Hello Graham. Thanks for the last podcast -- even if Helen wasn't there. Apologies for raising something that's got little to do with Neil Gaiman, but I don't know how else to contact you. I posted this first in 'Chat' but that was probably the wrong place. There's something I really want to read again, and I can't find it. I'm sure you covered the false report -- around 2018, I think -- of a huge rise in sex crimes committed by women. Something like 78%, but I might have got this figure wrong. I think it was on the BBC news website, or possibly in The Guardian. Or both. It's one of those things I wish I'd saved on my computer, and I don't seem to have done so. I've tried web searches but nothing comes up, and I tried trawling BBC news but found nothing there either. I wonder if it's been redacted, which would be significant in itself. But if you covered this matter -- and I'm pretty sure you did, as I say -- I'd be really grateful if you could remind me where to find your article. Indeed I'd be grateful for any help at all. Thanks very much. Regards, DB.
I've got a feeling it may not be something you covered after all. Or at least not directly. You may well have referred to it. Anyway I watched your first podcast with Kate Coleman and I'm glad I did. The matter I'm referring to may well have been covered elsewhere. It's just that it's such an egregious example of skewed news coverage that I'd like to have the precise facts at my disposal, just in case I ever need them in an argument. But it's not as if many people ever want to listen to facts once they're on the trans-bandwagon, so I wonder why I'd bother. Best wishes, DB.
Gaiman deserves everything that’s coming to him. I have no idea if a court case is likely - not a lawyer, still less a New Zealand one - and suspect it might not be. But it’s crystal clear from the podcast he is a massive, massive creep & a danger to women. I wish the podcast had created more of a stir..
perhaps it’s a slow burner. Thanks for giving us some background on his appalling character, Glinner . Interestingly, his last exchange with you emphasises the need to ‘be kind’ - this exhortation is still used by naive newbies to the issue but there’s no excuse for him. ‘Be kind’ is never compatible with safeguarding.
Yes. Seeing how you have all written...it's taken me a while to realise its power. 'Be kind' is an abuser's greatest tool - it's what enables the abuse. Maybe the key thing. That cloud of doubt or seeded doubt, or hesitation that abuse of a child is far more acceptable than if we are possibly ever not nice to whoever else is deemed a thoroughly nice person. It’s an order to look away. It's a 'trans' get-out-of-jail-free-card. It's the easiest, laziest thing to just wish everyone was nice and never admit or look at or acknowledge the dark underbelly of life. Pick a characteristic an abuser has and that can be sprinkled around like trans holy water. Wear the trans amulet of 'be nice' protection. But they're a priest, but they're a teacher, but they're a taxi driver, but they're a scout master, but they're my neighbour, but they have a faith, but they're running a charity race, but they are family, but I went to school with him, but but they...but for the sake of community relations, but they are the most marginalised and but they are the most vulnerable. That one is still being trotted out by the UK Labour front bench.
'Be nice' means shut up, look away, let us get on with what we want. Then look away some more as the 'be nicers' will remind you. If you have the courage to look that bit closer, there are some small alarm bells ringing, there are a few more speaking up, maybe this is a bigger problem, maybe the damage is greater, oh no, the safety blanket of 'be nice' is being thrown on that alarm so no one can hear it. 'Be nice' is the bucket of sand thrown over a warning beacon that we've been setting on mountain tops in a desperate attempt to be heard, seen and stop this.
Afterwards when those who suffer at the hands of these monsters pluck up the courage to tell their stories it's often this stunned, collective, 'but how' or 'but we didn't know' or 'but they seem such a nice' man. But they're doctors, we trust them. The easiest way for the most cunning wolves to wear their sheep's clothing is to appropriate the mask of whatever this exhortation to be 'nice' is. It's meaningless, one man's abuser is another's thoroughly nice chap. As humans we have this instinctive desire to not want to accept the nasty stuff, to avoid thinking of it, to deny those who whistleblow, to deny those who tell the truth about how many looked away and covered up what mind-bending harm. You can be in plain sight, parading your 'niceness' as a shield.
