Swans: Classic or Dud?

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.

Abused children don't have the option to walk away, so it's not a valid comparison. That's all. Look, I'm perfectly willing to believe that Gira did it. It doesn't strike me as inconceivable at all. At the same time, right now it's two people with different accounts of what happened. So I reserve judgement. How they present their cases on facebook, etc., doesn't really have any bearing on what actually happened.

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.

GOD YES! I can't count the number of times I've heard men say these things about women they've been abusive towards, and because their audience admire the guy, or he is in a position to help their careers, their response is often, "Oh yeah, man, I've heard stories about her ... crazy...." though I hope that they are just saying that to the guy but not actually believing it, and really are thinking, "Uh, this guy is a total dick."

if someone is your label boss, overseeing your album, _living with you_, then no, it's not so easy to walk away either. sure, it's an option in the most literal sense, but so are many things that you're not going to do.

Xxpost what is your ultimate goal here? That people stop posting to the thread?

Why are you attempting to dictate that everybody require the same amount of evidence as the court of law prior to forming an opinion? Would you say to your kid "I'm sorry Tommy is picking on you, but I have to wait until the facts come out before I help you?"

Nobody's going to think less of you if you don't have an opinion yet but some have formed one based on the context of the data available. We all do it.

If new evidence comes out....people will adjust their opinions. Nobody here knows Gira or is causing irreparable harm by thinking the accusation sounds valid and that his reaction seems sketchy.

I'd kind of love it if there was a hiatus on the thread for a bit, yes. Nobody can dictate what happens on the internet.

Well if that's the case you have made that point 10+ times

classic

dlp already got one thread shut down this week he's just on a roll!

i'm not sure why anybody would still be talking about how we don't know what happened since gira's second statement seems to confirm the essentials of grimm's story.

dude

"Wait for facts to come out" is usually a dog whistle on the Internet....

i'm not sure why anybody would still be talking about how we don't know what happened since gira's second statement seems to confirm the essentials of grimm's story.
― call all destroyer, Saturday, February 27, 2016 5:01 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Otm

Yeah otm

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.

if you've heard more than a few stories of abuse - all kinds of abuse - you realize it's actually easy to make very, very reasonable guesses about what happened. there are always patterns. i doubt gira had much malicious intent, but as larkin mentions in one of her posts, his behavior was cowardly bc he wouldn't own up to what he had done, with or without intention to hurt her.

adult children who have been abused often maintain contact, even close contact, with their abusive parents.

GOD YES! I can't count the number of times I've heard men say these things about women they've been abusive towards, and because their audience admire the guy, or he is in a position to help their careers, their response is often, "Oh yeah, man, I've heard stories about her ... crazy...." though I hope that they are just saying that to the guy but not actually believing it, and really are thinking, "Uh, this guy is a total dick."

― sarahell, Saturday, February 27, 2016 10:02 PM (1 hour ago)

Also there is a major flaw in the idea that crazy = this didn't happen. There's a reason people get called "vulnerable adults" (or at least they do in the UK, anyway). Something of a tangent in this case but always worth pointing out.

I was serially assaulted in my sleep twice by the same man who had previously been a friend. I woke up the second time to find my pants open and the friend grasping my penis.

Both times I was very drunk and he waited for me to pass out. Worst of all..he was a coworker of mine.

I never filed any report, told my boss...and even with the man himself, we only talked about it once (where I told him I was upset by it) and he said it wouldn't happen again. It didnt, but he did one day make another unsettling request.

I stayed friends with him for 3 years after that despite feeling disgusted by it. Why? Cos I was scared. If he was capable of doing that to me in my sleep, what would he do if I shut him out? What if he got violent? He also knew where I lived

I even let him come to my grandmother's funeral. He hugged my mother who said he was always welcome. I couldn't tell her the truth in that moment.

I finally broke off contact with him years later. Note. ...I was drunk both times it happened. I didn't break off contact with the guy. But having the privilege of being male meant nobody I told questioned either thing as suspicious.

Her story is not unbelievable.

*sexually, not serially

This story is fucking me up.

Larkin is so articulate. So considerate. This story is so much bigger than what happened that one night.

her FB posts have been very good and I think quoting one is relevant ITT:

Michael Gira also survived abuse. A good artist writes what they know, they write the things in their hearts. I still listen to Led Zeppelin despite having read the shocking biography. Being a good artist is not dependent upon being a good person. Art is higher than morality. You have my blessing to listen to Swans all you want. What I would like to end is the blaming and shaming of rape victims, and the scapegoating of the few men who are convicted of rape when the whole of society stands by and lets the abuse of women be perpetrated in public over and over again.

i'm not sure why anybody would still be talking about how we don't know what happened since gira's second statement seems to confirm the essentials of grimm's story

Except that he says it was consensual and she says it wasn't.

If she says it wasn't consensual then it wasn't. Doesn't matter if he thinks it was.

Gira says that it wasn't consummated. That is a big difference in essentials.

You have my blessing to listen to Swans all you want.

Oh, thank you, Larkin