We Need To Talk About Neil Gaiman – YouTube Dictation Transcript & Vocabulary

1.hey everyone and welcome back to today's video um today we are going to be discussing the Neil gaming situation in quite a bit of detail and having a wider conversation about consent and power dynamics in general so it's definitely going to be a difficult one it's going to be a heavy one if you need to skip this video for whatever reason that is absolutely fine I do not mind at all please take care of yourself and put your own needs first so for those of you who don't know Neil giman is currently a 64 year-old English author who has been accused of Say by a number of women who were either his fans or employees or both he's best known for his fantasy short stories novels graphic novels um episodes of legendary TV serieses like Doctor Who and so much more he has always been vocal about calling himself a male feminist and he has been praised in the past for his portrayals of strong women I don't know I've always found that a little questionable but I've still enjoyed his work I absolutely have um I think he is an excellent WR feminist is not the word that will come to mind when I describe when I thought of his work his writing his his stuff but I thought it was good none the nonetheless why can't I speak today yeah like I think you can enjoy a piece of work or several of them while still noticing that it is flawed in various ways including ways that you know maybe it doesn't represent women in the best way in some cases um there was a lot of rape and torture and murder of women and so on I can think of several of his less known graphic novels where the female characters if there are any are reduced to merely like a sexy prop you know but his work is what we're here to talk about today we're talking about his actions off the page in the real world I do have to say though like I've spoken a few times in videos about separating the art from the artist and where is it possible where is it not and that sort of thing and I have to admit that since all this has come to light I've gone back and reread a bunch of his comics and books that I already owned and like I say as much as I want to advocate for separating the art and the artists and saying yes it's absolutely possible and I feel like maybe like as long as you're not financially supporting someone who's terrible then it's okay I do find that like my experience has been tainted my enjoyment has been tainted like it's really hard to freely enjoy the work of someone who you know is a monster right it's like how you read lovecraft's horror stories and you can appreciate that they're damn fantastic horror stories but in the back of your mind you still kind of sat there waiting for him to do or say something racist and it makes you uncomfortable and you're like can't can't fully enjoy this it's it's kind of like that here except you can't quite relax and enjoy the stories as much knowing that a lot of the times how he was writing about women we're talking about Neil giman again now is how he was treating them in real life it and and worse I don't I don't um yes it makes me uncomfortable I'm struggling a bit okay so let's talk about some of the allegations against him and as much as I believe women I have to call them allegations for reasons you know um a few have come out since July 2024 but the main ones I want to focus on in today's video are the ones that spoken about in the recent vulture article which is titled there is no safe word how the bestselling fantasy orth Neil gaan hid the darkest parts of himself for decades written by Lyla Shapiro the whole article is behind a pay wall which is a little bit annoying so if you want someone who is going to go through it line by line I recommend you check out Alise's video I edited that video for her it's very good she goes very in depth she does not hold back she's fantastic and also I just love azy she's a great person this video is a bit different to hers because I'm doing more discussing and analyzing whereas she is just very like in depth and talking about it all and not holding back so two different videos same topic different purposes I recommend you watch both because like I say I think El is fantastic I'll link her is down in the video description along with a load of uh resources books you can read if you want to find out if you want to find out more about some of the topics I'm discussing and there's also a lot of uh links to Charities and organizations that can help you if you have been affected by anything we're talking about in this video as well um and also if you haven't been affected but you just want to go and support those Charities I really recommend doing that going making a donation volunteering your time doing whatever you can you know so they will be linked in the video description right so the vulture article starts by introducing Scarlet pavlovich she is the main woman who is accusing gay men in this article and who has allegedly I have to say um been severely mistreated by him more than anyone should and not not like she's had it done more to her than anyone else just no one should have to go through this is what I'm saying it's horrific the things this man has un legally done to her so Scarlet met Gan through his now ex-wife Amanda Palmer of the dress and doll and throughout reading this article and throughout this video I absolutely have to question how much responsibility Amanda has for what happened was she too a victim of Gans or based on some of the things later in this article did she know what he was like and either knowingly or unknowingly enabled him was she putting these women knowingly in danger I obviously can't make any definitive statements but I can give you the evidence and ask questions and let you make up your own minds so when they met in June 2020 Scarlet was 22 years old and Amanda was 44 Neil would have been around 60 at the time Scarlet Amanda met on the street and the article tells us are on the surface pavlovich that's Scarlet appeared to be self assured as well a local girl she dropped out of high school at 15 to travel Europe Morocco in the Middle East on the cheap pausing in Scotland it was pavlovich who approached Palmer on the sidewalk outside of perfumery she was surprised when Palmer texted her a few days later it's Amanda D Palmer she wrote your new friend the article then goes on to knowe that Amanda is perhaps more famous for her ability to attack a tight-knit and devoted following wherever she goes and that she's argued in the past there was no distinction between friends and fans so immediately we have this massive power imbalance that is very obvious it's clearly going on and Amanda seems to thrive on this in her own life and her own career I have spoken before in many videos about how dangerous it can be for celebrities or big influencers to be too close with their fans to encourage parasocial relationships to blur that line between fan and friend and take advantage of it that can be incredibly dangerous for the fans involved it can absolutely lead to that fan being taken advantage of and that is undoubtedly what happened here um even before Scarlet met Neil Amanda was taking advantage of her and taking advantage of this power and balance between them yeah Amanda absolutely took advantage of a young fan with no family no support network who loved her work and had a crush on her um and had had a lot of trauma in the past that made her especially vulnerable Amanda saw that took advantage of it and used her to get free labor the article goes on to say that over the following year and a half Palmer and pavich occasionally met for a meal or a drink Palmer offered pavich tickets to her shows and invited her to parties for the patreon community at her house on nearby wahi Island that's in New Zealand sometimes Palmer ask pavich favors help running errands or organizing files or looking after her child pavlovich was happy to assist she had a