So InternetAristocrat has a new video, have you seen it? He clarified that the two of the five guys names were pure speculation. He also seems to have switched the focus away from the sex thing and brought up quite a few good points.

This one is much better. I’m about to say three things. And I have a vague sense that people are going to turn one of them into a shit show.

So, before reading, please please please use this information responsibly. Don’t try to create a narrative to force it into, and please step back and ask me questions if a narrative seems to emerge but you’re not sure. I know you’re going to ignore that, but I can’t tell you how much that’s akin to shooting yourself in the foot. It may very well just be nothing. And you should be open to it being nothing.

Anyway first: the whole rape thing. I want to distinguish between sex without informed consent, and rape. Rape is physically forced sex or sex under duress, and is (in most but not all cases) considerably more traumatic than sex without informed consent. From what I understand, in some jurisdictions both are illegal, but as distinct crimes. I’m uncomfortable with the two being conflated, but this distinction ties back directly to Max Temkin, who is more relevant to this situation than you know.

Second: I was hesitant to drag Max into any of this, because I got the impression that he’d already been through hell, and because he paid for my boat ticket and had a brief discussion with me about Kant’s contributions to astronomy, which means I like him. Anyway, Max Temkin made Cards Against Humanity. CAH or Max personally, I’m not sure which, is or was going to be one of the anonymous supporters of Rebel Jam.

Then a rape allegation dropped by a pseudonymous user, and everyone manned a witch hunt against Max. A little bit later, the person who made the allegations clarified that it wasn’t so much rape, as it was a “textbook example of a crime of opportunity.” I don’t know what that means — but in any case Zoe and I had a long discussion about it. The issue was Zoe wanted Max’s money, but no amount of money would have made up for the amount of harm it would do to her career to continue associating with him. So Zoe figured she would talk to Max, and try to get him to write something talking about how issues of consent are important, and how difficult it can be to discern right from wrong when young men are raised in a society that teaches them to objectify women.

(This was the night of the karaoke bar, which meant she was going to be late to karaoke. She absolutely did not want me waiting for her at the karaoke bar, because she claimed Nathan might throw a hissy fit. So I was left waiting at the hotel, but in any case:)

I want to make it clear here that her primary concern wasn’t whether or not what Max did was wrong. It was whether or not people would find out that he was sponsoring Rebel Jam. She would only continue business with him so long as he maintained a pristine image.

But this all ties back to the consent and hypocrisy thing. Like when we were discussing these issues of consent in the wake of that controversy, she spoke of them with the weight they deserved — but when we were discussing them with regard to the consequences of that controversy with respect to Max in particular, everything was purely a business decision. And whether or not she continued associating with him was purely a function of the odds that someone would find out he was sponsoring her projects, and how he handled the situation from a PR standpoint.

Third: InternetAristocrat — Your opinions are your own and I won’t try to push mine on you, but in any case even from a purely strategic viewpoint, making this into a gender or equality issue is how you’re going to lose every other issue. I appreciate that this video takes a much more levelheaded approach than the last one though. And I appreciate that people have finally stopped getting tunnel vision about the sex with journalists thing. Sex is the least of the concerns.

Also, this controversy seems to have increased your viewer base considerably, please take the opportunity to update the avatar you use; I can’t possibly be the only one irked by the airbrushing on the outside of the wig. Seriously, I will fix it for you, it just needs to not be like that.