Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

He doesn't have any expectation of privacy to begin with. What are you talking about? She is free to reveal whatever about him. As long as she's not lying, he can't do anything about it. Where does she get a duty not to embarrass him? She doesn't.

You can think she's a bad person, I guess, but I don't because he treated her in a way that she felt was violative and I don't think that's entirely unreasonable and because of the important conversation.

Re: Jeff Flake
 

Tax cuts are a pretty core Republican staple. But I am sure you'd love him if he just cast that one vote differently.

Of course I would prefer it not add to the deficit, and it was a crappier bill than it had to be, but we could also remedy the deficit/debt issue with a conservative solution to the spending side of the equation. Or we could if both parties would get their heads out of their respective asses with respect to the necessity of entitlement reform.

Re: Jeff Flake
 

Yeah, let the old and the sick pay for it. Screw those guys. What we definitely shouldn't do is war less. We need those wars. That's the ticket.

Re: Jeff Flake
 

I would have respected him for voting against that bill, for sure, regardless of the reasons. The bill is not a tax cut like the W bill was a tax cut -- it's a mishmash of ambiguity and nonsense that as someone who has to play tax lawyer often, and at least has to understand tax structuring in the private equity space, it makes my head hurt. If he had opposed it for the reasons the deficit hawks had initially expressed misgivings (which I assume are conservative reasons by your definition), I would have loved him for it because others might have been inspired to jump on board and kill it.

Re: Chicago question
 

No you weren't. That theater is in Lincoln Park. Michigan stops well south of Lincoln Park.

I lived about 5 blocks from Wrigley. It was fun when I was younger, but it's probably too fratty for old lawtalkerpeople.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Objectively, empirically, it's pretty obvious that you're wrong -- he had a reasonably expectation of privacy. As others have pointed out, her experience is not uncommon, and most men in his position do not get shamed as he did. I'm not talking about his or her rights, just about how people usually treat each other.

I didn't say that, but I think she did something she shouldn't have done.

My question was whether *you* thought she should have done it. She reasonably might have wanted to take a baseball bat to his car the next day, but that doesn't mean that it would have been a good idea. And the idea that people surrender their privacy for the greater good of enlightenment in sexual politics strikes me as a terribly illiberal view, a sexual version of destroying a village to save it.

Re: Chicago question
 

Right Lincoln. I walked from the Loop to the Moth somewhere on Lincoln and was across from the theater.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Yeah, she's free to reveal what she wants about him down to dick size and thrust frequency, but it does make her a shitty person. And it doesn't negate the idea that sex is generally considered to be a private interaction to be shared only among the participants. In fact, my most held dear line of case law from Girswold to Roe to Casey to Lawrence is based in part on the idea that there is a privacy interest in what happens in the bedroom that should be free of government interference. To dismiss that norm in the private arena out of hand, especially to such a vast audience, requires, in my opinion, a pretty big justification.

It's one thing to bitch over text or mimosas the next day with a bunch of girlfriends (which is I'm sure how this thing started) or report to anonymous posting board full of lawyers who will never meet both parties about a golden shower request, but it's quite another to broadcast these details to the world at large. It's a violation of privacy, in my opinion. It might be worth it for a variety of reasons and it may not have recourse, but it's still a violation of privacy, in my opinion.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You keep trying to get out from under having an actual conversation.

• Yes, celebrities, whether or not they acted poorly, should expect people to be shitty and share their experiences--even with media outlets
• Yes, you believe Ansari isn't a victim
• No, no one (who doesn't have an NDA and a pen on hand) has the ability to keep anyone from telling other people about their experiences
• No, there's no recourse if people do share information (for people who aren't Harvey Weinstein)

I'm not sure if you don't want to have a real conversation because the positions you've taken aren't convenient when applied to normal people or non-cad-like celebrities or not. But I'm still trying.

Now, what are your expectations when it comes to being with someone? Do you go into a relationship thinking that your sexual experiences with that person are for public consumption? Is it reasonable for whoever you're with to assume you won't talk about their sexual proclivities with anyone, everyone, and/or the media? Whether or not they understand that every other, every fifth, or every tenth sexual partner will blab to TMZ or Babe.com, can celebrities expect the same things or have they forfeited all rights to any kind of privacy at all? When do those expectations of privacy attach--only in very serious, committed relationships? Do your rules only apply if the person acts aggressively or crosses a line? How about if they're into some kinky shit that the other person isn't? Do they have to explicitly ask the other person to keep their private shit private? How do your rules differ when it comes to men sharing women's private sexual acts vs. women sharing men's?