crush on Palmer she didn't mind that Palmer only occasionally discussed paying her even though pavlovich was always strapped for cash for pavlovich who was estranged from her family and without a safety net Palmer filled a deeper need and I'll remind you one more time this woman is a literal millionaire married at the time to a multi-millionaire she is still taking advantage of a young vulnerable woman for free labor and she didn't need to she could have paid for this she could have afforded this more than most people and she still took advantage that alone is messed up and goes on for a couple of years Scarlet kept agreeing to the work and eventually Amanda offered to pay her for a weekend of work as her 5-year-old son's Nanny she mentioned that this job will require going back and forth between her house and Neils this was 2022 Scarlet was now around 24 but still not in a good position in life H she had no real support network no real home no real income stream and she was really relying on these small bits of paid work from Amanda Amanda and Neil game at this point were now separated and living apart but like I say they still had this 5-year-old son together so Scarlet who hadd been living in Oakland New Zealand takes Airy over to the island of weiki where Neil lived Palmer had arranged for a play date for the child so not long after pavich arrived she found herself alone in the house with the author for a little while gaan worked in his office while she read on the couch then he emerged and offed her a tour of the grounds a striking figure at 61 his wild black curls threaded with strands of silver around around 8:00 p.m

2.they sat down for pizza gaimon poured pavlovich a glass of Rosé and then another he only drank water so immediately even though she's meant to be there looking after his kid he's plying her with alcohol while remaining entirely sober himself that is a predatory move right there I mean there's nothing wrong with like someone wanting a drink while you're not drinking but the fact that you're like intentionally playing someone with more and more alcohol while not drinking yourself on purpose is a red flag you know and the fact that he's doing it while she's meant to be looking after his son later when he gets home like you could argue you could could argue not seeing this happen but you could argue that it's very clear he didn't care about her being there to do her job and he simply wanted to take advantage of a slightly drunk woman alone it could be argued in this case there wasn't so much a celebrity fan dynamic as she wasn't really sure or aware of who G was or his work too much but there was one in the sense that a he was three times older than her the he was essentially her boss and paying her I mean Amanda was too but they were they were both her boss um and she was incredibly reliant on this income from them and see he is also a much larger man she is alone in his house and he is sober while she is drunk lots of power dynamics at play there the article says uh pavlovich had never read any of his work but she was anxious to make a good impression after she'd cleaned up their plates gaimon noted there was still time before they'd have to pick up his son from the play date I've had a thought she recalls him saying why don't you have a bath in the beautiful claw bathtub in the garden it's absolutely enchanting pavlovich told Gaiman that she was fine as she was but ultimately agreed he needed to make a work call he said and didn't want pavich to be bored gaon LED pavich down a stone path into the garden to find an old-fashioned tub with a roll top and walked away she got undressed and sank into the bath a few minutes later she was surprised to hear gaimon's footsteps on the stones in the dark she tried to cover her breast with her arms when he arrived at the bath she saw that he was naked gaimon put out a couple of citrella candles lit them and got into the bath he stretched out facing her and for a few minutes made Small Talk he bitched about pal schedule he talked about his kid school then he told her to stretch out her legs and get comfortable I said no I said I'm not confident with my body P recalls he said it's okay it's only me just relax just have a chat she didn't move he looked at her again and said don't ruin the moment she does instructed and he began to stroke her feet at that point she recalls a subtle ter Terror so now not only has he got metaphorical power over her but he's got her in a physically vulnerable situation too where she feels she can't escape she can't get away G asked her to sit on his lap pavich stammered out a few sentences she was gay she'd never had sex she'd been sexually abused by a 40-year-old man when she was 15 gaan continued depress so generally when a person is faced with a terrifying situation like this there are are four ways they may respond fight flight freeze or thn there's a great book called constantly Bear by Chanel contos which I'm going to be discussing quite a lot in this video and referring back to and one of the bits I want to talk about for now is that in that book it discusses these four responses in quite a bit of detail and I think what we can see throughout this entire article is that through many of her interactions with G Scarlet was displaying both freeze and for respons Janelle writes that freezing is a common response to being sexually assaulted the brain pauses to assess the situation and Roots out of it meanwhile she writes that foring is a strategy that we unconsciously learn to get ourselves out of trouble or a dangerous situation it's acting overly nice in order to survive an ordeal this could look like fake laughing fake smiling letting your rapist drop you home pretending to lie their asleep next to them or getting breakfast with them the morning after an assault she goes on to say that this trauma respon is triggered when fight or flight and not options to achieve safety it's common in women in heterosexual situations of assault as speaking general terms a man will be stronger and faster and trying to physically fight or outrun him is not an option and that's what was going on here bearing in mind that Scarlet didn't have the best home life and have previously experienced a lot of trauma in being assaulted in the past herself bear that in mind when Chanel goes on to say that thorning is common in people with PTSD and in codependent people who already har by people pleasing Tendencies if you've lived in an abusive household or had a long-term toxic relationship with a boss or former partner you may be used to this idea of playing nice to reduce the impact of abuse so while I've seen some horrible people online wrongly saying about Scholars story or wrongly asking why did she stay why did she keep going back why did she just tell him what he wanted to hear why didn't she run away or fight him this is why it's a foring response it's a trauma response it's very very common it makes sense for the situation she was in foring when you're scared to try and make sure you're safe doesn't mean you were consenting to any of it uh Scarlet's story gets so much worse after this as she Des describes Neil giman physically assaulting her in several ways in the bath before him telling her to and I quote call him master I won't read it out it's not very nice but it's in Alisa's video if you want to go and watch and it's also on the article if you want to go read it for yourself okay uh the article go son say that afterwards pavlovich crouched down in the water and tried to clean herself off Gaiman looked at her and smiled he said Amanda told me I couldn't have you but as soon as he'd heard this he knew he had to have her God he continued I wish it was a good old days where we could both F you so again this part makes me question Amanda's role in all this how much did she really know I feel like if you have to warn someone to stay away from a vulnerable young woman that they're employing then surely