I keep reading about comedian Louis C.K.'s "misconduct" today, and am hoping you can help me understand. I'm not into what Louis seems to be—masturbating in front of an awkwardly recruited audience—but I fail to see what he's done that crosses the line into "wrong." He asked for consent in each witnessed story. In the situation where he didn't receive consent, he made awkward apologies. Maybe the time he's accused of masturbating during a phone discussion without consent shows some violation of the rules of polite society (and your willing participant rules) but the accuser is just guessing what he was up to. If his kink is unexpected (but consented) exhibition/fapping, what should he have done differently?
Louis Cums Kleen
You know what? I'm gonna let Louis C.K. walk you through what was wrong (no quotation marks needed) about what Louis C.K. did. This is from the statement he released earlier today:
I want to address the stories told to the New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not. These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn't a question. It's a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly. I have been remorseful of my actions. And I've tried to learn from them. And run from them.
Now I'm aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position.
I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in my and their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didn't want to hear it. I didn't think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it. There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for. And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with.
What Louis C.K. did was wrong. Again, LCK, no quotation marks are needed—not around the word "wrong," and not around the word "misconduct" either. Louis C.K. either didn't realize it was wrong at the time or he didn't care; he either realizes it was wrong now or the person(s) who helped draft this statement would like us to believe he does. As a fan of Louis C.K.'s work... I want to believe this statement is sincere. But I'm wary my admiration for his comedy might prompt to give him the benefit of the doubt—and in rereading his statement just now, it occurs to me that "predicament" is too weak a word for the position he put those women in. So much for the benefit of the doubt. And our sympathies right now belong entirely with the women Louis C.K. manipulated and abused, the women he traumatized, and the women whose careers his actions may have derailed.
As for what's wrong with "unexpected (but consented) exhibition/fapping," LCK, do you follow Kate Harding on Twitter? You should. And if you did, you would've gotten your answer about unexpected fapping earlier today...
Nobody looks at a surprise wang and thinks about how much they admire you. First, they think about whether you're about to rape them.
— Kate Harding (@KateHarding) November 10, 2017
If they get away, then they think about whether to report it. And realize how silly "He masturbated at us" will sound, esp. if guy denies it. Chances are he'll be believed, because men have that power over women.
— Kate Harding (@KateHarding) November 10, 2017
And of course, if they aren't believed, then they're marked as liars. So they think of what that might do to their careers, in the same industry as a guy who felt comfortable saying, "Do you mind if I masturbate?"
— Kate Harding (@KateHarding) November 10, 2017
TO FEEL COMFORTABLE ASKING THAT QUESTION IS TO HAVE POWER MOST WOMEN COULD NEVER IMAGINE
— Kate Harding (@KateHarding) November 10, 2017
Their admiration didn't give you power. It gave you plausible deniability. It gave you reason to think you could say they wanted it and have everyone important stand by you. The power you had over them was male privilege and entitlement. Fuck off with anything else.
— Kate Harding (@KateHarding) November 10, 2017
Women are socialized to defer to men; we are all primates hardwired to defer to power. Sometimes we abuse our power over others knowingly and maliciously, sometimes we aren't considering our relative power and wind up abusing it thoughtlessly. But a man who asks a woman he has power over if he can pull out his cock and masturbate in front of her is not going to get meaningful consent.
And did you even read the story you cited?
As soon as they sat down in his room, still wrapped in their winter jackets and hats, Louis C.K. asked if he could take out his penis, the women said. They thought it was a joke and laughed it off. “And then he really did it,” Ms. Goodman said in an interview with The New York Times. “He proceeded to take all of his clothes off, and get completely naked, and started masturbating.
He asked, sure, but he didn't wait for a "yes." He leveraged his power and he leveraged the deference women are trained to show men against his victims. That "crosses the line" into wrong. Even if he had managed to get a "yes," it would've been consent given under duress, aka not consent at all.
As for your last question—what Louis C.K. should've done differently—I'm gonna go with "everything." He should've done everything differently.
P.S. Kate Harding is the author of Asking For It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do About It. I think you should get yourself a copy of Kate's book and read it, LCK. It'll open your eyes. At the very least you'll be less likely to put quotation marks around words that don't need 'em.
UPDATE: Just adding this thread to the post for all the guys writing in to ask what was really so awful about Louis C.K. behavior...
[TW] There are going to be a lot of excuses made by Louis CK fans who don't want to believe that he's a serial sex abuser. Among those excuses will be that masturbating in front of women is "no big deal."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] It is a big deal. For many women (and men) who are forced to witness masturbation without consent, it is profoundly traumatic.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] One of the many things for which I will love Tig Notaro forever is depicting just how horrible it is, so sensitively and effectively, in season two of One Mississippi.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] And a lot of dudes don't understand that part of the reason women freeze in that situation is because we are scared. If a man is already willing to do that in front of me, then what is he going to do if I say something or try to leave or...?
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] This happened to me. I have mentioned before that, when I was 18, a man masturbated sitting across from me on the El in Chicago.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] To this day, I remember his face. I remember the Bulls tracksuit he was wearing. I remember the way his eyes fixated on me as he jerked off.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] I remember looking around the train for help. I remember every single man on the train averting his gaze. Most dudes think they'd be heroes in that situation. Most dudes aren't.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] It felt like an absolute eternity as I waited for the train to pull into the next station. I waited for the doors to open, waited while they stayed open, waited, with his eyes on me, until the doors were just about to close, then leapt through them.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] He stood and grabbed my arm. He held it and wrestled with me, grunting while he kept masturbating. I managed to wriggle free and the doors closed between us. I stood on the platform in falling snow and cried.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] I didn't want to get back on a train. So in the snow, I walked all the way back to my dorm. And then I curled up on my bed, wet and traumatized and very alone.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] And here's what happened next: I didn't report it, because I'd already been raped and reported it to police and school authorities and nothing happened. So I figured nothing would happen again.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] And here's what happened after that: I tolerated all kinds of sexual abuse on the train, commuting nearly every day for 10 years, because I was scared of escalation.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] "This guy's rubbing his hard cock against me. No big deal. I can tolerate that. This guy's rubbing my boob. No big deal. I can tolerate that. This guy is humping me with the rhythm of the train. No big deal. I can tolerate that."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] These are things I said to myself because I was scared that if I *couldn't* tolerate it, I'd get hurt. I convinced myself to accept all manner of "casual" sexual assault because of the fear of escalating violence.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] The men who abused me (and countless other women) on crowded and empty commuter trains knew that. They count on it.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] And the fact is, that's also an indication they're *willing* to get violent, if they must. The threat only works if it's real. And it is.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] That is why they get away with it. Not because women are weak. Not because women are meek. Because women know *they could escalate* and *hurt us even more*.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] Physically hurt us. Or, in the case of workplace/industry harassment and assault, hurt our careers. Or both.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] My story is not unusual. I wish it were. It's not just that it happens to virtually every women. It's that it happens to lots of women over and over.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
[TW] And if you have the urge to defend any man who sexually harasses or assaults any women in any way, you are part of the fucking problem.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2017
Melissa McEwan is the Editor-in-Chief of Shakesville. Follow her on Twitter @Shakestweetz.
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