Speaker 1We can finally say it. David Walliams is the celebrity accused of sexually harassing women.
Speaker 2With the injunction now lifted and with Russell Brand serving 10 years in jail, do we need to have a conversation about men, celebrity and abuse of power?
Speaker 1It's something about the power of celebrity that it is different. If a much older man, some random much older man, privately messaged you on MySpace, you might just go, that's weird and creepy and ignore them. But because they're a celebrity, there's a different dynamic between you and that person.
Speaker 2Tim, I'm back. And can I just say that somebody has staged a David Cameron-like intervention? Remember when he said to Jeremy Corbyn, do you know what my mother would say? Put on a suit and tie and sing the national anthem. Somebody has said to you that it is totally inappropriate for you to be appearing on this podcast with your sleeves rolled up. Why did you do that? It's because we're inside an oven.
Speaker 1Yes, this is what people have to understand. It is about 100 degrees in here. I don't know what's wrong. The air conditioning is broken or something like that.
Speaker 2I'm regretting knitwear at my time of life. Let's put it that way. We've just had a quick 2K march from Marsham Street where we just observed a press conference with Kemi, which is being blown out of the water, I'm afraid, by the news that David Walliams is the anonymous celebrity at the heart of yet another. Celebrity sexual assault scandal. We'll get on to that in a minute. But basically, it's so hot that you felt that you wanted to imitate Don Johnson yesterday and it's gone badly wrong.
Speaker 1People were lucky it was just the sleeves rolled up.
Speaker 2Could it have been your trousers rolled up as well?
Speaker 1If it gets any hotter. And the strange thing is, it's Arctic conditions outside.
Speaker 2Yes, but we could actually feasibly podcast in our pants and nobody except each other would notice. That's a thought for another day. No, it's on YouTube now. Oh, yes, good point. Yeah, but you can't really see. Well, actually, yes, you could.
Speaker 1That's how hot it is.
Speaker 2And that would probably be deemed completely inappropriate behaviour in light of the allegations surrounding Russell Brand and David Walliams.
Speaker 1I think this is the time to say I've absolutely never done that.
Speaker 2No, that's right. Let's put that on record. Some of the behaviour you do look at and you go, why, what, sorry, what were you thinking? What were you doing? Why were the people around you sanctioning it? But we'll get on to that.
Speaker 1I always hate it when stories like this break that name a celebrity because, like everyone else in the industry, I knew the name of the celebrity for weeks. Yes. And I feel as if I'm on the side of an establishment conspiracy to protect that individual. Yes. But we couldn't go around naming David Walliams because of an injunction.
Speaker 2Yes, which was meaningless, really, because as you say.
Speaker 1Which was meaningless because people were all saying it anyway. But you take my point that when the name is then named and the media all goes, well, we knew all along. Well, why didn't you tell us is what people tend to ask. And it's not an unfair question. If you all were talking about this for weeks,
Speaker 2why couldn't we just. Actually, I do think that's a fair question, isn't it? And we come on to Brand a bit later, and I think it's important at this stage to not to equate David Walliams and Russell Brand. The former has not been accused of anything in a court of law. He has been subject to allegations that have been made to both ITV and The Guardian, who have done a longstanding investigation into claims made by women that he behaved sexually inappropriately towards them with one claim of sexual assault. All of this he denies. That's quite. It's quite different to a discussion that we will have about the latest on Brand, who is now a convicted rapist and been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison. We can talk about the commonality of men abusing positions of power in show business. I think we can talk about the commonality of their employers, plural, turning a blind eye. And we can talk about the commonality of a post-MeToo unacceptance by women of behaviour that went by in the past. And we can often talk about whether Lucy Powell, is right to dismiss Labour's cosying up to particularly Brand by saying, well, it happened in a different era. And you and I can have a discussion as journalists. We are slightly pot calling kettle black if we're accusing people of knowing about the behaviour of both men being bad and not doing much. I mean, it was an open secret that David Walliams had a, let's put it this way, difficult relationship with some of the people he worked with. I remember an old colleague at the Sunday Express throwing a glass of wine over him at a party because he was rude. I mean, he's not, he's not the kind of celebrity that has covered himself in glory just from a personality perspective. Lots of people that reported on him thought he was a bit tricky. Yes. Similarly, I mean, we all knew that Russell Brand was a wrong-un.
