Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/10/30/accused-of-sexually-assaulting.html
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Is Spacey borrowing PR expertise from the Catholic Church or something?
Odds are that his claim is true in a specific strict sense(a 14 year old is likely too old to be of interest to a pedophile in the strict ‘sexual interest in the pre-pubescent’ sense; and abusing a 14 year old boy rather than a 14 year old girl suggests other-than-heterosexual interest); but that’s pure weasel wording in the context of the whole “I tried to rape a child” thing, which is about your egregiously terrible willingness to employ coercion against soft targets, not minor details about why you find certain targets, rather than others, to be of interest.
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Then you are apparently not familiar with what sincere apologies actually look like.
Pro-tip: they do not include throwing the LGBT community under the bus trying to excuse what you did, nor do they act like “it was a different time!” is somehow a valid excuse if you happen to not be heterosexual when you were pursuing children.
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It’s true that he’s outing himself to distract from the story, but I don’t see how you could possibly read it as “I did this because I’m gay”. That is not what the words say.
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What a piece of shit.
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Ya, amazing that I just do not see him using his being gay as an excuse in that statement.
I see him using “i was drunk” as an excuse.
But if I have learned two things over the years, they are we have to listen to people who have more experience in matters that we have much less experience in and that what people hear is all that matters, not what you think you said.
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I’m reading them as “I was drunk and repressed.” I think he truly believes that if he hadn’t felt like he had to be closeted this wouldn’t have happened. I think it’s supposed to read more as a condemnation of society that as “gay men are predators.”
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Eh, anyone that knows Hollywood knows he’s gay. He never was in the closet.
What HAS been hushed is that he has a long list of accounts of behaving like a predator, usually propositioning young men. People were afraid of coming forward so everything is anonymous.
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Jesus christ yall
Being the subject of open secrets is not the same thing as being out. For starters (from one perspective), it makes it much dicier to discuss potentially libelous accusations.
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Progress != Rich-white-popular-pedophile-misdirecting-because-gay
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He absolutely did NOT admit to doing it. He said “I honestly do not remember the encounter…But if I did behave then as he describes…” That is not an admission.
A sincere apology would include an unqualified admission of the offense. He claims to not remember, and to have been drunk. It would look something like, “What I did was horrible, and inexcusable. I am truly sorry.” and not like “I don’t remember. I was drunk. If I did it, I’m sorry.”
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I did some math, and it would place Spacey in his early 20s with Rapp over 14 a touch. Who knows how this situation came about, like what puts those two in a room together with at least one being intoxicated considering around a 10 year age difference. I suppose crazy parties fueled by Hollywood money in large homes with lots of people but little supervision, but that’s a guess.
So, to me it sounds like Rapp is saying that he and Spacey were fooling around a bit, manly play fighting - and then Spacey flipped the script and made his intentions clear.
Rapp declined, Spacey exits stage right.
So what I’m seeing is, if Rapp were interested at that moment - Spacey would have been guilty of statutory rape.
Up until that moment, it could have been totally innocent, and Spacey suddenly found himself turned on by all this, and then the quick 180 of emotions upon rejection (and possibly the realization of hey, this is a young man here saying it) that all lands on his head at once and he leaves and tries to pretend it never happens.
He could also have initiated the whole thing hoping that was the outcome, maybe he did this every Wednesday and just went out for cake instead, who knows.
I don’t think it excuses it, but it could explain it in context, and in the end - nothing happened. It could have shaken Kevin (and Rapp) to their core, cautioned them both about the appropriateness of relations and kept them on the right side of it for the rest of their lives.
So if this is the worst we hear about Spacey, after a very very long existence in Hollywood - I really don’t see much reason to persecute him, but I do understand why Rapp spoke up and put that situation on the record.
We need to make sure we have Billboards screaming what is and is not okay for all the up-and-comers to read, but if we want that to be backed up by any philosophical foundation then that also means we don’t get the witch hunt people for being honest about how unfortunately situations could have gone in the past, but didn’t, because ultimately someone made the right choice.
Humans need to remember that these arbitrary lines we create around age for legal reasons don’t have any foundation in biology.
It’s totally understandable that a conflicted 18, 20 or 24 year old can be sexually aroused by someone post pubescent - our DNA literally tells us that we should be - it’s only our training and our society in our culture who deems it not so, which can lead to some close calls and situations with blurry lines and intoxicants.
This doesn’t have a very Sandusky style vibe to it, so unless more comes out it I’m not bandwagoning on Spacey for a youthful close call. Rapp speaking out, and the manner of Spacey’s response give full reason and cover to anyone else coming out and speaking up if there is anything to be said - so if no one does it may very well be that this is it.
If they do, well let’s get those torches lit. And not those tiki-style ones the Klan used during their recent protests at night for uhh, “freedoms”.
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Pretty much this, if someone told me that while i was drunk i did something i was not supposed to and they meant it i would believe them and 100% take responsibility for myself and my actions. Saying you don’t remember does not absolve you from guilt, not does it erase the reality that it happened.
The only thing the Kevin Spacey “apology” is missing is the “I’m going to take time off to be with my family”, in the same vein of insincere canned apologies. I also agree that saying he’s gay is only being thrown out as a way to get sympathy, but he’s also using it as an excuse to blanket himself with. It’s not his fault he fucked up guys. He’s gay, clearly he’s not responsible for the fucked up things he’s done… if you look at it the right way, he’s a victim really.
Edit: re-reading what Spacey wrote he also says that he’s sorry for the feelings the actor has had over what happened. That seems to me like a backhanded way to apologize, not for what he himself did but he’s sorry for how the actor feels. Almost seems like he’s gaslighting the guy.
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Putting the blame on the victim for being offended is a common addendum to the canned non-apology apology, and it annoys me to no end. I will say I think that’s almost an automatic human self-defense mechanism to protect the ego, because I’ve caught myself doing it before. No one wants thinks of themselves as being bad people, so when we are confronted with having done something bad, I think it’s almost an instinctive behavior to want to qualify it, excuse it, and put the blame on the offended party if a 3rd party isn’t available to blame. So I want to be clear that I’m not saying Kevin Spacey is a bad person (although he may be), but this is a textbook example of how not to apologize. He hit the trifecta of not admitting he did it, excusing it, and putting the blame for being offended on the victim.
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Spacey uses text book rationalization of a pedo attack, very disgusting, and that he chooses to come out as gay at the same time is even more fucked up. Hello Monday…
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I’m certain that Mr Spacey would sincerely like people to forget this incident and move on, indeed. It seems to me that after decades of speculation about his personal life, Spacey would love it if news headlines led with KEVIN SPACEY PROUDLY COMES OUT AS GAY! YAY! rather than KEVIN SPACEY ACCUSED OF ATTEMPTED PEDOPHILIC RAPE. Nobody’s perfect, but most people resist the urge to hump a child when they get drunk.
Refusing to admit to an accused assault is in no way ‘progress’. It’s business as usual.
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It’s an odd inclusion, because it really has nothing to do with his behavior. If a straight man hit on a 14 year old girl, his declaration of being straight would do nothing to add to his apology. Sooo… honestly this reads like a call to remind people hes a minority who also suffers persecution. If not, then I really don’t know what his point was.
That said, and while I DO love Spacey as an actor, I have had gay friends mention him hitting on their friends/acquaintances who have met him, including people quite young (not sure if technically minor).
I think its safe to say, that anyone rich and/or famous has probably tried using that to get into some ones pants a little too aggressively at some point in their lives. Hopefully this spot light on the issue will make people think twice about doing so.
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