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C.K. was so convincing as a guy who was already so disappointed in himself that there was no need for us to be disappointed in him too.

In hindsight, C.K.’s work seems grotesque, a performance drawing on his own ventures into inappropriate behavior in order to create comedy that really felt sincere. But at the time, his fans were laughing, because C.K. was so convincing as a guy who was already so disappointed in himself that there was no need for us to be disappointed in him too. The New York Times investigation isn’t exactly a bombshell. There have been rumors about C.K. for years. Gawker had tried to report on his behavior in the past, women had tried to come forward, and even Tig Notaro had tried to tell us with his name still tied to her television show. And in hindsight, there’s a kind of kicking-yourself inevitability to it: Who would’ve imagined that a comedian who talks almost ceaselessly about masturbation, and about how men are inherently threatening, could’ve been using the act as a sexual threat in his real life? But the news about C.K. still hits hard, not only because C.K. has incredible power (he owns a production company, shares management with comedians like Aziz Ansari and Kevin Hart, and has had significant influence on the careers of other comedians), not only because he might have used that power to keep women from feeling safe, and not only because he is incredibly talented and it’s a shame to lose respect for someone you once admired. This one is so hard because much of C.K.’s work is specifically about the intersections of men and women, how men are predatory and why women, justifiably, fear them. C.K. let us feel comfortable watching him and talking about him and making him rich, let us feel like we were socially aware and had good taste. We were rooting for him. We wanted him to do well. In some ways this is the greatest nightmare for a lot of women: A man who does the right things, who acts the right way, who gives every impression that he’s one of the good ones, but turns out to be one of the bad ones anyway. Another facet of the disillusionment here is that C.K.’s career and reputation have never really waned or faltered. As an audience, turning your back on a talented, successful man is always harder than one whose star is steadily fading. And for a decade, C.K. has been consistently on the rise, with no serious pitfalls, no bad movies, no crummy stand-up specials. Louie was often hailed as a masterpiece, Horace and Pete was an acquired taste but still an interesting show to get on the air, and even though there has been (and there is now more urgent) controversy around his new movie I Love You Daddy, the reviews coming out of TIFF were generally positive. The funding, professional support, and attention were all there for the film: That it reads as a clear professional misstep now is largely a matter of timing. All of this is further complicated by the women who surround C.K. and protect him, willingly or not. Pamela Adlon, the creator and producer and star of Better Things, has consistently been asked or expected to act as a conscience of sorts for C.K. On Louie, she often played the voice of reason, tearing him down and telling him to act responsibly. (She does something similar in I Love You Daddy, which will no longer be released next week.) Adlon has defended C.K., saying, “He is the best, most generous, collaborative, brilliant writer in the world. And you can ask anybody who works with him that he’s just the best guy.” C.K. also produces Notaro’s One Mississippi, a show about a uniquely female, queer experience. Notaro, unlike Adlon, has been vocal about her frustration with C.K., and said in the Times article that she has concerns he released her 2012 comedy album because “he knew it was going to make him look like a good guy.”

Much of the humanity in C.K.’s work has come from his experience as the father of daughters. A lot of his stand-up and his show are about them, how they challenge him to be a better father. The most tender moments of Louie are predictably ones where he’s interacting with his daughters, digging into the duality of loving someone so completely but hating them in the same breath.

It’s a different kind of work, holding men like C.K. to account, because we so desperately don’t want the truth about them to be true.