The NYT reports.
The Italian actress and director Asia Argento was among the first women in the movie business to publicly accuse the producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. She became a leading figure in the #MeToo movement. Her boyfriend, the culinary television star Anthony Bourdain, eagerly joined the fight.
But in the months that followed her revelations about Mr. Weinstein last October, Ms. Argento quietly arranged to pay $380,000 to her own accuser: Jimmy Bennett, a young actor and rock musician who said she had sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room years earlier, when he was only two months past his 17th birthday. She was 37. The age of consent in California is 18....
The documents, which were sent to The New York Times through encrypted email by an unidentified party, include a selfie dated May 9, 2013, of the two lying in bed. As part of the agreement, Mr. Bennett, who is now 22, gave the photograph and its copyright to Ms. Argento, now 42. Three people familiar with the case said the documents were authentic.
Bennett was a child actor, and he had played Argento's
son in a movie.
Ms. Argento, who is divorced and has two children, was both a mentor and a mother figure to Mr. Bennett, the document says, and the two were intermittently in contact as he grew up. “Jimmy’s impression of this situation was that a mother-son relationship had blossomed from their experience on set together,” [Bennett's lawyer] wrote....
The script, based on a book by the pseudonymous writer JT LeRoy, depicts the grim relationship between a drug-addicted prostitute played by Ms. Argento and her son, played by Mr. Bennett and two other young actors. Ms. Argento’s character dresses her son as a girl to lure men, and the boy is ultimately raped.
In interviews and subsequent social media posts between the two over the years, they referred to each other as mother and son.
On May 9, 2013, the day they met for a reunion in her room at a Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey, Calif., she posted on Instagram: “Waiting for my long lost son my love @jimmymbennett in trepidation #marinadelrey smoking cigarettes like there was no next week.”
What depths of evil. I think it was child abuse just to use the boy in a movie with that story.
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194 comments:
Those Mossad agents that Weinstein hires are good.
Argenta is also a Polanski supporter and fan. Tony Bourdain wasn’t a good judge of character.
What did Bourdain know and what did it have to do with his suicide?
I only managed a 28-year-old woman when I was 17.
The movie's name: "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things"
I settled for a ride home because she drove.
I didn't know that $380,000 could be on the table.
"What depths of evil. I think it was child abuse just to use the boy in a movie with that story."
I agree.
Bourdain was a garden-variety Progressive. He was good at certain things and otherwise was an imbecile. He probably knew about his girlfriend’s scumbag behavior but rationalized it as silly moral laws. The Polanski defense. Give him a standing ovation Meryl he only anally raped a drugged 13 year old.
These people deserve Donald Trump. All of them. He is a plague sent to ruin them
Does this make her more or less credible vis a vis Weinstein?
Weinstein still raped her.
The victim's history doesn't matter.
I think it was child abuse just to use the boy in a movie with that story.
#MeToo
The movie grossed about $200K. Why on Earth was it made? Art?
(The assault happened about a decade after the movie was made).
Allow me to let you in on a little secret.
Most 17-year-old boys would consider sex f any kind with a beautiful woman the best day of their life so far.
Hard to believe, I know.
I typically have no problem with 17 year old boys scoring with women in their early 20s, but this violates the divide by 2 and add 7 rule, under which she should not have been older than 25.
In Arizona if a 17 year old girl who is one day older than her 17 year old boyfriend sleeps with hims, she's guilty of statutory rape (I think that's the law but happy to be corrected). 18 years as the age of consent is pretty unrealistic and on a scale of 1 to 10 her crime is about a 1.5 compared to Weinstein's perfect 10.
A woman can't rape a 17 yo male. He is not a child, he is old enough to join the military with parents permission.
I'm sorry the divide by two and add 7 rule means she should not have been older than 20. I need more coffee.
Will be interesting to watch Harvey take all his victims down with him.
Burn, Hollywood, Burn
This is the reason why the 19th Amendment should be repealed.
I sure hope the kid filed taxes on the $400k, as he could be in federal prison faster than Manafort.
"Most 17-year-old boys would consider sex f any kind with a beautiful woman the best day of their life so far."
How old was he when he made the movie in which she played his mother? Then look at the continued psychological hold on him with this "I'm your mother" routine. What if someone did that to your child? It's an appropriation of childhood innocence, very reminiscent of the behavior of the accused Catholic priests. To take a young mind and to shape and manipulate it to serve your sexual interests is truly evil. Everyone who has contact with children has a moral responsibility not to use them that way, even if they are refraining from sexual contact until the age of consent.
"What depths of evil."
What depths of evil? She deceived him - deliberately - Alex Jones fans are into that. It's a free speech issue.
We can only hope that the monotony, repetition, and discontinuity of movie making took some of the sting out of the plot for the boy--and that the rape was offstage. OTOH, seeing her for years after won't help him put it pass him.
They could have been on the bed like Michael Jackson.
Assymetrical warfare -- 17 year old boy gets to sleep with hot actress and gets $380,000?
In all seriousness, though, she should not have done this, and it can lead to long-term emotional problems for the boy. Althouse is largely correct.
If you stick to your own age, many potential sexual problems in life are averted.
This story, especially the exploitative movie feeding into actual underage sex, just feeds the conspiracy theory about the child abuse and pedophile rings in high places. Add to that, simply in this case, the mysterious death of Bourdain and the Weinstein connection.
Besides that Argento herself was apparently exploited by her own father in suggestive roles in his own films.
Too many odd circumstances around a single person demand resolution into a single narrative. And too many odd circumstances abound in those circles, as well as connections between them. There are reasons behind all this.
If I were a 9-year-old actor, I would certainly know that the beautiful actress in my scenes wasn't my mother.
Ann Althouse said...
What did Bourdain know and what did it have to do with his suicide?
I wondered the same thing myself. In fact, since the news of his suicide, many have speculated how she might be involved. There were rumors of infidelity right off the bat. Could this be the whole story?
What depths of evil. I think it was child abuse just to use the boy in a movie with that story.
Yes. Just when you think Hollywood has reached the ultimate depth of depravity they contradict you. Scum. They are slime and scum.
"A woman can't rape a 17 yo male. He is not a child, he is old enough to join the military with parents permission."
1. It's not a criminal case. It's a contract, settling what would be a tort claim (or buying off a report to the police).
2. I think the description is one of psychological abuse and a story that would hurt her reputation if he made it public.
