Said the venerable author Gay Talese, quoted at Vanity Fair, and of course, subsequently savaged on Twitter. As summarized at WaPo:
Esquire editor Tyler Coates played off Talese’s own quote, writing, “I’d like to ask Gay Talese how it feels to lose a lifetime of success and hard work all because he revealed himself to be a” sh— “person.”
“Petition To Force Gay Talese To Change His Name To Straightoldguy Talese,” tweeted NPR book and movie reviewer Glen Weldon.
“I could steal Talese’s car in less than 10 minutes. I don’t think he’d shrug it off,” tweeted one user.
“Oh dear, twitter’s gonna make Gay Talese wish he was trending because he died,” wrote one user.
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76 comments:
Point out to the mob that this over here guy is against mob action.
Some lady gave the Trump motorcade the finger and lost her job, and everybody's rejoicing.
Mob self-entertainment is the new morality.
He probably hates the woman who Polanski raped and sodomized when she was a 13-year-old girl, too. Damn victims, ruining the careers of artistes!
Unless her job description included the words
‘ not allowed to give presidential motorcades the finger” or perhaps if the incident in question was during a school field trip led by this individual I could see her getting canned. Otherwise?
I think we need Harvey Weinstein to Harvey Weinstein his daughters so he gets some perspective.
Or maybe have Spacey hold him down and ass fuck him.
That has to be the most tone-deaf thing I've read since 2009, when the Boston Globe's Charles Pierce wrote on the 40th anniversary of Chappaquiddick, “If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age."
Social media lacks common sense and it destroys, cancerous. What has happened to the liberal's self-proclaimed nuance?
As I understand it, Kevin Spacey’s transgressions encompass much more than one 10 minute drunken episode. Crew members on his House of Cards show have accused him of sexual harassment, too.
As your words make less and less sense, RH, you get easier to ignore.
Kevin Spacey bad, Bill Clinton good, there's your fuggin liberal nuance.
Talese seems rather befuddled or misinformed in that quote. At his age he probably does not care about or even know about the kerfuffle he started anyway. That's one of the few benefits of aging. You say what you think because you don't care what others think about you any longer.
RH - she lost her job because the pro-democrat hack media made her a star and rejoiced and promoted her. As it turns out, she works for the government.
ooops.
" Jesus, suck it up once in a while!.."
I am curious of Gay's inferences of the word 'suck' in this statement.
I am Laslo.
I stand with Gay.
Why can't people just learn to shut up. Maybe this is why
"Hans Fiene himself said, in a podcast on the controversy released on Tuesday, that this sentiment is part of ‘outrage addiction,’ which ‘makes us all stupider.’ These people are ‘chasing a dopamine release.’ "
He seems surprised by the aphorism that a Revolution's mob turns on its own leaders.
Kevin Spacey is beautiful, so why can't people give him a break? Or I think that is his point.
As it turns out, she works for the government.
Technically, she was a government contractor. If she was a federal employee she probably would have been protected from firing. She's going to end up working for some left-leaning organization and will be fine.
Whenever a right-leaning person says something that upsets the left-leaning folks and social opprobrium and job loss resulted the refrain is always that speech has consequences. It never occurs to them that their speech could have adverse consequences.
More popcorn.
Bad L: As your words make less and less sense, RH, you get easier to ignore.
For real spergitarian cred, he needs to get out in meatspace and lecture physical mobs about how they're doing it all wrong, instead of just finger-wagging online.
I would like to ask [Spacey] how it feels to lose a lifetime of success and hard work all because of 10 minutes of indiscretion 10 years or more ago.
While it has been MORE than just a 10 minute indiscretion that is bringing Spacey down, I am interested in the answer to that question.
I know that people will often do things without clearly thinking through the consequences. Those are called 'hold my beer moments'. Make bad decisions. However, a lifetime of "indiscretions" and bad decisions is a completely different thing.