Many abusers use this. Savile used it - but but it's charity aka 'niceness' that magically deflected scrutiny and was his greatest protection. He was a 'good' and 'nice' character and that narrative was built and sustained by our establishment and notably our national broadcaster. It's an almost totally arbitrary quantity this niceness and objectively isn't what it's stated to be. Clever, liberal men know exactly the power it has. Or men and women who play everyone around them. You can be so foul, so publicly, that no one can believe their eyes and ears, so let's just all pretend. It's too cognitively dissonant. But Doctor Who said they were nice, and he's so nice, so it's nasty not to agree with them. And they are so brave and nice as they told us they were. The AGPs have used our societies' ability to do this to their best advantage. They've appropriated the language of every human rights campaign for the last several hundred years so successfully, we have women politicians and judges standing up in public to demand men who rape children must be confined in small spaces so they can have access to yet more of the most vulnerable women and girls. State-sanctioned abuse on steroids. To be nice, remember everyone, all you silly safeguarders, we must be nice now. Nice means shut up, don’t rock our boat, don’t challenge my bubble and my ignorance. Oh! But I didn’t know! It was a one-off, how could we have known! Lessons will be learned!
But they look 'nice', but they don't look the type, but...on and on this goes. But it's pink, but it's glitter, but it's the rainbow. But they want to read to kids. But they had a bad childhood. But they are a sad, vulnerable man. We are ordered we must 'be nice' back, we must be quiet, we must not be nasty, mean, human-rights-denying murderers who are on the 'wrong side of history'. The 'be nice' brigade enables, allows and provide the context, the space, the fuel and the oxygen for abuse. They should be up for joint enterprise. 'Nice' now gives me the heeby jeebies as you can apparently act in every which way but nice, then anyone who points that out will be rounded on, will be ordered to protect the abuser and silence the victim, all to be and in the name of 'nice'.
When you are declared on the wrong side of ‘nice’ and are cancelled and deplatformed it’s got nothing to do with being nice. It’s to allow the abusers to continue and for the bystanders to not have their sense of comfort challenged.
its like the groomer is nice for ages and then his hand rests on his victims leg and he’s trying to pass it off as a normal thing to do. and he says he’s just expressing friendship because the friendship is deep and meaningful. A lot of men have manipulated people like that.
Yes. They just pick their moment and sometimes groom entire families, teams or publics. I remember the insistent hand holders and too close ones. I was 14 the first time that specific scenario happened and remember it clear as day now. I was on holiday and wriggled then was told off for wriggling in my seat. I was internally panicking as no one around me was doing anything. I've even wet myself before to put someone off. I was told to be polite by a family member. Be polite to the nice man.
As a professional woman I was warned off the gropers and 'oh it was an accident' hand on leg resters. Then you've got the tube leaners and accidental strokers...
I am still furious about this now and think of those who are still having to put up with this shit as normal, expected or acceptable.
One thing t'internet brought us is people being able to share this. That's a very difficult read, and I am cautious about detail, but these anecdotes are now a very powerful data set. If anyone doubts this all they need to do is go online - it's all there. I think anyone who hasn't had these experiences is apparently lucky.
It's often been frowned upon to ask boys or men to think of their mother/wife/sister/daughter/friend etc and how they would like it done to them. But there is something that seems to switch in some heads, as if, oh this one is of value, and that one I can do what I like with. We're objects and barely human. And so many are still clueless and in denial or accepting of this. No.
So when a man dresses up as this fetish object he observes us as being to him, and we are demanded to accept him as a woman, again, a resounding NO to that too. Laws all over the world are in such a state as 'believe her' somehow got twisted to mean 'believe him when he says he's a her'. And the beardy bloke doesn't have to 'dress as a woman' as that would be misogynist and anti-men AND anti-women. I'll take one of those, one of those, one of those, and ooh I'll have four of them too. The illusion and confusion of choice. Men and tech.
and naivety and manners stop the usually younger person stopping it. and a completely inappropriate relationship develops and the man hides behind the excuse of given consent but really its just subtle manipulation and horrible. men can be disgusting and beyond selfish.
Yes, and fear. What is your gut saying? Who are you most frightened of? Who are you trained to trust and believe. Do you know yourself what's happening or why? If there's any doubt or confusion what do you do. What are you feeling?
I was trapped in a car by a taxi driver the other day. Who threatened me and wouldn't let me out. Then in passing I found another friend had experienced similar, and was driven miles out of her way, to get cash as that's what the driver wanted, he didn't want to accept a card payment. We're professional adults, but also women. The office even called the driver to ask why he wasn't taking me to the correct location - he said he was 'confused'. These men are being tracked, are on camera and still do it. It's endemic. He argued with the office, then also with me. Also all on camera.
One local one was adding his own tips to fares without the customer's knowledge and so they had to clamp down on that too...any which way and how they can get their own creepy way.
so sorry to hear these accounts TSBBL. Just terrible. We have to look out for each other. I think the fact the police are so stretched is a massive problem. Crimes like these are terrible and should be dealt with.
