Reader J wants me to post something about Jian Ghomeshi, so here goes. He’s a former member of Moxy Früvous who now has a career as a music producer and radio host, most recently hosting Q on CBC Radio. Imagine a male, Iranian Terry Gross and you’ve about got him pegged. Except, unlike Terry Gross, he admits to having a taste for rough sex or BDSM. Eight women who have been with him [warning:autoplay video] call his interests sexual assault, and three of them have filed charges against him today. He has also apparently had consensual BDSM relationships, and he’s trying to play all of these assault allegations off as consensual. He’s also filed a $55 million lawsuit against the CBC after he was fired. In other words, atypically for a Canadian, he’s not “soory”.
Ghomeshi’s attempt to cast himself as a victim of kink phobia by CBC’s management is perhaps the only interesting part of this tale. Otherwise, it’s an all-too-common story of a creep who’s able to get away with some pretty rotten behavior because of his minor celebrity.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
One wonders what to make of this one
One could almost say it was way to easy for him to be an asshole when his own victims were willing to enable him.
the Conster
You didn’t find him not wanting his big teddy bear to watch interesting? The guy is a total whackaloon.
Tom Levenson
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: you write:
You missed the fact that “she feared he was too powerful” — which as we’ve seen over and over again, is a valid fear. Victims do not enable their attackers; the legal and cultural systems we inhabit do the enabling.
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
So any woman who fears for her life and does what her assailant wants in order to get out of the situation has actually given her consent so it wasn’t really rape?
Also, go fuck yourself.
Tom Levenson
@Mnemosyne: I think, to give EVT the most charitable reading, that EVT was talking about the decision not to report the assault once escaped from the room. Which still misses the point: the power that lies behind the initial assault remains a dire threat after the fact.
Ferdzy
Minor celebrity? As a musician, yes. As the host of the afternoon show on CBC radio (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) not so much. He is a big, big name here. And while he seems to have had quite the reputation in the industry, these revelations are shocking to those of us listening at home – not at all in line with the persona he presented. I have to admit to being pretty disgusted and depressed by all of this.
p.s. I have to say I also kind of hate the title for this thread.
Mnemosyne
@Tom Levenson:
I would hope so, but it pisses me off that it’s goddamned 2014 and some people still don’t understand that stepping forward and claiming that a powerful man raped you is asking for your life to be made a living hell.
Hey, how’d that work out for the woman who said that Kobe Bryant raped her?
skyweaver
Dan Savage has a pretty good wheat-separation-from-chaff about BDSM vs. what this guy did:
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/10/29/interviews-with-two-women-who-dated-jian-ghomeshi
Suffern ACE
Once he was the king of pain, now he’ll work at the pizza pizza.
Karen in GA
I think I remember seeing him on Newsworld International on DirecTV, before it became Current. Charming enough TV presence. Horrible bastard of a human being, though.
And yeah, the “feared he was too powerful” part isn’t the victim enabling the attacker — it’s the fucking culture enabling the attacker.
Keith G
When I first saw this news story, it was a bit of a nothing burger. As an employee of a broadcasting organization, he is hired to be a public face or voice. … and if he is doing ( or being associated with) something that the organization doesn’t like, he gets to go away.
Marc
@Tom Levenson: Yeah, this isnt’ just about “minor celebrity,” let alone victim-blaming; this is about abuse of power, plain and simple, just like any other workplace sexual harrassment/sexual assault case.
Jeet Heer has commented on the class politics involved in these kind of abuses, and why people who work in “the precariat” may feel like they can’t afford to come forward.
Betty Cracker
@Tom Levenson: Well said. Thank you.
agorabum
@Ferdzy: right. Big big name in Canada – so a minor celebrity.
Zing!
J.D. Rhoades
@skyweaver:
Good article. “Ask forgiveness, not permission” absolutely DOES NOT APPLY to BDSM.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
So you’re saying Terry Gross doesn’t admit her taste for BDSM?
Mom Says I'm Handsome
@Suffern ACE: Excellent.
I was a big Fruvous fan back when. Disappointing, not surprising, to hear about his shitty behavior.
Being American I don’t know much about Q; I saw him interview Eddie Izzard and was underwhelmed by his interviewing skills.
constitutional mistermix
@Ferdzy: Title for the thread is a Tragically Hip song title – is that why you hate it?
