Be Excellent To Each Other

Chris, I agree with everything you've said there.

My other half and I were talking about what you called the lower end of the spectrum stuff today, too. Choosing to look at it from the extreme end, he asked how anyone would ever hope to get together with anyone else if you couldn't act on your attraction to someone for fear of causing offence.

As Jem says, most women would likely be okay with getting hit on in a bar, as long as it stopped after "I'm okay, thanks". And you'd be a little more forgiving because people can be irrational or more persistent after a drink.

Unsolicited advances in most other situations are not okay. If you're dressed super hot, are single and want attention, you notice people noticing you if that is what you set out to do that day. That doesn't give other people the right to then start whistling at you or passing comments, or trying on a cheesy pick-up line. It's actually not that complicated, people make it complicated because it's easier to carry on doing it, shrug and place the blame on the fact you ain't a mind reader.

If a woman is engrossed in her phone/book, wearing headphones, looking in any direction but yours, she's not interested. Seriously, most of the time that is a tactic to avoid contact - it's not that we're just oblivious to your presence and unaware of the great time we could have if only you'd introduce yourself or buy us a drink.

Well done to Jo Brand on HIGNFY.

Fucking Quentin Letts. Dick. Just dick.

Finally, some of the stuff on this "scandal" list from Westminster list is just silly and really does give ammunition to the "this is all just killjoy lefty liberals" approach. Then again that might be why it's been published that way....

Woah!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41866970

I used to work with this guy when I was a trainee - he was a tax lawyer, and a slimey motherfucker.

Title.

Post in the members forum from me.

With a fresh morning brain and some time to think more on this, as it’s been bothering me a bit, just a couple of thoughts.

With people talking about the ‘scale’ of offence from accidentally making contact and chatting people up in a bar, through inappropriate contact, lewd comments, groping, rape and the worry they are all being painted the same with a broad brush, the only people I’ve seen saying that the first of these might be equated with sexual assault offences are people on Twitter and in the media bemoaning that ‘they can’t do anything, anymore, with fear they’ll get accused’, as part of a ‘woe is me, people keep complaining that they’ve been inappropriately treated and now I am scared of my own creepiness’. Most men and women know what is an accidental brush of contact, what is an innapropriate placing of a hand on a thigh, what is groping. Many people will have experienced all of them. A colleague with a tray of cherry bakewells standing beside my chair saw one slipping, went to grab it and caught it by trapping it on my breast. It was a complete accident, instinctive reaction to try and catch the cake. It was embarrassing, but funny.
The optician that pressed his increasingly erect penis against me whilst he took my eye exam when I was 13 was not funny. It was intimidating and scary as anything.

Nobody thinks these two things are the same, and the only people who need worry are those that essentially do the second, masquerading as the first. Hilarious not so ‘accidental’ innapropriate contact, ‘cheeky’ sexual suggestion towards a person who clearly has no interest in them. I keep seeing people in news stories and re-tweeted things essentially suggesting that all the #metoo messages are out to spoil all their Benny Hill-like fun and now they’ll have to stand close to the wall at the discotheque, not making eye contact or speaking to people ever, and all these #metoo messages have just gone and ruined everything.

Also, a lot of this conversation is about men and how they treat women, and in the conversation that has followed a lot of posts have been about the levels of inappropriate behaviour that women encounter from men, but it’s also perhaps important to realise that a lot of the accusations from Hollywood (about which this thread started) is what men have done to other men. I just have a slight bother that a lot of the ‘she’s making a fuss over just a little naughty flirting’ seems to be mostly said about women, and (Ruysan aside) that seems not so much to be said of the male victims. Instead, the response from a lot of people on social media seems to have been ‘if he did that to me I’d have punched his lights out’. So, women should be quieter and and men more violent, which doesn’t seem very enlightened.

I don't get it, I really don't. How hard is it really to know if someone wants to interact with you just by the first eye contact? We do it all the time, if I'm walking to the shops and there's someone coming the other way then we're probably twenty feet away from each other before we both know if we're going to say "morning" or just keep our heads down and pass in silence.

