Sometimes it seems that what men who hurt women want most is to be caught. This is true of many famous male criminals who displayed sadistic gendered hatred in their killings: Ted Bundy, Peter Sutcliffe, Edmund Kemper. They concealed their crimes so they could keep on doing them, but they left clues, too. And when they were finally caught, they sat back and revealed the whole tale.
I think about this dynamic when it comes to the revelations of sexual misdeeds by famous men. So often, the famous men who are found to have committed extensive and long-lasting abuse had been referred to in public as sex pests, creeps, or as otherwise suspect. People call these things “open secrets” after the fact, but in many cases there was no secrecy at all. It was out there, explicit. It was Courtney Love on the red carpet saying, “If Harvey Weinstein asks you up to his hotel room, don’t go.” And I wonder if there isn’t a part of these men that isn’t relieved when they can finally relax and let the truth out.
Sometimes these men tell on themselves tacitly, years in advance, begging to be scolded, maybe – ugh – seeming to get off on the scolding a bit. In his comedy sets and TV shows, the comedian Louis CK riffed on all the sexual misdeeds he would eventually admit to. It’s a pathetic, pre-emptive strike: if I tell everyone that I’m pathetic misogynist, they can’t be angry when I act like a pathetic misogynist. This openness is a funny kind of vaccine.
This tone of irony and humour cleaving to suggestions of sexual abuse is incredibly depressing. It is an effective tactic to obfuscate and mitigate and call into question so many sexual assaults. It’s the smug winking tone of late night show segments and red carpet quips, suggesting either a serious crime or a hilarious on-set caper, who could say which? This faintly comic address of sexual impropriety makes it impossible for the public to know what to take seriously, in the same way I sometimes can’t quite blame those who believe in absurd government conspiracies, when the state’s real actions can be so shocking and authoritarian.
People have spoken for years about the sexual behaviour of Sean “Diddy” Combs, himself included. The rapper told Conan O’Brien that for him, a good party involved “locks on the doors” for women. When O’Brien said this sounded dangerous, Combs responded it was “a little kinky”. Diddy’s parties were another “open secret”, referred to by various celebrities in a manner that any mildly intuitive person could read as disturbing, to disinterest or laughter. Then in November 2023, a video was publicised of the singer Cassie, ex-girlfriend of Combs, being viciously assaulted by him in a hotel lobby over the course of several minutes. He is now on trial for racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force and transportation for purposes of prostitution, and also face claims of sexual assault from 120 new accusers.
I am not an especially squeamish person, nor one unused to seeing representations of gendered violence, but I had to turn off that video to be sick after I saw it. It was interesting. It’s not a gory piece of footage. It’s not near the worst act of domestic violence I’m aware of. But something about the casual ownership he displayed when he walked her body about like an object made my blood run cold. Sometimes you witness that one human being does not consider another human, and that perverse absence where there should be common feeling makes you ill.
There was also something unacceptable to me, on a basic physical level, to see a woman beaten in a public space. It made me shudder, then wonder at the irrational instinct that suggests beating a woman in private would be one thing, but in public another. But there is something particular about the indignity of being hurt before others, or before a camera. I think about those reviewing the documents in Combs’ trial, how such videos must be watched and logged, and all the endless echoes of violence which live on forever not only in memory but in a ledger, a legal system.
All week I’ve read increasingly bizarre and untrue conspiracy theories on the internet about Combs’ parties: those who insist that a triangle visible in the background of a photograph contains some hidden meaning suggesting prominent Democrat politicians attended these events or flew on Combs’ private jet. Who can forget the ridiculous fiction that Taylor Swift is a CIA asset who arranges for sex slaves to be delivered to these guys? I often find looking at X bewildering and indecipherable, but never more so than in this moment.
Why, I have to wonder, when there is such ample documented evidence of abuse, so many allegations of rape and trafficking, is there this need still to create more absurd narratives? It feels sometimes as though the abuse of women is not interesting enough, and there must be a more exotic conspiracy built up around it. Conspiracy in its most essential sense is everywhere: our government conspires, and sexual criminals conspire, and it is not necessary to invent more ways in which they do. Instead, I would love if we could promise ourselves to stop laughing at the idea of powerful men abusing women as though it was some impossible joke, as though the dismissive laughter does not allow it to go on.
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