you know on some level that she's not entirely safe with him I right I I don't know I'm sorry I jum there okay sorry baby it also absolutely shows Neil's mindset here this idea that he knew he had to have her upon hearing he couldn't it was never about him liking Scarlet as an individual it was never about them having a consensual relationship to him it was all about wanting power control and only seeing women in particular this woman as an object to play with you know he's like a kid with a toy that he supposed can't have he wants it not because he wants that toy but because he wants the power and control and to have something he's been told he can't you know it Chanel writes in her book that men are generally not trained to see women as their true peers women are often seen as objects women can only be made objects when the basic principles of human empathy fail to be applied to them when the female body can be commodified exploited and hurt in the name of male pleasure how can they be seen as true humans and this is exactly what we see of G's Behavior here and throughout the rest of the article vultra article goes on to talk about Neil's work and career and the power he had over fans in general uh women would turn up to his sign in stress and elaborate Victorian goth attire of his characters and beg him to sign their breasts or slip him key cards to their hotel rooms one writer recounts running into Gman at a world fantasy convention in 2011 his assistant wasn't around and he was late to a reading I can't get to it if I walk by myself he told her and as they made their way through the convention side by side the whole floor of people tilted and slid towards him she says they wanted to be entwined with him in ways I was not prepared to defend him against a woman fell to her knees and wept people who flock to Fantasy conventions and signings make up an inherently vulnerable Community one of gamon's former friends a fantasy writer tells me they wrap themselves around a bll of a text so it becomes their self-identity they want to share their souls with the creators of these works and if you have morality around it you say no it was an Open Secret in the late ' 90s and early alts among convention go that Gaiman cheated on his first wife Mary McGrath a private Midwestern Scientologist he' married in his early 20s the idea of predators being able to spot and Target vulnerable victims is sadly not new it's very very common we see that Predators often entwine themselves in communities and groups of people that are kind of known for being vulnerable um you know so that they can pick out victims so maybe they'll go and volunteer with uh kids in the social care system or in Gam case they go to these fantasy conventions where they know there are going to be vulnerable women who are essentially easy for him to manipulate you know or sometimes you see predators are just very good at kind of like picking out people who have had preious previous trauma or who are vulnerable um and kind of targeting them specifically like they're very good at knowing who to Target in her Memoir consent Memoir um Jill I think I think it's pronounced c um she reflect on her relationship with her at the time of writing recently past husband of 45 years and how her view of the relationship changed over the years there were 30 years between them and they were married a hell of a long time so when uh he died she was in her 60s e he was in his early 90s I believe something like that but when Jill and Arnold first met she was just 16 and he was 46 uh they first kissed when she was 17 and he was 47 he was was her art teacher and Jill admits herself in a memoir that she was in a particularly vulnerable position compared to the other students he was teaching she writes that I plan not to bother finishing High School come May artists don't need diplomas I was emancipated minor my single mother had three other children to feed and there's also the dynamic she talks about about how her father had abandoned the family a few years Bel how her father had abandoned the family a few years before she had a lot of issues around that and a lot of trauma around it um and she kind of feels now looking back that Arnold maybe saw these vulnerabilities in her and took advantage of it she goes on to write that when she was just 17 he kissed me I could have screamed I could have slapped him but what 17-year-old is prepared to slap a 47y old man she'd fantasized about for the previous six months um I fently kissed him back I'd imagined his kiss ever since he looked down my blouse but did I have the agency to consent the teenage brain is impulsive there's a mismatch between the lyic system which is Essen of emotion and the prefrontal prefrontal lobe which controls logic and reasoning California's age of consent is 18 there's a Romeo and Juliet cause in cases of statutory rape That Forgives lovers close in age but obviously that didn't apply here did the art teachers Behavior the extra attention he gave me in class the evenings he used my art to demonstrate how the tendons cross over the elbow the night he looked down my blouse qualify as child grooming a term that psychologists use to describe a pedophile's recruitment techniques and in her book and experience it's not just Arnold who did this either as she got older and other older men including lecturers at her University as they began to find out about her relationship with Arnold and the other things going on in her life they began to see her as an easy target and go after her too there were these older lecturers hitting on her touching her without consent one man literally locked her in his office and sexually assaulted her again we kind of have to ask like is it a thing with Predators where they're just that good at picking out who they think are going to be easy targets if we go back to Scarlet's experience for a moment and after the initial assault you might think that she would just run away and never see gamman again but she didn't have the power to do that she was reliant on Neil and Amanda for a home and income and she had no other choice than to stay pavlovich was living in a sublight that was about to end she was broke and hadn't been able to find a new apartment she'd been homeless at the start of the pandemic when the perfumery she worked at closed and had ended up crashing on the beach in a friend's sleeping bag on and off for the first two weeks of lockdown the thought of returning to the beach filled her with Dread she didn't consider reaching out to her own family her parents had divorced when she was three and pavich had grown up splitting time between their households violence pavich tells me was normalized in the household one close family member beat her with a belt another would strangle papovich when she got upset and slap her across the face until her cheeks were raw she regularly began to cut her arms and wrists with a knife when she was 11 she became Bic then anorexic by 13 pavlovich had grown so thin that she ended up in a psychiatric unit her or in children's hospital and spent weeks on a feeding tube when she was 15 she left home and never went back in the years since she'd been looking for a new family but many of the people she'd encountered in that search turned out to be abusive as well after all of this Amanda Palmer was an actual creature sent from a Celestial realm it was like Hallelujah pavich tells me Palmer was famous for speaking out about sexual abuse and encouraging others to do the same in songs and Essay she'd written of having been sexually assaulted and raped on multiple occasions as a teenager and young woman a young woman pavich didn't think someone like that could be married to someone who would assault women so this comes back to what I was saying about her being especially vulnerable and Neil kind of seeing that and taking advantage some people again wrongly are like oh well if a woman sexually assaulted once she's unlucky