Speaker 1I don't believe in sharing gossip, to be clear. And we have been through a period in which people have been named and it's turned out to be completely inaccurate. And that was based in some cases upon one deranged individual making up lurid stories. about men in the public eye. So I don't believe in sharing gossip. But my point in this occasion is David Walliams was known. It wasn't just a rumour within the industry. For several weeks now, people have been saying, yeah, it's David Walliams. Yes. But they were prevented from saying that because of the injunction. And I think many people will say, isn't the point of journalists to tell us the truth? And if you're all engaged in a process of holding back something, not our fault, but I understand why people then perceive that as if we are involved in some way, in the cover-up.
Speaker 2And it should be pointed out that it's The Telegraph that initially reported the allegations that were made by women working for HarperCollins, his publisher for The Uninitiated, as well as being a comedian and a TV star and a talent show judge. He's also tried to reinvent himself as a modern-day Roald Dahl, producing stories for children, illustrated by Quentin Blake, which is where the parallel comes in.
Speaker 1My other issue, just to say, to give context to this conversation, is I'm not a celebrity journalist. I don't know. I don't know the entertainment world at all. But in the case of both Russell Brand and David Walliams, I'm not saying you can judge someone on the basis of their art. But in both cases, their persona was of someone who was lewd and lascivious.
Speaker 2And jokes were made about them in that way.
Speaker 1And jokes. And so as an outsider, who's a bit of a stranger to this world, I didn't even know, I didn't actually own a television during the 2000s. Why doesn't that surprise me? If you can believe that. So much of this cultural phenomenon genuinely passed me by. But as an outsider, look at it and think, why didn't the public or the industry recoil at men who seem to be making light of things that shouldn't be made light of?
Speaker 2Yeah, mistreatment of women in general. It might not have been criminal, but it was extremely immoral behavior.
Speaker 1No, and I'm not a prude. I'm not a prig. You can have fun. You can make jokes, etc. But my point is, is the public persona of both men aligns with what they're later accused of. So as an outsider and a consumer of the culture, I'm looking at it and thinking, why didn't the industry earlier on say, something ain't right about these two?
Speaker 2Let's go through the allegations. So the Telegraph had previously reported repeated alleged inappropriate behavior towards female employees at its publishing house, HarperCollins. We have, with this ITV News and Guardian expose now, allegations from two women who said they first met the star when they were 15 years old. Both women now in their 30s said they had been groomed by Walliams and that the experience had affected them for nearly two years. This is the first time in nearly two decades. We have allegations dating back to 2003 that Walliams preyed on teenage girls and young women for sexual purposes. One woman described an alleged encounter with Walliams at 15 years old as a sexual assault. Multiple women accusing Walliams of grooming them when they were teenagers. One says he began contacting her when she was 15 after meeting her at a Little Britain fan event before starting a sexual relationship with her at 17. Also accused of inappropriate conduct and sexual harassment at Britain's Got Talent. The investigation reveals he had a sexual relationship with at least one junior employee at HarperCollins and pursued another. He has denied all the allegations against him stating, I am not a sexual predator. I have not broken the law. And it's worth, before you come into him, just let's just read out the whole statement because we've listed a great many allegations there and in the interest of balance, let's see what Walliams is saying in response. Quotes, looking back, I realized that at times I behaved thoughtlessly towards other people. I had casual sexual relations with. I realized I did not always take people's feelings properly into account. That is something I regret. And whilst a power imbalance is inevitable when one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something I never did. I am not a sexual predator. I am devastated that some of the women I met 10 to 20 years ago have now expressed hurt or anger towards me.
