Need Essay Typed by Thursday March 27 @10 AM

Reconfiguring Celebrity Sexual Misconduct

FALL, 2019 STUDENT

CSU Long Beach, HSC 425 Sec 27 6708

November 2, 2019; Professor Matza

Word Count: 1672

Abstract

According to the United States Department of Justice, Sexual assault is defined as any nonconsensual sexual act proscribed by Federal, tribal, or State law, including when the victim lacks capacity to consent. And based on Rainn.org, In America, every 73 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted. Many of the sexual assault occurrences go unnoticed and unreported, and for various reasons. And historically, the punitive value of the punishments doled out to offenders and perpetrators far underweighted the offenses and subsequent consequences endured by the victims and others implicated by strength of periphery. Because of the piece-meal fashion of information that’s doled out to the public, there lacks a comprehensive and expansive understanding of sexual conduct and consent, all nuanced implications therein. To magnify the issue, the celebrity world has experienced a seismic shakedown of celebrity sexual assault cases, further complicating the situation on a grand scale. When taken into account the political, sociocultural and economic factors that affect victims and aggressors of sexual assault, especially in the wealthy celebrity sphere, a shift in political and societal participation is needed, in addition to a balanced gendered accountability, along with forward and progressive reform tactics that need to be implemented to better educate the public on best prevention practices . Comment by Nathan Matza: Excellent intro.

#MeToo

Within the past few years, since 2017, there has been a wave of celebrity presence in the realm of sexual assault, with celebrities both blowing the whistle on moments of discretion, as well as those under the celebrity light being held accountable and under much fire as they have been exposed as perpetrators against victims. Sexual assault and misconduct have persisted for ages, but Gibson et al. (2019) notes, “2017 became a turning point where many accused perpetrators experienced negative consequences for their behaviors” (p. 218). “The 2017 Me Too celebrity acknowledgment of having been victimized and the powerful men accused, further got people’s attention” (Gibson et al., 2019, p. 219). This was initiated by actress Alyssa Milano, who, in a “Me Too” tweet requested her audience to respond if they had experienced sexual misconduct (Gibson et al., 2019). “Within moments, there were 30,000 responses and over 12 million reactions and posts via Snapchat, Facebook, and other platforms in two days” (Gibson et al., 2019, pp. 219-220).

“Each week, more celebrities voiced their victimization stories, and seemingly weekly, for a while, a number of celebrity men were being removed from positions or otherwise terminated in the face of accusations and related investigations” (Gibson et al., 2019, p. 220). Because of the shocking outpour of responses to the “Me Too” tweet, “Me Too” has ascended to a full-fledge movement, and in its whirlwind has picked up more than 70 cases of sexual accusations amongst high profile celebrities, and as a result displacing and dropping them from their once powerful status and out of work in the celebrity sphere. Some notable figures that have been under fire are Harvey Weinstein (film producer), Bill Cosby (comedian), Mario Batali (celebrity chef), Kevin Spacey (actor), Matt Lauer (news anchor), recently deceased John Conyers, Jr. (former U.S. Representative of Michigan), Russell Simmons (music executive), Al Franken (comedian and politician), Louis C.K. (comedian and producer), Andy Dick (actor), and many, many more. As celebrity is defined simply as a famous person, figures of various industries have been included in the scandal. Comment by Nathan Matza: Citation?

A Common Theme

A common theme in these scandals, regardless to industry, is the selfishly advantageous wielding of power. Using this power, those in positions of power and influence, generally men, are under fire. Power and influence are an obviously strong tool to lure and capture subordinates, compelling victims by fraud or coercion to give into requests not inherently desired. Without acquiescence, overtly or begrudgingly, the victim, along with their career and reputation are subject to harm. According to Gibson et al. (2019), "the harm could be a threat to the victim’s employment, performance, and/or the creation of a hostile, intimidating, or offensive work environment” (Gibson et al., 2019, p. 218).

Sexual Consent on Mars and Venus

It stands to make mention of a need for society, including celebrities, to gain a better understanding of the exact and explicit meaning and forms of appropriate sexual consent. Contextual information that will supply the public with a deeper knowledge of sociocultural differences between genders can possibly help bridge the gap and distance between Mars (men) and Venus (women). There isn’t much research on the gendered differences of indication and interpretation of sexual consent between men and women. And this is showing to be an important piece to explore and educate to better address sexual misconduct. Jozkowski, Peterson, Sanders, Dennis, and Reece (2014) state that it “is important to study sexual consent because of its relationship to sexual assault” (p. 904). In a research project performed on college students by Jozkowski et al. (2014), “analyses of how participants actually communicated and interpreted consent suggested that many college students, despite defining consent as an explicit communication of agreement, often use consent signals that are less clear than providing explicit permission or saying yes” (p. 912). It was also ascertained by Jozkowski et al. (2014), through the research that “men were more likely than women to rely on nonverbal cues to communicate and interpret consent and non-consent, and women were more likely than men to rely on verbal cues to communicate and interpret consent” (p. 913). This is one of few research attempts made at understanding the differences of men and women as it pertains to the matter of communication of sexual consent. If college students alone show a miscommunication between the sexes, it is plausible for older adults and even higher esteemed individuals, celebrities even, to experience the same wall in communication. Matters of sexual assault have been made so black and white that the existing blurred lines keep from an expansion in societal comprehension of all related phenomenon that influence or mediate something that has been going on for centuries. And, it is time for the collective to expand their efforts on how to address this issue from a didactic framework. Comment by Nathan Matza: Excellent points

