I’ve been watching the Kevin Spacey documentary, and it’s grotesque in a way I hadn’t imagined. He is at once abusive and sexually exploitative, with decades worth of mistreatment and grooming under his belt, and also simply a deeply traumatized young boy.
While watching Spacey Unmasked, memories of my own semi-troubling ‘fling’ with a famous gay man came rushing back, and I felt a whole assortment of good and bad and shame and confusion. And, as seems to be the case lately, my train of thought ends with connecting this all to the genocide in Gaza and our society’s violent ascension into anarchy.
The most shocking part is just how psychopathic Spacey is—my guy wasn’t a psychopath, I don’t think. Spacey isn’t just a normal guy with a compulsion. I’m saying there is barely a soul—I’m not even kidding. I’ve watched back over his media appearances, interviews, and roles, over the years and you see it clear as day that he is empty inside. It’s the eeriest thing. Think about Lester Burnham in American Beauty, or Frank Underwood in House of Cards—their defining behavior is doing whatever they want—drugs, sex, violence—to get whatever they want no matter who or what is in the way.
I want to place a fat caveat and disclaimer here about the documentary's credibility and my flippant psychological diagnoses. (1) Alarm bells went off during the documentary because multiple interviewees used very similar language about Spacey seeming “inhuman.” I got the distinct sense that the interviewer was using some psychological mind tricks to plant the language they wanted to hear in people’s minds. It seemed a bit contrived. So that makes me trust the documentary less. (2) I just finished reading the book The Psychopath Test, which is basically about how psychopathy and sociopathy are not legit diagnoses and are based on this really sketchy questionnaire created by proponents of the DSM who readily admit that it is created out of thin air and isn’t really based in science. The result has been much over-incarceration in medical institutions, over-prescription of drugs, and over-emphasis on psychiatric diagnoses in the addressing of actual and complex societal issues. So, in a nod to the bullshit of psychiatry, I’m taking it upon myself to call Spacey a psychopath based on this documentary.
More than 20 men came out saying Spacey sexually accosted them, usually on set. Many of them reported that his eyes were frightening, inhuman, dark, and empty. He’d jerk off in front of them or while driving his car. He’d invite them over for a party but would be the only one there and would expose himself or something like that. He’d grab their dicks on set or make them grab his. These are background actors and other people on set over whom he has control. Imagine his weight on set—two time Academy Award winner, Executive Producer, you want him on your good side.
Spacey’s response to the accusations was first to come out of the closet, settling decades of speculation.
And then he released a bizarre YouTube video in the character of Frank Underwood, addressing the real-life allegations against him in Underwood’s fictional southern drawl and smarmy, threatening language. If you don’t know, by the end of the show (it in got canceled) Frank Underwood is the psychopathic President of the US.
When watching this video, imagine you’re someone has been sexually assaulted by him. Really imagine how frightening and/or enraging this would be.
Spacey likes ex-military straight guys. He likes to corner them and pull his dick out. He took one guy to see Saving Private Ryan and sat in the back of the theater to watch Saving Private Ryan and started jacking off while watching scenes of maimed soldiers and gore. He locked other men in rooms. He assaulted young actors on set in between scenes. It didn’t start with fame either. He was doing it in college too, and before. As far as I know, there wasn’t outright rape, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were. But there was aggressive, unasked-for touching in public, and under various forms of threat. Always to people with less power than him, always a secret, often in public or in private, never consensual or gone about in any sort of healthy or normal way.
Most of the men rejected the label of victim, and all of them described the light in Spacey’s eyes draining out when they were alone together. They all express feelings like they had no control. To paraphrase one of the ex-marines, I know all these bros watching this will be like, ‘If that were me, I would have kicked Kevin Spacey’s ass.’ And I’m just like, No, you wouldn't have. When something like that is happening in a workplace you’re dedicating your life to, your first reaction is not to get angry, it’s to freeze.