3. Statutory rape depends on the statute, and where this happened, the age of consent was 18. Doesn't matter that the older person was female and the younger one male.
4. The facts might show a lack of consent, in which case it would be rape whatever the age of the nonconsenting party, and it certainly doesn't matter that the victim is male.
5. What is your view of the sexual grooming of underage persons? Let's say it begins when the child is 8 years old, and actual sexual contact is refrained from until the child is 17 (and let's assume the age of consent is 17). An adult psychologically bonds with an 8 year old and continues for years to develop this adulation and strong closeness, all the while meaning eventually to get sex from this young person, but waits until the age of consent to spring into physical action. Is that okay? Do you have children? Do you accept someone doing this to your child? Would that be okay as long as your child didn't have sex with this person until your child was 17 and when the time came your child, groomed for years, was eager to plunge in?
When you see something like this it is like a glimpse of a whale at sea. A small part of the creature emerges for a moment, and submerges again. You have to assume there is a great deal more under the surface that you can only guess about, and who knows how many other whales.
Wasn't it Sappho who wrote, "Oh, what heartaches can abide, when youth and age lie side by side." [from memory, but something along those lines].
I consider what Argento is accused of doing to be worse than anything Weinstein is accused of doing, because he only went after adults. He took advantage of his superior power and crossed lines, but he did not appropriate the innocence of a child.
What Althouse said at 12:33 and 12:36 !
How old was he when he made the movie in which she played his mother? Then look at the continued psychological hold on him with this "I'm your mother" routine.
It is impossible to believe the movie plot (i.e., the motherhood relationship) created any sort of exploitable psychological hold.
I think it was child abuse just to use the boy in a movie with that story.
What were his parents thinking?
It's almost like the loudest voices are the ones who are the grossest offenders. This is the case whether the issue is sex abuse, global warming or racism.
/Weirdly? Bourdain came across to me as homosexual /Weirdly?
mccullough said...
"Bourdain...probably knew about his girlfriend’s scumbag behavior but rationalized it as silly moral laws...These people deserve Donald Trump. All of them. He is a plague sent to ruin them"
Exactly, and exactly as I predicted. I met Bourdain once in San Francisco and it wasn't good (same with Robin Williams, strangely). He was slinky and came off as too clever by half for the room, but he definitely didn't come off as clueless: I'd bet he knew and, just as you said, rationalized it as long as he could.
This should be an opportunity to look in her head, to see what this phenomena we're dealing with (of women abusing boys) is all about. I say it's the NewAge.
I got my first strong erection looking at a woman while watching The Lest Crane Show, circa 1964, when he debuted Rudy Gernrich's Monokini. I was 10, and I set up an old TV in the basement to watch it in secret after seeing the commercial earlier in the day.
Remember all of this next spring when there's a month of award shows for that industry with everyone preening, wearing armbands or red dresses or some such shit, contorting their arms to pat themselves on the back for being such good Woke people, while making speeches pretending to be the saviors of the fine arts and good taste in the world, and simultaneously getting in 10th grade insults on Trump and mocking Midwesterners, Southerners, and anyone who is to the right of Chairman Mao.
These are not quality writers, actors, producers, directors. This is shit. The entire industry is built on movies based on comics, or actual cartoons for so-called adults, or sequels that are not needed. Sorry folks, but it's not a movie industry. It's a large steaming pile.
It's a double don't care; first about #MeToo, second about male teen getting some action. He lucked out, in everybody's judgment.
The child-abusing damage done is done by the hysteria.
We don't know the entirety of what Weinstein did, or who knew (but we know plenty did), or what else all these people knew that we still don't know about. Or what others, Weinsteinian or worse, were also doing. There may well be monsters much worse than Weinstein, and indeed there are piles of rumors.
But its clear that all this was and is well known to the persons that manage all these enterprises and handle the money.
I remember, in high school, reading The Human Comedy, and the chapter about the visit to the whorehouse, without being damaged as far as I know. If anything, it equips the young male to understand a whole genre of jokes.
Apparently she was seen "affectionately embracing" some other dude a week before Bourdain's suicide.
Ann Althouse said... "Let's say it begins when the child is 8 years old, and actual sexual contact is refrained from until the child is 17"
Hadith says "The majority of traditional hadith sources state that Aisha was married to Muhammad at the age of six or seven, but she stayed in her parents' home until the age of nine, or ten according to Ibn Hisham,[11] when the marriage was consummated with Muhammad, then 53,"
... but Muhammad had no psychological hold on her (parental and cultural grooming?)
The mothering instinct has taken over everything, would be my diagnosis.
The guys are learning how to be fathers.
Asia Argento is a dangerous evil bitch. Bourdain, a depressive and vulnerable, made the fatal error of his life dating her.
https://penthouse.com/pages/asia-argento/Toxic-Femininity.php
She's got more tattoo's than a sailor. I'm not into tattoo's, and with them she looks like a prostitute. A cheap one.
Something that Hollywood Jews would jump on faster than a dime on the sidewalk.
If I had two children who were actors, a 17 year old boy and a 19 year old girl, and the boy was groomed and seduced by Asia Argento and the daughter was effectively trapped and sexually assaulted/raped by Harvey Weinstein, I believe I would be more upset by the latter. Maybe that makes me a monster or a sexist, I don't know.
If you look up skank in the dictionary, there's a picture of Asia Argento.
rhhardin said...
"He lucked out, in everybody's judgment....The child-abusing damage done is done by the hysteria...I remember, in high school, reading The Human Comedy, and the chapter about the visit to the whorehouse, without being damaged as far as I know."
Somebody doesn't understand the difference between something done unwillingly and on a "visit to the whorehouse".
A lot of commenters, here, have bent moral compasses, and they're emotionally deficient - and it's all mostly based on their own repeatedly wrong-headed assumptions. Just horrible people, allowing others to suffer, while swearing there's no victims.
Extraordinary.
It's unwilling. It was a class assignment.
If I had two children who were actors, a 17 year old boy and a 19 year old girl, and the boy was groomed and seduced by Asia Argento and the daughter was effectively trapped and sexually assaulted/raped by Harvey Weinstein, I believe I would be more upset by the latter. Maybe that makes me a monster or a sexist, I don't know.
Grooming/seduction = no possible way for that young person to have a normal mind, normal sexuality, normal view of the world, normal relationships. That means that that person is completely fucked up for life with no ability to know what is normal. The groomer/seducer has ruined the victim's capacity for healthy relationships, for life.
