Neil Gaiman allegations

My original post

I found a post with a very helpful review of the allegations against Neil Gaiman, smart about the messiness of the sourcing and what we can glean despite that.

To say Master was imperfectly executed is an understatement, but I’m grateful for it, both as a means of hopefully helping to ensure that Gaiman is held accountable for his behaviour, and for its willingness to explore the “gray area” of consent that so often impedes the police, courts, and other media outlets from helping survivors in any meaningful way.

I have not yet had the heart to listen to Master, the Tortoise podcast about Gaiman. Given what I have read, and how it evidently comes from the worst people, it seems plausible that it casts Gaiman as worse than he is. It also seems implausible that there is no there there.

Gaiman is far from the first frustrating example of allegations of sexual assault clouded by irresponsible reporting, social media shitstorm dynamics, and a weak vocabulary of Degrees Of Badness. We need to do better.

There have long been rumours about Gaiman’s liaisons with young fans. Skeevy, but short of predatory. The most generous-to-Gaiman reading of these new reports is much worse than that … and still not rape. Experience teaches us to hesitate to embrace a generous reading. If the worst is true, we can expect more survivors to come forward, which would be very clarifying. Part of Doing Better is letting things unfold as we sift those ambiguities … for a while.

I am a fan of Warren Ellis’ work. After a prudent hesitation to believe the worst I accepted that the worst was true. Fuck that guy. I am a fan of Gaiman’s work. The worst need not be true of Gaiman to get to Fuck That Guy; there is room for a lot of Bad which is short of As Bad As Warren Ellis. Part of Doing Better is taking seriously how Less Bad really can be less bad … and still very bad.

Gaiman’s accusers may have gotten played by the Tortoise podcast people, but they undoubtedly suffered from their encounter with Gaiman, and no doubt they are suffering from the pressures of coming forward. Part of Doing Better is giving them our wholehearted support, right away, before drawing firm conclusions about Gaiman.

My prudent hope — that Gaiman is not as bad as some have already concluded he is — wears thin, but it is worth letting more dust settle. Social media shitorms are destructive. There is plenty of time ahead to say Fuck That Guy, if it proves warranted. Part of Doing Better is combatting shitstorm dynamics, which I want this post to do.

I am sweating through this west coast heat wave, but it sure feels cold out there.

Updates

The first two Tortoise accounts

From the summary at The Politics Of Dancing cited above:

Scarlett [⋯] [Gaiman’s then-wife] Amanda Palmer hired her as a live-in au pair/nanny [⋯] on Scarlett’s first day [⋯] Within a few hours of their meeting, Gaiman climbed into an outdoor bath that Scarlett had run for herself and according to Scarlett, anally penetrated her with his fingers without her consent. This was the beginning of a three-week sexual relationship between Scarlett, then 21, and Gaiman, then 61, in which Scarlett says:

• Gaiman entered her anally without consent or warning in their second sexual encounter, and used butter as a lubricant.
• on another occasion that he anally penetrated her, the pain was so intense she passed out. Scarlett described the pain as “celestial”.
• Gaiman repeatedly subjected her to degrading sexual acts [⋯]

According to Gaiman, Scarlett had agreed to share a bath on that first night, in which they merely “made out” and cuddled consensually. He says he never penetrated Scarlett with his penis and that within days of their meeting she “expressed an interest in mild BDSM.” He says their relationship was entirely consensual.

[⋯]

At the same time that she texted a friend the next day telling them about the bath with Gaiman and saying that he “crossed the boundaries”, Scarlett also texted Gaiman. She signed off her message, “Thank you for a lovely, lovely night. Wow. x”

when she was 20 and Gaiman was 45, K entered a romantic and sexual relationship with the author. K alleges that in one incident while on holiday in the UK, she pleaded with Gaiman not to penetrate her vagina as she had a painful UTI at the time. She says he ignored her and did it anyway, causing her agony.

Again, the details of their relationship are nightmarishly complicated for law enforcement and media lawyers. As with Scarlett, the assault happened in the context of a consensual relationship, and Gaiman and K continued to maintain a friendship up until 2022, at which point K says she “saw the relationship for what it was.”

Two more from Tortoise

I confess that these later reports do not bring the clarity I would like.

