Dammit I hate it when I have to admit I was wrong and that not only was I wrong but it's my own words that make me have to do it...fuck...
Especially about this one. Because it seems like something that I would have been black and white and crystal clear on. And while my righteous anger was flowing I totally was. And then...well I read an opinion piece with a different point of view that showed something I didn't want to see and I had to back down...and then I started thinking about it some more and this really annoying kind of morally superior, really calm in the face of anger voice started up from the back of my head and I was like, "Who is this pretentious bitch?" And the voice was like, "Umm...you."
Fuck.
So here we go with the "I am still right but I'm also wrong and here are all of the qualifiers blog..."
I've laughed at pedophilia jokes.
Now it was the uncomfortable, "Oh no!" laugh. But not only have I laughed at them they are part of our shorthand language for uncomfortable oh no you didn't humor. "Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?" Well shit...so yeah.
AND I've made sideways snarky comments that were on one level about pedophilia but were mostly about the Catholic Church. So again...fuck.
BUT...and here is the caveat, and where I still stick to my guns (sort of, another qualifier is coming) making a post on Twitter where you are basically announcing you are a pedophile isn't a joke. It's not funny.
Except when it's obviously a joke. Sarah Silverman and Michael Ian Black have both made jokes that have come to light (I told you that Cernovich was a piece of shit who was doing this for political reasons) have had old joke tweets of theirs posted to show they did the same thing. But those really were more in the line of the Airplane! jokes. They were obvious jokes, setups, punch lines, just short jokes and very much in the line of the OH NO! kind of uncomfortable humor. Still maybe not something that should be joked about but if you are the type of comedian that feels like everything is fair game, and I'm not sure that everything shouldn't be fair game because free speech and...
Well. I was wrong.
I still don't like what he posted. I still don't find it at all humorous and I do not understand why he would have ever done it. I don't think that a shocking statement is the same as a crafted joke. I don't think that a director is the same as a stand up comic. I think that there are levels and considerations and we need to be able to discuss things without being afraid.
Even if it's with the voice inside your head that points out that you don't generally believe in absolutes because the world rarely works in absolutes.
It's the same position I have taken with the harassment claims and the #metoo movement. We really need to be able to look at these claim by claim and sort them out. C and I have a difference in opinion right now about the Chris Hardwick case and it boils down to a subtle difference in belief. It's the difference between "believe women" and "don't automatically disbelieve women." It's a small thing, but it does make a difference. I think that for too long our society has automatically disbelieved women. They have been disregarded, attacked, called liars and gold diggers, and mentally unhinged, and any number of things. I think any person who makes an accusation should be heard. Should not be dismissed before there is a chance to investigate the claim made. It's a difference between automatically believing someone is telling the truth. I just can't do that. Now, I will be totally honest here and say that I am glad that C falls on that side of the line. I am really glad that his default position is to believe women, not the women are liars side. It makes me proud of him. I just am not there with him.
So we disagree. And it's a hard discussion to have (outside of between us, we are pretty damn good at discussions usually) because if you point out inconsistencies in someone's story, or you say 'this doesn't ring true' you get accused of victim blaming. I have seen it over and over again online in these cases. Take the Hardwick one, when people try to defend him at all it's taken as defending the abuser and blaming the victim. But if you don't believe he was an abuser or that she was a victim then that can't hold true, right? I'm not victim blaming by saying that she wrote that she agreed to everything, I'm saying she had autonomy. I don't don't think she's a victim. But I get slammed when I express that opinion (again not by C, he just doesn't hold the same one).
I also hold the unpopular opinion that we need to stop treating all of these cases equally. There is a difference between a badly executed courtship and a rape. There just is. Someone awkwardly asking you out is not the same as being told you won't get a promotion if you don't suck dick. It just isn't. And there is also the time change difference. I started work at 13, so 1981. I worked all of the 80s and a good chunk of the 90s in to the 2000s. The difference between what was seen as acceptable behavior shifted. Looking back you can say, "This is awful and never should have been allowed." and yes, that's exactly right, it shouldn't have. But it was. So going after my old bosses or the guys in the shop for calling all of us in the office sweetie and having full on discussions about who would be better in bed that we weren't supposed to hear but oops I guess I didn't see you there...None of that would fly now. But it was just met with eye rolls and exasperation back then.
I've talked about coming back to work at the agency after living in Colorado and one of the best selling points my boss had for bringing me in to cover the clients I did was that I just didn't care about the sexism. Now it wasn't called out as the sexism, it was that I got it. I wasn't so delicate. I could hold my own. Basically I didn't care that they called me kiddo or sweetheart or that I had to figure out which ones of them to not ride alone with in an elevator if they'd had too much to drink. None of that is okay. It shouldn't have been okay then. But it was. And that's just the fact. I'm not going to retroactively go back and slam any of them for doing something that nobody clearly articulated that they couldn't. I'm also not too terribly shocked that most of them have been shunted off to the side by their sons and daughters to not be the face of their companies anymore. Times change. If they didn't they can't be in front anymore.
But there is a difference here. If any of them forced people in their companies to have sex with them against their will then that's rape and that's not okay and they should still be prosecuted for that. I hate the statute of limitations laws on that, by the way, I think the power dynamics need to be taken in to account. And yes, the risk is that it's harder to prove the farther away you get, but at least let them try.
Anyway...there needs to be an honest reckoning about scale. We cannot be as mad about a "Hey, you look really good. I mean really good." as we are about a hand shoved up a skirt. There needs to be scale. We need to stop treating every offense and the BIGGEST offense. And we need to take circumstances in to consideration and yes, we also need to listen to both sides of the story. And then make the judgement. And we need to be willing to change our minds when you get more information.
Even when you are sure you are right and there is no way you could be wrong.
Because you might just be.
fuck.
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