by his own strategy of "getting ahead of the story" and "controlling the narrative". A strategy that people were calling "brilliant PR" at the beginning of the week.

It's like a movie or something - such a perfect tight little chain of events all set in motion by his own fatal flaws. Self-immolation by his own celebrity.

I don't love any of that, like at all. So far the reported cases seem under-par compared to most VAW cases. Were he not in this bizarre position of trying to lie his way out of a reparable situation, were he willing to reach out to his victims and make public apologies and movement toward treatment and reparations, I dunno, it might not be such a chilling clusterfuck

Noticed idly that Ghomeshi's Facebook likes have dropped by close to 10,000 over the last couple of days, due doubtless to the 'takebackthelike' campaign going around. Still a LOT there but that was near to one-tenth of his total. Wonder if it'll keep going.

well you gotta figure people aren't religiously performing facebook-like maintenance

sorry didn't mean to sound gleeful about such an awful story - just take some sadistic satisfaction in him being the agent of his own downfall

that his trying to control people and situations is exactly what made him lose it all

"under-par compared to most VAW cases"

what

punching ppl in the head
nonconsensual vaginal penetration
choking

"under par"

I guess he hasn't killed anyone

Yeah, I too was curious about what that particular usage was supposed to signify?

I'm doubtful that Brown's being honest in saying that the tweet was referring to a different story. I don't know why he would lie about that, but it seems like an unlikely coincidence. I think the story was going to come out soon regardless.

nonconsensual vaginal penetration

Eh what? Is this true? I haven't read that. Where is that?

As for "under par" I'm not trying to trivialize anything, that was exactly the term used by my friends-who-work-with-battered-women when we talked about it, i.e. he didn't break limbs or burn anyone or put anyone in hospital.

I said "friends" but I mean my mom, who cares, that's her field. Having read the Star report she was pretty sure no charges would stick if he'd gone that route

It's in Reva Seth's account. I will not quote it here.

http://m.huffpost.com/ca/entry/6077296

I'm doubtful that Brown's being honest in saying that the tweet was referring to a different story. I don't know why he would lie about that, but it seems like an unlikely coincidence.

did you see the article he claimed he was tweeting about? not impossible he'd think the cbc hiding snowden shit was noteworthy

Oh, no I didn't see that. Thanks.

It's in Reva Seth's account. I will not quote it here.

*facepalm* fuck this guyyyyyyy

fgti, words & usages have a context. The clinical assessment by a professional made within an informal context may be inappropriate or need qualification & explanation when used in a different context.

Anyway Reva Seth herself seems inclined to downplay the severity of the violalence, and makes the point that othing would've stuck had she reported it:

I didn't do anything because it didn't seem like there was anything to do. I hadn't been raped. I had no interest in seeing him again or engaging the police in my life ... as a lawyer, I'm well aware that the scenario was just a "he said/she said" situation. I was aware that I, as a woman who had had a drink or two, shared a joint, had gone to his house willingly and had a sexual past, would be eviscerated.

(sry, on phone)

Aaaaand 15 minutes later:

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

Toronto police have confirmed that two women have come forward with allegations against Jian Ghomeshi and are investigating.

fuck this guyyyyyyy

√

@ Branwell no no for sure, Mom Tie's comments were only speculative

Man even if all this guy did was show entirely consensual and nonviolent sex tapes to his bosses/co-workers he should probably have been fired. I think someone upthread said this already but how did he think that would help him save his job? (Likely answer appears to be "he is a sociopath".)

And now...

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/10/31/moxy-fruvous-jian-ghomeshi_n_6084860.html

when you've lost moxy fruvous . . .

Good Good interview with Jesse Brown. on breaking the story with a newspaper instead of independently.

I really enjoyed his CBC show Search Engine back in the day (2009 or so) and hadn't heard about Canadaland until this week.

One quote in that interview:

What has it been like working with Kevin Donovan?
That’s a work in progress, and so far, we’ve gotten the story out and we’re continuing to get it out. You’re talking about a relationship that’s unspooling as we speak, so I don’t think I’m going to talk about that right now.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/01/jian-ghomeshi-i-dated-him

And...fail:

https://twitter.com/SethAbramovitch/status/528953604787277824

As was noted elsewhere, this story actually ran on their website on Oct. 19th before everything broke into the open, but running it NOW in the print edition = uh.

o_0

This will surely endear him to millions and save the day for him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSkjqK4SdP8

Ha Had no idea until reading the comments on that video that this guy was the one Billy Bob Thornton did that infamous interview with.

moxy fruvous had fans?

See above. They were briefly massive in Canada.