11-01-2017, 07:47 PM
Thanks for all your thoughtful and insightful replies.
As a victim, yes it has affected my life and relationships (trust issues). It was someone at the BBC, not famous but quite influential. I wanted to work in film/TV so he used that to groom me. Anyway, I try to move on. What he did was very wrong, but I no longer hate him. I found moving on past anger to be a healing process for me. In other ways my life has turned out ok, e.g. in terms of profession and friendships. It is just the relationships bit that needs more more healing/therapy. But abuse comes in many shapes and forms, so other people will have different experiences.
Back to Kevin Spacey... I 100% agree with everyone about how wrong it is for him to use coming out as a way to deflect the allegation. And yes, the LGBT community (of which I'm one) is furious with him. We've spent years trying to show the world that we are normal people, love is love, we have standards of decency, and aren't the weird perverts that used to be the stereotype in the past. It fees like Kevin Spacey has damaged a whole community to save himself, which is shameful. I'm glad most of Twitter saw straight (bad choice of word!) through his ruse.
I think all of this is about power. Men (it is mostly men) find that in certain positions, certain professions that are hard to get into, have a lot of leverage. I have a friend in NYC who is a male model. Early in his career he had several experiences e.g. a major photographer who would only work with him if they went back to his hotel room for a meal (I'm sure you can see where that leads). Another photographer doing an underwear shot wanted him to get an erection and show it poking out the top of his underwear. This was a product shoot for a mainstream advert, so the extra shots wouldn't be used in the advert, so it was obvious the photos were for that photographer's "personal collection". These two examples are big name photographers. A new model has to build a portfolio of work. Sometimes they are unpaid because they need to be seen to have shot with these famous models. See the power difference? That's how it works.
BTW, sorry for any typos etc, I'm on very strong painkillers following a small medical procedure. They kill the pain, but also my brain :-)
As a victim, yes it has affected my life and relationships (trust issues). It was someone at the BBC, not famous but quite influential. I wanted to work in film/TV so he used that to groom me. Anyway, I try to move on. What he did was very wrong, but I no longer hate him. I found moving on past anger to be a healing process for me. In other ways my life has turned out ok, e.g. in terms of profession and friendships. It is just the relationships bit that needs more more healing/therapy. But abuse comes in many shapes and forms, so other people will have different experiences.
Back to Kevin Spacey... I 100% agree with everyone about how wrong it is for him to use coming out as a way to deflect the allegation. And yes, the LGBT community (of which I'm one) is furious with him. We've spent years trying to show the world that we are normal people, love is love, we have standards of decency, and aren't the weird perverts that used to be the stereotype in the past. It fees like Kevin Spacey has damaged a whole community to save himself, which is shameful. I'm glad most of Twitter saw straight (bad choice of word!) through his ruse.
I think all of this is about power. Men (it is mostly men) find that in certain positions, certain professions that are hard to get into, have a lot of leverage. I have a friend in NYC who is a male model. Early in his career he had several experiences e.g. a major photographer who would only work with him if they went back to his hotel room for a meal (I'm sure you can see where that leads). Another photographer doing an underwear shot wanted him to get an erection and show it poking out the top of his underwear. This was a product shoot for a mainstream advert, so the extra shots wouldn't be used in the advert, so it was obvious the photos were for that photographer's "personal collection". These two examples are big name photographers. A new model has to build a portfolio of work. Sometimes they are unpaid because they need to be seen to have shot with these famous models. See the power difference? That's how it works.
BTW, sorry for any typos etc, I'm on very strong painkillers following a small medical procedure. They kill the pain, but also my brain :-)