A one-time rape is a horrible violation and a severe trauma, but is recognized by everyone as an aberration. It does not rewire a young and developing mind in perverse and irreparable ways. It will have effects on that person's ability to participate in intimate relationships, but the person is already an adult with an idea of normal.
Suppose you're walking along and get mugged and beaten.
You're certainly changed, probably become a conservative in fact.
If there's mugging hysteria - you're ruined for life because you've been mugged, you'll never have a normal relationship and all the rest - mugging would be a lot more damaging. Probably you'd remain a liberal, too.
I see a motivation for hysteria.
Hardin, you're not capable of understanding what a normal relationship means to the bulk of humanity who inhabit the center of the bell curve.
You are uniquely insightful in many ways but you really ought to consider your own limitations when you comment on sexuality and relationships.
How does a movie like that get financed? Who would watch it?
Hysteria gives a lot of pleasure, so there's no danger it will go away.
But it's tedious when it spends too many years in the same place.
Darrell said...
Allow me to let you in on a little secret.
Most 17-year-old boys would consider sex f any kind with a beautiful woman the best day of their life so far.
What you're saying is True: *BUT*
Most 17-year-old boys would NOT consider a 37 year old (TWENTY YEARS OLDER) beautiful. They'd consider her MOM. Think about back when you were 17, the REALLY OLD CHICKS that you dug were like 24 years old. NOT a 37 year old that you called MOM
"If I had two children who were actors, a 17 year old boy and a 19 year old girl, and the boy was groomed and seduced by Asia Argento and the daughter was effectively trapped and sexually assaulted/raped by Harvey Weinstein, I believe I would be more upset by the latter. Maybe that makes me a monster or a sexist, I don't know."
Are you including the idea that the boy had contact with the older woman from the time he was 8 and that he had become deeply psychologically bonded to her in a fantasy of her being his mother and that he embodied the role of her son when he was 8 and within that filmed drama he played a boy who was repeatedly raped? You want that psychology built into your son and see that as better than that your adult daughter had to be in a room with a man who offered a film role in exchange for meeting his sexual needs and she entertained the offer long enough to get into a forced physical encounter that she always knew was wrong but that only lasted for one hour and did not leave her confused about who she was and what she wanted in life?
my long lost son my love
Motherfucker! And that looks like a real cigarette which children are not supposed to be exposed to the smoke of.
So Asia Argento walks into a bar and asks the bartender, "Do you serve children?" and the bartender says, "Selvfølgelig gjør vi det! Dette er Italia!" (he's Norwegian, BTW, a lot of people don't know that), and Asia says "Well then, bring me one for my movie."
As to Hollywood, the invisible thing that hysteria claims to be about is the material of narratives. You can't stamp the narrative inclination out but the genre might have to change from #horror to #action or #comedy someday.
Asia has done a couple nude/sex scenes in movies that were directed by her father Dario. Strange, creepy family.
Are you including the idea that the boy had contact with the older woman from the time he was 8 and that he had become deeply psychologically bonded to her in a fantasy of her being his mother and that he embodied the role of her son when he was 8 and within that filmed drama he played a boy who was repeatedly raped? You want that psychology built into your son and see that as better than that your adult daughter had to be in a room with a man who offered a film role in exchange for meeting his sexual needs and she entertained the offer long enough to get into a forced physical encounter that she always knew was wrong but that only lasted for one hour and did not leave her confused about who she was and what she wanted in life?
That's a comic satire of the female mind.
Starting with filming is standing around, placing, retake after retake, crowd in the room, cigarette breaks, and not anything about the plot.
The green screen really ruins the mood, too. Actors have to be actors.
Dave Begley said... " How does a movie like that get financed? Who would watch it? "
think of it as educational or training film for the "in crowd"
I wonder if the Times struggled with the decision to publish this story. I also wonder if an insurance company paid that settlement; civil litigation, it's not necessarily about right and wrong, it can be how much it's going to cost to lose, whichever side you're on.
I haven't seen the movie so I don't know how the "adult" material was handled when it came to filming the scenes with the kid, what was he told, how much did he know about what was going on. I assume there was a responsible adult on scene, there has to be I think, a guardian, aka parent, and not this actress who was playing his mother but, you know, a real mother.
National Lampoon, remembering more accurately what being eight years old was like, did a cover for Piddle, the child's sex magazine.
It will make a great Hollywood movie in about 20 years.
All those mother relationships are what every kid strives to break, starting around age four.
I've always questioned, to myself, what would make someone interested in making a movie like described or perhaps more famous Taxi Driver.
BTW, coming soon is Happytime Murders, in which you can watch Melissa McCarthy be solicited for sex by three Muppets, or watch two Muppets have sex in an office environment followed up by Male Muppet pulling out and covering the room with ejaculation. Don't worry, it isn't rated PG, so kids won't be interested.
here is the cast list
Cast
Peter Fonda as Grandfather
Ornella Muti as Grandmother
Asia Argento as Sarah
Jimmy Bennett as Young Jeremiah
Dylan and Cole Sprouse as Older Jeremiah (the Sprouse Twins kept switching every scene, Cole did the scene where we see him in the red high heels and Dylan did the second scene where Jeremiah is at the sink cleaning the panties)
Marilyn Manson as Jackson
Kip Pardue as Luther
Jeremy Renner as Emerson
John Robinson as Aaron
Ben Foster as Fleshy Boy
Michael Pitt as Buddy
Jeremy Sisto as Chester
Matt Schulze as Kenny
Winona Ryder as Psychologist (uncredited)
Tim Armstrong as Stinky (uncredited; Armstrong also contributed to the soundtrack)
"If I had two children who were actors, a 17 year old boy and a 19 year old girl," ..
I think the difference in perspective may just be the personalities of the men and boys in my extended family, so my reactions are probably biased - I think that also explains some of the disconnect in the thread. It is just impossible to imagine that my son or one of my nephews could have really come to think of some other woman as his mother figure just because he acted in some movie with her as her son. None of them has ever shown even a hint of that type of emotional fragility. On the other hand, I know that being viciously assaulted/raped would be very harmful to each one of my daughters/nieces. But, again I could be wrong to generalize from that. Maybe most women brush something like that off and get back on their feet in no time, the same way I imagine my sons and nephews would if seduced by an older, evil and manipulative woman.
"Most 17-year-old boys would consider sex f any kind with a beautiful woman the best day of their life so far."
Doesn't matter. Depending on the jurisdiction, it can still be a crime.
