Neil Gaiman Accused Of Sexual Assault Pt II

[hihelenhi]

As we're nearly at the end of the first thread, let's make sure we keep the topic current.

There have been five women now who have spoken to podcasts about the predatory behaviour of Neil Gaiman.

First thread here:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5112128-neil-gaiman-accused-of-sexual-assault

The whole of that Novara clique of self styled edgelords (Ash Sarkar, Some other people who occasionally grift like Owen does on sky paper reviews that I can't be bothered to remember) and luxury communists are distinctly murky in their take on this. Even before #MeToo they faced a backlash from their ultra switched on activist base for hosting George Galloway after his comments on rape. Naturally they are sex positive, gender inclusive and "anti carceral" (prison abolition before Defund The Police was A Thing in 2020)

It prompted one young woman in their orbit to post about her experience at the hands of one of their hangers -on.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/6mhc26/what_is_the_current_controversy_around_novara_and/

The clique formed a sort of joint, anonymous open letter denouncing her account and, uh, 'reframing' her trauma as, ahem, something called "consensual knife play", and accusing her of being "carceral" (IE a hanging and capital punishment pro prison type. In those circles the equivalent of calling someone a Tory or a racist. Instant disgrace). Owen Jones was fully invested in this

What would it take for the police to raid his computers? I'm not being funny, but his behaviour in general screams porn brainrot, and he seems to have a particular thrill in pushing boundaries. We know he's had weird attitudes about underage girls in his writing (the teenager in Neverwhere and that weird Snow White retelling, or whatever it was). Some of his victims were just teenagers. The story about his son and the hotel room was what set off the biggest alarm bells in my mind. It's well-known that predators will often expose children to pornography, or otherwise get them to witness inappropriate sexual activity, as a way to desensitise them to it. As part of the grooming process.

I don't know much I'm allowed to say on this topic on Mumsnet, but for me, the above factors alone would warrant a look at his devices. There's a not-insignficant chance they'd find cp, is my honest opinion. It's quite upsetting that there's been no conversation about this and no-one appears to have even considered the possibility, let alone done anything about it. There are red flags all over this. It should at least be looked into.

(The fact that Amanda Palmer's first reaction to hearing the hotel room story was apparently "was he wearing headphones" suggests to me that it wasn't actually the first time, and that the headphones thing was a workaround she'd come up with to justify this behaviour in the past. How many times had this happened, and what kind of father would keep doing this in front of his son? For what purpose? Maybe he was just incredibly selfish and didn't care what he was exposing his son to, but I'm afraid it was all darker than that. I really hope someone somewhere is looking into it.)

I agree with you @SnoopyPajamas

Also someone as self regarding as NG seems to be, is likely, Dominic Pelicot style, to be recording these incidents as a trophy. Or artistic inspiration as someone like that might put it

@hihelenhi I think I'm wondering in the opposite direction, who did Scarlett approach first?
It's all speculation, obviously, but the fact that it's not mainstream media who took this on (initially) makes me wonder if there were journalists that ignored an approach from Scarlett. (And if DM wouldn't touch it, or wouldn't give Johnson the time she needed to investigate and do a proper job).
We're so lucky, I think, to have Tortoise picking up the slack.

Agree @SnoopyPajamas - the apparent soliciting of photos of people in the bath with no mention of age suggests someone needs to look into what was sent to that email address.

His behaviour suggests addiction and a lack of self awareness that comes when people expose themselves to an online world where anything goes and then forget to recalibrate when they aren't in that world. My ex bil had a serious porn addiction and he would really forget himself sometimes in his behaviour, it made him very disturbing to be around as a woman. Porn brainrot is exactly the right term for it.

I think she may well have approached others, so I bet there were. I seem to remember at least one of the other women in the podcast (Claire?) had been specifically told by more mainstream outlets she'd approached that it was a non story. I'd like to know who as well. It was why she ended up going to another small podcast and spoke there before adding her voice to the Tortoise one later, once she'd heard it and realised there were other women, all with similar experiences.

And agree the repetitive nature of NG's abusive behaviour (and how long he's been doing it) warrants a closer look at his hard drive, though I don't know what prompts that in reality. We know there have been UK police reports filed now, so there could be more going on behind the scenes, but idk, I still don't have a great deal of faith he'll end up convicted.

(Edit: Although the report re: his son being in the room may indeed be that kind of trigger. It is a big red flag indeed.)

This is slightly off the subject but the whole thing with the child being present has made me really think more deeply about coercive control and where, if any, responsibility lies with the coerced party.

Getting into bed with the child present and then having sex with the child a few feet away, and then giving a blowjob in the bathroom with the door open….

