When We Body-Shame Sexual Abusers, We Shame All Those Who Look Like Them And Did Nothing Wrong

If we keep acting like sexual abuse is wrong because the abuser is physically unattractive, abusers deemed attractive will get away with it.

modified from wikimedia / flickr | peabody awards

“That’s just not a good move,” my father snickered. “I mean, maybe if you’re Ryan Gosling. But that is not a good look for Charlie Rose.”

I t was only a matter of time before one of the recent sexual abuse allegations came up over Thanksgiving; my father chose to focus on the Charlie Rose “trick” of surprising women at the door by greeting them naked, straight out of the shower.

His choice is a common, but problematic way of criticizing Rose and the groundswell of sexual predators filling our collective newsfeeds right now.

I can’t lie; it’s been vengefully satisfying to see powerful men like Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey, and of course Charlie Rose, fall from grace over the past few weeks. Hearing victims speak out about their aggression, manipulations, and perversion of power—and hearing others who wield comparable power openly criticize them on national stages (what’s up John Oliver!)—gives me hope that things are changing.

Instead of discounting what sexual abusers have done or making excuses for them—President Trump’s open support of Roy Moore stands out as an egregious anomaly right now—people are finally holding some of these men, as well as the deeply embedded patriarchy that supports them, accountable.

What’s not as heartening or progressive is the way they’re gleaning that accountability, however.

In October, Samantha Bee came out swinging in a video addressed to Harvey Weinstein, insisting, “Your dick is ugly.” Seth Meyers said in an “A Closer Look” segment about Rose, “Usually when someone that old is walking around naked, a couple of male nurses lead him right back to his room.” Meanwhile, commenters are calling “men jerking off in front of women” an overwhelmingly “gross” act.

But why should we care about someone like Harvey Weinstein being body shamed? Because body shaming him body shames everyone else who looks like him, but did nothing wrong. It also detracts from the problem with what he did, which perpetuates rape culture.

As long as we keep acting like sexual abuse is wrong because the abuser is physically unattractive or sexually deviant, abusers deemed attractive and “normal” will get away with it.

People are criticizing sexual abusers’ body types and sexual preferences rather than the abuse itself, as if it’s these things that made what they did abusive.

And they’re not. What made these acts abusive is the lack of consent.

The problem is—in part—that many people still have trouble understanding what “lack of consent” even means. Eighteen percent of college students in a 2005 Washington Post poll said that if someone hasn’t said “no,” they’ve consented to sex. Thirty-two percent of college men in a survey published in Violence and Gender said they’d “force a woman to have sexual intercourse” if they knew they could get away with it, compared to 13.6% who said they’d “rape a woman.”

It’s difficult to have productive discussions around sexual misconduct when hosts of people don’t even see what’s wrong with it (besides, apparently, unappealing bodies and acts).

What made these acts abusive is the lack of consent.

The way we’ve been talking about the recent sexual misconduct allegations isn’t helping matters. For all the articles being written—more than 65 million Google page results appear when searching Weinstein’s name alone—there’s actually been very little discussion in the media about what exactly is wrong with what these men did.

The Charlie Rose scandal, for example, could have been an opportunity to talk about how you can sexually harass someone without saying a word, because nudity without consent is harassment.

Louis C.K.’s apology could have been a chance to discuss how “asking first” doesn’t matter if someone doesn’t actually feel comfortable enough to say “no”—power dynamics are everything—or if you don’t wait for a reply.

Beyond that, openly disparaging masturbation in front of a partner, displaying a dick, or simply the thought of older people being sexual shames those who are into these acts or possess these traits. This paradigm contributes to sex negativity and ironically props up some of the very things it’s aiming to take down.

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Body-related insults perpetuate the idea that the only acceptable way to have sex involves a conventionally attractive cis heterosexual married couple in the missionary position with the lights off.

And that’s not progress at all.

“It troubled me greatly to hear journalists and educated people revert to this language that doesn’t have to do with the problem with these assaults,” Good Vibrations staff sexologist Carol Queen told me. “The notion of sex positivity doesn’t demonize any sexual desire except non-consensual. Why it would be any more problematic for someone to masturbate in front of a person than any other non-consensual thing is ridiculous.”