I think it's funny that you say that we all expect people to act decently when addressing whether or not people should share private information and then say Ansari isn't a victim when his private encounter became the subject of a widely read article. Relative to this woman and the experience she had, it's hard to think of him as a victim or to muster much sympathy, sure. It's easy to say he isn't without really putting any thought into the fact that we're talking about two very different things because he crossed some lines. But does that mean that sharing their private encounter wasn't a shitty thing to do on some level? What if he was a perfect gentlemen and they had enthusiastically consensual sex and he wanted her to stick her finger in his ass and she went to Babe.com with that information? Does that make him a victim?

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Well that is probably true. And it is a lesson he learned I suppose. Still, I think you ask for pretty perfect, and all knowing, behavior.

The story of the evening, from her account, is far from him being a big shit. She came to his place, they got undressed, she said no, they got dressed again. He kept bringing up doing something, she kept saying no, but not leaving.

She was interested in having a meaningful interaction with a celebrity maybe? He just wanted to get his dick wet maybe? Would she have been happier if he asked her to leave?

I mean, I haven't dated in a long long time, and I hope i would play things right in such a situation. I know I always honored a no, and trust me I had lots of practice at "no"s. But the overall totality was not a clear, "no and stop suggesting stuff," at least from what she wrote.

And it is a shit move to spend time with a celeb, in part because she was likely somewhat starstruck, and then do this reveal. It seems aimed and harming his career if not ruining it. She has "a right" to I suppose, but it just seems wrong.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

“Buy the ticket, take the ride,” Donald.

Is there anyone who’s even remotely surprised, or doesn’t feel he deserves it? He’s not Ansari. He’s not in the same stadium with Ansari.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Ever enjoyed the company of anyone who relished destroying people? Among its worst sins, this Babe piece feeds that instinct among losers.

In an age of so much inequality, expect more of this, in various forms, far beyond sexual stories. Nothing the wretched enjoy more than ripping down a person who’s made it... an “elite” of sorts.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

So, the Babe writer had more to say to Ashleigh Banfield:

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/ashleigh...-ansari-piece/

Huh.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

The least shocking part of that is when she says she’s 22.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

How? What does he do to enforce this privacy right? If he can't enforce it, in what sense does it exist?

How? What is the sanction for this wrongdoing? If there is none, in what sense should she not have done it?

I think she appropriately highlighted conduct that's not okay even if not sanctionable. How are you possibly still asking me that? What she did was appropriate, if poorly handled by babe.net.

How many time do I have to say he has no privacy right in keeping his inappropriate conduct toward her secret should she choose to make it public? How many times can you fail to even remotely articulate a theory under which he has such a privacy right? Under what theory can he make her not tell the truth about him? None, because he has no such privacy right.

And he doesn't for obvious reasons, including the fact that such a right would chill the speech of victims of actionable misconduct too. We don't get to sue the people who accuse us of wrongdoing unless they are intentionally lying for exactly that reason.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

There is exactly zero government involvement here. Ty is arguing that a participant who feels victimized is barred by the privacy interest of the alleged victimizer. It's not at all analogous.

I share your sense of qualitative difference although I'm not sure there's much remaining practical difference in the social media age.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I'm not sure why a "real conversation" is about me but not Ansari, but if I leave someone feeling victimized I hope out of self interest they will accept an apology and keep it to themselves, but I do not expect that nor would I feel victimized if they told others. Whether that's friends or authorities or the press, if I was someone who interested them, it's my fault if I read the signals wrong.

You guys both seem to have an "ask the same question repeatedly because you don't like the answer" thing going on, but I go into those experiences with the expectation that she will tell someone else about them. Most likely, it's just her friends and assuming things go reasonably okay, she will share only discretely, but should she feel violated I'd expect a wider audience. Were I a celebrity, that wider audience would potentially include the press.

Me? It's reasonable to assume I won't talk about mere proclivities except perhaps to semi-anonymous imaginary internet lawyer friends. Partners? It's not reasonable, nor realistic to assume they won't talk about proclivities with friends, and violations with authorities and, if I were a celebrity, the media.

Celebrities who leave partners feeling victimized should expect that said partners may talk to the media. They have zero enforceable privacy rights regardless, as long as the revelations are truthful. This is the case regardless of the depth of relationship.

The person who reveals consensual kinky behavior is a bad person, but the person who is exposed nonetheless has no enforceable privacy right against truthful exposure.

Ansari is accused of wrongdoing. That you or I think the wrongdoing isn't actionable doesn't make the revelation of alleged wrongdoing itself a wrong.

