Defend the indefensible - Bob Dylan.

Nobody said that.

Have you guys ever wondered why so few women post here anymore?

― Tracer Hand, jeudi 19 août 2021 10:36 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

If so - wonder no longer!

― Tracer Hand, jeudi 19 août 2021 10:39 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

With respect, I wasn't waiting for a man to give me the answer.

lol

Sorry. "Maybe" 100% are true.

is it really so hard to avoid using the exact same little turns of phrase that we have been hearing for years to defend other people whose behaviour is (now) widely acknowledged? that is what set me off.

THIS would have been more helpful than a flat out "fuck you" or even the the following "is it so fucking hard to avoid the classic /r/mensrights standby 'hey check out this other false accusation'? for fuck's sake"

In those two cases, I jumped on the "they're guilty" bandwagon and regretted it. But from the perspective laid out in italics, it's easy to see how expressing that can also have consequences I don't intend or want.

Because it will retroactively make it look like your first instinct was to side with an abuser.

b/c this is still bugging me - if you go back thru the posts where I was poking online into the timeline, you'll see I was very careful to note that nothing I was finding absolutely proved that Dylan couldn't have been in NYC in April/May. Such exculpatory evidence is what I hoped to find, but it's not enough for someone online to say "this biography says he and Joan went to Mimi Farina's party upstate for the rest of April" - I want to see what is said in the text. That's why the newspaper clippings in that Twitter thread showing he and Sara visited Portugal after his May UK shows were good, but also not entirely enough.

And indeed, Isaacs is now saying “There are dates that he wasn’t touring for several weeks in April and this will all come out at that appropriate time.” So that's what they've narrowed the timeframe to - and if no one can definitely account for Dylan's activities throughout April, then it is still an open question.

Honestly I almost ordered that Chelsea Hotel book to see what the author says in full about when Dylan was there, but that seemed a bit much.

can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to post on a board where ppl regularly greet each other with “fuck you” and warn against leaving an incriminating “trail of posts”

That was the very first time I've ever posted "fuck you" to anybody anywhere, and it was also in response to the first time anyone's ever posted that in my direction. As mentioned, it was needless.

I regret saying "trail of posts"; that was inflammatory.

I just meant there's a (sometimes silent) audience for our posts here, however dwindling. And my perspective is that searching for and publicly distributing exculpatory evidence—for whatever motive or however non-prejudicially—contributes to rape culture by sending a message that victims of sexual assault need to make sure their accounts of inherently traumatizing and psychologically altering experiences are airtight before coming forward. If you disagree, that's fine, but then we don't have much to talk about, so as Tracer said, carry on

i don't remember my very first post

As best as I can figure it was

tulsi is no republican, she's just a self-aggrandizing narcissist

― akm, Sunday, February 9, 2020 11:31 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

you don't have to be a republican to be fascist supporting islamophobe

― aaaaaeeeeeeooooooooooo (Left), Sunday, February 9, 2020 11:42 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

rob otm, this thread has been very weird to read

not that it hasn't tracked with the greater conversation about this on the internet, i just expect a little better of ilx, uh, lol

xxpost: i wasn’t trying to single anyone out it just gets exhausting to post and wonder if anyone’s going to decide to respond with a “fuck you.” obviously there are times when it’s called for (i think using it to respond to someone who’s already said it to you is fine).

I am genuinely asking this: is there no way to discuss the allegations or is that off limits?

I don't think there's any way for *men* to productively discuss it, tbh, as we have seen here already

Basically never expect better of ilx is how i break it down to an extent.

Now look what you made me do, I posted on ILM. Get it off get it off

so why don't the mods just strip out all of the posts from this thread since the first post on this and be done with it?

xp

that's a very extreme response

the immediate and sustained turn this thread took for the investigative was just kinda shitty, a lesson to learn from in the future

There is a way to productively discuss these things as men, and evidently there is an urgency to do so, it just involves not waltzing in and saying ‘fuck you’ and accusing people for contributing to rape culture and to the lack of female posters, or making wild assumptions about someone’s character. We are mostly all anonymous here, we don’t know each other personal lives, maybe someone who is tracking down Dylan’s life looking for evidence could also be a victim of sexual assault. If you take the time to read the actual posts, no one has made the claim that Dylan is innocent.

I don’t know, I feel like I have loved this board because it seemed a respite from twitter-like activity but sometimes O think the virus has caught on here too.

discussion of sexual assault is triggering, period. maybe there should be a trigger warning added to the thread title?

yes vhs, the thing for the men to focus on itt is how they're being attacked

come the fuck on

like i said earlier, this time period has been well documented, I think that's one reason you're having so many people chime in

xp

You think attacking people leads to productive conversations? If you believe that the investigative turn is the wrong thing (which is my opinion too btw), do you believe you are going to achieve anything positive by just saying it's shitty and you expect better of posters? It seems to me that's more policing than idk sharing of ideas and explanations.

And my perspective is that searching for and publicly distributing exculpatory evidence—for whatever motive or however non-prejudicially—contributes to rape culture by sending a message that victims of sexual assault need to make sure their accounts of inherently traumatizing and psychologically altering experiences are airtight before coming forward.

I support women coming forward to tell their story. I disagree with you that I or anyone else who discusses this timeline in Dylan's life as contributing to rape culture. Framing it as evidence seems a little presumptuous as well.

the immediate and sustained turn this thread took for the investigative

Welcome to Dylan fandom.

