Never apologize

Brendan O’Neill, dismissive as ever.

In Britain a journalist can now have his career destroyed on the basis of one accusation.

So, a journalist is automatically a he? There are no journalists who are she? I could swear there are – I could swear I’ve read journalism by them.

Just like in the GDR. Yes, just as the Stasi and its myriad snitches could dispatch from public life writers and reporters they didn’t like simply by accusing them of something, simply by pointing a bony finger at them and saying, ‘I saw that person do a bad thing’, so in Britain in 2017 journalists can be hounded out of their profession by allegation alone.

Nothing hyperbolic there.

Consider the cases of Sam Kriss and Rupert Myers. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of them. Most of us who are too busy and too given to self-respect to spend our lives on Twitter hadn’t heard of them until this week, and what bliss that was. The former is apparently a Corbynista pseud who writes for Vice, the bible of Shoreditch shitheads, and the latter is reportedly political correspondent for GQ, which last published an interesting article when John, Paul, George and Ringo were still a thing. Well, that’s what they used to do. They don’t anymore. Mr Kriss has been dumped by Vice after someone wrote a Facebook post accusing him of being a creep. And Mr Myers has been let go by GQ because he’s married and yet letches after female journalists (allegedly).

The “someone” who wrote the post about Sam Kriss is of course a woman, and she didn’t accuse Kriss of “being a creep” but of persistently refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer. Kriss admitted it and apologized (while also “providing context”), so it’s not true that Vice dumped him simply on the basis of a Facebook post.

There are two extraordinary things about these cases. The first is the accusations themselves. All they really add up to is that these two men are tossers and losers who aren’t very good at dating. Mr Kriss is accused by an anonymous person of repeatedly kissing and fondling her when they were on a date. She didn’t like it, which means he should have stopped or she should have gone home earlier. That’s a bad night out with a weirdo who doesn’t know how to court, not sexual assault.

He sounds like Trump with an enhanced vocabulary.

But he also sounds like Classic Contemptuous Man belittling and dismissing the concerns of some stupid bitch of a woman. He sounds like John Kelly at the White House yesterday calling a Congresswoman “that woman” and “an empty barrel” but never by her name. He sounds like all hostile men ridiculing women who object to being grabbed and poked without consent.

And the second extraordinary thing is what has happened on the back of these accusations. For saying ‘I want to fuck you’ to a woman and then trying to kiss her (allegedly), Mr Myers has lost his journalistic jobs and been turned into a pariah. One writer tweeted that he should be ‘blacklisted’ by the media. There. This is what we are dealing with. A swirling sexual McCarthyism, a now out-of-control instinct to crush alleged sexual deviants, or simply people who – shock, horror – ask other people if they want to have sex. And Mr Kriss has been brought down, too. He’s lost some writing gigs, but of course not enough. Some are calling on other publications – like the Guardian and Atlantic – to promise never to publish him again. Maybe we should tear his tongue out and be done with it. That’s what they used to do to evil people in the past they no longer wanted to hear from. Do you know a journalist who’s rude or rubbish on dates or sexually arrogant? Well, now you can destroy him with one accusation! With one tweet! You don’t even need any evidence. Do it. Bring him down. Kill his career. Murder his prospects. This is the toxic climate we now live in. It’s grotesque.

Says the man, in complete indifference to the toxic climate women have lived in forever. What about the toxic climate Harvey Weinstein created for women in the movie industry? Well Brendan wouldn’t care about that, because he’s not stupid enough to go and be a woman.

Let’s remember something very important. These men face mere accusation, not proof of wrongdoing. (The two muppets in question haven’t helped themselves one bit by issuing instant and craven apologies rather than saying, ‘I challenge the way my behaviour is being discussed’.)

Yeah! Never apologize! Grab or demand a fuck from women whenever you feel like it, and never apologize if they talk about it in public! Women are all bitches anyway, and men who apologize for groping them without invitation are letting down other men everywhere.

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