Speaker 1David Walliams is innocent until proven guilty, if indeed. Any criminal kind of action is taken. So we must be very careful. We don't want to confuse what might be very, very poor male behavior with criminal activity. There is a question, though, to be asked about the role of celebrity in all of this. Yes. So one striking account is by someone called Jade who says that when she was a schoolgirl, she went on MySpace in 2007. That's now a defunct social media website. And she commented on it in a photo of David Walliams and that David Walliams then got in touch with her directly and that this then led on to a series of encounters between them that were intimate and sexual. Now, she said, there's something about receiving a message from a celebrity that makes you feel a bit special. Yes. My point is, it's something about the power of celebrity that it is different. If a much older man, some random much older man, privately messaged you on MySpace, space, you might just go, that's weird and creepy and ignore them, but because they're celebrity there's a different dynamic between you and that person yes and i was struck in the accusations against russell brand again not comparing walliams and brand here but i was struck in how women talked about how they met him as a fan because you know some there's some talk online about russell brand's father said outside the courthouse women threw themselves at him yeah that's probably true in fact that is true that is true but it's incumbent upon the man who's having someone thrown at them to exercise some degree of
Speaker 2discernment yes and you can
Speaker 1have a fun consensual relationship yes with someone who throws themselves at you i wouldn't know it's never happened but you can you can do that the difference here is someone exploiting the attention of a fan that's the allegation but also i think that's what celebrity gives you the opportunity
Speaker 2to do it was reflected in the sentencing remarks um at russell brand's hearing that a woman is perfectly entitled to throw themselves at a celebrity a woman is perfectly entitled to approach a celebrity in a pub a woman is perfectly entitled to wear what she wants to wear contact whom she likes but she's also perfectly entitled to not consent to sex yes and you know so yes we have this whole dialogue don't we are well at the end of the day women were throwing themselves at these people but yes a line is drawn at consent and in russell brand's case he was found guilty of raping somebody who initially consented to throwing themselves at a celebrity and he was consented to a certain kind of sex and did not consent to a different kind of sex and that is clearly where the line is drawn now there is clearly issues as well i think it's abuse of power but there's a generational divide going on in some of these cases as well we saw it with savill we saw it with hugh edwards we saw it with russell brand tales of the bbc paying for addison lee cars to collect a 16 year old from school and bring her to his home or the studio in the case of not her real name one of the complainants in the walliams case she's talking about being 15 seeing him in a pub in london being begged for sex being begged for oral sex obviously she comes of age but as she points as she points out herself let's quote her okay it's legal to have sex when you're 17 18 or 16 even but the context of who you're having sex with if that person is double your age if that person has promised you things and is in a much bigger power position of power than you both in age in work in finance in stature in size i really don't think that's okay and that's where this element of a power imbalance and grooming comes in but again we can have a debate about that is i think a grotesque behavior it's immoral behavior is it necessarily criminal behavior or not if it hasn't resulted in underage sex so that that needs to be be discussed
Speaker 1well again i'm not comparing them but but kevin spacey said in his defense never found guilty of anything by the way that the so-called power imbalance ignores how sometimes younger people might exploit the desires of an older person i'm just throwing that in there to say it's complicated what i would say and one reason why i'm framing it in terms of celebrity is because it's almost assumed like celebrity as a free-for-all like you've got a golden ticket in life women now fancy you or boys fancy you so okay you can have sex with them well a different way of looking upon it is celebrity is a position of responsibility yes and that actually if you have if you if you exploit it you're betraying the nature of celebrity i in our society there's kind of a running assumption throughout modern society that it's natural for people to want to get something out of each other yeah so you see my celebrity becomes this key that unlocks things for you but actually should it not be seen the other way around that celebrity is this opportunity and when people come up to you i mean people come up to you they come up to me i'm not saying i'm on that level of celebrity at all but you you must know what i mean that you feel a responsibility to speak to them and act with them in a certain way because they're doing something really nice and they might think quite highly of you in which case you need to rise to that level of what they think you're like with great power
Speaker 2comes great responsibility to quote spider-man i mean why are there some a-listers that wouldn't treat i mean keanu reeves is this classic example of a lifelong heartthrob yes okay from point break to speed to matrix or whatever right this bloke has been he's never aged a day he hasn't aged a day this book has been a poster boy for women and girls and teenagers and whatever probably boys as well for decades and he has absolutely made it his mission to behave appropriate with people he won't even touch people in when they want to come up for photographs he's totally down to earth i mean and that will partly be