but if it happens repeatedly then it's her fault and that is just an absolute load of crap once a person already has trauma it can be so much easier for other people to manipulate and control and hurt them and it's heartbreaking and it's absolutely not their fault is it babe no it's not Scarlet resorted to foring over gaimon repeatedly to try and keep herself safe the foring is not a sign of consent it's a sign that she was petrified and trying to save herself the article says after Palmer's offer pavich texted Gman I'm consumed by thoughts of you the things you will do to me I'm so hungry what a terrible creature you've turned me into the following weekend she packed up her sublight and boarded the fery to weiki saying no to him directly had not worked pleading with him to leave her alone hadn't worked she had no physical way to fight back against him so she felt like if she played along with his games and told him what he wanted to hear he would treat her better and be less likely to hurt her sadly this didn't work either because there's really no way to win with Predators like this but she had to try something and she felt like this was keeping her safer than you know physically fighting him or running away or whatever because like that wouldn't work so the article for a while talks about how he have this really friendly public Persona and that no one ever expected he was anything but lovely however his mask did slip with some people there was some who stood on other side to the author one woman Brenda a pseudonym met Gaiman in the '90s at a signing for the S man where she was working on signing lines gon had an act for connecting with each individual a few years later Brenda traveled to Chicago to attend the world horror convention where Gaiman received the top prize for American Gods the book that cemented to him as a bestselling novelist the night after the awards ceremony she and giman ended up in bed together as soon as they began to hook up the feeling that had drawn her to him the magical spell of his interest in her individuality vanished he seemed to have a script she tells me he wanted me to call him Master immediately he demanded that she promised him her soul it was like he'd gone in this into this ritual that had nothing to do with me in summary of His allegations the vulture article States this past July a British podcast produced by toris media broke the news that two women had accused gay men of sexual assault since then more women have shared allegations of assault coercion and abuse the podcast Master reported by uh Paul K Galia and Rachel Johnson tells the stories of five of them gaimon's perspective on these relationships including with pavlovich is that they were entirely consensual I spoke with four of those women along with four authors whose stories shared elements with theirs I also reviewed contemporaneous diary entries texts and emails with friends messages between gam and the women and police correspondents most of the women were in their 20s when they met gaan the youngest was 18 two of them worked for him five were his fans with one exception an allegation of forcible kissing from 1986 when Gaiman was in his mid-20s the stories take place when Gaiman was in his 40s or older a period of time when he lived in the US the UK and New Zealand by then he had a reputation as an outspoken champion of women then there's just more and more stories of him taking advantage of people who were fans of his and this isn't just a matter of like o sorry I misread this situation and made you uncomfortable I'm so sorry let never let me let me never do it again these are stories of him repeatedly going out of his way to manipulate women lying to them ignoring their literal pleas for him to stop and repeatedly overstepping boundaries that he knew were there because they told him repeatedly so Katherine Kendall was 22 when she met giman in 2012 she was volunteering at one of his events in Asheville North Carolina he invited her to join him a few days later an after party for another event where he kissed her the two struck up a flirt correspondence emailing and Skyping in the middle of the night Kendall didn't want to have sex with gayman and on one of their calls calls she oh baby careful you're okay you're safe uh Kendall didn't want to have sex with gimon and on one of their calls she told him this afterwards she recorded uh his reply in her diary that he had no designs on me Beyond flirty friendship and I believed him thoroughly at a reading 10 months later gaan suggested that Kendall and two of the girls wait for him on his tour bus so they could all hang out after he was been signing when gam showed up he pulled Kendall into the back of the bus and lay on top of her he kept saying kiss me like you mean it she tried to get into it but she was panicked eventually gim rolled off her I'm a very wealthy man she remembers him saying and I'm used to getting what I want years later Gaiman gave Kendall $60,000 to pay for therapy in an attempt as he put it in a recorded phone call to make up for some of the damage um another story says that giman had been having sexual encounters with younger fans for a long time Kendra Stout was was 18 when in 2003 she drove 4 and a half hours to Fort lale uh Florida to see game and re from endless nights she met him in the signing line G sent her long emails and bought her a webcam so they could chat on video around 3 years later he flew to Orlando to take her on a date he invited her back to his hotel room and held her down with one hand gaimon didn't believe in Fourplay or lubrication Stout tells me which could make sex particularly painful when she said hurt too much he'd tell her the problem was she wasn't submissive enough he' talk at length about the dominant and submissive relationship he wanted out of me Stout had no PRI interest in BDSM she says gim never asked her what she liked in bed and there was no discussion of safe words or after care or limits he'd asked her to call him master and beat her with his belt these were not sexy little Taps she said when she told him she didn't like it she sely replied it's the only way I can get off and I mean if all of these women have such similar stories of their experience despite never having met never having discussed this before sharing it publicly like then it suggests that they're likely very true and we're seeing a pattern of behavior for him you know these are specific things that he's doing over and over again that multiple women are corroborating it you know I also want to at this point talk for a little moment about his BDSM comment later he also said um so according to the podcast which quote a g and through his Representatives his position was that sexual degreg bondage domination sadism and masochism may not be to everyone's taste but between consenting adults BDSM is lawful and it absolutely is but what gon was doing was absolutely not BDSM every single person in the BDSM Community will tell you that the key to it all is communication and Trust every single person has to be informed on everything and give prior consent which can absolutely be revoked at any time it's as much about the submissive party enjoying it and in a lot of ways actually being in control as it is about the dominant party enjoying it and seemingly being in control you know if there's no prior discussion if the submissive party doesn't have any say in what happens if there's no consent no safe wordss no Aftercare then it's not BDSM it's just rape it is that simple Neil Gaiman if these allegations are true was not getting off to BDSM or just being dominant he was simply raping women and there is a massive distinction I can't believe that even need saying uh this woman tells another story of gaan raping her which is so graphic and disturbing that I will not read it out in this video um lazyy does cover it in hers so it's it's horrifying though um to summarize she had a very painful UTI so she