Hey, someone who gets it! I see my own story in Chole's. But I'm a man and it's not my time to harp about how I was abused and couldn't have female friends and was pressured into sex by an emotionally abusive partner. It's not my time to raise my personal empathy because this behavior is more often displayed by men and these men are being made examples of in order to advance the dialog surrounding abuse and consent and harassment so that shit doesn't get to the point where victims have to wait years to come forward and they feel comfortable coming forward, confident that their claims will be taken seriously. I'm perfectly happy letting women guide this discussion even though I'm a male victim of similar abuse. I don't even really like mentioning that because more often than not it's women in that role. A certain subset of assholes want to cry foul despite no one being wrongly accused and the women who have come forth thus far doing so at personal expense. We can have a mature discussion about this when it's made clear what the nature of consent is, what the definition of abuse is and how uneven power dynamics influence those two things. Right now we're in a period where the best way to get to that point is to expose high profile predators and assholes in the entertainment industry because it gets wide play.
I want there to be due process and I'm sure that some innocent men will go down because relations between people are difficult and not everyone is well adjusted or sane, people can be vengeful and blind to the hazard and consequences of their actions. It's unfortunate. The combined weight of the consequences to women for how our society heretofore has treated sexual misconduct and crime is immeasurable. It fills every corner of our society with social and interpersonal distortion. It leads to so many ills, be it suicide, drug abuse, mental illness and just an inability for people to relate on an honest interpersonal level. It isn't good for men or children either. Those who have power have been able to abuse it with near impunity for a long time. Yes, it's gotten better, gradually. Be it race, or sex or class; those with power have been getting one over on those beneath them since the dawn of man. Maybe it will get a bit better in this cycle of man continual failure. johnnyFive has a real and valid issue. This isn't due process and that is not the way things should go. While you may be right that this isn't a court of law but lives are getting ruined by a pretty flimsy standard of evidence. There has to be a better way to handle the issue of sexual crime and misconduct going forward. It probably doesn't start now but it's important that we figure out what it is and sooner would be better than later. If we can't find a way to resolve these kinds of issues going forward with the rule of law there will be real ugly consequences. This whole thing is tangled up in the rise of alt right. Further threats to the primacy of White males to lord it over women and minorities is only going to make this shit worse. Racist misogyny is a powerful drug. perceived persecution is a powerful drug. #MeToo is a threat that is going to make a bunch of incels, red-pillers, evangelical assholes and general misogynist easy pickins for charismatic assholes who have their own dark agendas to push. It's good to see this evil being faced in a new way but everything has it's downside. I'm scared of the blow back and truly believe that rule of law is a correct principle to govern society. Sometimes stepping outside of the rule of law is what pushes us forward.
I mean I get your point here about due process but these things generally go under an internal review by whatever company chooses to fire or distance them self from an individual. Something similar came up here the other day about Garrison Keillor as if he was innocent and the reaction from Minnesota Public Radio was like, "No, he's downplaying the seriousness of what he did and we have other incidents." The only case of this that I know anything about in which this was maybe blown out of proportion is John Lassiter and even then it got such little play in the spheres I pay attention to that I assume Disney had reason to kick the dude to the curb. I don't know that anyone thus far has been unfairly accused. Hell, I was on TJ Miller's side if only because his wife backed him up and then the dude called in a fake bomb threat directed at a woman who pissed him off. All of this playing out in the mass media is necessary and I think we agree on that. The women coming forward are doing so at personal expense so that's a check on spurious claims. It will eventually lead to an atmosphere where there's a conscious awareness of what constitutes abuse that will help everyone
George Takei comes to mind. He got witch-hunted: attacked on Twitter in droves (including by Trump Jr.), dropped by a publisher, the works. Then his accusor's story fell apart. But it's important to note that the only reason Takei was exonerated was because a reported did some digging on the accusor's story. This both shows the need to have healthy skepticism, while also showing the underlying sexism of the current approach. Would the accusations have been so thoroughly vetted if they came from a woman?I don't know that anyone thus far has been unfairly accused.