Weinsteins step down as Miramax CEOs

if that were true then every such interaction would be a coercion, which would validate (and multiply) the complainants, rather than ratify your sneering lectures to silly girls about the ways of the world.

well, that is exactly what is happening right now, no? take matt lauer: completely reciprocal consensual relationship with a woman who only in the current cultural moment comes to think of herself as a victim... this is somehow beyond being questioned?

btw 'silly girls' have agency. this woman left the room before anything happened. i understand that all people don't find this easy to do, particularly those who have been prior victimized. but is there not still a distinction between 'this person victimized/abused me' and 'this person said something that made me uncomfortable & that was the end of it'?

your comments here make it clear that you're looking at the problem from what i consider to be simply the wrong end of the telescope.

1) these women speaking out is a show of agency; are you somehow suggesting they've given up the right to publicly relate their experience?
2) this gains them nothing in the public sphere; what artist wants to have "was famously harassed by Chuck Close" appended to their obit?

fwiw i believe that basically any male in the art, music, media, comedy, film, politic, sport, etc. 'prestige' fields could generate a headline under the current criteria for a sex abuse scandal... probably 90%. anything one has ever done in one's entire life that may have made a sexually-desired person uncomfortable or been interpreted as an inappropriate or any unreciprocated advance seems to be on the table. i dunno, maybe it's a great thing and will have a positive impact on male behavior going forward? i think it's unlikely that men will stop hitting on women or trying to move things along when they sense the possibility of sex. i guess that's one for the uncool conservative beliefs thread.

xp you have plenty of people on the 'right' end of the telescope as it were, certainly the vast majority of people here if not everyone. & i don't think any ill effect of any of this is the 'fault' of women sharing their experiences, whether or not i believe or agree with them. i think the media is creating somewhat of an opportunity for public vigilantism. again, maybe that has more benefit than drawback. i personally don't think so, but i accept i am for all purposes of conversation here on the 'wrong' side of this. i just can't see it any other way... i'm an intimidating looking guy who has been labelled things i am not on several occasions, so i know it's something that happens. i don't know how often. but i don't like the idea that it's beyond reason in the moment to see things from that perspective, innocent until proven guilty et al.

Well what's intimidating about you? Serious question. What have you been labeled? Also a serious question.

i dunno.. i'm a large man with a beard, i've been told i look intimidating, i had a woman i had zero connection to say i 'looked like a rapist' whatever the fuck that meant... i never said i'd been accused of anything, i haven't. but i've seen some words get thrown around based on feelings or notions or who knows what.

I'm making an effort to not lead discussion on this topic ESPECIALLY ONLINE so i should probably stfu.

i do wanna say that your rhetoric here is ill-conceived, sb. (Insert name of celebrity asshole here) has been/is continuing to act in a fashion that is indisputably asshole-ish. When multiple women speak out against (celebrity asshole), why on earth would your first reaction be to defend the actions of (celebrity asshole), when (celebrity asshole) outright acknowledges that he is, in fact, being a celebrity asshole, especially when there are no obvious forthcoming repercussions for (celebrity asshole's) actions besides being branded a celebrity asshole?

i think it's unlikely that men will stop hitting on women or trying to move things along when they sense the possibility of sex.

Am basically echoing the rebecca traister article from a couple of weeks back - sometimes, it's not the behaviour/act itself that is the affront or the crime, but the dismissal of a woman's right to be a) taken seriously as a professional/peer.

sure, men have a right to make a pass at a woman whenever they feel like it and women have a right to decline those advances, but it's disappointing how often this is what professional settings often boil down to. it's exhausting having to constantly avoid being alone with men, it's exhausting having our value as a person reduced, it's exhausting having to navigate the usual biases against women without also having to deal with unwanted sexual advances or inappropriate behaviour. Especially when women are already vastly underrepresented in pretty much all those fields you listed.

meh, ignore that a) i meant to add something else to that sentence but lost my train of thought.

Nah that's a good post imo

don't stfu xxp. i really think talking some of this stuff out is much more important than stubbornly or secretly holding on to feelings or prejudices, or outright condemning decent people on either side of whatever issue. i don't care if my rhetoric is 'ill conceived' because in the absence of some other better way to consider it i'll continue to maintain that being an asshole is not a crime. obviously that is motivated somewhat by self-interest.

tbh i am curious if any non-men here have any reservations about the current climate for accusations. i have seen women elsewhere make some points from that position (ex. megan mcardle https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-18/the-current-sex-panic-harks-back-to-the-era-of-coddling-women) but i assume that here they would obv be ignored/dismissed for being too conservative or whatever.

xp i know this is crass but please believe that it's a real q bc it is: what exactly is the professional/peer relationship supposed to be btwn 'person taking photograph of a woman's vagina' and 'person getting their vagina photographed by an older man'? i know the article says there are unspoken rules for nude subjects of art but how + why are those expected to be adhered to? what makes a man want to photograph naked women to begin with?

artist/subject is a fairly well-defined professional relationship, regardless of what kind of artist that person is. many people tend to be fuzzy on what is appropriate within that relationship (like yourself, it seems), but that's why those unspoken codes of conduct exist.

it's important to note that the women speaking against chuck close are not models used to posing nude but artists in their own right. the second woman certainly didn't deserve the behaviour she describes being subjected to after she declined, as is her right, his request to go topless. this is exactly the kind of thing that contributes to many women feeling that they're being devalued and not taken seriously as a professional/peer.

She told Mr. Close she had to think about it and ultimately decided against it. “I came to the conclusion that I was not being photographed as an artist but as a woman,” she said. “I said, ‘I hope I can still come to your studio.’” But when she called a few weeks later to arrange that visit, Ms. Brown said, Mr. Close “acted like he did not know me.” ...

