METOO

'I'm Radioactive'

Journalist Jonathan Kaiman is one of the least famous, least powerful men to be brought down by the #MeToo movement. A year later, the fallout continues.

EMILY YOFFE |  OCTOBER 2019 ISSUE

Jonathan Kaiman (Brady Hall)

Until the spring of 2018, Jonathan Kaiman was the Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times. Today he is living at the home of his parents in Phoenix under conditions he describes as a form of psychological house arrest. There are no visitors, and his few remaining friends rarely call. He feels unable to make new ones, because he fears the reaction of anyone who Googles him. He's 32, unemployed, and perhaps unemployable—"I'm radioactive," as he puts it. And he's still trying to find the right combination of psychotropic medication to quell the recurrent thought that ending his life may be the best way out.

His concern about search engines is not paranoia. Because if you Google Jonathan Kaiman today, the results will likely lead you to conclude that he is at best a sexual creep, at worst, well, it's hard to tell—but something worse. He is one of the least famous, least powerful men on the lists published by The New York Times and Bloomberg of those who have lost their jobs in the wake of #MeToo. Kaiman was accused by two women, each once his friend, of behaving badly during separate casual sexual encounters, four years apart. The result of these accusations—even in the absence of any formal legal proceedings—has been a thoroughgoing destruction of his life.

Before it all fell apart, Kaiman's life was a success story. After graduation from Vassar, he received a Fulbright scholarship to study in China. He stayed on, became fluent in Mandarin, and, starting as a freelancer, worked his way up the journalism ranks. He was detained multiple times by the Chinese government for his reporting on human rights. He discovered a little-known story about an American pilot held captive in China during World War II, spent seven years researching it, and last year sold a book proposal to Random House. He was also in his first serious, long-term relationship; he and his girlfriend were planning to move back to the United States, where he would write the book. That career is over, and so is the book contract. His girlfriend, Charlotte Arneson, has stayed.

Given the millennia during which women have had to take male abuse and suffer under institutionalized denial of and indifference to it, it is perhaps understandable that there is a willingness to shrug off the prospect that some unfairly accused men will become roadkill on the way to a more equitable future. A common feminist dictum holds there are no innocent men, as per the slogans #YesAllMen and #KillAllMen. We are now in a time when a sexual encounter can be recast in a malevolent light, no matter whether the participants all appeared to consider it consensual at the time and no matter how long ago it took place. Looking back, it can be even harder—perhaps impossible— to know what really happened in a private sexual encounter.

But creating injustice today does not undo the harms of the past; instead it undermines the integrity of the necessary effort to address sexual misconduct. When we endlessly expand the categories of victim and perpetrator, we let loose forces that will not stay contained. Anyone, regardless of innocence, can be targeted and found worthy of destruction. And long after the headlines have faded, the damage continues to accrue.

'I Do Not Share the Blame'

During his now-finished nine-year journalism career, Kaiman was well-liked and well-respected enough by his colleagues to have been elected in 2017 as president of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC)—a volunteer group that defends journalists' rights and organizes social and educational events for reporters and other expats working in the country. His successor as FCCC president said that before Kaiman's first accuser came forward, there were no complaints against him or even rumors about misconduct. Nor had the Los Angeles Times received any.

The end of Kaiman's career began January 10, 2018, with a post on Medium by a longtime friend and onetime fellow expat, Laura Tucker, now a law student in the United States. In it, she described a sexual encounter with Kaiman that had taken place five years prior, in March 2013. After an evening out drinking and flirting, Tucker drove Kaiman on her scooter back to her apartment. There, she wrote, they mutually and consensually undressed and got into bed. (Tucker's account is taken from her Medium post; Kaiman's accounts of what happened to him are from interviews and various transcripts, including his Los Angeles Times human resources inquiries.)

That the same generally agreed-upon set of facts can result in wildly different interpretations about an event, especially a sexual one, is illustrated by how Tucker and Kaiman described what happened that night. Tucker wrote that while making out in bed with Kaiman, she had a change of heart, so she stood up and said she didn't want to continue. She wrote, "He lay on the bed, not moving, watching me. I remember that he sort of smiled and seemed to pout." As they talked and she repeated that she didn't want to have sex, she wrote, "he began to whine," which made her feel "like it was too late to back out."

In Kaiman's telling, he was startled by Tucker's sudden U-turn and tried verbally to re-establish their previous playful mood. While they talked, he stayed where he was; he didn't want to make any physical move toward her. He says that after a brief conversation he concluded the night was coming to an end and that he should leave, so he sat up with the intention of getting dressed.

She described what happened next: "I am still so upset that I concluded the easiest, least confrontational way forward was to place male satisfaction above my own desires and to go back to bed." The sex made her feel "gross," she wrote, and Kaiman left immediately afterward. His recollection is that she was a full participant and that he stayed the night. When he went to kiss her goodbye the next morning, he says, he was surprised that she seemed distant and upset.

After he left, she stewed about what had happened. She was angry with both herself and him, and she wrote an email to tell him so. He felt "gutted" by her reaction, immediately apologized, and suggested they get together to talk it out. They met, and she ended up feeling his apology was insufficient. He thought that since she voluntarily resumed sex, their encounter was fully mutual, that his apology was appropriate, and that when they parted their friendship was on track.

It wasn't, she wrote on Medium, adding that she distanced herself from him and tried to avoid him at social events, especially those involving alcohol. He has electronic exchanges from her in the months following their encounter in which she sends him friendly notes and initiates get-togethers, including a suggestion that they meet over drinks. Eventually, she returned to the U.S., and they fell out of touch.

Why would she go public—giving Kaiman no warning—with this story of a long-ago, private event that, while regretted, did not involve a sexual assault? Especially since in telling it she was sure to damage someone who had been a friend and who held no power over her? Tucker provided both a societal and a personal explanation. She wrote that in the wake of #MeToo, she wanted to "add my voice to the broader outcry against sexual misconduct." She also said she had come to realize that "what happened was not my fault…and I do not share the blame. This was Jon's fault."

Undermining the Feminist Enterprise

#MeToo is a necessary and important corrective to some horrifying, copiously documented, and criminal-level behavior, and also to the kind of persistent harassment that still characterizes too many workplaces. It has toppled a number of famous men, including entertainment executives Harvey Weinstein and Les Moonves and talk show host Charlie Rose, who stand accused of a variety of workplace depredations, including forcing themselves on women who worked for them (Weinstein is facing criminal charges) and threatening the careers of those who resisted or complained.

The journalists who uncovered these stories—the accused have variously denied aspects of their reporting—earned well-deserved prizes and praise. There is obviously much more to be done. Toward that end, Time's Up, an organization started by women in entertainment in the wake of the Weinstein accusations, has created a legal defense fund with a focus on helping women in low-wage industries, who have little to no job protection and rightly fear reporting systematic abuse and harassment.

But the accusations against Kaiman, and what happened to him as a result, should be a warning about the dangers of moral panics and of applying mob justice and the bazooka of social media to private relations. The entire feminist enterprise is undermined if society comes to the conclusion that women bear no responsibility for their choices in the sexual realm. I agree with points made in an interview with The New Yorker by Northwestern University professor Laura Kipnis, a left-leaning feminist and author of Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus (Harper). She is a supporter of #MeToo, but she also expresses concerns about the potential undermining of hard-won progress.

"We've got to retain this idea that feminists have fought for over a century, for women to be treated as adults in the erotic realm and as sexual agents," Kipnis said. "And that is going to include making mistakes, and the right to make mistakes." Citing second-wave feminists, she praised the women who "really tried to be honest about heterosexuality as a relationship, not just something that was done to women, but something that women who are heterosexual participate in."

Now, just under two years since #MeToo broke, cases like Kaiman's are leaving the public—women and men, Democrats and Republicans—uneasy. I wrote in The Atlantic in March about the unfair treatment of former Democratic Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, who faced multiple accusations of misconduct: "A Morning Consult poll from last October found that 57 percent of adults are as 'equally concerned for young men facing possible false allegations as they are for young women facing sexual assault.' And a poll last year from the anti-polarization group More in Common found that 51 percent of Americans 'believe that too many ordinary behaviors are labeled as sexual harassment.'"

'A Messy, Drunken Hookup'

After publishing on Medium, Laura Tucker that same day tweeted her post, tagging Kaiman and adding the #MeToo hashtag. She appears to have joined Twitter for the sole purpose of disseminating the Medium account: As of August 2019, two posts about Kaiman are her only tweets. (Tucker  did not respond to requests for comment.)

The accusation created a small storm in Twitter terms but one that had a colossal effect on Kaiman's life. He took to Twitter himself and issued an abject apology: "@laura_tucker, I am so, so deeply sorry—I did not in any way mean to pressure you into an unwanted or uncomfortable sexual encounter, and I thought we had talked through the issue as peers and friends." This didn't stop people, some he thought of as friends, from publicly denouncing him.

That day, Kaiman saw that he had a message from an old friend, Felicia Sonmez, and assumed she was contacting him to offer advice. She wasn't. She was writing to him about a sexual encounter they'd had the previous September that unfolded after a long, alcohol-filled day and night of partying. She wrote in part that "it has taken me a while to fully process what happened that night….I remember thinking your behavior was aggressive at the time; it's taken me a while to realize that actually, that kind of forcefulness totally crosses the line into inappropriate behavior."

Kaiman immediately called Sonmez, a journalist who was living in China for language study and who now works for The Washington Post. Though he offered her an apology, he was shocked by her assertion. He says what happened was "a messy, drunken hookup," one that they each pushed forward at various points. After that night, they had discussed the encounter; he thought they had thoroughly excavated an event that both agreed was a mistake, especially because Kaiman was in a relationship with Arneson at the time. But now Sonmez was telling him that Tucker's blog post had galvanized her to reconsider it. They talked for about 20 minutes, with Sonmez telling Kaiman she was uncertain what she was going to do next.

A regularly scheduled meeting of the board of the FCCC was set for the following day, and a discussion of the Tucker allegation was added to the agenda. It wasn't clear what the response should be, since Tucker had described a private encounter unrelated to the club. At the meeting, a correspondent asked Kaiman if he knew of other accusations against him. He said he didn't. He said that, he explains, because he didn't know if Sonmez intended to come forward, he didn't know how she would characterize what happened, and he considered the encounter to be consensual.

But Sonmez had deputized a friend on the board to tell the board that he knew of another accusation against Kaiman, without revealing that Sonmez was the accuser or giving any specifics. So when Kaiman demurred, the board member called Kaiman a liar, then told the rest of the board that he knew of a second accuser but that he could say no more.

That vague, anonymous assertion was enough for the board of this group of journalists to conclude that Kaiman could no longer be president. They allowed him to resign, and he released a letter acknowledging there was "an allegation of sexual misconduct" against him, the shadow of which meant he would not "be able to effectively run" the organization. The board issued a statement thanking Kaiman for "his hard work, enthusiasm and many contributions to the club."

All this infuriated Sonmez, as she later explained publicly. She believed there was a missing s in his letter of resignation—Kaiman should have cited the allegations, not the allegation, against him. She also felt the board should have made a statement explaining that Kaiman was forced out because of concerns about his sexual behavior.

After the meeting, Kaiman reached out to Sonmez and they got back on the phone. It was, he says, an agonizing conversation that went on for 90 minutes. During it, he says, he felt himself psychologically unraveling: "It was like my brain was on fire." He knew Sonmez had the power to decide his entire future. He was trying to apologize while also defending himself. He was sincerely sorry she thought he had crossed a line; given what he saw as the mutuality of their interactions, though, he didn't think he had.

In her text to Kaiman, Sonmez conceded her memory of parts of their encounter remained hazy, and he says she repeated that in their conversation. He told her that his was too—even though it was quite sharp—because as they spoke, he says it was becoming clear to him that she was trying to get him to build a case against himself. He thought it was possible she was recording him. At points, she took an inquisitorial tone and began grilling him about his past, seeking confessions of other violations.

Kaiman says he has never forced himself on anyone and is sickened at the idea of it. But in the wake of #MeToo, he understood that one of the lessons was for men to examine their sexual behavior and consider that women may have differing perspectives. Trying to be accountable, then, he told Sonmez about a trip he took with a female friend when he was in his early 20s that ended awkwardly. They had shared a hotel room, and in the morning they had started having sex. She then changed her mind, and he'd immediately stopped. Not long after, the woman moved away and they lost touch.

His conversation with Sonmez ended inconclusively, with Kaiman still unsure of what she planned to do. But a few days later, Sonmez sent Kaiman a friendly text asking what he was up to. He responded that he had just arrived in New York on a planned trip, and she replied, "Gotcha." After that, he heard nothing more for months. He continued with his work. It seemed possible everything might be OK.

'Everything I'd Worked for Is Over'

On May 15, 2018, Kaiman, then back in Beijing, learned a "gotcha" of epic proportion was coming his way when he got a call from his successor as president of the FCCC, John Sudworth, a BBC correspondent. Sudworth had bad news: Sonmez had written a lengthy letter accusing Kaiman of sexually violating her. She had asked that this letter be publicly circulated to the several hundred members of the FCCC. Sudworth told Kaiman a summary of it, and Kaiman said the account wasn't true. Sudworth replied that the letter was about to go live and recommended that Kaiman get a lawyer and a psychiatrist.

Kaiman says he walked outside, lay down on the sidewalk, and wept. He knew that "everything I'd worked for is over," he says. He thought of the many forced confessions he had seen on Chinese television, in which an accused person is paraded before the cameras to express remorse for betraying the state. Foreign correspondents were often the only people in the country who could openly criticize such coerced contrition, he says. But his fellow journalists were now "forcing a similar act on me," and none of them "demanded evidence or an even-handed response."

The letter had a threefold purpose: to accuse Kaiman; to support Tucker; and to condemn the FCCC for what Sonmez saw as its institutional failure to publicly identify Kaiman as a sexual violator.

Sonmez's account is in places elliptical and inflammatory. Kaiman says she leaves out important details and that his memory of crucial points differs substantively from hers. She described a very late-night sexual encounter in mid-September 2017, which happened after a daylong FCCC party that ended with people gathering at a karaoke bar. Sonmez wrote that portions of the evening were consensual, including kissing at the bar—Kaiman says she initiated the kiss—after which she offered Kaiman a ride home on her scooter, just as Tucker had driven him on hers.

Sonmez, who is about four years older than Kaiman, wrote that they both got off the scooter when she had to stop to get past a barrier, at which point "Jon lifted up my dress and began digitally penetrating me without my consent." She said she had to forcefully push him away, at which point he "began unbuckling his belt and pulling down his shorts. We were on a public street, it was dark and no one was around. Jon is much bigger than me, and it took me repeatedly telling him no and pushing him away for him to finally stop." She continued: "It gives me chills to think of that moment and imagine what he would have done if I hadn't been able to get him to stop."

