It’s perhaps not altogether surprising that a writer at Return of Kings, a site run by someone who has openly admitted to raping a woman too drunk to consent, has come out in defense of Jian Ghomeshi, the Canadian radio personality recently fired from CBC in the wake of serious accusations of violent sexual assault from an ever-growing list of women.
For most of those who have been following the scandal, the fact that numerous women have come forward with strikingly similar stories of abuse at the hands of Ghomeshi only increases the credibility of the case against him.
Over on Return of Kings, however, writer Blair Naso dismisses this as “a common pattern with celebrities in unconfirmed sex scandals.” And then he sets forth one of the creepiest defenses against rape allegations I’ve ever heard:
One woman claims something and then several other groupies hop on the media whore train. People claim Bill Cosby raped 13 women, but do they have any idea how hard it is to rape just one? Thirteen is a large rape notch count. Even if it was all consensual, how would Cosby hide that much adultery from his wife? He isn’t a sex symbol like some politicians are.
Emphasis mine. Yes, that’s right, he actually wrote “thirteen is a large rape notch count.”
Mr. Nasi, you want to know how Cosby might have managed to get his “rape notch count” so high, even though he’s “not a sex symbol?” Well, you could always fucking read what the women making these accusations have said. (Hint: he allegedly drugged them first.) Generally speaking, it is probably a good idea to actually read the allegations against someone before dismissing them as nonsense.
If Ghomeshi, or Cosby, or any celebrity accused of rape were facing accusations from “only” one woman, the Return of Kings boys would no doubt dismiss her as some crazy, lying slut. But when the accusations seem to be corroborated by other similar stories from other women who have also been victimized, well, gosh, raping that many women would be “too hard” of a task for one man to pull off.
What the fuck.
Most of the commenters at ROK, meanwhile, think that even if Ghomeshi is being railroaded he is still getting what he deserves — for being a “white knight” who previously gave lip service to the ideals of feminism.
No matter what side they’re taking in this controversy, in other words, the ROKers are doing it for the worst reasons possible.
Not surprised RoK is dismissing this. This whole thing has been very disheartening for the last week. Not because I’m a Ghomeshi fan (though I was) but because it’s again been clearly shown that women aren’t trusted unless there’s a lot of them saying the same thing.
I’d heard about Bill Cosby, it was all over my tumblr feed for a while, but I hadn’t heard the ‘rape is hard’ defence before. Ugh.
Color me (not) surprised to find that Mike Cernovich of #GamerGate is a longtime frequenter of the Roosh bulletin boards and fan of Return of Kings. He believes that anti-GG women just need sex from alpha males that anti-GG men can’t manage to provide. That PUA culture is just toxic, both for women and men. It demeans both genders.
Yeah, I live in Toronto, and it’s been hard not to hear about Ghomeshi here. Especially as I’m an old Moxy Fruvous fan as well.
And, as was mentioned above, he was generally considered a feminist ally. He’d been helping fight for abortion access since University; Moxy Fruvous used to do benefit concerts for Dr. Henry Morgentaler. (In fact, the only time I was ever in the same room as Dr. Morgentaler was at a Moxy Fruvous concert at Lee’s Palace.)
I guess it’s just another demonstration that someone can be all for women’s rights in the abstract, but still not really treat the woman in front of them as an actual person.
Rape “notches” WTF?
OK, let’s say that if that is a thing then they should be like the old gunslingers and have the notches cut into their weapon.
THIS. Whizz-bang-aaargh! I’m now stuck at work with two cats who are freaking the fuck out and it’s only the 1st.
On topic, I hope Judgytwit doesn’t stick her oar in with this. Her take on the Jimmy Saville stuff was stomach-churning enough.
I dipped into the comments, yuk, but the women are being called lying media whores. Ghomeshi is actually being eviscerated by some for his previous beta-ness and, I presume, for getting caught and giving rapists a bad name. There was a Teddy Bear involved.
I’m also really curious about where the fireworks are, poor kitties.
Ugh, I bet ‘lying media wh****s’ will be enough to set JB’s rape-apologetics radar twitching.
zennurse, the kitties are doing a little better now :). The fireworks were being let off in the neighbour’s back gardens so we’ve taken Trix and Luce to the opposite end of the building and tried to soundproof things. They’re still a bit jumpy though, eyes as big as saucers.
“I guess it’s just another demonstration that someone can be all for women’s rights in the abstract, but still not really treat the woman in front of them as an actual person.”
Or use the ally card as a way to further silence his victims…
@Shaun, that gave me the chills. Terrifying.
For those surprised about the Bill Cosby thing, I think it caught a lot of people unawares- the first I heard about it, and I think for a lot of others, was through part of Hannibal Buress’ standup where he discusses it and videos of his show just went batshit viral.
Those saucer eyes take time.
