Who cares if he loses his career over it? These women have the right to say what he did, and the general public has the right to decide that they aren’t interested in his comedy any more because of it. He was the one who did it, and sometimes there’s consequences for being a giant douchebag.
The report that he blocked the door came from a rumor published by Gawker, which has no credibility in the first place, and even in that story Gawker contacted one the alleged victims and she denied that the story was accurate. The current NYT story does not say anything about him blocking a door. One can assume that if he kidnapped these women that they would have said something about it.
The NYT story was deliberately ambiguous and said they “laughed it off”. For some reason they decided to omit the crucial detail of whether they said yes explicitly or not. In any case, they were free to leave, or to ask him to stop. They are not nonverbal infants.
As for pushing a woman into a bathroom, the report is that he apologized to a woman for doing that, but that she was confused because he never did it.
The stories I’ve read said he did apologize to them before the NYT story came out. Not sure if it was after the news started to get attention a bit more a couple years ago. I can’t say whether it was self serving, trying to get out ahead of it, but apparently it happened.
I really want to know what happened between him and Tig Notaro. She was pissed off enough about this to put it in her show. Did she confront him and he confessed, but didn’t want to go public, so she ditched him? I’m curious how it all went down, and again, what he was thinking with that movie of his.
I just wanted to have this repeated.
Strangely, after reading his letter, I was wondering whether he was only doing this in front of women. I get the feeling like, in his head, this was no different from farting or spitting or something. It’s like the sort of dude who is like, “I gotta take a dump.” And then walks over to a toilet, doesn’t close the door, and keeps talking to you as he shits. I assume the reason for this sort of behavior is that the person just doesn’t see natural acts as being meaningful in any way.
Of course, you have to wonder how people somehow missed the message that this is strange behavior all of the way into middle age.
I’ve watched a few of his specials and some of his TV and his times of hosting SNL. And it seems that a frequent topic of jokes is about how men are the biggest threat to women, and how he feels like a disgusting person who wants to masturbate too often. I think he knew what he was doing was bad and he felt bad about it, but he never really had to face consequences or really think about it too much.
Also a lot of people felt their careers threatened if they talked about what he did. Some implicitly, but also his manager apparently made more than a few people feel pressure. Here’s one recent article regarding this. Now maybe he’s a man-child who does things without thinking or knowing right from wrong and his minders clean up his messes without bothering him, but that doesn’t seem terribly likely to me.
Also his recent movie, I Love You Daddy, seems related to all this. This review goes into it.
The statement he released seems pretty sincere, but the questions for me are what do the recipients of his behavior think about it, and what happens next. The apology is the easy thing (which is why it’s even more disappointing so many people can’t even do that) but now does he change his behavior and try to make up for what he did wrong. I don’t know what he could do to rectify things now, but that would be a way of showing his apology was sincere.
Once again, despite having it carefully explained to you multiple times, you appear unable to tell the difference between “laughing off” an unwanted offer to dismiss it because you think it’s a joke, and “laughing at” behavior that you are enjoying watching.
thirdname, can you please tell us why you keep mixing up these two concepts? Do you need the difference explained to you again? If you clarify what it is that’s confusing you here, we can probably help you figure it out.
Another stubborn misunderstanding on your part, in the face of multiple rebuttals. I have repeatedly told you that I, for example, would consider it sexual misconduct if a woman did this to two coworkers who were uncomfortable with it but didn’t leave because, say, they were concerned about possible repercussions of rejecting her.
In other words, thirdname, I am a person on the planet, and I disagree with your assertion that you keep saying “no person on the planet” would disagree with. Continuing to repeat an assertion that has been explicitly proven wrong is not helping your argument in any way.
Moreover, why are you clinging so tenaciously to this mistaken notion of yours that men cannot feel intimidated or trapped by unwanted sexual behavior on the part of a woman, even if she’s not physically restraining or coercing them?
You seem to be locked into an adolescent caricature of heterosexual relations in which men are assumed to be both constantly eager for sex and unassailably dominant over women (barring some kind of elaborate ambush with physical restraint devices). In this imaginary universe of yours, no man who hasn’t been forcibly restrained could ever be subjected to sexual behavior he didn’t want.
By contrast, in the real world it is perfectly possible for a man to feel that, say, his female co-worker might try to retaliate against him if he refused to watch her masturbate, or to hope that if he lets it pass then she’ll leave him alone in the future, or any number of reactions that involve neither voluntarily consenting to her sexual behavior nor explicitly rejecting it.
The point is that consent is not merely the absence of screaming “No!” or running away. You cannot validly assume that anyone, especially a co-worker who has no sexual relationship with you but whose career you may have some influence over, is actually consenting to your surprise sexual advances just because they feel pressured to put up with them.