told him not to penetrate her at all because she was in pain he did it anyway repeatedly with various body parts and at that point she tells me I just shut down she lay on the bed and until he was finished it's sickening and this is just rape there is no other word for it you know when you're a kid in school and you do like Jes says he history and you're doing like World War II stuff and everyone's like yeah but I don't get it Hitler was clearly a bad guy like I don't get how people fell for it I don't get why people liked him I don't get how he got to power and now I'm like well now we're literally seeing that happening in front of us like this is how it happened before it's happening again except we should have the knowledge this time to not let it happen and honestly this time it's like even more in our faces I I don't have the words I I just feel like I'm watching a bunch of idiots doing idiot things and there's nothing I can do to stop it and it's absolutely terrifying right it it doesn't feel real it's so bizarre I I don't know sorry that was a voice note to elzy Evangelina SC because we're talking about the whole El must Nazi saluting at the inauguration thing and apparently people are making excuse now that he's just an autistic man trying to dab and he did it badly and Eva was like Rachel you're artistic when you dab do you accidentally NY salute it's like funly enough no no I don't not I have a doubt but you know what I'm trying to say it it's a stupid excuse for a stupid man who's just evil and stupid and I oh it's horrifying to like watch all this unfold anyway speaking of horrifying sorry Neil Gaiman yeah like I say this again this isn't BDSM he allegedly repeatedly penetrated an ill woman who repeatedly told him to stop and repeatedly told him no that is rape and that's not just any rape but that's rape with malice and forethought with absolute disregard for her as a human being that's not okay like the article then goes on to explore game's childhood growing up with Scientologist parents and being abused by the church and it is it is sad to read it absolutely is no child should have to go through that you guys know how I feel about scientology in general and that's actually you know what I don't think I've ever made a full video about scientology but I have been thinking about covering um was it Leah Leah what was her name Le Leah Remy Leah Remy yeah I was thinking about covering her book on it I think it was hers I no stop my head anyway I'm not going to talk about it now I need do more research but potentially a video on Scientology at some point if they don't kill me first um yeah so like clearly understanding his child and seeing all of this um it's just proof that like cycles of abuse are continuing going forward and it's it's absolutely horrible he was abused as a child now he's abusing others and I feel like when we read all this stuff we can absolutely feel sorry for him as a child and what he went through and be like oh God like he's clearly got a lot of trauma I hope he gets therapy and help um and we can still understand how awful scient ology is and be furious at the church whilst not using that to excuse his behavior it maybe explains his behavior but it doesn't excuse it it doesn't excuse how he treated women we can still be absolutely furious at that too and understand that there's absolutely no excuse for his behavior have I made any sense I hope right uh then the article goes on for a bit to focus on the relationship between Neil and his now ex-wife Amanda who like I said we've talking about a little bit so far so it get some history here saying um G and Palmer met in 2018 when she was 32 and he was 47 both were a turning point in their lives and careers Gaiman was in the midst of finalizing a divorce from his first wife with whom he had three children and on the verge of breaking into Hollywood Palmer was in a fight with her record label that would culminate in a split so again it could be argued that there was a massive power imbalance here the age thing maybe isn't so much of a big deal at these ages 32 47 that's fine but the fact that like he was at such a big powerful point in his career and she was struggling a bit like maybe suggests and they did some like work together and stuff and she kind of needed his help with what maybe maybe there was a little power in Balance there maybe he had a little bit more power over her that who's to say I don't know it's not like with his employees and stuff though uh Gaiman was the first to propose a romantic relationship in an interview he later said I got together with her because I couldn't ever imagine being bored palac cut so at the time when they got together she had no savings and didn't own a car real estate or kitchen appliances Gaiman owned multiple houses he was too rich too famous too British too awkward too old and they didn't have great sexual chemistry but he appeared to be kind and stable a family man and they shared a dark Fantastical aesthetic she also felt a little sorry for him he seemed lonely in spite of his Fame and Palmer found herself hoping she could help him he believed for a long time deep down that people didn't actually fall in love she wrote in her book but that's impossible she told him he'd written stories and scenes of people in love that's the whole point darling he said writers make things up all the red flags right like all of them um it seems that for a long time they both had an open relationship which is absolutely fine uh they would share Partners sometimes also fine again all fine if they're consenting and adults but some of the stories seem a little dubious like when a 36-year-old Amanda picked up a 20-year-old fan at one of her concerts slept with her and then essentially just passed her on to Neil so again she's finding someone with whom she has a power in balance and a massive like age difference with this person is 20 and vulnerable and a fan and she's just like yes let me sleep with you until I'm bored and then pass you on to my nearly 50-year-old husband uh this was in 2012 so in 2012 Palmer met a 20-year-old fan who asked to be referred to as Rachel at addressed in dolls concert after one of Palmer's next shows the uh the women had sex the morning after Palmer snapped a few NE semi naked photos of Rachel and asked if she could send one to giman she and Palmer slept together a few more times but then Palmer seemed to lose interest in sex with her six months after they met Palmer introduced Rachel to Gan online telling Rachel he'll love you the two struck up a correspondence that quickly turned sexual and giman invited her to his house in Wisconsin she packed for the trip and asked Palmer to email over if she had any advice for pleasing G in bed Palmer joked in response I think the fun is finding out on your own with gim Rachel says there was never a blatant rupture of consent but he was always pressing her to do things that hurt and scared her looking back she feels Palmer gave her to him like a toy so again I have to ask how much did Amanda really know how much was she involved how much was she aware of what was her actual role in this it's creepy as hell then there's another story in the article of uh Neil helping a family friend by providing income and a home only to completely take advantage um and then threaten to take it all away so he could keep abusing her he's like are you seeing a pattern here you know one one allegation maybe could be fake or false or exaggerated but when you have so many women having the same thing happen to them by the same man over and over and over again I just don't see how that could be like not true or fake it just it you know I know I still have to say allegedly but I think we all know how I feel um one of the people in whom Palmer confided about her marital issues at the time was Caroline walner a Potter who along with her Builder husband philli had been living on the Woodstock property that amander Neil owned