Whilst I don't think this applies to the harrassment and assault things as much, there are a lot of people who for various reasons don't really 'get' social cues, or struggle to understand what people mean via body language and facial expressions.

I'm one of them (although much better than I was) - it's just that I err on the side of caution and assume people aren't going to want to talk to me, whereas some people (I guess the ones we're talking about!) assume the opposite.

Hmmm, I wonder how this Guardian article on Myleene Klass from 2010 where she says she was offered to sign a sex contract from a Hollywood star would be written today?

https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... -proposals

Christ, that's horrendous

Written by a woman as well. Smh.

So is, well... everything written by Katie Hopkins.

Yeah, supporting womens' rights doesn't mean supporting all women. Katie Hopkins is possibly the most egregious example of that.

‘Squawking about sex pests’ has to be one of the most vile sentences my eyes have ever seen.

Obviously vile, but not sure what else to expect from Hitchens/The Mail.

Any opportunity for him to bash Muslims too. Utter bellend.

Even from an expected publication/columnist combo that’s a headline that’s sickening to the stomach. I guess it’s the gall of it.

"Cor, she's got lovely eyes! Oi, love! You've got lovely eyes! Blink for me would ya? Oh, don't be like that, love. It's a compliment! Fucking lesbian!"

Women are clearly now all evil and allegations against men will entirely ruin them, as can be seen by the trashed reputation of Casey Affleck who recently... *checks notes* ... won an Oscar, and Donald Trump who after admitting to sexual assault and being accused by multiple women was cast out of society to become... *checks again* ... President of the United States.

A bitter pill that Kevin Spacey’s accusations seem to only have been believed because he was accused by men.

Jesus fucking Christ, how is that shitrag still allowed to be printed?


She really, really has.

Kevin Spacey targeted a minor. I think that's the main difference and why everyone was quick to distance from him.

You mean like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen did?

Aren't both universally (except in hollywood) considered to be creeps?

Don't you think Affleck's case would be a bit different if he targeted an underage girl? I'm not saying he should gets a pass (and i personally kind of dislike him...he always plays the annoying himself), but he claimed innocence and I suppose most are giving him the benefit of doubt.

Woody Allen had an affair (then married) his adopted daughter, she was not underage, but something that most people would find a bit creepy and distasteful.

Roman Polanski was underage and he has been dodging the US authorities in France even since.

Affleck's I'm not sure, he settled all his "claims" out of court, in addition to the assault allegations there appears to be some business disputes in there as well.

It appears that he can say limited stuff about the cases, whilst the women who made the claims, are either legally prevented from saying anything or don't want to, so I guess he gets away with innocent as there aren't any other conflicting statements.

I do think the Woody Allen situation is a little creepy, but he was not her adopted father. He was married (edit: correction, not married, just in a relationship with) to her adopted mother, those are not the same.

I'd also say that they've been (seemingly) happily married for 20 years. I don't think that eradicates any accusations of wrongdoing on his behalf, but it at least suggests it's a genuinely loving relationship.

There is a separate allegation of child abuse made against him, but I'm not too familiar with the specifics.

The difficulty with all the cover ups and with Hollywood on the whole being willing to turn a blind eye to abuses of power means that it's tricky for outsiders to really get to the truth (see Rose McGowan's recent arrest, and Michael Egan's recent conviction).

Woody Allen's current wife was Mia Farrow's (Woody Allen's girlfriend at the time) adopted daughter, not his.

But i wasn't referring to that. I'm referring to the alleged abuses towards Mia Farrow's biological daughter that was 7 at the time.

Bloody hell

Harvey Weinstein's Army of Spies - The New Yorker http://nzzl.us/apd11Yv via @nuzzel

Totally what an innocent man falsely accused would do

Jesus Christ.

So you're saying I can't even hire an army of mercenaries to spy on and discredit women now? It's PC gone fucking mad.

And you say she recently got arrested? Mere coincidence I’m sure.

I hope the guy who plays Rick on the Walking Dead is next, because that show needs to be cancelled.

