Just Saying ... Finally

"He's such a magnetic character, even as a guy, there's just an instant intimacy when you're talking with him. And that was really amped up with women."
"[Working at Q was exhilarating] with a madman at the centre of it [indulging in petty vendettas and book[ing] guests invited solely to pursue sex]."
"Someone without the same set of extraordinary talents couldn't have got away with what he got away with, especially in a unionized workplace. But the thing to emphasize there is that a culture grew up in a show where that was just normal, and we all went to a workplace where crazy times was normal."
"It just kind of seemed pathetic. It didn't seem nefarious. It just seemed like dude's got bad moves. He would come up and give them [temporary-staff interns] a little back rub or a shoulder rub, and they would just shudder. ... He's obviously got a one-track mind with women, but he's so transparent."
"It didn't seem like he was going to escalate it to something that was non-consensual. It seemed like women would more like roll their eyes at him, like can you believe this guy is so transparently pervy."
"Very few young single women lasted on the show. And not because he was being violent or overtly harsh with her, just subtly denigrated, overly critical."
"He's always, like, drenched in cologne and breathing on you and hands on."
Anonymous, still-working CBC producer on Q

CBC / The Canadian Press File Photo

Non-consensual? Did the largely temporary staff on short contracts, hoping for that big break, that their latent talents would be noticed, that somehow, miraculously, they might be offered a contract, and after that, when their ability and usefulness was really marked, offered a permanent position with the Mother Corp, have any say in whether they would have to put up with being harassed, handled and obnoxiously have their personal space opted by the charming Ghomeshi?

Funny, men looking on and assessing and marvelling and thinking nothing untoward is going on, the ambitious will tough it out if their future is important enough to them. The one with the power and celebrity is noticing them, they should be flattered, their egos puffed, not traumatized and taking their distress and fear home every night with them, trying not to think of the days to follow when they'd have to keep toughing it out for love of career and aspirational hopes.

It's an old, old story, in actual fact. With unions and corporations aware of the new sensibilities and the radar their sensitive antennae are supposed in theory to pick up in protection of women's rights to personal privacy, that their intimate spaces are not to be intruded upon, that unwanted physicality, once a reality is now that of the past, how do these egregious lapses get glossed over with an embarrassed little chuckle?

jian ghomeshi @jianghomeshi  ·  Oct 26

This is my story. The truth... https://www.facebook.com/jianghomeshi/posts/10152357063881750 …

0 replies 5,468 retweets 3,998 favorites

Jian being Jian doesn't really cut it, does it? That it did for so long simply empowered him to continue his cute little personal peccadilloes. Guess the other Moxy Fruvous band members really didn't know him all that well; they've come out now publicly to state he's a gross embarrassment to their previous relationship. "We had no inkling that Jian engaged in this type of behaviour", Mike Ford, Murray Foster and David Matheson said in a statement.

According to a statement from the Toronto Police a third woman has come forward to formally lay charges against the Wonder Boy. And those charges, evidently go back, somewhat, to what the Toronto Star characterizes as: New allegations circulating about the former CBC radio personality date back to his days with the band Moxy Früvous.

Should we feel compassion for a guy who swaggered himself into celebrity on the basis of charm and personality falling on hard times? Isn't there more to oppressive sexually disturbing behaviour than "being violent or overtly harsh", those subtle and not-so-subtle deranged behaviours of bullying with those sexual overtones so readily interpreted that an onlooking male director knew they were occurring and just shrugged them off?

"Everyone said, 'Oh, my God, we have a hit, we did it. For once, we're not making radio for 87 year-olds in Saskatoon. We're making radio for the new generation'. We really felt like we had done something important, and Jian was the face of that." So, in fact, this is what the 'new generation' is all about; back to the past of sexual innuendo and gender discrimination and pawing and threatening, the rape generation...?

Someone of 87 isn't dead yet. Nor is someone a decade younger, who is just trying to get a grip on all of this, to understand, or try to, why what was common knowledge of an uncommonly psychopathic attitude that felt itself entitled to belittle the esteem of young women and foist violent threats on others could be countenanced when what was a stake was the goose that laid the golden egg....