I can't really believe that's even a point of discussion among lawyers. Surely y'all have seen meritorious claims that have nonetheless not resulted in successful awards. Or sincere complaints that while bad did not rise to the level of recovery. This isn't even remotely controversial in our non-fee shifting system. People are allowed to make allegations that don't bear fruit.

If you think her claims are entirely without merit, it was an entirely shitty thing to do. I don't.

He asked and respected her no? She would be shitty for revealing it but he would still have no privacy right to stop her from truthfully doing so.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

In a group of left-leaning lawyers exactly one thinks it's okay that she brought up borderline accusations against him publicly. It is not going to ruin his career.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Definitely does not assuage any of the concerns about her reporting.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I didn't say that there was government involvement. I'm saying that to say that there's no privacy interest in bedroom activities is absurd. Gawker.com would probably also recognize that point.

I don't think that a single thing as described makes him have done anything illegal. Doesn't mean he acted correctly. Similarly, I think that she and babe.net violated his privacy even though there isn't a damned thing that he can do about it. I feel exactly the same about revenge porn and exes who post private photographs, videos, etc.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Stop thinking like a lawyer for a moment and think like a human being. I didn't use the word "right" or "enforce." He had an expectation of privacy.

See my first comment. I'm not talking about the law. Exodus says an eye for an eye, but in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says to turn the other cheek. So God has sent mixed messages here. But I think what she did is not justified by what he did, even though I can understand her desire for revenge.

You don't have to say anything more about privacy rights -- you've said quite enough.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Exactly. Both of them harmed the other, and neither has any recourse. Neither of them should be proud of how they acted. It's too bad that so many people seem to feel that you have to pick a side here. Not liking what she did doesn't make me like what he did any more.

Anyway, I liked this tweet and the thread that followed:

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Don 't confuse "okay" with approval by me (or I suspect, most others here). I think we're all free speech absolutists because, well, most lawyers tend to be, given the importance of that freedom we're all taught in first year.

But am I comfortable with what Katie Way did? No. Am I comfortable with what Grace did? Not really, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt because I think the culpable party here is Babe, and more specifically, Way. And if you've read Way's embarrassing email to Ashley Banfield, I think I'm right in that indictment. (There is no question, this Way person is an immature fool who has no business tackling an issue so sensitive.)

When dealing with an identified or easily identifiable person, there are some story details You Just Don't Write. Even with celebrities, people wait until the subject is dead to author sexually explicit tell-alls. (Scotty Bower's somewhat questionable Full Service is a highly entertaining example.)

Why is this rule observed? In part out of a sense of decency. In bigger part because no one wants to encourage expansion of libel law. Ansari's story walks the line of defamation (direct and by imputation, which is a troubling but accepted theory). We currently have a President who wants to expand libel law to resemble what they have in Britain (where a powerful person may still squash a story by court order simply on grounds it undercuts state authority [try getting the Pentagon Papers published in that environment]). We have autistic megalomaniacs like Peter Thiel engaged in champerty against the press.

Tempting an expansion of libel laws is never a good idea, but right now, it's uniquely dangerous. Ansari is not going to sue, but someone else - some well heeled shitball from Wall St., some social invalid tech wizard - is going to hire a team of mercenaries to replicate the Gawker debacle. And it's going to set terrible precedent.

There's nothing to gain and a shit-ton to lose testing the notion we should have "radical transparency." And let's face it -- radical transparency is an awful concept. It's like pure Libertarianism. It seems cool when you're 16, but ludicrous when you're 30. And it's worth noting the person who brought it to us, Zuckerberg, also brought us the most malignant and insipid technology of the past twenty years.

You want to live in a world where it's socially acceptable to name and link last week's lousy lay on Facebook? You want to live in a world where the only people immune to that are the uber-wealthy, now armed with libel law expanded by the army of Trump judges in the district and appellate courts?

Publishing the Ansari story is "okay." But it's also incredibly indecent, and horrendously unwise.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

He didn't seek to destroy her career when she rejected his advances. He wrote her an apology for being aggressive.

She knew there was a good chance of significant harm to him when she agreed to talk to Babe.

The room Grace should have left most quickly was the one in which she met with Katie Way.

Re: Jeff Flake
 

Deficits. How quaint.

"They don't count." - Dick C.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

out of this

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Too early to say, at least it will limit the stories his show can tell. And my point wasn't whether she ruined his career, it was whether she aimed to.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Can you understand that she feels she was victimized and as such wants to warn others?

Not necessarily directly related, a rape survivor and advocate's reaction.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

There is no libel law to expand. You mean tempting a constitutional amendment to curtail free speech and press rights. That isn't going to happen.

Yeah, find the right test case and the Roberts majority could tinker on the edges if there were strong conservative consensus in that direction, but there isn't and such a case doesn't currently exist.

