Jenny said that a man approached her and said hello while she was walking with her daughter on the beach. She told me that he had a mask on. He walked away and then pulled his mask down. She recognized the actor. David was handsome and charming. He gave me his phone number after asking me more personal questions. She said she didn't know what he wanted.
She said they started sending out messages after she said something on the phone. She said that he seemed interested in her as a person. She said she told him about her experiences with abuse and post traumatic stress disorder. She said that she let him know that she wasn't in a position to be objectified.
She recalled that the messages changed in tone. It was sudden. She said that it went from talking about normal life to requesting very sexual things. She told me that he asked for nude photos and explicit videos and that she sent them to him.
They talked about meeting again in real life, but he said he wasn't interested in a relationship. She told me that he said he couldn't be there emotionally. I was okay with that. He was sending mixed messages. She said that he wanted a relationship but was asking for things you would ask for in a relationship. He didn't offer the same response when she told him she wasn't dating anyone else. She was asked not to tell her friends what she was doing. He was a private person and he values his privacy because he is a public figure. She said that it was a level of secrecy that made her feel uncomfortable.
She recalled that he asked for something new. She said that he wanted to do this whole dom-sub thing, which he had never said explicitly, but implied through his actions. He told her to say "sir" and to answer his questions with "yes, sir." When she had an orgasm over video chat, she had to say his name and then thank him.
She said that he began pestering her for explicit photos and videos. She said he would say things like, "You were OK with it" if she had raised any concerns. He kept contacting me even though he insisted he didn't want a relationship, and that messed with my head the whole time. She said she kept in touch with him because she assumed he was seeing other women, but also because she didn't want to do things she didn't want to do.
Jenny's story is an example of the messy post-#MeToo debates swirling around sex, power, and agency. More and more stories are popping up on social media about these interactions and the complicated feelings women have about them. Women are more comfortable calling out power imbalances now that they are together. Not everyone agrees on how to do it or how to untangle the questions that arise.
Jenny started following Deuxmoi, a celebrity gossip account. Deuxmoi, which declined to comment for this story, publishes uncorroborated reader-submitted comments about celebrities. The account's bio states that the statements made on the account have not been independently confirmed.
The assistant professor at Syracuse University said that Deuxmoi is useful for women because they can't be verified. Someone with power will be able to use that power against anyone who is accusing them. Sharing stories can cause backlash. Voicing those stories in a space that isn't verified plays into that tendency It is our culture that is doing that.
Deuxmoi has posted tips that later turned out to be false, so it is possible that untrue accusations of sexual assault could be shared on the site. Many women keep quiet about assault because of a fear of being accused of lying. Some are more comfortable sharing their stories without being seen because of the #MeToo movement.
Jenny saw a series of posts about a famous fortysomething actor from an early aughts TV show cavorting around New York City with different women. We will call him John. Readers submitted pictures of John at a downtown hot spot with his arm around a woman or at a famous restaurant with another woman.
The posts contained information from unknown sources but still inspired passionate conversations. Some readers enjoyed the drama of John's mistresses finding out about each other, while others claimed to be the women from the posts and joked that they all meet up because there were so many of them.
Many of the claims on the internet are impossible to verify, so discussing celebrity activities with such fervor might seem trivial. Hilde Van den Bulck doesn't think so. She said that when we talk about celebrities, we are talking about ourselves. She analyzed reader reactions to celebrity sex scandals and found that most people begin discussions with comments about the celebrity, but then move on to more general issues.
Women and men are using wealth and fame for access to youth and beauty.
She said that people can talk about things that are difficult to talk about if they know the sex life of a famous person. Talking about sex is not easy. It may be easier to talk about sex through celebrities. People can ask, Where do we stand as a society? Should we change our behavior?
The woman who said she met John over the summer was 24 years old. She attended a party on New York City's Lower East Side with her friend. John was among the beautiful twentysomethings. He asked for the friend's number.
She ran into the actor at a bar in Brooklyn and he hit on her. I don't think he remembers meeting me when I was with my friend. She said that he probably hooked up with a lot of young girls. She turned him away.
I asked about the group of Deuxmoi readers who called John out. She said women shouldn't be complaining because she thought it was weird for someone in his 40s to hang out with people in their 20s. You are not a child, so you can't be like, 'I'm being taken advantage of'. You are an adult. You want to date someone with more money. She said the differential works both ways. Some women might have wanted to have sex with him because of their social media posts. She said that once they found out he was wealthy, that was a motivating factor. The women are clearly using him for power. On the other hand, he is clearly using them because they are hot and young, so it is on both ends a little messed up.
Women and men are using wealth and fame to get access to youth and beauty. According to a research fellow who studies the psychology of sex at the Kinsey Institute, youth and attractiveness are different types of power. I don't think that's the full picture because there's this tendency for the job and the money to be the sole focus of these power conversations.
Deuxmoi began publishing posts from women who were sleeping with other celebrities.
