Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby Crimson847 » Sat Oct 21, 2017 12:00 am

My position is not that CK is guilty. Not sure how "I'm staying on the fence" got interpreted that way.

My position is, firstly, that there's a little bit more here than mere rumors. Tig Notaro had some sort of "incident" that convinced her never to work with CK again, and when asked what that incident was she trails off and shifts to asking if CK has ever addressed the sexual harassment accusations against him. Jen Kirkman mentions "weird behavior" toward her that lent weight to the rumors she'd heard that he forces women to watch him masturbate. Rosanne Barr and Gawker's anonymous source both claim to know people personally who've had this happen to them, but are afraid to speak up. I would describe all this, not as anything close to "proof", but as "legitimate cause for suspicion". I don't blame Kirkman for deciding not to take the risk of touring with him based on this sort of information, for instance.

Secondly, I don't consider the lack of women coming forward and saying "CK did this to me" outright to be compelling evidence that nothing happened. Keep in mind that Weinstein kept his far more grotesque actions quiet for decades and went so far as to physically attack a man who tried to stop him in front of a crowd of journalists without any consequences, before being successfully brought down when a torrent of people started publicly accusing him more or less simultaneously (something no individual accuser can count on). Keep in mind that when Kirkman appeared to make a veiled accusation of such behavior from CK without even naming him, she was hounded endlessly by the press for years afterward and came to fear that one remark would define (aka "ruin") her career. Keep in mind that we're not far removed from the days when the "she's just a lying slut" defense reigned supreme, and that in some parts of our society it still does. In short, I do not accept that absence of such evidence is evidence of its absence in this case.


Put all this together, and I see valid cause for suspicion with no valid countering evidence to discount that suspicion. In light of that, my reaction is to remain on the fence and await more information before making a judgment either way. I do not accept the conclusion that CK sexually harassed women. I also do not accept the conclusion that claims to the contrary are obvious lies that were "made up out of whole cloth", or that he couldn't have done such a thing because he seems like such a nice guy on TV. That is all.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby DamianaRaven » Sat Oct 21, 2017 12:35 am

I guess, at this point, we should ALL be "on the fence," knowing as little as we actually do. I just want to clarify that I'm blowing off these rumors not because I don't care whether he's out there terrorizing women, but because there's been nothing but rumors. In situations with this magnitude of severity and uncertainty, society has pretty universally agreed to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby Lindvaettr » Sat Oct 21, 2017 12:58 am

DamianaRaven wrote:The problem seems to be that many people find him crude and/or creepy - moral indictments with which I am well familiar. I've been overly aggressive to the point of making people uncomfortable when I flirt, but the word no (or some direct expression thereof) is quite enough to stop me in my tracks. Maybe that's the problem here - he just has a weird and creepy way of flirting, but understands and respects that no means no.


Considering how known producers and other Hollywood types are, especially within the industry, for both being sexual predators, and for not really taking no for an answer, I wonder if it's possible that, because of Louis C.K.'s apparently awkward, creepy ways, people (like Tig, perhaps) could feel that he was being sexually predatory, but because they felt that saying no could end up putting them in a very bad position, both on a personal and career level, that it wasn't said, which would imply the go-ahead to continue doing what he was doing.

I have no idea if that's what happened, if anything happened. Just a random thought that popped into my head when I read your post. I think many awkward people who have flirted or approached someone may have an experience or two where they thought everything was all fun times between them and the flirtee, only to learn later that the other person felt uncomfortable. It's probably happened, to some extent, to everyone.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby Kate » Sun Oct 22, 2017 12:57 am

The related question about predatory vs. creepy behavior in general has been split and moved to Creepy Vs. Predatory: Where's the Line? in Loud Noises. Thank you!
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby D-LOGAN » Sun Oct 22, 2017 2:08 am

KleinerKiller wrote:Even if you want to believe the victim in most cases, there is no reportable victim in this case.


Here's the thing about this though, if I know someone is a victim, want and belief doesn't come into it, I know they're a victim so I'd just be for them getting justice. If however I don't know, if all I've got to go on is accusation alone without anything else to go with it, then no, I don't believe that's a fair case for condemning someone as a rapist or sexual predator of some kind.

