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50 Shades of Schneiderman?
Ronan Farrow, whose New Yorker article broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal, just published another explosive investigative piece with his co-author Jane Mayer. The target this time is a powerful New York Democrat, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Schneiderman, if guilty, was especially brazen in praising the earlier New Yorker article.
And look who called this one in 2013.
Weiner is gone, Spitzer is gone – next will be lightweight A.G. Eric Schneiderman. Is he a crook? Wait and see, worse than Spitzer or Weiner
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 11, 2013
Here are highlighted excerpts of Schneiderman’s defense, from the New Yorker.
BOMBSHELL: “Four Women Accuse NY’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of Physical Abuse — he raised his profile as a voice against sexual misconduct. Now, after suing Harvey Weinstein, he faces a #MeToo reckoning of his own.” @JaneMayerNYer & @RonanFarrow https://t.co/gsolisSGAe pic.twitter.com/MVBngagjse
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) May 7, 2018
Let’s take his claims seriously to start.
In a statement, Schneiderman said, “In the privacy of intimate relationships, I have engaged in role-playing and other consensual sexual activity. I have not assaulted anyone. I have never engaged in nonconsensual sex, which is a line I would not cross.”
“[R]ole playing and other consensual sexual activity” like 50 Shades of Grey, the movie that grossed $571,006,128 on an estimated $40 million budget? The book that has sold over 100 million copies mainstreaming BDSM? Is it possible that the New York State Attorney General thought he could engage in unconventional, transgressive sexual relationships with elite sanction? Or is he a brute who saw an opportunity in elite culture?
Consider the intersection of the 50 Shades phenomenon with the Gwyneth Paltrow Goop online magazine endorsed elite Los Angeles sex party, Snctm, coming to New York in 2017. Bowker.com reported “[c]ompared to the typical adult fiction consumer, buyers of the Fifty Shades books are more likely to be women, live in the Northeast, and have a significantly higher household income.” Goop favorably reviewed Snctm:
The easy association is Eyes Wide Shut: A masqued black-tie dinner that evolves over the course of the night from amuse bouche to what founder, Damon Lawner, calls “erotic theater,” where female performers (all volunteers) set the tone for what unfolds […] Some guests engage, some engage only with each other (while women can buy a ticket, men cannot attend unless they’re members ($10,000-$50,000), part of a couple, or reserve dinner), and others choose not to touch at all.
The New York Post told a less benign story.
Men pay $1,500 to $1,875 (the discount rate applies when you bring a female partner) to attend each party, or buy an annual VIP membership for $75,000, which includes admission to all parties, access to private rooms, unlimited Cristal Champagne and a sterling silver pendant of a lion that shows they’re a top-of-the-food-chain kind of guy. Carefully vetted, beautiful women — who outnumber the guys by about three to one — pay zilch.
“We had close to 1,000 applications for this event and we’re letting in about 100,” explains Snctm founder Damon Lawner, a divorced father of two. “It’s a highly curated crowd.”
By the end of the story, a 22-year-old “Mormon [woman] raised in Utah” has “had sex with six people, including a threesome with a 50-something sugar daddy” who pays her “tuition for her third year of college and a round-trip flight to Los Angeles … [for] the next Snctm party in Hollywood….”
So it was supposedly all the rage for rich and powerful men to have cultural elite-sanctioned access to women in private BDSM and public ritualistic sex parties. What could possibly go wrong? Quite a bit, according to Mayer and Farrow.
As New York State’s highest-ranking law-enforcement officer, Schneiderman, who is sixty-three, has used his authority to take legal action against the disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein, and to demand greater compensation for the victims of Weinstein’s alleged sexual crimes.
Yet, “four women with whom he has had romantic relationships or encounters … accuse Schneiderman of having subjected them to nonconsensual physical violence.”
[T]wo of the women, Michelle Manning Barish and Tanya Selvaratnam, have talked to The New Yorker on the record, because they feel that doing so could protect other women. They allege that he repeatedly hit them, often after drinking, frequently in bed and never with their consent. Manning Barish and Selvaratnam categorize the abuse he inflicted on them as “assault.” They did not report their allegations to the police at the time, but both say that they eventually sought medical attention after having been slapped hard across the ear and face, and also choked.
The rest of the story is one of women being repeatedly smacked around by Schneiderman, confiding in friends, and yet not taking him down. The reason? “He’s a good attorney general, he’s doing good things. I didn’t want to jeopardize that.” What good things? Progressive things, according to The New Yorker.
Schneiderman’s activism on behalf of feminist causes has increasingly won him praise from women’s groups. On May 1st, the New York-based National Institute for Reproductive Health honored him as one of three “Champions of Choice” at its annual fund-raising luncheon.