and working as a caretaker or I think maybe just Neil owned it g had made them an offer that seemed too good to be true they would build an addition on one of the cabins on the land at gim's expense and in exchange giman would sell them a 5 acre parcel allowing them to put up a barn style home to share with their three daughters they tended to the Garden ran errands for guests and rehabilitated the buildings that which needed plumbing and electrical work but their marriage of 11 years was falling apart too in 2017 Philip moved out of their house walner 54 spent her days in bed crying and drinking she stopped eating and for the most part stopped working it was then Gaiman began paying her attention he would bring juices up to her cabin and fret she was losing too much weight the first time he touched her was in December 2018 she was sitting on his couch next to him crying from exhaustion gim told her you need a hug she stood and he hugged her then he slid his hands down her pants and into her underwear and squeezed her butt she does not recall saying or doing anything in response I was stunned she said which is a typical freeze response so even though this woman is older than his other victims she was still in a vulnerable position and again it's like they Predators can see that isn't it over the next two years they had a series of sexual encounters always when Palmer was away when Gaiman wasn't around they occasionally engaged in phone sex at first walner who hadn't been with anyone since Philip left went along willingly but at the end of their second encounter she remembers asking Gan what Palmer would think about their romance he said Caroline there is no romance and after that she tried to keep her distance from him darting away when she saw him on the estate so the fly response he was difficult to avoid he kept an egg incubator in Warner's cabin and come down and check on it entering without texting first so he's just barging into her home without asking without telling her she doesn't have a choice in the matter then there's another description of an assault which again I'm not going to read out but it's followed by um nothing changed walner had no income at the time and was borrowing money from her sister to get by she worried that if she didn't appease Gaiman he' kick her out of her house and then she and her three daughters would have nowhere to go I like our trade she remember saying to him you take care of me and I'll take care of you and there you have the faing response so she then tells the story of Gan attempting to be sexual with her while his son was literally in the bed between them like sleeping but in the bed again won't read it out but he didn't have boundaries walner said I just remember thinking there was something really wrong with him and again this is sadly another pattern of behavior because Scarlet tells a very similar story herself which we'll talk about in just a few moments uh gaimon finally took back his offer of land and monry support from wner kicked her out of her home and then tried to silence her with an NDA and pay money for her to get therapy again that's a pattern of behavior we've seen before um after find out about the Warner situation Amanda said uh that poor woman I can't believe he did it again so again he did it again like how much did she know I'm going to keep asking I think more people need to be talking about that to be h i mean she's obviously not as bad as gamon but clearly maybe she could have allegedly played a massive part in it so the article switches back to talking about Scarlet's experience here and this next part is so graphic and disturbing disturbing and disgusting that I cannot read it out loud um the first time I read this I actually gagged it's one of the worst things I've ever heard um if you need to skip this next part of the video that's fine go to the next chapter um I absolutely would not blame you but I will give you you a summary and even the summary is bad um basically Neil giman I leg in one instance uh anal raped Scarlet in the kitchen while his son was in the house he used literal butter as a replacement for lubricant and then made her lick the butter and her own excrement off his private parts he made her shower while he SED shoved lavender soap in her mouth M on another occasion he raped her causing so much pain she passed out on on another occasion he made her lick his own urine off of him on another he forced himself in her mouth so hard she vomited and then made her eater on vomit and then on another occasion he raped her in a hotel room literally in front of his son with only a duvet covering them it's just the most vile vile thing imaginable he oh no no it's it's unforgivable so to go back to Chanel ks's book consent laid bear which she talk about earlier that book talks about how there's different kinds of people who commit sexual assault and she says that for some people it's just a matter of opportunity you know she writes that their offenses are predatory acts that are unplanned and show poor impulse control uh sometimes with these people their actions are quite literally a matter of ignorance um you know they weren't educated in what consent actually means they're busy selfishly thinking about themselves to stop and ask what the other person wants they're a product of a misogynistic society that perpetuates rape culture and their behavior is not excusable and I do not want to downplay the harm these people do but I feel like at least in those cases these people can sometimes learn reflect on their behavior and absolutely change for the better because they didn't necessarily mean to cause harm even though they did you know maybe they misread signals um or they genuinely made a mistake and while their victim doesn't need to forgive them like like it's entirely up to them I do personally believe that like for a lot of those people with self-reflection and learning and growth and genuine remorse they can be better people and won't do it again you know and I I know I know it's going to sound controversial but hear me out here um I believe that every single person accidentally oversteps the boundary at some point in their life we've all accidentally done something without consent and I don't mean sexual here but like you know maybe maybe we've gone in for a hug for someone when they didn't want it without realizing uh maybe we've accidentally shared a friend's secret that they didn't want us to tell maybe we've made a joke that oversteps someone's boundaries those are us making accidental mistakes accidentally overstepping boundaries because we we weren't socially aware or we weren't thinking we were being selfish and I do believe that those kinds of things are like genuine mistakes that everyone makes and it doesn't necessarily make someone inherently a bad person it's kind of just part of being human and part of learning and growing and I think the important thing is that like in those cases we apologize we learn and we do better and I kind of feel like for some people they make those mistakes in a sexual way and it's terrible it's bad it's awful it's inexcusable but I also kind of feel like there is potential Redemption there for people if that makes sense and like I say the victim shouldn't have to forgive them if they don't want like it it's not on them like they don't have to but I do believe that at least when people mess up they can be better they can do better they can become better that's not what's happening in the Neil Gaiman case I don't believe this is an example of that he wasn't an opportunistic rapist he wasn't some silly little boy who misunderstood or misread a situation he was malicious however he is trying to downplay this allegation says o what a silly mistake I'm just not socially aware what a really awkward man and no absolutely not so he has released a statement which says as I read through this latest collection of accounts there are moments I half recognize and