Honestly, I had such a gut-wrenching response to all of this.

This isn’t an attempt to share blame or to excuse NG.

IIRC, it was Scarlett describing those encounters. So not a wife who is scared the man is going to beat her/beat the child if she refuses - which are the only scenarios where I can imagine possibly not refusing.

I don’t understand how the stuff happened with the child in the room.

I’ve been raped and then separately I was in a long-term relationship with an abusive man so it’s honestly not an attempt to shift blame or deflect. I was also SA as a child.

But other than a life or death situation, I am struggling to see why you’d go along with sexual acts right in front of a child.

As I said on the last thread, I’m autistic so sometimes miss nuance/am too black and white. But this has been going round and round in my head since I read it.

Does coercive control mean you have no responsibility at all to say “absolutely fucking not” when told to carry out a sex act in the presence of a child?

Obviously you might be more subtle/come up with an excuse/offer a distraction rather than bluntly refuse, but the point remains….

I lost myself entirely in the abusive relationship. I was constantly scared of doing the wrong thing. He would smash furniture, turn tables over in front of me if I didn’t have the “right” tone of voice or expression. I broke myself trying to keep him happy and stop his anger. I broke myself for life, the effects of what I went through during those eight years have stayed with me. So I understand doing uncharacteristic things because you get so sucked into trying to maintain an equilibrium - but I’m not sure that absolves you from exposing a child to sexual acts.

Or are we saying that anyone in a relationship where there’s coercive control has absolutely no responsibility for anything that happens, no matter how obscene?

I didn’t quite know how to raise this before so apologies if this is clumsily worded. I’m trying to understand and think this through and I just don’t know if I’m missing something. Quite possibly. I only mention my history because it might be colouring my ability to think this through clearly.

And for clarity, of course NG is to blame. The suggestion from PP re underage sexual images is probably bang on. I remember the bath post and feeling quite sick at that too.

More opinion in the Observer this morning https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/19/neil-gaiman-sexual-misconduct-allegations-fantasy-feminism?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

Great post. The responsibility always lies with adults to protect children. How strong does the coercive control have to be or how long does it have to have been going on for before one could rightly claim diminished responsibility?

Yes, I wonder about this, too.

Performing sexual acts in front of a child is child abuse. Unless you're threatened with your life, you would say no.

Gaiman is a repulsive rapist and abuser. But do the women have no responsibility for acts they consented to?

From The Observer article:

For some fans it should not have counted by way of mitigation, but evidently did, that one of the Tortoise journalists is Rachel Johnson, the former prime minister’s sister and his ardent supporter.

I think that's false in that she supports, or doesn't, depending on the particular matter:

edition.cnn.com/2019/09/26/uk/rachel-johnson-calls-boris-johnson-reprehensible-scli-gbr/index.html

Catherine Bennett pointedly mentioning "Gaiman’s fellow New Statesman guest editor, the disgraced Russell Brand"

The staggers are in ANOTHER bit of temporary turmoil over this. An ex fan girl Rachel Cunliffe laments

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2025/01/the-allegations-against-neil-gaiman

After discovering that their former long term editor Peter Wilby was done for possessing C Pr0n, after hosting articles pleasing for greater understanding of sex offenders, hosting 3 wrongmos looks more than careless

https://www.newstatesman.com/author/peter-wilby

Gaiman is a repulsive rapist and abuser. But do the women have no responsibility for acts they consented to?

But this is at the heart of what Johnson and Galicia (sp?) were reporting: that in all 4 of the cases, the issue was about consent and the conditions of consent. Julia Hobsbawm was clearest about the non-consent in her case but for the others, their consent was problematic. In that they did not consent but sometimes they sort-of did.

IMO, Gaiman groomed and coerced. Not by force but by the same kind of whiny pleading he demonstrates in his recent comment. And notice how he still thinks they consented, clearly and enthusiastically.

if ever there were an example needed about teaching boys and young men about obtaining clear unforced and enthusiastic consent, this is it.

TTL:DR: I don’t think the women were able to consent clearly and free from grooming or coercion

I don’t think the women were able to consent clearly and free from grooming or coercion

I agree with this, but still deliberate over how much grooming and coercion there needs to be before the victim is absolved of any responsibility for safeguarding a child. (Obviously the perpertrator is guilty of abusing both woman and child)

Sometimes what's being described is that the woman clearly shows reluctance or says no, or that she isn't into it - eg the woman in the bath telling him she's gay. But then he just insists, or says that's what he has to do to get off, or just ignores her and goes ahead.