The questions that our (my) parents would ask when we did really dumb stuff were: What the Hell were you thinking? How did you think this was going to work out?........... followed by go to your room and think about what a dope you are and no TV for a week (internet didn't exist then :-)
Kevin Spacey: WTF were you thinking? Were you thinking at all? You were never going to get caught? People would never object? How special DID you think you were?
What do you think about all this NOW that the feces has hit the oscillating mechanism?
I keep thinking that everyone who is an avid follower of Twitter deserves one another.
When I hear how "Twitter is reacting"; the singular, capitalized, monolithic "Twitter," it is usually mind-bogglingly stupid. Enter Donald Trump's Twitter account.
Twitter is the Greek Chorus for the tragedy that is America.
Yeah, I get it...but isn't that what the silence of all the people over the years basically says?
For Kevin and Harvey and the newsroom guys....didn't people keep silent because it wasn't worth ruining careers over a few sexual indiscretions (with people they don't care about)? Isn't this what the silence of Quentin and Meryl and Kevin Spacey's agents says?
Talese is 85.
At some point, famous people need to learn to keep their mouth shut because the World has moved on and left their old selves behind.
There's something to what he says. The victims should suck it up, because that's how you move on. However, that doesn't mean that the perps should get a free pass, not at all.
What in the motherfucking fuck does Donald Trumpmhave to do with Gay Talese and Kevin Spacey’s degeneracy. Get a life asswipe.
>Unless her job description included the words
‘ not allowed to give presidential motorcades the finger” or perhaps if the incident in question was during a school field trip led by this individual I could see her getting canned. Otherwise?
In principle I agree. However, until people on the right get the same treatment, it is necessary to hold people on the left to the same rules. Hopefully someday the precious snowflakes will understand that they're not special, but until then enjoy.
Ron Winkleheimer: Whenever a right-leaning person says something that upsets the left-leaning folks and social opprobrium and job loss resulted the refrain is always that speech has consequences. It never occurs to them that their speech could have adverse consequences.
I wonder what form their special pleading is going to take next. The last co-ordinated round of implicit special pleading ("muh whataboutism") was entirely stupid and entirely ineffectual, and only the irredeemably cucked are still amenable to appeals to "principle" from sociopaths and political thugs.
At this point I don't think they have anywhere else to go but straightforward honesty - "it's different when I do it because I'm good and you're evil die die die die...." Hey, some of them are already there.
That's the same thing the father of that Brock Turner guy said after his son was convicted of rape, right? That he's a good kid who got blackout drunk and did something bad, but that his life shouldn't be ruined forever because of a few minutes of terrible behavior. I remember that--it was clear evidence of "rape culture."
I disapprove of what Kevin Spacey did. I disapprove of what Gay Talese said about what Kevin Spacey did. I disapprove of all those people who disapprove of how Gay Talese didn't disapprove of Kevin Spacey with sufficient vitriol and vigor. I suppose some here will disapprove of my disapproval of their disapproval of Gay Talese's disapproval of Kevin Spacey........We live in the golden age of morality. Sadly Gay Talese lives in a different era. He was a propagandist for sexual liberation, but that's over. This era is all about setting boundaries. It's hard to keep up when you're older. I'm for giving Gay Talese a pass and replacing Kevin Spacey as director of the Shakespeare reportory company.
I always felt bad for Gay Talese. And Gaylord Perry. It must suck when you're living your life, doin' fine, and the culture comes along and takes a fundamental part of you and twists it into something else. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
(Interesting that autocorrect anticipates "not that there's anything wrong with that" perfectly.)
Not even the the gayest of gay couples would saddle their adopted Uraguayan baby with the sobriquet "Gaylord" these days. Normalization always carries a degree of self-effacement, even in the most proudly transgressive endeavors.
I wonder if Gay Talese reads twitter.
In a thread on this blog a bunch of years ago it was explained to me that male homosexuals are emphatically not pederdasts. I was lied to.