I'm sure there are underage girls who enjoy sex with their adult boyfriends, and are even in love with them. Underage females are still protected by our laws, and can still have to deal with potential disease and unwanted pregnancy, and so can underage males.
Oedipus complex. Until now, I never really understood how a man could end up sleeping with his mother.
He was 17.
Men and women view this differently.
I can't think of any movies with entertaining kid parts. Surly teens come up as good from time to time. Deadpool, Demolition come to mind.
Lileks was a modern father and said early on that he'd not give a second to his daughter dating after she's 26.
Missing the Rose McGowan tag.
That protectiveness is what the kid has to break free of. The age that can happen keeps getting extended, with mixed success but lots of hysteria.
The hysteria is to keep the kid from breaking free.
See the hysteria as half of a competitive system and it makes more sense.
The "Murder Channel" (Discovery ID) which is probably the only TV I watch except for college football, has a two day special on the Pamela Smart case. I remember it from the time when it was in the news. She was a pretty 22 year old high school teacher who seduced three of her students and got them to murder her husband.
She is still in prison and looks it. She is interviewed for the second part. Of course she claims she was innocent and the boys had a history of small time criminal stuff, but they would be the perfect ones for her to use. They were 15 and 16.
She has been in prison since 1991.
This "any 17 year old boy would..." nonsense is very annoying.
A kooky drug abuser with boundary issues would not be my choice for a lover at any age. It's not so much the sex, it's what could/would happen later.
Having gotten her hooks into him, I don't think she would let go easily. Someone like that is best kept at a maximum distance away.
If he didn't want to be with her and she forced him to perform a sexual act, that is not good, it's bad.
Rose McGowan on this : “be gentle” to Argento.
I wonder if Althouse has any second thoughts on her previous puffing of McGowan.
> I can't think of any movies with entertaining kid parts.
Oh, I don't know. When I watch the kids in Steven Spielberg movies I always entertain thoughts of murder.
What's the right age to discover crazy ex-girlfriends.
High maintenance girlfriends.
stuff you have to know about.
A "best day in his life" wouldn't require a $380,000 pay off.
Even if you think a teenage boy would be happy to have sex with a woman who was more than twice his age, don't you wonder what in the hell she was thinking? How is a 17-year-old boy, that she'd known since he was a child, in any way sexually attractive?
Well some of what I was thinking of saying has already been said and said better than I would have said it, particularly Ann Althouse's comments.
What makes this so wrong isn't a seventeen year-old having sex with an older woman. It's that they had known each other since he was eight years old, and that she had been a mentor/mother figure to him for all that time. That's what makes this evil.
It's the same issue with Woody Allen's marriage to Soon Yi. Even though Allen wasn't literally her step-dad, he still played something approximating that role for a couple of years.
I don't agree that the movie Asia Argento and Jimmy Bennett made together when he was eight was child abuse. Although maybe I'm missing some part of the story of how the movie was made. And yes I understand that an eight year-old isn't equipped to handle a plot like that and just doing the movie is possibly going to be hard on an eight year-old.
But it's tough to do a movie portraying child abuse without having a child actor involved.
I'd assume not revealing it would be worth the #380,000. Civil blackmail.
Ken B said...
"Rose McGowan on this : “be gentle” to Argento.
I wonder if Althouse has any second thoughts on her previous puffing of McGowan."
Rose McGowan is a cult survivor in this evil nation that claims cults don't exist and there are no victims.. She's nuts, but I give her a wide berth to be nuts.
This place, housing so much horror, would drive anyone crazy.
Goffman said he studied the social interactions in mental asylums because he liked desperados. He classed children as desperados as well. Forced to adapt to a system they want to get out of, I'd guess. It makes the system visible, which is what Goffman was studying.
#NoJudgment until #Judgment
So, what is the criteria? What is the threshold? Is it delineated by sex, by gendered attributes? Do abortion rites change the calculus?
It's not all ethics, situational, circumstantial. There is a moral, an axiom, an article of faith, a perception?
Reason 656 that show business is not a good industry for children to be involved with.
MeTooToo.
Ann Althouse said...What did Bourdain know and what did it have to do with his suicide?
The wild speculation I've read is less about this than about her galavanting about town with a 28-year old French journalist boy toy. If you wanna join in the wild speculation try this one: Paparazzo Who Snapped Asia Argento With French Reporter Regrets Shots
The simplest sociological view of the individual and his self is that he is to himself what his place in an organization defines him to be. When pressed, a sociologist modifies this model by granting certain complications : the self may be not yet formed or may exhibit conflicting dedications. Perhaps we should further complicate the construct by elevating these qualifications to a central place, initially defining the individual, for sociological purposes, as a stance-taking entity, a something that takes up a position somewhere between identificaiton with an organization and opposition to it, and is ready at the slightest pressure to regain its balance by shifting its involvement to either direction. It is thus _against something_ that the self can emerge. This has been appreciated by students of totalitarianism ...
I have argued the same case in regard to total institutions. May this not be the situation, however, in free society, too?
Without something to belong to, we have no stable self, and yet total commitment and attachment to any social unit implies a kind of selflessness. Our sense of being a person can come from being drawn into a wider social unit ; our sense of selfhood can arise through the little ways in which we resist the pull. Our status is backed by the solid buildings of the world, while our sense of personality identity often resides in the cracks.
Goffman _Asylums_ ``The Underlife of a Public Institution'' p.320
The current ruling system is hysteria.
Look at it this way: if she writes a letter, she and her actor friends can then carry on like normal. I seen it.
Often people who rant about hysteria, to the tune of a dozen redundant comments, are themselves hysterical.
Hysterical about hysteria. A rare disorder
Evil, indeed. Consider that even a smallish movie production involves many dozens of people. Leaving aside the tradesmen and accountants and just looking at the creatives it is quite a few. Somebody(-ies) wrote it, directed, handles the cameras, produced, directed, funded, on and on. They all knew and not only approved, they supported it.
The movie/TV industry has become a sewer. Even the "quality" productions are usually about tearing down what used to be considered respectable culture. Compared to them, the Marvel Universe is mostly benign, if useless.
Hysterical about hysteria. A rare disorder
What would be the reasons you're against it.
You are uniquely insightful in many ways but you really ought to consider your own limitations when you comment on sexuality and relationships.
Sexuality is taking care of the wiring. What you want in a relationship is the obligation you take on.
Those two can fit the first can't substitute for the second.
Stacy's Mom.