This shaming tendency existed long before the Weinstein allegations, however. In 2015—when it became popular to deride the act of sending dick pics—a video with 8.5 million views featured women looking at dick pics and saying pitying things like, “Hopefully he has a good personality,” or, noses wrinkling, “is that foreskin?!”

Not long after, Ryan Reynolds took to Conan to say this of dick pics: “In terms of sexy, it’s just a rung below a picture of yourself committing domestic terrorism.”

Those Trump Statues Aren’t Funny, And They Sure Aren’t Progressive

These criticisms focus on the supposed, objective ugliness of dicks—a body part many, many people possess and actually like to look at and engage with—rather than the inconsiderate way they’ve been thrust (look, a pun!) into people’s inboxes.

But it doesn’t matter how “sexy” or “unsexy” something is—two monikers that are entirely subjective anyway—when it’s not consensual. Regardless of the specific act, this derisive tactic aimed at humiliating the accused party shames the folks who consensually participate in it and excuses people who non-consensually do something considered more appealing or are deemed more attractive. Like, say, a thin, young, blond women sending unsolicited topless photos to her students.

Who would ever mind that, right?!

It’s a dangerous double standard. If men were mocking the wrinkles and folds and colors of the vulva on late-night television—faux-gagging at Judy Dench’s maybe-pendulous breasts that she sent to a gaffer on set—people would be (rightfully) freaking out. Apoplectic.

Inverting a hierarchy isn’t the same thing as dismantling it.

We’ve collectively bought into a fallacious binary that says women are the “fairer sex”—fundamentally gentler, less sexually aggressive, and threatening—while men are ever and always poised on the cusp of violence and sexual depravity. So, sexual harassment at the hands of a woman is deemed not only more forgivable but almost laughable.

Aside from viewing people through the lens of a heteronormative male gaze, this idea promotes the belief that the severity of a sexual violation is proportional to the violator’s attractiveness or gender—both of which are irrelevant.

So. During my future family dinners, I’ll being using the recent allegations as a jumping off point to talk about consent. I’ll point out that many couples enjoy mutual masturbation, but that masturbating in front of someone requires them to be into it just as much as having sex with them does.

I’ll explain that what makes Charlie Rose’s shower trick an unforgivable violation is not his age or the color variation of his penis, but that he’s using his power to deprive people of their consent before his nudity even entered the picture; when you can’t say “no,” you can’t say “yes.”

And that’s wrong—even if he looked like Ryan Gosling.

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]]> https://theestablishment.co/7-times-powerful-people-gave-pathetic-apologies-for-their-bad-behavior-8b45f7b77ed0/ Sat, 09 Dec 2017 14:49:13 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=2880 Read more]]>

These fauxpologies remind us how not to say ‘I’m sorry.’

flickr/Cass Anaya

By Kali Holloway

Few years have been as full of public apologies as 2017.

Wait, let me restate that. Few years have been as full of public apologies, yet rife with non-apologies, as 2017. The #MeToo campaign, along with investigative journalism, forced many well-known people (but mostly men) to attempt sincere shows of public contrition for various longstanding forms of misconduct (but mostly sexual bullying, harassment and abuse). Some did better than others. Many failed miserably, inspiring the satirical Celebrity Perv Apology Generator, which does exactly what its name suggests. (Apology example: “As someone who grew up in a different era, harassment is completely unacceptable — especially when people find out about it.”)

It seems worthwhile here to discuss what distinguishes a good apology from a bad one, an actual “sorry” from a “sorry not sorry.” Apologies that get it right explicitly admit failures, take responsibility, acknowledge the hurt inflicted, make no excuses, identify how the harmful behavior will change, and spell out how the perpetrator of the bad behavior will make amends.

It’s a good idea to avoid talking too much about yourself or your feelings while expressing contrition. While it is a good start to acknowledge that the shameful accusation is “true,” you should still ensure the word “sorry” makes more appearances than references to “[your] dick.” Also, maybe don’t try later denying you did a thing you already issued a half-assed apology for, especially when we can hear and see you on the video, Donald. Stop it.