If I know the person making the accusation and I trust them, sure 100% I'll believe them. Or, and this is somewhat controversial for some I suppose, there's enough as well as an accusation, like numbers of accusers and other witnesses or I have other knowledge about the accused previous behaviour etc. then I can feel comfortable making a judgement then, I mean I'm not a robot who has to remain utterly impartial until a judge has banged a gavel and said 'guilty'. But I will never be a part of the 'Just Listen & Believe' crowd.

Because people literally do make false accusations. We've covered many in this forum, that woman in England who falsely accused 15 men of rape. Or that girl in Germany making up a story about migrants raping her to get away with getting in trouble at school. Just recently a woman in Britain was given a 5 year jail sentence for making false claims against a soldier who was repeatedly arrested and held in custody. There was a story I was watching about that musician lad Conor Oburst who had a woman falsely accuse him online of raping her, which she later admitted she made up for attention, which is heresy for some people to even suggest even though it literally happens.

What jars me is the idea of being against calling a potential victim of rape a liar(which is a good thing obviously) while at the same time being willing to call a potential victim of false allegations a rapist, which if you're of the 'I always believe an accusation' bunch is inevitable. I mean I'm sure the answer for some is along the lines of "well I gotta pick one don't I?"

And it doesn't though. You don't have to just pick one. You can just be fair. If all you've got to go on is accusation, and that's it, you can either chose to give the accused the benefit of the doubt or reserve judgement until more information comes along, and that doesn't mean you're calling anyone a liar or are classifying the accused person as some kind of Schrodinger's rapist, as in "well I've no evidence he is a rapist, BUT I have no evidence he ISN'T a rapist either, sooooooooooo, I'll put him in a rapist/non-rapist limbo which he can have hanging over his head for the rest of his life."

I mean when you look at the stories that some of these victims go through-

James* was falsely accused of rape three ago.
"You will almost certainly feel that the police believe that you're guilty before trial"
James says his wife accused him of rape as an added bargaining chip in ongoing divorce proceedings: "She told me to back off in the family courts - she was losing the case to have residency of our children. I said I wouldn't. So she went down to the local police station and alleged that she'd been repeatedly raped by me during our marriage."
Almost immediately, James' life became a nightmarish whirlwind: he was arrested during his twins' 7th birthday party, had various personal effects seized, and was required to attend police stations for interviews in the dead of night.
James lost residency of his children, resigned from his job and, he says, was pushed to the brink of suicide. However, justice prevailed: the charges against James were dropped within the year.
"Things did sort of turn out all right," he says. "But not until I had almost ended my life. You will almost certainly feel that the police believe that you're guilty before trial.
"Do not underestimate how awful this feels," James continues. "The suicidal thoughts are pervasive."

Chris, another false accusation victim, is passionately averse to the lack of anonymity offered to the accused. "It's like a sick joke," he tells me. "It is such a stigmatised accusation that it doesn't feel as if you're innocent before being proven guilty, but the other way round.


Jay Cheshire was cleared of rape in June. Allegations made against the 17-year old were withdrawn by the complainant just weeks after being filed, resulting in the investigation being closed. Yet, two weeks after the teenager was acquitted of the charge - and with his adult life still ahead of him - Jay was discovered hanging from a tree in his local park.
Jay was a sensitive young man who had "found it difficult to cope with the police investigation" - a conclusion reiterated by the boy's mum, Karin, who said of the accuser: "She accused him of rape and said he was a sexual offender. He was absolutely distraught."


And if it's a case of just not caring as much about men, well it happens to women too. I've come across many cases of women who've been falsely accused of sexual abuse, and I imagine we're going to see more of that. I mean lately people are finally starting to take things like the rape of teenage boys by female teachers seriously and that's great, but there's going to eventually be some spiteful little bastard who decided to falsely accuse a female teenage and fuck up her life. I haven't seen any examples of that yet, but it's bound to happen.

