Swans: Classic or Dud?

My hope is that Larkin finds peace with the demons that have been darkening her soul since long before she and I ever met.

yeah, wow. the whole thing is kind of weasely but this part especially.

not kind of, really. it seems like he is admitting it happened -- he doesn't refute any part of her claim -- but trying to recast it in this very passive voice type of way.

yikes. i guess he's "evolved" on this issue, then?

The instances of women lying about being raped are well below the instances of men getting away with rape.

there’s really no reliable data on either thing — how many men get away with rape, how many women lie about rape— so I’m not sure how anyone can make this statement in confidence.

people’s opinions on specific incidents — which have no necessary relation to larger trends— seem to depend on what one finds more "believable"— that lots of men are capable of rape, or that lots of women are capable of lying about rape. in every case this is deeply embedded in ideology, personal experience, various cognitive biases, etc.

er, not "in confidence" but rather "with confidence"

My hope is that Larkin finds peace with the demons that have been darkening her soul since long before she and I ever met.

yeah, i'm really sure this is his "hope"

gira is all christlike and shit

gira was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me you see

I am thankful that Michael made a statement so transparently abusive that I feel unmixed resolve in tossing out the terrible Swans records I never bought

Having read the three posts by the three parties, I'm certainly not going to buy any of his material in the future, and I plan on selling off my post-1998 Swans material (totally subjective cut-off).

― the 'major tom guy' (sleeve), Saturday, 27 February 2016 04:02 (2 hours ago) Permalink

"it's a slanderous lie!"
"ok some of it was a lie"
"well... none of it was really a lie"
"actually... i did worse/more stuff that you don't even know about yet"

as if we haven't seen rapists follow this same pattern before.

it's disturbing to see so many comments from sexual assault survivors - not just jennifer gira - assuming that larkin is lying and that they have experienced 'real' 'true' rape.

In her case you'd have to say coming to accept her husband might be one of the rapists would be such a horrible thing to accept that any amou t of psychological twisting about of others experinces would be easier to cope with

i wouldn't be surprised if gira really believes that she consented, bc consent is such a gray area to a lot of ppl, but the problem is her telling him straight up that she did not consent and him refusing to acknowledge that. maybe if he had, they could have had a really useful conversation and things wouldn't have come to this.

and that's the point i get from larkin - a lot of men (and women) could make a serious mistake like this (of not seeking enthusiastic consent), it doesn't make them a monster; more than the rape itself, the aftermath is what was most damaging bc of his refusal to see what he had done. and that characterizes much of rape culture in general.

^^^ just1n3 you are doing a much better job of articulating what I was trying to upthread -- seems like larkin tried/is trying v.hard to meet him halfway on this, & he just refused to back down ('rape is monstrous + I am not a monster = that weren't no rape')

I mean I hate to be flip but everybody makes mistakes, right?

Men go crazy about "defending my good name" or w/e because they feel there is a bright line between themselves & the wrong kind of men, the men who rape, which line cannot be crossed without forever losing a part of their humanity; but in reality there is a thick fog, men cross the line all the time, knowingly or not, hoping that nobody sees them coming back; & "good name" is just another trump card dudes hold, which can be used to shut down the subsequent inquiry into what, exactly, they were doing over there on that particularly foggy night.

If one accepts (as one should) the basic feminist premise that power is distributed unequally between individuals in our society, & further accepts the notion that unpunished sexual assaults are widespread (especially in places like the music industry, where the kind of organizing & institutional oversight that could potentially push back against the boys' club do not exist), it seems to follow that one should tread lightest where he feels most unassailable. The very fact that "explanations" are so easily found & believed, and above all believed by us as we speak them, is an index which leads back to that same fundamental power imbalance.

... now if you'll excuse me I have to relisten to this song while soaking in the bitter irony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHcV0CSEvz4

I'll kill that man, I'll kill that man
I'll hunt him down & make him understand
What he's done to you

there’s really no reliable data on either thing — how many men get away with rape, how many women lie about rape— so I’m not sure how anyone can make this statement in confidence.

― wizzz! (amateurist), Saturday, February 27, 2016 4:57 AM (9 hours ago)

https://rainn.org/statistics
http://rapecrisis.org.uk/statistics.php

Larkin posted this in an FB comment in response:

I have this statement to give in response to Michael's admission of guilt.
This is a perfect example of why we need to have education about consent. In a gentlemanly move he admits the act happened but cannot conceive of himself as a rapist. Thank you Michael Gira for your honesty. This is your truth as you remember it. Unfortunately, this was still rape. I said no to you many times before that day, begged you not to interfere with me sexually, even made it a part of a verbal agreement we had when I signed a contract with you. I asked you to promise that you would never have sex with me. You assured me that I could trust you. That is about as clear a NO as I could ever cry. I asked for this because I had had other experiences in my music career and I KNEW.

That night I was far too intoxicated to give you consent for any sexual act. The psychological effects of this betrayal were devastating. Even worse, when I finally confronted you about what you had done, you terminated my relationship with Young God Records, damaging my career and leading people to believe there was something wrong with me or my music.

In the end, this is about business. Art is my career. I have worked long and hard for this career, making incredible sacrifices along the way to continue to make music. The fact that a man in power can throw a women's life and work away like they are garbage, simply because she won't sleep with him, is an immoral injustice that happens to many, many women in music. I won't stand for it and neither should you.

We don't lose our common sense just because there's a sensitive topic. The above quote is just crazy (a verbal agreement that you would never have sex with me). Gira isn't a trustworthy source either.