Balloon-Juice style dictates that all posts about Canada must have a Tragically Hip title, so there’s not much I can do about it.
aimai
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Holy shit that is a vile thing to say about that woman. Have you ever been in fear for your life and your job? STFU.
Living in the carpenter's house
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Cervantes
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Would you care to elaborate? Thanks.
Cervantes
@Ferdzy: Yes, the title is not helpful.
Nutella
Ghomeshi is a person who thinks the rules the rest of us have to go by don’t apply to him, including basic professionalism and decent workplace conduct. According to the Toronto Star, he attempted to show his bosses at CBC that he was kinky rather than criminal by SHOWING THEM VIDEOS OF HIS SEXUAL ACTIVITIES. Sorry to shout there but that’s just too stunning to say in a normal tone of voice. Surely that alone, subjecting his boss to a viewing of his home-made sex tapes, is sufficient grounds for firing.
And also @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Ghomeshi’s crimes are 100% his own damn fault, not his victims’.
Comrade Mary
@constitutional mistermix: I know that “dark” is meant as a metaphor and is a Hip song reference to boot, but given that Ghomeshi is brown/Iranian, maybe another bit of figurative language would be useful.
Cervantes
@Mom Says I’m Handsome:
There’s really nothing one can say to that, is there?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
For a change of pace from the apparent evils of Jian, ThinkProgress has a great review of Amy Poehler’s new book.
Cheers,
Scott.
Comrade Mary
Better song and better metaphor.
Amir Khalid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Because I love to pile on:
The victim here didn’t choose not to complain after the fact. She dared not. The latter does not amount to willingly enabling a perpetrator.
Ferdzy
@constitutional mistermix:
I’m not familiar with the song in question. The conflation of “dark” with bad is particularly problematic when discussing someone who is on the brown side of human skin tones, that’s all.
Bobby B.
It’s weird that Ugly Blowjob World has entered NPR’s coffeetable- jazz- bumpers mindset.
sharl
@Comrade Mary: Hey, have you not been around these parts lately? Or maybe just not when I’ve been here?
Anyhoo, I’ve missed you and that music encyclopedia you carry around in your haid.
Regarding appropriate music selections, I’ve wondered for awhile if the Tragically Hip’s “New Orleans is Sinking” ever got yanked off the air, post-Katrina. Finally motivated to take a look, and apparently it was.
Comrade Mary
@sharl: Not been around much, but awww and shucks and thanks over your nice comment.
Karen in GA
@Nutella: Showed his bosses VIDEOS?
Wow. The thought of him doing that makes me enjoy picturing him on the receiving end of this (starting at :15).
Heywood J.
I’m just relieved to see that the headline has nothing to do with Geddy Lee or Anne Murray. Had me worried there for a second.
El Cid
I often initiate interactions with women I barely know by slamming them against walls and pummeling and beating them and forcing them to have sex with me. I figure it’s their responsibility to figure out the best way to politely let me know that this is not okay. And they should do so in an effective way which doesn’t make me feel in any way awkward about my inclinations toward beating up women.
What?
RedKitten
The other reason why this has dominated our news is because the MSM is FINALLY (FUCKING FINALLY) having a conversation about why rape victims are so rarely seen as credible, even though false convictions are rarer than hen’s teeth. Ghomeshi just had to put out a Facebook post and most everybody believed him. It took EIGHT women and a well-respected actress to speak out to acheive that same level of credibility, and even now, Ghomeshi still has a lot of supporters.
Women have been talking for years about the shitty deal rape victims get. For once, people in power are listening
Amir Khalid
@Karen in GA:
But first, I imagine him telling his bosses: “I’m a normal guy! Look, I can prove it!”
Mnemosyne
@El Cid:
There does sometimes seem to be a weird fantasy that some guys with a kink have that the women they’re attracted to share their kink but don’t know it yet, so they just need to surprise them with their kink and the women will be happy and grateful to have been introduced to this wonderful kink that they never knew existed.
This rarely works out, but damned if that kind of guy doesn’t keep trying.
(It’s possible that women with a kink do the same thing, but I wouldn’t know since I’m a straight woman.)
