Owen Jones. Again. This is re Kevin Spacey so some content warning.

Have only just seen your reply @BingoFlamingo. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to how a 14 year old boy is not a child?

Excellent article. Absolutely nails it.

Great article about this on feminist current

www.feministcurrent.com/2017/10/31/gay-men-arent-special/

This is a BRILLIANT article. Thanks for posting the link. Really terrific.

I really dislike Owen Jones, and think he's massive misogynist, ....

This

Great article about this on feminist current

www.feministcurrent.com/2017/10/31/gay-men-arent-special/

Being gay (man) and a paedophile were routinely conflated for a long, long time in the UK. I can understand nervousness about going back to those days, tbh.

I really dislike Owen Jones, and think he's massive misogynist, but I agree with this article. Politicians who are secretly gay but who advocate for anti-gay measures should be outed. In the same way that politicians who preach about family values while having affairs should be.

And Spacey conflating being gay with paedophilia is utterly nauseating.

A number of my gay friends have been upset and / or outraged by the way that Spacey has conflated coming out with a sort of admission that he molested an under age boy. It's reinforcing all the age old stereotypes that gay men are really all just paedophiles.

I can't agree with forced outings. I can agree with exposure of hypocrisy to a point. There are not really many instances when it is genuinely in the public interest to know if X is shagging Y or Z

So instead of attacking Spacey for being a child abuser, he's attacking him for making gays look bad

That is an excellent point.

I'm confused by the trans references.

Heterosexual/ PiV sex, I mean. sorry for heteronormative assumptions ...

So instead of attacking Spacey for being a child abuser, he's attacking him for making gays look bad

Oh that's a good point which stupidlyI hadn't really thought about. I can start to see why Elendon is so incensed with the article.

But the issue about encouraging the conflation of male homosexuality with paedophilia is still an issue.

However, there's a bit of a disconnect (cognitive dissonance?) in some aspects of gay male culture that I've observed. OTOH, there's a kind of anti-heterosexual anti-traditional anti-monogamy kind of sexual free for all - a kind of super-masculine "anonymous sex is my right as a gay man" culture. So Spacey's harassment of a young boy is part of that.

OTOH, Owen Jones is trying to claim the higher ground and say NAGMALT.

I thought this a lot in the AIDS times of the 80s - women have always known about the connection between sex & death, because of our role in reproduction. Sex is always freighted with a heavy burden of risk for women, both literally & metaphorically - actually & culturally.

But not so much for men ...

So, if an older male who abused a 14 year male then in later years decided to change gender, would his past life be erased? Would he be okay to champion?

Elendon we've seen this again and again from violent men. The narrative usually goes something like this:

I was an entirely different person then. The stress of living as Not My True Authentic Self made me act badly and out of my True Womanly Character. I have changed since then and am entirely different person now - see, I've got a different name, and am wearing earrings, and everything! And anyway, transwomen are oppressed, therefore I'm oppressed, and so I'm the real victim here and not the predator. QED. < exunts, to cries of "you are so brave!!!" and magazine cover articles >

I didn't like the article. Owen Jones is attacking Spacey's timing in coming out because it will encourage people to conflate homosexuality with child abuse.

But I can't see that that's true. The sort of people who think homosexuals are child abusers will continue to do so, and those who don't think that aren't going to change their mind because of Stacey.

The problem, to my mind, is that Jones is avoiding the bigger issue here, which is that Spacey probably attempted to have sex with a 14-year old (he hasn't denied it - simply said he can't remember, which speaks volumes). So instead of attacking Spacey for being a child abuser, he's attacking him for making gays look bad.

It's pretty pathetic, in my view, and yet another example of the way certain men decide to make everything about them.

NAMALT and NAGMALT are used to pre-empt people accusing feminists of saying all men are terrible.

It’s used as a strawman argument. Oh my God feminists hate men, they think we’re all rapists.

Nope. Just the ones who are.

YBPA, it means Not All Gay Men Are Like That (variant of NAMALT).

NAGMALT = Not All Gay Men Are Like That.
No one said all gay men are like that. If Spacey is critisized for anything it should be the lack of a decent apology.
And Owen really does have a poor track record on lesbian rights.

Ah ok. Thanks. I believe Spacey was the subject of at least one such blind item around the time of the alleged assault.

The assault was reported without naming the alleged perpetrator.

I saw an article yesterday which said Anthony Rapp was jumping on the #metoo bandwagon. Clearly he isn’t, as he told many people at the time.

It really is very difficult indeed for men to grasp the sheer scale of sexual harassment.

Which is completely illogical, given how many of them are guilty of it.

What does NAGMALT mean? I’ve tried googling but nada.

Blind items are a way that celebrity gossip sites ( I know 😔) print stories about well known people without naming them directly. The story includes heavy hints about who that person actually is. It could be for example about an individual having an affair or a person abusing under age teenagers in countries that are targeted by pedophiles ☹️.

Namebot

What does that mean?

I’ve read it twice, but it’s still not clear?

Incidentally there have been a number of “blind items” alluding to spacey’s sexual activities in Thailand over the years ( not referring to his sexuality) :(

I find Spacey coming out at the same time as this allegation pretty disgraceful tbh. Not as disgraceful as his 'I might have done more' and saying he cannot remember abusing a kid though. Thats low...

Eledon, you say his empathy doesn't extend to Lesbian rights, yet you then quote him saying politicians who vote against LGBT rights should be exposed. You do know what the L stands for?

He has used LGBTQ...because his lack of empathy towards lesbians who are being told they are transphobic not to suck dick...would be too obvious if he left L out. Its just an acronym. He clearly has a very dim view on gay women given his past comments and views.

I don't think we should underestimate still the pressure of being "normal" - although I tend to assume most men I work with are gay unless I know otherwise, I know enough not to underestimate the difficulties of coming out and staying out. I'm straight - I don't have to "explain" my sexuality, or hide it, or excuse it, or tell people about it. Gay men & lesbians still have to do this everyday.

I also think that sexual preference is not necessarily something you can put in a box and fix. I'm sure we all know men & women whose preferences shift. I think that current liberal groovy beliefs are rather more fixed in being "cool" - one only has to look at Shakespeare's plays to see that fluidity in sexual preference is as old as people. And to accept that is far "cooler" and more progressive, than putting people in fixed boxes. [see also: cool progressive thinking about gender roles ad infinitum]

On the other hand, yes, Spacey has deflected the accusation of abuse with his public coming out.

But it's interesting that the widespread harassment & abuse of women is being sidelined by the prospect of gay male child abuse. Homophobia & misogyny all there in one go.

So actually, in this case, I think Owen Jones has a point.

Although I don't agree with the 'outing' movement - but iirc, it was at its height during the AIDS crisis, when gay men & activists argued that powerful closeted gay men staying closeted added to the lack of understanding and nasty homophobic panic about AIDS. [See Tony Kushner's Angels in America for a sense of the feel of those times].

Although on that topic, the gay activist movement's sense that no-one cared about gay men dying of AIDS is not borne out by subsequent events: research on HIV/AIDS boomed - far more than research on typical "women's diseases." Plus ça change and all that.

FYI TreaterAnita, Spacey hasn't been accused of paedophilia.