Kaiman says that when Sonmez stopped her scooter, they began kissing. He reached under her dress and she started unbuttoning his pants. Then Sonmez expressed discomfort at engaging in sexual acts in public, so Kaiman stopped immediately and offered to walk the rest of the short way home.

Kaiman says Sonmez insisted on driving him. She doesn't explain why she let him back on her scooter, but she acknowledges she drove him to his apartment. He says when they got there and got off the scooter, they kissed while standing outside the building and again fondled each other's genitals. But he was feeling guilty about cheating on his girlfriend and said that what they were doing was not a good idea.

Her version is that he resumed his assault: "Before I knew it, Jon had backed me against a wall around the corner from his front door. We were kissing, and then he again began unbuckling his belt and taking off his shorts. Again I told him no, I didn't want to do that."

Sonmez, Kaiman says, wanted to walk him to his apartment, six floors up. She had been to his place previously, so she knew how far it was. He says that because of the hour—it was about 2 a.m.—and the alcohol, he was making poor decisions, and he agreed.

Sonmez wrote that "many parts of the night remain hazy in my memory." In reconstructing her thought process, she said, "I don't remember what was going through my head as I went upstairs, whether I wanted to take a nap or get some water or maybe make out." In other words, despite what she described as a chilling escape from Kaiman only minutes earlier, she put him on the back of her scooter and took him to his door, where she claims she was sexually violated again. Then, under her own power, she hiked the many stairs to his apartment with the idea of possibly resuming consensual sexual contact.

Sonmez wrote that she "ended up naked on the couch in Jon's room with Jon on top of me. He briefly performed oral sex on me and then he had unprotected sex with me. I remember that he was already inside me before I had the wherewithal to ask him whether he had a condom; he said no. He continued for what I imagine was a few more minutes. I put on my clothes and unsteadily drove off home soon after."

Kaiman says his memory of the evening is clearer, and his account diverges from hers. When they got to his apartment, he says, they undressed and he performed oral sex on her. She asked if he had a condom, he got one, and they used it. Afterward, he says, she performed oral sex on him. (He adds that in his 90-minute phone call with Sonmez, while they did not discuss the use of the condom, both agreed about the rest of this sequence of events.)

The most incendiary allegation in Sonmez's account deployed her doubt about what happened that night in a way that inflicted maximum damage. "I am devastated by the fact that I was not more sober," her letter stated, "so that I could say with absolute certainty whether what happened that night was rape." That line was quoted in stories about Kaiman's suspension in the Los Angeles Times and by the Associated Press, whose story was picked up internationally, linking him forever, he says, to the word rape.

Kaiman says that when he and Sonmez finished their encounter, he felt awful that he had cheated on Arneson, who was out of town, and suggested Sonmez leave. She did, and he did not text her to make sure she had arrived home or get in touch the next day. She contacted him shortly afterward to discuss what had happened. He says she rebuked him for failing to check in with her, and in her letter she wrote that she also told him at the time that "it is never okay to try to have sex in a public place with anyone who is as drunk as I was." He offered his apologies.

She too apologized, he says, for driving while under the influence and for possibly impairing Kaiman's relationship with his girlfriend. According to Kaiman, they agreed what happened was embarrassing and they would both keep it quiet. Afterward, Kaiman made little effort to maintain the friendship.

Kaiman was right that, during their lengthy phone call following his resignation from the FCCC, Sonmez was building a case against him. Of his skeletal account of the brief, long-ago hotel room sexual encounter, she wrote in her letter that "it sounded very much to me like the incident could have been even more serious than what Laura and I experienced." Sonmez also wrote that during this conversation Kaiman admitted he had behaved in a "brutish" fashion with her. He has no memory of saying that, nor does he believe he did behave in such a fashion, but he says it's possible that he may have said so at her urging.

The FCCC posted Sonmez's letter on Twitter, and another social media storm engulfed Kaiman. The Los Angeles Times suspended him and opened an investigation.

Remaking Society

One of the key domestic goals of the Obama administration was the elimination of campus sexual assault. With the urging of administration officials, especially Vice President Joe Biden, "affirmative consent" became a standard rule for all sexual interactions on college campuses. This is the requirement that each touch, each time, even between established partners, be preceded by explicit—preferably verbal, more preferably enthusiastic—consent.

Biden, who was the administration's point man on Title IX—the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education— has explained in many speeches and interviews that the focus on campuses was because students were a captive population through which to change the culture's attitudes about sex. The idea was that students would welcome these rules and take them with them after graduation, remaking society. The speed and success with which this is happening has been stunning.

In a December 2017 article, New York Times gender editor Jessica Bennett described how issues of female consent play out in the world, writing, "Sometimes 'yes' means 'no,' simply because it is easier to go through with it than explain our way out of the situation. Sometimes 'no' means 'yes,' because you actually do want to do it, but you know you're not supposed to lest you be labeled a slut. What about when 'yes' isn't really an enthusiastic affirmative—or an affirmative at all? What about a woman who doesn't feel that she can speak up because of cultural expectations? Should that woman be considered unable to consent?"

Bennett, with all the power that accrues from a position that helps set the agenda for what's considered appropriate sexual behavior, raises the possibility that women are inherently incapable of giving consent. Bennett is certainly right that sex can be ambiguous and confusing. But requiring that men intuit that a "yes" actually means "no," because women lack the wherewithal to know their own minds or to express themselves, revives the pernicious belief that women are perpetually childlike.

Sonmez wrote that in the immediate aftermath of her encounter with Kaiman, she "partly blamed" herself for it. But as with Tucker's realization that only Kaiman was responsible for what had happened between them, upon further reflection, Sonmez concluded that she bore no fault and that it was Kaiman alone who was in the wrong.

How a Mob Forms

Moral panics are as intrinsic to human society as they are dangerous—the modern American list includes McCarthyism in the 1950s, along with with the "Satantic abuse" day care scares and "recovered memory" accusations of the '80s and '90s.

Kaiman's own grandfather, a successful animator and puppeteer named Lou Bunin, was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. His three daughters were instructed not to open the door to the FBI agents who occasionally came knocking. Eventually, Bunin's wife changed her name and, acting as his agent, was able to get him enough work to eke out a living. Bunin actually was a Communist sympathizer, Kaiman acknowledged to me. But though his life was damaged, it was not destroyed. More than 60 years later, on the basis of equivocal and heavily disputed accusations, Kaiman's life is in tatters.

In their book, The Coddling of the American Mind (Penguin Press), Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt write that moral panics are situations "in which a community becomes obsessed with religious or ideological purity and believes it needs to find and punish enemies within its own ranks in order to hold itself together" (my emphasis). Such search and destroy missions can be ecstatic experiences. Quoting a founder of sociology, Emil Durkheim, they write that groups can provide a "collective effervescence" when individuals come together and achieve a feeling of oneness.

Lukianoff and Haidt use the Chinese Cultural Revolution as a central example. It began in the 1960s, with college students rising up to expel "enemies" of the revolution. Universities were shut down, and "many professors, intellectuals, and campus administrators were imprisoned or murdered." Lukianoff and Haidt write that one of the "cruel features of the Cultural Revolution were the 'struggle sessions,' in which those accused of ideological impurity were surrounded by their accusers, taunted, humiliated…as they confessed to their crimes, offered abject apologies, and vowed to do better."

The meeting of the FCCC to discuss what to do about Kaiman in the wake of Sonmez's letter, which took place in the home country of the Cultural Revolution, became a demonstration of the "collective effervescence" of a group purge. As Berkeley psychology professor Alison Gopnik has written, becoming part of a group can provide an "enthralling thrill." The minutes of the meeting show how a mob forms in real time.

One of the oldest clichés of journalism goes, "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out." But this gathering of professional reporters seemed unconcerned with checking things out. Sudworth said that in circulating Sonmez's allegations, there was no intention to "litigate their veracity." What an extraordinary statement from the head of an organization of journalists. Hearing both sides and gathering evidence—the process of "litigating veracity"—are generally considered reporting essentials. Kaiman was given a bare minimum of advance notice and no opportunity to respond. The FCCC purposefully released an unrefuted allegation, and virtually everyone who spoke at the FCCC meeting accepted it as fact. (Sudworth and the FCCC did not respond to requests for comment.)

Journalists are also trained to analyze and question accounts. But no one at the meeting raised any concerns about Sonmez's own account of her actions—for example, her decision to go to Kaiman's apartment with the idea of possibly making out with someone who had, only minutes before, she claimed, perpetrated a sudden sexual violation that still "chills" her.

Instead, the minutes show people jostling to denounce Kaiman. One correspondent "asked whether members had a responsibility to do something about a predator running around." Another correspondent said she or he had earlier worked on preventing sexual assault on campus and believed that when dealing with such allegations, "a reasonable argument [is] to be made for suspending regular jurisprudence." A female reporter announced she wanted to be included as one of Kaiman's victims. She explained that she'd had a sexual encounter with Kaiman several years earlier: "At the time, she did not see the encounter as an assault, but [she] had reconsidered after reading Sonmez's account" and now claimed she'd had too much to drink to give "proper consent."

Kaiman knows who this accuser is, and he says they had sex on two separate occasions. He says both occasions were consensual. They eventually had a disagreement over politics, and the friendship cooled. (The accuser declined to comment for this story.)

Although the FCCC members were not interested in evaluating the claims made by Sonmez, they were encouraged to report any "evidence" they had against Kaiman to the H.R. investigator at the Los Angeles Times.

'How May I Live Without My Name?'

What happened to Kaiman cannot be dismissed as a singular case of #MeToo excess. A growing number of men have seen their lives damaged after unfair, even questionable allegations—with some accusers expressing the goal of pushing the boundaries of #MeToo. For example, Mic writer Jack Smith IV was the subject of a lengthy investigation published last September in Jezebel, which exhaustively documented that Smith had been a lousy boyfriend to several women. One woman, who had an intermittent but long-running sexual relationship with him, said he insisted that she wear a specific kind of eye makeup before they had sex. (Smith denied this and other allegations.) Katie Herzog of The Stranger noted that this woman later tweeted that such behavior by Smith constituted "rape."

Smith, 29, was not famous, but he was carving out a beat covering extremist movements on the right. Before the Jezebel article was published, Mic editors heard that there were allegations of improper behavior by Smith. He was suspended, but he returned to the job after an internal review found no inappropriate conduct by him at Mic. Smith did not work with any of the women quoted in the story. Jezebel's explicit goal in exposing his alleged transgressions was to have #MeToo take aim at what it called "common and harder-to-define experiences" that "women and other marginalized genders" are subjected to. Smith was fired immediately after the story appeared. He is no longer working in journalism.

The case of Harris Fogel, 60, who was until last March a professor of photography at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, takes #MeToo full circle—back to the college campus.

Philadelphia magazine reports that in March 2016, Harris was in Las Vegas at the annual meeting of the Society for Photographic Education. There he greeted an old friend, a female professor of photography who worked at a different institution, with a kiss on the cheek. Later that month, Fogel was at a photography conference in Houston where he participated in evaluating the portfolios of aspiring photographers. After reviewing one female photographer's work, he offered to let her send him more, reached into his pocket for his business card, and accidentally pulled out his room key card. He recalled saying, "Here is my business card—oops, my room key," put the key card away, and handed the photographer his business card.

#MeToo broke in October 2017 with the first New York Times story about Harvey Weinstein. In December, Fogel was told that two harassment accusations had been filed against him within a day of each other—one from the professor in Las Vegas and one from the aspiring photographer. He was investigated by his university's Title IX office and fired for "serious violations" of the school's harassment policy. He is now suing. His suit asserts that the complainants knew each other and coordinated their filings, that he was not allowed to offer a defense during his hearing, and that a dean who disliked him used the harassment claim to get rid of him.

Canadian political scientist Eve Seguin, who has written about mobbing in academia, calls such career destruction "social murder." And since humans are social creatures, social murder sometimes leads to actual death. There have in fact been several #MeToo suicides, and they've gotten little attention in the United States.

The movement's reach swiftly became international. In December 2017, Benny Fredriksson, then 58 and the head of a major Stockholm cultural center, became the subject of an investigation by a Swedish newspaper, which alleged that he harassed and mistreated women. He was specifically accused of trying to force a pregnant actress to get an abortion, and the Irish Times reports that a second newspaper called him a "little Hitler." Fredriksson swiftly resigned, but the accusations continued on social media.

In March of last year, while accompanying his wife, the famed opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter, on a performing trip to Australia, Fredriksson took his own life. The backlash in Sweden against #MeToo was fierce. It turned out he had not tried to force an actress to get an abortion; it was later reported that he had expressed regret to an actress that she couldn't appear in a stage production because she would have been eight months pregnant at the premiere. The Irish Times reports that "an official investigation dismissed the claims against him as unfounded" and that the Swedish newspaper was fined for printing unsubstantiated allegations. In an interview four months after her husband's death, von Otter said he had resigned, even though the characterization of him was untrue, because he felt unable to defend himself. He fell into a deep depression as friends and colleagues abandoned him—out of fear, she said, that if they publicly defended him, they would be attacked themselves. She said she hopes a lesson of Fredriksson's death is that "we're not in the Middle Ages, we don't pillory people, spit at them or stone them."

Kaiman himself has grappled over the last year with acute suicidal thoughts. Without the constant support of his mother and his girlfriend, he says, he's not sure he would be alive. Arneson gave him a mantra that he says has proved helpful: You can always kill yourself tomorrow; just don't do it today.

Kaiman and Arneson, 29, have been together since 2016. Her mother immigrated to the U.S. from Thailand, and her father is of Norwegian-German heritage. A year after graduating from Carleton College, she moved to Beijing, where she worked for an education consulting company. She and Kaiman met there, and she was attracted to his sense of adventure, his passion for his work, and his kindness to friends and younger journalists.

Arneson says that, except for the single encounter with Sonmez, for which he was abjectly remorseful and for which she forgave him, Kaiman has been a devoted boyfriend. Given what's happened, she acknowledges that "there is no logical reason to stay." Then she adds: "Except that I love him and I believe in him. If I left Jon, I don't think I would be able to live with myself, knowing I gave up on him." They have tabled any discussion about marriage and children, since Kaiman doesn't know if he will be able to help support a family.

The pair now alternates between living at his parents' home in Arizona and her parents' home in Minnesota. She recounted to me the low moment of telling her parents that her boyfriend was accused in a sex scandal. Her father read the news coverage and asked her if the accusations were true. She told him they weren't. Her father said that if she believed in Jon, then he did, too.

Kaiman and Arneson agree he is not the same person he was when they met. He told me his suicidal thoughts do not seem irrational to him. "I felt my identity had been annihilated," he says. "Once your identity has been annihilated, who are you? The self that I was had been murdered, and I was never going to get that back." He recently reread The Crucible, Arthur Miller's play about the Salem witch trials (which also served as a commentary on McCarthyism), and quotes the character John Proctor, who was accused of witchcraft but spurned an offer to save his life by publicly confessing. Before his execution, Proctor explains his refusal: "Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life!…How may I live without my name?"

