# DrDeth, Your defense of Robin Williams is pretty off kilter. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 27, 2018, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230 "2018-03-27T00:08:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/21 "2018-03-27T16:24:36Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > Although she said she didn’t mind, I don’t think we can take that at face value. She was on a hit show which was 99% built around Williams. If she wasn’t okay with his behaviors, Mindy would quickly be replaced with her previously unknown cousin “Cindy Snow” and the show would be renamed “Mork and Cindy”. She had to make herself be okay with his behaviors or else she’d go back to being a struggling actress. That’s the reality of it being the '70s. The producers at the time were not going to put up with an “uptight” woman interfering with their hit show. That would be an okay guess as a possibility if we were reading an interview of her from when the show was on, but this was a recent interview. The Me Too movement has women coming forward and talking about how they had to put up with harassment or worse and now they can talk about it. Dawber can talk about it without fear that she’d be seen as an “uptight” woman interfering with their hit show. The show’s been canceled for a few years now. > [@](#): > > It reminds me of the dissonance and justification physically abused women come up with as to why they deserved to be hit. “It’s my fault he hit me because I forgot to get cigarettes at the store.” In no way does she like being abused, but somehow she has created a justification which makes it seem okay. It reminds me of women who genuinely enjoy raunchy behavior at the workplace. They do exist. > [@](#): > > There’s a difference between “I genuinely like this behavior and want it to continue” and “I’ll put up with this behavior because I want to avoid the negative consequences of trying to stop it.” I don’t get the sense at all that Dawber is the type of woman who enjoys this type of bawdy behavior. I’m sure some women do, but I don’t think she is that type. I’m pretty sure if she could have magically made him stop without any consequences, she would have done it. How do you know so much about Dawber’s type? It seems that in that interview she made some things clear about aspects about her personality and what she found fun. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/22 "2018-03-27T16:42:34Z")
In the interview, she wasn’t saying “Well, um, it was OK, I guess”. She’s saying “It was so much FUN!”. I’m having a really hard time seeing that, in any sense, as a lack of consent. As to how Williams was able to know that she’d consent: I wasn’t there, I never saw any of it, and I certainly don’t know what was going through his head, but at a guess, he probably started small and escalated, all while watching her reaction. If she keeps on laughing and smiling, then continue. If she stops laughing and smiling, then stop and apologize. That’s pretty much how it usually works, with sex play. There’s hundreds of millions of years of precedent, and most of us have gotten pretty good at it. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/23 "2018-03-27T16:43:00Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Not necessarily. Even if we accept that Dawber genuinely didn’t mind Williams’ behavior that doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t make it wrong, either. > [@](#): > > No evidence has been given that Williams made any effort to determine whether or not Dawber would mind. So what? > [@](#): > > If Williams went ahead and did it and Dawber didn’t mind, then what Williams did was wrong but he got lucky. When I read comments like this in these threads, it seems like some people here have no idea how relationships evolve, including work relationships. Have you ever talked with someone at work about intimate details about your personal life? Or told them a dirty joke? Or had sex with them? You don’t do those things on the day you meet them. Things evolve slowly to get there. It’s not uncommon for all of these things to happen without verbal consent. Even consensual sex. And raunchy behavior between two workmates. Yes, no evidence has been given that Williams made any effort to determine whether or not Dawber would mind. If you asked me how how I got to the point that I felt comfortable telling dirty jokes to workmates decades ago, or having sex with them, I wouldn’t remember how it happened to give you the evidence. It’s something that happens slowly. > [@](#): > > It was like a guy getting really drunk and then driving home. Even if he made it home safely, that doesn’t make drunk driving acceptable. It’s not like that at all. It’s never okay to drive home drunk. It can be okay to flash, hump, bump, or grab a woman. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/24 "2018-03-27T17:27:39Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Jim. Thank you for this. I didn’t realize until I got to your post that I hadn’t taken a breath after **kambuckta’s** observation. No, I’m not being a passive aggressive dork, just a truthful one. Pretty sure I nearly slipped away. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/25 "2018-03-27T17:45:16Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > She felt compelled to engage in a narrative of defending his behavior. Because honestly, even though she said it was fun, she’s clearly lying, right? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/26 "2018-03-27T18:18:11Z")