One is was a quid-pro-quo of sex in exchange for allowing a tenant renting a house from him to leave her rent unpaid when her circumstances changed and she could no longer afford it.

He can say it was consensual. But why would I do that? It was because I was scared of losing my place.

This is certainly repulsive behavior by a landlord, but I have a hard time counting it coercive for him to offer to give someone something in exchange for sex.

The other was an “aggressive unwanted pass” which included an unwelcome kiss when Gaiman was in his 20s. She says that Gaiman did back off after her firm refusal. Conceivably an honest mistake, though the woman coming forward to talk about it publicly is a very strong sign that it was not.

Claire

Another obscure podcast, Am I Broken, has an episode interviewing a woman under the name Claire, which has been transcribed, and summarized by Stephanie Kay on Bluesky thus:

She tried to reach out to journalists starting in 2019, but was told it wasn’t big enough, it didn’t indicate a pattern of behavior. But now …

Very similar to K’s story. She was a fan of his, met him at a book signing in 2012. Gaiman immediately kissed her, he drew her into his world and invited her places, VIP access, he appeared naked in Skype calls, unwanted phone sex and groping, culminating in traumatic experience on his tour bus.

She was 22, had a boyfriend, wasn’t interested in a sexual relationship. But she liked the connection to her favorite author and didn’t want to lose it. On the tour bus, he tried to pressure her into sex, on top of her, told her “I’m a very wealthy man and I’m used to getting what I want.”

And he told her to kiss him back like she meant it and like she would never see him again. She was scared. And when she didn’t sleep with him, contact died out. He blamed her for everything, said she’d started it all. Saying he normally keeps fans at arms length, that this had never happened before.

Again, the reporting is frustrating. The transcript has Claire saying:

I think he realized I wasn’t gonna let him have sex with me, without him… being… more aggressive, I guess? So, he kinda flopped off.

One can imagine a version of this which is traumatizingly bad consent practice while short of a consent violation. And one can equally easily imagine a version of this which is scary and sadistic.

Paul Caruana Galizia of Tortoise describes their podcast addressing Claire’s case:

On recorded calls, Neil Gaiman tells a woman he allegedly sexual assaulted that he “obviously fucked up”, offers her ^$60,000 for her therapy, and promises to make a “hefty donation” to a rape crisis centre.

He sent the money, but never donated.

Gaiman — whose account to us denied the woman’s allegations — also told her on the calls in July 2022 that:

1. He is “high-functioning autistic”, which explains why he gets “human relations” wrong. He had no comment to make on this when put to his lawyers.
2. He “normally keeps fans at arms length”. The woman met him as a 22-year-old fan in 2012. We have heard sexual assault allegations from former fans, dated between 2004-2007. No comment from him here either.
3. She made the first move on him because “I’d have never made the first move on anybody. I’d be terrified of that.” Even by his own account he made the first move on Scarlett (jumping into a bath with her in Feb 22) and on Julia Hobsbawm (sudden, unwanted kiss in 1986).
4. He admits the age gap of 30 years with this woman was inappropriate, saying: "The me of 10 years ago might have done. But the me of today has learnt a lot." Yet months before the calls, Gaiman had been with Scarlett, who was 40 years younger than him.

While Gaiman didn’t make a donation to the rape crisis centre, he did send this woman that ^$60,000 - the cost of her therapy over the preceding decade. Makes her the third woman he sent money to in the space of eight months. Two – Scarlett and Caroline Wallner – also got NDAs.

Since we began publishing our investigation into the allegations against Gaiman, on 3 July, he hasn’t made any public statements and has repeatedly declined requests for interviews or on-the-record statements. With the recordings, we now have him speaking in his own voice and he says he apologises and accepts responsibility for his alleged sexual misconduct in one woman's case.

Other grotesque affairs

Ulorin Vex on Bluesky offers a story:

I’ve been hesitant to comment because Neil is in my wider social circle and there are people very dear to me who are close to him and are being directly impacted by all of this but after weeks of lurking/getting mad at the victim-blamers I feel like I need to add my voice to support these women

Around 2010 my ex told me that Neil Gaiman had asked if he knew any young women he could send to “keep him company” while he was working alone in a remote part of Scotland. He stipulated that they be “interesting but not interesting enough to fall in love with”

That always stuck with me even though I didn’t acknowledge the creepiness of the entire request until much later. I’ve attached some screenshots (with permission) from a private conversation about this I had back in 2022. AA/A is my ex to clarify.

