This god damned Woody Allen thing,

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I have to admit that I tend to place Michael Jackson in a different category from people like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. Not that I'm defending the things he did AT ALL. But it's easy to look at his life and his lack of agency through most of it and how his personal development was so horribly stunted and come to the conclusion that he really probably didn't view his actions as being wrong or even understand why other people thought they were wrong. Doesn't mean they weren't HORRIBLY HORRIBLY wrong, but I tend to view that more as "victim victimizes other victims" as opposed to "shitbag predator".

But now I wonder how much of that is just because Billie Jean has the sickest bassline ever.

This also goes back to the discussion about how much harm it does to demonize child molesters. Some of them are actually sociopaths and narcissists, sure, but most of them are just people who got damaged and fucked in the head to the point where they have weird, irrational, horrible compulsions they can't control. The fact that we demonize them makes their investment in HIDING those compulsions much deeper than their investment in getting help for them, and it complicates matters even more by making their victims more afraid to spill the beans as well. "If you tell they'll take me away and put me in jail forever" or "if you tell, Mommy will divorce me" is even scarier, as well as more plausible, for many children than "If you tell I'll kill you". Which is not as common a threat as many people believe it is. It's often the real consequences of telling that children are afraid of.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Which is, as I have said before, yet another reason I wish people would think twice before saying things like "Child molesters should be put to death". The implicit message that sends to someone who has been molested is that what was done to them was tantamount to murder. That that is how much damage was done to them; it is deserving of the death penalty. An eye for an eye.

It is a very short step from there to Babylon Horuv's "if my daughter is ever raped I hope they kill her so she doesn't have to live with that".

It is, essentially, an implicit statement that someone who has been molested is better off dead.

[East Coast Hustle]

Yep. It's hard to find a space in my Bag O' Compassion for sexual predators but without it the problem never gets addressed proactively or effectively.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Just calling it now - Woody Allen will be the U.S version of Jimmy Saville.

He'll die, be venerated and then about a year later all the skeletons will leap out.

I can't recall offhand a major US celebrity being seriously punished for child abuse in the recent past. When this shit hits it's going to make the McCarthy hearings look fair and even-handed.

I find this absolutely plausible. I am really interested in what Soon Yi, and their adopted children, will have to say about him after he's dead.

[Junkenstein]

I'm also guessing R. Kelly for the first proper jail sentence. Because fuck R. Kelly. 

[Salty]

It comed down to a matter of advocacy.

For whom do you advocate? How much time and energy do you have. Many in the entertainment industry advocate for artists because MONEY.

Most of us shlubs try to advocate with those who we feel deserve sympathy.

There's no actual need for demonizing either way, but, monkeys,

[P3nT4gR4m]

Yep. It's hard to find a space in my Bag O' Compassion for sexual predators but without it the problem never gets addressed proactively or effectively.

I don't even see it as a matter for compassion. More a case of objective analysis. Cause and effect. Same way I see anything that people describe as "Evil". Evil is a fucking symptom. To the best of my knowledge, nobody ever cured measles by yelling at spots.   

[East Coast Hustle]

I think that I view the entire idea of "compassion" as "the objective analysis that not adding to the shittiness of everything is better for everyone in the long run".

[Bu☆ns]

https://www.yahoo.com/celebrity/father-woody-allen-danger-questions-unasked-guest-column-100415073.html

update, written by Ronan Farrow, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow's son.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

https://www.yahoo.com/celebrity/father-woody-allen-danger-questions-unasked-guest-column-100415073.html

update, written by Ronan Farrow, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow's son.

Wow, that is some powerful stuff. The guy is a good writer, and I'm glad he wrote that.