Well thank goodness a woman like Dawber has others (men in particular) to correct her when she shares a story about her past and say it was so much fun and was between friends who really clicked and got each other. Because y’know, what does a woman know? ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/27 "2018-03-27T18:25:40Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > If Williams was still alive then I’d be all on board with saying that he should apologize for the behavior Apologise to whom? To the person that clearly said she wasn’t offended? Or to the white knight on the internet who decided she actually was? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/28 "2018-03-27T19:03:31Z")
Perhaps to possible others who were of the workplace? The behavior was fun play between Williams and Dawber but they were not the only people there and the possibility is reasonably high that someone of little power (male or female is immaterial) could have found having to see the show’s stars play that way as offensive behavior that they could not object to (even as others enjoyed the humor). Play between friends is fine, and norms of the time provide some exculpatory context, but the after Mork and Mindy established star Robin Williams likely recognized that those sorts of antics would be inappropriate to do on a set even if the target completely and explicitly gave consent and that his new status created a power differential that had him on top (rather than mooning “the man”). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/29 "2018-03-27T20:18:18Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Well thank goodness a woman like Dawber has others (men in particular) to correct her when she shares a story about her past and say it was so much fun and was between friends who really clicked and got each other. Because y’know, what does a woman know? What’s more realistic is that a lot of men are going to be saying “Thank goodness a woman like Dawber is giving me an excuse. Because even though thousands of women complain about being sexual harassed, I’ve got one woman who says she was okay with it one time. So now I can go back to ignoring the issue of sexual harassment by telling myself that it’s statistically not impossible for sexual harassment to be okay.” ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/30 "2018-03-27T20:25:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What’s more realistic is that a lot of men are going to be saying "Thank goodness a woman like Dawber is giving me an excuse… _That’s_ likely. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/31 "2018-03-27T20:30:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What’s more realistic is that a lot of men are going to be saying “Thank goodness a woman like Dawber is giving me an excuse. Because even though thousands of women complain about being sexual harassed, I’ve got one woman who says she was okay with it one time. So now I can go back to ignoring the issue of sexual harassment by telling myself that it’s statistically not impossible for sexual harassment to be okay.” And those men are idiots that deserve to have their hands removed when they harass a woman. However, those who cry, “I can’t even touch my wife without a notarized contract every time!” can now rest easy that they, in fact, will not suffer consequences from perfectly normal behavior with someone who likes, appreciates, or even desires such contact. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/32 "2018-03-27T20:41:11Z")
Yeah, the idea that women need to be protected from being touched or flirted with by men even when they explicitly enjoy the contact is actually just creeping sexism in a progressive mask. If you are not Pam Dawber - and especially if you are a man who is not Pam Dawber - and you think you know better than Pam Dawber how she felt about her interactions with a co-worker forty years ago, you’d better have _excellent_ evidence. And your vague sense that she’s “not that kind of girl” does not qualify as evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/33 "2018-03-27T21:02:09Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What’s more realistic is that a lot of men are going to be saying “Thank goodness a woman like Dawber is giving me an excuse. Because even though thousands of women complain about being sexual harassed, I’ve got one woman who says she was okay with it one time. So now I can go back to ignoring the issue of sexual harassment by telling myself that it’s statistically not impossible for sexual harassment to be okay.” I find myself reminded of the mandatory harassment class that my workplace held nearly 25 years ago. The procedure taught for any unwanted wandering hand in public: grab the hand, hold it high, and loudly proclaim, “I found this attached to my body. Does anyone know whose hand this is?” One hopes such schmucks only encounter women who will do that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/34 "2018-03-27T22:42:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > In the interview, she wasn’t saying “Well, um, it was OK, I guess”. She’s saying “It was so much FUN!”. I’m having a really hard time seeing that, in any sense, as a lack of consent. > > As to how Williams was able to know that she’d consent: I wasn’t there, I never saw any of it, and I certainly don’t know what was going through his head, but at a guess, he probably started small and escalated, all while watching her reaction. If she keeps on laughing and smiling, then continue. If she stops laughing and smiling, then stop and apologize. That’s pretty much how it usually works, with sex play. There’s hundreds of millions of years of precedent, and most of us have gotten pretty good at it. _You’ve_ gotten pretty good at it, because you’re hundreds of millions of years old. Some of us are practically newborns by comparison, and we have to be explained these things. ---
