Male Feminist #MeToo #TimesUp Proponent Accused of Sexual Assault

I do not know how to respond.
So I will say what's coming to my head. I think Aziz SHOULD have stopped immediately she expressed her repeated verbal and gestural signs that she was not interested.
By my understanding of her recollection of events she still hooked up with him, and after regretted it however to use the word 'Sexual Assault' I think is TOO heavy for something like this.
I can't put myself in her shoes and feel for her, however isn't this just case of one of those bad hookups that one encounters?

 

I read the article that "Grace" wrote. While he was too aggressive, she kept consenting. He never raped or sexually assaulted her. He was just way too aggressive and horny. With that said and this is terrible to say, please dont cancel Master of None.

 

Man..... Russell Simmons would use his "#NotMe" hashtag right about now...

 

I also don't know how to take this. She put herself in a situation where she was alone with him knowing she didn't want to have sex with him. She wasn't forceful in stopping the sexual encounter and even went along with it. I'm also mystified as to why she didn't leave when she felt uncomfortable. I'm don't think this rises to level of sexual assault. The real test will be if more women come out of the woodwork to accuse Aziz Ansari of sexual assault. He can join the ranks of Kevin Spacey, Louis CK, Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken etc. and kiss his career goodbye.

 

First, I believe most of these women and men. With that being said, I think we are dangerously close to a process where due process isn’t happening. Some of these accusers are liars or trying to get their moment and we as a culture need to figure out how to better manage allegations. There is a fundamental fairness that is being lost in this movement.

 

@itsumoconfused and I were talking about this the other day.

This is what Caitlan Flanagan of The Atlantic said about due process, or the lack thereof. And with it, calls out numerous people, like the woman who posted this account of...I seriously don't know how to classify it other than "3,000 words of revenge porn".

"Twenty-four hours ago—this is the speed at which we are now operating—Aziz Ansari was a man whom many people admired and whose work, although very well paid, also performed a social good. He was the first exposure many young Americans had to a Muslim man who was aspirational, funny, immersed in the same culture that they are. Now he has been—in a professional sense—assassinated, on the basis of one woman’s anonymous account."

...

"I thought it would take a little longer for the hit squad of privileged young white women to open fire on brown-skinned men. I had assumed that on the basis of intersectionality and all that, they’d stay laser focused on college-educated white men for another few months. But we’re at warp speed now, and the revolution—in many ways so good and so important—is starting to sweep up all sorts of people into its conflagration: the monstrous, the cruel, and the simply unlucky. Apparently there is a whole country full of young women who don’t know how to call a cab, and who have spent a lot of time picking out pretty outfits for dates they hoped would be nights to remember. They’re angry and temporarily powerful, and last night they destroyed a man who didn’t deserve it."

The Humiliation of Aziz Ansari

 

Because it doesn't. It just doesn't. In fact, this piece cheapens the experiences of women and men who fight back and are actually sexually assaulted and raped by powerful men.

 

I was following up on this as well. I am thinking back through reading that piece and thinking about the issue in which access to escape the situation that she was in were more readily available than many of these other stories we hear about people being sexually assaulted. This is NYC we're talking about, endless cabs, ubers and trains/buses are 24hrs.

I think there are also issues with how sex is a pervasive yet simultaneously taboo thing in our culture and therefore we have somehow developed strange ways to not be more straightforward about wanting to do the deed or not. Which is really what this story is about. Just as much blame there is to give Aziz for being a horny dude trying to get his acorns and actually being fairly explicit about what he wanted, she could have also been more explicit in the first 1000 interactions by just saying "nah son." So what was her original thought? You go on a date and then go to their home, you don't think they're going to want to screw?

 

I also think the Aziz story is different because the Feminist Article that exposed him tried to conflate the issue in a victimhood 3000-word essay. In all reality, the Aziz story is one of a bad date and internal regret not one of a powerful man using his power to assault women. The article tried to capitalize on the momentum of this moment and what happen was actual critical thinking.

With that being said, I do think that there is a significant history of women not being believed and sidelined or downplayed. That is a real problem that deserves acknowledgment. But OVERREACH always results in snapbacks which could derail any meaningful progress women and feminists have made.

 

Which is why I feel really uneasy about this whole particular situation in the first place. I don't find her to be a victim similar to the people that bought up this particular movement; however we all need to learn how to communicate better for the sake of sex. As we transition to a more sex-positive mindset it isn't enough to just make this transition without also learning how to be healthier emotionally, mentally and communicatively about the concept of sex.

 

it matters that babe.com approached "grace" for this story -- #thirsty -- and not the other way around. it also matters that such retellings have been handled primarily by feminist websites in the past, but suddenly they've been launched into general interest media which unlikely has the expertise to adequately frame such a delicate issue. so i dont think we can fully understand this moment separate from other variables, like profit and our culture's investment in public spectacle and shaming.

monied interests has always found ways to fuse itself to social justice work. and we, the public, are carnivores in our consumption of spectacle, often failing to ask critical questions: who is this serving? who profits from this? would the story be told differently if the identity of folks involved were different? why now? (i could go on).

this is one of the unfortunate realities of movements and this is true well beyond #metoo and feminism. (it's been equally true of black lives matter). so i don't think feminists can be blamed for these broader realities, especially since many female writers and several feminist websites have responded by challenging grace's recollection and/or babe's decision to pursue her for this story.

also, consider that one of the negative consequences of the civil rights movement is that we have extracted and canonized very neat anecdotes from a deeply messy time period. and this ahistorical neatness has become a standard and filter through which current social efforts are judged. #metoo doesn't have the same luxury of our hindsight afforded to civil rights folks, as we are living and social media-ing while #metoo is happening in real time. that's an important difference. there are going to be missteps. there are going to be individuals who see this as their moment. these things should be addressed obviously, but they also should not detract from the intention of what the majority of women are trying to accomplish.