Louis CK Scandal: I Don't Understand What He Did Wrong

I advise the people who are about to overreact to this thread's title, read this full post first.

Here is the scandal in a nutshell:

Louis CK took out his penis and masturbated on five separate occasions in front of five separate women. He did this with consent, but because he's "powerful" and "male" people online have said this was abuse. His work I Love You, Daddy has been cancelled over this scandal.

The New York Times: Louis C.K. is Accused by 5 Women of Sexual Misconduct

The New York Times: Louis C.K. Responds to Accusations: 'These Stories Are True'

With honesty, I should further note the present overwhelming majority of people agree what he did was absolutely wrong. I disagree. If this information changes and it is clear-cut shown he did not gain consent on any occasion, I will immediately agree he was 100% in the wrong in all those instances. In regards to the phone interaction, I believe he should've asked consent for that one, but it was done in a separate area so it is a minor sexual misdemeanor at worst.

Now I have taken classes on communication, interpersonal/business communication, rhetoric, and most relevantly, persuasion. The ethical dilemma presented here is the implied coercion that "If you don't let me masturbate in front of you, I might get violent or rape you since I'm an aggressive man, or I might get you fired because I have powerful connections, or I can make everyone hate you because I'm famous; hell I could do all three HAHAHAHAHA!" It is a truly monstrous implication and if that implication had been outright stated, well I would absolutely agree with everyone that what he did is without any remote justification. But he didn't explicitly say any of that. Implied coercion is not as clear-cut as explicit coercion and it is far harder to argue he is in the wrong when he received explicit verbal consent.

Knocking down the arguments for Louis CK's actions having been unethical; both intelligent and mundane ones:

Anyone who argues "because you're a man you have implied, socially constructed, evolved power over the woman and thus it's not consent," is not only being incredibly sexist, but by that logic you might as well say every woman who ever consented to sex with a man was raped. This argument is pretty obviously bad.

"They admired him, therefore it was without consent." ... Having sex with someone who admires you is wrong? Pretty ridiculous reasoning; it's the person's choice to admire, it's the person's choice to watch them masturbate. True coercion removes a person's ability to choose. Admiration is often the basis of attraction so that is pretty ridiculous as a basis for deeming this act unethical

"He is famous, therefore it was without consent." Attention everyone: famous people who date are now officially sex offenders. You gotta be kidding me that people have thought this on some level.

"THIS IS ILLEGAL"- nope. Feel free to prove me wrong since I'm not a legal expert, but I have not read anything showing how this is illegal. Though I would also like to add, legality does not determine right versus wrong and should not be the basis of ethical judgements. But this goes both ways, meaning you aren't suddenly prevented from saying this is unethical just because it's not illegal; though I think I have so far displayed the many limitations of viewing Louis CK's masturbation as unethical.

"Gross" -boys have penises girls have vaginas we both piss and shit and most of us masturbate get over it we don't owe society political correctness we didn't choose to get born and we don't have to adhere to what does and doesn't make people feel comfortable.

"Traumatically shocking" You aren't going to like my response to this argument, I'm gonna say that right now; for what it's worth, that I believe indicates this argument has some merit. But ultimately, trauma is highly subjective in what causes it, why it's caused, and if the traumatic reaction makes sense. I can for instance, envision a society a century from now where public nudity is common, people masturbate in their rooms after inviting people inside without even asking consent, and that's all deemed just normal behavior and if you don't like it, just leave the room or close your eyes. But in our present age, it's simply a case of that behavior being so weird, that it thus can cause trauma, even though if it were common, it probably would not. He at bare minimum consented, so I don't believe people getting traumatized should in itself be the basis since what is "traumatizing" is subjective to the times and thus not a good basis for judging what actions are right and wrong.

"THIS IS RAPE" -apples to penises. Masturbating at a distance from someone who consented is not rape.