If I were to give our CEO the finger, especially in public, I would be canned too.
There are degrees of harm. Folks are having trouble differentiating between the sexual equivalent of "jaywalking" and "drunk-driving" and "drunk-driving" where you kill someone.
Roughly:
A few mean or sexual words: jaywaking
Grabbing a butt or breast: jaywalking
Propositioning a subordinate at work: drunk driving
Threatening a female worker with job loss, if they don't put out: drunk driving where you kill someone
Harvey chasing you around your hotel room with a hard-on: ditto
@Big Mike:
In a thread on this blog a bunch of years ago it was explained to me that male homosexuals are emphatically not pederdasts. I was lied to.
Not sure what this is supposed to mean. Yes, obviously, some subset of homosexual men engage in sexual activity with males beneath the age of consent. And some subset of heterosexual men engage in sexual activity with females beneath the age of consent. I imagine that the proportion of homosexual men who do so is greater than the proportion of heterosexual men, but homosexuals all together are already part of a very small minority (perhaps a few percent of the population), so one would not expect their numbers to track the much larger heterosexual population. There is an entire cottage industry within heterosexual pornography that caters to this (e.g. "barely legal," "jail bait," etc.).
whitney said...
These people are ‘chasing a dopamine release.’"
Those people really piss me off.
Of course gays love boys, Farmer, it only makes sense. Mature men are ugly to other men. A teenage boy or younger is the only thing that could even remotely approximate a woman. And since gays have no future, it's not like there's anything to preserve by guarding their chastity. Imagine virginity as a sacrament of gay marriage. Why would you NOT start them young? Why would you wait, until they grow hair?
Harvard hosts forum on the joys of anal sex
Paging Laslo, paging Laslo.
The Left is just wacky about sex, and love, and flirting, and working, and joy, and.......
@Bad Lieutenant:
Once again your frothing and saying nothing. If there is something specific I said that you disagree with or want to take issue with, I'm more than happy to engage. If you simply want to spar for its own sake, I got bored with that back in junior high.
Angel-Dyne, you used the term "spergitarian" in regard to our resident Sex Offender Public Defender. What does that term mean, and how does it apply here?
I'm with you, Cracker. Are you also jealous of guys named Reddick? It must take loads of friction to get that.
I'm not sure what you're objecting to. It seems self-evident. I'm not saying that you're doing your little Boys Town gig in order to tap into a pipeline of fresh veal. I'm just saying it's logical if you like boys to like them young.
@Bad Lieutenant:
I'm just saying it's logical if you like boys to like them young.
And why wouldn't the same logic apply if you liked women? I am not sure if you have ever seen straight pornography before, but it's not exactly crowded with the over 30 set, except perhaps for a few fetishist publishers. And when older successful men get trophy wives, they don't usually go for women that are around their age but often choose women significantly younger. Why?
Liberalism is an ideology that creates an illusion of tolerance through divergence.
The thresholds of normalization, tolerance, and rejection seem to be a progressive target.
Bad Lieutenant has a good point. You remember a few days ago Oso Negro and several others defending older men having sex with under-aged girls because the 19th Century was the Age of Enlightenment. Oso indicated he thought 10-years old was fair game.
Young, under developed girls appear androgynous to boyish as compared with full grown women sporting more curves than a '57 Chevy. Oso and Company's predilection for young un's is an indicator that they are on the borderline of the homosexual spectrum as the not quite legal girls look like the young boys they secretly covet. This also is exhibited in their over-the-top homophobia in a weak attempt to mask their preverted desires that are impossible for them to contain.
@Howard:
You are conflating two separate phenomena. The first is sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children, which is indicative of a very disturbed sexual pathology. The other is sexual attraction to post-pubescents who are under the legal age of consent. It is not abnormal to be sexually attracted to a post-pubescent female, though acting on such impulses is strongly suggestive of poor moral character, bad social judgment, and lousy boundaries. Nonetheless, they are not at all comparable.
