by John Lawrence
Retrospective Unwanted Sexual Advances and Seduction
It seems like a lot of women are "coming forward" 20 or 30 years later after the fact of unwanted sexual advances. This really doesn't cut it in the legal or even the moral sense in my opinion, but it does create a media frenzy which is what it is really all about. #MeToo is basically looking backward and deciding at a later date that someone has done something wrong which at the time and even shortly thereafter seemed to be no big deal.
It used to be that there was such a thing as seduction for which there was no culpability as far as I can ascertain. Maybe a woman was reluctant at first to have sex, but then if the guy was so charming and/or convincing, the situation might get to the point where she willingly had sex. In other words the sex was consensual. Later on she might have had the sexual equivalent of "buyer's remorse" and decided that it was a bad idea and blamed the guy for what happened. So where do you draw the line? Whether or not the man is rich and/or powerful has nothing to do with whether or not a woman has been raped. If she has been raped time is of the essence in reporting that rape. If the sex was more or less consensual, then the huge media frenzy around unwanted sexual advances is just that: a media frenzy.
Is anyone accusing rock stars and professional athletes of using their status to have sex with lots of women. The women may have had later regrets, but no one is coming forward to accuse Mick Jagger or Keith Richards of unwanted sexual advances even though they bragged about all the sex they had with multiple women. Are groupies coming forward complaining of being used by famous men? I don't think so.
If women want to be credible about sex with powerful, rich or famous men, they need to come forward immediately after the act occurred, go to the police and get a rape kit started. Then the DNA proof is present in their vagina and a swab will prove that. Otherwise, if too much time goes by, the sex should be considered consensual.
One of the famous liaisons in which much opprobrium was heaped on Bill Clinton was the relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Clinton was figuratively tarred and feathered and impeached although by all accounts the relationship was consensual. The sex between them was proven by virtue of the fact that Lewinsky had saved a semen-stained dress from which Clinton's DNA was extricated. Clinton lied about it and was caught in a lie, but consensual sex today is no big deal whether or not one or both of them is married. Is anyone concerned about the harm done to Harvey Weinstein's wife? Not as far as the media is concerned.
Although there is a big hue and cry about unwanted sexual advances, no one seems to be the least bit concerned about the fact that most of these men were married at the time and, therefore, committed adultery. No one seems to be concerned about the harm done to their wives and families. I guess adultery doesn't count for much any more.
The following is a compendium of some of my Off the Top of My Head columns on the subject.
Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Elvis Presley etc.
Every day it seems a new Hollywood sexual predator comes to light. It's now an all too familiar saga. Just recently more than 30 women have come forward to accuse movie director James Toback of sexual harassment. Dozens of women are "coming forward" to claim unwanted sexual advances or in some cases outright rape. However, it usually is the case that none of these women ever reported the situation to the police or other authorities at the time that the incident occurred. In some cases they come forward 20 or 30 years later. So it all amounts to a public shaming as is the case with Harvey Weinstein. The public shaming cost him his job, his company and evidently his wife and children - a considerable penalty.
For what it's worth here's my advice to women who find themselves in the situation of being in a hotel room with a powerful mogul in a bathrobe. #1 Never agree to meet anyone for a supposedly "business meeting" in a hotel room. #2 If there are unwanted sexual advances, take Nancy Reagan's advice and "Just say No!". #3 If there is an actual rape, go immediately to the police and demand that a rape kit be started. They will do a vaginal swab which will contain semen which can be directly connected to the perpetrator by means of DNA testing. That is an open and shut case for criminal prosecution. Even if the authorities are so corrupt that they won't proceed with a criminal prosecution, there will be documentation that the event took place.
There are probably a considerable number of cases where women consensually had sex with the Harvey Weinsteins of the world in return for the chance of getting their face and/or body on the Big Screen or even the Little Screen. If things didn't turn out as they had envisioned, they could decide many years later that they had been the victim of a sexual predator. Well, it's not sexual predation if the sex was consensual, that is, if the woman was a willing participant. It doesn't matter who made the advances or how powerful or powerless the guy was or is.
Consider the case of famous rock stars and athletes. Women used to throw their panties at Elvis Presley inasmuch as saying "Come and get it!" I'm sure he and many others did. Does that make them sexual predators or sexual accommodators? Wilt Chamberlain, the basketball star, in his autobiography claimed he slept with 20,000 women. Does that make him a sexual predator or only someone with a healthy sex drive? The fact is that many women will gladly have sex with rich or famous or powerful men, even throw themselves at them. They will even make the advances, in some cases even, unwanted sexual advances. Does that make them the sexual predators?
The Scarlet Letter, an 1850 novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt. She is forced to be branded with a red "A" for adulturess and must wear that stigma for the rest of her life. The guy who got her pregnant was not even considered to be culpable. Now a couple of centuries later, the tables have turned and Harvey Weinstein might as well have a scarlet letter emblazoned on his chest. But somehow the question of adultery is entirely moot. It's all about whether or not the sex was consensual. It's "He said;she said."
The other side of the coin is what happens when women throw themselves at famous or powerful men, in some cases calculatedly, because in the back of their minds they think they might get a part in a motion picture or become a rock star's girlfriend. If they are disappointed, they can always have a change of heart later and decide that the guy was at fault. If there is an actual rape, then the situation is legally actionable provided they go to the police and get a rape kit started right away. Otherwise a public shaming is about all they can hope for if enough other women come forward and say #MeToo.
