Sleeping with the nanny less than half your age isn't a great start for a discussion of power dynamics in a sexual relationship.
I'm not going to assume anything either way, bo the women deserve to be heard, at the very least.
Agreed, but in my experience people in their early twenties can be surprisingly experienced and conscious kinksters, able to voice consent and negotiate intense situations. While people in their fourties can be incredibly insecure, unable to communicate their needs and insecurities, while still wanting to play.
It's a matter of experience, self-awareness and skills, and those don't come with age, but with work on yourself and education. We need so much more sex education and communication about these things.
The woman in question doesn't seem to be an experienced kinkster though, and she should totally be heard in any case. But the age argument distracts from the real issues, I believe.
I'll disagree about age. At 23, the pre-frontal cortex is still developing and won't be finished until around 25.
It's responsible for:
There is a distinct imbalance between someone in their 60's and someone in their early 20's. I'm not saying it can't be carefully and respectfully navigated, but it has to be acknowledged and accounted for.
It doesn't sound like that happened here.
Then we have the power dynamic of a celebrity who is also your employer. Add in a healthy dose of fictive kinship due to the live-in nature of a nanny and you're in a situation rife with the potential for abuse.
IIRC, that study didn't conclude it stopped at 25, it expected it to stop at 18, but it kept going, and they ran out of funding at 25. A likely conclusion is that it never really stops, it's just that what was measured wasn't really development, but "change".
People in their forties who are also massive global celebrities? I doubt he was especially insecure.
*60s
Oops. You're right. I read 'forties' from the person I was replying to and wires got crossed.
One of the accusations was twenty years ago so 40s applies.
Either way, he was a big celebrity then and he is one now, so I don't think we can argue that this was some insecurity on his part.
and only a couple hours after they first met...
Say it ain't so 😥
Gaiman is one of my favorite writers and I actually have stuff signed by him, so…yeah.
But he said in his statement that he's a Gaiman.
Booo to the people that downvoted you.
Editing this comment because it appears it has come across to some as doubting the accusers, when I intended to present a skeptical comment about Gaiman. To clarify, my point is that they have plenty of evidence and he has made one rebuttal, which included a lie about one of the victims.
Lighting definitely strikes more than twice.
Just like my dad
...in ten pin bowling, right?
... right?
Or, we could stick to our system of presuming innocence until guilt is proven.
I’m going to copy and paste my reply from elsewhere:
Of course we shouldn’t lock someone up based on an accusation but courts are imperfect. Many people are convicted of crimes they did not commit and other crimes are difficult to convince people on. It’s also highly unlikely Gaiman will ever go to a criminal trial over this, like so many other people who commit sexual assault. That’s why you don’t wait for a conviction to support women.
Estimates of false accusations are usually under 1 in 20. This article claims 2-10%. why would you default to that position? Again, we are not a court of law. You do not need a conviction to make up your mind.
Regardless, the evidence presented so far is more than sufficient for a conviction. In the Gaiman cases, we have multiple witnesses and contemporaneous evidence for both women. It’s not just 2 random people making claims. Why would this be a vast conspiracy of 2 women who faked contemporaneous evidence and both have multiple witnesses and physical evidence? What evidence do you have that all of their evidence is fake?
Edit: let’s go one step farther. The 2 women have witnesses and contemporaneous evidence. Gaiman made a claim that one woman had a memory disorder, which has already been proven false. Not only are you siding with the party with no evidence, you are siding with the one whose only evidence has been debunked within hours. Again, why?
I'm all for supporting women. Give them a chance to speak out, make sure they are fairly listened to and taken seriously. You've gone a step beyond that, you've already decided guilt and innocence and proclaimed it. More, you're doing so from a position of influence (yes, as a moderator of a large community, that's what you are). This is the sort of thing that libel charges get filed for (ok, not gonna happen at our current size, but you may want to start keeping that in mind.)
Why would you default to that?
Because that's the basis of our legal bloody system! Innocent until proven guilty! There's a thousand law professors out there who can explain it better and more eloquently than I could in a thousand years, but that's the gist of it.
You do not need a conviction to make up your mind.
That's correct. We do, however, need a conviction before stating it as fact instead of opinion.
Not only are you siding with the party with no evidence
I beg to differ. I have not sided with any party. What is it about people today that they seem unable to grasp the concept of neutrality?
So what you’re saying is, all I need to do to get one of my exes jailed is get to know another disgruntled ex of theirs? Awesome!
How is that neutrality? If you're going to troll, do better dude
Troll? I was pointing out the issues in your logic. Was the blatant sarcasm not blatant enough for you?
Thanks for the Times article link, interesting history for discounting women's claims specifically in rape cases.
Nah, it's Trial by Twitter for most of the last decade.
Have you ever heard of a lightning rod?
Or this dude?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Sullivan
Lightning apparently can strike at least seven times if you're Roy Sullivan.
brain dead take
I have no idea if he's a bad guy or wrongfully accused...but these two stories don't sound convincing at all.
If you have absolutely no idea, then why don't you like shut up man?
So your addition to the conversation is that we should not have a conversation. Got it
The contribution I read is: If you didn't have specific evidence or context to add, then throwing in a 'don't trust women claiming SA' is counterproductive. May not have been OP's intent, but that's what a vague distrust of the women's stories sounds like.
You could do the same.
Two separate unrelated people.
Both in their twenties
Invites them into second/third base consensual relations and then it turns into rough sex.
I think that it's an absolutely reasonable assumption that he is into younger women and doesn't stop after he gets the green light.
But the article is light on details, and he at least deserves to have his say in court over it.
This will make a friend of mine sad. She's a big fan. Sigh. Never meet your heroes.
Can someone define rape, cuz I'm genuinely confused. He didn't take their clothes off or force himself on them I gather.
At one point, she alleged that he penetrated her despite her objecting because she was in the midst of a urinary tract infection; the incident left her “screaming” in pain. Gaiman denied K’s allegations and told Tortoise he was “disturbed” by the accusations.
At least read the fucking thing.
Loosely, it's rape any time you have sex with someone who doesn't currently want to be having sex with you. That's pretty much the broadest possible terms.
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.