It appears that Schneiderman’s prosecution of Harvey Weinstein finally drove the women he allegedly abused to break their silence to the same writer who had the tenacity to break the media wall of silence on Hollywood abusers of women. But how did this man think that his behavior would never come back to bite his career? Remember the decade-old example of Republican Jack Ryan’s Senate 2004 candidacy being sunk by sex club claims from his divorce? The salacious sex club tidbits were detailed by CNN, of course. Ah, but that was a Republican and Obama had to be elected to the Senate.
Unable to withstand pressure from media and politicians, Eric Schneiderman resigned his post within hours after allegations of his physical abuse against women were published.
Statement By Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman
“It’s been my great honor and privilege to serve as Attorney General for the people of the State of New York. In the last several hours, serious allegations, which I strongly contest, have been made against me. While these allegations are unrelated to my professional conduct or the operations of the office, they will effectively prevent me from leading the office’s work at this critical time. I therefore resign my office, effective at the close of business on May 8, 2018.”
The New York Times has already published a good summary of Schneiderman’s rise and fall. The Times wrote of his progressive credentials, also referred to in The New Yorker.
Mr. Schneiderman has long been regarded as one of the state’s most progressive politicians, even before his 2013 lawsuit against Trump University and his subsequent suits against the Trump administration made him the darling of the political left. Last fall, Mr. Schneiderman’s office proudly pointed to a segment on the late-night comedy show “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee,” in which the attorney general was described as “a hero who stood up to democracy’s nemesis,” a Superman-like character known as Schneider-man.
From #Resistance and #MeToo hero to retaining a criminal defense attorney against his own possible prosecution in less than a day.
Published in Law
I suppose that is different from consensual physical violence. Although I must admit it is the rare woman (zero to date) who has asked me to beat the crap out of her.
I made that point about 50 Shades, peddling what is mostly fantasy, although there certainly is a BDSM subculture, and that has been celebrated as “transgressive” going back to at least Mapplethorpe (no possible CoC compliant link).
Sorry, where did you make that point? Don’t doubt you for one second, just that I did not see it.
Ah, I see. Assumed knowledge of the talk around 50 Shades. I’ll make it clear.
This club shows how women are the guardians of sex.
*So let’s see if I got this right. Womyn that competed to belong to an exclusive BDSM club are upset because somebody BDSMed them?
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/four-women-accuse-new-yorks-attorney-general-of-physical-abuse
You beat me to it, Clifford.
I love seeing these phony boys fall from grace.
Maybe he can share an apartment with Elliot Spitzer. It would be Spitzer and Hits-her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfEcvBfUY4&list=RDkrfEcvBfUY4&start_radio=1
From 1973 through 2008, nine surveys of women’s rape fantasies have been published. They show that about four in 10 women admit having them (31 to 57 percent) with a median frequency of about once a month. Actual prevalence of rape fantasies is probably higher because women may not feel comfortable admitting them.
Of course there’s a huge difference between fantasy and reality….
I know it was a big deal with runaway sells, but I don’t know who stole my life story and gave it to the author.
Given my highly limited jaunt through BDSM books at the height of 50 Shades popularity, BDSM violence is highly ritualistic and includes permission and safe words.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the push for step by step consent in normal sexual relations between average couples took its model from BDSM culture.
So I think that even in BDSM enthusiasts, Schneiderman engaging in rage induced violence without permission or safe words is in that realm of non-consensual.
Personally, I think sexual immorality is a beast, that once engaged, engorges itself and leads the practitioner to consider ever more illicit ways to get that gratification. The further in you go, the deeper you want to go. The book or two I read on BDSM, in their apologetic way, implicitly acknowledge this demon and describe highly disciplined boundaries in BDSM culture to avoid crossing those lines. I’m not inclined to believe that is the case in actual practice.
Lordy. No wonder so many women on the Left are misandrists! Are all the men on their side freakazoids?
It certainly is not a 50 Shades-fueled phenomenon. In 1981 more Americans watched the fictional wedding of a rapist and his victim than watched Prince Charles and Lady Diana tie the knot in real life. The Luke and Laura storyline on the soap General Hospital is legendary in broadcast history. The “rape-turned-romance” even had its own hit single, Rise by Herb Alpert. (The 2nd and last of his #1 charted singles in the US.)
The story was pushed by GH executive producer Gloria Monty, although she claims she “softened” it from its original writing and blocking. By the time she passed in 2006 she had completely rationalized it. “We prefer to call it a choreographed seduction.”
As for Schneiderman, he probably felt he was 10-foot tall and bulletproof. Because Robert Mueller was moving too slow for Marxists, the NY AG was being touted as the real savior. Samantha Bee did a glowing piece on him on her TBS show and Politico ran a story headlined “Will This Man Take Down Donald Trump?” (My guess is the answer is “no.”)