I don’t know what the answer is, but i’ve come to the conclusion that society is expensive. And people bang on and on about tax, but tax, a few pence on this and that means nothing to most individuals who are struggling, not because of high tax but extortionate rental costs. And these people ask for more money from their employers who have to pay a ‘living wage’ etc, which then inflates earnings, and any surplus money is sucked up by an inflated rents that simply adjust to the higher incomes. Its shit for individuals, its shit for businesses- especially small/medium ones. I’d bring in rent control and if landlords sell up, i think the state sound step in, and not allow this awful monetisation of what is a basic requirement of human beings. Fuck the private sector in renting, it makes massive wealth for people who are neither hard working or talented. Just lucky. And i welcome labour’s plan to build more, but if the new housing stock just goes to the highest bidder then nothing will change.
Wish that I could give you more than one "like" for this!
As Gavin de Becker points out in his classic book "The Gift of Fear", "niceness" is overrated. It's all too often mistaken for goodness, but is in fact nothing more than a behavioral choice... a strategy. A benign one in many cases-- merely a way to make social interactions easier/minimally stressful for the participants-- but certainly not all. Those with predatory intent are often "nice", because if they weren't, how could they ever get close enough to victimize anyone? Indeed, they may go out of their way to be EXTRA "nice"... since they know that they have a whole hell of a lot of of very real not-at-all-niceness to cover up.
And re: the vomit-inducing woke exhortation "be kind": what does this mean, exactly? To never hurt anyone's feelings, no matter what? Reminds me of one of de Becker's sources, Sanford Strong's (excellent, imo) self-defense guide "Strong on Defense", where he instructs readers to adopt the motto, "my safety first, your feelings second". Because, he says, too many people (especially women confronted with violent men) are so afraid of causing offense-- of seeming MEAN-- that they're unable to protect themselves. One cannot afford to "be kind" to those who are anything BUT kind to YOU.
And while we're on the subject of kindness... how kind is it, really, to encourage someone's delusion, to pretend to see them in a way that you not only do not, but CANNOT? To collude in their denial of reality and insistence on living in a fantasy world? Sometimes the truth hurts... but it'll hurt a damn sight more when you eventually come to your senses and realize all the time and energy that you wasted on a lie.
Love this. And with stonking references! This gender madness really has revealed what makes us tick. Knowledge is power. It's depressing to read or experience things, and then I come on here and feel lifted up by you all. Here's to us all feeling confident enough to be a lot more mean and honest ❤️
It's been so cruel to become that little bit older and know firsthand that when we are young we need those who will guide us enough, then stand back and let us grow. Then not punish or criticise us when we stumble and fall, but are helped to get back up and know there is some safety net there. All of us still looking ahead at those who spoke up and will have to deal with the consequences of this mass delusion when those who directed it are long gone and counting their money somewhere far away from the fallout.
Only history's growing consensus will judge this person, and others you mention. I realise that you are still way way too far ahead in the fight to get a grip on the gender narrative - like being against lobotomy when the originator of the procedure, António Egas Moniz, was being awarded the Nobel Prize for the 'discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses.' The grip of gender woo on individuals and agencies is as tenacious as that of the face-hugger in 'Alien', so that even when the humans it's half strangled and impregnated continue to walk alive, they are inoperably possessed. We still have a long wait for the hideous chest bursting moment. Meantime you have people who love and respect you for being so far ahead of the rest of us, even as we lack the fame or courage to take the flak as you do. One day there will be accounts containing paragraphs that go something like this "Now that the transgender cult has been so comprehensively discredited, with agencies reeling from the massive financial damages following their loss of class actions, and many so called experts, also losers in litigation, deprived of their accreditation, some even facing prison sentences, it may be timely to look back on the decades during which this pernicious miscarriage of medicine's core principle - 'first do no harm' - was resisted by a forlorn band of critics that in those days could be counted on the fingers of one hand'. We are embarrassingly and ashamedly reminded of Edmund Burke's words 'Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."
Brilliant Graham, your anger inspires me because it mirrors my own, but I often doubt myself and wonder if I’m going mad. Why? Because of the myriad of people walking around, looking the other way, refusing to listen, calling us names for trying to bring things to their attention. All this while thousands of children are being harmed and women are losing everything. I’m almost more angry at those people than the TRAs. The TRAs have an excuse, they’re insane, but the rest of the population has no excuse. Thanks for everything you do.
That's exactly how I feel TT. How so many people can suddenly believe biological sex doesn't apply to humans, while at the same time also believing that women exercising their right to free speech is "unkind" while men harrassing and assaulting them for doing so is justified is beyond me. I hope Gaiman rots in a hell of his own making. The creep.