Arneson recalls folk tales about individuals encountering their doppelgängers. In these stories, the two can't exist simultaneously, so one version must dispatch the other. She says Kaiman's doppelgänger is the version of him found on the internet. This rendering of Kaiman is not who he really is, she explains. But the online world exists in perpetuity.

They both want to believe there will be something better, and Arneson sometimes sees flashes of the Kaiman she first knew. But she says, "You would hope in a civilized society it wouldn't be so easy for someone to lose so much so quickly."

Trial by Twitter

How do you defend yourself in a trial by Twitter? Kaiman discovered you can't. After Sonmez made her accusation and he was suspended by the Los Angeles Times, he was constrained in his ability to publicly defend himself. Because of the workplace investigation, the Newspaper Guild advised against saying too much. And trying to explain his side of the convoluted sexual encounter with Sonmez on Twitter was impossible.

Kaiman eventually put out a brief statement that read, in part, "My experience that night with Felicia differs fundamentally from her account. I am saddened and, quite frankly, horrified that a group of professional journalists would unquestioningly take her version of events as absolute truth before hearing (or, in most cases, even asking for) my side of the story. I am genuinely sorry that I've caused Laura and Felicia pain—I had considered them very close friends, and would never intend to hurt them." He wrote that the allegations "have irrevocably destroyed my reputation…and any hope for a rewarding career in the future" and added that he wouldn't wish such an experience on anybody. Afterward, he heard privately from some people offering support, including colleagues at the Los Angeles Times, but few wanted to openly be associated with him.

Prior to Tucker's account, Kaiman's career at the paper had essentially been unblemished. His last employee evaluation read, in part: "Jon has had a year full of rich, well-reported stories that provided a smart and lively look into Asia for Times readers. Jon was able to pivot adroitly between breaking news—providing quick, well-crafted stories within minutes after a big news development—and more deeply reported, expansively written features." After the first accusation by Tucker broke, Kaiman immediately reported it to his editor, and high-level discussions were held at the paper about how to respond.

Kaiman was asked if he'd ever sexually harassed anyone associated with the Times or been involved sexually with anyone there. He was also asked if he'd ever raped anyone. His answer was no, and Times executives ended up taking no action against him. I was told by editors who do not wish to be quoted that leadership concluded Tucker had described an encounter that had nothing to do with the Times, and while she regretted it, by her own account it was not a sexual assault. But the Sonmez accusation changed everything.

Even though it is disputed by Kaiman, that charge established in the minds of many that what happened between Kaiman and Tucker was not just a single regretted event but part of a pattern. And pattern is an explosive concept in the world of #MeToo. Indeed, in the most notorious #MeToo cases—from Weinstein to convicted felons Bill Cosby and Larry Nassar—there are well-documented decades of repetitive, even ritualized violations. The World Health Organization recently included in its International Classification of Diseases the diagnosis of "compulsive sexual behavior disorder," described as "a persistent pattern of failure to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses."

In her letter, Sonmez wrote that her accusation against Kaiman proved that "his problematic behavior appeared to be part of a wider pattern." Her claim was widely accepted, even though prior to Tucker's blog post there had been no accusations against him, and even though the "pattern" of "problematic behavior" consisted of two separate hookups more than four years apart between Kaiman and a longtime female friend.

People, of course, are entitled to tell their own stories. In telling theirs, Tucker and Sonmez each expressed their concerns about the effect on their own lives of coming forward: Tucker said that it was "embarrassing and frightening" to write about what happened, while Sonmez wrote that she "struggled with whether to go public," in part because she was job hunting and worried she might "scare away" potential employers. But the professional lives of both women appear to be thriving. Tucker is in the class of 2020 at the University of Texas School of Law, and shortly after Sonmez released her letter about Kaiman, she was hired by The Washington Post. Sonmez declined to comment for this story. Instead she directed Reason to a quote she gave in an article in the South China Morning Post in which Kaiman explained his side of what happened. She said, "It saddens me to see that Mr Kaiman still does not realise the impact of his actions or take responsibility for them. His statements do not exhibit an understanding of the meaning of consent."

Meanwhile, we are now in a time when the uncertain circumstances surrounding one regretted sexual encounter and another hazily remembered (and fiercely disputed) intimate encounter are sufficient to destroy the accused's life.

Fairness, Not Frenzy

Kaiman was subjected to three H.R. interviews at the Los Angeles Times. At one, the female investigator had a sticker on her computer that read, "The future is female." The last interview, in July 2018, revolved around Kaiman being asked to rebut the mostly anonymous accusations that came in from the FCCC members who had been encouraged to provide evidence against him.

He was told, for example, that there were reports that, at the karaoke club the evening he and Sonmez got together, he was rebuked for touching the breasts and buttocks of women he was singing with. He said this accusation is "false and preposterous," that he'd never done such a thing and therefore never was rebuked for it. He was also asked whether, in his early 20s, he had read the book The Game, an exploration of "pick-up artists," or men who believe certain seduction techniques will lead to successful sexual conquests. He had—it had been a major best-seller—but as he explained to the investigator, that didn't mean he himself was a pick-up artist.

The questioning made clear to him that his private sexual behavior as a young, single man was on trial—behavior unrelated to the workplace. He told the H.R. person that during college and in the years shortly after, he had felt shy and inept around women. Gradually, he said, he gained more confidence, and over the years, in the hothouse of the hard-drinking and hard-partying expat culture in Beijing, he'd had a number of sexual partners.

The interviewer then asked him an existential question: "Why do you think multiple women have come forward with these accusations?"

That kind of query has been posed to many a man facing Title IX proceedings. A federally funded organization, the National Center for Campus Public Safety, provides training materials for people running Title IX investigations. It encourages investigators to accept the account of an accuser as accurate, even when it is partial or fragmentary, and even when the accuser has told shifting versions of what happened. It also recommends that the accused be asked to account for discrepancies between his version of what happened and the accuser's. Investigators are prompted to have the accused evaluate the emotional state of the accuser and, if the accused denies the allegation, to ask why the accuser "would fabricate this."

Kaiman declined to try to explain the thinking of his accusers. But an article by political scientist Eve Seguin describes how workplace mobs tend to operate. She writes that when a mob makes someone a target, what happens follows the pattern of a show trial, with the conviction coming first, followed by the collection of so-called evidence. Seguin asserts that the evidentiary process is fatally tainted by the twisting of everything the targeted person has said, written, or done as proof that the target is irredeemable.

While Kaiman was waiting for the Los Angeles Times to complete its investigation, the paper was going through its own turmoil regarding sexual harassment. Several high-level executives of then-owner Tronc were accused of harassment in the workplace just as the sale to the current owner, billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, was underway. This made a young Beijing correspondent who had received international notoriety even more of a liability. On August 9, 2018, Kaiman received an email from the Times telling him his "treatment of women brought undue negative publicity on your news organization" and demanding he resign or be fired. He resigned. (A spokesperson for the Times declined to comment on Kaiman's case.)

Kaiman's publisher, Random House, exercised a morals clause in his contract and canceled the book he had sold for a six-figure advance. He and Arneson moved back to the United States, jobless and homeless. Slowly, the two have considered how they might move forward. They decided to both apply to law school, with the idea that Kaiman would start a second career, one defending the accused. But he doesn't know if any schools will accept someone who has appeared on a list about #MeToo.

When an accusation is lodged, we must respond with fairness, not frenzy. We need to better understand the psychology of mobs and how people come to join them. We need to grapple with how technology is implicated in all of this, because as Fredriksson's widow put it, this isn't the Middle Ages—today, the destruction of someone's reputation and career can be immediate, global, and permanent. We need to recognize that a misunderstanding, even one about sex, is not a sufficient cause to result in the obliteration of someone's psyche and desire to live.

1. Harvard

August.23.2019 at 7:11 am

Moral to story: Just Say No. Or, better yet, pay a hooker.

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 9:31 am

Particularly if you are in any media or other job in the public eye like that. I think most people still behave like normal, sane people when it comes to sex.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 9:36 am

I’ve actually met a few that push back pretty hard on this idea that women have no control in the bedroom. Who woulda thought not all women would like their agency taken away?

That being said, better safe then sorry. Say “no” to one night stands for a multitude of reasons.

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 9:46 am

The whole idea that women are powerless when it comes to sex is ridiculous. Unless the man is willing to force himself on someone, which is more common than one would like but still pretty rare, women have pretty much all the power when it comes to sex. If women want to be empowered they need to figure that out. Or at least realize that most people of both sexes are awkward and insecure when it comes to sex and have a hard time saying what they really want.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 9:54 am

. Or at least realize that most people of both sexes are awkward and insecure when it comes to sex

This is another item on a long list of contradictions on the progressive side of the spectrum. They seem to push that women and men are all alike, but when it comes to sex, they seem to push that men are wildly different from women, so much that they simply act like beasts.

Personally, I agree that most men and women are very awkward about sex and are simply trying to approximate what each other want, sometimes to disastrous results. Then, you have a small group of serial predators, mostly men, that are seriously going out there with the goal of sexually assaulting people for their own gratification.

Those taking advantage of the confusion are simply depraved opportunists.

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- SoCal Soccar Mom

August.24.2019 at 10:58 am

“depraved opportunists”

That’s the feeling I got regarding Somnez. You don’t walk up 6 flights of stairs to have sex with a guy you’re not into. While reading this, I kept thinking she accused him for shits and giggles, or it’s a depraved form of social signaling.

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- cmcclung

August.23.2019 at 7:28 pm

Have a signed contract written by a New York lawyer with her signature agreeing to consensual sex.

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- Entelechy

August.23.2019 at 7:52 pm

Nature having doxxed the official Climate Wars Enemies LIst, the #MECO2 movement can’t bre far behind.

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- feyr1965

August.23.2019 at 2:29 pm

Exactly what I was thinking, as well as what is stated in the story, NYT editor’s statement, “..revives the pernicious belief that women are perpetually childlike.”

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- vojop

August.23.2019 at 4:54 pm

I am making 10,000 Dollar at home own laptop .Just do work online 4 to 6 hour proparly . so i make my family happy and u can do

…….. Read More

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- Truthteller1

August.23.2019 at 4:11 pm

Wow, that’s your takeaway. That is some deep thought.

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- gb1234

August.24.2019 at 8:55 am

This kind of problem doesn’t happen much between two married people. It’s really a consequence of so-called casual sex.

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17. wreckinball

August.23.2019 at 7:29 am

Find someone that will give you a second chance.

They are out there. See Mike Pressler former Duke lacrosse coach and now a very successful coach at Bryant

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- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 11:55 am

To do that he might have to change sides.

As the old saying goes… “Libertarianism happens”

No chance he gets a job as a progressive – which leaves out most newsrooms and mainstream websites. But weirdo backwater alt-right places like the Cato institute and Reason?

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- Truthteller1

August.23.2019 at 4:15 pm

These women seen sociopathic.

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- cmcclung

August.23.2019 at 7:30 pm

They are absolutely EVIL and their names should be posted everywhere to do not touch with a ten foot pole.

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22. Illocust

August.23.2019 at 7:36 am

I hope articles like this are signs that the tides are changing against these kind of witch hunts, but the power it gives people make me doubt there will be serious real pushback any time soon. I think we’re going to have another decade of this before it finally ends.

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- Vernon Depner

August.23.2019 at 10:01 am

One thing that will help it end is that MeToo is starting to make women’s lives and careers more difficult, as cautious men refuse to be alone with a woman in business settings or to socialize one-on-one with a woman they don’t know well. Women have more to lose than men from the re-imposition of Victorian rules of propriety.

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- Norm A Tive

August.23.2019 at 10:28 am

#metoo: making it rational for the Billy Graham Rule to be the Everyman Rule.

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- Vernon Depner

August.23.2019 at 10:40 am

If you’re not already practicing the Billy Graham Rule in the workplace, you’re being reckless.

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- NashTiger

August.23.2019 at 12:08 pm

#MikePence

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- Illocust

August.23.2019 at 10:55 am

Nah, that won’t help. My workplace has already put out a video essentially saying if you refuse to be alone with a woman, even one linked to one of these scandals. You aren’t going to be in a job much longer.

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- Vernon Depner

August.23.2019 at 11:04 am

That’s a workplace you need to get out of anyway.

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- Illocust

August.23.2019 at 11:53 am

I’m female. I’m not in any danger, but I did throw ice water of reality on the rara cheerleaders for this during the meeting it was presented. Hard to justify your bullshit on the fly when a crippled female engineer calls you out. I win the oppression olympics matches against pretty much anyone you’re likely to meet in real life.

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- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 12:02 pm

You’d think….

I recall a training at Emory University back in the early 90’s. They herded us all in to a presentation by a Fed from the EEOC. She did a whole training thing – ending in presenting scenarios for us to evaluate.

The last one was “A handful of employees are talking at the watercooler about a party that weekend. John asks Maria if she wants to go. She gives an equivocal no. He says “everybody is going to be there… it will be fun! You sure you don’t want to come? She says no. He says OK, then we’ll see you next week.”

The answer? This is sexual harassment. Because she said no and he asked a second time.

So some 60+ year old lady at my table pipes up and tells her that is patently ridiculous. She includes the laugh line “if every guy who ever asked me took no for an answer and never asked again, I’d never have gotten married!”

Yeah, didn’t matter. It has only gotten worse since then. I thought we had reached peak stupid with “enthusiastic consent” back in the 80’s. But I was wrong. This just keeps going and going and going.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 6:55 pm

Always observe whatever stupid thing is going on in the culture, then imagine it ten times worse. That’s how to predict the future.

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- Vernon Depner

August.23.2019 at 11:09 am

Just had a thought—tell them being alone with a woman violates your Muslim beliefs, and threaten to report them to your state civil rights commission.

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- D-Pizzle

August.23.2019 at 3:16 pm

Kill ’em with intersectionality.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 6:56 pm

It’s been said here by someone (heck, might have been you) that if you want your political movement to get traction, make damned sure you make the spokesperson a Muslim woman with a Hijab.

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- Eddy

August.23.2019 at 11:19 pm

That might give people ideas…

“My fellow Americans, I have decided to change my sex and my religion. From now on, I want you to call me Dawn al-Trump.”

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- Eddy

August.23.2019 at 11:31 pm

“I’ve told Melania she needs to transition to male, otherwise I’d be some kind of queer.”

(NOTE TO MY READERS: Again, I sincerely apologize for that truly tasteless joke and I ask for your forgiveness)

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- Eddy

August.23.2019 at 10:59 pm

Let’s not drag up the corpses of the poor Victorians. In an age when Queen Victoria herself is being rehabilitated (at least in TV drama), there’s no need to have this kneejerk bashing of a whole era.

Sure, the great pioneering women like Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and Clara Barton had to deal with plenty of obstacles, but that’s the lot of pioneers in general. I’m told that even men often confronted obstacles back in those days, in their own male way.