Has got it going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZLfasMPOU4
"What depths of evil. I think it was child abuse just to use the boy in a movie with that story."
Are you saying that the movie should not have been made? That the laws should have prevented the making of that movie? As Mandrewa points out, it is not easy to make movies about children without child actors. Maybe you think they should use CGI? Or the law should cover what can and cannot happen in movies with child actors?
I dunno. If women have a right to abortion so they can think about the morality of murder, why shouldn't they have the right to have sex with 17-year-olds so they can think about the morality of rape?
Anyway, #MeToo boomerangs yet again. The Polanski Left should have thought twice. Now the narrative is seriously f** -- eh, messed up.
Is everything progs say about right-wingers projection, or just most things?
“Actors have to be actors.”
When a very young child is involved, it’s not really acting in the same sense. It is more of a piece with life. A lot of abuse goes on, much of it unintended. I myself, at the age af 16, played the role of Laura in the school production of “ Glass Menagerie “ and it had way too my effect on me. I coukd see it happening and lasting beyond the play. It probably permanently shaped me. And that’s 16 and not about being raped, just about being isolated and fragile.
Method acting.
Movies aren't stage. They're very fragmented, and even taken out of order as the scenes need.
“Are you saying that the movie should not have been made?”
Not with a real child.
“That the laws should have prevented the making of that movie?”
Yes.
“As Mandrewa points out, it is not easy to make movies about children without child actors. Maybe you think they should use CGI?”
Yes, or an adult who looks like a child.
“Or the law should cover what can and cannot happen in movies with child actors?”
The law covers what can be done to a child. There’s no special privilege to do such things even if you do them in a movie. There is psychological abuse, and if you do it to get photographs of a child looking terrorized, why should you have a defense?
Do the church sex abuse without the hysteria. It's not hard. There are perfectly ordinary laws that prohibit it.
Frankly, I hate the use of the suffering of children as a plot device. It’s a big cliche and it’s a disgusting thing to participate in. I basically boycott anything with this kind of story.
John B.Watson showed that if you strike terror into an infant by hitting an iron bar exactly when showing him soft rabbit fur, you can get him to fear not only rabbit fur but also ordinary soft things like blankets.
Frankly, I hate the use of the suffering of children as a plot device.
One womanly instinct dominates another. It's a problem for the film industry. Which one is bigger vs audience size.
Not liking to be played is great but noticing when it happens more of the time is better.
Frankly, I hate the use of the suffering of children as a plot device.
So much for Dickens.
True story.
Summer before junior year of high school (age 16).
I took a pleasant, but not knock-out neighborhood girl (also age 16) to play miniature golf, and then heavy "make-out" session in the back seat of my car, brassiere off, but nothing beyond 2nd Base. But, I'm feeling the high!
Next day, go see my friend CW (also 16) to brag. Then and there, a 22-year old hot college girl picks him up in her white convertible VW Bug. CW is sleeping with a college girl that summer! Oh my lord, he has put us to shame! All the guys are delirious with envy. CW is our leader and hero!
36 years later:
CW had a lotta sex with a lotta girls throughout the years, but can't seem to make his own marriage work. He's on the verge of a marital catastrophe, with 3 teenage children about to get the shaft of a lifetime - a mid-life breakup.
Me, I'm fine.
Moral of the story: Stay in your lane, stay in your age bracket. Less drama, less trauma.
Lautreamont in Maldoror has a rape scene, where the narrative of one horror after another can be spotted also to be intended as the author raping the reader repeatedly.
Writing about writing.
Remember in this argument that the guy abstracts from details to get the big system, the woman adds details to get the neighborhood situation.
Asia Argento being raked over the coals for grooming and statutory rape of a teenager - not hysteria.
It doesn't need hysteria. There's an ordinary law about it. Nothing more common.
But it plays to hysteria to get traffic, and hysteria takes over all the terrain.
I don't think I knew at 8 what rape was (or sex for that matter), certainly not rape of a boy. How much did they tell him about the plot, and where were his parents (yet again)? Sexual knowledge that early could have screwed him up even more than the later sex.
Past trauma (for the lead character) seems to be a staple of newer detective/thriller shows, at least on Netflix, as is the kidnapping of children, often his/her.
Here's Roger Ebert's mostly negative review of the film.
Here's a secondary Harvey involvement. I don't think that movie was made after it was revealed that the supposedly auto-biographical stories on which the Argento movie was based were fake.
The questions about the propriety of making the film and using child actors are debatable, but if you can't use child actors in movies to depict horrible crimes (even fake ones) against children, how do you do it effectively if you want to use the form to fight the evil?
But that is not the primary issue here. It is the outrage over a 30 something woman having sexual relations with a 17 year old boy with whom she had had a long term relationship and the hypocrisy of the woman involved.
To that I can only speak for my remembered 17 year-old self: "I'd hit it. Like a Rock Star."
And I can't see how I would have been seriously harmed by the act. So my outrage is limited but I am mildly enjoying the exposure of the hypocritical actress.
The breach of trust on the part of Argento is astounding. Whatever you think of the movie (ugh!), the actress had encouraged ongoing emotional bonds that she completely betrayed. People who think this was neutral to good for the boy aren't thinking about this carefully enough. It was a disaster.
Frankly, I hate the use of the suffering of children as a plot device.
So much for Dickens.
Those workhouses were probably hotbeds of all kinds of abuse, the details of which were tactfully left unsaid by Dickens. They were, ironically, not unlike the 'public' schools like Eton, Harrow and Rugby [note that Dylan Thomas used the quip: Snug as a bugger in Rugby]. And then there was the British Navy...
Ann said -- Frankly, I hate the use of the suffering of children as a plot device.
Agree, 100%. I think Roger Ebert used to say that showing a child or small animal in peril to build tension was the cheapest/most manipulative thing that writer/director could do and was preemptively the sign of poor art. There are exceptions - I really enjoyed Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning in Man on Fire.
Read what Stephen Sondheim says about being seduced by his mother. Not good.
I bailed out of Man on Fire. A guy with a drinking problem as a plot device is tedious beyond belief and I leave. Hours of bad acting coming up.
Scott Adams says people are always saying they've lost all respect for him. It's the story of his life.
Q: connecting with previous threads --
can a child 8 yrs old keep separate "the acting self" and "the observing self' and what is his "remembered self" especially the prevalence of monsters in Hollywood
The surly teen in Veep is good.