It’s a good idea to avoid talking too much about yourself or your feelings while expressing contrition.

The point is, all this fauxpologizing has made me reflect on terrible apologies from recent years. Here are seven examples of non-apologies that remind us how not to say “I’m sorry.”

1. Megyn Kelly: Recognizing and calling out my unfiltered racism makes you the racist.

If you watch Megyn Kelly’s new-ish morning show (don’t), you might think nothing comes more naturally to the NBC host than stiffly dancing around with audience members in a joyless and contrived attempt at some simulacrum of sisterhood. You would think wrong. What actually comes much more easily to Kelly is racist fear-mongering, which she did a far more convincing job of enjoying during 12 years at Fox News. That includes the time Kelly, without a hint of satire, insisted both Jesus and Santa are white, an absurd dum-dum of a claim that resulted in numerous calls for an apology. Instead, Kelly made herself into a political correctness martyr and blamed people who don’t get how hilarious racism is.

In particular, Kelly moaned about what she called the “knee-jerk instinct by so many to race-bait and to assume the worst in people, especially people employed by the very powerful Fox News Channel,” because conservative media millionaires are the people really suffering in this country. The self-absorbed non-apology continued apace: “For me, the fact that an offhand jest I made during a segment about whether Santa should be replaced by a penguin has now become a national firestorm says two things: race is still an incredibly volatile issue in this country and Fox News and yours truly are big targets for many people.”

2. Brock Turner: I’m not even sure how to spell ‘personal responsibility.’

Caught in the act of raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, Brock Turner wrote a letter to the court before it handed down the absurdly lenient sentence that reaffirms how wealth and whiteness affect criminal justice. Turner’s “apology” spends most of its length lamenting how hard he’s been on himself (“I shake uncontrollably from the amount I torment myself by thinking about what has happened”) and blaming his tendency toward raping women on alcohol and “party culture.”

“At this point in my life, I never want to have a drop of alcohol again. I never want to attend a social gathering that involves alcohol or any situation where people make decisions based on the substances they have consumed,” Turner wrote, as millions of people who have gotten drunk and not raped anyone scratched their heads. He went on to blame news coverage of the rape, his swimming skills and his acceptance to Stanford — but not, you know, being a rapist — for his problems. “I’ve lost two jobs solely based on the reporting of my case. I wish I never was good at swimming or had the opportunity to attend Stanford, so maybe the newspapers wouldn’t want to write stories about me.”

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Cue the tiniest violin playing.

“I want to show that people’s lives can be destroyed by drinking and making poor decisions while doing so… I know I can impact and change people’s attitudes towards the culture surrounded by binge drinking and sexual promiscuity that protrudes through what people think is at the core of being a college student… I’ve been shattered by the party culture and risk-taking behavior that I briefly experienced in my four months at school. I’ve lost my chance to swim in the Olympics. I’ve lost my ability to obtain a Stanford degree. I’ve lost employment opportunity, my reputation and most of all, my life. These things force me to never want to put myself in a position where I have to sacrifice everything.”

First of all, maybe try not raping anyone else. That seems like a good place to start.

3. Lena Dunham: Oops, I did it again.

Since forever — or at least from around when Girls became a thing — Lena Dunham has said and done a lot of stupid crap that reveals her short-sightedness and ignorance on issues of import too myriad to get into here. In several cases, she has followed up with a public apology, followed by another stupid statement, then another apology, rinse, wash, repeat. (She once wrote a piece about her “apology addiction” which missed all the points ever.)

Most recently, Dunham, who once wrote “women don’t lie about: rape” accused a black woman, actress Aurora Perrineau, of lying about rape, because the white accused rapist was a buddy of hers. In addition to its general hypocrisy, Dunham’s horrible history on race made the statement all the more galling. After being taken to task across social media, Dunham issues another statement via Twitter — an apology, of course, as dictated by the pattern — which was equally tone deaf.

“I naively believed it was important to share my perspective on my friend’s situation as it has transpired behind the scenes over the last few months… I now understand that it was absolutely the wrong time to come forward with such a statement and I am so sorry.”

