Swans: Classic or Dud?

Dude, that is straight up bullshit

I'm not sure which part is bullshit. The full quote is: "My story with Michael Gira is an absolute tragedy that I have kept secret for too long. I am only speaking of it now because after being accused of "lynching" Thomas, I cannot ethically keep Michael's secret any longer. He's a white guy, and his crime was far worse than what Thomas did to me or Margaret."

BV has pretty much everything pertinent, including a discussion that's not that different from the one here.

That's quite different to your "rephrase"

I'd say not, but really this is turning more into a Rorschach test than anything else.

you said it

http://i56.tinypic.com/20tji8g.jpg

dlp, you are saying that Larkin's story is false. "The idea that Grimm's story 'rings true' or anything like that is insane" = you do not believe this woman. That is your prerogative, but an anti-misogynist will unequivocally believe the woman in this instance, as statistically and sociologically, there is no reason not to. Gira framed this as "a regrettable mistake", Grimm framed it as "I was raped". Ghomeshi framed his activities as "some may find it perverted, others might find it enticing", his victims framed it as "he beat the shit out of me without consent". You are picking your side and it is not the side of anti-misogyny.

What fgti said.

That is not correct. Story doesn't ring true has nothing to do with what actually happened. I've been painfully clear on that.

Within a week or so, I'd guess that either someone else will come out with another accusation against Gira, or they won't.

Above, the speculation was that her story felt true, and his felt false, especially because he (supposedly) changed his story.

That does seem fairly likely, yes.
xp

i think it's a tad unfair to pin dlp as a misogynist based on the fact that he's questioning grimm herself saying "im saying this bcuz ppl are mad i accused a blk guy of things"

nostradamus here

heh yeah really putting a stake in the ground there

xps

I don't think it makes logical sense to say that Larkin's story is only legitimate if Gira raped other people. I know what rape looks like in the 24-hour news cycle but I don't think you can use that as a template to determine what is rape and what isn't unless you are arguing that serial rapists are real rapists and someone who had sex with someone without their consent once is not.

Also, this is a no-win situation for everyone involved:

- If Larkin is lying/misrepresenting what happened, she comes out the other end as a duplicitous person willing to ruin someone to protect herself from charges of racism and Gira has to rebuild a reputation shredded by a false accusation.
- If Larkin is telling the truth, she comes out the other end as a person who has been raped by one man, sexually assaulted by another, and accused of being a racist for speaking up about the sexual assault, while Gira comes out as a rapist.

I don't see what upside lying brings Larkin, so right now I believe she is telling the truth.

Nobody is calling dlp a misogynist, I am saying that he is not an anti-misogynist

dlp, did Michael Gira rape Larkin Grimm, yes or no

Based on the facts in front of you

Facts include Gira "a regrettable mistake" and Grimm "he put his penis in me no condom without consent"

Neither one seems particularly believable, and only they were there. Life is like that sometimes.

I'll throw Gira to the wolves as fast as the next person if the story changes.

dude if you're holding out for watertight evidence one way or the other you're probably not going to get it. but that would be more relevant if you were on an actual putative jury.

if you're not, staking out an opinion - obviously without all possible evidence! - is simply staking out a political stance. is it more important to uphold the status quo, the default, whereby victims of rape face an uphill struggle to be believed, to not be labelled crazy, let alone to win actual court cases? or is it important, politically, to assert belief in victims, to help create a climate where we can, as a society, decrease the shaming and the stigma that currently attaches itself to them?

that's even before you go into the statistics re: numbers of "women who falsely cry rape" vs "rapists", and the plausibility of the accounts they've both put forward.

i thought her statement on race was re: the self-questioning she did after she called out a black man for sexual assault, having been silent about a white man's rape for years, and her realisation that remaining silent in that context would be the racist act

^^^

I don't see how you can read this as being driven entirely by self-questioning:

I will give you some history about why I am sharing the story about Thomas Sayers Ellis’s abusive behavior now. I didn’t always stand up for myself. Rape is a loaded word. No man wants to be a rapist. It implies cowardice as well as violence. It undermines the sexual power and magnetism that every man would like to have. No woman wants to be known as a rape victim, either. I want to be known for my strength, intelligence, and talent. Not known as a victim. My story with Michael Gira is an absolute tragedy that I have kept secret for too long. I am only speaking of it now because after being accused of “lynching” Thomas, I cannot ethically keep Michael’s secret any longer. He’s a white guy, and his crime was far worse than what Thomas did to me or Margaret.

(I mean, self-questioning is self-evidently there, but it appears there were also some external accusations she was responding to.)

I don't see what upside lying brings Larkin

Unless she's a sociopath who also is using this as damage control re: accusations of racism and oh yeah enjoys seeing her name in print

but those are all longshots, of course

the people who asserting Gira's innocence here -- what does the "regrettable mistake" line make you infer happened?

You've never had--or have known anyone who has had--a consensual sexual relationship that could be considered a "regrettable mistake?"