Sex: Consensual and Non-Consensual
There is a lot of hullabaloo going around over Harvey Weinstein who supposedly made unwanted sexual advances to young starlets. He's even been accused of rape. Well, this is nothing new in Hollywood. Most of the great producers, directors, studio heads and moguls of the 20th century operated in the same way. All you have to do is to read some biographies of movie stars, directors, producers and moguls from that era.
For instance, Betty Hutton, one of the biggest female movie stars of the 1940s recounts in her biography, "Backstage, You Can Have," how she got her first professional gig as a singer with Vincent Lopez's band. A requirement of her employment was that she give Lopez a daily blow job. And then her career took off from there.
The "casting couch" is not a new phenomenon. Many aspiring actors and actresses will willingly perform there in return for a chance of becoming a star. So why all the shock and disbelief regarding Harvey Weinstein. He's just conducting business as usual as it's been conducted since the advent of the movie industry. Since the movies are all about sex, how a woman performs in bed could be a good indication of whether or not she could be a star.
Songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen was Frank Sinatra's best buddy. He used to gather up a few women in LA and bring them out to Frank's pad in Palm Springs every weekend. These women were either prostitutes or aspiring starlets. After the weekend was over, Jimmy dutifully drove them back to Los Angeles and paid the prostitutes. He didn't have to pay the aspiring starlets however. They were in it to advance their careers.
There is so much cultural hypocrisy going around over powerful men and the women who have suffered through "unwanted sexual advances" at their hands. If the guy made an advance and the woman said "Back off Bub," like some of them have (including Julie Andrews), then the situation is fini, no harm done in my opinion. If the guy persists to the point of forcing her to have sex, then that is rape, and she should call the cops as soon as she extricates herself from the situation. How is it that none of them do? Instead they wait till 20 or 30 years later to stir up a big fuss?
I don't condone rape, but I see no harm in making "unwanted sexual advances". How does the guy know they are unwanted till the woman tells him so? In many cases the woman is all too willing in which case they are not unwanted but indeed are definitely wanted, in which case the sex is consensual and many careers have been advanced that way. It's not all pure acting skill, I hate to tell you.
The entertainment industry, especially the movies and lately TV as well, is all about sex. It should come as no surprise then that the people involved in that industry are involved in it in their personal lives. They are not Puritans as evidently are not those who consume the products of the visual entertainment industry, including porn, vicariously.
An interesting question is would a porn star complain that a producer or director made unwanted sexual advances when she willingly consents to having sex onscreen?
Aspiring Starlets and the American Sleaze Machine
For some women Hollywood moguls are sexual predators. For others they are a potential way of becoming a star, a means to an end. There are those that are repulsed by the casting couch as well they should be. It is just the first step, an entree of sorts, into an industry that is characterized by sleaze. So it is altogether fitting that the first introduction to the industry is a sleazy encounter with the likes of Harvey Weinstein. After all if your goal is to purvey sleaze, why not immerse yourself in the real life sleaze that goes on behind the scenes?
For other women a rejection of the casting couch means that they will probably never make it in the sleazy movie industry. They should rejoice in that fact alone because then they might have a chance to lead a more healthy, productive and ethical life.
The first movie that Harvey Weinstein fully financed was Pulp Fiction. Its script was reportedly turned down by Columbia TriStar as "too demented". Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein was instantly enthralled with it. The film is about criminality, drugs and murder, a wonderful combination that is what aspiring starlets who make the cut will be involved in. The entertainment industry is inherently sleazy. Pulp Fiction won a lot of awards; it was considered a great movie. Nevertheless, it characterized the vacuity and emptiness of unproductive lives involved in borderline and in some cases outright criminality. This is what women, who want to become known in that industry and who will do anything to attain their goal, including accepting the advances of Harvey Weinstein and others like him, aspire to. And of course there is a lot of money involved.
Some who accept mogul advances and then never become big stars have a case of sour grapes and later decide that they were taken advantage of. Some of these "come forward" with accusations many years later after having a change of heart regarding that encounter which was a potential entree into the movie business. The ethical ones reject mogul advances in the first place and make the decision that it isn't worth it even if that means they are throwing away their chances at becoming a star.
What is purveyed onscreen in many but not all cases is a twisted, illicit sexuality which evidently is more entertaining than sex which is portrayed as part of a love affair. I have no problem with sex as an inherent part of a love story between two consenting married or unmarried adults. But this kind of sexuality is not the kind that sells most movies. This is the kind that brands a movie as a "chick flick" or a European movie which is too dull for most American audiences. American audiences want cultural depravity and this is what producers like Harvey Weinstein know will sell.
The bottom line is that women shouldn't be too outraged when the vicarious sleaze portrayed on the Big Screen turns out to be the reality of real life in an industry in which fantasy and reality merge. You can only realistically commit to portraying sleaze if you are fully committed to it in real life. You have to live what you can then realistically portray. It's called method acting, the Stanislavski system. Women with a moral or ethical bone in their body should expect that movie moguls' will come on to them in real life, reject it and go on to something better. They might not then become famous though. Too bad. They will just have to live with that.