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/35 "2018-03-27T23:43:26Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > …I certainly don’t know what was going through his head, but at a guess, he probably started small and escalated… I don’t think Robin Williams ever did anything small. He probably said “Nice to meet you” and then smashed his face between her breasts. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2018, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/36 "2018-03-28T12:24:41Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > If you are not Pam Dawber - and especially if you are a man who is not Pam Dawber I was Pam Dawber once. I got better. I’m not saying Dawber has no reason to lie, because we all know that if she came out and accused Williams of sexual assault she’d be trolled to bejeezus by rabid Williams fans as well as the usual assholes who turn up to accuse any woman who comes forward with such allegations of being a golddigging slut. But I see nothing to suggest that she is lying either. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2018, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/37 "2018-03-28T14:43:10Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > For the same reason I don’t take it at face value when a beaten woman says she deserved it. If Pam was someone like Jenny McCarthy, then I’d totally believe that she truly didn’t mind. But in no way do I get the sense that Pam enjoys that kind of stuff like him being naked and grabbing her boob. There’s a rather large gulf between not believing what someone says and creating scenarios in your head to explain how YOU think things happened or what people were thinking when in fact you know fuck all nothing about the situation. But hey, it makes it easier for you to sit back and judge, right? ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2018, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/38 "2018-03-29T08:07:54Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > \ That’s pretty much how it usually works, with sex play. There’s hundreds of millions of years of precedent, and most of us have gotten pretty good at it. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > _You’ve_ gotten pretty good at it, because you’re hundreds of millions of years old. Some of us are practically newborns by comparison, and we have to be explained these things. Dug up [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Bonacynodon_schultzi_reconstruction.jpg) old photo of **Chronos**. Not a bad looking chap, though he does look a bit randy. ---
**Author:** ![Dickerman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@Dickerman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dickerman)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2018, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/39 "2018-03-30T16:35:50Z")
To me, this issue isn’t about what happened between Dauber and Williams, but rather Williams’ behavior in the workplace. If someone were to treat someone else like that in any of the many places I’ve worked throughout the years, regardless of the gropee and groper’s feelings and motivations, it would be considered inappropriate and wrong by the majority of other people in the workplace. So it wasn’t just Dauber who had the right to object, it was all of the other coworkers who were forced to witness such bad behavior. In every place I’ve worked, appearing nude in the workplace would be grounds for dismissal, though I realize it’s OK in some situations (art, theatre, film, porn, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2018, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230/40 "2018-03-30T17:35:36Z")
I do have to say it is weird to me that people are pinning everything on Dawber’s opinion when assessing Williams’ conduct, especially when its unlikely his actions were just limited to her. From the OP of the Café Society thread. > [@](#): > > “I had the grossest things done to me by him,” said Pam Dawber told New York Times writer David Itzkoff (via the Guardian). “And I never took offense. I mean I was flashed, humped, bumped, grabbed.\*\* I think he probably did it to a lot of people \*\*… but it was so much fun.” (bolding mine) If it’s true he went around doing this all over the place, I would not be surprised if he put someone in a violated position, even if Dawber wasn’t personally bothered by it. Getting away with it would not just be a matter of influence, but also projecting an image of being a manic, crazy hijinks-pulling guy. There’s pressure to see that type of person as harmless and well-meaning, and just going along with his conduct because of the idea that he’s not _really_ taking advantage. He’s just trying to be funny! Does this mean Williams should be rebranded as The Gropiest Groper of all time? Of course not. But I see what the OP is saying. Based on Dawber’s own words, he did things to people that could’ve readily been taken as sexual harassment. There’s no rational defense for that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drdeth-your-defense-of-robin-williams-is-pretty-off-kilter/811230.md?page=3)