And if a woman killed her abuser, juries might be sympathetic, and willing to act on that sympathy.

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42. Jerryskids

August.23.2019 at 8:05 am

She also said she had come to realize that “what happened was not my fault…and I do not share the blame. This was Jon’s fault.”

And there you go. Rapists deserve to have their lives destroyed, if I don’t destroy this guy’s life I might have to face the fact that he didn’t actually rape me. I regret my choices so much so that I have to deny that it was my choice at all. I am a perfectly innocent victim of circumstance, nothing is my fault or my responsibility. I’m sure she sleeps quite peacefully at night knowing that she is a righteous defender of good and honorable warrior against evil.

Classic psychopath behavior. If you’re partying and take the last piece of pizza and a psychopath expresses any interest in the last piece of pizza, you’d better not offer to share it, you’d better give him that last piece of pizza. Because what’s going to happen is he’s going to carefully nurse that slight annoyance until it becomes a grudge and then a full-fledged rage that you’re a nasty, evil piece of shit who stole his damn pizza right out of his mouth and he’s going to have to get even with you, you bastard. He will stab you right in the face for your outrageously offensive attack on him.

Think of the “fish sticks” episode of South Park where Jimmy comes up with a joke while Eric Cartman is there and Cartman goes from thinking he helped come up with the joke to insisting that he wrote the joke all by himself and Jimmy is an evil bastard trying to claim that he had anything whatsoever to do with it. It’s funny when a cartoon shows the process of a psychopath twisting reality in his own head to justify his own evil actions, it’s not a bit funny when it happens in real life.

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 9:34 am

Yeah, it absolutely was her “fault” even if you believe her version of the story completely. If you feel obliged to have sex because a guy acts disappointed or upset that you called a sudden halt to sexual activities, that’s on you. How the hell do you expect someone to act under those circumstances?

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- JohnTheRevelator

August.23.2019 at 9:45 am

How the hell do you expect someone to act under those circumstances?

There is a disturbing amount of modern feminism that mimics old stereotypes about women. In this case, that men are expected to read their minds. She wanted to stop, told him so, he demurred, and she restarted. But he’s supposed to know that she didn’t really want to, and it’s perfectly fine for her to be mad at him afterward for not knowing something she not only didn’t tell him, but “told” him the exact opposite by her actions.

Pendulums swing both ways. Stack up enough of this silly shit, and someday people will even start to question whether Harvey Weinstein really deserves to be punished.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 11:23 am

Potted plants can never give consent.

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- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 12:09 pm

This is in the bible of “enthusiastic consent”.

Her consent wasn’t enthusiastic, therefore this was rape. I am not using hyperbole, google enthusiastic consent and this example will be included in the write-up.

Under these new rules, he is guilty of rape 11 ways from Sunday. If she had been drinking, she is unable to give consent. Therefore rape. If she said no but changed her mind, she obviously did not give enthusiastic consent. Therefore rape.

Even if the entire encounter was her idea, but she began having regrets while they were in the middle of sex – but felt guilty about stopping because she didn’t think he would like it….. that is rape.

Even the use of words like “I love you” to convince someone to have sex is “coercion”, therefore rape.

This philosophy is internally contradictory and obviously insane, but we have nearly 40 years of unbroken efforts at the college level pushing this as the standard to be hewed to. We are seeing the result of this as people who are now in their 50’s went to college under this regime. So anyone under 55 or so who is in management was probably at least forced to pay lip service to these standards at some point. Therefore almost the entire workforce is now somewhat inured to the shock value of all of this.

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 12:14 pm

“Enthusiastic consent” as a standard is also insultingly paternalistic. There are plenty of reasons a man or a woman might choose to have sex that they aren’t enthusiastic about.

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- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 12:52 pm

Yeah… they call that rape.

#feminism

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 7:05 pm

#newfeminism.

Old feminism doesn’t put up with this crap. But of course old feminism is now problematic, so there’s that.

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- SoCal Soccar Mom

August.24.2019 at 11:13 am

“I’m sure she sleeps quite peacefully at night knowing that she is a righteous defender of good and honorable warrior against evil.”

She has difficulty sleeping due to PTSD from the rape.

(Do I need an /s?)

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53. SIV

August.23.2019 at 8:15 am

What a loser.

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- Tulpa AKA "Tula"

August.23.2019 at 9:10 am

Nailed it.

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- D-Pizzle

August.23.2019 at 3:21 pm

He apologized when he shouldn’t have, and that made things worse. That’s on him.

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57. Fist of Etiquette

August.23.2019 at 8:26 am

She wrote that in the wake of #MeToo, she wanted to “add my voice to the broader outcry against sexual misconduct.” She also said she had come to realize that “what happened was not my fault…and I do not share the blame. This was Jon’s fault.”

Ha. Grown women abdicating all personal responsibility. Even by Tucker’s own account this was her choice. And even Sonmez admits she doesn’t have a clear memory of a night in which she seemed to have willingly participated.

Whatever it takes gain entry into that MeToo victim’s club, I guess.

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- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 12:14 pm

Didn’t you hear her?

Sonmez said, “It saddens me to see that Mr Kaiman still does not realize the impact of his actions or take responsibility for them. His statements do not exhibit an understanding of the meaning of consent.”

It is important that people realize the impact of their actions and take responsibility for them!

Guys are such jerks. They never take responsibility for their actions….

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- SoCal Soccar Mom

August.24.2019 at 11:19 am

“she wanted to “add my voice to the broader outcry against sexual misconduct.””

This is 100% about social signaling and playing the victim.

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61. Atlas_Shrugged

August.23.2019 at 8:31 am

Ugh…..this is just messy. Talk about ‘he said, she said’. Sorry, but when both parties to an encounter are inebriated, I have to take whatever recollection (testimony) with a huge grain of salt. I have a real problem with ‘sexual buyers remorse’, or the ‘morning after’ syndrome….and turning that into a rape allegation.

I know what happened here is not slander against Kaiman, but it feels like something within spitting distance.

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- JohnTheRevelator

August.23.2019 at 9:51 am

I know what happened here is not slander against Kaiman

That’s exactly what it is. He participated in two sexual encounters in which, by the women’s own accounts, nothing happened that goes beyond the typical kinds of things that happen when two drunk people stumble towards a bed. But afterward–years after–it’s his fault and he assaulted them because reasons. Well, one reason, according to one of them, is “to add her voice” to #MeToo. That’s an amazing statement, and even more amazing that she apparently hasn’t suffered any repercussions for it (arguably, she was rewarded in part with a job at the Washington Post), because it’s tantamount to admitting she’s inflating this allegation so she can participate in a social movement. If the genders were reversed, that would be obvious to everyone, but nobody wants to criticize a woman who says she’s a #MeToo victim. And so a man who had a drunken hookup (it goes without saying that it’s ill-advised–they all are) has his life ruined because of nothing more than the zeitgeist.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 10:13 am

If I were a religious man, I’d say God was punishing him for cheating on his woman. But I’m not.

Sounds like the guy was very promiscuous with multiple people that write the propaganda fueling the zeitgeist. That was his ultimate demise. I’m sure he’s learned a lot about due process and modern “journalism” along the way.

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- JohnTheRevelator

August.23.2019 at 10:50 am

I’m sure he’s learned a lot about due process and modern “journalism” along the way.

I bet he’s learned nothing at all, still wholeheartedly believes all the propaganda, and would earnestly explain that this is all just a horrible mistake in his case, while everyone else totally deserves their me-too-ing.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve learned to be pretty cynical about modern “journalism” myself, and by extension about pretty much anyone who is involved with it.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 11:14 am

“would earnestly explain that this is all just a horrible mistake in his case”

Given that this is also – apparently – the default approach of this author why would he think otherwise?

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- RoyMo

August.24.2019 at 8:37 am

He just read Darkness at Noon

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- NashTiger

August.23.2019 at 12:13 pm

#CovingtonKids #Russia! #Kavanaugh

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- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 12:21 pm

I wouldn’t go so far as “very promiscuous” , based on what we know.

I’d say “normally promiscuous”.

Dude was in his early 20’s, unmarried and on long work details in a foreign land, hanging out with other people similarly situated. I’d say hookups are inevitable in that circumstance. Think kids in the Peace Corps don’t have brief flings?

A hookup every couple of three months would not be all that promiscuous, but it would result in that dude having a list of maybe 15-20 women from college and early work years.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 12:44 pm

Eh, once you’re cheating on your partner by trying to have sex in public with a friend, you’ve crossed the line into very promiscuous territory.

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- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 12:54 pm

Ok, somewhat fair point.

Counter: Have you met people?

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 1:13 pm

I’ve met a lot of people, I travel a lot for work. Promiscuity is widespread. Thus, our current predicament.

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- Slocum

August.23.2019 at 5:39 pm

“Think kids in the Peace Corps don’t have brief flings?”

Thus, an implicit compromise was struck. We were not technically forbidden to have sex with locals, but we were urged to be “culturally sensitive” at our assigned work sites. Then, periodically, we were summoned to conferences at health sanatoriums deep in the mountains, where we were issued condoms and left largely to ourselves for a couple of days. Some Volunteers started referring to these scheduled get-togethers as “shore leave.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/11/united-states-peace-corps-volunteers-libertinism-chastity-hostile-work-environment/

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 7:10 pm

If I were a religious man, I’d say God was punishing him for cheating on his woman. But I’m not.

And that would essentially cast the two false-accusers of having no responsibility for their mendacious acts. They’re just forces of nature come to exact revenge on a sinner.

I bet he’s learned nothing at all, still wholeheartedly believes all the propaganda, and would earnestly explain that this is all just a horrible mistake in his case, while everyone else totally deserves their me-too-ing.

Given his own account, there was some evidence of that, but I’m guessing he’ll eventually get past it.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 11:22 am

The list of people’s lives ruined by the progressive/leftist zeitgeist is legion.

Puritanism is like that.

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- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 9:52 am

I don’t know. Tucker deliberately creating a Twitter account just to demean him does sound like slander to me.

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- Atlas_Shrugged

August.23.2019 at 12:27 pm

soldier…Yeah, that “deliberately creating a Twitter account just to demean him” comes awfully close to the line, IMO. But if it crossed the line, you’d think Kaiman would have sued already.

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- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 3:13 pm

Maybe. But maybe his lawyer advised him that a lawsuit would just look retaliatory and thus be difficult to win or make matters worse. Or both.

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85. TripK2

August.23.2019 at 9:02 am

I have a strict policy of never having sex with anyone unless I have been in a long-term relationship with them. Who could have guessed that wide-spread promiscuity would result in people getting hurt and exposure to absolutely crazy people that can ruin your life?

Also, this is why, when it comes to the public, never apologize. Especially if you know you didn’t do anything wrong. It’ll just make it worse and way harder to backtrack and maintain your innocence down the road.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 11:12 am

I’ve adopted much the same policy. Which certainly helps me stay married. Although, in hindsight, I had (with a couple rare exceptions) unconsciously adopted this policy by the time I was in college. Mostly thanks to a couple psychos I managed to fall in bed with in high school.

Thankfully that was back in the early 80’s, well before this nonsense was granted any credibility.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 7:11 pm

Who could have guessed that wide-spread promiscuity would result in people getting hurt and exposure to absolutely crazy people that can ruin your life?

There was a time when it would just ruin your day or your week, not your career.

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89. Jay Leno

August.23.2019 at 9:18 am

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHA

Learn to code, bitch.

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90. Mauser

August.23.2019 at 9:19 am

FCCC sounds like a far left cesspool

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 9:35 am

Either that or they are just terrified that they will be next.

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- Mauser

August.23.2019 at 9:44 am

Possibly, it does seem that they somewhat acknowledged the discrepancies.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 7:12 pm

Either that or they are just terrified that they will be next.

So a far left cesspool.

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95. NOYB2

August.23.2019 at 9:25 am

Given the millennia during which women have had to take male abuse and suffer under institutionalized denial of and indifference to it, it is perhaps understandable that there is a willingness to shrug off the prospect that some unfairly accused men will become roadkill on the way to a more equitable future.

Are you effing kidding? Most of Western civilization was built around protecting women from rape, ensuring that sex happened only when the man took responsibility for it, that men were financially and medically safe partners for women, and ensuring that women and children were taken care of no matter what. Women used to be worshiped. Merely for a man to be in the same room as a woman without a third party being present used to be unthinkable.

We tossed all that out the window in the name of sexual liberation and women’s equality. And that’s fine. But don’t pretend for a moment that women didn’t used to be extremely privileged. In fact, women still continue to be extremely privileged compared to men in the West, it’s just that the various protective mechanisms and behaviors have gone out the window.

Women wanted equality? They got it. Men and women treat each other alike now, as disposable sex objects. Men are quickly losing the idea that women are nice, caring, virtuous, or non-violent. If the Titanic sank today, many men wouldn’t make room for the women anymore; why should they? Welcome to equality. I hope it’s everything you thought it was going to be. In the West, we still give women what they want.

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- Mauser

August.23.2019 at 9:33 am

^ THIS ^

The West and its liberating idea involving the the concept of individual freedom has done more for women’s rights than anything else.

Somehow Reason managed to lob all of history into one gigantic epoch of female oppression while conveniently disregarding the facts.

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 9:53 am

And the biggest liberators may be technological. Birth control, sanitary menstruation products and labor saving devices for the home were really necessary preconditions for female equality.

Yes, there was a lot of male control over women and some degree of subjugation. But that may be more of an effect of difficult realities than a primary cause of the social status of women before the 20th century. Social rules and norms didn’t just develop because people wanted to be shitty to each other.

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- Mauser

August.23.2019 at 11:18 am

And these technological advances which developed predominantly in the Western world evolved in tandem with the advancement of individual liberty which was naturally encouraged in the West over a long period of time.

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 12:15 pm

Yeah, it’s almost like people actually mean it when they talk about the value of the individual in western culture.

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- Mickey Rat

August.23.2019 at 5:51 pm

The biggest things in terms of female liberation are the medical, nutritional and sanitation advances that mean there is high probability that any given pregnancy will result in a live birth and the child surviving to adulthood. Not having to remain pregnant during the childbearing years to have a child survive is the thing that gives women increased options

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 9:47 am

I’m going to guess the truth is somewhere in between your version of “the west showed nothing but respect and revernce for all women” and “the west just trashed women and used them as sex objects until recently.”

One of my older (now deceased) relatives born in the 1910s that raped when she was 15. The accused man had offered to drive her home from a dance. The entire town turned on her, called her a slut. She lost everything, ended up having to have the baby in someone’s shed, which she had barely managed to find as living quarters. The didn’t even tell the story about it until she was in her 90s — she was sobbing. If a man and a woman got caught alone in a room together, the man would likely be accused of infidelity before god, but the woman would also most certainly be labeled an unmarriagable slut, her purity forever tarnished.

