Harvey Weinstein
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Am I the only one irritated by the #metoo trend?
In no way meaning to dismiss the feelings of anyone who has suffered genuine sexual harassment / abuse but it just seems to me like another bandwagon.
I'm sure most people (including even me) have be3en put into some uncomfortable or unwanted situations, but not everyone feels the need to #metoo.
I'd feel more sympathy if these "courageous people of all genders" had spoken out at the time - that would have been courageous. Now it seems like a whole lot of "I really didn't welcome that grope 30 years ago" is obscuring proper rationale debate and action on what is an ongoing issue and one likely to get worse not improve.
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@dogmeat #metoo
It's getting stupid. Had a friend put up a list including things like when she was 7 another kid kissed her on the lips.Ok sure these days an unwanted kiss is sexual assault (as too is an unwanted stare..)..but for fucks sake that really is scraping the bottom of the barrell. I sense a wee bit of competition over who is the bigger victim and plenty of anti male hatred to boot with metoo evidencing just how bad men really are. I'd be genuinely surprised if anyone, man or women hasn't experienced sexual assault in thier lifetime but I don't see the benefit in drawing an equivalency between years of childhood sexual abuse and 'some creepy guy grabbed my ass in a club'.
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Future POTUS makes some sense on the issue.
http://www.dailywire.com/news/22376/metoo-bound-fail-unless-victims-name-names-and-ben-shapiro
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I find it super-fascinating that the ass-kicker in this whole thing -- Rose McGowan -- was raised in the Children of God cult (subsequently known as "Family of Love" and now called "Family International").
"Her father ran an Italian chapter of the Children of God, in which both he and his wife held membership until 1978.[3] McGowan spent her early childhood amid the group's communes, often traveling through Europe with her parents.[2] When interviewed by Howard Stern in 2001, she stated she had avoided the group's calls for members to become sexually active as children and stated that she never personally experienced abuse as a child."
The leader of the cult -- known as "The Love Prophet" -- was a freak named David Berg (a.k.a. "Moses David") who used to pimp out the young females to recruiit strangers into the cult by having sex with them. Where a Jehovah's Witness is supposed to go "witnessing" (knocking on doors, handing out leaflets of Watchtower magazine), the strategy for Children of God was called "FF-ing" ("Flirty Fishing") seducing new recruits with pleasures of nubile flesh. When the women orgasmed they were supposed to yell out how much they loved God. There have been widespread accusations of sexual abuse and pedophilia in that cult.
The cult has changed it's strategies since the death of "Moses David" in the mid-1990s, and FFing is no longer used. But the policy absolutely was used when McGowan was raised -- it was DOCTRINE. It must have been awfully perplexing and psychologically damaging for McGowan -- even if, as she tells Howard Stern, honestly-or-not, that she wasn't sexually abused as a kid -- her mother would have been expected to have sex with strangers to "bring 'em into the fold," and this was overt out-in-the-open.
There have been several documentaries about the cult from the 1970s & '80s... the most recent one a few years back was made by HBO, called "Lost and Found.". First part is here:
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@salacious-crumb said in Harvey Weinstein:
I find it super-fascinating that the ass-kicker in this whole thing -- Rose McGowan -- was raised in the Children of God cult (subsequently known as "Family of Love" and now called "Family International").
"Her father ran an Italian chapter of the Children of God, in which both he and his wife held membership until 1978.[3] McGowan spent her early childhood amid the group's communes, often traveling through Europe with her parents.[2] When interviewed by Howard Stern in 2001, she stated she had avoided the group's calls for members to become sexually active as children and stated that she never personally experienced abuse as a child."
The leader of the cult -- known as "The Love Prophet" -- was a freak named David Berg (a.k.a. "Moses David") who used to pimp out the young females to recruiit strangers into the cult by having sex with them. Where a Jehovah's Witness is supposed to go "witnessing" (knocking on doors, handing out leaflets of Watchtower magazine), the strategy for Children of God was called "FF-ing" ("Flirty Fishing") seducing new recruits with pleasures of nubile flesh. When the women orgasmed they were supposed to yell out how much they loved God. There have been widespread accusations of sexual abuse and pedophilia in that cult.
