Neil Gaiman accused of sexual assault

[WandsOut]

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

Story still unfolding in the news

I would advise males not to expose their penises in women's spaces without their permission, because it's rude.

And fucking intimidating.

I searched online for the latest Neil Gaiman news. In the last 14 hours, apparently, this was published. Just like nothing is happening.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/parenting/10-best-neil-gaiman-books-according-to-goodreads/ar-BB1qqjeT

I used to know Laurie slightly, a million years ago. She becomes much less endearing the better you know her.

I don't know if JB's guess is right. I'll just say I wouldn't be surprised if it were. She's always been a shameless starfucker, and Neil's ostentatious white knighting for her on Twitter looks just a bit like he's creating an alibi for himself.

God this is disgusting. This is why we cannot let it fade from the public conversation.

I'm really disappointed - I love so much of NG's writing, and thought he was fundamentally a decent person.

I stopped following him on FB a year or two ago, as his self admiration was a bit much really.

Ho hum.

He hasn't posted on his FB since July 2 and when you type his name into the search engine the first thing that comes up is Neil Gaiman Allegations.

His instagram account is also dead, just people commenting about how disappointed they are. He's gone completely to ground.

And I just saw an attempt to discredit the blog because it was produced by a 'known terf' challenged on Reddit by a trans person telling people not to centre themselves in this and to believe women (bet it's a trans man.....).

And his latest event was cancelled. Comments switched off on that post.

Looks like he needs to face the music at some point, and sadly coming out with the old argument that Scarlett was unreliable/unwell from the start was shooting from the hip and has pissed a lot of people off.

God knows what he'll do now. Looks like sometimes even powerful white men get what's coming to them.

He's facing a finely balanced PR problem. He needs to answer the allegations but, assuming there are more women and girls in the background, then any denial from him could trigger more allegations, enough to move this story fully into the mainstream and thus to potentially destroy his reputation completely.

I predict the withdrawal will be followed by tentative returns to the public sphere over a long period to build up a back catalogue of "that's old news".

But I don't see how he can say or do anything without being asked about this. He can't post on social media. He can't make an in-person appearance.

I think he is trying to get the women to recant. I would put money on him using this time to try to get as many of his previous girlfriends/victims as possible to agree to say nice things about him and not make any allegations. I suspect there are negotiations with AP too. He will want to come back saying, look, it was all a misunderstanding, here's Scarlett saying she didn't mean it/here's AP saying Scarlett is crazy, etc.

I don't know for sure but I bet that's his plan.

Ugh, clear banning of such talk here: www.reddit.com/r/neilgaiman/s/kk8o1qvLI7

Poor old the reddits, got to keep the space 'safe'

https://www.reddit.com/r/neilgaiman/comments/1dwndkb/thevalidityofthereportingofthesa/

There's actually a fair bit of reasonable discussion on that sub. (Various posts, not just the one I've linked, talking about the media response, how people feel angry, etc)

From reading the pinned thread on the subreddit it looks like they made a conscious decision more recently to try to distance his writing from the man and what he's allegedly to have done, and moderate accordingly. One not everyone there agrees with.

Thanks for sharing this

thanks @ArabellaScott for that. I think the OP you linked was being quite fair, despite their obvious bias against JKR.

Interesting to see how the sausage is made on Reddit, before it plops over here and does a drive-by telling off

It’s interesting to see that they’re planning on releasing some new NG work - knowing the publishing industry I’m surprised they’re going ahead, as this could be a costly mistake. Unless they’ve already ploughed too much into it to turn the ship around…

This reminds me of Michael Jackson cultivating a relationship with Macauley Culkin and inviting him for sleepovers, then watching while MK spoke about how innocent all his sleepovers were and how 'he never did anything to me'. Which, of course, was true.

NG has Tori Amos and Laurie Penney, to whom I've no doubt he's been nothing but gentlemanly. They can then, absolutely legitimately, state that the Neil that they know is a gentleman, a Feminist and an ally to women, and from their perspective, it will be absolutely true.

Whether or not they choose to believe NG or take seriously the allegations made against him, is a different matter.

If the allegations are true, then it would suggest that NG has cultivated (quite possibly absolutely genuine) platonic relationships with women which can then be called upon if required, as a source of character reference.

The thing is, many people are still unaware of how abusive personalities operate, so aren't aware that they can appear charming/friendly/helpful/kind and still be an abusive personality to others behind the scenes.

As an aside, I'm sure I read somewhere years ago that LP was a writing 'protégée' of Roz Kaveney which would explain a lot (and also why she's mates with NG).

I don’t think I can bear to listen to the podcast. Does it mention the director of Good Omens? He seemed to distance himself from GO and Gaiman late last year. Does this fit in with the timeline of it being investigated?

I hadn't heard that? (I've never watched GO as I'm not a huge fantasy fan).

To be honest, these sorts of rumours seem to swirl around the entertainment industry and I imagine it was probably openly known about as soon as Tortoise Media started investigating. It would be nice to think that's why? If it's true then whether it's because of a sense of career self-preservation or because he was disgusted by it, who knows?

That said, if NG was heavily involved (not sure how much day to day involvement he would have had on-set) then he may have seen it as another potential place to meet young women. That was probably talked about if it's true that women were warning each other about his behaviour.

Sorry, no I don't remember him being mentioned

https://www.tumblr.com/heritageposts/756276795016429568/nowhere-on-the-blog-does-it-say-you-have-to-be-an?source=share

Found this on Reddit. If itvis accurate, NG eliciting pics of fans in the bath. No age restrictions mentioned.

Is this what hiding in plain sight refers too?

yeah I have to say that looks like a prelude to grooming right there, all very plausibly deniable... but

I believe LP had a relationship with NG, possibly also with AP involved, and is similarly into "rough sex" (see also LP's prior relationship with the abusive Grace Lavery, who was pictured with his fist in his "husband's" mouth - aka wife who's been persuaded/gaslit she's a husband and therefore dominant although he clearly is - and her with bite marks on her cheek) So it's not been platonic between them, as far as I'm aware. Tori I'd imagine more likely platonic, yes, since she's of similar age to him. He tends to go for the young, vulnerable "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" type in their 20s, even if he's 40 years older at the time.

I've now got through all three podcasts. He really is absolute scum.Very young women who he has considerable "star" power over, lots of boundary breaking, very careful to ensure he can claim it's all "100% consensual" and they can believe that too, lots of gaslighting, using his money to "help" them, lots of "nice, caring" messages, his friends as social lubricant/persuasion... and then the odd NDA. Shudder.

The bath email is grooming 101. He "doesn't mind" if people are naked. Oh, how obliging of you Neil, you festering sex pest.

Course he doesn't.

Funny that, eh?