Things that made me say "Oh, no!" out loud while sitting alone.

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I recently read a gossip piece wherein Natalie Portman said that we’d never dated. This confused me, as we did, in fact, date. And after briefly dating in 1999 we remained friends for years. I like Natalie, and I respect her intelligence and activism. But, to be honest, I can’t figure out why she would actively misrepresent the truth about our(albeit brief)involvement. The story as laid out in my book Then It Fell Apart is accurate, with lots of corroborating photo evidence, etc. Thanks, Moby Ps I completely respect Natalie’s possible regret in dating me(to be fair, I would probably regret dating me, too), but it doesn’t alter the actual facts of our brief romantic history

A post shared by moby xⓋx (@moby) on May 22, 2019 at 3:23am PDT

I'm seeing this because I was starting to read "Moby's treatment of Natalie Portman is a masterclass in beta-male misogyny/While the musician might not spout misogynistic lyrics, he’s no feminist" by Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian, where you see a cropped version of the picture (cropped above the nipples). I wanted to form my own opinion and get the code to embed the Instagram, and I clicked through and saw the full chestal expanse. Oh, my! What to think? The man is not attractive, but he's not totally horrible, but he's grimacing as if to try to look as horrible as possible, while she's just as pretty as a girl can be.

What's going on? Why doesn't she look uneasy? She's an actress — Who knows what she's thinking? Maybe she's only thinking of looking good in a photograph — which is what I think most people try to do when they know they're being photographed. What's he thinking? Something other than what I think most people think. Maybe I'm a beast — this is Beauty and the Beast — so go full beast, that's my only hope at some version of dignity.

I've already written about the Moby-and-Natalie tiff — here, with excerpts from his book — so please go there if you want to know what I think about it. This post is just about my reaction to Moby's Instagram and to The Guardian's effort at doing feminism about it. Reading the Guardian article, I see he's got a second Instagram, just fretting about his reputation now that Portman is turning people against him. He writes:

In my memoir Then It Fell Apart I respectfully and honestly describe the brief, innocent, and consensual romantic involvement I had with Natalie Portman in 1999. But she’s denying that we ever dated, even though in the past she’s publicly discussed our involvement, and there’s ample photographic evidence that we briefly dated and then were friends(some pictures included in this post). It hurts to be lied about, especially as I’ve always respected her, and I thought we were friends. But I’ve been receiving anonymous threats of violence from her fans, and it’s affecting my business and my health. So what should I do? What do you do when people believe lies and accusations and not actual photographs and evidence? I want to take the high road, but I honestly don’t know what to do. It’s one thing to be lied about, and entirely another when someone’s lies result in physical threats from complete strangers.

Is that what The Guardian's feminist calls "beta-male misogyny"? It is beta male. But what's the misogyny?

Someone — a 15-year-old guy — replies to him: "In my limited experience the key is to stop caring. You do you and don’t worry about other people and how they do do." How they do do? (He must mean how they do you.) I'm making a new tag for "You do you." I'm fascinated by that phrase, and I think it's a positive helpful concept (for some people, but not everyone).

So back to The Guardian's feminist:

One might think that getting called out for sleazing on a teenager while you were in your 30s would be mortifying. One might think you’d drop the matter and let the news cycle move on. Moby, however, seems desperate for the world to believe that he dated a girl just out of high school.

Well, he used her name to sell a memoir. He is using her. And she spoke up. She doesn't like it. But the book is what it is and he wants respect for it. He runs himself down in the book, but he uses her in the process. He's certainly not beyond "mortifying" himself. The book is confessional and loaded with angst about himself. The photograph above shows something of how he feels about himself and his proximity to her. His feelings are complex — good and bad. But he's not about shutting up. That's where the Guardian feminist has it wrong. He's writing. He's talking. It's a memoir, and a good memoir isn't about making yourself look good. You tell on yourself!

Here's where The Guardian's feminist makes her point about "beta-male misogyny" and it includes an idea I think is important, that leftism doesn't save you from anti-feminism:

... Moby doesn’t present as a scary predator. He looks non-threatening; he’s a vegan; he’s politically progressive; he’s called out artists like Eminem for being misogynistic. But while Moby might not spout obviously misogynistic lyrics, he’s obviously no feminist...

In his memoir Moby... frames his first interaction with Portman in a way which is designed to make her, a teenager, seem predatory. Recounting their first encounter, he writes: “I was a bald binge drinker and Natalie Portman was a beautiful movie star. But here she was in my dressing room, flirting with me. I was 33 and she was 20 but this was her world.”

Note: She wasn't 20. She was 18. He gets the specific fact wrong, undermining his credibility.

Poor little man-child, you’re supposed to think. He was entrapped by a young vixen. She may have been significantly younger, but she had all the power. It was Moby who taken advantage of!

This is putting words in his mouth. Moby does not say these things in his book. I think he's saying he was flattered and weak, not that she was aggressive or plotting. He goes on to angst about falling in with celebrities at glitzy parties, betraying his punk-rock belief system. I assume Portman dislikes her role in this psychodrama, but it's not much about anyone actually trying to have sex.

You know what’s really a shame? The fact that guys like Moby put more effort into seeming woke than they do listening to women. What’s really a shame is that a guy like Moby can dedicate years of his life to promoting veganism but still treats women like they’re nothing more than a piece of meat.

A feminist punchline. It's not fair to Moby and tough luck for Moby for not being the kind of man feminists want to be fair to.

By the way, I see Natalie Portman, while snuggled up next to Moby's nipples and not looking squicked out, was wearing a shirt with the words "milk fed/milk fed." Isn't that portraying yourself as a piece of meat? Or is it just a way to say I'm pure and terribly wholesome (which can only be said about yourself ironically)?