I knew I shouldn’t have, but I listened to the N.Y.P.D. recording of Harvey Weinstein admitting to a woman that he had previously sexually assaulted her. I knew that it would be uncomfortable to hear, certainly not even remotely as disturbing to me as it must have been to his victim, but I wasn’t prepared for the rapid sinking feeling, the gut punch.
Should you choose to hit play, be warned that it is very difficult to listen to.
There is a rabid desperation from both parties, his insistent pleading over and over and over to have her come into his room for ‘just one minute’ is vile. Her constantly telling him no, only to have each no make him beg more, accelerate his manipulation, is gut wrenching. I felt helpless listening to it. Then, realized my feelings paled in comparison to the agony she must have endured during the exchange.
As a woman I have been met with unwanted sexual advances, touching, harassing words and leering looks. As has every woman I know. We are judged for our looks, how we dress, if we say no, say yes, say nothing. We can never be right. We are uptight bitches if we decline offers, sluts if we accept them. But no matter what, we always had it coming.
The blog I wrote prior to this one was my first serious attempt at writing. I mused on most any encounter I had in life, social issues, minor grievances, peculiar happenstances. The common thread that ran through most every post was humor and sometimes scathing sarcasm.
When you’re the new kid on the block, be it in school or work, a new town, a new URL, you want to find a group to settle into. The role of outlier is never an easy one to fill. As bloggers tend to do, I found a circle to join, other forward thinking odd ducks that appreciated dark humor.
One blogger in this circle stood out. He had a large and devoted following. His words were clever and deep, often leaving you wanting more. His wife blogged as well, a charming and highly intelligent woman with an irreverent sense of humor. They both espoused the benefits of inclusion, acceptance, and feminism and I lapped it up. We became fast friends, supporting each other’s work and collaborating a time or two. I genuinely adored this blogger and his wife, supported the causes they appeared to be fighting for, and found creative inspiration in reading their work.
One day, when logging into my WordPress reader, I was hit by a bombshell. Another blogger, one that I had never read, wrote a blog post accusing my friend of horrifying acts of sexual harassment. Most everyone I followed was sharing this post or writing one of their own about it. I was in shock. How was this even possible? My friend, a mentor of sorts, was alleged to have been engaging in the exact same behaviors he and his wife had admonished in post after post. How was this happening?
I called him to hear his side of the story. I listened to him cry, never exactly denying the accusations, and wisely never admitting to them either. As I remember that call I grow more and more enraged at my inability to see beyond my desperate need for this to not be true. I believed him. I believed what was most comfortable for me. I believed my friend was who I wanted him to be, needed him to be. I consoled him. I feel a certain amount of shame in admitting that, but it is the truth. I readily gave a predator my shoulder to cry on.
The blog post heard round the world essentially ran my friend out of town. His blogs disappeared, his wife’s was suddenly made private. I had never experienced this type of behavior from him, he’d never once been inappropriate with me. So I remained friends with both of them on Facebook, still not entirely sure what I believed about all this. I closed down my blog, something I had planned on doing before all this happened, and shut out the WordPress community. I closed the door on all the accusations and comments. I was stunned. I was also silent.
I quietly observed his behavior online for a few weeks afterward while I pondered all that had just unfolded. As my shock wore away I began to see him with a new set of eyes. Actions that I once found cheeky now seemed aggressive. Conversations that used to feel intellectually provocative now felt manipulative. I would occasionally go back to that original blog post and root through the comments, finally beginning to accept what I had denied for too long. That rapid sinking feeling. The gut punch. This man had done exactly what he was accused of by so many. My friend was a predator.
I confronted him and urged him to get help, explained that I no longer felt safe having any connection to him. At first he was agreeable. He knew he needed help. He was seeking that now. He felt terrible for all that had happened. He understood why I would want to walk away. No hard feelings.
Then, it turned, in the blink of an eye. Later that day, and in the days following, message after message after message, email after email. Why would I turn my back on him in his darkest hour? How could I confront him when he was so emotionally fragile? He offered me his wife’s phone number, convinced that if I could just talk to her I would see that he wasn’t a bad guy. Rabid desperation, pleading, insistence, manipulation.