And as to the whole 'rapists or sexual abusers don't know it's wrong' stuff, I call bullshit on that. Unless they're literally delusional, of course they know. To get away with it you have to actually do stuff to get away with it. Look at Weinstein, he threatened his victim's careers and those of their loved ones, he ensured he'd be alone with them, he had people cover up for him, there were protections written into contracts. I mean, efforts were made to get away with it. You don't do that if you don't know it's wrong.

When I buy a coffee, I don't wait until there's no one else around, then go in and threaten the person serving me not to tell anyone I bought said coffee and bribe people to cover up said transaction, because I know it's not illegal.

And this whole Hollywood stuff, the sexual abuse and harassment that's going on, I mean this is a criminal conspiracy, if you know people are being abused and you turn a blind eye to it because the abusers pay your wages or could harm your income, then you're their accomplice. That's what that is. If I know my next door neighbour is a serial killer but I keep my mouth shut because he's friends with my boss and could get me fired or I wanna work for him some day and I don't wanna make waves, then I'm a part of it!

I mean if you're one of the victims and you're too traumatised to speak that's one thing, you can't fault anyone for that. But if you're not a victim and are looking the other way because you don't wanna have anything affect your pay cheques or are straight up being paid to go along with it (and there have been plenty of stories of assistants essentially delivering actresses to Weinstein's room. You telling me they didn't know what was happening when they left? Not one of them, given that apparently it was an open secret?) THEN YOU'RE A MONSTER TOO!

I mean all that is about MONEY pure and simple. Sexual predators with enough green to throw about to get people to help them cover it up and let it keep happening, because it suited their interests for things to go the way they were. Not everyone of course, but enough.

So that's why I'm iffy about the whole 'teach boys not to rape' mind-set people have been throwing about. As though being rapists or abusers is just something males naturally are and us needing to have the rapiness trained out of us like we were dogs. I mean forget about the derogatory nature of that, it also lets sexual abusers off the hook a little- "yeah I know Johnny molested all those people, but don't forget he is a man, and he never had the proper training to keep the rapey instincts all men have in check, so it's not all his fault, poor little mite, society's the real villain here!"

No, it's not society. It's Johnny. Unless he has some kind of mental illness that would impair him to the point he couldn't tell right from wrong or control his actions, he knew damn well what he was doing and should be punished accordingly. There's no mitigating factors based on being a member of a bad gender.

Now of course you should teach kids how they need to behave when they grow up, they certainly did in my school, although it ammounted to basic common sense. I mean whipping your dick out at women you're not in any kind of relationship with where you know they're okay with it, is not something most people are going to be unsure if it's okay or not, come on.

But yeah some people are going to have problems with intuitively understanding basic human interaction and they will need extra help to ensure they can get by. But they're not everyone, and just assuming everyone is some potential sex pest time bomb from the get-go is IMO unfair to the majority.

So as for all this. I dunno. I know there's enough here to some people to assign Mr. CK sexual predator or Schrodinger's sexual predator status. But for me, no. I'm going to have to go with what I assume everyone is until given enough of a reason or reasons not to, assume they're a normal citizen.

And if it turns out I'm wrong, so be it. But I gotta be what I think is fair till then. That's just hows I rolls dawgs. Everyone else has their own standards of what’s fair to meet and their own conscience to answer to. People's is always gonna be differents.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby Aquila89 » Sun Oct 22, 2017 9:42 am

D-LOGAN wrote:And if it's a case of just not caring as much about men, well it happens to women too. I've come across many cases of women who've been falsely accused of sexual abuse, and I imagine we're going to see more of that.


Like some of the cases in the day-care sex-abuse hysteria of the 1980s.

D-LOGAN wrote:And as to the whole 'rapists or sexual abusers don't know it's wrong' stuff, I call bullshit on that. Unless they're literally delusional, of course they know. To get away with it you have to actually do stuff to get away with it. Look at Weinstein, he threatened his victim's careers and those of their loved ones, he ensured he'd be alone with them, he had people cover up for him, there were protections written into contracts. I mean, efforts were made to get away with it. You don't do that if you don't know it's wrong.


