Because Michael Jackson is the King of Pop, we don’t want to believe he was a bad guy. We’d prefer to justify his loathsome behavior. Listening to “Thriller” would be much less fun if we didn’t.

This may be why Barbra Streisand said last week that his alleged victims “were thrilled to be there.”

In an interview with the Times of London, Streisand said Jackson’s “sexual needs were his sexual needs, coming from whatever childhood he has or whatever DNA he has. You can say ‘molested’, but those children, as you heard say [the grown-up Robson and Safechuck], they were thrilled to be there. They both married and they both have children, so it didn’t kill them.”

This is abhorrent. She isn't denying the men's account. Rather, and much worse, she's arguing that even if it all happened as they say, any encounter must have been consensual because Jackson was just so popular and famous, as if that somehow makes it okay.

Streisand, of course, walked back her comments after backlash. In a statement on her website, she wrote:



I am profoundly sorry for any pain or misunderstanding I caused by not choosing my words more carefully about Michael Jackson and his victims, because the words as printed do not reflect my true feelings. I didn’t mean to dismiss the trauma these boys experienced in any way. Like all survivors of sexual assault, they will have to carry this for the rest of their lives. I feel deep remorse and I hope that James and Wade know that I truly respect and admire them for speaking their truth.



Pivoting from “you can say ‘molested’” to “like all survivors of sexual assault” is no case of misunderstanding. It’s a reversal from disparagement to supposed solidarity. At least Streisand got to the right place eventually, but she was definitely not there before. She did not just choose words uncarefully.

Streisand got it wrong from the start because she tried to justify Jackson’s alleged crimes by saying the boys were into it. That’s exactly the kind of gaslighting a rapist pulls on his victims. And it exposes the error of our culture’s reliance on consent .

Monica Lewinsky’s affair with Bill Clinton was consensual, but looking back on it, she recognizes how their power differences called into question the ethics of consent.

In an essay for Vanity Fair last spring, Lewinsky said of her relationship with the former president: “I now see how problematic it was that the two of us even got to a place where there was a question of consent. Instead, the road that led there was littered with inappropriate abuse of authority, station, and privilege.”

Some things are wrong whether or not someone is “thrilled to be there.” Some things are wrong whether or not they’re part of someone's “sexual needs.” Some things are wrong even if they “didn’t kill” anyone.

It’s a crazy world we live in when it even has to be said that sex with minors is wrong, whether or not they “consent.”