OT
Who is Cathy Young? I just read an article at reason.com by her called “Misandry in the GG controversy”. I can’t block quote on this very stupid tablet but it is dismissive of the level of violence and totally glosses over the right wing and MRA takeover trend. Essentially ” poor misunderstood gamergate”. David is referenced as an antiGG blogger and linked.
I am so annoyed.
Back to regular programming.
@zennurse
She’s a completely bog-standard femRA and general bigot who desperately wants to be Christina Hoff Sommers but isn’t well-known enough.
*FeMRA, even.
Waitwaitwait. Don’t these guys tend to say more often that *not* raping women is hard? What with the things they say regarding consent and clothes and stuff?
Coincidentally, just last night, I blogged about how PUA-like Jian’s overall behaviors, as described by the accusers, were. One former Q producer said he was constantly trawling for chats, dates, etc. with any nice-looking single woman who mentioned him on Facebook or Twitter. “Soliciting non-stop” were her exact words. And that he mentally abused her and another young female producer, playing them off against each other, being nice to one and nasty to the other by turns. She says they took turns crying in a wheelchair-accessible washroom in the studio. It seems that he was also very intrusive in social settings — always getting too close, too handsy, etc. Lots of people in journalism, especially in Toronto, are now coming out with “Jian stories” to that effect. It seems that he’s been the secret talk of the town (and the subject of warnings to women) for years.
So, color me SO not surprised to see PUAs talking in what sound like awfully envious tones about Bill Cosby’s and Jian’s “notch count”. Of course they would go gaga over some celebrity’s prowess at assault. Blehhhhh.
(And I used to like Jian too, back in the days of Moxy Früvous. I was happy for him when CBC gave him a show. To say I’m disgusted is putting it VERY mildly. Dude majored in Women’s Studies, fergawdsakes. Was that just a “macktivist” front? Ugh.)
Best tweet Hannibal Buress got in response to the set, in my opinion, was “Way to ruin pudding for America.”
Also, I’m pretty sure Buress added the hilarious: Am I allowed to laugh at the Theo joke if the pudding-rapist wrote it?
This whole story makes me super sad. I think I need to watch Hannibal Buress stand-up to fight this encroaching despair.
Hahaha, NOLA parades. Ah, he’s so funny.
As a Canadian who is well aware of Jian Ghomeshi… the accusations didn’t surprise me in the least. When you hit Lucy Decoutere, whatever respect I have flies right out the window, to say nothing of the eight(?) other women alleging the same crap.
Given the number of allegations, this is not just “a BDSM lifestyle” as Ghomeshi claims the CBC fired him for. This is blatant assault, much of it sexual in nature. The sexual harassment allegation (“I want to hate-f*ck you”) in the workplace alone is a fireable offense.
Jian, getting fired by the CBC is the best thing you can hope for, buddy.
I haven’t ready his book 1982, but I am now morbidly curious….
@Bina The Toronto Star coverage included a lot of stories of how narcissistic Ghomeshi apparently is. Everything, including minor stage appearances, were all about him and how other people thought about him.
I wasn’t a Q listener myself. I first heard him about 10 years ago when he did a rundown of the best songs of each decade from 1920 to 2000. He seemed liked he knew culture and music incredibly well and I kinda liked him. Then I started hearing about how big a douchebag he was… then this came out.
At least CBC pulled the trigger, unlike several major sports teams.
Incidentally, I laughed my ass off at this editorial cartoon the Star ran on Friday:
http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/opinion/editorial_cartoon/2014/10/30/moudakis_ghomeshi_trick_or_treat/moudakis_ghomeshi_trick_or_treat.jpg.size.xxlarge.letterbox.jpg
@Bina
That’s a depressingly common story, isn’t it, when these things are finally made public? Much the same was said of Michael Shermer when his preying on women became common knowledge.
Yup, it’s depressing. I wasn’t a hardcore fan, but his was a familiar, cute face that I liked. Early on, he seemed like a nice enough guy. The d-bag stuff came late in the game. I didn’t realize just what a too-big-for-his-britches he was until this past April, when he termed the whole rape culture issue a mere “debate”. Um, WHAT? Dude, you took women’s studies and you said THAT? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
Also, that Big Ears Teddy toon is too funny. It almost hurts to laugh.
The list of men it is not safe to get in the elevator with is an old old story.
In this particular case the target of the hate fuck remark was asked what she needed to do to make the workplace less hostile for herself. That is as old a story in the workplace as giving the new women the list of men it is not safe to get in the elevator with.
As far as this years winner of the Hugo Schwyzer faux feminism award, as usual the perp bragged about his exploits and was admired for it until suddenly he was not.
Seconded. Thanks for putting that reminder up, emilygoddess.
Low tolerance for rape apologism? Isn’t that a little like low tolerance for murder apologism? Low tolerance for beheadings apologism? Low tolerance for Ebola apologism? Low tolerance for child abuse apologism?
How about zero? I’d be in favor of that.