Trump has been accused of sexual assault several times and his accusers have never backed off their claims.
Speaking from my own Republican or post-Republican perspective, I had already excluded Trump as a possibility and there are so many outrageous things about him that focusing on his treatment of women is just picking one thing out of a huge basket of awfulness.
Now if Trump was an otherwise solid candidate with these allegations and that “grab 'em by the pussy” tape, it would have been a HUGE deal. But Trump is just so awful that it’s all the media can do to just keep up with the daily awful things he does.
But I’ll tell ya what, sexual misconduct in politics is almost certainly at least as bad as that in Hollywood and if this serves to out a LOT of politicians, I’m all for it. This isn’t just about Hollywood. If victims start coming forward against Hollywood producers and actors and such, then maybe they’ll start coming out against politicians, business leaders, military rape culture, music industry rape culture, and maybe THAT will starta conversation about what we should be doing about Uncle Joe who you can’t leave the kids alone with.
You’re absolutely correct about this.
Speaking in general, I think the accuser is more credible than the alleged perpetrator in most such cases. Child molestation is not nearly as rare as many people seem to think, and when it occurs there is an obvious incentive for the molester to lie and deny it. On the other hand, there is very little incentive for someone (even when involved in a bitter divorce) to lie and make accusations, especially if they’re being advised by anyone with experience in how this sort of thing normally plays out. Allegations of sexual abuse against children tend not to be believed and are frequently used to attack the credibility of the person making the allegation. When the alleged perpetrator is a famous celebrity, this also can lead to the accuser being demonized, harrassed, subjected to death threats, etc. from the public at large.
I know someone who ran a non-profit that provided counseling and legal services for victims of child molestation and their non-offending family members. This was someone who had been doing this for many years, had helped design widely used protocols for interviewing possible child victims, had been asked to consult on cases all over the country, etc. They would routinely advise women involved in custody disputes not to mention the fact that the husband was molesting the kids, because they would be portrayed as a liar and it actually reduced the woman’s chances of getting custody.
The evidence against Clinton is weaker than that against Weinstein and Cosby, but stronger than that against Woody Allen. While I don’t buy the “all women should be believed” dichotomy, I do think most women are telling the truth and I’ve never met a poonhound who manages to stick to strict rules of consent 100% of the time.
Clinton is no monster, but he’s certainly a pig and in 2017 he should be regarded as part of the problem, not a hero to be celebrated. and that goes for his enabler in chief too.
YES! YES! YES! Finally! Adaher for the win!
My opinion is that it’s unlikely that Allen molested Dylan Farrow. Dylan Farrow was seven when this allegedly happened and living primarily with her mother, Mia Farrow. Allen and Farrow were in the middle of a very bitter break-up.
Dylan and Mia Farrow made the accusation against Allen and Dylan was examined and interviewed by sexual abuse professionals who concluded she hadn’t been abused. Law enforcement officials also investigated and found no evidence to corroborate the allegations. Moses Farrow, Dylan’s older brother (he was fourteen at the time of the incident) was present at the time the molestation allegedly occurred and has said it never happened.
I’ll note the contrast between the aftermath of this allegations and the sexual allegations made against Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, or Bill O’Reilly. In all of those cases once one person stepped forward with an allegation, several other accusers corroborated similar incidents. This never happened with Allen. There have never been any other accusations of him showing any sexual interest in children. The only people who are saying Allen molested Dylan are Mia Farrow, Dylan Farrow (who now goes by the name Malone), and Satchel Ronan Farrow who was five when this allegedly happened.
So which seems more likely? That a man, who has no history of sexual contact with children, would decide to go to his ex’s house while they were in the middle of a heated legal battle and molest their seven year old daughter? Or that a woman engaged in a heated legal battle with her ex would convince her two young children to make false allegations against her ex?
And that’s the problem. Hollywood claims to be so progressive but fine with men in power being sexual predators.
In general I agree, but we live in a world of crazy people who do crazy things and in most proven false accusations I’ve read about the accuser is not someone who behaves rationally. So while I’d agree that most are telling the truth, there’s always some doubt. It seems to me that the most challenging thing to do is to believe the accuser but not crucify the accused when his or her guilt is in doubt.
Pretty monstrous to go after a 19 yo intern in the Oval Office
I think Hollywood is probably the most hypocritical on this count given their advocacy, but I think this is an almost universal condition, not just in business, but in the family.