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
Now imagine you’re one of his ex-girlfriends who consented at the time to being taped and now senior executives at the CBC know what you’re into.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: Did they consent, I wonder.
the Conster
@RedKitten:
IIRC five women had to come forward about Herman Cain before it became clear he was a lying sack of douchenozzles. I remember back in the early 90s some cosmetic co. CEO was accused, and some news show had a panel of like 20+ women who all had basically the same story about him, and only then was his story questioned. I’ve wondered for a long time how much longer it will take for one woman’s voice to equal one man’s. I think it’s not in my daughters’ lifetimes.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
It’s not super unusual for people to tape themselves having sex these days, so I was going with that scenario. If it turns out that they didn’t consent to being taped, then that adds a whole new level of ick to the whole thing.
ETA: I’m also assuming that Ghomeshi wouldn’t be stupid enough to show tapes to his bosses of women who didn’t know they were on camera, but he hasn’t shown a whole lot of awareness of social norms so far, so maybe I’m giving him too much credit.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mnemosyne:
Were did I say that except in your head?
But tell you what Mnemosyne- correct my wrong thinking and please do explain to me how the likes Jian Ghomeshi,are stopped if the victims doesn’t say anything about it during or afterwards?
@Mnemosyne
The irony of your statement in the context of this discussion. You just said I don’t have the pride to defend myself against rape – that’s what “fuck you” means.
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Note some of the previous comments above. The first victim who came forward wasn’t believed, and was dismissed. It wasn’t until eight (8) previous victims came forward that the story finally got some traction.
So are all of those eight women morally responsible for Ghomeshi’s crimes because they didn’t come forward sooner?
You’re the one claiming that the victims “enabled” their own rapes/assaults since they didn’t report them. What’s next, claiming that it couldn’t have been real rape or assault since they complied in order to escape him?
ETA: You know what you sometimes have to do to defend yourself during a rape? You have to lay there and let him finish, because if you resist, he’ll hurt you even worse. And then you have to deal with idiots like yourself who say that if you didn’t defend yourself in the way they think you should have, it wasn’t really rape.
Amir Khalid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
More to the point: how are the likes of Jian Ghomeshi to be stopped, when their victims have good reason to fear reprisals for coming forward at all?
Davebo
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yes, if one were an ignorant buffoon one would probably say something idiotic like that.
Corey
@the Conster, @Mnemosyne, @WereBear: I’ve encountered a deeply disturbing rumor that the reason Big Ears Teddy wasn’t permitted to see certain things is that Big Ears Teddy was hiding the motherfucking video camera.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Amir Khalid:
Since I have had abusive bosses I get people in those situations are in a rock and hard place. but in this particular example this woman comes across like she was willing to sleep with Ghomeshi to advance her career and the rough sex wasn’t something bargained for. Which is just teeth grinding to think about since it’s the ass kissing yes men who enable the abusive boss. Obviously there are at lest three other of Ghomeshi victims who feel otherwise and more power to them.
El Cid
Don’t make poor Mr Big Ears Teddy Bear listen to your condemnations of surprise not-consenting beatings & chokings & threats. It might make him feel awkward about his sexual interests and that would be a million times worse than beating the shit out of women who barely know you and making them feel forced into sex.
El Cid
@Corey: I am ashamed of myself for not having thought of that.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@Corey: ding fucking ding, we have us a winner!!!
…
Shakezula
This isn’t weird at all. There are zillions of rapists who justify assault by saying “She really wants it” or “She’s just playing hard to get,” even for vanilla sex. See also all of the dumbfucks who think their dicks have the power to convert lesbians to straight.
@Tom Levenson: Yes. Because this culture is so gentle with women who say they were sexually assaulted. It isn’t like she would have received all sorts of threats and been called a gold digger even if she wasn’t filing civil charges and generally have to deal with the fun of being the target for more assholes like the guy who assaulted her!
Ha ha, not really. Shut up.
Amir Khalid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
How so?
the Conster
@Corey:
OMG Creeeeeeeeeeeeeepyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!! In bizarro world, that makes more sense than that the teddy bear DIDN’T have a camera in it. I’m going to go take a long shower now and pretend this thread was all a bad dream.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: keep digging, that chicken is just a few feet away..
…
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Amir Khalid:
It’s hard to see any other way beyond a victim has to go the police. We certainly don’t need prosecutions based on hearsay.