"He is married and has kids" you're probably correct to say this act was unethical for this reason. However, I would also say our society has built itself in a way where nobody can reasonably engage in free love as the Hippies envisioned or polygamy as the Mormons envisioned except under rare circumstances, so I can understand why he might resist marital limitations even if the action I personally believe is unethical since he chose to get married. Unless of course it turns out his wife was fine with this all along (I seriously doubt that).

"This affected their careers negatively!" I am open to this argument, if someone can explain it to me since I have yet to read an explanation as to why this is the case beyond my previous mentioned argument "Traumatically shocking."

In short, I believe Dr. Azin said it best when he posted the following comment on the New York Times:

"We are careening toward a society comprised of total hypocrisy. Sure, this is some creepy stuff, but all those (now a vast majority, as with Weinstein, et al, forming a line to hypocritically condemn) expressing righteous indignation and companies canceling and cutting ties with any “sinner”, when surely, somewhere in their past, they’ve committed some unsavory acts, are, yes, hypocrites.

This is how our political system reached its current nadir—we accept and support only “perfect” candidates who haven't done anything human, when we ourselves have made our own mistakes. What we get, of course, is only the best liars in the world."

Wake up and read between the lines people he didn't do anything unethical beyond the fact he did this while married. I never knew much about Louis C.K. before this and I can't say I think any less of him after this.

I'm normally a calm and respectful fellow so my apologies in advance but everything you wrote is absolute shit that can only come from the deluded mind of someone who has never been sexually harassed.

I'll try to put this as simply as I can...having a dick doesn't give you the right to go around asking your co-workers if you can show it to them...I hope that if your wife/daughter ever has a creep chasing them asking to show them his dick you don't react with "grow up...he's just ASKING you...he's not doing anything wrong".

As someone who (probably very poorly) has "taken classes on communication, interpersonal/business communication, rhetoric, and most relevantly, persuasion" you seemed to have fallen asleep in class since you don't seem to understand the very basic points of social or workplace interaction. The way you shrugged off the power that a male co-worker can have over a woman in a male dominated industry is not only clueless but very callous, no to mention your following mocking generalisation of "then all guys do it har har" just shows how little thought you actually put in your argument.

The whole "they admired me" argument from CK is see-through bullshit and I find it quite sad that you actually bought it...they weren't fans who just found him on the street and followed him to his hotel room...they were fellow comedians, which is a whole different issue (see above)

Now I realise that you're apparently dreaming of a society where everyone walks around jerking off to everybody else, but luckily, we're not there yet, so you have to live in the present rules. I would really urge to to read up on consent and when verbal consent can't be considered valid when given. Maybe even watch a video called "tea and consent"...it uses a really easy to follow analogy that won't strain your brain.

Lastly, your whole post and your quote of this Azin person really makes me want to ask what have you been doing to women that made you come up with this drivel...

I don't know the details but if there was consent between two adults I fail to see the issue. Some 10 years ago I had a manager asking me if I wanted to go to a motel I just told her no, and that was it.

I was never a fan of Louie CK, but my sister loved him. I asked her this morning if she was still a fan, and she told me to fck off. I'll take that as a no.

@EpycWyn: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/10/563316860/louis-c-k-admits-to-sexual-harassment-of-multiple-female-comedians

This says it all and now the question is just if Netflix and the other networks like FX is as fast as they were with Spacey.

If you need a page of drivel to justify why exposing yourself and jerking it in front of people is wrong then you're doing human wrong.

I honestly don't care, in the end NOBODY was harmed, raped, etc and I'll still watch his stand up and laugh my ass off.

This news was very disappointing to hear. I really enjoyed his comedy but what he did was disgusting and most definitely wrong though.

I believe he admitted to sexual harassment. Therefore...he's not innocent. He's a POS. Perhaps with all these celebs getting caught we can actually make some progress in this area now.

In 2016 a lot of celebs we loved died, and this year we find out a lot are scum. He admitted to it, so its true.

