Neil Gaiman accused of sexual assault

[WandsOut]

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

Story still unfolding in the news

There's some interesting reddit threads on him - one reader said NG came after them quite aggressively on social media when they questioned his collaboration with Terry Pratchett. The implication being that TP agreed to it when he was already quite unwell and old, and had he not been so unwell he would never have agreed.

One thing I've learned about writers is that there are some absolute charlatans in the industry who would do whatever it takes to get ahead and many of them are deeply conservative white men who don't take women writers seriously at all (and who get a very greased ride up the pole because so many men only read men). These days they have to be a little more progressive in their soundbites and maybe add a floppy fringe and a few token comments about feminism on Twitter but they promote no one but themselves and their contempt is only just below the surface, plus they are very very TWAW, knowing full well what they are doing there.

That's interesting about TP, I am positive no similar allegations could ever be made about TP, his humanity shines through his writing. NG? Impossible to say the same about him, quite the reverse.

Sorry if these are getting boring but I won't let him sneak off, thinking we'll forget.

The book industry is a very odd thing because it has such a cosy, likeable, harmless, perhaps nerdy yet loveable image - and especially children’s books of course. Everyone knows actors can be difficult, have drug problems etc, rock stars can be egotists or exploit groupies, artists can be troubled or obnoxious etc - but somehow book writers and book industry people come with an assumption that they must be lovely. In fact the industry is as ego-ridden and venal as they come. It doesn’t surprise me that gender ideology has been used by some to polish their haloes or gain themselves kudos, while punishing voices of reason. Or that some male superstar authors might exploit fans for sex. There’s no end of women wanting to be writers and wanting to meet authors (men too but more women IME).

Not my friend. A commenter. But yes, of course he was describing his experience/perception. I've no reason to doubt him though. I do think Gaiman has a massive ego and thinks that screaming girls are screaming because they love him and adore him and want to have sex with him. I think he knows he can exploit that, and he does.

I'm actually surprised that more women haven't come forward, although lots of people have contacted me with stories about Gaiman's creepiness. It's an open secret, I guess.

I've been thinking about an interview I read with NG a few years back, in his home in the US. AP was there at the time and I remember the journalist writing about how she would get occasionally tearful during the interview and looking to NG for affirmation and reassurance. I always thought she was quite obnoxious but I remember thinking that she seemed really vulnerable.

I think in the same interview, he talked about how they met. He couldn't stand her and thought she was really obnoxious, until he saw her trying and struggling to navigate a flight of stairs on crutches. He said that as he watched her struggling so much, he fell in love. He portrayed it as a great romantic moment but I always thought it was odd and strange that he should be attracted to vulnerability.

She mentioned the first time they had sex, and described it as not being good but that now it was great. I assumed at the time that maybe they weren't really compatible but I view it differently y now.

Lastly, I remember him on Twitter scolding women about single sex spaces and saying 'My wife has been raped and she doesn't mind sharing toilets with transwomen'. I always wondered if that was true or just him using her to score points.

In short, she may be annoying, but I suspect he chose her for her vulnerability/compliance as much as her rock chick credentials.

@namechangeforgoodreason "Obviously there are some women who will pursue rich, powerful men because it suits them to do so, and maybe some of them really are genuinely attracted. But surely for the vast majority of young women, that's not the case?"
I think Gaiman was good at playing on the insecurities of girls and young women who don't meet societal expectations of attractiveness - geek girls, nerdy girls. There's alot that I've observed in that whole comic-con world, of girls / young women who've never experienced themselves as desirable being, I don't know the word, played? by men who can see exactly what they're doing.
So I don't think the girls screaming for Gaiman are the sort who pursue rich and powerful men, I think they experience him as seeing their worth (including their sexual worth) when the rest of the world doesn't. If that makes sense.

From what I've seen latterly, there's a big crossover with neurodiverse girls and anime and fanfiction (I mentioned on the David Tennant thread about the huge v young fandom of Dr Who/Good Omens). Also the sort of goth type girls that NG seems to favour.

They would be incredibly vulnerable to an older famous man - esp one responsible for creating some of their favourite shows/books - paying them attention or 'noticing' them or (and I hate this phrase) 'seeing them'. Which also ties in with utilising his friendship with Tennant as bait.

I know it's a cliche, but it's really only women who see a severely fucked up man and think "I can fix him". Men aren't like that. Your average man who encounters a severely fucked up woman will run very fast in the opposite direction.

The subset of men attracted to the "damaged waif" type of young woman are not the same thing. They're specifically attracted to vulnerability, and they're always bad news.

Do you remember the time AP had a 'wardrobe malfunction' (exposed breast) that the daily Mail criticised, which she responded to by performing a song stark naked?

Even at the time the staging seemed a bit exploitative, and now I'm really wondering about how her choices were being managed.

I'm pretty sure AP is also a highly narcissistic and toxic person. I don't see vulnerability there. Remember the whole thing she did of raising money for her album and then not paying the musicians? Plus the whole way she put Scarlett into NG's hands. (And also didn’t pay her.)

I suspect AP was fooled by NG's kindly eccentric persona and thought he was a rich person she could exploit for fame and money. And then it turned out he was playing her too.

I could be wrong, of course! But nothing about AP screams "vulnerable" to me. Of course that doesn't mean that she deserves to be abused or exploited, either.