Nobody will ever know what happened, and nothing productive is going to come from this thread.

Nobody has quoted "Trust Me" yet, which is a strange oversight, in a kind of horrible way.

xp well-said *fucks off back to a more productive corner of ILX*

The above quote is just crazy (a verbal agreement that you would never have sex with me).

There is absolutely nothing "crazy" about this in context, also can we please keep "crazy" tf out of this thread

yeah dlp that was very disappointing

I'm sorry, but it isn't. I see two very unreliable people, both making bad choices, and I have no idea what actually happened. As a result, I don't think this thread is serving any real purpose.

then fucking go away

Good advice.

Secondly, those who are moved by the passion of Ms. Grimm's original accusations

in which she relates her experience

should read Jennifer Gira's equally impassioned retort

in which she casts her own experience as the standard for what rape is

which is an interesting tactic considering "it didn't happen" in the first place, right?

the idea of making a "retort" when someone says they were raped is so fucked up in the first place. this is like master class in how not to respond to an assault allegation.

^^^^^

"THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN AND SHE IS A LYING HARPY (but if it did.....it wasn't a real rape because i experienced a real rape and i know)"

"THIS IS A SLANDEROUS LIE AND SHE IS A HORRIBLE PERSON!!! (actually every thing she mentioned did happen, but it was a totally ok and consensual act and she's an amazing though troubled person)"

If Gira ever confesses, or if anything concrete ever comes out, I'll be back here in the blink of an eye to agree that he's a bad person. I just don't see a few days after a facebook post being an appropriate amount of time to form a judgement. I also don't judge people based on their writing skills.

given how much his story has changed in the last 24 hours, I'll be holding you to that.

this has nothing to do with "writing skills"

the history of rape allegations is full of impassioned defenses of the alleged rapist made by people who weren't there and have no basis to make a defense other than they like the guy.

lol @ "writing skills"

Moving as in evoking strong feelings, moron.

Strong feelings of what exactly (unless you mean that reading Gira's wife's invoked strong feelings of ickiness about her defense of him, I'm a bit flummoxed)?

Writing skills = not judging what actually happened based on how well people express themselves about it. That's usually used in the other direction, to discredit people. Again, no idea what happened. Only two people know. This thread=no purpose.

At the moment, anyway.

we are talking about the way the Gira's stories have changed drastically in the last 24 hours, not about how well they are expressing themselves.

Whether we know what happened back then, we know how he and his wife have responded since her first post. I'd say those responses reflect pretty badly on him.

We don't judge rape victims when their stories change, which is correct. I don't really see why holding off on judgement in the few days after all this is an issue. I'm hardly a Gira fanboy, fwiw, and could live without listening to his band again if need be. I think it's smart to wait and see how things look after some time passes. He may confess. He may not. Other people may come forward. Etc.

If only the brain had a mechanism to analyze new developments and apply them to previously held opinions

it does. it's called "thinking". executed properly, it takes time.

luckily, when time is short and evidence scant, your brain can also "jump to conclusions and argue about them on the internet". which is pretty fun.

inclined to believe larkin here. in no hurry to sell off swans albs.

...in the meantime, there's always the allegations against Ellis to speculate on!
(iirc they involved multiple witnesses in public places with conflicting accounts?)
should be a fun season for lovers of drama :/

The above quote is just crazy (a verbal agreement that you would never have sex with me).

― dlp9001, Saturday, February 27, 2016 11:06 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really, really missing the "crazy" component here, society is built on such agreements, though most people have the common sense and keeping-it-in-their-pantsingness not to require to be spelled out in words

not surprised gira walked back his post so quickly, the accusation had the sort of details it's a bit too hard to work into a lie for most people. as far as "holding off judgment" there's really no scenario here that doesn't make him look like a bad person, it's just a matter of degree

If you're at a point where you're asking someone to verbally agree not to have sex with you, who you plan to continue to have contact with, something has gone very, very wrong. Crazy doesn't mean she is crazy.

If you're at a point where you're asking someone to verbally agree not to have sex with you, who you plan to continue to have contact with, something has gone very, very wrong.

― dlp9001, Saturday, February 27, 2016 4:43 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no shit, but the "very, very wrong" isn't on her part here, nor is "plan to continue to have contact with" often a free choice. to take an extreme case, you could extend this same argument to abused children.

I don't really see the parallel, which does seem extreme. The main point is that this is clearly an unusual situation, and there aren't any reasonable guesses about what actually happened.

The parallel is being at a point where you're asking someone to verbally agree not to have sex with you, who you plan to continue to have contact with it.

And this isn't an unusual situation at all. Again, even the best-case scenario for Gira is garden-variety assholery.

the power dynamic between the two of them is what bothers me the most because it reminds me of irl stuff that friends have had to deal with, especially the not making public accusations, trying to stay on good terms, etc. stuff that in this case (and many others) gets used as "evidence" against the victim in terms of diminishing their credibility.

the power dynamic between the two of them is what bothers me the most because it reminds me of irl stuff that friends have had to deal with, especially the not making public accusations, trying to stay on good terms, etc. stuff that in this case (and many others) gets used as "evidence" against the victim in terms of diminishing their credibility.

― sarahell, Saturday, February 27, 2016 4:58 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, exactly. this is why "plan to continue to have contact with" is seldom a free choice. for women, especially, there is a tremendous amount of pressure to be or at least appear forgiving, and not "difficult" or "emotional" or "unreasonable" or "crazy," that leads to such things.