PZ has some new information from Alison Smith. It’s…not exculpatory of Michael Shermer, to put it mildly.
It wasn’t actually the next day that I left Shermer’s room. The entire amount of time that passed between me asking someone to come get me after leaving the party and me calling again to say please come get me I need help and don’t know where I am was around two hours. Some commenters seem to think that I had some kind of morning after regret or something, but in actual fact I was calling it rape immediately.
The other part is – me asking Shermer to be on that panel for the Sex workshop wasn’t a reaction based upon victimization (like, it wasn’t that I was pushing aside how I felt about him in order to accomplish something; and I wasn’t in denial).
It was incredibly calculated – because I knew for an absolute fact that his views on consent were different from the other panelists.
I had a rape crisis counselor on the panel as well, and I was hoping, as the moderator, to steer the conversation over to date rape. I wasn’t going to ‘Gotcha’ him or mention what happened or anything – I just honestly believed that he could stand to have that debate with someone, and maybe learn a thing or two. That’s why I was nice in the e-mail – I didn’t want him to put together what I was doing. I actually laughed when I saw that he was using that e-mail as evidence, because I so carefully crafted it to not sound like I was up to anything. It’s actually proof OF what happened – not against it – and for a brief, wild moment I found that funny.
You know, it’s a real shame that Shermer has never had that conversation. It’s a real shame that he’s never been told that the stuff he does is not ok. It’s a real shame that he decline the invitation to be on that panel.
And there’s a very interesting comment by skeptifem:
oh yeah, and just so people know, my husband dated alison before me. She told him shortly after it happened, and she called it rape from the start. She just didn’t make a huge deal out of it (who would want to? all that happens is you get treated even worse). When the accusations came out we both knew it was true, but didn’t know if it was alison or someone else. Other women involved with coordinating TAM let me know that shermer was on the creep list unofficially circulated by women as a means of self protection.
I don’t know how she can put up with the bullshit people say about this. I hope she makes it through okay. It sounds like she has a ton of evidence. I hope she sues him for sexual abuse.
The creep list. The one that Dawkins and Coyne and Nugent are so pissed off at us for making public. That creep list.