Nothing more depressing for a writer than to find that someone else shared your thoughts about something but was so much better at putting them into words.
Was Grace frozen, terrified, stuck? No. She tells us that she wanted something from Ansari and she was trying to figure out how to get it. She wanted affection, kindness, attention. Perhaps she hoped to maybe even become the famous man’s girlfriend. He wasn’t interested. What she felt afterward—rejected yet another time, by yet another man—was regret. And what she and the writer who told her story created was 3,000 words of revenge porn. The clinical detail in which the story is told is intended not to validate her account as much as it is to hurt and humiliate Ansari. Together, the two women may have destroyed Ansari’s career, which is now the punishment for every kind of male sexual misconduct, from the grotesque to the disappointing.
The "revenge porn" phrasing is what was so brilliant, because that's exactly what this (and others I've called out) are: smear pieces chock full of deeply personal and embarrassing details -- that you know are wrong to look at yet you can't turn away -- revealed only to get back at someone the alleged victim perceives as having done him/her wrong, dressed up as #MeToo sagas. (I'm going back and relabeling pieces by David Ng of the Los Angeles Times, Mary Ann Georgantopoulos of BuzzFeed, Robin Pogrebin of the New York Times, and Dawn C. Chmielewski / Dominic Patten of Deadline as the #RevengePorn that they are, (Click on news organization names for offending works.)
As awed as I was, I suppose it was foolish to think even Caitlin Flanagan had gotten the final word on the subject. Indeed, I woke up to reactions from friends I greatly respect that still saw nothing wrong with the #RevengePorn piece on Babe.net. It was only in the shower while getting ready for work that I realized that a far greater percentage of the world is OK with (what I call) the Yelpification of everyday life, meaning anyone (and everyone but especially celebrities, obviously) should be on notice that anything (and everything) you do -- even in the privacy of your own home where there is just that, the expectation of privacy ("the claw"???) -- is fair game to scrutiny by the world, by way of an artfully worded tweet directed at the lowest-hanging "journalist." I guess just because she had his phone number and he was completely receptive to her concerns that was no reason not to run to the "media" and share what happened six months ago with the world, instead. Not a fan of Ansari's -- and no one is saying his behavior was commendable -- but it will be interesting to see if Katie Way and Ansari's still-anonymous date's effort will be able to exact the maximum revenge they seemed to be aiming for.
As awed as I was, I suppose it was foolish to think even Caitlin Flanagan had gotten the final word on the subject. Indeed, I woke up to reactions from friends I greatly respect that still saw nothing wrong with the #RevengePorn piece on Babe.net. It was only in the shower while getting ready for work that I realized that a far greater percentage of the world is OK with (what I call) the Yelpification of everyday life, meaning anyone (and everyone but especially celebrities, obviously) should be on notice that anything (and everything) you do -- even in the privacy of your own home where there is just that, the expectation of privacy ("the claw"???) -- is fair game to scrutiny by the world, by way of an artfully worded tweet directed at the lowest-hanging "journalist." I guess just because she had his phone number and he was completely receptive to her concerns that was no reason not to run to the "media" and share what happened six months ago with the world, instead. Not a fan of Ansari's -- and no one is saying his behavior was commendable -- but it will be interesting to see if Katie Way and Ansari's still-anonymous date's effort will be able to exact the maximum revenge they seemed to be aiming for.
Aziz Ansari responds:
In September of last year, I met a woman at a party. We exchanged numbers. We texted back and forth and eventually went on a date. We went out to dinner, and afterwards we ended up engaging in sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual. The next day, I got a text from her saying that although "it may have seemed okay," upon further reflection, she felt uncomfortable. It was true that everything did seem okay to me, so when I heard that it was not the case for her, I was surprised and concerned. I took her words to heart and responded privately after taking the time to process what she had said. I continue to support the movement that is happening in our culture. It is necessary and long overdue.Note the reference to responding to her concerns ... PRIVATELY. (Just because there's social media doesn't mean we can't speak directly to one another, people.)
