On Fame Based Pseudo-Consent And Its Effects
Victimization can come in many different flavors; you could be the victim of a scam, someone could steal your wallet causing a major inconvenience and a loss of property. But for some crimes, something less tangible is taken. Something immaterial and harder to replace is lost.
The last few years have been particularly noteworthy in the history of the sexual mistreatment of women, and in some cases even men at the hands of other famous men men who take advantage of others sexually by exploiting their fame and claiming it as a sort of twisted pseudo-consent.
In 2014, a woman came forward to the press with an accusation about a man whose name has been known in homes across America for decades. The Huxtables were the picture of a successful American family on-screen, but off-screen Bill Cosby has been accused by 50 women at the time of the writing of this essay. Reading the transcripts of the experiences of these women reads like an encyclopedia on sexual predation. Cosby’s alleged victims, an overwhelming number of women, who for too many years were lured in by one man’s influence and were assaulted according to their accounts.
One such account — that of Carla Ferrigno highlights a disturbing trend in these cases. During an on-air interview with KFI Las Angeles, she said spoke about an incident in 1967,
“He grabbed me, pulled me to him and kisses me on the mouth like really, really rough. I was a tough girl. I just took my hands and pushed him away and said, ‘What are you doing?’ and I said ‘Hey, well, I’ve never been kissed by a black man before.’”
Another woman, Cindra Ladd also spoke out about her encounter with Cosby as reported by CNN,
One evening, Cosby and Ladd agreed to see a movie and met at an apartment that Cosby said belonged to a friend, Ladd wrote. She had “a terrible headache,” and Cosby offered “a miracle cure” given by his doctor, she said.
“He went into another room and came back with a capsule. I asked a couple of times what it was. Each time he reassured me, asking, ‘Don’t you trust me?’ Of course I did. This was Bill Cosby,” Ladd wrote.
Many of these women were impressed to even be in the same room with Cosby. Many of them were aspiring actresses in the midst of someone who they saw as someone who might be able to elevate them in their careers. All of them were vulnerable, and if their stories are to be believed, they were all prayed upon by this one influential man.
Jacob Appelbaum is a well known member of the computer security community and has made a name for himself as a primary contributor to a major community effort called the “TOR” project (The Onion Router). The TOR project is a group comprised of technologists and cryptologists dedicated to privacy and anonymity on the Internet. To many people, Mr. Appelbaum is larger than life. His fame proceeds him everywhere he goes.
In June of this year, allegations began to grow about Mr. Appelbaum’s personal and professional life. An avalanche of women and men had come forward to claim that they were sexually abused by him. So many in fact that after a short investigation by the TOR project, he resigned from his position in the organization with little fanfare. Somehow, it seemed that he had managed to escape many of the consequences of his alleged actions and has yet to be brought up on any formal charges.
As soon as the accusations were made, there was a horde of supporters voicing their support for Appelbaum, in some cases even so far as to claim that there was a vast conspiracy to discredit him. What’s left behind is a trail of broken psyches, shredded egos, mistrust and a great deal of fear.
In truth, what Appelbaum allegedly took from his victims wasn’t just their autonomy or their sense of security. Like Cosby, he robbed most of his victims of the right to recognition for their own independent accomplishments. They lashed these victims to their fame forcing many of them to forever be known as “a victim of…”. Some of them go on to make a name for themselves in their own rite in spite of their trauma, but most don’t.
It is for this reason, and the threat of possible retribution against them that many victims with famous abusers choose not to come forward, or to remain anonymous.
This week, the so-called “Trump Tapes” were released and immediately began a whole new meltdown of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The tapes were made in 2005 from audio taken from an open microphone during a television appearance. The content of what is on the tapes has been covered ad nauseum by mainstream news sources, but the jist of what Donald Trump said on the tapes was more or less an admission of the way Trump feels about women, how he has treated women in the past, and perhaps even a confession of his own history of sexual assault.
“I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab them by the pussy, you can do anything.”
These words sound like they could have been said by Bill Cosby, Jacob Appelbaum, Jerry Sandusky, or any number of other sexual predators taking advantage of their status to exploit the vulnerable. In all of these cases, these men were able to rely on the silence of those around them who knew what they were capable of, and in some cases even on the full support of their adoring public who would stand by them through thick or thin. Trump in fact has fashioned himself the chief commander of an army of trolls leading what they believe to be a social revolution against “PC culture”.
The soldiers in this army often levy a charge of false victimization against women and minorities who raise very serious, and very real concerns about their treatment in the United States including sexual assault and rape. They’ll be the first to point out that both the accusations of victims and the casual musings of their very own candidate are “just words” and not real evidence of wrongdoing going as far as to unfairly indict all men in this behavior by using the term “locker room talk”.
It’s easy to dismiss all of this as political opponents and gold diggers looking to destroy or leach off of the wealth and fame of a successful man. After all, in American society, we value celebrity status in a way few other cultures do. We see and hear men like Donald Trump and Bill Cosby so often on television and on the radio that they feel like guests in our homes. We feel like we know them and that they couldn’t possibly be liable for abusing their power and position.
Trump, like Cosby and Appelbaum seem to believe that their fame is a ticket to turn the world around them into an unmitigated sexual hunting ground where colleagues, coworkers and relations are wild game. They seem to believe that any woman who is literally within grabbing distance is theirs for the taking, and so often these predators end up making off scott free.
We even say ‘boys will be boys’ not only to excuse these abusers of their repulsive behaviors, but also in a way to exonerate ourselves for looking on blithely while they take advantage of those in weaker positions than they are.
Maybe it’s a byproduct of capitalism that rewards the ‘bold men’ who take what they want and make no apologies. Maybe it’s the so-called “rape culture” that perpetuates this cycle of abuse. Whatever the reason, we as a society at large need to reject the urge to give these people the benefit of the doubt. If we insist on protecting and excusing these habits, we do an injustice not just to the victims, but also to ourselves.