History is really messy.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 9:54 am

was* raped when she was 15.

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 9:59 am

Like with racism, people seem to want there to be one dimension of analysis that explains everything. Racism and sexism are still to some extent and have been in the past serious problems. There are many ways in which older social norms treated women badly. It’s a good thing those have changed. But those norms didn’t emerge just because men saw that they could exercise power over women. There are all kinds of complicated historical and practical reasons why society evolved that way. If you just look at it as sexism, you miss a lot and aren’t going to understand the problem or come to reasonable conclusions. #MeToo is a perfect case of this phenomenon. It’s absolutely a good thing to call out men who use positions of power to pressure or coerce women into sex. But if you don’t try to actually understand people and how society works, it gets ridiculous and goes too far.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 12:01 pm

I 100% agree. It’s really hard to find people that are actually interested in learning what the truth was, rather than just trying to figure out which aspects of history support their chosen interpretation of the world, and ignoring everything else.

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- NOYB2

August.23.2019 at 1:54 pm

Racism and sexism are still to some extent and have been in the past serious problems. There are many ways in which older social norms treated women badly.

Modern notions of “racism”, “sexism”, and “treating badly” presuppose modern, liberal societies; it is meaningless fluff to try to even apply them to pre-20th century societies because the conditions were entirely different.

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 3:51 pm

That’s sort of what I’m saying. See the rest of my comments on this article. But I don’t think it means it’s impossible to make any judgments about the past. And the ideas of modern liberalism have been around for at least a few hundred years.

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- NOYB2

August.23.2019 at 12:24 pm

I’m going to guess the truth is somewhere in between your version of “the west showed nothing but respect and revernce for all women”

I did not make the statement in quotes. What I said was that Western society protected women from rape and ensured their economic well-being.

If a man and a woman got caught alone in a room together, the man would likely be accused of infidelity before god, but the woman would also most certainly be labeled an unmarriagable slut, her purity forever tarnished.

Correct. And that is exactly what I was getting at: we did not have equality, but we did try very hard to protect women from rape and ensure that they were taken care of well; the price women paid for that was that they had massive constraints placed on their behavior.

One of my older (now deceased) relatives born in the 1910s that raped when she was 15. The accused man had offered to drive her home from a dance.

And how was society supposed to protect her under those circumstances? The social norm “get into a man’s car and you are considered an slut” existed precisely because society couldn’t protect women in those circumstances. And the consequences of sex back then were far more serious than today: numerous deadly STDs and pregnancy.

Furthermore, she knew all that and yet still chose to violate social norms; ask yourself: why would a high quality male in 1910 want to marry this woman as opposed to some other woman?

I’m not defending either the social norms of 1910 nor the social norms of 2019. What I am saying is that it is absurd to believe that the social norms of 1910 were the result of malice of men towards women, or the result of men to obtain advantages by oppressing women. Men generally want as much sex as possible; if 19th century social norms had been designed for men’s pleasures, they would have had temple prostitutes and encouraged promiscuity by women. Instead, exactly the opposite was the case.

However, 20th century social norms encouraging “women’s liberation”, consequence free sex, and promiscuity are designed for men’s pleasure and preferences.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 12:42 pm

I did not make the statement in quotes. What I said was that Western society protected women from rape and ensured their economic well-being.

Sorry, I thought it was obvious that I was summarizing the gist of what you were saying. I apologize it was an inadequate summarization. Didn’t mean to insinuate that you literally stated what I put in quotes word for word.

And that is exactly what I was getting at: we did not have equality, but we did try very hard to protect women from rape and ensure that they were taken care of well; the price women paid for that was that they had massive constraints placed on their behavior.

I take this more as a clarification that that is what you were trying to get at, but did not adequately explain. But now that I understand that THIS is what your position is, we can agree. It seemed to me that your original post was more about trying to act like women have been extremely privileged compared to men in the west throughout history, especially when it comes to sex. I suppose I got this from the following direct word-for-word quote:

But don’t pretend for a moment that women didn’t used to be extremely privileged. In fact, women still continue to be extremely privileged compared to men in the West, it’s just that the various protective mechanisms and behaviors have gone out the window.

I had to push back on the above, because I think its a fairly inaccurate picture.

Regarding my relative, I’m starting to get the idea that you’re one of those types that would also agree with something along the lines of “she was asking for it” or “she shouldn’t have dressed that way if she didn’t want it.”

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- NOYB2

August.23.2019 at 1:50 pm

It seemed to me that your original post was more about trying to act like women have been extremely privileged compared to men in the west throughout history, especially when it comes to sex. […] I had to push back on the above, because I think its a fairly inaccurate picture.

I said women were extremely privileged; that is, society tried very hard to protect them from rape, from starvation, from violence; women didn’t have to serve in wars, men were required to take care of women and children economically, and men were only allowed sexual access to women after entering a legally binding contract. Compared to men, those were extremely privileged positions.

I’m starting to get the idea that you’re one of those types that would also agree with something along the lines of “she was asking for it” or “she shouldn’t have dressed that way if she didn’t want it.

That’s a nasty thing to say; nowhere did I allege that she desired to get raped. I’m saying that she did the equivalent of a Darwin Award winner who goes into a lion cage and then complains that he had his legs chewed off. She was stupid and irresponsible and suffered the consequences. The fact that her predator was a psychopath in a nice car and not a lion doesn’t change her own responsibility one iota.

Women are not magically exempt from laws of nature. Lions, psychopaths, and other dangerous creatures exist, and if you expose yourself to them, you’ll suffer the consequences. Society cannot eliminate those risks. You can howl at the moon about it, but it’s not going to change reality.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 2:48 pm

I’m saying that she did the equivalent of a Darwin Award winner who goes into a lion cage and then complains that he had his legs chewed off. She was stupid and irresponsible and suffered the consequences. The fact that her predator was a psychopath in a nice car and not a lion doesn’t change her own responsibility one iota.

And that isn’t a nasty thing to say? I’m done with you. You are a despicable, detestable human being. No agreement can be had here. Let’s just avoid each other from now on.

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- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 3:28 pm

Your reaction to the idea that your grandmother had any agency in her rape (not that she deserved it, but that her actions did help increase her risk) kind of makes his point about society’s need to protect women, even to this day.

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- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 3:31 pm

Yes, she is obviously a victim and didn’t deserve it. And the culpability is far more on the guy’s part. It is so taboo to even suggest a woman should take some steps to defend herself, even more so then in your Grandma’s day. Is this really a healthy taboo?

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 3:46 pm

I wholeheartedly disagree that she had any culpability. I should probably note that she knew this person, and he was a well-known and well-respected man in the community. At the age of 15 years old, maybe she should have known that even well-respected well-known members of the community would be willing to rape her. Maybe she should have known if she was raped that people would punish her for it, maybe not. I think she made a mistake as a naive minor and paid for the rest of her life for that mistake. But it was a mistake.

I believe a woman should be able to get into a car with a man, spend time alone with a man and not be raped. I believe if a rape occurs its the woman’s responsibility to report it immediately. I don’t know what would have been the consequences if she had done so. She believed that she would be punished, so much so that she hid the fact for almost her entire life.

I think that she is responsible for not protecting her own safety given the fact that she should’ve known people would punish her for being raped, not for the rape itself.

I wholeheartedly believe that the only people guilty of crime are the perpetrators and facilitators of those crimes. Someone can put themselves in a stupid position, but ultimately, the criminal gets 100% of the blame for the crime, every time.

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- NOYB2

August.23.2019 at 4:56 pm

I wholeheartedly disagree that she had any culpability.

I agree: she had 0% culpability at all; the culpability for the rape is 100% with the man. And she still is 100% responsible for her choice to take an unnecessary risk, and she had to live with 100% of the consequences of that choice because nothing you, or I, or society, or the legal system could undo the damage it did to her.

I believe a woman should be able to get into a car with a man, spend time alone with a man and not be raped.

Well, you may also believe that there should be no poverty and disease in the world. But right now, the world is full of rapists and violent criminals, and if you pretend otherwise, you put people at risk.

I wouldn’t be alive today if I held the naive beliefs you hold. I think the problem with people like you is that you have lived in such a safe and pampered environment that you throw temper tantrums when the world doesn’t live up to your expectations.

- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 6:08 pm

I wouldn’t be alive today if I held the naive beliefs you hold.

You barely know my position on the subject. I won’t fully engage with you on it. I take issue with your character. You equated my deceased relative to a darwin award winner for making a stupid mistake at 15 years old, which resulted in her violent rape.

Think about that — you equated my deceased relative, a rape victim, to a darwin award winner. So, I know you’re out here arguing about politics, policy and culture, but you fail to understand that I am accusing you of being a rude, vile asshat with poor character, not of having wrong-think opinions.

THAT is why I want nothing to do with you, just so we’re clear. I think you might have something to say on this topic (shit, it could even be a valid point). BUT, you equated my deceased rape victim relative to a darwin award winner. So, until that is addressed, you can go fuck yourself with a rusty pole you motherfucker.

- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 10:56 pm

“would punish her for being raped, not for the rape itself”. That is basically what I was trying to say. By culpability I meant she put herself at risk, albeit she thought the risk was low as she knew the guy and he was considered upstanding (and having a car in 1910, probably wealthier which was often mistakingly assumed to be the same thing at the time). I don’t mean to say anyone should be punished for being victimized but I also think people need to consider the risks and when possible and practical, take steps to minimize them. That doesn’t mean completely avoiding them, but at least be aware of what they are.

- NOYB2

August.24.2019 at 9:30 am

Think about that — you equated my deceased relative, a rape victim, to a darwin award winner. So, I know you’re out here arguing about politics, policy and culture, but you fail to understand that I am accusing you of being a rude, vile asshat with poor character, not of having wrong-think opinions.

I made a general comment about women and society. It is you first presented something as a quote that I didn’t say and then started making personal comments fishing for something to get offended as (“you’re one of those types that would also agree with something along the lines of ‘she was asking for it'”). You wanted something to take offense at and you wanted to wallow in self-righteous indignation over something.

I don’t care that you are a “rude, vile asshat with poor character”; there are plenty of those around. I actually do accuse you of “wrong-think”: the fact that you promulgate a confusion between responsibility and culpability and utopian fantasy and reality places women and minorities at risk, and people need to speak out against that, each and every time.

- NOYB2

August.23.2019 at 4:46 pm

Yes, she is obviously a victim

She is.

and didn’t deserve it

What does that even mean? Did Roy “deserve to be mauled by a tiger”?

And the culpability is far more on the guy’s part

Correct: the guy is 100% culpable of the crime he committed. The woman is 100% responsible for taking an unnecessary risk. There is no contradiction between those two statements.

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- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 3:36 pm

Taking it even further, this taboo that women have no agency is what created the very circumstances that are discussed in this story. Women can never be expected to have any agency, it must always be 100% the males fault. Your grandmother’s culpability may be less than 1% but it still exists to a degree. Even writing this is extremely uncomfortable, and I am trying my best to try and avoid saying anything that would suggest your grandmother asked for it or deserved it; however, I am certain many will state I failed. Because to even suggest that some norms exist to decrease the chances of bad outcomes, in regards to women protecting their virtues, is sacrosanct in today’s society.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 3:51 pm

Man rapes woman -> this is 100% the man’s fault.

Woman rapes man -> this is 100% the woman’s fault.

That’s it. That’s the end of the story. Its different when a woman is kissing the person, letting the person have oral sex, etc. then regretting it later. We’re talking about a violent rape here, the real deal, not any new-age re-defined version here.

Even writing this is extremely uncomfortable, and I am trying my best to try and avoid saying anything that would suggest your grandmother asked for it or deserved it; however, I am certain many will state I failed.

Yeah, I’m sorry man, but you did. I can’t follow this thinking whatsoever. The Reason article’s examples of women clearly showing that they want to have sex with a person, than regretting it later, or being somewhat reluctant during, isn’t even in the same ballpark of what I’m talking about here. It’s not even the same fuckin’ game.

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- NOYB2

August.23.2019 at 5:04 pm

Man rapes woman -> this is 100% the man’s fault Woman rapes man -> this is 100% the woman’s fault. That’s it. That’s the end of the story.

When you get raped or beaten into disability because you went to the wrong part of town, you can then for the rest of your life contemplate the fact that, while you are in constant pain, it was “100% someone else’s fault”. How good do you think that will make you feel?

Back in the real world, women, gay men, immigrants, etc., people like me who face real threats from a hostile world, couldn’t survive with your starry-eyed safe middle class naivete. We need to act responsibly because otherwise we get beaten, raped, or murdered.

And that is the message we need to get out to everybody who is at risk. You, on the other hand, with your self-righteousness and evidently safe little protected life, should STFU.

- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 5:55 pm

As I said below, I hope that you get help. Until you can get yourself under control, we cannot have any further discussion.

- NOYB2

August.23.2019 at 6:15 pm

As I said below, I hope that you get help. Until you can get yourself under control, we cannot have any further discussion.

Our “discussion” started with you putting words in my mouth, followed by various nasty accusations from you. How about you get yourself under control first?

Afterwards if you have a sense of decency and responsibility left in you, you should reflect on how much risk women and minorities would be placing themselves into if they followed your advice instead of taking control and responsibility for their own lives.

- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 6:18 pm

You equated my deceased rape victim relative to a darwin award winner

- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 10:47 pm

I didn’t say it was not his fault. What I was saying is she did engage in a risky activity (albeit it should not be risky in a perfect world). Nor am I absolving him of his guilt. It is more about putting yourself at risk and doing risk benefit analysis. When we completely absolve women of having to be aware of risks, and taking steps to avoid that risk or lessen it, we get to the point where we are now. Yes, in a perfect world I would like it if neither my son’s or daughter would have to think of the risks, but we will never achieve that. Cultures create social parameters to alleviate those risks. The taboo against women being alone with a guy she wasn’t married to originally was to protect women against male predators. Unfortunately, in your Grandma’s case her breaking that taboo put her at risk and then her society turned against her. Sometimes people forget the reason for taboos and take things to far. By the end of the Victorian era, beginning of the Edwardian era it certainly had been taken to far in a lot of cases, similar to your Grandma’s. By culpability I didn’t mean to imply she was responsible for being raped but rather that she had agency is deciding to go against the taboo. She naively underestimated the risks. This isn’t her fault and it is a good thing when society changed enough to punish similar assailants rather than naive teenage girls for innocently breaking taboos. However, the idea that women shouldn’t be aware and take precautions against risks invariably leads to the current mindset of many feminist today and the MeToo movement. There needs to be a medium, where everyone takes some precautions to mitigate risks but isn’t punished for taking risks and being victimized as a result.

- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 10:57 pm

Of course the rape is 100% his fault. No one has said anything opposite of that.

- NOYB2

August.24.2019 at 9:45 am

You equated my deceased rape victim relative to a darwin award winner

Let’s be clear here: you brought up a personal female relative for one reason and one reason only: you were looking for something to be offended by and wallow in self-righteous indignation.

