Author: Yappa

[This post is inference and speculation based on reports that have not been fully vetted (especially the claims in the @BigEarsTeddy account). In this post I wander down a line of thought that is a bit “out there”.]

So what is a sadist anyway? In Jian Ghomeshi’s case, it seems to be a guy who gets off on beating up women. He apparently calls this “rough sex” and “BDSM lifestyle” and “kinky sexual preference”. Once we call something a sexual preference then a lot of people, myself included, feel they should be accepting – but I’m not sure that this case merits tolerance.

There are, apparently, clubs where sadists meet masochists and have fun together consensually. If Ghomeshi belongs to any of those clubs, he seems to have also strayed beyond them.

One might argue that Ghomeshi’s dating life is one long quest for the perfect girl who will let him beat, humiliate and dominate her. In that sense, you might see his alleged assaults on women as try-outs, or as mistakes based on miscues. But along with unsuspecting dates, the BigEarsTeddy account also alleges that Ghomeshi hires prostitutes to beat up, and that he lures women to his house under false pretences.

It seems odd that in some of the women’s recountings there’s no sex involved and the beating was brief. Ghomeshi seems to like to attack women on his own turf, which might simply be for sound-proofing and isolation, but might also be related to photographic equipment. There is evidence that he records his attacks. In an attempt to prove that his sadism was consensual, Ghomeshi gave CBC brass a video of himself injuring a woman, and the police now have that video. Also, the Twitter account BigEarsTeddy posted, last April, that “@jianghomeshi keeps an impressive anthology of videos and photos of the young girls he chokes out.” So the real turn-on might be watching himself hurt women.

In his Facebook post a week ago, Ghomeshi was able to get out in front of this story and frame it. He says the story is about his kinky sexual preferences. I think a lot of people, even while reviling him, are still thinking in those terms. But if you throw out the BDSM aspect then what you’re left with is a sexual predator – less a Pee-Wee Herman and more a Colonel Williams. That’s what really haunts me about this story: is what we have heard so far all there is? What if a woman fought back? What if his compulsions escalated?

It is possible that the master manipulator is still manipulating us – misdirecting, framing the story, keeping his liberal fanbase worried about sexual intolerance so they aren’t sure if it’s wrong. It is possible that what we know now is just the tip of the iceberg.

…or not. I am certainly not claiming the guy is a murderer, but it seems that there are kinky, consensual role-playing sadists and then there are narcissistic, sociopathic serial-assault sadists. And Ghomeshi might be trying to confuse us as to which type of sadist he is.

[This post is inference and speculation based on reports that have not been fully vetted (especially the claims in the @BigEarsTeddy account). In this post I wander down a line of thought that is a bit “out there”.] So what is a sadist anyway? In Jian Ghomeshi’s case, it seems

[This post is inference and speculation based on reports that have not been fully vetted (especially the claims in the @BigEarsTeddy account). In this post I wander down a line of thought that is pretty “out there”.] So what is a sadist anyway? In Jian Ghomeshi’s case, it seems to

“Happy Monday!” he gushed to me in an early morning tweet. He told me that he wanted a family and that I was “the one”. He was smitten with me. His eyes lit up when he saw me. He couldn’t keep his hands off me.

Those memories were recounted by women who dated Jian Ghomeshi, some of whom he allegedly beat up and some of whom he didn’t. He certainly didn’t marry any of them.

One of them recalled a bizarre, hot and cold relationship with Ghomeshi. She concluded, “Jian was grooming me for the same violence he inflicted on other women. I think he was pursuing and encouraging me because of the existing power imbalance, creating a level of emotional intensity as a preface to his “big reveal” so that I would ether acquiesce or never tell. He trained me to feel sorry for him, to feel guilty about not giving enough of myself to him, to believe I was special to him.”

Some insight might be gleaned from research on pedophiles. In a 2012 New Yorker article, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about how child molesters ingratiate themselves into communities, create a persona that makes sexual abuse seem unlikely, get access to a large pool of potential victims, and then start the selection process. Gladwell writes about “standard child-molester tradecraft”:

The successful pedophile does not select his targets arbitrarily. He culls them from a larger pool, testing and probing until he finds the most vulnerable. Clay, for example, first put himself in a place with easy access to children—an elementary school. Then he worked his way through his class. He began by simply asking boys if they wanted to stay after school. “Those who could not do so without parental permission were screened out,” van Dam writes. Children with vigilant parents are too risky. Those who remained were then caressed on the back, first over the shirt and then, if there was no objection from the child, under the shirt. “The child’s response was evaluated by waiting to see what was reported to the parents,” she goes on. “Parents inquiring about this behavior were told by Mr. Clay that he had simply been checking their child for signs of chicken pox. Those children were not targeted further.” The rest were “selected for more contact,” gradually moving below the belt and then to the genitals. … The child molester’s key strategy is one of escalation, desensitizing the target with an ever-expanding touch.

Ghomeshi, so cool in some ways, was remarkably uncool in others. Were the overly-strong cologne, the creepy grab-hand way he first approached women, the corny pickup lines, the early hair pulling, all part of a cull? Was there method in his uncoolness? The alleged assaults have occurred for over a decade without anyone reporting Ghomeshi to the police, so it seems he was doing something right.

To grossly paraphrase Gladwell, “When monsters roam free, we assume that their victims ought to have reported them. But that might be wishful thinking. A sexual predator is someone adept not just at preying on women but at manipulating, intimidating, deceiving, and charming them.”

“Happy Monday!” he gushed to me in an early morning tweet. He told me that he wanted a family, that I was “the one”. He was smitten with me. His eyes lit up when he saw me. He couldn’t keep his hands off me. Those memories were recounted by women

“Happy Monday!” he gushed to me in an early morning tweet. He told me that he wanted a family and that I was “the one”. He was smitten with me. His eyes lit up when he saw me. He couldn’t keep his hands off me. Those memories were recounted by

He was a homeless, mentally ill drug addict. He had a single gun, an old hunting rifle that held seven bullets. He had four bullets left when he entered Parliament. The RCMP has said that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau had no connections to terrorist organizations. Still, our prime minister made a speech

He was a homeless, mentally ill drug addict. He had a single gun, an old hunting rifle that held seven bullets. He had four bullets left when he entered Parliament. The RCMP has said that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau had no connections to terrorist organizatio…

He was a homeless, mentally ill drug addict. He had a single gun, an old hunting rifle that held seven bullets. He had four bullets left when he entered Parliament. The RCMP has said that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau had no connections to terrorist organizations. Still, our prime minister made a speech