I’ve removed a LOT of the conversation to protect people who haven’t gone public but suffice to say there is a pattern of behavior dating back to at least the 90s.

Guaging the horror

I have seen a lot of people call Gaiman a “rapist”. I consider that an irresponsible exaggeration given the limits of what we know. But, again, Not A Rapist clears only the lowest possible bar.

At this point, we do have an unmistakable pattern of at least breathtaking entitlement and callousness, with a side order of manipulativeness. I’m uneasy with how hard this is to gague, but it is well into skeevy-as-heck Fuck That Guy territory any way you look at it.

We got good journalism about Warren Ellis … eventually. If Gaiman is worse than already apparent — predatory and cruel — the truth should out as more damning stories come out. I do not expect Worse to surface, but neither would I feel surprised.

Useful commentaries

A bracing word from @rabbit.in.your.garden:

Two public victims … so far. Previously, widely admired by fans & other writers. A nice guy. I unequivocally believe the victims. One victim was his child’s nanny. The other a fan he met at a signing. The nanny he claims suffered from a mental illness that creates false memories. Let’s talk about that.

He claims the 23 year old nanny, his employee hired to care for his child was actively suffering from a mental illness associated with false memories. First, this doesn’t sound like the person a responsible, loving parent hires to watch their child. Second, if she did suffer from this illness, she was therefore incapable of true consent.

I have to interject that this last point is slippery. It is plausible that her memory is not reliable but he did not realize it at the time. But fergawdsake, Gaiman …

She was also his live-in employee, 40 years younger which also creates a barrier to true consent.

NG, by his public statements, admits to a sexual relationship with a woman who by his statements could not truly consent. As an employee, did she really feel she could safely say no to this rich, powerful man who has entered her bathroom while she was bathing on her 1^st day of employment? The dynamic suggests she could not. Even if she could, she states he did things to her without consent, which is definitely assault. Coupled with his claims, that makes NG undeniably a man who commits sexual assault.

This is why women choose the bear. We know the bear is dangerous. We know how to act around the bear to reduce our risk of harm. This successful, married man was an unexpected danger. He should have been safe but he wasn’t.

Jonathan Fortin:

Stray thoughts on the Neil Gaiman allegations:

• Admission of bias: he’s my favorite author, so I’m naturally heartbroken. Then again, all my other favorite creators have been cancelled, and it's an open secret that Gaiman sleeps with his much younger fans, so I kind of expected this. Pains me nonetheless.
• Worth nothing: Tortoise Media, the only source for this story, is a far right anti-LGBT podcast made by the sister of Boris Johnson (basically the Tr*mp of the UK, who Gaiman has been highly critical of). It’s also interesting that this debuted literally right before the UK elections. However, this doesn’t mean the women who came forward are lying.
• Indeed, according to the podcast, Gaiman even admitted to intimacy in situations that definitely weren’t appropriate (such as “making out” with his son’s 23-year-old nanny in the bath on the literal first day of her job). Even if it was consensual (and again, it might not have been), it’s still extremely sketchy. This is a famous multi-millionaire author in his 60’s engaging in sexual contact with his 23-year old employee. With or without consent, the power dynamic there is nothing to sneeze at.
• As someone who also once had a relationship with a public figure, I know first hand how intimidating that can be. It can be hard to say “no” and deny them what they want. The apologist in me wonders if maybe Gaiman wasn’t even aware of how these women actually felt, but it’s certainly also possible that he knew perfectly well.
• As a reminder: SA [sexual assault] survivors rarely gain anything from coming out. It’s very, very rare for people to make this shit up.
• Another reminder: SA can absolutely happen even in established relationships where there was consent before. You can text someone that you love them and consent to everything one day, and feel quite differently the next.
• It is worth noting that right wing outlets are eager to paint any BDSM or sexual deviancy as SA or abuse. It’s also worth noting that predators absolutely exist in the BDSM scene just like everywhere else.
• Claiming “she was suffering from a condition associated with false memories, even though her medical history does not support this” is really, really not a good look.
• If this is a pattern for Gaiman, other women will likely come forward. I will not be surprised if they do.