I have lived through a period of history where we thought everything was going to get better and better. I had liberal parents. In the 1970s we watched the first regular gay character on television, we sang songs about the world being a great big melting pot and spoke of tolerance and equality. Then in the maybe 90s society took a bad detour - a bit like Franz Ferdinand's chauffeur. Now, I just don't understand.
If I had the choice of a world operating in Linehan's quirky humour or Gaiman's dark forces, I know where I'd prefer to be.
yes the passive endorsers that are a major problem. Alastair campbell and Rory Stewart said the other day on their podcast they are unwilling to get into it because they aren’t trans or women, but they have a lot to say on everything despite not being from every ethnic and economic etc background. Don’t want to upset tbeir friends or sponsors.
I've said this before, but anyone who knows the slightest worthwhile thing about the issue in question also knows that Graham was vindicated by the facts a long, long time ago.
He really seems be able to split off parts of himself, doesn't he? I loathe psychiatric labelling, but it does serve to describe some psychological behaviours. Any man who could write 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane', a novel containing a powerfully overarching Grandmother Figure, and who then compartmentalizes that acknowledgement of the Divine Feminine -- as he assaults a young woman -- is a pathologically wounded and dangerous man. His career is going up in well-deserved smoke.
Ocean at the End of the Lane starts off with compartmentalization.
The scene when a dead man (apparent suicide) is found in a car by his house...that was real. Except it might not have been suicide and Neal's father was working to block this man's exit from scientology/Sea Org. The anti-scientology boards like Clambake and Why We Protest were dumbfounded that Neal would use such a scene for imaginative fodder.
Thanks! I read a whole piece about his parents being Scientology royalty in the UK, a Scientology student killing himself while lodging with them, and NG smearing him as a gambling addict. How true it all is I can't say, but it paints a very murky picture.
Gaiman does sound like a ghoul and the young woman's story is believable and so unfortunate for her. Many thanks for this amazing, beautifully written article, Glinner! One more reason of many that I will never unsubscribe to your substack and will continue to be a follower of The Mess as long it runs. The world needs more people in it like you, willing to speak out, bravely, intelligently, compassionately, and eloquently. 👍❤️🌹
Yeah, I have to confess--- except for Coraline--- I've never been able to endure more than a page of anything he's written. It's just been that tiresome. So you're one up on me for even being able to read him. --- His stuff always struck me as being fetish-y, before he started showing his ass.
So nothing would surprise me about him--- OR--- Amanda Palmer--- yet another woke warrior poser who grew up with too much money and too little reality in the cocoon like tone-y western suburbs of Boston.
I don't know how easy it would be to go back find commentary on Amanda's 'crowd funded' tours circa '08-'11, but there are a lot of allegations of her/Neil taking advantage of the hosts/volunteer musicians that worked with the tour. The biggest question was why Amanda Palmer, married to SF 'God' worth a bit of $ was recruiting unpaid volunteers to play at her concerts and crashing in people's houses, eating their food, etc, etc.
I had never heard of him until I read about him via this substack. Glad to say haven't read a word of his and never will. The podcast makes for deeply uncomfortable listening. The fact he is a predatory pervert is beyond doubt but it feels like he knew exactly what to do to avoid any legal consequences. It's careful and controlled even though he pretends it's the throes of passion. This makes it so much worse. Kudos to Tortoise for running it.
Excellent article Graham. Gaiman is yet another in-plain-sight abuser, presenting his side as unconventional but consensual. He was very careful with his text messages to the girl.
He dismisses the ridiculous age gap, the power imbalance, and a very young woman in awe of his wife's celebrity status. He is a C*nt!
Thanks for all the kind words!
Graham I have long loved your work and I am proud to support your journalism
I purchased your book and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that your lovely Dad, wherever he is, would be very very proud of you!
Hello Graham. Thanks for the last podcast -- even if Helen wasn't there. Apologies for raising something that's got little to do with Neil Gaiman, but I don't know how else to contact you. I posted this first in 'Chat' but that was probably the wrong place. There's something I really want to read again, and I can't find it. I'm sure you covered the false report -- around 2018, I think -- of a huge rise in sex crimes committed by women. Something like 78%, but I might have got this figure wrong. I think it was on the BBC news website, or possibly in The Guardian. Or both. It's one of those things I wish I'd saved on my computer, and I don't seem to have done so. I've tried web searches but nothing comes up, and I tried trawling BBC news but found nothing there either. I wonder if it's been redacted, which would be significant in itself. But if you covered this matter -- and I'm pretty sure you did, as I say -- I'd be really grateful if you could remind me where to find your article. Indeed I'd be grateful for any help at all. Thanks very much. Regards, DB.