Consensual behavior has nothing to do with sexual assault. There are accusations of assault against Clinton (and Trump), but that’s not one of them. If Clinton had, say, bragged on tape about sexually assaulting women, that would be additional evidence on top of these accusations.
And if Juanita Broderick is to be believed, Clinton flat out forcibly raped her, kissing her so roughly while doing so that it left her with a cut and swollen lip, for which he callously suggested ice as he left the room.
24 actually. Certainly inappropriate, but no question it was consensual and he didn’t pressure her at all. She was an extremely willing partner. Lewinsky is just an example of him being a pig. THe Broaddick and Jones cases are much more problematic. His turning a blind eye to Jeffrey Epstein was also an example of what’s wrong with the world.
And what makes that story credible is that it’s a very specific Bill fetish(lip biting) that was not known to be a standard thing with him.
I’m not saying we should put Bill in jail for this or impeach him(he shouldn’t have been impeached in the first place), but she does deserve to be believed. While allowing for some doubt. Rejecting her testimony out of hand because it’s inconvenient is part of the problem.
How do you think Donald Trump met his future wife? At a quiet dinner orgnised by friends who thought they were well suited, at work across a busy office, maybe in a coffee shop when he just took a chance and smiled, maybe they were at the same movie, alone, and met in the queue for popcorn?
I don’t think you quite grasp the kind of world Trump and HW operate in. This is a world where women competing with Melania for a moment’s glimpse from Trump - to just be in the same room, with dozens of other women - would hand out blowjobs and more to doormen week after week.
This is a hyper-hyper competitive world where nothing matters other than a life beyond the mundane, where the way you look is everything, and where Trump knows he is a target for literally hundreds of aspirational women.
Your post said that Winslet’s film was proof that the Weinstein allegations wouldn’t change anything. Perhaps unintended by it read as though you expected Winslet to act differently in the wake of the Weinstein story. Which would be, of course, impossible when her film was already finished before the story broke.
It sounds as though you actually meant that “No one stopped working with Allen so no one will care about this” which makes more chronological sense but is far too early to tell.
What I’m getting at is that I see no self-reflection on changing behavior. The condemnations of Weinstein are expected and seem to be delayed primarily according to how fast their publicists could compose a good statement. They have to condemn him so they are, but their past behavior and no acknowledgement of their own past sins so to speak does not inspire confidence that there will be any changes.
There is a woman who claims Trump raped her when she was thirteen years old. People like you only believe the claims that suit your ideology.
I also agree with pretty much everything Adaher has written in this thread. The problem is abuse of power, and it happens everywhere.
I’m not particularly familiar with the details of Woody Allen’s case, but I’m not sure what you find so pursuasive above. In particular, lie detectors are bullshit pseudo-science, whose greatest value seems to be in tricking people into confessing things.
Regarding the claim that the kid at first denied it to the doctor, assuming that’s true it still doesn’t tell me much. Pedophiles often spend years “grooming” their victims, playing all sorts of mind games to get them not to tell anyone. To give one horrific example, I know of a case where someone had a small child convinced that the perpetrator could see them at all times, and could even wear the skin of other family members as a disguise, so the kid wouldn’t dare tell anyone what was happening.:eek: I know of another case with an older kid who was told that the perpetrator would murder their family if they told. In many cases kids are told no one would believe them, or that they would be the one who was blamed (both of which are, sadly, sometimes true). [My wife studied child molestation in graduate school (social work), which is why I have a lot of child abuse anecdotes.]
Cite?
This has been very much on my mind lately. I have recently reconnected with some childhood friends and several of them have been talking about being sexually abused as young children – not by immediate family members but relatives and neighbors. I’m kind of amazed at how prevalent it was. And I’m 60, this happened a long time ago. And these women still carry the scars.
This abuse was very psychologically damaging and caused them to behave in ways that made them more susceptible to abuse as teenagers and young adults. They abused drugs. They behaved seductively with older men. And plenty of men that would never consider themselves pedophiles were all in with screwing a willing 12 or 13 year old girl. And this behavior made them less than credible. One of this women carried so much anger for so long that she contacted the abuser 35 years later and tried to extort money from him - it didn’t work but she ended up telling his family. And I’m sure he just told them she was a bitter lying slut. And she didn’t even really want or need money, she was just so angry that she had been so damaged and that this guy got away with it.
Yes, it was a crazy thing to do and I don’t condone it. Maybe she was bitter as she felt she would have had a different and better life had the abuse not occurred when she was six. But she wasn’t lying.