This.
Waiting to see, and listening means you're unsure and are waiting to see, seeing what shakes loose, knowing the truth usually outs or becomes obvious. It means you don't want to RUSH to judgement which is not to say others are doing so but...
but as a shield or excuse, cowardly bullshit.
My personal feeling is that in cases of sexual assault "I'm going to wait to see what else develops" is a fine, but if you loudly announce that what you're seeing is inadequate and not enough and should not be believed by anyone, that's not waiting to see what else develops.
For me, all the 'he said, he admitted' came from the same questionable media source.
But I'll be real fucking clear. If Neil Gaiman had an absolutely 100% consensual relationship with a nanny who was 20+ years his junior, I would find that abusive period.
Given the questionable media origin, I'm waiting to see if that is true, just the sexual relationship.
The imbalance of power, age, etc. esp. with a live in nanny, someone you're paying to be in your household is not okay in my book. I think at it's BEST it's super fucking gross and horrible.
Just as Profs with students, blah blah blah. I ended a friendship over a Prof friend dating/fucking a student because JFC ON A CRACKER.
Anyhoo. I'm in listening mode on this. Also have a lot of shit going on so if there's been new shit I'm unaware.
PS for anyone curious I ended a friendship with a Professor (who had been my prof) because she got pregnant by a student. Both were adults, but my god.
The first episode, at least, has one of the women speaking in her own voice. Her story is consistent, coherent, and credible, and based on her words *alone* I believe her. I transcribed it because I wanted her story to be more accessible. drive.google.com/file/d/1Ql2b...
As you pointed out down the thread, often victims try to 'normalize' abuse. And when it's they said/they said, it can be difficult to impossible to try to discern what the fuck was going on.
Which is why the burdens upon ONE victim are rough. When it's two. When it's three. When a pattern emerges
I think its going to be more clear in time not more muddy.
I think it's also going to be against Neil Gaiman. But I'm still waiting to see what shakes loose and almost entirely because of the media source (not the women). If that makes sense.
But waiting to see doesn't mean secretly sandbagging
or being secretly for, etc. which some people are doing, which is cowardly bullshit IMO.
And you are super goddamned awesome for doing that transcription, THAT is rough. Bless.
It's not perfect. I'm sure there are errors, and there are places where I simply could not be certain what was being said. That's why I included the running time stamps and the link to the original, to make it as easy as possible for the reader to confirm for themselves.
For me the "second source" was when I saw people I believe are trustworthy saying his awfulness was a semi-open secret for a long time. I don't automatically assume other people should be similarly convinced (but I also won't be cool with "why didn't they say anything?").
Absolutely. But to be clear, her testimony is enough for me. I don't need to decide whether or not he's guilty of a crime in order to be confident that he harmed her.
I think that's absolutely a fair opinion and you're upfront on what it's based on. I think you are also coming from a pure place too, in that your entire judgement is based on the sitch, not that it needs my seal of approval or anything just asying.
Right, based solely on the transcript it's bad.
I'm certainly open to the possibility it gets contextualized in the other parts but based on what I've got now he absolutely used coercive pressure to get consent (which makes it not consent)
Not even sure what could contextualize it differently. What context makes it cool to just climb nude into a tub with someone without even asking? Maybe somehow in a large hot tub in certain times and places (I’d find it very weird but…it happens in ‘70s movies), but not this.
1) That's an astonishingly good transcript.
2) It's a horribly difficult read. I got half way and set it aside for later. Maybe I shouldn't have started it.
I literally can't eat or drink anything that's stepped beyond the threshold of a bathroom
I hold my bottle of water outside with one hand when I have to turn the bathroom light off on my way to bed
The employment angle alone is really bad, but adding in that much of an age gap makes a difference as well. It's undeniably over the line from my perspective.
Which, to clarify, is his "defense" - that he was having "consensual" sex with an employee nearly *40* years his junior. Doing some quick math, he was 61 and she was 21 at the time.
No, this allegation was from a long time ago and he would've been 40ish. But even if there was NO AGE GAP, fucking an employee is an imbalance that's not cool. The age gap of 20 years makes that so much worse. I do not believe in that scenario 'consent' is legit. IMHO. Legally it's not against the