"Full grown women" is not a legal description but a biological one. You basically mean women with their secondary sexual characteristics (e.g. breasts, pubic hair, widening of the hips, etc.). Type "16-year-old girl" into Google Image search and this is what you get. I do not think "androgynous to boyish" is how I would describe any of those results.
Spacey seems to be a repeat offender, so Gay's assessment isn't quite right.
However, as I said in another place: Does no one know (on the HoC set, I suppose) how Old Queens operate?
Not sure what this is supposed to mean.
@Farmer, meditate on it for a while and it should come to you.
@Big Mike:
@Farmer, meditate on it for a while and it should come to you.
Ah, that's just what I love about commenting here. Why engage in meaningful adult conversation that might actually bear fruit when pointless juvenile snark will suffice.
I wrote several other sentences after the one you quoted elaborating on the subject, but you seem to have no response to that.
p.s. "All male homosexuals are pederasts," "No male homosexual is a pederast."
These are both nonsensical statements. So what? Again, if you have a point that you are actually trying to communicate, try communicating it. If your goal is to simply express ill-tempered petulance, then why bother?
"I am not sure if you have ever seen straight pornography before, but it's not exactly crowded with the over 30 set, except perhaps for a few fetishist publishers."
There's not a much more common theme in straight porn than MILFs/Cougars. Maybe you haven't seen any straight porn.
Melania Trump is 47 years old and could be considered the standard for trophy wives. Don't conflate "young" -- an absolute value -- with "younger" -- a relative value.
"Mob self-entertainment is the new morality."
Putting killers and pedophiles in Jail is "Mob action" too. The Law and every expression of public disapproval is "Mob action"
Besides its the free market in action. I thought RH loved the "free market". The woman got what she wanted - a finger at trump - and the company got what they wanted - no her.
@Fabi:
There's not a much more common theme in straight porn than MILFs/Cougars. Maybe you haven't seen any straight porn.
From This Survey Shows How Men and Women View Porn Differently:
When it comes to porn actresses, the most important characteristic men are looking for is youth. 47.4% picked “young” as the quality they look for, followed by 40.1% selecting “large breasts.” Men could choose more than one category, and “MILF” had a strong showing at 30%.
From The Top 10 Porn Searches Of 2015, According To Pornhub:
#5 MILF #4 Cartoon #3 Step mom #2 Teen #1 Lesbian
From Q&A: The Researchers Who Analyzed All the Porn on the Internet:
What types of porn are most popular for men?
It’s youth by a wide margin, like cheerleaders. But we were surprised to find that even though men prefer youth mostly, there’s also a very significant interest in porn with women in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. That’s called granny porn.
Remember the Voyeur's Motel?
Gay Talese has always been a perv.
One reason he writes for Vanity Fair & the NYT.
BTW, I'm sure Hef would've approved of Talese's statement.
@Fabi:
I suspect (though do not have the data to back this up) that a lot of the MILF/Cougar category is driven by teenage or young adult males whose objects of desire and fantasy tend to be older women. See Weird Science for example. And the whole concept of a MILF is a chronologically older women who has maintained the lure and sex appeal of her youth. Not all mother's are MILFs, after all. And to take your example of the First Lady, why do you think when searching for potential mates Trump chose someone who is nearly 25years younger than him? That's the equivalent of a 25-year-old woman marrying a man in his 50s.
Porn is visual, hence the emphasis on youth. Real sex is a lot more, and the visual drops in importance a lot. I was jus sitting next to two pretty young women at Starbucks, I would shoot myself if I had to listen to that inane chattrr all day.
@tim in vermont:
Porn is visual, hence the emphasis on youth
I think men's sexuality, in general, "is visual." Hence there is a huge market for male heterosexual and homosexual pornography and very little market for male romance novels. The fact that men and women have very different sexuality is yet another strike against the foolish "men and women are the same" dogma.
