Neil Gaiman — the best-selling author whose work includes comic book series *The Sandman *and the novels Good Omens and American Gods — has denied sexual assault allegations made against him by two women with whom he had relationships with at the time, Tortoise Media reports.
The allegations were made during Tortoise’s four-part podcast Master: the Allegations Against Neil Gaiman, which was released Wednesday. In it, the women allege “rough and degrading sex” with the author, which the women claim was not always consensual.
One of the women, a 23-year-old named Scarlett, worked as a nanny to his child.
Sleeping with the nanny less than half your age isn’t a great start for a discussion of power dynamics in a sexual relationship.
I’m not going to assume anything either way, bo the women deserve to be heard, at the very least.
Agreed, but in my experience people in their early twenties can be surprisingly experienced and conscious kinksters, able to voice consent and negotiate intense situations. While people in their fourties can be incredibly insecure, unable to communicate their needs and insecurities, while still wanting to play.
It’s a matter of experience, self-awareness and skills, and those don’t come with age, but with work on yourself and education. We need so much more sex education and communication about these things.
The woman in question doesn’t seem to be an experienced kinkster though, and she should totally be heard in any case. But the age argument distracts from the real issues, I believe.
The age matters less than the power-dynamics of her being his nanny.
I disagree. I think they are both of equal, but different import.
As in he controls her paycheck but she has physical access to his kids?
Oh, I’m sorry that was unclear. The age/maturity dynamic is as important here as the employer/employee one. I didn’t mean the two parties are on equal footing.
Yes, absolutely. That’s what I was trying to say. Also, because of another reply in this thread: I didn’t mean him, or him being insecure, in my example of the fourty year old… I meant a 40 year old at the bottom of the power dynamics. As compared to a 20 year old.
I think under 25 is still not a full adult. There’s research that the brain isn’t fully developed. And personality is still in flux as well. I couldn’t care less about huge age differences, but only when older than 25-30.
Raise the voting age to thirty?
No they still need to be a part of our society and this should have the right to control it. I’m just talking about consent. People under 25 generally are more easily manipulated due to both physiological and sociological characteristics. And there’s not a specific age, everyone is different of course, but as a general rule I find it unethical for someone over 40 to date someone under 25. But I wouldn’t find it unethical for someone over 60 to date someone in their 30s or 40s for example.
Hmm seems that’s leaving a lot of room for disparity, have you considered establishing a testing centre where people go to check their compatibility and permission to date is only given if both are intellectually and emotionally within a set margin of each other.
And I really don’t think we can allow people incapable of deciding their own romantic and sexual partners to make important choices that affect the nation. How can you say someone is too silly to decide who to spend time with but should be able to choose the longterm future of millions of people?
I never said anything like that. I said a person in that phase of life should not date someone in a different phase of life just like a 10 year old should not date a 15 year old, a 20 year old should not date a 15 year old, but a 35 year old dating a 40 year old is not a big deal at all. They are still only 5 years differences, but is it not obvious that the younger of the 10/15 or 15/20 pairs would be at a huge disadvantage in the relationship and so is likely to be taken advantage of even if not intentionally? Now if sex education and relationship education was more common in our society, it might not be as big of a problem for the 20 yo/40 yo couple like it’s not a big deal for a 40/60 couple, but that’s not reality. And there’s still the problem that it’s easier to manipulate a 20 yo than a 40 yo because of physical brain development (again, not everyone but in general).
As for voting, I believe anyone who has to survive in the society on their own should vote. That includes under 18 if they are emancipated for example, IMHO.
People in their forties who are also massive global celebrities? I doubt he was especially insecure.
*60s
Oops. You’re right. I read ‘forties’ from the person I was replying to and wires got crossed.
One of the accusations was twenty years ago so 40s applies.
Either way, he was a big celebrity then and he is one now, so I don’t think we can argue that this was some insecurity on his part.
Well, celebrities have more to lose if their sexual partner becomes hostile, so that could be one way celebrities are insecure about sex.
If you truly believe that a celebrity can’t be insecure, you don’t really understand how humans work.
I didn’t mean him in that example, but the bottom of the power dynamic being 40, or 20.
I’ll disagree about age. At 23, the pre-frontal cortex is still developing and won’t be finished until around 25.
It’s responsible for:
There is a distinct imbalance between someone in their 60’s and someone in their early 20’s. I’m not saying it can’t be carefully and respectfully navigated, but it has to be acknowledged and accounted for.
It doesn’t sound like that happened here.
Then we have the power dynamic of a celebrity who is also your employer. Add in a healthy dose of fictive kinship due to the live-in nature of a nanny and you’re in a situation rife with the potential for abuse.
IIRC, that study didn’t conclude it stopped at 25, it expected it to stop at 18, but it kept going, and they ran out of funding at 25. A likely conclusion is that it never really stops, it’s just that what was measured wasn’t really development, but “change”.
Okay, source it if you’ve got it, because the idea that a single study ran out of funding at 25 and that’s where the number comes from is such an odd suggestion, as though no one else has studied the brain’s development and neuroscientists everywhere just shrugged and thought, “if only the funding were there.”
Here’s a well-sourced article that concludes the brain continues to develop well into the mid-20’s.
While the brain will always continue to develop and grow, due to neuroplasticity, the concern is whether or not the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for long-term decision making, is properly developed. This development continues into the mid-20’s and is well-documented.
Here’s a 2022 study where they looked at over 100,000 brain scans from people 110 days old to over 100 years old used to draw and affirm similar conclusions.
While 25 isn’t magic number, as everyone’s brains develop on different timelines, it is a rational and reasonable landmark that can be reliably used for broad discussions.
Here’s more from the National Institute of Mental Health and Penn Medicine.
Looking through it now, I believe the conversation I was in was referencing this: https://www.nature.com/articles/npp2014236 , specifically because it’s not a random group of scans. It’s a rather ambitious study, from 1989, and is, as it was told to me, where the journos got ahold of the “25” number. In fact, the first article you link’s sources seem to all have the 1999 version as their first reference, probably because they’re all pre-2014. No mention of money in the paper, obviously, but it does talk of the study as “ongoing”, and I couldn’t find a newer followup, so, uh, yeah.
As I was digging, though, I ran into this: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42540-8 , so the number you go with, if it even makes sense to go with a number, is still a matter of what you want to measure, I’d say.
Not sure how exactly your sources are measuring “development”, but at the age of 41 I know for a fact I still have prefrontal neurogenesis happening. I still have neuroplasticity, etc. My brain’s not going to stop developing until I’m dead.
That’s neuroplasticity, which is true.
Right, so do you know how your sources are differentiating “development” from “neuroplasticity”?
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and only a couple hours after they first met…
You never had sex on the first date?
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Fair.
Sorry, I’m still at the getting a first date stage
Oh. Well keep your chin up things. Confidence and competency are key.
You were supposed to cheer him up, not shatter his dreams twice!