Kenny

A decade ago, Spacey's brother, Randall Fowler, told reporters that their father, who they called "The Creature," was an ardent neo-Nazi who beat him, Kevin and their sister, and repeatedly raped Randall.

Two thumbs up for @Whitman. Go, Walt!

Kevin Spacey was not a famous actor when the alleged assault occurred. He was 26. He was getting good reviews on Broadway, but he didn’t become a star until the mid-1990s.

Exactly wrong: Because sexual assault is not about wanting consensual sex.

Simple: Because sexual assault is not about wanting consensual sex.

Harvey Weinstein apologized the day his story broke: “I cannot be more remorseful about the people I hurt.”

Spacey is the one who ignited the gay/pedophilia tempest by his calculated decision to muddy the waters through diversion by appending a coming-out paragraph to his apology for an assault he says he doesn’t recall. In effect, he wrote, “I am a witch.”

Of course, Kelly McGillis is a lesbian, so...

There has been a standard line of thought, if that’s not too fancy a word, that the victims of sexual predators were “asking for it.” She was wearing a miniskirt and showing cleavage! He climbed into Spacey’s bed during the party! Etc. In reality, it is the sexual predator who is “asking for it.” Asking to be caught and humiliated. The depths of insecurity and self-loathing that drive a sexual predator to exert bodily power and take total control over another person are fulfilled and confirmed most profoundly by public discovery and disgust. The predator truly is who he believes he is in his deepest, darkest heart. Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, Tyler Grasham...

The closet kills. The latest casualty: Kevin Spacey's reputable career.

bigjoey likes this. Of course! It's not a reply to a coherent comment, it's a string of diversions and non sequiturs with shiny gifs...

Seduction is not remotely the same thing as drunken sexual assault.

True. And the so-called “cut-off point” for prepubesence is hardly a fixed date. Pubesence usually begins around age 11 or 12 for boys, but “usually” is an important qualifying adverb. (What the law says is a different issue.)

What an outrageous essay! The guy practically says that we are witnessing a replay of the Red (and Pink) Scare of the McCarthyite 1950s (which may explain the column’s appearance on a socialist web site), which has now swept up a great actor. “We argued when the Harvey Weinstein scandal erupted that this was not simply about Weinstein, that something else was going on, that something else was moving through this affair. Weinstein’s piggishness and wrongdoing were merely a pretext for the flourishing of all sorts of unhealthy, reactionary issues and pressures. The assault on Spacey is confirmation of that view.” The real assault, apparently, was not on a 14-year-old boy. Sheesh.

This is a good example of the meritocracy myth. Having talent does not get you to the top in Hollywood, although it is highly unlikely you will get there without it. But to accept a line of thinking that says Hollywood generally does “a good job of finding and rewarding talent” is to uncritically believe that talent is an extremely rare, almost nonexistent trait among, say, Asian Americans. Talent is essential, but it is hardly the only factor.

Got an example? Wikileaks publicly identified a Saudi man as gay (which is punishable by death in the country), but Wikileaks is merely an unvetted , frequently irresponsible platform. I mean a legit news source that has cavalierly described someone as gay, followed by his or her life being devastated. I ask not because there might not be someone, but because I can’t think of any.

That’s called reporting. It’s a common term in the English language, as Michelangelo Signorile explains: “I was an editor at the time at OutWeek magazine, and among other stories, I’d written a cover piece, “The Secret Gay Life of Malcolm Forbes,” shortly after the multimillionaire’s death, using multiple named and unnamed sources. I simply considered this “reporting” on a (dead) public figure. There wasn’t a special word for bringing forth details on other aspects relevant to report about public figures, even if those public figures didn’t want such facts reported — from their tax returns and their business dealings to their latest girlfriends or boyfriends or their divorces — so why a term for reporting that someone is gay or has same-sex relationships?” The term “outing” was invented (and condemned) by a closeted columnist at Time. Who could have guessed? https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelangelo-signorile/why-i-hate-outing-and-how_b_4560156.html

That’s what I was trying to say, ineptly. The ex-editor was explaining the Advocate’s blanket “no outing” policy.

I’m disappointed by one aspect of this column. “Outing” is not a public declaration of the homosexuality of a public person who doesn’t want it known. Outing is public declaration of the homosexuality of a public person who doesn’t want it known but who, in a position of power, works against gay civil rights. Hypocrisy by a public person is newsworthy, sexual identity is not. The distinction is important, though not well understood. I wish the column had made it.

Given that the initial headlines at places like ABC News and People were “Kevin Spacey comes out as gay,” and not “Kevin Spacey accused of pedophilia,” it’s easy to see why he wrote what he did, and to be relatively certain he had professional crisis management assistance.

Absolutely, unequivocally right. Even if the child, Anthony, was naked in bed with his ass in the air when the adult, Spacey, came into the bedroom, the appropriate response for the latter is “Get up, get dressed, go home.”

Yes, very true. And to which an observant adult could have said, "Let's talk," rather than "Here, let me lie down on top of you."

Many comments in this thread show very clearly why a lot of sexual assault victims (maybe most) never, ever come forward.

It gave me pause when Spacey said he "didn't recall" the assault on a child, but apologized if it did without issuing a denial. Rather than declaring the claim's falsehood, Spacey was in effect saying "maybe it happened," which suggests that he can't recall it because the episode was not unique.

The photos with a sheet of paper handwritten to say “9/2/2017” were funny. Like they couldn’t say “9/2/2024” or “9/2/1869.” It’s the thought that counts. But whatever happened to using a newspaper to certify a photo’s date? A few are still being published.