Being gay does not excuse predatory behaviour
By Jessica Berget, Opinions Editor
As you may have heard, yet another Hollywood elite, Kevin Spacey, has been outed as a sexual abuser, but instead of dealing with the matter at hand, Spacey has decided to use this moment to come out as a gay man. Though this has been a subject of a conversation, it should not distract from the fact that Spacey allegedly sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy, and potentially many more men, young and old, according to Buzzfeed News.
One account from an anonymous journalist who was interviewing Spacey at the time describes how he took him out to a club and became increasingly sexually aggressive towards him. Things allegedly came to a head when Spacey began screaming in his face in a horror story fashion, according to Buzzfeed News. “This man [Spacey] was screaming in my face outside of the main bar area, red-faced, spit flying out of his mouth, screaming at me with fury because I didn’t want to fuck him. He was actually saying that I did want to, and I was a coward. That was his tactic. It was unbelievable.”
Despite this account, when the journalist told his editor about it he refused to let him report on this incident, because he did not want to out Kevin Spacey as gay. “It has occurred to me since then that there’s this weird way that Spacey had discovered that the closet would shield other things,” the journalist recalls. “Being closeted has for him enabled him to use this privacy claim as a shield against anybody looking closely at his actual behavior.”
This is exactly why we should not let the news of his coming out shadow the stories and victims of his sexual misconduct. This is how Spacey has gotten away with his behaviour in the past, and we, as a society should not let it continue to happen.
Spacey’s coming out follows a very old and toxic stereotype. If you’ve ever watched those anti-gay advertisements from the ‘60s you will know what I’m talking about. Basically, the main argument against homosexuality at the time was that gay men are predators and will try to prey on young boys. This is a stereotype that is still subtly prevalent even today and is even further perpetuated by Spacey “choosing to live as a gay man” (as if being gay is a choice) in order to cover up his sexual assault allegations.
Spacey’s coming out could not have happened at a worse time, but to him, it is convenient for shadowing his disturbing past. Coming out of the closet does not excuse his behaviour and we should not let it distract from the allegations of him being a sexual predator and a pedophile.