Well, he knew that it's illegal and scorned by society. But maybe in his own twisted mind, he thought that the law is wrong, and as a powerful producer, it should be his right to molest women. But his self-justification doesn't really matter, doesn't absolve him.

D-LOGAN wrote:And this whole Hollywood stuff, the sexual abuse and harassment that's going on, I mean this is a criminal conspiracy, if you know people are being abused and you turn a blind eye to it because the abusers pay your wages or could harm your income, then you're their accomplice. That's what that is. If I know my next door neighbour is a serial killer but I keep my mouth shut because he's friends with my boss and could get me fired or I wanna work for him some day and I don't wanna make waves, then I'm a part of it!


Yeah, but how much do you need to know? What if you only heard rumors, gossip - the kind of stuff we're discussing here about Louis C.K.? Then what should you do? Go to the police based on that? And what if you know, because a victim told you, but she asked you not to tell the police because she's afraid of Weinstein? Then what? Are you a part of it now?

I mean, his assistants are part of it, of course, and his brother and the other board members of his company, they had to know. But how far the circle of guilt extends?
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby Marcuse » Mon Oct 23, 2017 6:18 pm

Interestingly, allegations about Hollywood director James Toback include the accusation that he masturbated in front of women. The difference here being that he has 40 women accusing him of this behaviour. I wonder how much of the rumours about Louis CK were relating to this case?
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby IamNotCreepy » Mon Oct 23, 2017 6:34 pm

Why is it that all these accusations involve guys masturbating in front of women? Why is that a thing?
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby DamianaRaven » Tue Oct 24, 2017 12:51 am

Because guys who do it can tell themselves they're not really sexual predators because, "hey, I never laid a hand on her!" They think of it as a loophole, a way to get their jollies at the expense of an unwilling participant without technically "assaulting" anyone.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby KleinerKiller » Thu Nov 09, 2017 9:00 pm

The first allegations that are actually direct allegations, not blind flailing and willful misquoting by a collective of sites with a long-held grudge.

Not sure what to make of the article right now, just that it warrants discussion. I would personally hope for the accusations not to be true, if only because I like CK and I want more than anything for Jezebel and AVClub and all the rest not to have their actions retroactively justified, but I'm not going to let that blind me to evidence.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby iMURDAu » Thu Nov 09, 2017 10:00 pm

Yeah I can totally see him doing exactly what he's been described as doing. That's why I'm no longer a fan. Of anyone or anything. Ever again.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby tinyrick » Thu Nov 09, 2017 10:35 pm

KleinerKiller wrote:The first allegations that are actually direct allegations, not blind flailing and willful misquoting by a collective of sites with a long-held grudge.


From the Article:

After being contacted for an interview this week about the on-the-record accusations of sexual misconduct — encounters that took place over a decade ago — Louis C.K.’s publicist, Lewis Kay, said the comedian would not respond. “Louis is not going to answer any questions,” Mr. Kay wrote in an email Tuesday night.


I don't really have anything significant to add to the conversation. It's just that I couldn't help but notice Louis C.K.'s publicist is named Lewis Kay. Really? Did you hire him cause you thought it would be funny if he answered the phone and people thought it was you answering the phone cause your names are similar?

Edit: Also, I'm surprised by who the accusers were. When I first heard of this incident about an unnamed comedian whipping his dick out to a female comedy duo, I assumed it would be Garfunkel and Oates.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby Aquila89 » Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:33 pm

On Thursday, the premiere of Louis C.K.’s new movie “I Love You, Daddy,” was abruptly canceled, and he also canceled an appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.


That's the second Late Show guest within a short period who has to cancel his appearance because of allegations of sexual misconduct (the first was Jeremy Piven).
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby BROWNRECLUSE » Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:43 pm

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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby Crimson847 » Fri Nov 10, 2017 2:34 am

Image

Seriously though, I really can't emphasize enough the difference between "this claim is unproven" and "this claim is clearly a lie", and the importance of respecting that difference.
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