Maybe "getting involved with an artist on my roster when I have a wife and kids" is the regrettable mistake he is referring to?

and oh yeah enjoys seeing her name in print

i think you slept through women's studies classes

Given his prickly and vehement defense ("slanderous lie" etc) the previous day, this is how I read it, anyway. Not saying that's the truth, only that that's what I figure he meant

xp

and oh yeah enjoys seeing her name in print

maybe you should take these thoughts of yours to https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/

Longshot? 2 adults in a too small space, both asleep drunkenly one reads the other's unconscious body movement as a come on. The other is unaware because asleep. Excuse would have to do with the drunken semi consciousness and subsequently be a regrettable mistake?

You've never had--or have known anyone who has had--a consensual sexual relationship that could be considered a "regrettable mistake?"

― Wimmels, Wednesday, March 2, 2016 1:40 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Maybe "getting involved with an artist on my roster when I have a wife and kids" is the regrettable mistake he is referring to?

so you think in the wake of an accusation of rape, with a bunch of people waiting to hear his response, michael gira chose to address it by referring to a "regrettable mistake", with the assumption that everyone reading it would understand that to mean that the sex was consensual, while the broader relationship itself was the mistake. there is a one is a ten fucking trillion chance that he would commit

Given his prickly and vehement defense ("slanderous lie" etc) the previous day, this is how I read it, anyway. Not saying that's the truth, only that that's what I figure he meant

this whole thing is definitely a rorschach test. what do you think of the moon landing? fake, right? there's a one in five trillion chance it was fake, so higher than the chances that gira's "regrettable mistake" was an incredibly fucking confusing reference to their broader relationship rather than to the very serious, explicit, defined thing he was being accused of.

Then how do you square the initial response (again, "slanderous lie," also Jennifer Gira's threats about 'proving' that the accusation was a lie, etc) with Gira's actual statement not 24 hours later? I agree it isn't clear, but...it isn't clear.

we're still waiting on all this "proof" correct?

I'm gonna step off this convo, as somebody who is friends with Larkin I don't think I'm equipped to participate in this conversation without wanting to murder myself and everyone else

i don't believe gira's response is unclear. i think "regrettable mistake" is about as far as he's going to go, because big surprise, he's not going to admit to raping someone. but even if you did think that gira's responses were unclear and wavering...then that's reason to distrust his accuser (who has nothing to gain from this, unless you seriously think that all of this was a plot to allow her to gain additional listeners to the song she posted on bandcamp the other day? which...wait...i think you DO believe)?

fgti thanks for your posts

^

if you're not [holding out for watertight evidence], staking out an opinion - obviously without all possible evidence! - is simply staking out a political stance.

this is true & key. but does every real-world situation of a given generic type demand precisely the same political response from everyone who cares? i ask cuz, where political ends are concerned, i suspect that some cases are better suited to the application of certain tactics than others.

question then: "is this particular case a good candidate for immediate and public politicization?" some will say "yes" simply because a woman has accused a man of rape, and that's enough. tactically, though, i'm inclined to hold back and see how things break over the next few days/weeks.

i'm not accusing larkin, not poking holes her story, not leaping to michael's defense. just steepling my fingers atm. while i'm not all that concerned about the political significance of what i type into this little box here, i am a fan of knowing something before i say anything.

all of which is why i'm glad folks like fgti are here to comment from a position of real understanding. thanks, and sorry it's been rough.

Xps it's bullshit bc there isn't a single element of larkins story that DOESN'T ring entirely true. I bet at least half the woman I know have been in a similar situation at least once in their lives.

You have no clue, no fucking clue, what you're talking about.

this is true & key. but does every real-world situation of a given generic type demand precisely the same political response from everyone who cares? i ask cuz, where political ends are concerned, i suspect that some cases are better suited to the application of certain tactics than others.

why oh why do some people suddenly get really philosophical about the ~contingent nature of knowledge gained via discourse rather than by immediate experience~ when the subject is rape?

does one read about a bus crash in pakistan in the paper and suddenly think, wow, these words on the page look so clear, but actually i have no unmediated grasp of the event conveyed in them, how am i to be sure any of these so-called bus crash victims even existed??

so what does this highly specific kind of skepticism that pops up whenever women talk about abuse really mean hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Larkin has apparently lied about her relationship with Gira before, in a number of interviews four years after the incident, which people should really read as it's not just one "puff piece." I wonder how we decide that someone is suddenly telling the truth. Nothing about Gira's career screams "credible person." He used to tell (maybe still does) stories about being in prison that definitely made me wonder what exactly happened.

For all the people looking for motivations for recent comments on both sides, I think that both of them got caught up in rapid-fire exchanges on facebook and didn't think a lot about what they were saying. At some point lawyers presumably got involved, and it all goes quiet. That's not at all unusual.

I don't think we'll ever see the "proof," that's pretty obvious.

And if I were friends with either party, I probably wouldn't be involved in online conversations about it either. fgti, that's kind of crucial information that might have gone in post #1, not post #last.

xp to goole - thank u for saying that much more clearly than I could have

And sleeve/goole, this skepticism pops up about car crashes all the fucking time. People lie all the time. The idea that it's restricted to abuse is, once again, just wrong.

We're in the middle of a complete change in the way we view policing because everyone in the world just recently discovered that, wow, police lie all the time.

does one read about a bus crash in pakistan in the paper and suddenly think, wow, these words on the page look so clear, but actually i have no unmediated grasp of the event conveyed in them, how am i to be sure any of these so-called bus crash victims even existed??

Yes, this is exactly the same thing

Clearly it isn't.