A few things: 1) You can literally just be quiet when you have nothing to add to except the dismissal of a woman’s description of her experience with sexual assault. Seriously; 2) when you add little statements hinting at your “behind the scenes” info about said experience, which is absolutely meant as a callback to your original dismissive statement, you undermine your so-called apology, so why bother issuing it? 3) it’s not just that it was “the wrong time to come forward.” If that’s what you think the central problem with your original statement is here, you really are never going to get it.

So You’ve Sexually Harassed Or Abused Someone: What Now?

In response to Dunham’s consistently garbage stance on race going back years, author and Lenny Letter contributor Zinzi Clemmons encouraged “women of color — black women in particular — to divest from Lena Dunham.”

4. Don Lemon: Just bite your way out of sexual assault.

It was 2014. A steady stream, then a deluge of women came forward to accuse Bill Cosby of rape allegations dating back decades. One of those women, Joan Tarshis, was subjected to a classic version of the Victim Blame Game by CNN’s Don Lemon.

“You know, there are ways not to perform oral sex if you didn’t want to do it,” Lemon suggested to Tarshis, unhelpfully. “Meaning the using of the teeth,” he interjected a second or so later. “As a weapon,” he continued, turning the horribleness up to 11. “Biting,” he added, proving a relentless ability to make it worse. “I had to ask,” Lemon concluded, which he absolutely did not.

Aside from the insane insinuation that the fault of rape lies with anyone but rapists, the idea that you could — and should — have stopped your rape by biting off your assailant’s penis fails on every conceivable front. It is an utterly ridiculous and offensive ask, both logistically and psychologically. Lemon, a sexual assault survivor, issued this tepid apology after 24 hours of outcry: “If my question struck anyone as insensitive, I’m sorry as that was not my intention.”

He’s sorry the question struck you as insensitive. Next!

5. Ryan Lochte: This is a total non-apology I could not possibly have written.

During the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, swimmer Ryan Lochte and three friends from the American team could have gone out and partied all night without international incident. Instead, Lochte et al. chose to wreck shop at a local gas station and make up a story about being held up at gunpoint by brown criminals. Lochte — who also sprinkled in fake details about his bravery — reportedly made up the story so he wouldn’t get in trouble with his mom.

As I noted in a piece about the incident at the time, “if you have ever seen words come out of Ryan Lochte’s mouth, and you read his ‘apology’ on social media, you will instantly know there is no way he wrote, nor was allowed to contribute to, this letter”:

“I want to apologize for my behavior last weekend — for not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning and for my role in taking the focus away from the many athletes fulfilling their dreams of participating in the Olympics. It’s traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country — with a language barrier — and have a stranger point a gun at you and demand money to let you leave, but regardless of the behavior of anyone else that night, I should have been much more responsible in how I handled myself and for that I am sorry to my teammates, my fans, my fellow competitors, my sponsors, and the hosts of this great event.”

To again revisit my previous take on the incident:

Do you see it? The convenient omission of what, precisely, his “behavior” actually entailed? The reliance, even still, on the trope of the frightening foreign “stranger” — in whose country you are a guest — speaking gibberish demands at you? The non-mention of the fact that the group was reportedly asked to pay $50 for the damage they’d done and refused? The use of the phrase “regardless of the behavior of anyone else that night,” which serves to distract from Lochte’s own behavior, which again, he never quite gets around to acknowledging?

Kudos to his PR team for a job of ducking and dodging that proves they earn their cut.

6. Scientist Tim Hunt: Women are too emotional to be in laboratories.

In 2015, Nobel Prize-winner Tim Hunt remarked to an audience of women science reporters, “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls….Three things happen when they are in the lab. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys and girls?”

Given an opportunity to apologize by BBC Radio 4, Hunt declared he was “really sorry that I said what I said” — mostly because it was “a very stupid thing to do in the presence of all those journalists.”

The Disturbing Science Behind Subconscious Gender Bias

“I did mean the part about having trouble with girls,” he continued, figurative shovel digging even deeper. “It is true that people — I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me and it’s very disruptive to the science because it’s terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field. I found that these emotional entanglements made life very difficult. I’m really, really sorry I caused any offense, that’s awful. I certainly didn’t mean that. I just meant to be honest, actually.”