It might be one of the conversations I had with Kate from keep prisons single sex?...
I've got a feeling it may not be something you covered after all. Or at least not directly. You may well have referred to it. Anyway I watched your first podcast with Kate Coleman and I'm glad I did. The matter I'm referring to may well have been covered elsewhere. It's just that it's such an egregious example of skewed news coverage that I'd like to have the precise facts at my disposal, just in case I ever need them in an argument. But it's not as if many people ever want to listen to facts once they're on the trans-bandwagon, so I wonder why I'd bother. Best wishes, DB.
I'll have a look. Thanks very much for replying. But it's striking, isn't it, that I can't now find anything about it on the Internet?
Gaiman deserves everything that’s coming to him. I have no idea if a court case is likely - not a lawyer, still less a New Zealand one - and suspect it might not be. But it’s crystal clear from the podcast he is a massive, massive creep & a danger to women. I wish the podcast had created more of a stir..
perhaps it’s a slow burner. Thanks for giving us some background on his appalling character, Glinner . Interestingly, his last exchange with you emphasises the need to ‘be kind’ - this exhortation is still used by naive newbies to the issue but there’s no excuse for him. ‘Be kind’ is never compatible with safeguarding.
‘be kind’ is the new ‘you’re with us or against us’. bastards, and i want the rainbow back too.
Yes. Seeing how you have all written...it's taken me a while to realise its power. 'Be kind' is an abuser's greatest tool - it's what enables the abuse. Maybe the key thing. That cloud of doubt or seeded doubt, or hesitation that abuse of a child is far more acceptable than if we are possibly ever not nice to whoever else is deemed a thoroughly nice person. It’s an order to look away. It's a 'trans' get-out-of-jail-free-card. It's the easiest, laziest thing to just wish everyone was nice and never admit or look at or acknowledge the dark underbelly of life. Pick a characteristic an abuser has and that can be sprinkled around like trans holy water. Wear the trans amulet of 'be nice' protection. But they're a priest, but they're a teacher, but they're a taxi driver, but they're a scout master, but they're my neighbour, but they have a faith, but they're running a charity race, but they are family, but I went to school with him, but but they...but for the sake of community relations, but they are the most marginalised and but they are the most vulnerable. That one is still being trotted out by the UK Labour front bench.
'Be nice' means shut up, look away, let us get on with what we want. Then look away some more as the 'be nicers' will remind you. If you have the courage to look that bit closer, there are some small alarm bells ringing, there are a few more speaking up, maybe this is a bigger problem, maybe the damage is greater, oh no, the safety blanket of 'be nice' is being thrown on that alarm so no one can hear it. 'Be nice' is the bucket of sand thrown over a warning beacon that we've been setting on mountain tops in a desperate attempt to be heard, seen and stop this.
Afterwards when those who suffer at the hands of these monsters pluck up the courage to tell their stories it's often this stunned, collective, 'but how' or 'but we didn't know' or 'but they seem such a nice' man. But they're doctors, we trust them. The easiest way for the most cunning wolves to wear their sheep's clothing is to appropriate the mask of whatever this exhortation to be 'nice' is. It's meaningless, one man's abuser is another's thoroughly nice chap. As humans we have this instinctive desire to not want to accept the nasty stuff, to avoid thinking of it, to deny those who whistleblow, to deny those who tell the truth about how many looked away and covered up what mind-bending harm. You can be in plain sight, parading your 'niceness' as a shield.
Many abusers use this. Savile used it - but but it's charity aka 'niceness' that magically deflected scrutiny and was his greatest protection. He was a 'good' and 'nice' character and that narrative was built and sustained by our establishment and notably our national broadcaster. It's an almost totally arbitrary quantity this niceness and objectively isn't what it's stated to be. Clever, liberal men know exactly the power it has. Or men and women who play everyone around them. You can be so foul, so publicly, that no one can believe their eyes and ears, so let's just all pretend. It's too cognitively dissonant. But Doctor Who said they were nice, and he's so nice, so it's nasty not to agree with them. And they are so brave and nice as they told us they were. The AGPs have used our societies' ability to do this to their best advantage. They've appropriated the language of every human rights campaign for the last several hundred years so successfully, we have women politicians and judges standing up in public to demand men who rape children must be confined in small spaces so they can have access to yet more of the most vulnerable women and girls. State-sanctioned abuse on steroids. To be nice, remember everyone, all you silly safeguarders, we must be nice now. Nice means shut up, don’t rock our boat, don’t challenge my bubble and my ignorance. Oh! But I didn’t know! It was a one-off, how could we have known! Lessons will be learned!