When we talk about consent, we’re really talking about a person’s ability to control their own actions. Obviously if these men could turn back the clock, they would respond differently. But we are monkeys, and it seems most people are wired to freeze when sexual abuse is happening. Perhaps around the jungle, this is the best way to preserve your health and safety.
I have conflicting feelings about my time with this famous client from work. He exhibited a lot of the behavior that Spacey does; they both have a clear procedure they use to accost and flip young straight men. I wasn’t totally straight, though. Once, while at college in New York, I bought my best bro a bottle of wine and asked him if he wanted to make out. . . just to be fun. We did. We talked about how it felt and complimented each other’s kissing style, and then we got stoned and played Call of Duty. Just two normal guys in Williamsburg hanging out.
Anyway, my experience with this client left me feeling both ashamed and proud. Is it possible to feel both at the same time?
Kevin Spacey used to watch or hear his younger brother getting beaten and raped by their father for years. When his brother finally escaped their home, Kevin was all alone. Presumably, his dad made him the new target. Kevin’s upbringing was one of helplessness. His first and seemingly core sexual experience was watching homosexual rape. Based on the accusations of tens of men over five decades, Kevin’s sexual and intimate development didn’t mature much beyond this traumatic childhood, forever stuck in an angry loop re-enacting his father’s abuse.
Kevin’s assaults are all similar scenes: he gets men alone or locks them in rooms, psychologically manipulates them with promises of their names in lights, and then exposes himself to them. When Spacey is in these episodes, he must be wrought with sexual compulsion and deep shame, but also the self-control to not go all out assault people. He is very measured, and he doesn’t need “normal” sex. His turn on is the fear in his victims’ eyes, and in exerting control over their lives. The violation of another man’s agency and physical boundaries is what he considers intimacy.
In his book Daddy, what I think is one of the best books of the decade, psychologist Tim Lewis asks: “Do abusers have agency when they are abusing?”
We know that a victim’s agency can be taken away through threat or manipulation, but what happens if abusers are also caught in some past abuse reverie and are not able to control themselves either? We know that people who experience abuse often become abusers, so what do we call someone like Kevin, who is an abuser and also a victim at the same time? Will prison help? Will canceling them and ending their careers help? How do we engage them compassionately without excusing them? And, as is important to think about in regards to the #MeToo movement: What accountability do victims need to take for their willingness to be under the power of these people? In what way, in my interactions with my famous client, was I asking for it?
When we veer into personal responsibility in regard to sexual relations, it becomes a quiagmire. And, as usual in my Substack posts, I’m almost too gleefully excited to step into that quagmire and get all muddy.
Okay, it’s paywall time because I’m about to talk about some rather private personal experiences:
Asking for It
I was working on a project with a famous gay man, some might call him a gay icon.
My boss was very excited about this big client, and there was a lot of weight riding on the deal. The—how should I call it—weirdness started right away. This man would be on an email chain with multiple people from my company, and he would return an email and remove everyone, leaving only me (as if he had isolated us into a room). He would say, “Hey Cutie,” and respond to the email otherwise as if everything was normal.
My boss would vocally express around the office how annoying it was that this guy would never respond to his emails or calls or texts, he was anxious the deal was in jeopardy. They were supposed to do events together and hit deadlines and this guy would simply not give my boss the time of day. It was awkward to admit, but after some time I had to tell my boss that this guy was in fact responding to emails and texts, but just in private.
From there began this routine of my boss using me as the conduit. In production meetings, it would be, “Josh, ask so and so about so and so,” and my coworkers’ skepticism grew. In retrospect, they probably pitied me a bit? I’m not sure—nobody talked about what was going on. If I could go back, I’d probably bring up my discomfort to my superiors and see how we could address it somehow.
Suddenly, I was the person everyone has to go to if they want any information from this guy. I would get responses right away, even while my boss would wait for days and never get a response. Once, when my boss and I visited him at his five story brownstone, I remember this guy climbing up on one of the counters in his bottom floor and laying down on his side in a sort of sexy modelling position while he talked to both of us about the project. My boss probably thought it was quirky, but I knew it was a come-on directed at me.