Speaker 1to protect himself of
Speaker 2course it is to protect himself but it's also because he's an honorable chap and he behaves in an honorable way because he's grateful for his fame and fortune huge amounts of which i understand he's given away to charity listen we aren't expecting celebrities to be popes no that's ridiculous right no but at the same time we are expecting people who have got a huge amount of privilege surrounded by staff to go and cater to their every whim and need and this is a very and this is the other problem with this which is endemic you know people around these people seemingly turning a blind eye to the behavior and if in the case of brand it's the bbc it's channel four we'll get on to labor rights in just a minute and lefties let's look at this as well and i don't mean to besmirch jonathan ross jonathan ross obviously had the association with brand because of the absolutely grotesque way in which they phoned andrew sacks manuel from 40 towers and made completely lewd remarks about brand's sexual relationship with his granddaughter they were both admonished by the bbc we then have evidence at the british comedy awards in december 2004 of jonathan ross telling the audience the comedy awards is 15 years old 15 years old and like all 15 year olds it's drunk it's unpredictable and it's probably going home with david walliams right now that's very much a joke of its time isn't it the noughties and if we wanted to we could go all the way back in history to the 60s and 70s and analyze some of i don't think anyone would say that in the 60s and 70s well i don't know in the appropriate way that's it that's
Speaker 1not a carry-on joke no i know carry-on joke is that looks like a nice pair that is a joke about having sex with an underage girl yes it is i think actually there's something about the noughties that we need to distinguish here from previous periods um of uh being saucy and fun because that's not seaside humor but to
Speaker 2take us back into that era when you didn't have a television it
Speaker 1really wasn't around i
Speaker 2did right so i went to the first ever recording of little britain ah because uh we had friends who knew walliams and lucas and i remember going with my now husband and we watched this thing thinking it's really very funny you know all of the characters there was something completely inventive and original about it all subsequently because i was working on the sunday express and these were two virtual unknowns matt lucas had made his name as the baby on vic and bob if anyone remembers that uh very wacky um series with reeves and mortimer but basically walliams had injected himself onto the scene it was around the era of the rise of steve coogan doing alan partridge of uh katherine tate doing vicky pollard and a general environment jimmy carr's star was in the ascendancy and i did quite a lot of showbiz reporting at the time where i was moving in those circles hence my knowledge of walliams being coated with a chardonnay and um i then approached walliams because i was a journalist and he was just starting out to see if i could get an interview with him he took very badly to that and responded to the intermediary he was saying don't ever give out my email address and all the rest of it so it's a bit awkward fast forward many many years and i see him at a party of a mutual friend that was september 2025 we have a fairly long chat because he says oh i've seen you on gb news which i found surprising because he's a renowned lefty and why would he necessarily be watching a right-leaning channel anyway no matter and we had a discussion about various things including the fact that britain's got talent got into hot water because it was revealed that they had been catching the judges on hot mic moments and that they were still recording while people like walliams and others were off air and then transcribing it into notes and that did seem to be an invasion of privacy and i think he successfully sued them on the back of that so we had a conversation two months later the telegraph reveals the allegations that have been made against him by female employees at harper collins the injunction was put in place and there was an attempt to keep it in place by making the point that we now know walliams was suffering really from a mental health crisis and that had been twice sectioned under the mental health act but at the same time we need to ask ourselves whether it is right for the details such serious allegations to be kept out of the public eye on the basis of the human rights of the person who is at the center of the allegations in this case the lawyer tried to deploy his right to life and right to dignity and right to privacy under the european convention on human rights but i wrote a piece in response to that saying oh hang on a minute the human rights of a powerful man regardless of some of the mental health problems that he's suffering cannot possibly trump the public's right to know if we're all interested in freedom of expression and transparency and the press holding people accountable and also how on earth can it trump the human rights of those who have accused him of very very serious offenses i'm more interested in
Speaker 1the latter i have to say i mean if this is a debate around uh trying to control damage to her reputation. I think that's distinct from a conversation around our right to know if someone is accused of criminal activity.