Jenny wondered if other women had had exploitative experiences with David after reading Deuxmoi.
She asked if she could connect with other women who had had encounters with David. Deuxmoi's other stories stayed up for 24 hours before disappearing. She wondered if anyone would call her.
Some of their fans crave proximity to celebrities because they are sexy. The idea of sleeping with a celebrity is a popular sexual fantasy and one that most people will never have the chance to act out. In his book Tell Me What You Want, he found that a majority of heterosexual women had fantasized about having sex.
Some people who get to interact with celebrities don't just tell their friends about it, they share their stories on social media. A 19-year-old celebrity assistant shared a screen cap from her phone call with Matthew Perry, who was 51 at the time, on TikTok, thinking he was a stalker. She told Page Six that it was not okay for older guys to be talking to young girls. Perry did not reply to a request for comment.
The impact of the #MeToo movement is that women are coming forward with stories of abuse and negative experiences they had with celebrities. The celebrities have faced consequences. Chris D'Elia was dropped by his manager, and he was replaced in a movie, after he was accused of sexual abuse. D'Elia denied the allegations. A former employee of Andrew Cuomo made accusations of sexual harassment on the internet. The governor resigned after being investigated by New York's attorney general. The allegations were denied by Cuomo. Armie Hammer was accused of rape by a woman on the social media platform. Hammer was accused of abusing or manipulating some women, and she posted pictures of alleged texts between Hammer and some of them. Hammer denied the allegations.
Many of the claims made by Deuxmoi do not rise to the level of criminal activity nor are they anything more than an uninvestigated blip. One woman who said she was involved with David told me that it was a call out and condemnation for disrespect toward women.
Deuxmoi's posts were thought to be intrusive by some readers. The general public should not know if an actor sleeps around. One person wrote on a Deuxmoi subreddit that they would expose millions of non famous men. A user asked if it was a cultural revolution to do the male version of slut-shaming.
The New York Post article based on Deuxmoi's posts about the dating life of Succession actor Nicholas Braun was called out on social media for relying on fake accounts and for scrutinizing the actor's alleged liaisons. What is the story? There is no shortage of women interested in a personable male celebrity. If he is abusive or violent, expose him, but that doesn't seem to be the case by all accounts, so who cares? Braun did not reply to a request for comment.
If the focus is on the number of sexual partners, then slut-shaming isn't necessarily necessary. If a person isn't transparent about having many partners, they could be criticized for practicing unethical nonmonogamy. It becomes a violation of trust when they find out what is happening. miscommunication can be a factor in peoples expectations of a romantic connection. He said that monogamy is assumed in a lot of relationships.
Jenny said her phone started blowing up after Deuxmoi posted her message. She said there were women in the double digits contacting her. It was constant. She started a group text where the women could compare notes. Madison has changed her name for privacy. She met David while she was working as a marketing and events manager at a private social house in LA and doing sketch comedy. She told me that they were talking about comedy. I was telling someone that he was going to mentor me.
Madison said that he would tell her to have a beautiful day or call her lovely in emails. She said that one day he came into the club with his girlfriend and awkwardly introduced them to each other. The girlfriend was cold. The emails continued. It was flattering, but I was wondering if he was not with his girlfriend anymore.
Sharing our experiences made us feel good. We are not being emotional.
She suggested that they use texting. She claimed that he began acting like a different person as soon as that started. It felt like Dr. Hyde. She asked if he still had a girlfriend after he asked for explicit pictures. She said that he said he did but that she was okay with him having a connection with other women. Madison said that he kept trying to push their communications into a sexual realm despite her declining to send photos. She said she kept avoiding it or saying, "Hey, I just want to be friends." She was unsure about his motives. Is this person still interested in my career? Do they want to help me?
She said she stopped talking to him. A new show he worked on aired several months later. She noticed that there was a character with her name. I was flattered at first, but it felt like this person was taking everything they could from me, even when I didn't want to, because he has so much power and authority over my career. At the end of it all, he took my name.
She decided to get in touch with Jenny after she saw her post on Deuxmoi. She found something that disturbed her.
Madison found that her story about David was tame compared to others. Many of the women said they had been pressured to have sex with him and make sexual videos for him. They said he continued to ask them to perform sexual acts and record these videos even after they refused, and that he had sent messages to many of them for months persuading them that the more videos they sent, the more extreme the sex acts, the more he would like them. They said David would talk them out of their hesitancy when they told him they weren't comfortable with something. Some men believe that they have to go through a couple of nos first to get a yes. Is that really a yes? Is it really your will? It is not consent. The Syracuse professor said it was coercion.
Jenny said that it was messed up to have to talk the woman into doing something she originally said she didn't want to do. Some of the women in the group chat claimed that he had lied to them about being monogamous, possibly putting their sexual health in jeopardy, because he had said he didn't want to use condoms.