moments I don't descriptions of things that happened sitting beside things that emphatically did not happen I'm far from a perfect person but I have never engaged in non-consensual activity sexual activity with anyone ever I went back to read the messages I exchanged with women around and following the occasions that have subsequently been reported as being abusive the messages read now as they did when I received them of two people enjoying consensual sexual relationships and wanting to see one another again at the time as in as relationships they seem positive and happy on both sides I also realized looking through them years later I could have and should have done so much better I was emotionally unavailable while being sexually available self-focused and not as thoughtful as I should as I could or should have been I was obviously careless with people's hearts and feelings and that's something I deeply regret it was selfish of me I was caught up in my own story and I ignored other people's I've spent months now taking a long hard look look at who I've been and how I've made people feel like most of us I'm learning and I'm trying to do the work needed I know that's not an overnight process I hope that with the help of good people I'll continue to grow and like if he'd I don't know accidentally gone in for a kiss would someone because he misread the signals and he got it wrong this might be acceptable if he'd I know taken a woman back to his hotel room and they'd engage in a bit of consensual touching and then she'd tried to stop him but he he'd not quite got the message and then a couple of minutes later You' been like oh wait sorry oh no I overstepped there if he done something like that this might be an acceptable response you know those are genuine mistakes where you maybe overstep but you didn't mean to and then you apologize and get better and grow like and this would be an acceptable response to that but that's not what he did none of that is what happened he wasn't just some silly little socially awkward man risk reading signals he didn't just make someone a bit uncomfortable once and he can't get away with that well you know I still think it was consensual so I guess I'll just do some learning you can't do that this is a case of a 40 to 60 plus year old man repeatedly targeting younger and all vulnerable women that he had power and control over repeatedly ignoring their literal and verbal pleas for him to stop degrading them objectifying them assaulting them injuring them and being entirely aware of what he was doing he often planned in advance how and when he was going to do this he would buy them gifts offer them money and homes fly them around the world to see him and meet him just so he could hurt them this is not one silly little mistake of a socially awkward man this is a manipulative Predator allegic repeatedly knowing what he's doing in hurting women if these stories are true and accurate and I thoroughly believe they are this is a pattern of premeditated aggressive violent and degrading behavior from a man who like I say knew exactly what he was doing his non-apology statement is not enough and he is a danger to all women to go back to Chanel's Book for a moment and while I don't want to apply definitive labels to anyone and you know I'm not going to say this is who Gan is I'm just saying at one point in the book she writes about what she calls sadistic rapists as opposed to the opportunistic ones and I would just say that this could potentially seem like a more accurate description of the actions we've heard Gaiman carried out she writes that she writes that sadistic rapists derrive pleasure from being violent and sexually assaulting someone they've usually been terribly abused as children and are likely to reoffend regardless of Rehabilitation measures it's hard to prevent this type of rapist from perpetuating sexual assault to prevent this type of rapist the generational cycle of abuse Must Be Stopped the vulture article ends with Scarlet telling the story of how she and how she went to Amanda and told her what Neil had been doing to her and asked for help and basically got absolutely nothing to help her just to remind you Amanda Pala is someone who apparently Prides herself on being an outspoken feminist who will speak up for women and calls out domestic and sexual violence against women unless apparently it's her ex-husband doing it 10 days after gaan left New Zealand pavich went to pal's house for dinner she asked Palmer if she could tell her something in confidence and made her promise not to tell giman she begged for reassurance that she would still keep her job as a child's Nanny Palmer assured pavlovich her employment was not in danger sitting in the kitchen pavlovich told Palmer that Gaiman had made a pass at her she told Palmer about the bath I didn't have any choice in the matter she said he just did it she said he'd been having sex with her ever since she will she withheld some of the most brutal details but did not describe her experience of sexual assault she didn't yet see it that way which is completely and sometimes it takes people off process Karma did not appear to be surprised 14 women have come to me about this she said she mentioned that gaon had slept with another babysitter during his first marriage and that she had heard from other women who were disturbed by their experiences with him pavlovich waited until the end to tell Palmer about the child being present in ockland afterward she recalled Palmer was silent she appeared shocked Palmer insisted that pavlovich spend the night in her guest room she told her I had to do this before and I can do this again I will take care of you so again clearly she knew she knew of at least 14 other women not saying anything um pavich received a text from text from Gaiman saying Amanda tells me you're having a rough time and you're really upset with me about what we did I feel awful about this would you like to talk about it is there anything I can do to make it better pavich didn't respond immediately my reflex was to sit my reflex was to fix the situation she tells me the next day she wrote hey we'll speak soon hope you're doing good Scarlet went on to tell a friend about the experience and This Woman's partner was uh Chris haor a doctor of psychology who had lectured at the University of ockland on coercion consent and rape and thank God for these friends although pavlovich had never used the word rape or sexual assault to describe what happened to her both anaro the friend and Taylor believed Gaiman had raped her repeatedly anaro felt Palmer bore a share of the blame replying to Palmer she wrote that the majority of my rage just directed at Neil but she couldn't understand why with all Palmer knew about giman she'd sent Scarlet into the situation exactly did you not see this coming a mile away she said and yes I know you asked him not to do that to her but honestly the fact you even felt some this was something you should ask is effed up in ways that defy comprehension exactly so Alicia someone looking after her eventually um meanwhile Amanda was getting giman to go to therapy with a therapist called Muller and Gman used something said in these therapy sessions to text scarlet and try and manipulate her further so in a session with Muller Palmer had said that pavlovich was telling people he' raped her and was planning to me to him I wanted to kill myself he wrote but I'm getting through it a day at a time it's been two weeks now and I'm still here fragile but not great like he he said that to Scarlett like you you told on me I want to kill myself like that's pure manipulation I he expressed dismay anaru message which pmer had told him about I'm a monster in it he wrote and Amanda seems to have bought it hook like Hook Line and Sinker apologizing for bringing any upset into pav V's life he wrote I thought that we were a good thing and a very consensual thing indeed so do you see what