My point remains: a certain percentage of the human population consists of psychopaths, creatures far more dangerous and unpredictable than even lions. They will steal your stuff, rape you, and murder you if they get the chance, with none of the qualms that most people have, with no hesitation or remorse or fear of the law or society. That will never change, it’s part of human biology. You either recognize that reality and act accordingly, or you will wind up as a victim; that’s true for both men and women.

- NOYB2

August.23.2019 at 4:43 pm

And that isn’t a nasty thing to say?

No, it isn’t, it’s the real world.

You are a despicable, detestable human being.

I’m a gay immigrant; taking responsibility for my actions is why I’m still alive.

You’re a self-righteous prick who obviously has no idea of what real oppression or threats to one’s life look like.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 4:47 pm

Hm, yeah, lets agree stay away from each other. I don’t have a single thing in common with you. Absolutely nothing.

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- NOYB2

August.23.2019 at 5:09 pm

Hm, yeah, lets agree stay away from each other. I don’t have a single thing in common with you. Absolutely nothing.

Yes; it’s obvious that you speak from the position of a privileged, naive middle-class male. But, I’m sorry, I can’t let your statements stand because you put real people in danger with your little fantasy world.

The fact is that vulnerable people are not free to act as if predators don’t exist. That’s not a matter of culpability, it’s a matter of survival for us.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 5:53 pm

I do not want to be associated with you in any way, shape or form. I don’t associate with people that equivilate rape victims with Darwin award winners. I hope that you find help sometime in the future.

- NOYB2

August.23.2019 at 6:09 pm

I do not want to be associated with you in any way, shape or form.

Oh, the feeling is entirely mutual: your views are sickening.

I just hope you don’t reproduce, because with your kind of beliefs about the real world, your daughters will be at high risk of becoming rape statistics themselves.

- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 6:17 pm

Understood. I wish health and good fortune on your family.

- Nom de Sobriquet

August.23.2019 at 10:28 am

Equality? No. They don’t want to get equal — they want to get even. The problem is they conflate the two.

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- Gaear Grimsrud

August.23.2019 at 4:25 pm

Yeah it turns out not all women are sweet, caring wonderful creatures. Some are nasty, mean manipulative bitches. If you don’t know who they are ask your wife. I’m pretty sure she works with one.

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144. Enjoy Every Sandwich

August.23.2019 at 9:26 am

Wait a minute…now begging is “sexual misconduct”? Like rape? Jesus fucking Christ. I’m lucky to be too old and ugly to get a date.

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 9:42 am

Yes, and it’s his fault that she felt obliged to fuck him because he was unhappy when she suddenly stopped. How the hell is he supposed to feel?

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- Ska

August.23.2019 at 9:49 am

Yeah, I’m sitting here thinking “good thing I’ve settled down now, this shit sounds terrible.”

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 9:57 am

Yep, as a man you are allowed to do nothing to hurt a woman’s feelings in the bedroom. If you are emotionally hurt or confused, get over it, you’re a man. If she’s emotionally hurt, you are an evil predator.

But also remember, men and women are not different in any way ever, you bigot.

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- Number 2

August.23.2019 at 11:47 am

That’s nothing, Enjoy. Did you catch the part about how asking a woman to wear a certain type of eye shadow during sex is “rape?”

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- Enjoy Every Sandwich

August.23.2019 at 12:43 pm

Yeah, that was startling too. I guess having any sort of fetish is now verboten too. On the rare occasions when sex actually occurs, apparently it’s also got to be as boring as possible.

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- A Thinking Mind

August.23.2019 at 2:03 pm

The woman is allowed to explicitly ask for whatever kinky shit she wants. Her Body, Her Choice.

If a man asks for anything out of the norm, he’s a sexual predator.

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- Dace Highlander

August.23.2019 at 6:36 pm

The woman is allowed to explicitly ask for whatever kinky shit she wants. Her Body, Her Choice.

If a man asks for anything out of the norm, he’s a sexual predator.

Fixed it for you I hope.

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153. Enjoy Every Sandwich

August.23.2019 at 10:14 am

I guess if begging is “rape”, then likewise it’s “rape” if you play romantic music, light candles, tell her she’s beautiful, dress tastefully, take her to a nice place, etc.

Maybe the Jezebel crowd can create an online form men can use to request sex? It would be interesting to see what it would look like.

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- Quo Usque Tandem

August.23.2019 at 10:23 am

I believe it is just damned if she does, regardless of the circumstances at the time, or what the male might have reasonably believed. This is not a legal construct in which an accuser has to provide facts to which the accused can respond. It is about how one feels about the encounter, at any point following. and their ability to access social media to glom on to a movement [in order to feel better about having engaged in something they now feel badly about] and the ability to destroy a persons life with no formal or legal process involved.

Any one heard from Garrison Keilor lately? They certainly managed to disappear him.

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- Enjoy Every Sandwich

August.23.2019 at 11:02 am

This is definitely an example of Biden’s “truth before facts”.

(In regards to the “online form”, I was just being sarcastic. I thought it would be funny to see what the Jezebel crowd would consider “acceptable” behavior. It would probably end up like the old joke about the building that was taken over by female terrorists; when asked for their demands the reply was “if you cared you’d know”.)

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157. Vernon Depner

August.23.2019 at 10:16 am

So, here’s the important takeaway for men here: if you are falsely or unjustly accused of sexual misconduct, immediately go on the offensive. You have nothing to lose. No apologies; no trying to explain yourself; no listening to the accuser and trying to see it from her perspective; no offers of contrition or trying to make things right. Deny everything; castigate your accuser; call her a liar; question her motives; ridicule her assertions of helplessness or powerlessness; lawyer up; file a defamation suit; don’t resign from anything, make them fire you. This is war—if you try to appease, you’re dead.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 10:18 am

This. If you’re an innocent person and people are out for your blood, don’t hand it to them – make them fight tooth and nail for every drop. Make it difficult and painful, if you’re going down, bring them down with you.

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- D-Pizzle

August.23.2019 at 3:47 pm

Yes. Kaiman did the exact opposite of everything you just suggested. How’d that work out for him?

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161. Quo Usque Tandem

August.23.2019 at 10:18 am

Retroactive withdrawal of consent; aka “fuckers remorse”

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162. John C. Randolph

August.23.2019 at 10:35 am

FWIW, I have several friends who are living overseas in Asia and Eastern Europe, and they tell me that they avoid female expats like the plague, because they’re just not worth the risk. Local woman won’t play these kinds of games, they’re either in or out and they say so, whereas the expat women are generally carrying around a massive resentment of expat men’s interest in the local women.

-jcr

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163. C. S. P. Schofield

August.23.2019 at 10:37 am

“#MeToo is a necessary and important corrective to some horrifying, copiously documented, and criminal-level behavior, and also to the kind of persistent harassment that still characterizes too many workplaces.”

Wrong. #MeToo is .01% creeps like Weinstein, who in any case should have been formally charged, and 99.99% lying regret-sex feminist bullshit. It is part and parcel of the BelieveAllWomen nonsense that ignores the documentable fact that (like men) lie when they think they can get away with it and it will serve their aims.

Contrary to feminist myth, society is currently biased in favor of women in many places. Women are almost automatically believed if they accuse their soon-to-be former husband of abuse, even if there is plenty of evidence that the woman if a lying twunt. A man accused of inappropriate behavior on a college campus is pretty such to have his civil rights massively violated, regardless of the facts of the case.

And where this is all going is a massive backlash that the feminist are NOT going to like (unless sherry are masochists). When society tips over from BelieveAllWomen back to ‘She’s probably lying. Women always lie about sex’ the Feminists are only going to have themselves to blame.

Worried about a future like A HANDMAIDEN’S TALE? This claptrap is the way to bring it about.

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- Enjoy Every Sandwich

August.23.2019 at 10:58 am

In one way I suspect the backlash has already begun. I’ve read that young women are complaining about how so many men have become passive. The way things are going they’ll end up with the situation being that the only men who will ask women out or initiate sex will be the most aggressive, basically the assholes and the users.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 11:00 am

Um, that’s not a whole lot different than the way it has always been.

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- Enjoy Every Sandwich

August.23.2019 at 11:03 am

But not to this degree.

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- Enjoy Every Sandwich

August.23.2019 at 11:04 am

I mean, before if a man was shy the worst he had to fear was rejection. He didn’t have to fear that he would lose his job and become a pariah.

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169. Incredulous

August.23.2019 at 10:40 am

Wow, these woman are psychopaths.

And the LA Times is grossly immoral for being judge, jury and executioner and lynching this poor guy with zero evidence.

These were obviously consensual encounters, albeit drunken, but consensual. The mutual accounts confirm this. And even if he had behaved inappropriately, there is is ZERO evidence against, just the contradictory testimony of psychopaths.

There is no justice.

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- Number 2

August.23.2019 at 4:18 pm

I withhold judgment on the second woman because it is an more ambiguous situation. But as for Tucker – she is just reprehensible.

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172. ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 10:59 am

“Given the millennia during which women have had to take male abuse and suffer under institutionalized denial of and indifference to it, it is perhaps understandable…”

Didn’t read a single word after that, and have no intent to do otherwise.

Reason Magazine: Collectivists Minds and Regulated Markets.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 11:11 am

That’s too bad, because there is a lot of really good stuff about a flawed, but ultimately innocent man in his article. Its one of the few pieces out there being fair to this man.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 11:28 am

Which should tend to make a libertarian question if he is indeed an isolated episode, and instead realize that perhaps there is danger in approaching individuals based upon collectivized concerns.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 11:33 am

Because of that philosophical question, you’re refusing to hear an innocent man’s side of the story?

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 11:35 am

No, I’m refusing to hear what more the author has to say about it. Because her words are not worthy of further consideration.

If that makes him more of a victim then that sounds about par for the identity politics course that Reason has chosen to travel down.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 11:38 am

I should also note that, by that point in the article we had already been given the gist that his life was presently in the shitter largely because of two isolated he said – she said incidents.

So how much more detail would you think it necessary that I read? It’s not like I have any substantial ability to adjudicate the matter.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 11:40 am

Sorry to keep kibitzing, but metaphorically speaking I’m not throwing the baby out with the bath water. I’m noting that the author dropped a turd in that bathwater.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 11:53 am

Okay, fair enough.

I also disagree with some things said in the article, but I suppose I read stuff I disagree with on a fairly regular basis.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 12:07 pm

“I read stuff I disagree with on a fairly regular basis.”

Heh, Me too.

It’s mainly that, in this case (and multiple other examples, from multiple other Reason authors of late) I don’t expect to find collectivist/identitarian premises so blithely offered as accepted wisdom. Especially give the banner under which they all appear.

If this article had appeared over on Vox I’d take that sort of thing as a given, but also take the general gist of the article (evidencing at least slight validity of concern for the individual as an individual) as hope for a (slightly) less collectivist future .

Here it says more the opposite. This guy isn’t so much an exception to the rule, as living proof of why the rule sucks.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 12:09 pm

That last sentence is intended as my critique, not my opinion of what this article represent. Sorry for the ambiguity.

- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 12:20 pm

Seems to me that Reason has been consistently reporting on stuff like this as a distressing trend. Soave is pretty much on that beat full time. But I guess if you refuse to read anything you don’t like you might not see that.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 2:05 pm

Yeah, you aren’t as bothered by the support for the progressive/collectivist/ identitarian impulse at the heart of this (Or Rico’s) article(s).

I kinda knew that already.

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 3:56 pm

You can’t know that, partly because you don’t know me and mostly because it isn’t true.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 4:25 pm

Yeah, I can know that, because I’ve read enough from you to see where, when, and how you choose to comment.

It’s called identifying patterns, and drawing inferences. Between that and direct experience it’s what forms the basis of most all human knowledge include all actual science (which fundamentally is nothing more than drawing generalities from observations of the particular.)

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- A Thinking Mind

August.23.2019 at 2:07 pm

Yes, but they also like to include qualifier sentences that undermine their criticisms like, “The #1619 project has a laudable and ambitious goal,” when it’s pretty clear that it does not. Which is it’s full of bad history to drive its propaganda.

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- D-Pizzle

August.23.2019 at 3:51 pm

“To be sure….”

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 3:57 pm

So what? If the rest of it is interesting and valid, I’ll pay attention to those parts.

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- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 11:13 pm

As you should. I often read the Washington Post, NYT etc to get their perspective. It does irk me how much virtue signaling has started showing up on Reason (even in an otherwise good article like this). It makes me despair that a more Libertarian future can ever be achieved. I’m not a big fan of Trump’s trade wars, but Boehm’s hyperbole is a step to far most times (and often lacks a certain level of consistency and logic). I am not a fan of regulating the internet and internet platforms, but Walsh’s unending forgiveness of YouTube etc acting in bad faith (which actually is supposed to possibly open them up to liability as their is a good faith clause in the section protecting them) is not any better. I support expanding and liberalizing legal immigration, and even some form of legalization for most illegals in here but Shikha’s anti-enforcement screeds are unpalatable, as is the continuous intellectually dishonest using data on legal immigrants to defend illegals. Shackleford’s take on the Russian non-conspiracy is an affront to due process, no matter who is being charged, etc. Do I like Trump, not particularly. Is he better then his opponents? On most things, even if only marginally on a lot of things. Would I have preferred Rand Paul? In a heartbeat. I am not a die-hard Libertarian. Nor am I a die-hard social conservative (though personally I prefer their views without supporting the idea of using force to enact them). What I see from Reason lately is a lot of poorly thought out pieces that appear to be not up to the standard that the magazine was even a year ago.

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193. Dillinger

August.23.2019 at 11:26 am

wow terrible way to lose a career the stories read as innocuous.

probably a good thing chicks don’t understand they run the show

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194. Dan S.

August.23.2019 at 11:29 am

Hopefully THIS article will now come up at the top of a Google search for him, and someone will give him a second chance.

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- Quo Usque Tandem

August.23.2019 at 11:55 am

Given that he is, or was, a journalist that is doubtful. Too much visibility and too many who are devoted to ferreting out any possible offenders to their creed and will descend upon any employer via social media. Seems he is going to have to get over his loss and grief regarding the end of a promising and chosen career, and figure out how to move forward. I’m thinking a skilled trade in which no one would really give a shit about some bitch’s fuckers remorse, and by which he could build a business and a future for himself and any family he may eventually have. Just say fuck it, fuck you, and move on. Sometimes it is the only, and best, thing you can do.

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- Vernon Depner

August.23.2019 at 4:14 pm

Maybe if they don’t read the comments…

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198. jjsaz

August.23.2019 at 11:50 am

“She also said she had come to realize that “what happened was not my fault…and I do not share the blame. This was Jon’s fault.”

Rules for women:

1: A woman is never wrong.

2: In the unlikely event that a woman is, actually, wrong, it is a man’s fault. See Rule 1.