Maybe 45 will eventually lead the utterly valueless elected members of the GOP in that direction, but it's not imminent.

It says something about our collective age that (1) you say Facebook and not snapchat or whatever I'm too old to know about, and (2) you think it's not already happening and accepted.

Re: Jeff Flake
 

People will pretend to care when we have Democratic rule again.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

No. I cannot. Because it is not acceptable to seek to destroy a person's career for what he did. Because a person "feels" something does not mean it is objectively actionable. This is why professional journalists, rather than petulant children like Katie Way and the rest of Babe, traditionally controlled the Fourth Estate.

Look, I like the Internet's capacity to speak truth to power as much as the next guy. I love how it's destroyed all the facades we used to believe. When you aim that weapon at a Weinstein, a Trump, or even at the complicit members of the media itself, that's a good thing. When a child (and Katie Way is very much a bratty child) takes a story about how someone "felt" (quite unreasonably) what was clearly not an assault was somehow an assault, and then seeks to destroy someone, nobody is speaking truth to power.

Babe is TMZ. This is a TMZ story. And that's legal, and it's okay. But nobody's giving Harvey Levin any awards. And nobody should. He's a pariah. You can try to justify Way's actions by suggesting Grace really believed this was an event demanding action with a high likelihood of ending Ansari's career. But no one - and I mean no one - buys that bullshit. Ansari did not deserve this, and Grace is delusional if she truly thinks Ansari deserved to be #metooed for this. And no - her "feelings" don't change anything, because objectively, the facts don't justify them.

There are objective standards to this stuff. Ashley Banfield laid them out pretty coherently. Way fucked this up, but good. I'll bet half of Manhattan knows exactly who Grace is, and she'll suffer career damage from this. You know who won't? Way. She's cashing in on this. And everyone who apologizes for her, everyone offering a tortured justification for what was objectively indefensible, is filling her bank account.

You want to get in bed with a 23 year old Harvey Levin in the making? Have at it. I'm done.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Really? You are responding to a post in which I said I understand her desire for revenge. Is it possible to have a desire for revenge without feeling victimized?

I didn't get from the Babe piece that her main interest was warning others.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You're (1) assuming her motives and (2) failing to view what he did from the victim's perspective.

Read the Abby Honold piece I linked above. She's a victim and an advocate and not a lawyer, so yeah, there are things that aren't perfectly accurate in it, but it should at least give you some sense of how its not "clearly not an assault."

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I'm specifically viewing it from her perspective. That's required to ascertain whether, objectively, her response to it, and her view of it, were reasonable.

They were not reasonable. A reasonable person in that circumstance would not do what she did. A less than fully matured adult, manipulated by a reckless media person, would take the actions she did.

I wouldn't be surprised if Grace regrets what she did, having now considered the situation from Ansari's perspective. If you wish to make it okay to do what she did because she "felt" a certain way, then we must also consider Ansari's feelings. He felt things had progressed differently, but nevertheless apologized. And this situation involved two people. His "feelings" therefore, must also be considered in determining whether such a potentially damaging article was warranted.

Regarding Grace's intent, no reasonable person could argue, given the current climate, that Grace didn't know the potential damage this could do to Ansari. I give her a bit of a pass because I suspect she was manipulated. But she knew or should have known this could have ended the man's career. And Way certainly knew this.

The piece you linked does not make the case for this being an assault. It makes the case that men should understand that consent is a very delicate thing, and they should be more attuned to the cues that it is in question, and where in question, refrain. But in Ansari's case, where consent became questionable, he did indeed refrain. That he tried to cajole, that he tried to pester his way to "enthusiastic consent" (an incredibly subjective standard I suspect we'll unfortunately be seeing more often), does not make his actions an assault. The author's theory does not get us there.

Again, I stand on what I said earlier. I remain done. Consider this a mere further explanation of why.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I'm actually ready to go back to talking about the last stupid think Trump did.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

If only a man had been around to tell her. :rolleyes:

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Not sure what you think this adds to the conversation. When you have a thought on this subject, presumably your reaction is to disregard it because you're a man. But then you should disregard that reaction too. How do you get beyond that vicious cycle?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Honestly, this is probably the dumbest stand I've ever seen you take. Because there is no ability to enforce an expectation and no ability to punish a violation, it doesn't exist?

How do you argue this and then, in the same breath, argue that what he did was wrong? She couldn't enforce her expectation that he act like a gentlemen and she has no sanction for his wrongdoing.

This is ridiculous.

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

This conversation is over.

His thought is not disregarded. His substitution of his judgment of what happened for her's is.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

g.o.