The other thing worth noting that makes this a really messy one is some of the victims were all into kink themselves and Ghomeshi was going outside their comfort zone. Which is bad stuff, just but the law isn’t really up on that yet,…
RedKitten
@Corey: Have you seen the bigearsteddy twitter account? It’s chilling. It’s one of his anon victims, and dates from April.
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
So any woman willing to sleep with her boss in order to get ahead can’t complain if he rapes her instead?
Keep digging, I bet you only have a few more feet to go before you strike oil and win the thread.
RedKitten
And the sad question is this: how many more assault/rape victims are still silent because they know goddamn well that they won’t be believed?
Thousands. Tens of thousands. Women (and men) that you know.
RedKitten
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’ve often wondered why the victim has to press charges. If 8 women came forward confidentially to the media with consistent, detailed accounts of him murdering homeless people, would the cops not check into the guy? Or would they just sit on their thumbs?
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
Putting EVT into the MRA bucket.
…
El Cid
Maybe I’ll take a bus today and start beating the shit out of the bus driver when we’re stopped to see if he might be into rough public transportation. It won’t be my fault if he or she doesn’t object speedily and forcefully enough.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mnemosyne:
Nice duck the question.
Yet Again – why do you think “fuck you” is an acceptable statement in a discussion about RAPE?You did advocate sexual violence against someone whose opinion you don’t like.
El Cid
Some of the guys I wanted to start fights with enjoyed fighting too, which is why it’s so tangled and complicated when I start beating up guys in the elevator with me since I don’t know until I start slamming their heads into the wall and slapping them sideways if they like it or not.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Until last weekend, JG was in a position to make or break careers in the entertainment industry in Canada, whether that be on the performance or production side of the biz. I’m sure for you, it’s really about ethics in cultural journalism. Asshole.
El Cid
None of this would have happened if Anita Sarkeesian hadn’t ruined the cultural environment of radio.
Amir Khalid
@RedKitten:
Remember, there is not always physical evidence in these cases, and the victim is almost always the only witness. No witness testimony, no case.
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Actually, I advocated that you go wank off in the corner (aka go fuck yourself) and leave the rest of us alone. How you got “advocating sexual violence” against you from that, I have absolutely no idea. If you think you’re raping yourself every time you masturbate, you have more problems than we can really deal with in the comments section of this blog.
polyorchnid octopunch
Mistermix, that was a very very poor choice for thread title, as has already been explained to you. The amount of bigotry that’s been happening around the reporting on this here (yeah, I know… never read the comments) has been extreme. This is not helped by the fact that the reactionaries are trying to crank up the war fever for the middle east so Harper can get his war hardon. The only good thing that can be said about it is a lot of folks here have let their masks slip and revealed themselves to the rest of us for what they are: misogynistic race-baiting assholes. I mean, it takes real talent to slam both JG (the “perverted Persian”) and his victims (slutty ladder-climbing whores) in one comment, but lots of folks seem to have managed it on the Sun newspapers’ websites. Even EVT really only managed to take one… but he probably doesn’t actually know that much about Canada.
Comrade Mary
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Hey, moron, OF COURSE no prosecutions should be based on hearsay. Believe it or not, we still have courts up here and we use them.
But the fact that some women stepped forth and made their claims to journalists (who knew who they were, but shielded their identities from the public) led to NAMED women stepping forward in the media, then more anonymized women, then to a running total of THREE women laying formal complaints with the Toronto police. (One of these women is Lucy D., the first women to come to the media and use her name).
If none of the anonymous women had ever stepped forward, there would be no criminal investigation as of today. I guarantee it.
(Hey, remember Woodward and Bernstein and their anonymous sources? HOW DARE THEY collude to take down a president! Deep Throat should have just gone to the cops for the good of the country.)
Jane2
@Mnemosyne: This.
Corey
@RedKitten: I am indeed aware of the existence of the BigEarsTeddy twitter account. In fact, there are interesting points of correspondence between said existence and JG’s initial statement. JG said that a vengeful ex recruited a journalist and started threatening him in the spring; BigEarsTeddy was active in April and one of the relatively few accounts she followed was that of Jesse Brown, the journalist who was working on the story that the Toronto Star eventually published.
Another Holocene Human
@Marc: Really fascinating, also the mention of the union, I’ve read elsewhere that the sexual harassment victim whose case was mishandled by her union rep can still file charges to OLRB.