For years people have been trying to nail down why there are so few women in STEM fields, but the answer remains elusive.

7. A lot of the men who ‘apologized’ for sexual harassment this year: I hope my PR person at least makes me sound earnest.

Keep in mind, I’m not even including people who continue to deny and deflect, like Roy Moore or Brett Ratner. And please know this item could be a list in and of itself (in fact, that very list has been written a few times in the past few months). I am leaving off many, many examples because otherwise this piece would never end and I assume you have a life to lead between breaking news of emerging harassers and their apology statements. But here are a few apologies from men accused of sexual harassment and abuse who did it wrong.

Harvey Weinstein: His open letter of apology kicked off by absolving him of full responsibility by suggesting he was just too behind the times to know any better, an insinuation belied by the “team of spies” he employed to keep his victims quiet. “I came of age in the ’60s and ’70s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.” (Did I mention the letter misquotes a Jay-Z lyric? Because it does.)

Everything Wrong With Weinstein’s Sexual Assault Allegations Response

Garrison Keillor: How unsurprising that instead of a letter of apology, the Prairie Home Companion host offered a Keilloresque attempt at humor. After stating his “hand went up… about six inches” under a woman’s shirt — by accident, he suggests — Keillor paints himself as the world’s smuggest victim. “If I had a dollar for every woman who asked to take a selfie with me and who slipped an arm around me and let it drift down below the beltline, I’d have at least a hundred dollars,” he notes, so we know how unfair this whole thing is to him. “So this is poetic irony of a high order. But I’m just fine.” (Not that we asked, Gar.)

Russell Simmons: “While [Jenny Lumet’s] memory of that evening is very different from mine, it is now clear to me that her feelings of fear and intimidation are real,” Russell wrote, as if anyone might have seen the situation Lumet has described as anything but harrowing. “While I have never been violent, I have been thoughtless and insensitive in some of my relationships over many decades and I sincerely and humbly apologize.”

Kevin Spacey: Pulled an intentionally distracting bait-and-switch by interrupting his “apology” to come out as a gay man, as if the issue of his sexuality and propensity for sexual harassment had anything to do with each other. (They do not.) As Billy Eichner noted on Twitter, Spacey “invented something that has never existed before: a bad time to come out.”

R. Kelly: Actually, R. Kelly has never attempted an apology. He hasn’t once come close to saying sorry or facing penalties, because despite dozens of allegations made by girls as young as 14 dating back to the 1990s, along with video evidence and a consistent record of abuse that is ongoing as you read this, his career continues to thrive. To quote Jim DeRogatis, who has written multiple investigative stories about Kelly, “no one, it seems, matters less in our society than young black women.”

This article originally appeared on AlterNet. Republished here with permission.

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]]> https://theestablishment.co/on-kevin-spacey-harvey-weinstein-milo-yiannopoulos-and-the-weaponization-of-identity-a05cf92560a4/ Thu, 02 Nov 2017 22:18:19 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=1901 Read more]]> High-profile abusers have a long history of using marginalization to deflect from their White male violence.

Following the election of an open sexual predator to the White House, there has been a powerful pushback against high-profile sexual abusers, including Hollywood kingpin Harvey Weinstein, NBC political reporter Mark Halperin, directors Brett Ratner and James Toback, and actors Dustin Hoffman and Ben Affleck.

Which brings me to Kevin Spacey.

Actor Anthony Rapp came forward about previously being sexually assaulted by Spacey at the age of 14 (Spacey was 26 at the time). I personally didn’t expect Spacey to make a statement the very night that Buzzfeed broke the story, but he did…in true “the American people are gullible so let’s throw something really shiny in their face” fashion. Like Frank Underwood might.

And here’s how that went:

I have to hand it to the asshole. His plan kind of worked. The story should be that Spacey is an alleged predator who used his fame, accolades, and power to target young boys coming up in Hollywood. Instead, willfully obtuse news outlets are still running with the coming-out story angle, since this is the scoop they’ve been chasing for years.