Neoliberalism and Postfeminism

In another vein of drawing connections and correlations, politics and their occasional theme shifts have played a role in personal and public notions of sexual conduct and consent. It doesn’t go without sensitivity and understanding the role neoliberalism and postfeminism have played in the political undoing of the second-wave feminist’s successful movement in garnering public attention and concern to the mistreatment women faced during its time. Neoliberalism and postfeminism are complementary in their conjoined approaches to society, and together have cultivated a society that, when it comes to sexual misconduct and assault, puts a disproportionate onus and responsibility on the victim and not the perpetrator. “This convergence of neoliberal and postfeminist ideologies has had very real and often detrimental consequences for women” (Patterson & Sears, 2011, para. 13). Conversely, a fight to oppose the impression of neoliberalism and postfeminism has tried to bring back into play taking society and government back by the hand, urging them to pick back up the baton and treat this issue as a group matter and not an individual one. One observed backlash to this is the lack of balancing the accountability scale to address the role of complicity women have played in celebrity sexual assault scandals.

Accountability for Both Genders

Just as much as men require acculturation to newer societal agreement on proper sexual conduct and consent, women are in need of reproach as well, but for different matters. For female victims to “come out” after a substantial amount of time has passed, secretly acquiescing to sexual misconduct and assaults of superiors, and later demanding public support for themselves and punitive punishment for the offenders, should no longer be societally complicit nor personally practiced. And, especially if bribery tactics were accepted by the victims for silence, it should come off as common understanding that the victim essentially compromised legitimacy of their victimhood by consenting to an exchange. In the case of Harvey Weinstein, the victims made public exposure of Weinstein paying off accusers for decades. “When persons are trying to accomplish a lifelong goal, advance a career, or simply pay their bills, they may perceive a need to keep quiet about their exposure to misconduct” (Gibson et al., 2019, p. 220). This serves as a double-barreled problem, because, by consenting to a bribery exchange or submitting to abuse for career-oriented goals, not only is the victim no longer a victim in truth of innocence, but on a grander scale, the victim is now co-conspirator and agent of the cyclical problem.

Reform and Reflection

In schools and workplaces outside the career dwellings of the celebrity, efforts to bring awareness and strategy to sexual misconduct prevention have been in full swing, and especially since the “Me Too” movement. It isn’t ridiculous or rudimentary to make this a standard for all positions within the film and music industry, making no one of any status above training. Much of the training has had a heavy focus on ways to say and the imperativeness of the explicit gathering of “no”. But given the nuances surrounding appropriate and inappropriate sexual conduct, as well as indication and interpretation of consent, the education needs to be more comprehensive. In a paper by Lee, (2018), “the contents of the education and training should include as the followings: what words and behaviors are sexual harassment or gender bias, and when she or he experiences or observes sexual harassment or gender bias, she or he can speak up without fear and should be encouraged to do” (p. 433). There should also be a part of the training set aside to provide cultural context on the influence of sexual scripts and their traditional use in this country. And, given the ratio of female to male victims, it would help for men to take a strong hold in the involvement of rallying their gendered peers into support of vying for a better and more comprehensive understanding of proper sexual conduct and consent. Also, “because sexual violence affects both women and men, and also maintains gender inequality worldwide (Yodanis 2004), enlisting men’s help to end sexual violence is critical” (Yodanis, 2004, as cited in Chapleau, 2013, p. 86). Comment by Nathan Matza: Outstanding statement.

References

Chapleau, K. (2015). Using Masculinity to Stop Sexual Violence: Must Women Be Weak for Men to Be Strong? Sex Roles, 73(1-2), 86-89.

Gibson, C., Davenport, S., Fowler, T., Harris, C., Prudhomme, M., Whiting, S., & Simmons-Horton, S. (2019). Understanding the 2017 “Me Too” Movement’s Timing. Humanity & Society, 43(2), 217-224.

Jozkowski, K., Peterson, Z., Sanders, S., Dennis, B., & Reece, M. (2014). Gender Differences in Heterosexual College Students' Conceptualizations and Indicators of Sexual Consent: Implications for Contemporary Sexual Assault Prevention Education. Journal Of Sex Research, 51(8), 904-916.

Lee, B. (2018). #Me Too Movement; It Is Time That We All Act and Participate in Transformation. Psychiatry Investigation, 15(5), 433.

Patterson, N., & Sears, C. (2011). Letting men off the hook? Domestic violence and postfeminist celebrity culture. Genders, 53, Genders, Apr 2011, Vol.53.