Neil Gaiman accused of sexual assault

[WandsOut]

www.yahoo.com/entertainment/sandman-writer-neil-gaiman-denies-142813982.html

Story still unfolding in the news

Indeed.

I once worked alongside a perfectly pleasant chap. One day he just disappeared and we were told nothing.

Two years later I saw the newspaper report of his trial and imprisonment for 12 years for child rape and pornography.

He seemed a perfectly normal pleasant person.

Found this whole thing really disturbing and it's made me think about consent and stuff that happened to me in my last relationship.

I met him at a book signing years ago, and he drew a little doodle in my book which did admittedly make me feel special 😟, as someone just said he had a charm to him with the way he interracted with his fans. People probably wouldn't believe this, but although he seemed nice superficially, he definitely had a creepy vibe to him in the way he looked at me that I noticed at the time. I thought it was probably just in my head as there was no evidence of him being a creep - just goes to show you should trust your gut instincts.

I'm not even sure what to do with my sandman comics now, feel like chucking them all in the bin.

How utterly wretched.

Have you seen the news about Alice Munro over the past couple of days? Her daughter said that Munro's husband abused her as a child, and that Munro knew and took her husband's side. It's a really, really grim story.

I admit one of my first thoughts was, I bet Gaiman is punching the air that this story's come out now. Perfect timing for him.

Am I right in thinking this still hasn't been reported by the Guardian or the BBC?

This story is newsworthy. It is not celebrity gossip or titillation or an attempt to smear NG. This is the inconvenient conversation about consent that we actually need to be having.

Thank God for Tortoise Media.

I thought I had seen it on the bbc site but no sign of it anywhere so I might have remembered wrong. NG is all over BBC programming though, they love him.

I expect he thinks he can ride it out, and he may well be right.

I think this will die a death unless and until other women come forward. He has been shrewd in maintaining cordial contact with these women. It makes it less likely they will reframe what he did to them as the act of an abuser.

My bigger question is, how the fuck do we protect our girls from these fuckers. How do we teach them how to recognise the pattern?

Maybe this time. There'll be something else, though. The truth will out.

A few people told me that he's been 'known about' for years - women telling each other. That's no bloody good to anyone who isn't in their network, obviously. But now at least any woman can be warned off him and hopefully his ability to access victims will be reduced.

I wonder if he'll now keep a lower profile on telling women what our rights should be and that we should accept men in our single sex spaces. Because otherwise he's going to get reminded of this an awful lot. For all the good it will do.

Well, that's been his cover, though. I reckon he'll return to it. I reckon he'll let the story die, then come out swinging about all the terfs who have tried to take him down and the prudes who criticise non-traditional relationships etc, and when women challenge him, he'll be super dismissive and like, oh come on, that was never what happened, consent is everything to me.

But I do think it's damaged his reputation and that there will be more revelations in time. It's common knowledge now that he's dodgy. But it's going to be one of those things you're not supposed to say, like men aren't women. Gaiman is a rapist, men aren't women... things only terfs and bitches say but everyone secretly knows is true.

Yes, I agree with you.

Yeah, I think he’ll retain his career

if you look at what he actually did: sexually exploited a vulnerable young woman who was effectively homeless and performed violent and degrading acts on her that would be considered torture and human rights violations in any other context, then frankly he should be in a police interview room right now

but if you pass it through the post modernist sex positive lens that lets dozens of men who have strangled women to death argue successfully in court that it was consensual sex gone wrong wecantconsenttothis.uk/ then yeah, he’ll be fine and will be writing opinion pieces for the Guardian in no time

and I’ll be living as a nun on a remote island where I never have to see another fucking man ever again. Honestly some times it looks like the only viable option

Sometimes being a heterosexual woman feels like something you should get danger money for

Being any kind of woman. The woman in the bath wasn't heterosexual.

Savile, Harris, Glitter...if only there was some form of pattern we could recognise in behaviour and "the cool kids(adults)" covering it up/dismissing/ belittling it. Like patterns of abusers seeking positions to abuse from: Scout masters/clergy/ teachers...now we have different areas (self declared "male feminists")but again people dismissing the evident truth these also need active safe guarding due to abusers targeting them to avoid challenge.

The 'male feminist' is surely just the wolf donning the sheep's clothing.
He might kid himself that he cares about women, but what he really wants is to get inside their heads so as to more precisely manipulate control and exploit them.

I'll stick my neck out here and say that Doctor Who being cancelled next year (because the ratings are terrible and the Disney money was only for two seasons) is more likely than RTD having a crisis of conscience and deciding not to ask his good friend Neil to write another episode.

The 'male feminist' is surely just the wolf donning the sheep's clothing.
He might kid himself that he cares about women, but what he really wants is to get inside their heads so as to more precisely manipulate control and exploit them.

YY in a lot of cases.

Yes. This reminds me of when I was assaulted as an au-pair. I was far from home, not enough money to leave, just ended up barricading myself in my room at night and watching my back. 😪

Tumblr is in pieces - I don't think it will die a death but the momentum is slow but gaining.

My bigger question is, how the fuck do we protect our girls from these fuckers. How do we teach them how to recognise the pattern?

Perhaps@GenderBlender the question we REALLY need to ask is

”How do teach our boys not to become these fuckers?”

Sorry, a bit sore from reading about the latest vile fucker who’s murdered 3 women in Hertfordshire

I hear you, I don't have boys tho. My family seems to not be able to produce them.

I’m not sure he can. I am was a member of his fan base and everyone is talking about it, and him. The next time he tries to promote anything this will be front and centre again.

I expect Gaiman will go quiet for a while. Get some aggressive lawyers to do damage control and take articles off the internet. Write some more books and find a famous kind person to back him up in a few years. Then tentatively step out into the world again with a ‘poor lady must be mistaken’ narrative.

I went to school with someone similar and this is what he did.