I was finally able to end his obsessive messaging with a threat to call the police and by using his own words against him. He had once commented on a blog post of mine that he learned quickly ‘never to fuck with’ me. I found it odd at the time, I was perplexed by it, but now it made sense. Now I needed to let him know he was right. Don’t ever contact me again. You know better than to fuck with me.
I was immediately blocked by both him and his wife on Facebook and I never heard from either of them again. My life after that became filled up with a recurrence of my tumor and years of treatment. I had all but forgotten about my blogger friend, the predator, and his wife.
One day years later, while on Instagram, they both popped up in my “explore” page. She was now touting her gardening prowess. His feed was full of selfies, still playing the part of brooding deep thinker with a heart. They were both begging for money via a Go Fund Me page. They are grifters, you see, always a con. They want your money, your attention, your sympathy, and they will tell you anything to get you to comply. It worked then and now. Their monetary goal had been met, exceeded even.
When I heard that police recording, when I heard Harvey Weinstein’s desperate pleas, when I had read all the articles my stomach could handle I thought of my blogger friend, the predator. The game is the same whether you are a big time Hollywood executive or a small time blogger, coercion and control. Friendship and kindness are just a means to an end. They are grifters, you see. Everything is a con. Everyone a mark.
My blogger friend, the predator, always painted himself as the victim. His ex-wife, he would write, was cruelly trying to keep his son from him. He laid down a foundation of a history with mental health issues, so that was always an available excuse whenever he was confronted by anything he didn’t want to deal with. I’m feeling so vulnerable now, I can’t. I must take care of myself and avoid stress.
When that didn’t work he would turn aggressive, attacking a person’s character all under the guise of defeating exclusion, racism, misogyny. He was never being mean, just outing wrongdoings. He was the superhero. He was never to blame. There was always an excuse, an out.
The sinking feeling I had listening to the Weinstein tape, the gut punch, was a reminder of a time I was silent when I shouldn’t have been. I wish that I had joined the chorus of women telling the truth, or at the very least voiced my support for the women that did. I was supposed to have been the one that he shouldn’t fuck with, but I withered on the vine.
Instead, it was a woman, someone that he felt he could manipulate and control, that brought down his brick facade. She is the superhero. To her and all the women like her, the ones that stand up and shout out, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, I offer my gratitude and praise. I promise to stand up and shout out with you next time because, unfortunately, there will be a next time.
*Featured image courtesy of Pixabay.
Wow-I always think of blogland as relatively safe. I’m sorry that happened to you or anyone.
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People can hide on the internet, produce a certain image and then lie in wait. He was a true wolf in sheep’s clothing.
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Yes, I remember it well.
He mucked around with Alice…and as for me, I had a bad feeling about him from the get-go.
I was lucky, other people not so much.
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The way he laid the groundwork as being so sensitive to mental health issues and then going after very vulnerable people has always stuck with me. It was beyond devious. It was sociopathic.
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I agree. I wrote something for the one blog he had, I forget the name of it. I don’t think that he particularly liked me all that much, but I know for a fact that he was cruel to Alice and at one point told her that she had no talent as a writer at all. It messed her up really bad. He’s not just a sexual predator, he’s also a big bully.
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For sure. Was it Black Box Warnings? I look back on that blog and feel like it was just a way for him to lure vulnerable women in and assess if he could manipulate them or denigrate them somehow.
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Yes, that was it, Black Box Warnings. He approached me, asked me to write something about my issues with depression. I’ll admit that I was excited about it at the time because he was a BIG DEAL and all. But after that, he ignored my very existence, which I now count as a blessing.
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He seemed to have women in groups, those he harassed, those he beat down psychologically, and those that would make him appear like he was a good guy. The latter was my role. The more women friends he had it made him appear as if he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. When I told him I was cutting off contact with him he kept directing me to our various mutual female friends to get them to vouch for him. He had a well built plan, for sure. That’s why I love that one of his victim’s brought him down in such spectacular fashion.
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Oh yes. I thought that she was brave as fuck for bringing him down like that.
