Well, the most likely lie is that the number 1000 is exaggerated (and/or the man’s age is understated), but the mathematics of nailing 1000 women over a 20 year period works out to about one a week, which might be doable, if a tad unlikely.
Anyway, it’s a matter of personal opinion if this is significant to the observer. It wouldn’t be to me. I’ll save my ire for different targets, like Jane Fonda.
Is the writer in question an author of non-fiction works only or does he write novels and other works of fiction? Because if so, it’s clearly not his lying that bothers you; lying is what he does for a living and it’s perfectly acceptable when he’s do it to entertain you.
And mark me down for separating a person’s artistic ability from being judged by their personal character. Tom Cruise is a complete nutter but he’s a good actor.
Prior to meeting my partner of over 27 years, I had slept with (or at least had sex with) well over a thousand men. I assure you, there was never any lying or deception involved, nor anything non-consensual.
How that influences your respect for me or my art, is up to you. So is the question of whether you’re an idiot.
How does your girlfriend know how many women this poet has slept with?
Possibly. If I read a novel that started off well, but lost coherence as it went on, I might dislike it, but if I found that it was written by someone who had Alzheimer’s as a way to document progression of his condition, I might take a more positive view of the work.
Note in all the cases I’m describing the nature of the artist is directly related to understanding the nature of the work. If it was the Nazi who wrote the love poem to his adult paramour or the child molester who wrote the science fiction and meant it non-allegorically, then I couldn’t make the same statement.
I am so not buying any of your art! 
I take the view that when an artist is very aggressive and in-your-face about his bad behavior – like posting a blog saying that gays should be imprisoned – then I’m going to boycott his books, even if they happen to be damn good.
If he, himself, tries to keep a low personal profile – maybe he believes such an evil thing, but doesn’t make a great production out of saying so publicly, and I happen to learn of it only incidentally – then I’m less likely to boycott him.
Artists shouldn’t become celebrities, especially controversial celebrities, without accepting some loss of custom and support.
Hitler’s paintings actually are fairly good. But if, in 1948, he was still alive – perhaps in prison – and selling them, I would not have bought one.
Leni Riefenstahl made a pretty impressive movie featuring him. It wasn’t even a matter of her art being separate from some other opinion or personal foible behind the scenes. It’s a Nazi propaganda film. If you read the cast and stars IMDB it reads like a list of war criminals…because they did in fact become actual war criminals. It’s still an impressive film.
Whether any one person can watch it for the art is a personal matter. It’s not a contest.
It ultimately seems like a version of* ad hominem*.
A little…but when someone goes so far out of his way to be unpleasant, there is a mental association of ideas that instills a contagious antipathy.
I disagree in general.
“Ender’s game is a bad book because OSC is a mormon” is ad hominem.
“I don’t enjoy / won’t read Ender’s game because OSC is a mormon” is a statement of fact.
Hiya, MorphinePoet! Welcome to the SDMB. To me, there is no quicker path to the truth than reading the blow-by-blow description of what happens when push comes to shove.
Last summer, the daughter of noted science fiction/fantasy author Marion Zimmer Bradley related her mother’s complicity in enabling the daughter’s molestation and rape by MZB’s first husband, Walter Breen. A thread was started in the Pit about this.
Here is a link to the thread. The bottom line, if you don’t care to read through several hundred posts, is that a long-standing poster attempted to defend the notion of the separation of an artist from their work and was excorciated for it. Much, much more than a time or two. So, you perhaps ought to consider that anything you read about this separation of an artist from their craft here in your thread does not even begin to be scratching the surface of what is percolating underneath. It appears that a lot of people agree with you that you can’t (and shouldn’t) separate an artist’s personal stuff from their works. Quite vehemently agree.
You left the word “rightly” off before the “excoriated”, there. At least, by the time said “long-standing poster” (:rolleyes:) was making up the sliding scale of badness of rape between paedophiles and ephebophiles based on how early their pubes came in, as if that ever mattered.
It’s only a Nazi propaganda film because their team lost. Objectively her work and especially Triumph of the Will is a classic of film and staging technique that would have won multiple Oscars if they had such a category.
In the context of this post you should be very careful about conflating your interpretation of a person’s character and their work. In main because you will quite often get more variance in estimates of a persons character than in the technical or artistic merit of their work.
Leni Riefenstahl was an excellent technician and also a brilliant artist. There is no doubt of that.
No, it’s a Nazi propaganda film because it’s a propaganda film. Made for the Nazis. Them winning wouldn’t have changed that.
Them winning wouldn’t have changed the morality of it and them, either.
I can appreciate her artistry, or I could if I could bring myself to watch any of her films, which I just can’t.
It’s OK, lots of other directors have watched her movies for you, so you’ll see the good bits sanitized all over the place. Star Wars, for instance.
Show me any US or UK propaganda film that even begins match the technical and artistic quality.
They were just as much propaganda but not nearly as good.
To be frank the only British propaganda film I can remember offhand is Hitbeth Walk
(Incidentally it contains Leni Riefenstahl film. Watch at your peril!)
We’ve had this discussion several times in the past in relation to Orson Scott Card and his stance on homosexuality. Presumably because we’re all nerds. Here’s one example.
I find it hard to separate the work from the artist, but I don’t go out of my way to find out about the artists’ views.
There’s some fairly good bits in Gladiator as well.