I appreciate your larger point even if I disagree a little bit.

wow the manstigating on this thread is really bumming me out. Trader hand etc otm :-(

it’s 2021

ok I’m off my high horse

I like Trader Hand. It’s even more wild west than my real handle.

It’s always confusing and horrible when someone whose art you’ve loved is accused of something terrible. I get it. How do you process it? What do you do?

I think we owe it to the board to be really careful about how we process it. Going on and on about the different ways that you think the alleged victim’s story doesn’t add up is grotesque. THAT is the “attack” - on every victim of sexual assault. And yeah it’s going to provoke some strong reactions. Or at least it had better.

Considering buying materials in order to continue the sleuthing I think is probably a sign that you are too invested in your image of Bob Dylan as a good guy to have a fair judgment about it. Why go to these lengths? Who possibly could have a fair judgment about it right now? We have to live with this shitty stink around Bob Dylan for awhile and no amount of sleuthing of going to counter that, unfortunately.

I probably have been over-invested in following every angle here - but not because of some image of Dylan a "good guy" (I've never been too interested in his private life) but because the claim is so horrible (and the available details so minimal - we don't even know the plaintiff's "story," just how it's being characterized in the brief) that yes it would be devastating to me as a fan of his music if it has truth to it. Honestly I think you're underplaying the magnitude of what's being alleged. I won't post any more "sleuthing" if it's not welcome here though.

I would get personally skeeved out if people were trying to dig up personal details of the accuser, but I haven't seen anything like that on this thread.

Going on and on about the different ways that you think the alleged victim’s story doesn’t add up is grotesque.

No one is going on about the victim's story, because we don't know the vicitm's story. We do know a lot about the person accused of these crimes, and where they were, and that's what I think some people are not understanding. No one's calling the story into question, we just know about the accusation.

And shaming people for buying a book is not a good look imho

ILX is not perfect but from what i've seen, posters have responded to the numerous accounts of abusive/predatory behavior from musicians in the last few years with sympathy and support for the victims and anger and disappointment towards the musicians, and I have not seen much in the way of demanding more proof or mounting defenses of the accused. I do think this case is an outlier - the alleged offense being 56 years ago, how famous the accused is and was at the time, and the question of whether this could even have taken place as described based on the facts that exist. I totally understand being uncomfortable with 'sleuthing' but I don't think it's terrible, or an attack on all victims of sexual assault, to admit skepticism about the accusation as it stands now. My opinion may change if/when more facts emerge, and perhaps I would need to re-examine my judgment.

And my perspective is that searching for and publicly distributing exculpatory evidence—for whatever motive or however non-prejudicially—contributes to rape culture by sending a message that victims of sexual assault need to make sure their accounts of inherently traumatizing and psychologically altering experiences are airtight before coming forward.

But this is essentially just what our legal system does, and this is a lawsuit that the lawyers want addressed in court. And when those lawyers respond to issues that are certain to come up in court with "we've got blogs" I think there's some reason for skepticism.

not that i'm trying to defend how awful and traumatic our legal system is to victims of sexual assault btw.

I heard a rumour on this very thread that Bob Dylan "makes" people shovel bees down their dick.

oh great comedy just what we need

xp you're right the legal system reproduces rape culture. i don't understand the point or what it has to do with how ordinary people should talk about a case although the legal system is a great example of *how not to do it*

If anyone needs some comedy, it's you

i know i need to lighten up and take a joke and stop being so easily offended eh

the accusation exists in the context of a lawsuit, in our legal system. I think it's reasonable for people to wonder how something is going to hold up in court, especially when the lawyers provide a buffoonish non-answer to pretty obvious questions.

Have you wondered enough yet?

yeah I’ll shut up now

i dont post bc news like this makes me shut down

i can’t even give my energy to speculation of ~any~ kind because it’s just so sad in and of itself

i think that’s the bigger picture as i see it - not that anyone’s accusing or exonerating anyone

but ilx collectively just has this way of intensely interrogating things immediately re subjects that leave me reeling and sometimes it’d be good if you all just took a breath FIRST and read the room as a whole subject-wise, instead of getting all grassy-knolled out about literally everything all the time

thank you VG, otm

vg otm

I haven't been posting because - frankly - I'm very much in the "I hope he didn't do this" camp, and I've felt sick ever since the story broke. And tbh I'm grateful to the people posting about the conflict of dates etc. because it gives me some hope that's letting me, like, go about my day and eat meals and not just curl up in a ball as I wait for more information to emerge. Because as a woman - and speaking only for myself - I would feel devastated and betrayed if it turned out that a male artist whose work I love, and who I've felt a deep sense of personal gratitude toward at many points in my life, turned out to have done something like this. So I'm strenuously hoping he didn't do it, awaiting more information, and doing my best not to completely lose it in the meantime. And I haven't posted because I'm afraid if I say something like that I'll be called a rape apologist, and I'm not good at being in internet fights, I tend to take them personally.

Also, one of the things I generally like about ilx is that people know each other and don't have to make the kind of assumptions of bad faith that you see in, like, large-scale Twitter arguments. And yet on this thread I get the impression people are reflexively assuming bad faith anyway, and that bothers me. So I've stayed quiet because I'm uncomfortable when ilx gets like this. It doesn't have anything to do with thinking ilx is supporting rape culture. Maybe for other people it does, idk. We women are not a monolithic group.

i feel that *hoping they didnt do it* element too, definitely going through a bit of that as well
lily, thank you for stating that so eloquently