But they look 'nice', but they don't look the type, but...on and on this goes. But it's pink, but it's glitter, but it's the rainbow. But they want to read to kids. But they had a bad childhood. But they are a sad, vulnerable man. We are ordered we must 'be nice' back, we must be quiet, we must not be nasty, mean, human-rights-denying murderers who are on the 'wrong side of history'. The 'be nice' brigade enables, allows and provide the context, the space, the fuel and the oxygen for abuse. They should be up for joint enterprise. 'Nice' now gives me the heeby jeebies as you can apparently act in every which way but nice, then anyone who points that out will be rounded on, will be ordered to protect the abuser and silence the victim, all to be and in the name of 'nice'.
When you are declared on the wrong side of ‘nice’ and are cancelled and deplatformed it’s got nothing to do with being nice. It’s to allow the abusers to continue and for the bystanders to not have their sense of comfort challenged.
‘Be nice’ can f*ck right off.
its like the groomer is nice for ages and then his hand rests on his victims leg and he’s trying to pass it off as a normal thing to do. and he says he’s just expressing friendship because the friendship is deep and meaningful. A lot of men have manipulated people like that.
Yes. They just pick their moment and sometimes groom entire families, teams or publics. I remember the insistent hand holders and too close ones. I was 14 the first time that specific scenario happened and remember it clear as day now. I was on holiday and wriggled then was told off for wriggling in my seat. I was internally panicking as no one around me was doing anything. I've even wet myself before to put someone off. I was told to be polite by a family member. Be polite to the nice man.
As a professional woman I was warned off the gropers and 'oh it was an accident' hand on leg resters. Then you've got the tube leaners and accidental strokers...
I am still furious about this now and think of those who are still having to put up with this shit as normal, expected or acceptable.
The hand on leg and surreptitious finger in the genitals. 50 years on and I still can't be alone in a car with a man I don't know.
One thing t'internet brought us is people being able to share this. That's a very difficult read, and I am cautious about detail, but these anecdotes are now a very powerful data set. If anyone doubts this all they need to do is go online - it's all there. I think anyone who hasn't had these experiences is apparently lucky.
It's often been frowned upon to ask boys or men to think of their mother/wife/sister/daughter/friend etc and how they would like it done to them. But there is something that seems to switch in some heads, as if, oh this one is of value, and that one I can do what I like with. We're objects and barely human. And so many are still clueless and in denial or accepting of this. No.
So when a man dresses up as this fetish object he observes us as being to him, and we are demanded to accept him as a woman, again, a resounding NO to that too. Laws all over the world are in such a state as 'believe her' somehow got twisted to mean 'believe him when he says he's a her'. And the beardy bloke doesn't have to 'dress as a woman' as that would be misogynist and anti-men AND anti-women. I'll take one of those, one of those, one of those, and ooh I'll have four of them too. The illusion and confusion of choice. Men and tech.
and naivety and manners stop the usually younger person stopping it. and a completely inappropriate relationship develops and the man hides behind the excuse of given consent but really its just subtle manipulation and horrible. men can be disgusting and beyond selfish.
Yes, and fear. What is your gut saying? Who are you most frightened of? Who are you trained to trust and believe. Do you know yourself what's happening or why? If there's any doubt or confusion what do you do. What are you feeling?
I was trapped in a car by a taxi driver the other day. Who threatened me and wouldn't let me out. Then in passing I found another friend had experienced similar, and was driven miles out of her way, to get cash as that's what the driver wanted, he didn't want to accept a card payment. We're professional adults, but also women. The office even called the driver to ask why he wasn't taking me to the correct location - he said he was 'confused'. These men are being tracked, are on camera and still do it. It's endemic. He argued with the office, then also with me. Also all on camera.
One local one was adding his own tips to fares without the customer's knowledge and so they had to clamp down on that too...any which way and how they can get their own creepy way.
so sorry to hear these accounts TSBBL. Just terrible. We have to look out for each other. I think the fact the police are so stretched is a massive problem. Crimes like these are terrible and should be dealt with.
I don’t know what the answer is, but i’ve come to the conclusion that society is expensive. And people bang on and on about tax, but tax, a few pence on this and that means nothing to most individuals who are struggling, not because of high tax but extortionate rental costs. And these people ask for more money from their employers who have to pay a ‘living wage’ etc, which then inflates earnings, and any surplus money is sucked up by an inflated rents that simply adjust to the higher incomes. Its shit for individuals, its shit for businesses- especially small/medium ones. I’d bring in rent control and if landlords sell up, i think the state sound step in, and not allow this awful monetisation of what is a basic requirement of human beings. Fuck the private sector in renting, it makes massive wealth for people who are neither hard working or talented. Just lucky. And i welcome labour’s plan to build more, but if the new housing stock just goes to the highest bidder then nothing will change.