And here comes the personal responsibility part: I started flirting back. Part of it was a fawning response because I didn’t want to mess up the project—I felt anointed with his attention, and it made me feel more important and vital in a new workplace. The other part of me was just intellectually interested, as I always have been with homosexuality. I say intellectually because I feel straight and love pussy, but when the opportunity presents itself to be with a man, I’m sometimes interested. And then, as has happened a few times in my life, when it comes down to actually intimacy with a man, I can’t really get turned on, all the interest goes away, all systems shut down.
Around lunch time on gay pride day, and also what would have been my 2nd wedding anniversary if I hadn’t gotten divorced from my wife a few months earlier, I got a message from him. He told me his husband and kids were away in Europe. He told me there was an angel on his shoulder telling him to just go home and rest, but a devil on the other shoulder telling him to invite me over.
I told him if he had nice whiskey I’d consider it. At 8pm he asked if I would be up late.
I should have said no.
I said yes.
At 12:30 am he texted me and we met at a bar down the block. After a quick drink, we went back to my little studio. We talked for a bit and then he asked me if I was a top or bottom. I told him I had no idea really. He straddled me and we started making out.
We moved to the bed and got naked. As is par for the course, I wasn’t aroused at all. And then a series of things happened that made me realized this was sort of a routine of his. He asked me if it would help if we put on some straight porn. I said not really. He turned me over and tried to put his penis inside of me. No lube. I was actually interested in moving forward but I’d never done it before and he really wasn’t helping make it easy. After some time, I simply couldn’t relax and I told him I’m just not feeling it. He never entered me.
Here, his tone changed and he said something I can only describe as feeling rehearsed. He said I had three options: I could suck him off, jerk him off, or he could just go home.
I chose option two. He pulled my other hand to his ass so I could finger him. I honestly don’t remember if he came. He must have. I sort of blacked out or tuned it out. I wanted him out of there, but choosing option three felt like an insult.
He left nearly right away. He seemed let down; I was let down. We never really texted again after that. He made the rest of the project easy and it was completed without a hitch, but he had clearly gotten what he wanted. So had I, I suppose?
Tourists in 2D
Part of me felt bad I couldn’t be more present with him. I admit I was kind of a gay tourist; seeing how the other half live without any really investment in making it work. I felt, as victims often do in situations like this, like there was something I did wrong, or something I could have done to not have let him down like that. I later heard through a friend that this was his routine: momentarily flipping young straight guys.
If I could put on my official victim hat, I’d ask why he was only doing this with people he already had some power over. I’d ask why he didn’t talk more about his family and whether his husband knew what he was doing. I didn’t know if this was cheating. I’d ask what exactly he was looking for. It felt like the sex was secondary to the compulsion to have a young straight man under his finger. I’d ask why he couldn’t just go about it normally and ethically.
I might have felt different if he had asked me out on a date without inserting himself bizarrely into my workplace dynamics. I might have felt different if he had asked me about my life and my experiences, actually courting me. I felt like he had flattened me to a 2D person and was just getting what he needed. Another notch in the belt vibes. Or was he a notch in mine?
However, there is some level of this dynamic for all sex within the patriarchy. I’ve certainly engaged with women over the years, and still my wife sometimes, in a way that flattens them into 2D. The result is something fabricated, unreal, or stunted. And I, too, was guilty of flattening him into 2D—his reputation proceeded him. We were just two 2D guys fumbling around.
There was no merging of souls here. There was no delicacy. There was no chance of a future together. It was empty.
This process of being flattened into 2D is really parallel to the loss of agency. It’s easier to control people when we flatten them into 2D—removing their history, removing their depth, and their complicated psychology. This is why powerful people—Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein and perhaps to some degree the person I’m writing about—get away with this sort of behavior for years. They are flattened into their celebrity to the point that the idea that Kevin Spacey or Bill Cosby actually being violent psychopaths seems laughable or preposterous. Why would a psychopath do so much great in the world? How could a psychopath be so lovable? How could someone be so brazen as to be high profile and also a serial assaulter?