It’d be easy to chalk this up to media asininity, but there are broader and more insidious forces at play here. Starting with this:

The conflation of queerness (i.e. homosexuality) with pedophilia has a long and ugly history.

The false myth that queer folx are more inclined to be pedophiles and child rapists is one that the queer community has been fighting against for decades.

Queer folx faced particularly strong opposition to their very existence in the 1970s, as the sexual perversion myth began tangibly influencing policy. In 1977, Christian songstress Anita Bryant orchestrated the successful repeal of an anti-gay discrimination law in Miami. Bryant argued that homosexuality was an “abomination,” and that if given equal rights, gay people would molest children or brainwash them into becoming gay. This anti-gay propaganda, which the modern religious right would soon adopt, didn’t stop there. In addition to religion being used against queer folx, many bigoted scientists opted to use science as well.

The false myth that queer folx are more inclined to be pedophiles and child rapists is one that the queer community has been fighting against for decades.
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Despite being a disgraced and discredited “psychologist,” Paul Cameron’s work malevolently linking homosexuality to pedophilia starting in the 1980s has been taken seriously enough to make an impact; just 10 years ago, he was used as an “expert” in a case in Colorado concerning same-sex adoption.

Still more recently, politically powerful institutions like The Family Research Council (FRC) have leaned on the child-molestation myth to push for the rejection of gay rights; as recently as 2010, FRC was peddling the patently false claim that science links homosexuality to pedophilia. Years later, high-profile figures continue to make this assertion — like NFL player Josh Robinson, who compared gay marriage to pedophilia and incest in 2015.

And then, of course, there’s our current political administration. Trump selected open homophobe Mike Pence — who thinks the existence of queer and trans folx will lead to “societal collapse” — to be his VP. Moreover, he appointed Sam Clovis — who once asked, “If we protect LGBT behavior, what other behaviors are we going to protect? Are we going to protect pedophilia?” — to be a Department of Agriculture Under Secretary, and has openly lauded Pastor Robert Jeffress, who has directly equated gay people to pedophiles.

Even if you wanted to give Spacey the benefit of the doubt here (which I do not), you would have to assume that he is not aware of how historically charged it is to mention both assault and his sexuality in his statement, or how such claims have political power still today. Anyone with an iota of understanding about history or politics should get this, though — which suggests Spacey is fully aware of the harm his statement could cause, and just doesn’t give a fuck.

I know what you’re thinking — surely someone who, like Spacey, is “choosing to live as a gay man,” would care that he is doing irreversible damage to the work that queer and trans folx have done to normalize our very existence. Right?

But while optimistic, this is painfully naive. Because if you believe that, then you know absolutely nothing about how Whiteness operates. Which is to say, this:

Cishet White men have long weaponized marginalization to carry out their abuses of power.

I had many discussions in college with other Black femmes who had peeped that White Americans, in particular, are always seeking some sort of victim status to avoid owning up to the influence and power they take up in modern society. Those conversations took on new meanings whenever I stepped into predominantly White, queer spaces filled with people determined to be more marginalized than I am — a tactic designed to create the illusion that they couldn’t possibly have power over me. And wouldn’t you know, this was most often deployed by cishet (cisgender and heterosexual) White men.

White People: I Want You To Understand Yourselves Better
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This is the strategy currently being deployed by Spacey. The actor has been a powerful and influential figure in both film and theater for decades, and during these decades, he’s explicitly used his power to prey on folx he suspected wouldn’t say a goddamn thing since they weren’t as powerful. In these situations, his marginalization didn’t benefit him; it’s only now that he’s been exposed as an alleged predator that he’s chosen to use his homosexuality to avoid facing consequences for his abusive behavior.

That is sick. But, it’s totally a “White man” thing to do.

I say this because Spacey is not the first person to do this…nor will he be the last. In fact, he is in great company with Milo Yiannopoulos, who for the longest time used his sexuality to excuse the gross misogyny that he has carried out against women (particularly during #GamerGate). One could argue that Milo has also used his sexuality and preoccupation with Black men to evade claims of racism, and he proudly employed this “trap card” when he started a misogynoiristic campaign to harass Leslie Jones.