Theres my 2 beers in manifesto TSBBL
So well said.
Wish that I could give you more than one "like" for this!
As Gavin de Becker points out in his classic book "The Gift of Fear", "niceness" is overrated. It's all too often mistaken for goodness, but is in fact nothing more than a behavioral choice... a strategy. A benign one in many cases-- merely a way to make social interactions easier/minimally stressful for the participants-- but certainly not all. Those with predatory intent are often "nice", because if they weren't, how could they ever get close enough to victimize anyone? Indeed, they may go out of their way to be EXTRA "nice"... since they know that they have a whole hell of a lot of of very real not-at-all-niceness to cover up.
And re: the vomit-inducing woke exhortation "be kind": what does this mean, exactly? To never hurt anyone's feelings, no matter what? Reminds me of one of de Becker's sources, Sanford Strong's (excellent, imo) self-defense guide "Strong on Defense", where he instructs readers to adopt the motto, "my safety first, your feelings second". Because, he says, too many people (especially women confronted with violent men) are so afraid of causing offense-- of seeming MEAN-- that they're unable to protect themselves. One cannot afford to "be kind" to those who are anything BUT kind to YOU.
And while we're on the subject of kindness... how kind is it, really, to encourage someone's delusion, to pretend to see them in a way that you not only do not, but CANNOT? To collude in their denial of reality and insistence on living in a fantasy world? Sometimes the truth hurts... but it'll hurt a damn sight more when you eventually come to your senses and realize all the time and energy that you wasted on a lie.
Love this. And with stonking references! This gender madness really has revealed what makes us tick. Knowledge is power. It's depressing to read or experience things, and then I come on here and feel lifted up by you all. Here's to us all feeling confident enough to be a lot more mean and honest ❤️
It's been so cruel to become that little bit older and know firsthand that when we are young we need those who will guide us enough, then stand back and let us grow. Then not punish or criticise us when we stumble and fall, but are helped to get back up and know there is some safety net there. All of us still looking ahead at those who spoke up and will have to deal with the consequences of this mass delusion when those who directed it are long gone and counting their money somewhere far away from the fallout.
Please re-post as Twitter thread, so well defined.
Feel free, not on it ;-)
How did wanting to protect women and kids from evil become so “unfashionable”?
THIS! 👆👆👆👆👆
Only history's growing consensus will judge this person, and others you mention. I realise that you are still way way too far ahead in the fight to get a grip on the gender narrative - like being against lobotomy when the originator of the procedure, António Egas Moniz, was being awarded the Nobel Prize for the 'discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses.' The grip of gender woo on individuals and agencies is as tenacious as that of the face-hugger in 'Alien', so that even when the humans it's half strangled and impregnated continue to walk alive, they are inoperably possessed. We still have a long wait for the hideous chest bursting moment. Meantime you have people who love and respect you for being so far ahead of the rest of us, even as we lack the fame or courage to take the flak as you do. One day there will be accounts containing paragraphs that go something like this "Now that the transgender cult has been so comprehensively discredited, with agencies reeling from the massive financial damages following their loss of class actions, and many so called experts, also losers in litigation, deprived of their accreditation, some even facing prison sentences, it may be timely to look back on the decades during which this pernicious miscarriage of medicine's core principle - 'first do no harm' - was resisted by a forlorn band of critics that in those days could be counted on the fingers of one hand'. We are embarrassingly and ashamedly reminded of Edmund Burke's words 'Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."
Excellent, I enjoyed your response because I live in hope that the situation you speak about happens in tbe next 2 years
Absolutely scorching article, well done Graham.
Brilliant Graham, your anger inspires me because it mirrors my own, but I often doubt myself and wonder if I’m going mad. Why? Because of the myriad of people walking around, looking the other way, refusing to listen, calling us names for trying to bring things to their attention. All this while thousands of children are being harmed and women are losing everything. I’m almost more angry at those people than the TRAs. The TRAs have an excuse, they’re insane, but the rest of the population has no excuse. Thanks for everything you do.
That's exactly how I feel TT. How so many people can suddenly believe biological sex doesn't apply to humans, while at the same time also believing that women exercising their right to free speech is "unkind" while men harrassing and assaulting them for doing so is justified is beyond me. I hope Gaiman rots in a hell of his own making. The creep.
I spend my life in a state of bafflement and anger thinking what f*** is going on.