Anybody here familiar with Bujold Oeuvre in "vorkosigan saga"
psychology is major theme in her work
https://www.tor.com/series/rereading-the-vorkosigan-saga/
from Wikipedia in the movie under discussion the boy-rape scene uses
-Dylan and Cole Sprouse as Older Jeremiah (the Sprouse Twins kept switching every scene, Cole did the scene where we see him in the red high heels and Dylan did the second scene where Jeremiah is at the sink cleaning the panties)-
not the 8year old.
I had sex with an underage boy when I was 19. He claimed to be 18 but I discovered later that he was only 16. I certainly didn't force myself on him! Glad I wasn't charged with a crime, though...:-O
"can a child 8 yrs old keep separate "the acting self" and "the observing self' and what is his "remembered self" especially the prevalence of monsters in Hollywood"
Well, if they can make the correct decisions about going through gender-changing therapies and lifestyles, separating acting from reality shouldn't be a big deal.
"Frankly, I hate the use of the suffering of children as a plot device." Yeah, it's a cheap emotional ploy, even for Dickens. But at least he was only writing novels.
When Hollywood does it, it requires an actual child actor. As any casual perusal of "Where are They Now" TV shows about such child actors shows, there is a lot of evidence that Hollywood child actors are used and abused in real life as well as on screen, whether they're Disney mousketeers or Kiddie porn "art" stars.
I agree with the last line of that post. These are the depths of evil. It's everyone in Hollywood and the entertainment business.
"Are you saying that the movie should not have been made?"
Yes. I am saying that. That movie and a ton of others. And no, I'm not talking about a law preventing it. I'm talking about judgment. Class. Standards. Self-control. Who the hell makes these decisions? They pick out trash, purposefully, and cloak it under the blanket of calling it 'art'. There are 100,000 writers working on screenplays at any given moment. There are hundreds of years history and billions of people making up the stories of humanity. Yes, I suppose this movie is one of those stories. I'm just questioning the mindset and lack of standards that pulled that one from the bottom of the heap and said, 'Hell yeah! This will make a great movie!' Seriously an adult mind could not look at that and say, 'Don't we have another choice here?' There is a TON of great material out there. This is what gets made? This is what the 'artists' sent up as a great story? Even if it's a compelling read, you have to think about how it's going to look and what it's portraying. Or, just duck under your cloak of 'artist' and where a red dress at the Academy Awards.
What Asia Argento did was both morally and legally wrong in that she had a mother/son like relationship and the age of consent in CA is 18.
I do have a couple of gripes about the story in the NYT. They show a still of Jimmy Bennett and Ms. Argento from a movie they were both in and he looks really young, which he is. He was about 8 years old. When Jimmy Bennett was 17, almost a decade had passed since the movie they made together. By then he looked a lot more like a man than a boy. True, the age of consent in CA is 18, but it is 16 or 17 in most of the country and in Argento's home country it is 14.
What does it matter to you that there is a law against statutory rape that appears to apply to Argento's actions? That only reinforces the fact that, as a society, we have taken a position that such conduct should be punished, and thus is presumed harmful. Your position seems to be that the conduct itself isn't harmful, but only society's disapproval that makes it harmful. Am I misreading you?
The law means don't do it even if it's not harmful.
The hysteria is traffic click bait and says it is harmful and you are damaged. That is harmful. Makes you a victim instead of a person.
And no, I'm not talking about a law preventing it. I'm talking about judgment. Class. Standards. Self-control. Who the hell makes these decisions?
And just as bad, Temujin, are the people who pay to see this filth.
He took advantage of his superior power and crossed lines, but he did not appropriate the innocence of a child.
From what we know, at least so far.
Althouse: Why is the grooming (Argento) worse than the actual deed (Weinstein) ???
Hypothetical---let's say Argento grooms the child for a number of years, then at an older age, simply backs off and decides not to actually do anything concrete. At that point, it's merely a flirtation, an inappropriate/creepy flirtation, but a flirtation nonetheless.
I'm thinking grooming is a new term for what was called, in the old days, "buggery" ??
"The law means don't do it even if it's not harmful."
That is a novel view of the law. Individuals may disagree about whether something is harmful or not, but to describe an enacted law as a positive statement that an action is prohibited despite not being harmful is odd.
It's the ordinary view. It's not about justice, it's about enforcing the law, in some famous quote from Britain concerning the role of the court.
Ann Althouse said...
"Frankly, I hate the use of the suffering of children as a plot device. It’s a big cliche and it’s a disgusting thing to participate in. I basically boycott anything with this kind of story."
Makes a great blog post, though, doesn't it.
As for actors being harmed, they're possibly not a typical population. The drama club was the de facto gay club before gays were a victim group.
was eager to plunge in
+1 for the verb choice!
Sorry. Cheap shot. The thing is, it does make a great blog post. It touches on a lot of very interesting and difficult issues.
Stirs up the henhouse.
When a very young child is involved, it’s not really acting in the same sense
Exactly. At eight years of age the line between real and pretend is not nearly as hard and fast as it will become later in life. And they are being encouraged to experience, or at least pretend to experience, negative emotions. That is going to have negative consequences on their development. And they are participating in scenes that, if they weren't working on the movie, would not be allowed to view at their age. Its all pretty tawdry and exploitative, but hey, its OK, cause "Art."
I think it's OK to blog about movies in which children get raped, and actual situations in which older women have traumatic sex with 17-year-olds they have a creepy maternaloid relationship with. As long as its done in a tasteful manner.
And they are participating in scenes that, if they weren't working on the movie, would not be allowed to view at their age.
Okay if they're accompanied by parent or adult guardian.
You have to sit through the woman abuse segment to get to the woman revenge segment.
If there's no actual plot, it tends to be heavy on the first. If there's a plot, it's heavy on the second.
What's was it recently from the abducted woman imdb movie list:
Gone (2012) heavy on the second, good flick
The Collection (2012) heavy on the first, no plot
The production/discussion distinction is analogous to the pornography/art, grooming/nurturing, elective abortion/natural death juxtapositions.
Evil does not exist. A funny thing happened on their way to utopia. They lost their heads.
I dunno it worked out for Anakin Skywalker and Queen Amidala.
Er....well maybe not.