Ms. Brown said that having to tell Mr. Fuhrman about this turn of events only added to her level of disappointment. “It was humiliating to say to this person who’s a huge supporter of my work, ‘Actually, it was conditional on me taking my top off’ — telling one of my big patrons, ‘This person we both admire doesn’t actually admire me.’”

that’s excellent, roz

there was this too, from huffpost, ‘Three days after their initial meeting, Fox emailed Close to arrange a time to meet. In response, Close invited her to come to his studio on Bond Street in Manhattan on Friday, Oct. 18, to pose for a shoot. In these emails, which Fox shared with HuffPost, neither Fox nor Close discussed the prospect of nudity during the shoot. Fox said she was familiar with Close’s oversize portraits, which are typically close-ups of human faces. She assumed he wanted her to pose for a similar project.’

sure, men have a right to make a pass at a woman whenever they feel like it and women have a right to decline those advances

I might be reading this wrong and/or missing some context,my apologies if so, but men don’t and shouldn’t have that right in a professional setting where they have the power (which will be most of them), because women’s right to decline will be compromised.

Oh absolutely agree with you there. I didn't phrase that right - I was responding more to the idea that you can't stop men from making passes at women and that they shouldn't be punished if that's all they did.

I don't think any of the high-profile men that have been outed so far have been accused of "asked colleague for a date, was rebuffed, said 'ok' and went about their business as usual" tbf

said "ok, it's just your career" mmm

poll re: members of parliament in UK

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPBBbAuX0AEC2J4?format=jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPBBbAuX0AEC2J4?format=jpg

britain erects morelike

Sexting is the one that throws me for a loop there. I guess they mean w/ someone who isn't your partner?

23% thinking that an extramarital affair should be career ending seems bizarrely high as well?

Why is sexting worse than any other consensual sexual activity?

let's assume that less than 100% of the responds actually understood what "sexting" might mean

Well, exactly.

Though the two recent(ish) cases were MPs who a) sent lewd text messages to a 17 year old and b) where an MP repeatedly propositioned a woman who had come in earlier for a job interview so I guess it is conflated with harassment.

Also, unlike some others, with sexting there is hard evidence so I think that raises the level.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/meryl-streep-targeted-by-street-artists-she-knew-posters-1069400?utm_source=twitter&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

xp - ^^ exactly

sexting is a sign of carelessness among people who should be more cautious (a. wiener por ejemplo)

the same kind of argument might be applied to extramarital affairs, these things in some sense depends on what happens, who does it and how it impacts on their jobs

but there's also a confusion between sections of the public who are angry about abuse of power relationships and misogynist behaviour and sections of the public who just like policing other people's sexuality

Petraeus & Mr Appalachian Trail (i forget his name) both walked away from their jobs (iirc?) for having what seemed like run-of-the-mill extramarital affairs
that seemed excessive to me tbh

streep is the wrong target, those posters are stupid

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/20/meryl-streep-she-knew-harvey-weinstein-posters-sabo-artist

oh

A rightwing guerrilla artist in Los Angeles has claimed responsibility for posters that depict Meryl Streep as an enabler of Harvey Weinstein, calling them revenge for the actor’s criticism of Donald Trump.

Sabo, a former US marine who considers leftism a “disorder”, told the Guardian on Wednesday he created the posters that show Streep with a red stripe across her face and the text “She knew”, a reference to accusations that she had knowledge of Weinstein’s alleged sexual abuse of women.

Sabo, 49, said he and two collaborators conceived the campaign as retaliation for Streep using her latest Oscar-tipped film, The Post, to bash Trump. “She’s swiping at us so we’re swiping back.”

w/govt employees there is the potential for blackmail which complicates things

xpost

FWIW, Streep has worked on only one Weinstein production, August: Osage County (2013).

Xp as I said Tracer it's case by case but the blackmail argument used to be used to punish gay people for being gay so

more of this creep

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fifth-woman-accuses-danny-masterson-142051271.html

good point NV

(that initially autocorrected to "god's point")

Wow - when the Streep story came out yesterday, and was pushed by Drudge etc, I was wondering if it was a right-wing thing -- especially because there was a similar guerrilla campaign against Al Franken in L.A. a month earlier.

Guessing it will be another tactic from Roger Stone et al to take down their (sometimes deserving) targets.

Sabo is a loser. You can identify his art by the laziness and location.

these guys can't wait to take credit, i mean i'm not sure that's how it's supposed to work!

poll re: members of parliament in UK

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPBBbAuX0AEC2J4?format=jpg

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, December 21, 2017 6:18 AM (six hours ago)

this is pretty interesting. given that the last question specifies "with an employee" or "with someone much younger", I take it that the rest of the questions concern private, consensual relationships among adults. maybe I'm missing some context, or do majorities of MPs think, for example, that having porn on their work computer or sexting are fireable offenses?

at least this thread probably led to a righteous 51ing.

how is having porn on your work computer not a fireable offence?!?

plausible deniability.

this is the level of security in the mother of parliaments:

My staff log onto my computer on my desk with my login everyday. Including interns on exchange programmes. For the officer on @BBCNews just now to claim that the computer on Greens desk was accessed and therefore it was Green is utterly preposterous !!

— Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) December 2, 2017

great ratio

such a classic self-own, one of the greats

All these men squealing about how they can’t even hit on a woman anymore reminds me of all the men who were like “it’s just locker room talk”.

yeah and it's like why tf are you in a locker room past 12th grade, if that

When men reach a certain age, their families banish them to locker rooms to live out their last days there, naked. It's part of American culture.

gah why does society keep making it harder and harder for me to be awful??!??