Before you grow up and head off to college, thirdname, you really need to learn that mere absence of explicit rejection does not constitute consent. Just because somebody might be afraid to reject your sexual overtures for whatever reason does not mean that they actually want to get sexual with you.
For your own safety in your future life, you need to recognize that somebody merely enduring your unwanted sexual attentions isn’t equivalent to signing some kind of ironclad permission slip legitimating your sexual misconduct. The fact that you seem so focused on finding ways to invalidate or disallow women’s criticisms of a man’s unwanted sexual behavior, instead of understanding why people should restrain their impulses to make sexual advances to their co-workers, is kind of worrying.
Hell yeah! He managed to use the word “dick” a couple times!
So, let me ask you this. What scenarios is it appropriate by your standards for a famous person to ask someone for a NSA sexual encounter?
This was very much NOT harassment, please stop using that word
Depends on the “someone”:
A1. Sober adult groupie begging you for sex? Go ahead and ask.
A2. Sober adult who accepted your invitation to go out on a date (or who invited you out on a date) and with whom you’ve had an enjoyable flirty time? Go ahead and ask.
A3. Sober adult who’s a professional sex worker currently on duty? Go ahead and ask.
A4. Sober adult at a sex club or orgy party? Go ahead and ask.
B1. Non-adult in any situation? DON’T ASK.
B2. Adult you’re not sure is sober enough to consent, in any situation? Don’t ask.
B3. Co-worker or colleague with whom you are discussing professional matters? Don’t ask.
B4. Any member of your profession whose career you may have some influence over? Don’t ask.
(Of course, there is no reason that you can’t over time continue social interactions with a person in category B2, B3 or B4 to the point where your relationship of friendly trust justifies you in asking to move them into category A2 (or even category A4 if that happens to be your jam). But while a person is still essentially a stranger or mere acquaintance on the “B” list, don’t ask them for a sexual encounter.)
Yes, that means that famous people will have to exercise some sexual self-control and can’t just take advantage of their influence, charisma and fame to go around soliciting sexual encounters from anybody they happen to fancy. No more casting couch, no more “helping your co-star relax” by touching them sexually, no more considering the bodies of beautiful young strangers as just one of the perks of your job and status.
Too bad. No matter how famous you are, it’s your responsibility to wait for a situation where there exists genuine mutual consent to sex. Outside of such situations, you shouldn’t be pestering anybody with your stupid boner.
Except every person that a famous person comes in contact with is either a potential coworker or a fan “who they have influence over”
Also EVERY famous person has violated that list otherwise famouse people would never have sex with other famous people (Which happens all the time)
Try again
Underlined by me.
To be clear, there was no sexual harassment, no harassment, nothing illegal occurred. His influence over them is unclear.
Afaik, women together, not single/alone, chose to watch his actions rather than leave?
Years later it comes to light; how should we now categorise his actions uncool, very uncool, really, really uncool, creepy, something else?
Additionally the conversation before the hotel room had to be “flirty” as Kimstu calls it or else the hotel room would not have come up at all.
Also very much illegal in most US locations and very immoral.
…hmmm. Let me think about your demand for a minute.
Okay I’ve thought about it. And I will not stop using that word.
Where are you getting the idea that famous people have influence over the careers of all their fans? They don’t.
Even if they did, that doesn’t change the principle of the importance of sexual consent. If being famous makes the sex lives of famous people potentially more vulnerable to lack-of-consent issues, too fucking bad, that’s just one of the drawbacks of fame. It’s still their responsibility to wait for a situation where there’s genuine mutual consent to sex.
(And given that famous people generally have far more access than the average person to sex in categories A1, A3 and A4, I don’t think it’s such a terrible imposition to expect them to refrain from sexually preying on their colleagues in the B categories.)
You evidently missed the part where I said that there’s no problem with colleagues and co-workers having sex with each other once they’re in a position of mutual trust. But no soliciting sexual encounters from colleagues and co-workers who are essentially just strangers/acquaintances who might fear retaliation if they reject you.
Also, just because some kinds of sexual behavior “happen all the time” doesn’t automatically mean we’re obligated to consider them okay. There’s lots of really awful shit that “happens all the time”.
Sorry pal, I don’t have to revise my perfectly good answer just because you didn’t happen to like it. My answer stands.
It may shock you to learn this, but many famous people either live in or can afford to visit jurisdictions where properly regulated and safeguarded professional sex work is not illegal.
I don’t really care whether or not you consider that “very immoral”, since you were asking me about my opinions on the ethics of famous people soliciting sexual encounters.
The conversation between the female comedians and Louis CK in his hotel room was not a date. It was an informal gathering of colleagues at a professional gig (which happened to take place in a hotel room because that’s where comedians live at professional gigs), and Louis CK should not have solicited a sexual encounter from his colleagues in that situation at all.
I’m sure glad to hear we’ve all learned from this experience!