Perhaps this will be their ‘Gary Hart’ moment. The media gleefully sunk Gary Hart and his Presidential aspirations back in 1987(88?). That resulted in A Mike Dukakis Dem candidacy and the election of George H Bush. After that, it’s clear that the media said “never again” and turned a blind eye to anything and everything untoward that Bill Clinton ever did.
If they see the Metoo thing getting in the way of getting Trump, that could happen again.
How much of this is borne from a fundamental misunderstanding of marital relations and rape brought to us by Feminism?
Hear me out – women are told that any and all unwanted sex is rape. But is it? Not all unwanted sex is non-concensual. I’d be hard pressed to say the girl who sold her body for a meal or shelter really actually wanted it.
Not all sex in marriage is wanted. Especially in arranged marriages, early sexual relations between arranged couples might be unwanted and done out of a sense of duty.
With the conflation of rape and unwanted sex, those sexual experiences take on a violent aspect that isn’t actually present in reality.
So rather than the romanticism of an arranged marriage that starts with unwanted sex and blossoms into love, you get a rape fantasy a la Danaerys and Drogo in Game of Thrones (arranged marriage, wedding night portrayed as rape, Dany falling in love).
Oh, I think the following video deserves a place on this thread! It isn’t really about abortion, despite the title:
link
[Why doesn’t just pasting the YouTube link work anymore?]
But, Bryan, everyone always knew this. How dare you repeat this hate fact.
The only “women’s” issue that matters to the progressive left is unfettered access to abortion. How convenient to support something which they think will erase the visible consequences of their perverted behavior. I was astounded at the women in the New Yorker article who basically put up with his behavior because of his politics. I wonder if he will be prosecuted under the strangulation law he championed. Paging Dr. Freud.
As a side note, don’t forget that someone in the Obama camp had Ryan’s sealed divorce records unsealed. The ends justify the means.
I was too. The actual assault victims usually seem to put politics aside. It’s the third parties, then, who excuse or ignore the behavior (see Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton). This is the first I’m aware of where the assault victims themselves gave the perp a pass due to his Progressive politics.
Rape is not sex. Rape is violence and an assault.
Many wives have acquiesced to their husband’s desires for sex even if they weren’t “in the mood.” While the extreme feminist calls that “rape,” few other women do. But if there’s physical assault, hitting, threats – even in marriage – that’s rape. We’ve come a long way since Rideout v Oregon.
Why would anyone be drawn to someone who physically abused them? Why would anyone think that would be the basis for romance?
I’m asking if the feminist portrayal of unwanted sexual relations common in arranged marriages and not unheard of in healthy, happy marriages as “rape” got twisted in the imaginations of women who enjoy such fantasies, who romanticize violent rape.
In other words, the slow language shift conflated multiple definitions – the old definition of rape that is intuitive (violent assault) is tangled up with the feminist definition of unwanted sex.
Another observation is women also overwhelmingly romanticize sex with strangers.
I just wonder if the original fantasy is stranger/arranged marriage/unwanted sex turned lovers that got perverted by Feminism claiming unwanted sex is rape… so now the fantasy is stranger/rape turned lovers.
I don’t really want to think too closely about how Trump might have insight into the seamy sexual histories of prominent NYC power brokers.
I can hear him now. “I am the only one who can fix this sexual swamp because I have …”
Going back at least to the Marquis de Sade, who lent his name to the BDSM acronym, and probably for thousands of years prior to that.
No, his prey were not part of such a subculture. They were all successful and politically progressive.
I do not understand why but I do know womyn that want, crave the violence as part of the relationship / sex ritual. As I got older I have come to the conclusion that everybody has a kink. Some are just more acceptable than others.
But oddly they fear the guys on the Right. Men that are more likely to respect them and treat them correctly.
Think you are overstating things a bit, but I always tell my single friends that if they want to find a marriage partner, join a dating service, but if you want ladies to propose to you become a notable serial killer.
I’m intrigued by the fact that Schneiderman–with these skeletons in his closet–can be so aggressive in terms of making enemies in his career. I haven’t read the article (I live in a Jane Mayer free zone), but I’m guessing there’s a degree of payback here from somebody.
It appears that he believed his solid progressive credentials would insulate him. When he allegedly started, he could look back at Bill Clinton and have reason to believe there was a successful strategy for using women, so long as you were seen as important to advancing the correct progressive politics. And it worked, until it didn’t. From the New Yorker account, he build up a critical mass of victims, who were able to connect in the New York progressive sphere, and who finally agreed to act after he became the public face of the top #MeToo prosecution.
Kimberly Guilfoyle knows for a fact that Schneiderman has more victims.