Jenny said that it was overwhelming because some of the women thought they were dating the actor. She said that the women were devastated to find out that there were many others. The group was happy. Every woman said that she had clarity she hadn't had, and that she had been suffering. She said that nobody knows what it is like to go through it with the same person. Sharing our experiences made us feel good. We are not being emotional.
Some of the women in the group had negative things to say about David. Jenny said that one person said she had had a pleasant experience but was respectful of the others. Jenny said that they were supportive of listening to the ones that did have different experiences. Nobody was like, 'Oh, that's not what I have.' He is a nice guy. It was like I was so sorry.
Jenny and Madison think David was coercive. Some of the behavior outlined by the women I spoke to could fall within what some psychologists refer to as a "gray area" of consent, and that men are usually aware when a woman doesn't completely consent. A man asking for explicit pictures and videos after a woman says no could be construed as coercive.
Legal experts say that that doesn't amount to assault. Stephen J. Schulhofer, a New York University law professor who studies rape and consent law, told me in an email that verbal persuasion isn't enough for rape or any other crime. If the threat of physical injury is the reason for the verbal coercion, then it is rape.
Susan Estrich is a law professor at the University of Southern California. She said that if he finally said, "I'll kill you if you don't do it", that was assault. If he said, "Can I ask one more time?" She said that it was known as persuasion.
The cultural conversation around #MeToo hasn't caught up to the nuances of exploitation and abuse. If a person explained that they were not interested in a relationship and acted accordingly, they would be acting ethically. If he is dating and acting like there is a deep relationship forming when there is not, then that is abusive and coercive. He said that most predator will use the least intrusive method of getting what they want so that they can create a false impression in the mind of their victim that they were consenting and complicit.
The conversation about consent has changed a lot. Estrich said that he used to fight with people about whether no meant yes. Everybody agrees that no means no. Both conduct and context are important. Unless it is nonconsensual, sex may be inappropriate. The law used to require force or threat of force. I don't think we want to infantilize women. We don't want to assume that we aren't capable of acting autonomously.
Madison was troubled by the claims in the group chat and how the other women felt about David. She said that women were afraid of him and were upset about it. They decided to take action. She said she didn't want him to do this to women. I feel like I have a responsibility to share this information. Madison and Jenny drafted a statement.
David is an extremely devious person who has caused emotional distress, trauma and fear to many women with whom he has engaged with. Some of these women's physical wellbeing has been put into question by him. He has used sex and fame to take advantage of women and have little or no regard for their emotional and physical safety.
They wanted to post it on Deuxmoi, but the account wouldn't allow it. One woman who told me she had a sexual relationship with David claimed that he did not tell her or any other women he was romantically involved with. She said that this is a crime in California. It is a crime in California to knowingly pass on a sexually transmitted disease. In California and most states, a person can be charged with a crime if they transmit an STD. She said that David tried to turn the women in the group against one another and that he was aware of it.
Jenny knows that they could be dismissed as a group of women who were just having a bad day. They wanted to show the real-life experiences of people who are in sexual relationships. I want it to be understood that I am not angry. She said she was not sad because she didn't get him as a boyfriend.
They don't want to ruin his career. Madison doesn't want women to be treated this way. I feel like there needs to be an education in our society that if someone isn't raping a woman, then they aren't doing anything wrong.
These kinds of stories have allowed women who are grappling with questions about power and sexual agency to realize that their experiences are not unusual. The #MeToo movement has made women say that they can group together and be a force. That doesn't make it any easier to untangle the dynamics of a celebrity relationship.
Over the past decade, the way we think about celebrity–civilian relationships has changed. Most of the heavy metal groupies she studied did not regret having sex with rock stars, according to a study by a psychology professor. The majority of respondents didn't think band members had used them. One former groupie told the researchers that they all knew what they were doing.
The acceptance of casual sex was different in the 1980s.
He said that there is more expectation of accountability for bad sexual behavior even if it is not sexual assault. People are more likely to want to see someone held accountable for their actions now than they were in the past. I think that is partly a result of #MeToo and the conversations we have been having about sexual consent.
What do you call a model or actress sleeping with a powerful man in Hollywood when he promises to help her get a part in the film? Estrich asked. sexuality cannot be an element of a bargain, how far do we want to go? We need to talk about these gray areas. They are legitimate questions. People are afraid to discuss them.
Madison hopes that the stories expand the scope of what we think is unacceptable from celebrities. She said that the culture at large does not see this kind of behavior as abusive. I want to put a spotlight on predatory behavior in celebrities and powerful people. I know that the #MeToo movement has brought a lot of that, but it is not enough. I think that we are still far behind in understanding the dynamics of manipulation and abuse.
Jenny wants to see a floodgate of women just being like, "Here's my experience, and I'm finally free from this." I can finally speak my truth and be heard.
Jenny said she told David how bad his behavior was after starting the group chat. She said that he claimed he never wanted to hurt her and that she was being harsh in how she was judging his actions. She said that he followed up with another message and offered to have a video call to clear things up. She said that he tried to video call her, but she didn't respond.