It’s amazing how almost an entire gender, and their minions, see Donald Trump as the sum of all evil, yet they behave in his exact manner. Trump too, can never be wrong. If he is wrong, someone else is responsible. Both are children and should be seen and not heard.

The only rational response is to avoid all non-marital contact, revoke the legal changes that made it possible to rape your wife and punish all extramarital sex. Women have proven, through this concept of affirmative consent, that they are utterly incapable of actually giving it, and therefore are not fully adult, entitled to all of the rights and privileges of adulthood and need to be returned to chattel in the eyes of society and law. Millennia of legal and societal practice put women in that cage and the last 160, or so, years only go to show why they were in it in the first place.

Feminism has destroyed feminism. Women need to be protected from men who would do them harm and from themselves, as their actions also, clearly, do them harm.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 11:59 am

Women have proven, through this concept of affirmative consent, that they are utterly incapable of actually giving it, and therefore are not fully adult, entitled to all of the rights and privileges of adulthood and need to be returned to chattel in the eyes of society and law. Millennia of legal and societal practice put women in that cage and the last 160, or so, years only go to show why they were in it in the first place.

I think you’re probably saying this for some cathartic benefit, getting your anger out, but do you really think its a good idea to punish all women for some things that a few very vocal women have done? Doesn’t that mean you’re turning into what you hate?

After all, the women that are disingenuously accusing former sexual partners of assault are essentially advocating the punishment of all men for the actions of a few. How is what you’ve said here any different?

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- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 12:50 pm

The point is that if you wanted to have a logically consistent philosophy, that is the logical conclusion of the current feminist definition of female sexuality.

If you read through the list of “enthusiastic consent” doctrine, you’ll see that it is actually a tenant of that philosophy that women are uniquely incapable of consenting to sex. The top line of the presentation is “everyone should want to have sex with a partner who is enthusiastic about the encounter”, but what hides behind there is a philosophy that if a woman (and only a woman, whatever lip service might be paid otherwise when prompted) has any reason to doubt the fullness of that experience at any point in time – before, during or after – then it was not a consensual encounter.

They actually give examples of coercive rape that include saying things like “If you loved me you’d” or even “It is so hot when you”.

This is where the “eye shadow = rape” analysis came from. Because he asked her to wear eye shadow, there wasn’t enthusiastic consent. Because that was for him, not for her.

The philosophy is morally and intellectually bankrupt. The surface may seem like it is simply designed to ensure that people enter into things with clear heads and don’t force people into doing something they don’t want to do – but when that rubber meets the road of enforcement it suddenly takes on the tenor he’s suggesting. To the point where women who are caught on camera physically forcing themselves on a man are found to have been sexually assaulted by University officials. This is how little agency this philosophy allows women.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 1:08 pm

I agree, when it comes to these people that adhere to all this infantalizing nonsense. I suppose I was just recognizing that most women don’t believe in all this shit, and many actually resent feminists trying to take away their agency in the bedroom. Which is why I take issue with the following direct quote: “Women have proven, through this concept of affirmative consent, that they are utterly incapable of actually giving it, and therefore are not fully adult, entitled to all of the rights and privileges of adulthood and need to be returned to chattel in the eyes of society and law. ”

“Women” haven’t proven jack shit with regards to the above – I’d argue most of them would probably be pissed that people want to control what they do in the bedroom. This is about a certain subset of very loud, intellectually lazy feminists (many of whom are men). Regardless of how loud they get, I will maintain that most women are actually not even aware that this shit is going on, and adhere to the standard definition of rape, not the enthusiastic consent standard that you and I read about so often and feel is pervasive because we’re the concerned audience that gives a shit about this stuff.

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- Incredulous

August.23.2019 at 2:26 pm

“This philosophy is morally intellectually bankrupt.”

Agreed. ^^^^^

“To the point where women who are caught on camera physically forcing themselves on a man are found to have been sexually assaulted by University officials. ”

Yes, this is where we are at. Even when the male is the victim, he is considered the aggressor. Even when both are drunk, he is considered the aggressor.

It’s totally f’d up and misandrist.

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204. NashTiger

August.23.2019 at 12:18 pm

A shoutout to Emily Yoffee for a great piece. Reason is so chock full of shit writers writing shittier articles, I feel obliged to point out the good.

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- Gaear Grimsrud

August.23.2019 at 7:36 pm

This was a good one.

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207. ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 12:19 pm

The problem with witch hunts is not that the innocent can get caught up in them.

The problem with witch hunts is somewhat that there are no witches, but mostly that even if there are witches it’s not something that demands persecution..

Which is also the fundamental problem here. This guy is being punished for non-crimes.

Of course Reason cannot take much note of that, at least not while they are evincing so much worry and concern over ‘white supremacists’ under the bed. Or whatever manner of identity politics their progressive cocktail party buddies are pushing of late.

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 12:22 pm

How can you credibly claim to know what Reason is doing when you proudly refuse to read what they are actually saying?

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 12:25 pm

I’m basing this off exactly what I quoted. Which is a clear indication of what the author accepts as a valid concern.

Feel free to show me where she contradicts that assertion elsewhere, and I will stand corrected.

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- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 12:41 pm

The whole article is about how this guy is being persecuted for non crimes. That is the entire point of the article.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 12:43 pm

Yep, that’s exactly what I’m talking about – the problem with witch hunts.

Being a witch isn’t a crime so, really, there is not any purpose in going through the details with a fine tooth comb.

In fact doing so might tend to create the impression that the process is actually valid.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 12:55 pm

“Given the millennia during which women have had to take male abuse and suffer under institutionalized denial of and indifference to it, it is perhaps understandable”

Is where I stopped. So, based upon insistence I keep reading and come to find this –

“#MeToo is a necessary and important corrective to some horrifying, copiously documented, and criminal-level behavior…”

No, just no. The corrective to accused criminal behavior is legal prosecution. All the rest is more non-libertarian collectivist identitarian hogwash.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 12:56 pm

What happened to this guy sucks, I already got that. And have not disagreed with that in any way.

I just refuse to accept that this author is actually helping with the actual. problem.

If anything she’s cementing the status quo.

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- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 1:00 pm

I don’t know if I’d go that far, but as you can tell from my rants, I’m dead convinced that the status quo is well cemented. We are only going further down this road. Any pullback will be temporary and limited.

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- D-Pizzle

August.23.2019 at 3:57 pm

Agreed, speculation about the coming backlash is pure fantasizing.

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- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 11:24 pm

The enlightenment and looser morals of the time was followed by the Victorian/Edwardian eras, which were followed by the roaring 20s, followed by the 1950s middle class Eisenhower era (the depression and World War II created it’s own unique attitudes). This was followed by the free love movement. Followed by Reagan and the moral majority. Followed by the hookup culture of the 1990s (which as in most these precious instances was more myth than fact). We are in a puritanistic turn (and yes the seeds of this started decades ago, but the seeds of it’s undoing are also starting to be seen). Cultures are not a straight line, but rather a sign graph, swinging from one pole to the next. Polling already shows some older millennials are starting to turn against the prevailing zeitgeist and the newer generation seems less inclined to accept it as well. There will be a reversal, how big and how long it lasts is difficult to predict. It has been this way forever. Even the Roman Empire had it’s periods of debauchery and periods of social conservatism.

- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 12:58 pm

But in this case there actually are witches. Weinstien is hardly the only guy to use the casting couch.

This guy stands accused of hooking up with a couple of long-term friends. Not a witch. But they burned him at the stake anyway.

The article goes to lengths to try to convince people that there is a difference between “some guy who has a job had sex with me and I regret it now” and “That executive used his position of power over me to coerce me into having sex with him”. The #MeToo movement disagrees.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 1:02 pm

Weinstein stands accused of actual crimes. He deserves an actual trial. Nobody deserves trial by #Metoo.

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- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 1:16 pm

Ok, fair point.

I suppose the complicating factor here is that this started with the casting couch. An industry without an HR department – producers and agents kinda work for themselves.

So I can see how this was seen as the best option for their industry. Publicly shame these guys into stopping the practice.

Of course, there’s another argument that isn’t going to be made as well…. what do you hashtag about hot young women who cozy up to older men in order to convince them to use their wealth and position to help their career? Nobody would dare bring that side of the equation up. (Case in point – Monica Lewinski still feels good about her encounter with power – not the fallout from exposure, but the quite one-sided relationship. How do you factor that in? well, you don’t. But I guess that was my point)

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 1:24 pm

And a point I agree with – many people find those sorts of behaviors equally as icky as male letchery.

So, isn’t #Metoo nothing more than the new scarlet letter?

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 4:02 pm

Do you not think that there are things people can do that don’t rise to the level of actual crimes, but still might deserve social censure?

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 4:16 pm

Group social censure? Group enforced social censure? Lose your job, book deal, and career ‘social censure’?

Fuck.

I’m sorry, is this Reason? Or is this the neo Moral Majority? (As if the Moral Majority was ever this destructive of personal liberty…)

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- Vernon Depner

August.23.2019 at 4:22 pm

Endorsing “social censure” is a near-vertical slippery slope. By all means, decline to associate with people you find reprehensible. But let’s not socialize that kind of censure. The appropriate censure from society as a whole is systematized justice with due process and respect for rights.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 4:37 pm

Zeb went the full Orwell.

- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 4:45 pm

In the past, I’d think that social censure had a valid place as a way to discourage bad behavior that was not worthy of suppression using state violence. But unfortunately, now that we have Twitter and Facebook, everything is different. You can’t simply be kicked out of your social group for being an asshole, take your lumps, and try to build a new life. Now, your mistakes are cataloged and searchable. Total strangers can fuck your shit up if there are enough of them.

How do we stop that stuff from happening? Maybe social pressure to take a moderate approach to things and discourage people from flying off the handle? I’m doubtful such a thing would be possible — people love being outraged.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 4:52 pm

Imagine if a group of coworkers chose to shun/not work with a supervisor because that person was an out and proud lesbian.

Yeah, yeah ‘protected class.’

Because that’s sooo libertarian.

- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 5:01 pm

I never said it was always used in just ways, Thomas. As long as there are humans, institutions and social norms will always be used in unjust ways. But, social pressure was also used to make sure that people didn’t cheat on their partners and stayed married in order to make sure their kids didn’t grow up in single-parent households. Social pressure also used to make people ashamed to accept welfare and not be able to pay their own way.

Lets not look at only one side of the equation like so many often do.

- Vernon Depner

August.23.2019 at 5:37 pm

Imagine if a group of coworkers chose to shun/not work with a supervisor

I’ve worked in a couple of places where a supervisor was let go because the workers did exactly that, but it was because the supervisors were incompetent assholes, not because of bigotry.

- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 5:46 pm

“But, social pressure was also used to make sure that people didn’t cheat on their partners and stayed married in order to make sure their kids didn’t grow up in single-parent households. Social pressure also used to make people ashamed to accept welfare and not be able to pay their own way.”

I don’t disagree, I’d just note:

1. That ship sailed years ago, and mostly to avoid being torn limb from limb by the same mob now pushing #metoo

2. Watch what you pine for or they’ll be calling you the patriarchy, or a white supremacist…

Let’s not forget that we are all at the very same publication that has of late been issuing multiple dire warnings of how the right is moving strongly away from any respect for individual liberty and personal freedoms towards a more collective approach to society.

- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 11:32 pm

You’re talking about taboos. Any anthropologist will tell you taboos only work when the society as a whole accepts them. They don’t work when they are forced on people (and quite often backfire). Taboos generally occur spontaneously, and usually gradually. A century ago it wasn’t well thought of, but also wasn’t completely unheard of for a 30 yo male to marry a 15 yo female. A century before that is was fairly common. It slowly became a taboo, and only became law when enough of society agreed with that taboo. Twenty years ago homosexuality still was taboo, but society has moved away from that taboo. Obama would not have been successful in his support for gay marriage (albeit the support came after it had little chance of hurting him politically) if the taboo had not evolved.

One of the ideals of western society, heavily influenced by our Judeo-Christian heritage (and even a lot of our pagan heritage) is the idea of repentance and forgiveness. The idea of social censure for non-criminal acts is hardly compatible with these ideals nor with liberal-enlightment ideals.

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- TripK2

August.23.2019 at 12:25 pm

I was wondering the same thing.

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238. Gozer the Gozarian

August.23.2019 at 12:26 pm

Groupthink is toxic.

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- Dillinger

August.23.2019 at 1:19 pm

everyone agrees.

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241. Cyto

August.23.2019 at 12:39 pm

The hopeful turn of the article is “maybe the backlash is coming”.

Take a moment to take stock of where we are. Alan Alda feminism was in the 70’s. We all got lectured about being sensitive to women’s needs, women are equals, etc. The 80’s added “affirmative consent” and “enthusiastic consent” to the sexual revolution.

The 90’s moved that ethos to the workplace, with strong sexual harassment training and enforcement. Dating at work became dangerous. Many workplaces put rules in place prohibiting it.

Next was “rape culture”. We have to combat “rape culture”. So campuses ramped up their action, strengthening protections for accusers and finally just declaring them automatically right.

Then Progressive politicians began working to make this the law of the land.

We’ve gotten so used to this continually ratcheting set of standards that not too many folks batted an eye at the Kavanaugh hearings. Not the “that’s weak evidence” vs. “How can they confirm this guy” argument – but the fact that everyone (for the most part) actually took her story seriously. Even if it was 100% accurate in every detail – she alleges that he felt her boobs through her sweater. (the rest is her interpretation of what might have happened later had she not run from the room)

Some 53 year old man stands accused of doing that at a party when he was a teenager? And the US Senate and the entire country stopped to listen?

No, this isn’t stopping. There might be a slight retrenchment, but it will be well farther along than we were before.

Even before #MeToo we were in a place where “feminists” were claiming that being asked out by guys who they don’t find attractive is creepy and borderline attempted rape. (see Skepchick for one such account – dude asked her for coffee and she said no. Felt the need to tell the world how creepy and inappropriate that was)

We’ve gone well past any sane thought on this issue. We are way into crazy town and we have the hammer down, driving as fast as we can further into crazy town.

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- Quo Usque Tandem

August.23.2019 at 4:08 pm

Why would any sane man ask out a woman who makes it a point to let everyone know she is a “feminist,” as the term is currently understood? Maybe it’s a challenge factor or something, but I think he’s literally asking for it.

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- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 11:38 pm

The 1990s also was the age of the hook up culture and it is nearly impossible to name an adult oriented entertainment that didn’t at least partially alluded to that. Watch Friends or Ally McBeal or anything similar. Yes the foreboding of the current trend was starting to occur. But everything is a spectrum that we move along. There is evidence of even this current Zeitgeist starting to change. It will be so gradual that we will not be able to pinpoint when exactly it occurred but one day we will wake-up aghast at how far the other direction it has gone. But by that time, the seeds of the next shift will also be occuring. The media, rather than setting the tone often lags behind it and by the time they catch up, society has already started to move past it.