Harvey Weinstein has also used marginalization to deflect from his White male violence. Except, in his case, that marginalization is also false. After being disgraced by countless women alleging he assaulted or raped them, Weinstein announced that he hoped he would be given “a second chance” and that he was checking himself into rehab for sex addiction. Experts were swift to denounce this self-diagnosis, which served to throw a legitimately marginalized and vulnerable demographic under the bus: addicts.

We Warned You About Milo And You’re Still Not Listening
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Which brings us to what is truly the most vile part of all this. Being marginalized is some way, shape, fashion, or form does not mean you cannot somehow hold power over others. This is a crude misunderstanding of the complex nature of privilege, and it becomes especially spurious when Whiteness is factored in. Spacey, Weinstein, and Milo have enjoyed the privilege of their Whiteness, and the wealth and industry power this has helped afford them, for years. It is only when they must own up to their predatory behavior that they rely on marginalization as a weapon of deflection — and ironically, this deflection hurts those who are actuallymarginalized within the power structures they operate in.

There are so many queer folx, and trans folx, and queer and trans folx of color especially, who are abused because of their identity and lack of societal power. Spacey, Weinstein, and Milo don’t represent these people; they represent the people who harm these people. And that distinction is everything.

In the end, the only way to stop this vicious cycle from continuing is by cutting men like Spacey off from the power they feed upon. And seeing as how Spacey is currently on the outs with Netflix and every other committee in Hollywood is taking turns stripping Weinstein of prestigious honors, I’d say that we’re off to a promising start.

But, it’s only that: a start.

Everything Wrong With Harvey Weinstein’s Response To Sexual Assault Allegations

The Hollywood mogul’s ostensible mea culpa is a perfectly written example of things not to do when you are apologizing.

flickr/Thomas Hawk

By Kali Holloway

For decades, Harvey Weinstein has served as the real-life inspiration for every tyrannical, foul-mouthed, hot-headed fictional movie studio executive. For pretty much just as long, according to a bombshell report from the New York Times, Weinstein has been serial sexually harassing aspiring young actresses who come into his orbit.

The Times offers a lengthy list of women, some of them now famous, who were allegedly subjected to Weinstein’s lewd overtures, including Ashley Judd, who says Weinstein requested she watch him shower and Rose McGowan, whom Weinstein gave a settlement in 1997 following “an episode in a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival.”

There were at least eight more hush money pay outs, per the Times, to recipients including “a young assistant in New York in 1990, an actress in 1997, an assistant in London in 1998, an Italian model in 2015 and [former Weinstein Company employee Lauren] O’Connor shortly after.” With a traceable track record like that, it’s almost impossible to believe that there aren’t other women who chose to keep quiet rather than take on one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.

In response to the Times report, Weinstein released a statement that is an ostensible mea culpa but reads more like a perfectly written example of things not to do when you are apologizing. Let’s run through some of the highlights, shall we?

“I came of age in the ’60s and ’70s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.”

I came of age at a time when the workplace was where men went to compare dick size with other men, and then we’d have our secretaries — or “skirts,” as we called them — judge who won. Was that bad? Me confused by all these new rules.

On Woody Allen And Hollywood’s Shameful Perpetuation Of Rape Culture

“I have since learned it’s not an excuse, in the office — or out of it. To anyone.”

I’ve learned it’s not an excuse, and yet I still offered it as an excuse, because I’ll level with you here: I’ve learned nothing.

“I realized some time ago I that needed to be a better person, and my interactions with the people I work with have changed. I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it. Though I’m trying to do better, I know I have a long way to go. That is my commitment. My journey now will be to learn about myself and conquer my demons.”

Well, this seems like progress, right?

Just wait.

“Over the last year, I’ve asked [celebrity lawyer] Lisa Bloom to tutor me, and she’s put together a team of people. I’ve brought on therapists, and I plan to take a leave of absence from my company and to deal with this issue head on.”

Lisa Bloom told the Times that Weinstein is “an old dinosaur learning new ways” and that she “explained to him that due to the power difference between a major studio head like him and most others in the industry, whatever his motives, some of his words and behaviors can be perceived as inappropriate, even intimidating.”