Same.
Me three (and counting?), TT and BK ❤️
And I thought it was because I'm in my 60s!
I have lived through a period of history where we thought everything was going to get better and better. I had liberal parents. In the 1970s we watched the first regular gay character on television, we sang songs about the world being a great big melting pot and spoke of tolerance and equality. Then in the maybe 90s society took a bad detour - a bit like Franz Ferdinand's chauffeur. Now, I just don't understand.
If I had the choice of a world operating in Linehan's quirky humour or Gaiman's dark forces, I know where I'd prefer to be.
Well said.
yes the passive endorsers that are a major problem. Alastair campbell and Rory Stewart said the other day on their podcast they are unwilling to get into it because they aren’t trans or women, but they have a lot to say on everything despite not being from every ethnic and economic etc background. Don’t want to upset tbeir friends or sponsors.
They are despicable
Agreed. They're cowards.
You will be vindicated. And I am planning on being around to see it.
I've said this before, but anyone who knows the slightest worthwhile thing about the issue in question also knows that Graham was vindicated by the facts a long, long time ago.
He really seems be able to split off parts of himself, doesn't he? I loathe psychiatric labelling, but it does serve to describe some psychological behaviours. Any man who could write 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane', a novel containing a powerfully overarching Grandmother Figure, and who then compartmentalizes that acknowledgement of the Divine Feminine -- as he assaults a young woman -- is a pathologically wounded and dangerous man. His career is going up in well-deserved smoke.
Ocean at the End of the Lane starts off with compartmentalization.
The scene when a dead man (apparent suicide) is found in a car by his house...that was real. Except it might not have been suicide and Neal's father was working to block this man's exit from scientology/Sea Org. The anti-scientology boards like Clambake and Why We Protest were dumbfounded that Neal would use such a scene for imaginative fodder.
He learned from Scientology didn't he?
This part of the podcast was particularly interesting I thought.
I haven't heard that episode. Can you point me towards it please?
It was mentioned fairly briefly in episode 3 or 4. I was surprised!
Thanks! I read a whole piece about his parents being Scientology royalty in the UK, a Scientology student killing himself while lodging with them, and NG smearing him as a gambling addict. How true it all is I can't say, but it paints a very murky picture.
Gaiman does sound like a ghoul and the young woman's story is believable and so unfortunate for her. Many thanks for this amazing, beautifully written article, Glinner! One more reason of many that I will never unsubscribe to your substack and will continue to be a follower of The Mess as long it runs. The world needs more people in it like you, willing to speak out, bravely, intelligently, compassionately, and eloquently. 👍❤️🌹
Graham, you are simply the best!
Yeah, I have to confess--- except for Coraline--- I've never been able to endure more than a page of anything he's written. It's just been that tiresome. So you're one up on me for even being able to read him. --- His stuff always struck me as being fetish-y, before he started showing his ass.
So nothing would surprise me about him--- OR--- Amanda Palmer--- yet another woke warrior poser who grew up with too much money and too little reality in the cocoon like tone-y western suburbs of Boston.
And, by the way, Graham, you're a great tv comedy writer and director and that's no small thing--- real writer wise.
I don't know how easy it would be to go back find commentary on Amanda's 'crowd funded' tours circa '08-'11, but there are a lot of allegations of her/Neil taking advantage of the hosts/volunteer musicians that worked with the tour. The biggest question was why Amanda Palmer, married to SF 'God' worth a bit of $ was recruiting unpaid volunteers to play at her concerts and crashing in people's houses, eating their food, etc, etc.
They strike me as users who lack boundaries.
Yes absolutely one of the best -Thee funniest TV shows ever.
PERFECTION *chef’s kiss* 👩🍳😘
Thank you Graham for using your talents for good and not evil!
I had never heard of him until I read about him via this substack. Glad to say haven't read a word of his and never will. The podcast makes for deeply uncomfortable listening. The fact he is a predatory pervert is beyond doubt but it feels like he knew exactly what to do to avoid any legal consequences. It's careful and controlled even though he pretends it's the throes of passion. This makes it so much worse. Kudos to Tortoise for running it.
Excellent article Graham. Gaiman is yet another in-plain-sight abuser, presenting his side as unconventional but consensual. He was very careful with his text messages to the girl.
He dismisses the ridiculous age gap, the power imbalance, and a very young woman in awe of his wife's celebrity status. He is a C*nt!
For anyone to make any comment , let alone a personal dig at someone’s child is just appalling
I wrote a wee bit and it went poof lol of I go 🙂
Thanks very much Graham. A good read and then some.