Speaker 2But of course, this was about trying to protect a reputation. Exactly. Outside court, Ron Brand and others saying Russell's the real victim here is an attempt to protect a reputation. But what's interesting is that people pay people to protect their reputations.
Speaker 1But society has changed so radically that the injunction has had its day. Yes. And you cannot use the court simply to silence people and safeguard your reputation anymore. Why? Well, because Scotland can get around it. Yes. Our foreign countries can report on it. And you can go online and everyone's just talking about it. Therefore, it has the effect actually of adding a new dimension to the story of the attempted cover-up. It's an example of the Barbara Streisand effect. Yes. Where a celebrity tries to prevent someone from talking about something. And that draws attention to the issue and actually massively increases interest in it. So this to me is a good example of how the injunction has had its day.
Speaker 2Well, we know that as well because of the Jemima Goldsmith element in all this in regard to her relationship with Russell Brand. Yes. Goldsmith has now come forward and with the help of her brother, Zach, said actually the injunction was born about because this woman ended up making vile, anti-Semitic remarks towards Goldsmith. And that actually it was a harassment order to get her to stay away. And Goldsmith has alleged that during her relationship with Russell Brand, it all ended because he was violent towards her. And following that incident, they have not spoken since. And that happened around 10 years ago. So what's the point in a gagging order if you can just go on Google and find out all the information you need anyway?
Speaker 1Also, celebrities themselves now have the ability to manipulate public opinion in ways they couldn't have done before. And the classic example of that was. In the middle of his own trial, Russell Brand recording a Sunday service religious prayer event in which he was very clearly commenting upon the trial while not quite doing it. Yes. So he could get away with it.
Speaker 2So it's almost like he is almost in contempt of his own court case. Exactly. Yes. Meanwhile, by the way, and let's not forget that Brand was approved. He was a proponent of redistributing wealth. I think he meant on a more societal level. I think he meant in a kind of Marxist way. But check this out. This renowned lefty turned righty turned who on earth is he or what does he believe in? I'll tell you what he's doing now. He's secretly dumped nearly nine million from his TV firm while awaiting trial, which may stop victims from suing him. Honorable stuff. And we also have here evidence that he wound down companies and transferred property before his trial. So is that what he meant by redistribution of his own wealth before being behind bars? I mean, this is absolutely classic champagne socialism, isn't it?
Speaker 1It is. Speaking of which, we do have to comment upon the relationship between the political left and Russell Brand in the past. And in so doing, as we said with Jacob yesterday, we've got to be fair minded here and point out that conservatives have known plenty of wrong-uns too. Yes. You know, some of which have even gone to jail. People like. Jeffrey Archer, Jimmy Savile was friends with Margaret Thatcher and also with the current king. Yeah. So everyone falls prey to celebrity. I think one reason why it's judged slightly differently with labor is because they bring the element to it of virtue signaling. That's right. We are such good people. And of course, the left sees everything as a power imbalance. Everything is about the rich versus the poor, the strong versus the weak. And they are on the side of the poor and the weak. Well, what happens then when you end up playing host to and posing as comrade of someone who is himself at the center of a power imbalance?