"The fact that men and women have very different sexuality is yet another strike against the foolish "men and women are the same" dogma."
True.
And some women don't like to have sex dogma-style.
I am Laslo.
@Farmer, you should never try to use mathematics to a mathematician. You are outclassed. You write "Yes, obviously, some subset of homosexual men engage in sexual activity with males beneath the age of consent. And some subset of heterosexual men engage in sexual activity with females beneath the age of consent." But for every set S, then S itself is a proper subset of S. So how large is the subset of homosexual men who are pederasts relative to the set of all homosexual men.
The fact that normal male heterosexuals refer to male heterosexuals who "engage in sexual activity with females beneath the age of consent" as "perverts" (with an exception when the male and female are close in age) but, clearly, homosexual men do not equally regard homosexual pederasts as perverts. Ergo the cardinality of the subset of male homosexuals who are pederasts must be substantially larger, relative to the cardinality of the set of all male homosexuals, than the cardinality of the set of male heterosexuals who are pedophiles.
And I'll take your word for it on the presence of porn sites catering to men with a taste for underage girls.
" Jesus, suck it up once in a while!.."
Any any you miss should be wiped up with a monogrammed, silk hankie.
[Ah for the days of real class.]
Sorry, the word "proper" is incorrect. S is a subset of S but not a proper subset of S. I regret the error.
Farmer: 16 is the lower end of the current US age of consent. The discussion I was referring to was about 14 and younger, hence androgyny inspired latent homosexual pedophilia openly expressed by some men in their attraction to underdeveloped girls. That's one tell. The second tell is the vehement homophobia used as a mask by practicing hetero's who are close to the homo end of the speculum.
Big Mike: Do they still teach the old new math set theory and Venn diagrams introduced in the late 1960's?
@Howard, no. These days they teach addition using “friendly numbers,” which is sort of a reversion to Roman numerals.
Suppose you wish to add 49 to 33. In the old way, you add 9 to 3 and get 12. You write down 2 and carry 1. Then you add 4 to 3 and add the 1 you carried, yielding 8. So the result is 82. With friendly numbers you rewrite 49 as 50 (a friendly number) minus 1. Then we rewrite 33 as 35 minus 2. Do 49 + 33 = 50 + 35 - 1 - 2 = 85 - 1 - 2 = 82. This is supposed to be easier. I leave it to you to judge.
@Big Mike:
And I'll take your word for it on the presence of porn sites catering to men with a taste for underage girls.
You don't have to take my "word." I linked to the sources that tally data from porn search engines. As for your original statement, "In a thread on this blog a bunch of years ago it was explained to me that male homosexuals are emphatically not pederdasts," you should have recognized that as patent nonsense the minute you heard it. Mathematics or not.
You are outclassed.
I won't lose any sleep over it.
@Howard:
The discussion I was referring to was about 14 and younger,
i do not know what discussion that was. Chronological age is an imprecise measure given the variability in sexual development. Here are the Google Image search results for "14-year-old girl," and I still think "androgynous to boyish" is a very inapt description.
As I said, the distinction between "young, under developed girls" and "full grown women" is not merely a function of age but of sexual development. If you saw a provocative photo of a 15-year-old girl who had developed all of her secondary sexual characteristics, there would be nothing significantly physically different from the same girl who was 20 years old, and it would not be abhorrent for you to find her sexually desirable. But again, that is not the same thing as acting on those desires.
And another two minutes hate begins.
What a very disturbing thing to be upset over.
Somehow I believe that the only person upset about Twitter in the Talese household is he aging publisher's assistant.
Also, while growing up, I knew two boys named Gay (for Gaetano, one with an "e", one with an "i") both from South Jersey. Neither of them got as much crap for it as the kid named Bing. But both of them later changed their nickname to Guy, which I thought was an entirely different name (Guillermo?) Bing is still Bing.
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