Alice was in the group where he would harass and beat her down psychologically. Even now when we chat about it, she gets so upset. If she happens to see his gravatar on an old post, she freaks out.
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Fuck him. Beating down beautiful people for the sport of it. Fuck him.
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Yep. Fucking piece of shit he is.
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I didn’t realize you were on WordPress then! What was your old blog – it’s okay if you don’t want to say it. Yeah, he mucked with me, but fortunately I only showed a picture of a cartoon Alice in Wonderland. A blogger told me before he was exposed that it was a good thing I didn’t show my real face because he knew a girl who was sexually harassed by him. He just played me emotionally, all the time going on about how much he cared about mental health. Oh and of course women’s issues, he sure did hate when women were abused! And the way he fawned over his wife all the time. I remember thinking I rarely saw men feel the need to constantly praise their wives in public unless they’d done something. Hmm.
But yeah I fell for his game too, until I said something he didn’t like and he turned on me. His words did combine with other issues to send me on a big downward spiral of depression. After the woman outed him, I wrote a blog post about it. I would link it here but it reveals his name and the blogger name of the woman who outed him. You can find it on my blog, though. Just search for “Independence Day”. There are many comments from other bloggers who were either affected or shocked by his behavior.
I did see him appear for a bit quite a while ago on Facebook – begging for money then as well. Supposedly he had had a reaction to some drug the mean hospital overlords had given him and oh no could not work and – even if I didn’t know him I’d think it was fake. I didn’t realize he’d done other stuff with his wife – I thought she might have been a victim as well. Unreal.
Sorry for the novel, but I did find subtle ways to get to him before he was outed. You can find posts about a clown named Boppo – I’m not terribly subtle. Also I played on his words to me in a series of letters to Santa. I had my ways. But yes, anyone who plays on people who are already victims is even more despicable. And it’s sad that there are so many out there.
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The gofundme that I saw, very recently on IG, told a similar story. I love that whenever I search his name the blog post that outed him is one of the first pages to pop up, but they’ve obviously found ways to manipulate and control beyond his harassment. Sick fuck.
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I can absolutely see this scenario happening to me. You’re not alone. I am a trusting soul and hate the idea that people would try and take advantage of me or anyone. But it does happen, and being a victim is not on my to-do list today or ever. Your reflections on how manipulative these people can be and how you were led into an unhealthy relationship will help others, like me, be more aware. Clearly, Weinstein and your blogger friend have deep unmet needs they can’t satisfy legitimately. So they seek the gross, manipulative, dark way instead. I’m sorry this happened to you. And you’re right about sexual harassment being an everyday occurrence for all women. We definitely need to keep awareness on this issue, and keep talking about it and sharing experiences. Only then do we bring the darkness into the light.
Of course, your writing is also compelling, as always.
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Thank you. My husband often says I always think others are playing by the same rules I am. It didn’t dawn on me that you could even be this type of person. It was a hard lesson.
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This is exactly the trap I repeatedly fall into: I think others are as decent as I am. The number of times I’ve been wrong about that has kept WalMart’s sangria supplier in business for over a decade.
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Hahahaha! I’d say it’s better that we think kindly of most people, but sometimes it bites you in the ass like this.
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The only time a man made an inappropriate comment to me was when a former employer congratulated me on a job well done and then told me how he hadn’t wanted to hire me because I was fat and fat people were lazy. He was happy the VP “saw something” in me and she hired me.
I know how I felt then but I can’t begin to imagine how victims of predators like this feel.
Awesome post.
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Thank you.
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Ain’t that the truth? There’s so many men out there like this predator in your blog. It makes me so angry. So sorry you had to deal with this. Being abused is horrific, but I can only imagine discovering someone you know is an abuser is horrible too.
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It was a blow, for sure. That level of deception makes you not want to trust your own judgement. Thankfully, it seems out of all the bloggers I’ve met he’s the only bad seed.
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Urgh. This is an excellent (if very chilling) post Christine. I wish it wasn’t true, but you are right; Unfortunately, there will be a next time.