I'm reading the Roger Ebert review (linked above) and it makes me think that the 7-year-old played by Bennett was shown getting raped by a man:
This is a description of the earlier part of the movie before the Sprouse twins take over the role of Jeremiah: "Jeremiah is sometimes in the same room as [the Argento character] services her tricks, and is introduced to a series of temporary daddies. Sarah "marries" one them (Jeremy Renner), and when the newlyweds head to Atlantic City on their honeymoon, they lock the child in the house with instructions not to answer the phone. "There are cheese slices in the fridge," his mother says helpfully. The man returns alone ("She run out on me") and rapes the boy. There are beatings all through the film, and more disturbing than any of them is a scene where the little boy thinks he has been bad and solemnly offers a belt to one of the men, so that he can be beaten. There is a bizarre episode when he is collected from a shelter by his grandparents (Peter Fonda and Ornella Muti), who are sadistic fundamentalists. After a flash-forward, Jeremiah, now 11 and played by the twins Dylan and Cole Sprouse, is a sidewalk preacher in a little suit and tie. His mother finds him again and drags him back into her life, which for a time involves sharing the cab of a long-haul trucker. And on, and on, and on.... The child is abused for 98 minutes, and then the film is over. We know in theory that there are ways to edit around child actors so that they do not fully participate in scenes where they seem present, but what are we to make of a scene where the little boy is dressed and made up as a girl, and encouraged to approach one of Sarah's tricks? For young actors, there is not a clear distinction between performance and experience, and although I hope the child actors were not harmed in the making of the film, I feel no confidence that the experience left them untouched."
This is awesome.
Child rape is the national sport in Afghanistan.
Actual widespread well known everyone knows what is going on child rape.
With public displays of ownership.
I don't think Bennett would have gotten $380,000 in Afghanistan.
It seems like some people around here do not understand what the world is like.
Almost as if they lie to themselves about who they are so that they can get all worked up about people they want to destroy politically.
So they can pretend they actually care.
Or something.
It sounds like a movie made for hysterics. Hysteria is entertainment too.
Car chases and blowing stuff up is my own action taste.
I mostly like romcoms, if they can get the dynamics right: antagonistic opposites are found to fit. The part done for women, where the guy apologizes, is a little annoying as a standard plot feature. It would be enough to get the girl without having to lose her and regain her, for guys.
Recommend "In a Day" (2006) for a departure.
Phaedrus, a standard academic Plato oeuvre text, recommends a handsome boy for fulfillment.
How Steven Spielberg got a 3-year-old to act in "Close Encounters":
"Cary Guffey... had never acted before, so Spielberg set up ways to coax a performance out of the 3-year-old. To get a shot of Guffey reacting to the aliens first approaching the Guiler house, Spielberg slowly unwrapped a present for the young actor just off camera, making him smile. Guffey even exclaims “Toys! Toys!” in the final take. To get the boy to react to the aliens offscreen, Spielberg had Guffey walk up to his mark where—unbeknownst to the little actor—two crewmembers were dressed as a gorilla and a clown standing behind cardboard blinds. When Guffey entered the kitchen, Spielberg dropped the first blind revealing the clown to scare him, and then dropped the other blind to reveal the gorilla, which scared him even more. The gorilla then took off his mask, revealing the film’s makeup man, Bob Westmoreland, who Guffey recognized, causing him to laugh and smile in the final take."
wiki
The pederastic relationships common to ancient Greek life are also at the fore of this dialogue. In addition to theme of love discussed in the speeches, seeming double entendres and sexual innuendo is abundant; we see the flirtation between Phaedrus and Socrates as Phaedrus encourages Socrates to make his first speech, Phaedrus makes a remark at noon-time that Socrates should not leave as the heat has not passed and it is "straight-up, as they say," Socrates wishes to know what Phaedrus is holding under his cloak, and so on. The relationships discussed in the speeches are explicitly pederastic. And yet, this is tempered in various ways; role reversals between lover and beloved are constant, as they are in the Symposium. Socrates, ostensibly the lover, exhorts Phaedrus to lead the way at various times, and the dialogue ends with Socrates and Phaedrus leaving as "friends"–equals, rather than partaking in the lover/beloved relationship inherent in Greek pederasty. In the beginning, they sit themselves under a chaste tree, which is precisely what its name suggests—often known as "monk's pepper", it was used by monks to decrease sexual urges and is believed to be an antaphrodisiac. Notably, Socrates sees the pederastic relationship as ideally devoid of sexual consummation; rather than being used for sexual pleasure, the relationship is a form of divine madness, helping both lover and beloved to grow and reach the divine.
to reveal the gorilla, which scared him even more.
Watson's infant, rabbit and iron bar experiment was better.
#Science
"Althouse: Why is the grooming (Argento) worse than the actual deed (Weinstein) ???"
I think it is an actual deed to emotionally abuse a child.
I do not in any way mean to diminish the seriousness of the things Weinstein is accused of doing. Click on my #MeToo tag. I have covered this matter extensively and have absolutely never gone light on him.
What I am saying here when I say that one thing is worse that something else is all about how terrible it is to exploit a child. And I don't mean the terribleness of having sex with a 17-year-old. I mean the appropriation of childhood innocence and the interference with the normal growth and development of a child.
It's all so confusing.
One year, we must stand up and applaud Roman Polanski, since anally raping a drugged young girl is no biggie.
The next, we must vilify Asia Argento for raping a 17-year-old boy and paying him off.
Good thing we have the Catholic Church. At least those perverts are consistently bad.
And I include the entire film project. Argento co-wrote the screenplay, so the whole sick project is something that she is fundamentally responsible for.
I mean the appropriation of childhood innocence and the interference with the normal growth and development of a child.
The partial archetype that Guggenbuhl-Craig says is responsible for the hysteria is the assumption of the pure innocence of the child. Which, he says, does not take the child seriously as a person; which in turn is harmful to the child. It seeks to convince him that everything is out of his control and he's always and only a victim.
t's all so confusing.
One year, we must stand up and applaud Roman Polanski, since anally raping a drugged young girl is no biggie.
The next, we must vilify Asia Argento for raping a 17-year-old boy and paying him off.
It's all entertainment. If you can get into it, you click, and more of it appears.
Also from Cary Guffey: "Steven got down on his knees to my level, like he always did, and told me I wasn't going to see my friends again. 'Well in my child mind what I thought he was telling me was that I wasn't going to get to see my childhood friends again, so I started to cry. In actual fact, Steven was trying to tell me I wouldn't be seeing the aliens again because they are leaving and he was telling me that he needed me to say goodbye to them.'
That's why you got the performance that touched your heart in the end of "Close Encounters." The child was made to feel in real life the emotions they wanted to see on his face.