The person I do think is really vulnerable in all this is their kid.

The most toxic woman I ever had the misfortune to work with - manipulative, dishonest, very strategic about using charm on powerful men, quite vicious with those she wished removed from the competition - took up with an utterly ghastly man who certainly bullied her and did what he could to control her, even at work.

As you say, grim for the offspring.

x.com/pcaruanagalizia/status/1813324969515839751?s=46

His first gig since the accusations has been cancelled.

Had to crawl back through the thread to find this post, just finished watching. Not such a tangent, I think.

The last episode got me, from “you were terrified” to the reasons he got cancelled. Struck me how long Moffat has been in tv, and that he’s worked in the Dr Who era infamous for the abuse of set crew (always young women getting the worst of it). He’s been my favourite Dr Who show runner of the current era, this makes me like him even more.

Wow. This... heartens me? I guess. I wonder who cancelled it. Whether his team did it to avoid having to make statements so early in the situation. Because you know he'd face an absolute shit storm.

Also, as a reminder...

It's in AIBU. I think most people still don't know about it.

Yes.... Definitely some parallels.
Would recommend "Douglas Is Cancelled" if you're interested in the issues this thread has been discussing. Including random invites into a bath.

@LaLoba Thanks for this, going to watch today.

Interesting article here: thefederal.com/amp/category/features/why-revelations-of-dark-truths-about-alice-munro-neil-gaiman-should-enrage-us-133109

I know this thread isn’t about men or me in particular. It’s about surivors, believing in them and hoping somehow and someway with each fallen idol we all end up believing in better things. Although the process is frustratingly so slow it seems to go backwards.

This one hits me deep though. He is (was?) my favourite living author. I won’t be melodramatic about it, I don’t know him, it’s not my place to theorize. I always say if you stand against this sort of thing you have to be even more vocal when it’s someone from your own cultural niche.

Place me on a jury I couldn’t condemn him to jail unless the evidence was beyond all reasonable doubt (but if it was I wouldn’t hesitate), but on what he has conceded already is just plainly wrong, even if it’s not criminal. I just cannot wrap my head around it.

Before I was into him as a very young teenager I was into one of his friends, the musician Tori Amos. She and he became firm friends she referencing him in her songs and he her in his stories. She survived an assault by a fan. I refuse to believe he doesn’t know what violent intent towards a woman entails and produces even if you can conjure and gaslight your way into securing a technical consent.

That’s where we go wrong isn’t it? So much heterosexual sex is so damningly close as to be abuse adjacent anyway. As I grew up and became a man, I like him have known many a Tori Amos. Women of all kinds placed on healing journeys they should never have been forced into in the first place. So many in fact I lost count more than a decade ago.

The common factor isn’t wether they did or didn’t consent, whilst of course we make that very important (and rightly so), the common factor is the harm, from men, who wether they had permission or not caused harm. Why do we do this? Can we just not? Why are we like this?

I do not know. I don’t believe we are hard wired to violence, control and abuse. I am afraid
it’s a mix of fear, jealousy and hatred. Women are heir to the same shadows, but we indulge them in men, and ruthlessly suppress them in women. Given the nature of this being about a storyteller, it makes me ponder what fucked up stories we have been telling one another to get to these places. What stories he wove for himself to make this okay?

There must be better stories out there, truer stories that can stop this. I hope he ends up telling himself a new one, where he takes responsibility for the harm he’s done, and rather than preserve the glittering world of literary fame and fortune he instead makes the narrative one where the main characters are the women he has caused harm, and tells them the fault was never theirs, but it was his. Hey, I can dream…

It must be rubbish when someone you idolise turns out to be a wrong un.

Here's a better author : James SA Corey (really two authors Ty Frank and Daniel Abraham). Ty Frank has stated in his excellent podcast "Ty and That Guy" that the one thing they refused to write in their books, was the use of sexual violence in conflict. They just decided they would not write that into their fiction. I already like that decision.

When their book series was made into a successful TV Show 'The Expanse', after 4 seasons or so, one of their main cast was exposed to be a bit of a Gaiman. There was no cover up. They commissioned a big law firm to do a full investigation and when it was found that he indeed had a history of repeatedly preying on much younger females fans at cons and so on, they cut him from the show and wrote his character out. They didn't try to excuse him or talk about how much consent there was or wasn't, they just did the right thing.

I'm seeing some fans online trying to stand up for Gaiman, and it's so disappointing. He disgusts me.

I second the recommendation for the excellent Expanse novels and telly series 👍 The female characters are very well written and fully realised human beings without straying into either the ‘girl boss’ or ‘sexy badass’ territory that can happen in scifi.

Interesting how there appears to be far more traction in the stories about abuse enabler Alice Munro (and she was, and abuse enabling is appalling, so she fully deserves the opprobrium, imo) but just so very little directly from the usual suspects about their hero Gaiman, a man whose sexual behaviour is overtly abusive, rapey and coercive. Almost as if they want to fit the narrative of "Ah, well women do it too, you see!" And push that narrative in a not-at-all an enabling way, of course 🙄.

I also note that on Reddit forums, there seems to have been a decision made to focus on his work and not his behaviour. Got to wonder if Neil or his minions have been in touch...

Very glad to note that event has been cancelled though. And here's hoping it's not going to go away, however much he and his acolytes want it to.