(i'm sure someone, somewhere made that joke before)

Pundy saw it coming.

Why, because he was fat and looks kind of sleazy? After Weinstein and Toback, it's almost as if the Police could profile them.

Actually he said this which is slightly different to what I remembered.

So I see Louis CK is now getting dropped from just about everything as it is alleged he very much likes to crack one out when he shouldn't, and his shows are actively getting dropped from on-demand services.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... WEML6619I2

They're reshooting a film to cut Kevin Spacey out of it, and of course he's already gone from House of Cards.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/201 ... er-plummer

Leading on from this are a couple of very good opinion pieces which are along the lines of what I'm thinking:

Kevin Spacey deserves to be scorned. But can I still watch House of Cards? - Hannah Jane Parkinson

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-of-cards

and

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesig ... chel-cooke

------------

I guess the point here is that brilliant artists (in whatever field) are often (not always of course, but often), quite troubled people in one or more ways. I mean, John Lennon was a philandering violent abuser of women but no one stopped playing 'Imagine'. (Not that I particularly rate 'Imagine', BTW.)

Sometimes they're just assholes, sometimes they're something worse (or far worse) and/or darker than that, but does that mean we erase every trace of their existence, essentially rewrite history, should it come to light?

Pulp Fiction wouldn't exist without Harvey Weinstein, does that 'stain' the film, should it not be on Netflix?

Kevin Spacey is a brilliant actor, 'Margin Call' is a toweringly good film, as Hannah Jane Parkinson asks above, is it still OK to watch his stuff, should streaming services still make money out of it?

Louis CK is a momentously good stand-up comic, he's always been quite upfront that his material is driven from much of the darkness inside him. Is it right that HBO remove his material from their service off the back of these allegations?

So what's the standard here? Is there a time cut-off point? Do some abusers get a pass and others don't? Is there a 'behaviour' standard that someone has to fall below to be ostracised?

Or are we going to decide that any work of art, music, film, literature, sculpture, whatever - becomes taboo if the creator of it is found to be a bad egg?

The other point here of course, I guess, is that none of these people has actually been found guilty of anything yet.

It's a really tricky one. I use the slogan that 'art exists outside of the creator' as a rather weak support so I can listen to the sublime beauty of the Tristan and Isolde Prelude without fear of condoning Wagner's horrendous views. Knowing that the Moscow underground system was built by slaves doesn't undermine its stunning architectural achievements. But we are a safe distance from those creators.

Removing Kevin Spacey from that film is probably a wise business decision, as it removes the stench that seeing his name in lights whilst the investigations continue that would otherwise drag the product down. I don't think it undermines his earlier work, but you might feel a bit uncomfortable knowing he's still profiting from them.

Music from years ago I think is a little different. But with a comedian like Louis CK a pretty big part of what he does is comment on the behaviour of others. It's moralising, he's very funny with it but that's still what a lot of it is. I remember a routine where he is talking about the power imbalance between men and women. It wouldn't really work at all if he's inviting women to his hotel room so he can just completely out of the blue start wanking in front of them to their apparent disgust. No more than the stuff he does about race would work if it turned out that he was a member of the KKK or some shit. So I think that when someone's act is taking a stand against various things then it becomes a bit like a politician getting caught up in a scandal. Hypocrisy.

Or as someone put it on Twitter "fuck you Louis CK, for being part of the problem while making bank off appearing to be part of the solution."

. I think that's the clear answer I was after.

And Jeremy Piven, who played Ari Gold in Entourage, a character so fucking amazing he spent a couple of years on the "Grim.. and Craster's Top Ten Most Awesome Fictional Characters" list.

Steven Segal as well

Louis CK I'm genuinely surprised by. I never heard any rumours about him and, as that article notes, he presents himself as very woke when it comes to the sort of bullshit woman often experience from men. Which in some weird way makes it worse.

Allegations. Accusations.

Is this how we find people guilty of stuff now?

woke?

Stupid word. Means "aware of social injustices and stuff like that"

It makes me very uneasy.

By the by, I noted that first grauniad article was "subject to a legal complaint by Ched Evans",