That's why you got the performance that touched your heart in the end of "Close Encounters." The child was made to feel in real life the emotions they wanted to see on his face.
This does the same thing, unless you're a guy.
That's why you got the performance that touched your heart in the end of "Close Encounters." The child was made to feel in real life the emotions they wanted to see on his face.
Goffman on a nice piece of film analysis
London - Actress Vanessa Redgrave, 30, stunned a packed theater here by ripping away the top of her stage costume and dancing around half-naked.
Movie camera rolled, recording Miss Redgrave's dance and the embarrassed reactions of the richly-dressed audience - all paid film extras who had no previous hint of what would happen.
It happened Wednesday as one scene in her new picture "Isadora"...
Description here would have to be careful. The movie Isadora is a "real" movie, not a faked one, except for one bit in it which is not genuine cinema, having been produced by a real set producing not scripted response but the real thing. Indeed, a further twist can occur : it has been argued by poker players that the best bluff is an unintentional one, that is, an individual's playing conduct following upon his misidentifying his own holdings. Here, again, is straight activity which functions in the scene as a bluff.
_Frame Analysis_ p.122-123
I may be a tad cynical, but why this story now? It strains credulity to posit that people in the industry didn't know, just as they knew about the others.
The DNC needs cover on Ellison's alleged abuse and metoo, having failed its primary mission to unseat Trump, is no longer polling well enough to dump a high profile black politician eight weeks out from the mid-terms as Trump's numbers rise among black voters.
I can't decide if this is just desserts or the wraith of the Copybook Heading Gods.
Darrell said...
Stacy's Mom. Has got it going on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZLfasMPOU4
Rachel Hunter (Stacy's Mom) 33 years old when that video was made.
(video May 2003, Rachel born Sept 1969)
To Belabor the point (which seems necessary)
THIRTY THREE IS NOT AT ALL LIKE THIRTY SEVEN
The child was made to feel in real life the emotions they wanted to see on his face.
I always thought that electricity was involved.
When I read the story what struck me was that only after Jimmy Bennett had read about the accusations Argento made against Weinstein that Bennett was pissed off enough to take action against her. My impression of Hollywood is like the stereotypical "art school" back in the day, a place of tremendous sexual infidelity and that promiscuity was considered normal.
Almost anything can be tolerated as long as everyone is doing it and it is officially considered normal. Once Ms. Argento announced that what happened to her was sexual abuse and NOT normal, then everything shifted. What she did to Jimmy Bennett definitely was not normal. She had power over him emotionally and psychologically and exploited that for her own satisfaction. I'd call it sexual assault.
Althouse ruined today's Argyle Sweater comic for me. Still laughed, but felt guilty about it.
I have covered this matter extensively
And we thought you were nuts.
Sorry about that
If I were married to a beautiful actress, I wouldn't allow her to play in any nude scenes with a handsome leading man. This was a real stumbling block in my relationship with Jennifer Lawrence. Likewise, if I were a handsome leading man, I would not play a gay man if the scenario required kissing or simulated sex with other men. I would do nude scenes with women though.
William asserts: If I were married to a beautiful actress, I wouldn't allow her to play in any nude scenes with a handsome leading man...I would do nude scenes with women though.
If your wife allowed it. ;-)
"It's all entertainment. If you can get into it, you click, and more of it appears."
Not all, at least not only. Depends on the frame you apply. Perversion as entertainment also serves political purposes. The Polanski Left was also into transvaluing values, corrupting the culture, demeaning the deplorables. Still is -- except that their own deplorability, even if displayed for entertainment, gets in the way.
I meant the hysteria is entertainment, self-entertainment. That's why it keeps turning up.
Indirectly what the hysteria is about is entertainment, but is one place removed.
It's like disaster news and thoughts and prayers. Self-entertainment.
A serious national conversation on anything, a priori, would be boring stuff.
Anything popular is unlikely to be real.
Do not let your children get into professional acting. Do not take them anywhere near it.
Trans-social? Social progress.
I think it was child abuse just to use the boy in a movie with that story.
I also agree
I never found Asia Argento attractive. This is pretty irrelevant, but she seems like a harsh and nasty person to me.
I'm guessing that not only was she fucking around on Anthony, but she was deliberately rubbing his nose in it and she realized very quickly she was PR fucked sideways.
There was that deleted Instagram picture of hers after his suicide. Perhaps that was happenstance and she somehow realized that it was an easily misconstrued photo right before the suicide. Or it could have been in 'inside' FU to Anthony which she felt was a smoking gun.
'The guilty man flees where no man pursueth.' Proverbs 28:1
To me, the lesson is that Argento is a sexual predator, which means everything she's claimed about Weinstein is probably a lie. (Note the emphasis.)
This thread is worthwhile just due to so closely juxtaposing rhardin's reflexive "There's no there there" with Cracks's "There is everywhere!"..though Rose McGowan forgiven.
If wki can be believed on this:
Bennett was born in Seal Beach, California, and lives with his parents and sister in Huntington Beach, California, where the family runs a hard rock-themed crepe restaurant
--
So how does his actual mom feel about the mommy talk??
Calling all "art" lovers...
https://metro.co.uk/2018/05/21/bizarre-collection-artwork-featuring-giant-mounds-poo-goes-show-7565488/
Ah! but it's art!
If he still had a significant portion of the money he won, suing his parents for misappropriating his earnings as a minor, when he sued Ms. Argento for her swinish crime, it would be simpler to credit the claim that the latter was particularly injurious.
The discount rate I would apply by default to a 21st century 17 year old American boy's sexual innocence is steep. That could be a mistake in this young man's case, but I'd want more than his lawyer's word for it.
MeTooooooo is like a volcano. Some time back it blew, spreading (career) death and destruction to all who were too close. Now it's like the volcano that is almost dormant. A few jets of steam, a rumble or two. But the big blow is long gone. (Note Keith Ellison and others).
Asia is a plume of ash. Nothing more.
FWIW, when I was 17 meeting and having sex with her would have probably been fantastic*. But meeting her at nine, establishing a mother-son relationship (pseudo or not) would have been screwed up to the maximum.
But that may just be me.
* Although I'm assuming this is just good old routine sexual activity. Adult me has discovered (most oft NOT by actual experience) some sexual activities that would have left 17 year old me running, screaming into the night.
Amazing how many lawyers don't know when to just shut up. There's no need to answer this; it doesn't help even if you're right.
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