At this point you could really insist and say no, get up, run away etc. But IME that becomes more difficult after the first indication he's ignoring your boundaries. He's already shown you he doesn't care and is intent on getting what he wants. If you say no again or more clearly, he might get angry or violent so you might be safer to go along with it and endure it. In some cases he was already being violent (hitting them with a belt etc) so they're not in a very safe situation already. And also being in the situation where he's ostensibly your employer (albeit without a proper contract or payment) and/or someone you're an awestruck fan of who is telling you you're in a relationship with him, puts you in a position where you may want to please him despite not wanting to do the act.

This may also be a consideration with the child present. Do you go along with it hopefully in a quiet and non-obvious way, or kick up a massive fuss and potentially have much worse things happening in front of the child/making it more obvious?

I agree there may be responsibility in some cases when women co-operate with exposing children to sex acts, but I can also see how difficult it could be.

I don't think Scarlett is absolving herself of the situation. She will live with this for the rest of her life. At the time she didn't recognise it as rape/coercive control. I think it's very brave of her to speak out and give up anonymity. I'd like to think it was the Gisele effect. I'm sure all the women involved repeatedly question what they did.

I'm not sure what Scarlett's mind would have been thinking, but if you're in a room with a parent I'd be expecting the parent to take the lead with their child. She knew it wasn't right but NG had control over her and his son. He's in charge, he's liberally minded in relation to sex, he's older/wiser, he's revered, he's very rich, he speaks eloquently about feminism and rights. Many 22 year olds would be in awe (in fact people in general, he had Tori Amos fooled). He is a master manipulator.

I'm sure this is one of the incidents he is vehemently claiming didn't happen. But it's all very blurred because perhaps he's a victim of child abuse himself. Maybe this is "the work" he talks about putting in.

In Scarlett's defence, she thought she was in a relationship with NG at that point. It was her first sexual relationship with a man. She's got nothing to compare it with. They were under the covers. NG took the lead and if the allegations are true, he left the bathroom door open deliberately. The 6 year old son referencing the term master is very sinister.

Re: other posts about seizing devices. It would be interesting to know how this works across jurisdictions. The fact he's kept all the texts and emails going back years indicates that he does store correspondence, either to use as evidence (his beloved NDAs) or for other purposes. I thought that part of his statement sounded threatening because it covers the realms of consent. He has all this evidence of women going along with it. I wonder what else he has stored. Hopefully a major investigation is happening about him.

I think you are falling into the 'perfect victim' narrative. That unless the victim acts, taljs, looks and dresses correctly, they are not a victim.

Victims will get things wrong, make mistakes not 'look' like a victim, wear the wrong clothes etc. But they are still a victim.

In the podcast, someone who knew described her as the most vulnerable person they ever met,or similar. Scarlet was targeted because she was vulnerable,because she may not be believed.

I'm not sure anyone is saying that the woman is not a victim in these sorts of circumstances. But the child is a victim too.

I agree with @WhatterySquash 's point. Do you go along with it hopefully in a quiet and non-obvious way, or kick up a massive fuss and potentially have much worse things happening in front of the child/making it more obvious?

Also, I imagine if you are into domination and sexual degradation someone with a poor sense of their own boundaries (because of past abuse for example) is an inviting choice. Yuk.

There’s several similarities between Scarlett and Virginia Giuffre - experienced abuse at home, left home as a teenager and subsequently homeless.

Scarlett was extremely vulnerable. And I think she was raped in the bath. You can't give consent retrospectively.

But I think she should be held responsible for her complicity in child abuse. She was an adult who chose to be there and do those things. It would have been hard to say no, I can see that. But that's not a reason to not commit a crime.

Over on Singletrack World, a forum for mountain bikers, a poster is comparing the abuse Gaiman has (allegedly) inflicted to JK Rowling daring to question male entitlement:
"Separating art from artist perhaps needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis? The poster child here is probably JK Rowling, I’d happily consume an owned Harry Potter movie or book but I’ll never pay for anything she’s touched ever again".
The poster has written this sort of stuff many times, it is clear that his defining characteristic is hatred, disgust and fear of women. He is so committed to this he argues that disagreeing with men is equivalent to physical and mental abuse of vulnerable young women.
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/have-we-done-neil-gaiman-yet-2/

I'm not sure what you can do with men like this, it seems they are beyond hope.

And even if it's dangerous to say no at the time, the child abuse should be reported as soon as possible afterwards (though whether that info would be acted on is a whole other story)

IIRC, it was Scarlett describing those encounters. So not a wife who is scared the man is going to beat her/beat the child if she refuses

Do you really think violent men only hit women they're married to? Really?

The article describes his physical violence against some of the women - it's not theoretical. And there are plenty of threats other than beatings.