Breaking News: How Kevin Spacey’s coming out fuels a dangerous myth about gay men and pedophilia - News Paper

Spacey’s response to allegations of sexual misconduct against a minor could easily be misconstrued and weaponized.

In the earliest hours of Monday morning, actor Kevin Spacey responded to Anthony Rapp’s allegations of assault against him by saying he does not recall the encounter, but that, if it happened, he apologizes for “what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior” — and then, in a turn, used his statement to come out as gay.

“This story has encouraged me to address other things about my life,” Spacey wrote in a statement posted on Twitter. “I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man. I want to deal with this honestly and openly and that starts with examining my own behavior.”

http://pic.twitter.com/X6ybi5atr5

— Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) October 30, 2017

Spacey’s sexuality has been the topic of tabloid gossip and rumors for years. In June, Spacey himself obliquely nodded toward these rumors when he hosted the Tony Awards, making jokes about coming out and winkingly singing Broadway lyrics like, “I’m coming out … No, wait, no.”

In the context of Rapp’s allegations, however, Spacey’s decision to officially come out now seems more like deflection than something genuine. As many observers have been quick to emphasize, it’s difficult to ignore the possibility that Spacey was making a calculated move to spin the news cycle in his favor.

Regardless of Spacey’s intentions, several publications ran headlines that focused on Spacey’s coming out over his alleged assault of a 14-year-old boy.

When every straight late-shift news editor manages to miss the goddamn point. http://pic.twitter.com/VdJsp2ouBE

— realMarkHarris (@MarkHarrisNYC) October 30, 2017

There’s no denying that such headlines are a win for Spacey’s public relations team. But they’re also extremely dangerous. Because in tying his coming out to alleged sexual advances toward a minor, Spacey has opened the door for people to conflate being gay with and pedophilia — an old and pernicious myth that’s long been used by anti-gay groups and individuals to oppose LGBTQ rights.

Historically, gay people have often been wrongly portrayed as predatory sexual deviants

The important fact to keep in mind as Spacey’s comments circulate and the news cycle plays out is that there is no known connection between homosexuality and pedophilia.

Earlier this year, Vox researched the topic after former Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos falsely suggested that such a connection is fact.

Specifically, my colleague German Lopez cited the work of retired University of California Davis professor Gregory Herek, who wrote: “Back in 1977, when Anita Bryant campaigned successfully to repeal a Dade County (FL) ordinance prohibiting anti-gay discrimination, she named her organization ‘Save Our Children,’ and warned that ‘a particularly deviant-minded [gay] teacher could sexually molest children.’”

Herek, a well-known social psychologist who studies and writes about LGBTQ issues on his blog Beyond Homophobia, took a broad look at the empirical research on this myth, analyzing studies on both sides of the claim. He concluded — in no uncertain terms:

The empirical research does not show that gay or bisexual men are any more likely than heterosexual men to molest children. This is not to argue that homosexual and bisexual men never molest children. But there is no scientific basis for asserting that they are more likely than heterosexual men to do so. And, as explained above, many child molesters cannot be characterized as having an adult sexual orientation at all; they are fixated on children.

But research like Herek’s hasn’t stopped people from perpetuating the myth when it comes to situations where LGBTQ people, and specifically gay men, might interact with children — like teaching in schools or working with organizations like the Boy Scouts.

Most recently, the myth has surfaced in the fight against transgender people being legally allowed to use public bathrooms that align with their gender identity, without being restricted to those that match the sex they were assigned at birth. Some proponents of the myth have gone so far as to suggest that transgender people will sexually assault women and children in public bathrooms if they aren’t prevented from sharing bathrooms with those groups.

This fear-mongering tactic has been used by conservatives, particularly in North Carolina, to oppose legislation that grants LGBTQ people legal protections against discrimination in the workplace, schools, housing, and public accommodations.

And the faulty logic behind it persists despite multiple investigations that have found zero evidence of increased incidents of sexual assault or other public safety concerns when trans people are granted legal nondiscrimination protections to use whichever bathroom they are most comfortable with.

It’s not clear whether Spacey thought about the thorny history of gay men being painted as child molesters and pedophiles, or the current political climate, when he came out in his statement. But the potential consequences are dangerous nonetheless.

Kevin Spacey’s response to Rapp’s allegations lacks personal responsibility

Spacey’s response to Rapp’s allegations is a lot of things rolled into one quasi-apology for allegedly trying to initiate a sexual encounter with an underage boy. In addition to coming out, Spacey blames his alleged bad behavior on alcohol while noting that the incident took place decades ago and he doesn’t remember it ever happening. He also writes about living under the pressure of the public eye and people prying into his privacy.

What Spacey fails to do is take any personal responsibility for what Rapp says happened.

This approach might have been lifted from the Harvey Weinstein playbook; in similar fashion, Weinstein initially addressed the allegations of sexual harassment and assault brought against him by dozens of women by releasing a statement in which he spoke of his need to attend therapy to “conquer his demons.” Later, he reportedly began treatment for sex addiction.

The cases of Spacey and Weinstein are undoubtedly different, as the allegations against Weinstein come from more than 50 women and cover a wide range of offenses, from unwanted advances to rape. Weinstein was also alleged to have used his position of power as a Hollywood producer to intimidate and even threaten the careers of the women he targeted. But his alleged behavior and Spacey’s have one thing in common: Both men responded to early accusations made against them by asserting their membership within a certain minority subset.

Spacey and Weinstein each minimized their own culpability, while failing to make clear that drinking alcohol or being gay or suffering from sex addiction doesn’t automatically make someone a rapist, pedophile, or sexual harasser.

“Adopting a marginalized identity in a moment like this does more than bleed the meaning out of an apology,” James Hamblin wrote at the Atlantic about the timing of Spacey’s decision to come out. “It sucker-punches the entire marginalized group. It sets back fights for civil rights—in these cases, respectively, non-heterosexual people and mentally ill people, burdened for generations by baseless stereotypes pertaining to pedophilia and violence.”

Instead of assuming responsibility for his actions, Spacey has tangled his alleged transgressions against Rapp with his gay identity — and by extension, with the entire gay community. The overwhelming majority of gay people are not sexual harassers or child molesters, but thanks to Spacey’s actions, some of those people may now have to defend themselves from what Spacey is alleged to have done.

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Breaking News: How Kevin Spacey’s coming out fuels a dangerous myth about gay men and pedophilia - News Paper