I challenge everyone to watch this clip and tell me the man isn't a disgusting scumbag:

Given the stuff he talks about in his comedy, and the fact that so many of the same people who are now condemning him laughed at it, make me thing something isn't quite right somewhere. You'd need a bit of a sick mind to come up with some of the stuff he does. I mean, he has gone on TV to publicly defend masturbation.

is what Louie did a bit creepy? yes. I'm sure he made those girls very uncomfortable, and he certainly abused his fame. but they also agreed to go to his hotel room for some drinks late at night. there is usually an implication with that kind of invitation, and they really didn't know him that well. They essentially agreed to go into a hotel room with a stranger.

does Louie deserve to have his career ended over this? I don't think so. If he puts out more comedy specials i'll watch them.

Why would one apologize if the individual did nothing wrong?

You are aware that asking someone to have drinks with you does not mean you can sexually assault them..........right?

I got you, my friend. You got to keep this simple for people.

@korvus: Haha.......good description though.

a straight man asking women to his hotel room late at night for drinks does have certain implications. not saying what it did isn't creepy/wrong, but those girls should have anticipated he might try something.

also i'm not sure how masturbating in front of women qualifies as assault. to me that word implies some kind of physical contact between the assaulter and the assaultee

Wow victim blaming. It's 2017 sexual predators are anathema.

not blaming, but they were certainly naive

not sure i'd call the man a predator either. a pervert? yea sure, but anyone who listens to his material already knew that

@korvus: I've been doing such horrible things to women. I've been respecting them, treating them as equals, and worst of all, acting as if women are able to make their own choices. Such awful things.

You know what would make more sense? If the women simply said "no," and moved on. They were not directly told to watch or else; they simply chose to. It seems unethical that Louis CK is considered an abuser in this situation, yet if the women asked first, then suddenly it would've been okay. Just because you're famous, male, and powerful doesn't mean you suddenly lose the permission to ask consent. What was he supposed to do, write a detailed paper on the many social nuances of asking for consent before asking? Everyone should have the right to ask consent. If we promote a society where people can lose that right, what you will be left with is people who choose to instead act without consent since asking will be proven a waste of time -a far worse problem.

He shouldn't have done this while married, he should have better social intuition to know what is and isn't going to make people socially uncomfortable, but beyond that this is a pretty mild problem at worst.

@EpycWyn: I hope you aren't serious...........

Jesus dude. You must be a real tart in real life. Thank of rape/molestation/sexual assualt like this, if another man did it to you in prison would you be ok? If a man invited you to his cell to drink prison wine and fapped on you, would you be ok with that?

This is why I stick to political gamers and sw these days. Its brutal, but OT went down the gutter a long time ago.

@EpycWyn: To quote the guy you are defending:

"At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn't a question. It's a predicament for them."

If you don't understand what he means, then I genuinely worry about you.

I have to wonder if it's really fair to ask fans of people accused to doing bad things whether or not they're still fans. If Chris Hemsworth (I just got back from seeing Thor) were accused to sexual harrasment tomorrow and someone were to ask me if I still liked the movie todat that I just said that I loved a day ago I would still say yes. It's sort of being a dick to essentially exprect people to stop liking stuff they have a history of enjoying because it turns out the main person involved did something bad that was unrelated to the media you're enjoying.

I guess my point is let's stop getting on each other for enjoying what we have a history of enjoying, but let's also not use that history of enjoyment to immediately forgive the person who has a history of bad behavior.

@Planeforger: I know what he means. This is the basis of the argument that this was a problem because of the implied coercion that he could potentially wield his influence as a means of punishing them should they not comply. However, that is an assumption in the minds of the women and was never stated. He has also not been documented punishing women who did not comply. While a person with social intuition would take into account the women would worry he may punish them if they do not comply, ultimately they still had the ability to walk out and say no and were operating on an assumption that they would get in trouble if they did otherwise. While I fully comprehend this logic, this assumption within their minds that they did not have a choice, was an assumption, not a certainty. Just because people have power does not mean they are no longer allowed to ask consent for sexual acts with others.

With all that in mind, I again say this was a mild sexual misdemeanor at worst.

This is trolling at best, and extremely offensive at worst. At any rate, this thread is getting locked.