My book group read Everyday Sexism a while ago, and the thing I found most shocking about it was speaking to friends after I had finished reading the book. It turns out that don’t have many friends that have *not* been assaulted or sexually harassed. If you call it assault or harassment women won’t think it has happened to them BUT if you ask if they’ve been touched inappropriately, or had bosses make obscene comments/ try it on with them etc they’ll be like “oh yeah, that has happened to me several times.”
I had some VERY horrible experiences with bosses in the past. One was so bad that I had to leave asap (I knew HR would never back me up if it was my work against his.) I hope I’d be able to be a superhero and call out that kind of behaviour now. But it is hard to say when you’re in a vulnerable position. Recently I have started to worry that my ex-boss might have tried similar things with other women. I should have spoken up just in case someone else has to go through it. Argh.
Anyway, I know that punch in the gut feeling you describe.
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Every woman has a story. It’s a sad truth.
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A lot of this terrible, evil sick behaviour was enabled by the sociology of the times we all come from. Assertive/aggressive men were allowed, no, prized, as were quiet, cooperative women. FINALLY this is changing. So PLEASE try NOT to beat yourself up for not seeing the guy’s failings sooner. Or for being silent when you first found out. We are SO bound up in the old roles; our silence was *expected* – and that’s how these evil apes were able to carry on as long as they did. My own story: I once was sent to a ‘specialist’ doctor – a big name in our city, huge reputation, philanthropist etc. – for a persistent cough I had. I was 17. In the exam room, him and me alone: after listening to my chest & back with a stethoscope he had me just stand still (in underwear only) facing him for what seemed like minutes on end, in silence. As I think back on it, he was probably masturbating. Finally I was ‘permitted’ to get dressed. I remember feeling vulnerable and ashamed. Like – it was MY fault??? Hello??! I also remember a transgressive move from an uncle too. And a grandfather.
NO MORE. Now the light is shining in the dark corners, rooting out all the rats. We have power now. Power to speak, power in unity. HOORAY, I say!!! NO. MORE.
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Damn right, Ellie! NO MORE!
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Interesting points: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-judd-apatow-sexual-harassment-hollywood-harvey-weinstein-20171012-htmlstory.html
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I found it so uncomfortable to listen to the recording, but I wanted to. That constant pleading from him….I cant imagine how that woman felt. I’d just want him away from me but then I could feel the pressure he was putting her under. I’m sorry you went through your experience on your other blog. Another blogger has written about him and I commented how angry it made me that people are still victim-blaming, and that women are also victim-blaming! I find it all such a depressing situation that we’re still trying to change attitudes towards people like him and the victims that are targeted.
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It is sad. How can you even wonder why they don’t come forward? They’ve been traumatized and often times are further traumatized by people who think they’re lying. It takes a lot of guts to come out and speak up.
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I have experienced this ghastly silence when I was abused by a [ I have learnt not to divulge the occupation of this person because it immediately forces loyal supporters to take sides – and you never know who they are .. they are everywhere] The predator used to tell me, while he was abusing me, ‘They blame the women – you know’. (Yes – I noticed the plural) I did not entirely believe him! Until I spoke up. The abuse is far behind me today – the predator is still at large. For a long time I cared deeply about what this narcissist predator was doing in the lives of other women. I thought I could save other women from their fate. However, I was treated very badly by his women ‘friends’ after I came out with my allegations. The women that these predators do not directly abuse become their greatest ally & in that way he abuses them too. They just can’t see it. I gave up in the end due to the stress but the exercise of speaking up gave me back my personal power. The covert abuser places his victims in a double-bind. If you speak up you are stuffed, if you don’t you are stuffed in a different way. By speaking up however I took back the most important thing that the abuser tried to destroy: my personal integrity. I could not live with others if I spoke up; I could not live with myself when I remained silent. I leaned that the punishing silence is worse than the punishment for speaking up. I learned that by remaining silent the predator had more or less forced me to agree with him – he was doing nothing wrong. My silence made me feel guilty. My silence made me share in his crimes, past, present and future. Until I came out with it.
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I’m so sorry that happened to you. Thank you so much for sharing this.
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Thank you for posting … 🙂I forgot to say before I clicked the send button … I felt edified by reading it. I admire your clarity.
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