What’s weird about this is that I’m pretty sure Weinstein already understands the power differential at play between him and “most others in the industry,” particularly hopeful actors. One woman who temped for Weinstein said he told her that “if she accepted his sexual advances, he would boost her career.” O’Connor said that Weinstein’s targets were almost invariably “vulnerable women who hope he will get them work.” Weinstein — a six-time Oscar winner and titan in the film industry — understood with crystal clarity his own status vs. those he allegedly dangled careers in front of for varying sexual favors. Alleged sexual harassers and abusers such as Bill O’Reilly, Bill Cosby and Roger Ailes, among many others, use their power against those who have none. That’s how this whole awful thing works.

I’m pretty sure Weinstein already understands the power differential at play between him and ‘most others in the industry.’

Also, for the record, the fact that Weinstein reportedly used his fortune to pay off women and keep all those charges quiet suggests he’s well aware that his behaviors are “inappropriate, even intimidating.”

“I so respect all women, and regret what happened.”

God. That “so” is really not helping here. Someone should’ve read this thing out loud before they sent it out.

“Jay Z wrote in 4:44 ‘I’m not the man I thought I was, and I better be that man for my children.’ The same is true for me.”

Honestly, Harvey Weinstein borrowing a Jay-Z lyric about his marital infidelity to Beyoncé to describe his contrition about harassing who knows how many women over the last 30 years is just too much to get into right now. (Who is that arbitrary insertion even for? The “kidz”? Maybe in his next sorry-not-sorry letter he’ll quote Lil Yachty or something.) It is worth noting that the line isn’t an actual Jay-Z quote, just to give you a sense of the real time and heartfelt labor that went into this thing.

“I want a second chance in the community, but I know I’ve got work to do to earn it.”

What community? You mean Hollywood? Mel Gibson is on the up-and-up these days and the Golden Globes gave Woody Allen a Lifetime Achievement Award just three years ago. Fox News fired Bill O’Reilly six months ago and then welcomed him back last month like an esteemed honoree at a medal ceremony. As I’m sure you already know, “the community’” is just awaiting a sign from the echo chamber on when it’s okay to be cool with you again.

Why Should You Become An Establishment Member For $5 A Month?

“I have goals that are now priorities. Trust me, this isn’t an overnight process. I’ve been trying to do this for 10 years, and this is a wake-up call.”

Wait, so according to Harvey Weinstein, he’s been trying to “do this” — meaning “be better” we presume — for “10 years”? I would genuinely love to hear what kind of all-powerful pervy forces have been forcing Harvey Weinstein — the man whom 90 percent of Hollywood is legit afraid to piss off — to keep sexually harassing women for the last decade.

Here’s where it really gets good by which I mean off the g.d. rails.

“I am going to need a place to channel that anger, so I’ve decided that I’m going to give the NRA my full attention. I hope Wayne LaPierre will enjoy his retirement party. I’m going to do it at the same place I had my Bar Mitzvah. I’m making a movie about our President, perhaps we can make it a joint retirement party.”

On the heels of the latest mass shooting, many of us welcome any takedown of the NRA. And considering his historic unpopularity, it’s always nice to hear mention of Trump no longer having access to the nuclear codes. But the whole tone of this section verges on the bizarre, that is until you remember you are in the midst of a pissing match, midstream. “I’m going to throw you a party in the same place where I became a man, which you should consider a direct threat to your own manhood through some convoluted illogical thought stream I won’t explain.” Or something.

You are in the midst of a pissing match.

Anyway, if there are three people who seem perfect for some sort of man-off, it’s Weinstein, Trump and the head of the NRA. So there’s that.

“One year ago, I began organizing a $5 million foundation to give scholarships to women directors at USC. While this might seem coincidental, it has been in the works for a year. It will be named after my mom, and I won’t disappoint her.”

I guess that’s a good thing. Let’s just be sure every scholarship includes a clause that states, “You are in no way now, nor in the future, beholden to Harvey Weinstein.” Just be safe.

This article originally appeared on AlterNet. Republished here with permission.

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