Again, “Grace” is given no agency here. Even if this is all true, she was not forced to tell them anything. She chose to tell her tale.
I tend to think this is all about Babe promoting Babe thru the story of a poor girl’s bad date with a celebrity.
And she told it honestly didn’t she? Her interpretation of what happened is different than some, most agree with. Whether or not he was a gentleman in this scenario is in question, but she didn’t make up a story here or exaggerate to make him look bad. Her story wasn’t designed to discredit him, and it’s important to know Grace didn’t seek headlines, someone tracked her down for the story.
More evidence that Aziz is one of the good guys: he simply says he took it to heart rather than pushing back against this in any way.
Just because we can learn something from Grace’s bad date experience, doesn’t mean we should be reading about it like this.
And I’d say the asinine red vs white wine detail falls under “exaggerate to make him look bad.”
Meaningless.
The conversation that should have happened, but didn’t:
Babe.net: Hi “Grace,” we heard you had a bad interaction with Aziz Ansari. Would you like to go on the record, anonymously, with details about that night?
“Grace”: No, that was between him and me.
Babe.net: Ok, goodnight.
I agree that this is a good read. I especially like this quote:
But it has indeed sparked an interesting conversation about consent, both technical and more importantly, emotional, and how vital it is to read the room and make sure the other person is not just willing, but damn well enthusiastic. Especially, in my opinion, if that person is the one to be penetrated. You want to enter them. You best ensure you are a welcome guest, not someone who just begged, pressured, guilt-tripped or harassed their way inside.
I keep thinking about the part I bolded. I like how it removes gender and sexual orientation from the equation and boils it down to a simpler truth.
I also liked Ashleigh Banfield’s open letter. Spot on.
In Dave Chapelle’s new stand-up special on Netflix, he references a scary incident riding home on the subway late at night with a backpack full of $25,000 cash he’d been paid for a stand-up set. He felt like if anyone knew what he had, they’d all want it and might take it. Then he likens that to every woman walking around with a pu$$y.
It’s true that there’s something fundamental there that we men do not and cannot understand.
Telling the truth is never meaningless. Whether you share it or not is a judgment call, but she did not lie and yes, despite our current political system saying otherwise, truth does matter.
If she had lied and been caught in a lie, this would be so much worse.
Okay, but where does a reasonable expectation for privacy enter into this?
Celebrities can’t complain about being famous without looking like ungrateful twats, but there is much about it that would suck Suck SUCK. Especially these days.
I don’t know about you, but my expectation of privacy is pretty low in the world we live in. In a place with revenge porn, camera’s everywhere… I mean we have a politician in the middle of some weirdo blackmail scheme right now. In this date and age, every time a woman takes her clothes of, it’s a risk. If you have a bad date, it’s a gamble whether it will be just talked about within a circle of friends or the whole thing posted on Facebook
Privacy is a problem today, for everyone. She is what, 23? I’m just glad I am not in my late teens and early 20s today. Nobody has any privacy anymore.
As a society, it feels like we gave up a lot of our privacy in exchange for convenience and wide reaching information sharing.
For a celebrity, well let’s just say I kind of understand why they tend to date each other…
Suppose Ansari decided to reveal the woman’s identity. That’s telling the truth, too. And though she might not appreciate the publicity, at least the world would have the opportunity to learn even more about this story.
But wouldn’t you think less of him for it?
It would be worse if he lied and gave us the wrong name on purpose.
She didn’t fabricate her story to doctor it up to make it look like clear rape… she could have, but she didn’t. That’s all I’m saying. This is her POV and it doesn’t cast her in the perfect light at all. I am giving her credit for telling the truth.
Whether she should have told someone who was looking for a story at all, sure that’s a valid question, but she appears to have given a truthful account. And yes, that mean’s something.
True, it could’ve been worse. Fair enough.
Clearly, lying would be worse. I think we all agree on that.
But put yourself in the position of Grace, but imagine that Aziz was the one who told the story. Maybe didn’t even include his own name, but published yours. Talking about how you went back to his place, gave him a blow job, and the rest. Related the story exactly the same, but perhaps with different value judgements… instead of talking about how stuff Aziz did was weird, he instead talked about how stuff you did was weird. But still fundamentally the exact same story, and exactly as truthful.
Do you believe that would be ok?
No, but it also happens to a lot to women.
I mean are any of you guys still in the dating game? Pictures, names, businesses they work at, hell texts in the middle of an actual date… this information flows all the time right now.
The only difference about her story and what happens every day in a world where information sharing is a screen press away from wherever you are with a phone handy is it made national news because of what’s going on with MeToo.
You remember when Mel Gibson called his girlfriend and basically told her he hoped she got raped by a bunch of black men and it made news because she shared it? You remember when Tyra Banks, pretty sure it was her, that she had a boyfriend who didn’t want to see her until she had make-up on. Taylor Swift makes a new song about her ex-boyfriend what… every 6-8 months, and we all know who that is.
Seeing a detailed minute by minute recount of a date gone wrong, or even right, in text, online… isn’t new. And we have a term called revenge porn… that’s just building in the shadows.
But it would be wrong. That’s the point.
It’s just as wrong if a woman does it to a guy.
But it’s a totally different thing. It wasn’t relating some private intimacy publicly. It was revealing that Gibson did a terrible thing.
I think Ansari, having been attacked like this, has every right to out Grace by her full name and point to her social media. He was attacked and should be able to name his attacker.
Whether he does this or not is up to him. I wouldn’t judge him for that. However, if he doesn’t, he gets instant classy points, and it speaks positively about his character if he doesn’t.
Grace thinks he did something terrible. I don’t know if she got there on her own or if Babe pushed her or her friends. You just want to dismiss it outright because you don’t feel the same way but Mel Gibson’s girlfriend deciding he did something awful enough to release to the public is completely subjective.
You really can’t have this both ways. Either she did something wrong by releasing this information, and two wrongs don’t make a right, or it’s okay. If you’re telling people to make judgments and not everyone has sound judgment… this is going to happen.
Fortunately, most of MeToo seems to be public. They’re revealing themselves… but do we want the next person who accuses someone of raping them to be tracked down if they’re actually a rape victim. I don’t know.
This is ugly. It could have been worse though, and I am not sure what we’re supposed to do to discourage this from happening other than what is happening right now… discourse. There are enough people talking about this that maybe the next bad date, as the CNN lady called it, wont’ be reported like this again.
I think the order in which they happen is of some relevance.