Speaker 2So Lucy Powell has gone on today on the broadcast round. She's talking about banning phones in schools. No matter. She's being asked about Brand and Labor's historic relationship with this guy. She suggests that Miliband didn't know what he was like back when he appeared on Brand's show, Trues, which was. After, by the way, Saxgate. Well, how can you claim you didn't know what Brand was like when he'd already been fired from his Radio 2 show and admonished alongside Ross by the BBC for making disgusting remarks? I mean, he basically said into Sax's answer phone about Georgina Bailey, with whom he'd had a relationship. I effed her. I mean, it was absolutely disgusting. And yet still he continues to be fetid by the left. Meanwhile, by the way, anyone with any. Familiarity of any of his stage shows or his entire shtick was that he made a career out of bragging about his mistreatment of women. That was the whole point of him. So nobody in those left wing circles could have said they didn't know that this guy had a propensity to be at times a grotesque controversialist, that he had all of the makings of a misogynist. I mean, he admitted that much himself. That great everyman, Andy Burnham, who's so down with the people. I mean, he. Practically is a pork scratching. He knew about Saxgate before he decided to support Russell Brand in some battle that he had with a newspaper somewhere in 2014. Tweeting, keep going. I mean, he was big and clever enough to know better, wasn't he, Tim?
Speaker 1At the time, Andy Burnham said it was, quote, depressing to see media mission to discredit someone who stops playing their game and urged Brand to keep going. He also. Praised an article that he'd written about Margaret Thatcher and said it was the best thing he'd seen written by a West Ham fan.
Speaker 2Oh, my goodness. But also, Brand was such a charlatan because, OK, he came out with all of this rhetoric, but none of it ever made any sense. And some people on the left are seeing him as some kind of sage.
Speaker 1For me, part of this comes back to this question of discernment, both in terms of morality and taste. Part of Brand's act when he was a young man. Part of Brand's act when he was a young man was to take roadkill, laughing as I say it, and a golf club and whack it into the audience. Yeah. Right. I mean, if that's your cup of tea. But when I was growing up, comedians were men in bow ties in smoky clubs who told jokes about their mother-in-law. Well. OK, there was always crudity. There was Roy Chubby Brown and all that. OK, there was always misogyny. Of course, there was always. Yeah, but Camilla, Roy couldn't be shown on telly. Chubby couldn't be shown on telly. No. They used to have a late night stand up set. They used to have a late night stand up set on ITV and they would cut away from Chubby and go to the advert and then they'd come back and the audience would be howling with laughter and the presenter would say, well, I'm sorry, we couldn't show you any of that.
Speaker 2Meanwhile, Brand's being platformed on the BBC and he does an hour of comic relief.
Speaker 1Likewise, I have barely ever watched Britain's Got Minimal Talent. No. But the little bits I have seen, I don't find David Walliams amusing at all. No. It's just him being grotesque and in your face. Yes. This man ended up having a publishing empire writing kids books and a theme park ride. I know. Again, all this stuff has passed me by. I would have just looked at all that and thought, well, OK, maybe it's some people's taste, but I can't quite understand on the basis simply of their ability how these people were able to gain such attention. And on the case about Brand, we can pick on individual left wing journalists and say, how could you have had anything to do with that man in the mid 2010s? I would remind you that he's done Turning Point USA events.
Speaker 2Well, he hasn't now because the left abandoned him.
Speaker 1Russell Brand is like a force of nature. That's not to take away moral responsibility, but he's like a wild animal, a wild animal that both wants to have sex and make money. And what happened at various stages was that different people from different political positions and different bits in the media all saw that and they exploited it, too. And you have to understand this. This is the quality of this is the quality of certain. Men unleashed. They're doing what they're going to do again. They should take responsibility for it. But it's also up to the establishment. And such a thing does exist, by the way. It's up to the establishment to exercise discernment and say something wrong about that man, either morally or it's tacky and shouldn't be encouraged.
Speaker 2Or isn't it up to the establishment, the BBC and Channel 4 to exercise some restraint?
Speaker 1Yeah. Well, protect your own people, your own staff.