The cult has changed it's strategies since the death of "Moses David" in the mid-1990s, and FFing is no longer used. But the policy absolutely was used when McGowan was raised -- it was DOCTRINE. It must have been awfully perplexing and psychologically damaging for McGowan -- even if, as she tells Howard Stern, honestly-or-not, that she wasn't sexually abused as a kid -- her mother would have been expected to have sex with strangers to "bring 'em into the fold," and this was overt out-in-the-open.
There have been several documentaries about the cult from the 1970s & '80s... the most recent one a few years back was made by HBO, called "Lost and Found.". First part is here:
How come that is fascinating?
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I'm thinking Hollywood has been operating a lot like a cult for a very long time -- using sex abuse, shiny awards, mind control and fear to f#ck over insecure people who are desperate to be loved.
And now the dam is bursting.
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@salacious-crumb Massive power imbalance between those who have and those who don't, no regulation of any kind, the constant threat of being blackballed out of the industry if you step out of line. These are not traits specific to Hollywood but show business seems to present a haven for predators like Saville, Cosby, the Fox news guy, Weinstein to name but a few
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I was reminded of the recent court case where Taylor Swift took some no one radio DJ to court for reaching under her skirt at a publicity event. She is one of the biggest female stars in the world right now, and she was subjected to trial by the DJ's lawyer. Imagine if the power dynamic was reversed
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I strikes me that what the dogooders in the film industry need to do is to get off the publicity seeking bandwagon and set up a independent body which allows those who've been abused to lodge confidential complaints, naming names. Said body would quickly become appraised of the worst offenders and could interact with the various victims in order to launch coordinated action against the perpetrators.
Lots of issues with this, but the absence of anyone suggesting this type of thing makes one suspicious of how serious the dogooders are to do anything substantive against the problem they say they feel so aggrieved about.
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@pakman said in Harvey Weinstein:
Lots of issues with this, but the absence of anyone suggesting this type of thing makes one suspicious of how serious the dogooders are to do anything substantive against the problem they say they feel so aggrieved about.
I'm no expert in dealing with victims of any type of assault, let alone sexual, but that is an incredibly simplistic view of some quite complicated, varied and individual needs.
I would hazard a guess that most victims have developed coping strategies of their own based on professional advice. These strategies may or may not include going through legal action.
They really would be 'dogooders' if they assumed they knew a better way for victims to cope.
The biggest changes in groups of people come from societal pressure. What is currently happening is great in that it is being made very clear to perps past and future that the ice has been broken and the attitude of sweeping things under the carpet will no longer be tolerated, therefore increasing the chance of either prosecution or ostracism.
One of the main reasons these victims are speaking out is that they see value to themselves in hopefully preventing these behaviours continuing. Even if some of the #metoo's are dubious in some eyes the fact they they feel the need to add weight to what is a genuine issue is a good thing -
@crucial although what you say is true, you are also missing on crucial point.
IF what Weinstein did was that bad, then every single person who was sexually assaulted, harassed, blackmailed etc, in effect allowed him to continue do this by not speaking up. Speaking up now is borderline pointless. Lets say he had 50 victims ... if you were number 1 and said nothing, then you are effectively are partly responsible for the next 49 victims .... if you are number 2, then 48 and so on ....
I'm not a buyer of the "because he's Harvey Weinstein" thing ... if speaking out about it is that damn hard, then go to the police confidentially. It's not that hard. Somebody sexually assaults you, then bloody do something about it.
Don't stay quiet for 15 years, whilst your career puts in the A-list upper echelon, commanding 10's of millions for a movie, then suddenly start speaking out when somebody else has the guts too.
Hollywood is a fucked up place, becoming more and more exclusively for fucked up people, with fucked up morals, fucked up judgements, and fucked up heads.
And yet it's powerful, because we live in an age where everybody thinks celebrities opinions are worth more than the shit paper they are written on.