Charges. BTW, more structural bullshit. So basically only your worst gadfly whackjob is ever going to attempt to hold union leadership responsible for failing in their legal duty of fair representation and since narcissistic gadlfy shitbirds usually have way too much Dunning-Kruger to actually win a case … there you go. Fear of dog not instilled in union leaders.
Unions are treated like private clubs or charities when in fact they have a legal duty to membership and legal powers, like a government. They should be subject to independent accountability and that should not be dependent on somebody who knows how to manipulate the system and is enough of an obstructionist, problem-with-authority, paranoid, anger-issues, unrealistic shithouse rat to actually pursue the matter.
Plenty of people see things wrong at their unions but rather than have anyone to confidentially complain to just sit on their hands helplessly because they don’t want to be “that guy” because you have to work with all of these people tomorrow.
Another Holocene Human
@Nutella: Wow, so the teddy ears nanny cam story from the April tweets IS true! OMFG!
Jeeeezus I hope they find evidence when they finally serve a warrant of his place that he hasn’t already destroyed.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne: More generally, fantasy (but not the harmless kind) is actually a big driver in aggravated rapes and aggravated murders.
There’s no empathy for others there, so other human beings are like dolls. And so the fantasy runs wild.
Another Holocene Human
@the Conster: DSK. Despite all the disclosures the man has an army of defenders, including within NYPD. Somebody leaked a jail recording and released it with a fake transcript to ensure he would never face justice. In France some prominent women came forward but obviously it was all a conspiracy-plot against the Socialist Party blah blah.
Another Holocene Human
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Sure, women are such evil creatures that they would only have sex with a giant star they had a crush on in order to advance their career.
Hm, should I assume all the het guys on here who are perving on ScarJo only fantasize about banging her so they can get a bit speaking role in her next movie?!?!
WTF, it’s almost as if you think women aren’t human beings or something. STFU.
Another Holocene Human
JG is suching a flaming narcissist that he has repeatedly confirmed accounts made anonymously about him (like the bad date article) to be true. It’s like showing his rape videos. He wants, craves the self exposure. If he ever does get prosecuted he’ll be one those guys who smiles and smirks all the way through the trial.
That is a truly insane degree of narcissism, btw. He should really donate some of his time to science to study his brain.
North o' 49
@Suffern ACE: this wins.
Anya
The sister of a friend of mine went out on a date with JG, according to the sister, all he did was to redecorate her TO downtown condo. He completely changed everything without her permission. She thought he was a freak and dumbed his perverted ass. I think they went out on two dates when he did that. My friend and I used to speculate that JG was gay. It turns out he was a creep and luckily she was not his type.
Anya
Dudes, please unmoderate my comment
sgaile-beairt
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Guess you missed the one where he sexually harassed a coworker AT WORK who went to management & was told it was her problem to make the environment less toxic? or how the CBC was closing ranks around him till they saw his home sex tapes that HE showed them:
http://www.torontosun.com/2014/11/01/will-cbc-report-on-what-they-knew—-and-when
cmm
Oh the irony. ..he wants to prove he had consensual rough sex so he shows videos. .which may actually have been times when the violence was consented to, and may even have been consensual ly recorded, but I highly doubt he had permission from his partner (s) to show his bosses private videos, thereby pretty much proving if he wants something he will trample right over issues of consent.
More irony. ..he knew this story was being researched by a local reporter so when said local reporter was quoted that he was about to break a big embarrassing story, this narcissistic twit assumes reporter is talking about him. This prompts him to make a preemptive strike by showing his bosses his videos, and apparently the videos clinched the firing. He brought in the video last Thurs or Friday, was fired Sunday. Just desserts, and hopefully only the beginning.
Morley Bolero
We’re up to 9 women coming forward now. Expect more to follow.
Corey
@Suffern ACE: I’m stealing that.
philc
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: victim blame much?
philc
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: thanks for the mansplaination
EthylEster
@Mom Says I’m Handsome wrote : “… underwhelmed by his interviewing skills”
Yes! Before this I had listened to about a dozen of his interviews and found them unremarkable. Which is NOT the case for me with Terry Gross. So I do not understand the adulation some folks feel/felt for him as an interviewer.
But I must say that JG is sort of dumb to show his CBC bosses an S&M video in order to explain how consensual sex can produce bruises and think that is going to have a positive effect. And the Teddy Bear thing is just weird.