Another day, another highly placed media pundit being sexually inappropriate. This time it was Jeffrey Toobin (of The New Yorker and CNN), giving colleagues an unwanted eyeful when he left the camera on while masturbating during a Zoom meeting. Right on cue, some of his male colleagues have rushed forward to defend this as a mistake that could’ve happened to anyone (uh, no), or insist that he’s indispensable regardless. The NY Daily News went so far as to claim that the issue was Americans being puritanical about masturbation.
No. The issue was consent. The issue with Louis CK was consent. The issue with Anthony Weiner was consent. The issue is consent every time some guy on the subway or the street exposes himself to a woman who doesn’t want to see.
While Toobin continues to maintain that this incident was an accident where he thought the camera was off, it’s worth noting that he’s had issues with consent in the past, including allegedly trying to push his way into a woman’s hotel room, and trying to coerce his mistress into an abortion. And that Toobin and his defenders are the people who help decide what we see on the news, and how it’s presented.
As always, WOW is a team effort. thanks to officebss, mettle fatigue, elenacarlena, SandraLLAP, and Angmar for links and discussion.