Speaker 2The other quality that both these men share is a degree of. Overexposure. Yeah. Beyond their own discernible talents. Yeah. I mean, you know, we've all had it. There was a period where we'd all had it up to here with Walliams and Brand just on TV too much being given too much. Yes. And then people wonder why these people abuse their power. That's because literally so much smoke is being blown up. There are you and I see it all the time. The BBC bless them. And you know what as well? You know, grotesque overpaying of talent because the money keeps on coming in. Yeah. If you. If you operated it as a private business, you'd be looking at people saying, well, are they actually worth that price tag? We saw it with the absolute, you know, grotesque overpay of people like Gary Lineker. It's because the money just keeps on coming into the BBC. And they do have this habit of latching on to little Trey. Oh, look, you know, he was quite popular after Big Brother's Little Mouth. Let's give him every show in the world to present. Like, no, just.
Speaker 1Well, the BBC believes everything has to be mediated through celebrity. Yeah. Hence, it does celebrity traitors, which is really boring and doesn't work. Because it only works with ordinary people because they're doing it for the money. But the BBC does think that the public can only understand things if they are communicated. to them via a celebrity.
Speaker 2Yes. And it finds it extremely difficult, I think, to exercise any regulation over dodgy celebrity behaviour.
Speaker 1Yeah. On the subject of responsibility, this morning we went to a speech by Kemi Badenock, which was supposed to be about welfare, but questions about Russell Brand came up. And of course, we were all talking about David Walliams while she was speaking. And she gave an interesting answer. She was reluctant, actually, to blame the Labour Party collectively for its association with Brand, which I think is correct. Obviously, she can't politically do that because of the Tory Party's past association with abusers. But it's also correct to say that really you should judge these things on an individual basis. You can't say the entire institution is corrupt because an individual within it, like Ed Miliband, has sat down unknowingly with a person like Russell Brand. That would be unfair. And she gave an interesting answer where she said that celebrities are in a particular position of responsibility. And she said that celebrities are in a particular position of responsibility. And she said that celebrities are in a particular position to abuse people and that we have a particular problem with celebrities. I think it's worth reminding people that the vast majority of sexual abuse actually takes place within the family. It's people you know. It's not celebrity. And celebrity offers opportunity. It isn't necessarily a cause of abuse. And I have to be very careful about how I phrase this, but I think we as a society need to be more honest and about the nature of male sexuality and how dangerous it sometimes can be. We live in an odd moment in our culture in which we are more liberated sexually than we've ever been before. And I think we confuse that with maturity. I think that because we have so much more sex outside of traditional marriage, that I think people think they've mastered it. And you can't. It is a force and a potentially dangerous force. And it's not very much not the case that all men are like that. But some men are capable of that. And I think that in our rush towards liberation, we've perhaps forgotten that. And that is where celebrity does give certain men a power and where it's clearly not being scrutinized properly. We have to be realistic. This is the way that some men, if you will, are supposed to have sex. This is some way that I do agree with feminists about this.
Speaker 2Yeah. Well, women don't abuse their power in the same way, right? I mean, women can be bullying. Women can be undermining. Women can do all sorts of things. But it's extremely rare, isn't it? Apart from one film featuring Demi Moore back in the 80s or 90s to have a woman sexually abusing an underling. But this is where I think
Speaker 1we've culturally got it all wrong, because at the same time, as I as I'm saying, men are potentially dangerous, partly because because unfortunately of feminism, we don't talk as much about being a man as we used to. I know there's some cultural pushback against that, getting men to talk about their emotions. It's not really about that. Men don't feel comfortable doing that. It's about giving men a realistic male archetype to live up to. We don't talk about what it means to be a man, what it means to have men's desires and how they are best affected, I think, through the traditional family. And because we don't do that anymore, what are we left with instead? What examples are there for young men to look up to? And it becomes people like Russell Brandt, because we've jettisoned all the old fashioned archetypes of male behavior, the breadwinner, the husband, the father, the patriarch. The patriarchy is itself fascist, we're told. What you're left with instead is the scoundrel and the rascal, the man who breaks all the rules. So what I'm saying is be honest about the danger that men can pose to themselves and to society. And my answer to that is to channel that instead into a proper archetype of masculine behavior, rather than allowing it to be channeled into this gross kind of sexual anarchy.
Speaker 2We'll be back tomorrow, 5pm. We'll be back tomorrow, 5pm.
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