Something that I’ve seen in discussions about Louis CK’s sexual aggression is the defense that what he did is bad, but is mitigated by it happening long ago. That is in past years he did have a habit of exposing himself to people, but he’s since realized it was wrong and stopped doing it, and that it’s not really fair to demonize him now for something he hasn’t actually done in over a decade. However, he’s also been actively trying to cover up what he did as recently as September of this year, both by making statements to the press accusing his accusers of spreading false rumors and by using his influence to hurt the careers of people who don’t stay silent about the accusations.
My contention is that if you are actively working to cover up a bad act by making statements to the press that people who talk about the act are lying and using your influence to deny people jobs if they talk about your acts, then you’re still effectively engaged in the bad behavior you’re covering up. You may not actually be forcing people into your sexual games any more, but you are still actively defending what you did and continuing to hurt your victims. Since you’re still treating your actions as OK and still hurting the victims, you don’t get to defend yourself with a line like ‘that was in the past, I admit it was bad but I don’t do that anymore’ because you’re still doing it (I would accept the defense if someone had really stopped).
Also, I’m talking about guilt here in the sense of personal judgement, not any specific legal charges. I’m not really interested in any discussion of ‘does this fall under this specific sexual assault crime and what’s the statute of limitation’.