I want to be clear about two things right now:
(1) To my knowledge, my client was not a serial assaulter. I’m not mentioning their name because I don’t think they are a bad person. But much like anyone who gets elected president is kind of a bad person right away because of the unjust power at their disposal, so is someone who has risen to celebrity.
Nobody deserves that much power because very few humans are able to hold and maintain it without flattening those less powerful than them into 2D. I’d say it’s power in general which does the flattening, and celebrities are just coincidental tools.
We see this process in all its glory as Israel razes Gaza to the ground. We see people becoming aware of the pernicious and nefarious power that celebrity and personal branding can have on real people and nations. How can a country claim to be a bastion of safety and peace and democracy as they murder tens of thousands of families? It’s all part of the same system: flatten people and places into 2D and then have your way with them. When asked about it, just repeat your 2D lie and say, “I had no other choice,” or “That’s the way the world works.”
Me and this guy flattened one another according to demographics: I was just another young, fit, unsure straight boy and he was just another rich, famous celebrity. The same process happens when the IOF flattens Palestinians into terrorist sympathizers, thereby flattening themselves into righteous soldiers who need not think about the results of their actions on thousands of 3D humans. Instead, they just take what they need and don’t look back.
Anarchy in the U.S.A.
It’s no secret to my readers that I’ve been getting nice and cozy with anarchy lately. This comes out of a skepticism of all power. The power of ideologies, of nations, of celebrities, of genders, etc. I’ve grown skeptical of my own power as a wealthy, healthy, white man. There’s no ethical consumption in our society—it all comes with a cultural, environmental, societal, and financial cost.
So, how do we interact with other humans and not get flattened or be flattened? How do we approach the 3D, 4D, and 5D world with grace and fearlessness? Much of our fear comes from the idea that if we see things in more dimensions, life would be harder. Interactions between all people would take more care, time, energy, and bandwidth than the current capitalist system allows. We’re abundant in food and Amazon packages, but we all long for fostering a community that enriches us in other ways.
I knew writing about this was going to be meandering journey, but I didn’t expect to land back at anarchy. In today’s media and social landscape, all roads lead to the frightening unknowns of anarchy simply because the known ways of relating are clearly unsustainable and breaking down.
My little hope for you today is that you are aware of how power moves its way through your life, decisions, and interactions. You don’t need to resist it, control it, nor feel shame about it, nor covet it. Just be aware of it, see what it wants, where it’s flowing, and if you like where it’s going. If you don’t like where it’s going, break open your field of vision a bit and see what new ways of relating are possible in each moment. Suddenly you realize power is all around us and its true nature is Love.
Don’t let the machinations distract you from connecting to one another and yourself.
I’m going to end with an excerpt from The Meaning of Death by Stephen Jenkinson:
How about holding dear the fact that nothing you hold dear lasts? How about holding that close to your bosom? That’s making meaning of the end of life, the willingness to do that. It is not hammered into the sky for all to see so that nobody can forget. You see how precarious the whole proposition is. It actually has to be lived out and told in order to pertain. It has no police, it has no enforcement branch. Our way of life is the consequence. Life does not feed life. Life is on the receiving side of life, always. It is a hurtful kind of comfort, maybe, that the dominant culture of North America is in some kind of beginning stage of a terminal swoon. Because it’s the beginning, it is hard to tell the difference between that and dancing, or having a good time, you know. But, it is terminal alright. There is no turning back from it, there is no undoing it. And it's not a punishment, no more that dying is a punishment for being born. Our particular dilemma, I think, is trying to live with the realization that what the world requires of us humans is not that they piss off already and why don’t you all die and then we’ll go back where we were. No, I think that the world whispers, “All we need of you is that you be human—that’s it. The dilemma is in the meaning of the word, “human.” What has to die is your refusal to die; your refusal for things to end. If that dies, life can be fed. The plea is not for punishment, it’s for remembrance. You are not supposed to feel bad about having forgotten. You are supposed to feel more. That is the invitation.
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