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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Marina Hyde

Women’s claims of sexual abuse must be heard – unless they’re about master storyteller Neil Gaiman, apparently

Neil Gaiman at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, in March 2019.
Neil Gaiman at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, in March 2019. Photograph: Jim Bennett/WireImage

Draw near, allies, for these are dark days for “kink-shaming”. At best, this is one of the whiniest, most pathetic and least helpful phrases to have entered the parlance of modern times – and at worst, it’s just another guy’s excuse for sexual abuse. It’s confusing. You try to be modern and post-conventional, and you end up enabling the most old-fashioned and conventional nastinesses of all.

Still, thank heavens for the parade of embattled famous men fighting kink-shaming’s corner. I have just one thing to say to all the lady authors, lady pop stars and lady actors out there. And that is: if you haven’t had an eye-wateringly expensive lawyer draft a statement about how consensual your sex with a tormented junior was, then are you really properly creative at all?

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