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- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 11:44 pm

Reagan and the moral majority was largely a rejection of the 1970s, often by the very people who celebrated the free love movement and by their children who rebelled against it. Alex P. Keaton is a near perfect caricature for that decade. Society has tolerated the current Salem witch-hunt but their is signs that they are growing less inclined to tolerate it. Undoubtedly, some will take advantage of this and channel it and take it to far the other direction. These groups tend to be a very vocal minority that only have fleeting power. It looks bad but there will be a shift eventually.

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246. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 1:16 pm

it is perhaps understandable that there is a willingness to shrug off the prospect that some unfairly accused men will become roadkill on the way to a more equitable future

We’re not “shrugging it off”, we’re actively cheering it on.

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- Cyto

August.23.2019 at 1:17 pm

And looking suspiciously around to make sure everyone else is cheering hard enough.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 1:24 pm

No one wants to be the last person clapping in #MeToo

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- soldiermedic76

August.23.2019 at 11:48 pm

But if history is any indication, someone will be. And when they are society will view them dimly as attitudes will have changed. They will be seen as societal dinosaurs and castigated as such. It is inevitable. What I expect to happen (and we are already seeing rumblings of this) is that future younger women will become dissatisfied with how difficult it has become to find a willing male partner and start demanding society change to meet their needs.

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- Rob Misek

August.24.2019 at 7:41 am

Another 60’s of free love and drugs then another meetoo and wokefullness?

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252. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 1:18 pm

The end of Kaiman’s career began January 10, 2018, with a post on Medium

Serious question, how many careers have ended with a post on Medium?

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253. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 1:23 pm

He took to Twitter himself and issued an abject apology: “@laura_tucker, I am so, so deeply sorry—I did not in any way mean to pressure you into an unwanted or uncomfortable sexual encounter

Ah, I found his first mistake.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 1:24 pm

Kaiman immediately called Sonmez, a journalist who was living in China for language study and who now works for The Washington Post. Though he offered her an apology,

I just found his second mistake.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 1:27 pm

After the meeting, Kaiman reached out to Sonmez and they got back on the phone. It was, he says, an agonizing conversation that went on for 90 minutes. During it, he says, he felt himself psychologically unraveling: “It was like my brain was on fire.” He knew Sonmez had the power to decide his entire future. He was trying to apologize while also defending himself.

Aaaand his third mistake. Three strikes and you’re out, buddy. Sorry.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 1:29 pm

But in the wake of #MeToo, he understood that one of the lessons was for men to examine their sexual behavior and consider that women may have differing perspectives. Trying to be accountable, then, he told Sonmez about a trip he took with a female friend when he was in his early 20s that ended awkwardly.

This isn’t a mistake, it’s a full on capitulation. He has now joined the revolution and hopes that shaking his fist hard enough at the enemies of the revolution will endear himself to his fellow revolutionaries. In essence, he’s assuring his place in front of the firing squad.

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 1:32 pm

Excellent point. Rather than being a martyr he is now a useful tool. Which is certainly how they would prefer it.

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- Number 2

August.23.2019 at 4:35 pm

Predators like Weinstein and Moonves got away with what they were doing for as long as they did because they knew how to select victims who would not fight back.

This is flip side. Kaiman became a victim because his accusers sensed he would not fight back.

And if these two women were really his “friends” – well, what’s that old saying about not needing enemies?

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260. n00bdragon

August.23.2019 at 1:31 pm

[i]Until the spring of 2018, Jonathan Kaiman was the Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times. Today he is living at the home of his parents in Phoenix under conditions he describes as a form of psychological house arrest. There are no visitors, and his few remaining friends rarely call. He feels unable to make new ones, because he fears the reaction of anyone who Googles him. He’s 32, unemployed, and perhaps unemployable—”I’m radioactive,” as he puts it. And he’s still trying to find the right combination of psychotropic medication to quell the recurrent thought that ending his life may be the best way out.[/i]

So, he’s basically your average 32 year old right now.

t.31 year old with lots of friends who are unemployed, living with their parents, unable to make friends, and taking depression meds.

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261. middlefinger

August.23.2019 at 1:31 pm

I’m female. My how things have changed since the 90’s, all through my twenties. Just look at the sitcoms, Seinfeld, Friends, then SexntheCity… no sexual hangups. If a guy would not have at least tried after the first or second date I, and ALL of my friends, would think either impotent or gay. The social media and connection age is bringing all the kook groups to the forefront. Whats next, a reverse Viagra pill to take down young erectile hormones during foreplay? Identity groups and the media that supports them have gone so bizarre that I’m glad I’m older and happily married for decades (and for a women to say that she is happy to be aging, you know its pretty bad).

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 1:35 pm

If a guy would not have at least tried after the first or second date I, and ALL of my friends, would think either impotent or gay.

Now you assume he’s a Millennial that hangs out on Medium.

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- middlefinger

August.23.2019 at 3:12 pm

LOL, and attends the democratic socialist events.

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265. Gregdn

August.23.2019 at 2:15 pm

Accusations made after the encounter only make women look weak.

If you don’t want a guy to do something, tell him so- at the time.

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- Vernon Depner

August.23.2019 at 3:06 pm

But they “freeze”.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 4:41 pm

But pressure and inherent feminine weakness. The answer is Chaperones.

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- Vernon Depner

August.23.2019 at 5:38 pm

As I said above, I believe that’s coming if they don’t back off on this.

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270. feyr1965

August.23.2019 at 2:31 pm

Ms. Donegan, wonder what she thinks?

What a train wreck.

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271. JStrummer

August.23.2019 at 2:54 pm

He speaks fluent Mandarin but can’t get a job?

Sounds like he’s got the problem. Why does this merit a 2000 word essay? That’s Reason magazine for you, ladies and gents. Shitty writing, lazy reporting, and bad politics.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 4:43 pm

Actually this is a good article in a sea of campus outrages.

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274. Agammamon

August.23.2019 at 2:55 pm

He’s 32, unemployed, and perhaps unemployable

OK, look – I don’t want to shit on the guy more but no. Just no.

He’s not unemployable and if he’s unemployed its because he’s choosing to wallow in his misery. Sure, he might not be able to get a high flying job as a foreign correspondent for an MSM publication again – but there are other media opportunities locally, even if behind the scenes. Hell, my little town’s ‘media establishment’ is a couple guys posting local news stories on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/SMTNewsChismes/

And there are certainly other things a 32 year old should be able to do in other fields. Retail, construction, etc. Go back to school and become a rad-tech or something. Learntocode.

Stop sitting around in your parent’s house feeling sorry for yourself.

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- Agammamon

August.23.2019 at 2:58 pm

Also, Mangu-Ward – give the guy a job. He can sub-edit for you out of Phoenix. Lord knows you guys need a sub.

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- Number 2

August.23.2019 at 4:43 pm

Maybe the reason he cannot get a job is precisely because he is sitting around the house feeling sorry for himself. Hardly sounds like someone I’d like to hire.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 4:44 pm

Like Mangu-Ward is going to give a serial rapist a job at Reason.

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- SIV

August.23.2019 at 8:12 pm

Rapists, creepers and woman-beaters have to settle for “contriutor” status.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 4:32 pm

Sure, he might not be able to get a high flying job as a foreign correspondent for an MSM publication again

If he’s learned his lesson, he won’t want another high-flying job as a foreign correrspondent for an MSM publication.

Learntocode.

You just got banned from twitter.

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282. middlefinger

August.23.2019 at 3:30 pm

End the grieving and self pity, life is short. This young guy needs to pick himself up and move on…his old friends aren’t really his friends, he will make new ones. No guilt, he didn’t do anything wrong. He is young and his girlfriend stayed. Time to get a job and live life to the fullest.

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- Zeb

August.23.2019 at 4:07 pm

Yeah, he learned that the world he wanted to be part of is full of assholes. Time to find a new thing.

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- Quo Usque Tandem

August.23.2019 at 4:10 pm

Agree, on both counts.

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- Hank Phillips

August.23.2019 at 8:05 pm

True, and a wealth of info is emerging about how some 20 million Chinamen, women and kids died in a crush between fanatical Christian converts and armed naval ratings of Christendom. This was going on from the Jackson era through Reconstruction, with nary a word in government or mystical schools lest conscripts question Nixon’s bombing of Cochin-China. There is work to be done.

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287. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 4:28 pm

Tucker wrote that while making out in bed with Kaiman, she had a change of heart, so she stood up and said she didn’t want to continue.

BTW I think I dated this girl… several times.

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288. philobeddoe

August.23.2019 at 6:54 pm

Conclusion

Don’t sleep with leftists.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 7:19 pm

Herpetologist’s handshake.

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291. Ve-Ra

August.23.2019 at 7:21 pm

Stories like this are why when talking with my teen last night about drinking I told her “If you knowingly get drunk and do stupid stuff it’s your fault and nobody else’s.” I want my daughters to know that they are responsible for their choices not that they are passive things with no say in what happens to them.

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292. cmcclung

August.23.2019 at 7:46 pm

Get signed consent form. Avoid one night stands.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 7:52 pm

If you have a one-night stand, do as I do: provide a false name.

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- Eddy

August.23.2019 at 11:08 pm

You thought that was funny, didn’t you? Now the Mustang Ranch is sending me the bill. Some of the items on that bill I didn’t know were legal even in Nevada.

(NOTE TO MY READERS: This was simply a joke on my part. I apologize for the offensiveness and tastelessness of the joke and I realize now in hindsight that I should not have told it.)

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296. Hank Phillips

August.23.2019 at 7:58 pm

As long as government is controlled by superstitious Republican bigots eager to coerce women–directly or by threatening to kill or jail physicians–you may expect sabotage in reaction. The lies made up by pseudoscience that bans plant leaf products or birth control as monstrous egoism are countered by stories no less persuasive that this nominee or that appointee or campaign contributor is Mr Hyde, or that electrical generation will kill everyone in 12 years. Reap as you sow, while I vote libertarian.

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- Diane Reynolds (Paul.)

August.23.2019 at 8:12 pm

*finger snap applause*

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- ThomasD

August.23.2019 at 9:09 pm

And your pseudonym is Dobie Gillis…

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300. Trigger Warning

August.23.2019 at 9:23 pm

“We had sex and I regetted it” is not rape.

Allowing a man to put his penis in your vagina because you feel “obligated” to is not rape.

Ditto for letting him stick it in because he is whining about it.

Rape is when you say stop and attempt to end the encounter and your partner physically overpowers you and has sex with you against your will. That is rape.

Not “I felt icky,” not “We were drunk,” not “I feel like a slut.” Those things are your private business, and you should deal with them like a god-fucking-damned adult. Doing so does not involve airing your shitty personal life and atrocious interpersonal skills to the world.

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301. Trigger Warning

August.23.2019 at 9:25 pm

Also, male sexual desire has been pathologized. These loons would put sexually responding to the sight and sensation of female breasts in the DSM if they thought they could get away with it.

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302. rational_egoism

August.23.2019 at 9:49 pm

Medium is full of toxic cunts like Tucker. Why anyone would spend time there is a mystery to me.

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303. Robert

August.23.2019 at 9:57 pm

I bet if he went back to China, he’d find out they don’t care there about the sex allegations, and that there’d be a lot of opportunities for bilinguals.

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- Eddy

August.23.2019 at 11:11 pm

For cunning linguists?

(NOTE TO MY READERS: It seems that once again I have told a tasteless and inappropriate joke. I sincerely apologize to the blah blah blah)

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306. Sympatica

August.23.2019 at 11:04 pm

What an awful woman. But then the worst, cruelest guards at Auschwitz were women. And have things gotten better with women in politics? Like AOC Talib and Omar from who we hear praise for things like the Nuremberg laws.

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307. Eddy

August.23.2019 at 11:16 pm

“A common feminist dictum holds there are no innocent men, as per the slogans #YesAllMen and #KillAllMen.”

Seriously? A common dictum? The only reason I find this credible is because it’s in Reason, and Reason is very woke and wouldn’t bash the feminists unless they deserved it.

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- Cyto

August.24.2019 at 5:53 am

For reference see Jezebel.com or any similarly woke feminist site.

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310. Rufus The Monocled

August.24.2019 at 12:08 am

Two terrible, cruel women who found a way to abdicate personal responsibility via a movement.

They ruined a life because they regretted fucking. As blunt as that.

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- Echospinner

August.24.2019 at 2:04 am

Looks that way Rufus

He thought one thing she felt something I don’t know. This is as old as forever. Hope this man can find a way to get his life back together.

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313. Tionico

August.24.2019 at 2:08 am

There is one simple foolproof way of totally preventing this sort of mess from happening. Keep yer pecker in your pants, saving it to share with your WIFE and her only.

“How quaint” you say. Yes, quaint. But I challenge anyone doubting the wisdom of this to name three people who have actually DONE this and have also found themselves in a mass meltdown like the one in which this fool has found himself.

Many men get off with no apparent consequences… but the way things go these days, how can they KNOW beyond any measurable doubt that any given tryst will NOT blow up in their face? One look at what came down during the Kavanaugh nomination hearings should wake up at least a few who poke around. Maybe twenty years on when they are looking to make the big move up the corporate ladder and everything is lining up well….and some bimbo from a decade ago comes up with some accusations and sworn statements…. all baloney, but WHOM do the public largey believe? The liars.

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- Robert

August.24.2019 at 8:24 am

Saving it for your wife? How do you get married? I.e. how do you know who’s going to be your wife?

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316. No Yards Penalty

August.24.2019 at 2:12 am

Tucker and Somnez are attention-seeking cunts.

And because of twats like them I’d vote for Trump, twice if necessary, even though he’s basically retarded.

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317. Echospinner

August.24.2019 at 2:16 am

Men and women lust and love.

My music link nobody else cares about.

Crazy ass J Geils band. Love the intro. Because somewhere we all musta got lost.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VMmMZ5KEr0s

Sorry could not find a nice video. They never made one. Gotta close your eyes and crank it up for this one.

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318. Rob Misek

August.24.2019 at 5:36 am

“it is perhaps understandable that there is a willingness to shrug off the prospect that some unfairly accused men will become roadkill on the way to a more equitable future.”

Women, and others, have apparently not learned that people are not to be used as “means to an end”.

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319. plaasjaapie

August.24.2019 at 10:08 am

While I don’t agree at all with the author’s viewpoint on #metoo, the description of this journalist’s ordeal at the hands of malicious feminists and intimidated employers is instructive. Until accused men start suing accusing women for defamation regularly this abuse will continue.

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- Rufus The Monocled

August.24.2019 at 11:00 am

The worst part is his friends abandoned him.

Fucken cowards. He’s better off without them.

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322. APPPS

August.24.2019 at 10:56 am

If any women deserved to be raped these two do. If you decide to kill yourself I suggest you take these two c@nts with you.

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