I mean this is not like some silly little mistake that he's remorseful for and learning for he's manipulating the whole situation and actually his therapist is helping him but Scarlet responded to this with fear and began foring to try and make him happy again because that's what traumatized people do the therapist uh like Neil gaiman's therapist spoke to the reporter who wrote this article and said that he'd also gone out of his way to speak to Scarlet too to try and like make everything go away for Neil it oh it's horrific this this person mull for his part tells me that ethical boundaries prevent him from sharing anything about his sessions with Gaiman but he apparently felt comfortable sharing details of his conversation with pavich Scarlet what she called to speak to me about was feeling pressured from very diverse mostly older women in her community to take action that she wasn't sure she felt comfortable taking I accompanied her on her journey to help her figure out the answers for herself to that issue to read okay so basically he's helping manipulate Scarlet into downplaying her own experience just like Neil was I and I'm oh you know what I'm so sick of men like this and also Bonnie Blue does it as well Bonnie Blue does it um who when they're called out for doing something that harms people especially young people they just start blaming everything on older women everything is older women's fault oo these damn older women they immediately try and discredit older women because apparently intelligent self- assured women with power intimidate them the older women in this story or in the case of Bonnie Blue where she's like ah the people who are mad at me for like you know cheating on people and spreading St it's just these older women like she did it as well um but the the these older women are just women who are experienced and knowledgeable who are finally standing up to misogynists or bad behavior or dangerous Behavior or people taking advantage of young people they're speaking out to try and keep young people safe from harm and in response the people who are causing that harm are just turning around trying to discredit them as just the women because they want to be able to continue to abuse and take advantage of young vulnerable people without anyone calling them out I'm I'm repeating myself I'm rambling it's disgusting is the point I'm trying to make uh following all of their Scar's mental health suffered not surprising um and Amanda took back her promise of letting her keep her job and only offered empty statements like I can't offer you exactly what you want from me but I can still be here remember this scallet replied with babe I'm more alone than I've ever been in my life um and she wished she'd never agreed to be there Nanny and said if I hadn't got on on that first fer I wouldn't be where I am now the article goes on to say that that night pavlovich texted gon Amanda keeps saying she'll help me but it seems more philosophical rather than she will like she will actually help two minutes later she added I've been thinking of you so much Gaiman replied that he'd be happy to help in a tangible way Pavlov received an NDA dated to the first night of her employment when he' suggested she take a bath um she signed it a month later she received a bank transfer from Gman $1,700 for her babysitting work which is nothing two months after that she received the first of nine payments totaling around $9,200 so again he fell back into the just trying to silence his victims with an NDA and money it's disgusting disgraceful GH in January 2023 pav pitch filed a police report accused in gement of sexual assault at the station she gave a formal interview about the case after she told the officers her story one of them told her that Palmer's Corporation will be essential for the case to move forward pavich assured them Palmer would participate I said to them she's a public feminist and she she knows what happened she'll want to protect me I'm sure she'll speak when the police contacted Palmer later that year she declined to talk with them Gaiman never spoke with the police either so Amanda Palmer in my opinion really does not seem to care at all Palmer and gaan together are awful awful people obviously Gman is so much worse but they have repeatedly and allegedly taken advantage of young women in one way or another and I just find it absolutely disgusting awful okay and that's where the article ends um that's all we're going to talk about that for now but if you'd like to read more about the topics of boundaries and consent and learn more about it then I can recommend a few books some of them I SP right in this video so far some of them are new um these include consent laid Bear by Chanel contos um UNF your boundaries build better relationships to consent communication and expressing your needs by faith Harper good ual citizenship how to create a sexually safer World by Ellen Fredericks and not that bad dispatches from rape culture which is a series of essays edited by roxan gay and of course if you have been affected by any of the issues in this video and you are looking for help or you want to help support organizations which you're helping other women um then please know you're absolutely not alone and there are loads of resources available in the UK you can get in touch with the survivors trust or survivors Network there's also Rape Crisis England and Wales so you have a 24-hour support line if you are in the USA then rain that is r a i n is a really helpful resource and you can also check out the national Sexual Violence Resource Center or if you are from Australia or New Zealand then I provided a list or then I provided a link to a list of resources available on I survive which will take you to different resources for individual places and stuff um they're all in the source document below so please go check them out if you need to you can also read uh Jill's book consent and Memoir which is is fascinating she looks like what the experience was like for her as a 16 and 17 year old girl how she reflected on in her 40s when she was still kind of like romanticizing a bit and now as a much older woman looking back and be like oh crap maybe things W how I thought they were it's um it's fascinating I still I know I have thoughts on it I'm not going to it now anyway yeah but that's about all I wanted to say today I'm sorry this was a difficult video I know it's very heavy I know it wasn't very nice but if you got through it thank you for doing this sitting through this um it'd be great to hear your thoughts in the comments but as always please just stay respectful and mindful of others be kind be nice to each other and um and yeah thank you so much for watching um if you'd like to help support me in my channel I do have patreon where you can go and see like some extra photos and stuff that I take like um kind of behind the scenes stuff I do a lot of Nature and gft photography that I post over on patreon for everyone plus the PO of Kyra and just kind of my day-to-day life um you can also get exclusive stickers and prints and fun stuff like that sent out to you over on patreon and AD revenue is always tough this time of year so having patreon is just really helpful for making sure I can actually pay my bills and keep making videos so thank you so much for everyone who's already supporting me over there and thank you to anyone else who may be considering it um but for now honestly the best thing you can do is just keep watching videos sharing them around leave a like subscribe if you haven't and uh just know that I appreciate all your support and kindness so thank you so much I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day thank you for taking the time to listen to this and thank you for taking the time to hear these wonderful women's stories and How brave and strong they are and uh yeah that's I'm I'm rambling sorry thank you for watching I'll see you again soon bye