Terry Crews and the Men of #MeToo

Everyone can be sexually harassed. We need to talk about the experience for men. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Bridget and you're listening the stuff Mom
never told you. Right off the bat, we have to
have a quick trigger warning. Today's episode is about sexual harassment,
sex crimes, and me too. So if that is a

(00:26):
tough subject for you, just know that that was what
today's episode is all about. So we've done quite a
few episodes kind of breaking down different aspects of me too, UM,
the movement in general, times Up, the Hollywood lad Legal
Defense Fund that came after UM, some various industries that
have been sort of me too on their own, and

(00:48):
we realized that one of the things that we hadn't
really unpacked in a longer episode was the men of
the me too movement, the men who are speaking up,
the men who are saying, yes, I was a victim
of a sex crime, I'm by a powerful person, and
I stay quiet about it, and now I'm speaking up yes,
because obviously, of course sexual harassment happens to men as well.

(01:12):
And we have a few examples that were kind of
kind of dominated the news for a while. One is
Brendan Fraser. In February, he went public with an allegation
that Philip Burke, a one time president of the powerful
Hollywood Foreign Press Association groped his buttocks and put his
finger in his taints in two thousand three in a
crowded area of the Beverly Hills Hotel in public view.

(01:32):
The violation had Fraser overcome with panic and fear. Burke
gladly related the episode in his memoir, leaving out the
finger part and characterizing the ascrab as a playful pitch.
The h f p A promised to investigate Frasier's claims.
Three months later, they showed him their proposed follow up
statement quote. Although it was concluded that Mr Burke inappropriately
touched Mr Fraser, the evident support that it was intended

(01:54):
to be taken as a joke and not as a
sexual advance. So basically it happened. He definitely grab your butt,
no dabt about it, But it wasn't sexual harassment. Yeah,
I mean a joke. Yeah, it was just joke. You're
taking things too seriously. Yeah. Something that I will get
into later in the episode is how sexual harassment against
men is so often framed as a joke and so

(02:17):
something that is not serious, so that you shouldn't be
upset about because it was meant as a joke. And
also that reminds me of the fact that George Herbert
Walker Bush was pinching girls bottoms and then instead of
saying no, I never did that or denying it, his
camp said, yes, he did that, but it was joking.
It was a joke, not even a good joke. Do
you ask me, I'm sure they weren't laughing. Another one,

(02:38):
Anthony ramp who was an actor on Star Trek Discovery,
told BuzzFeed in October seventeen that actor Kevin Spacey made
a sexual advance on him and he was fourteen. He
said this happened during a visit to the then twenty
six ye old Spacey's apartment. Spacey placed rap on his
bed and climbed on top of him. Another is James Vanderbeek.
He tweeted that he had his quote as grab by.

(02:59):
Old are powerful men. I've had them corner me and
inappropriate sexual conversations when I wasn't much younger. I understand
the unwarranted shame, powerlessness and inability to blow the whistle.
There's a power dynamic that feels impossible to overcome. Yeah, again,
it's a good reminder that it's about power dynamics. And
it can kind of happen to anybody. Alexander Polinsky, who

(03:21):
used to be on Charles in Charge with actor Scott Bayo,
who I have to add is just the general scumbag. Well,
he accused Scott Bayo of sexual harassment and abuse. You know.
February and fourteenth press conference with his lawyer Lisa Bloom,
Polinsky detailed alleged misconduct by Bayo when they worked together
on the comedy from n to nineteen ninety. At the time,
Alexander was like eleven or twelve, and you know, bay

(03:44):
it was an adult. He alleges that Bio would use
homophobic slurs and once pulled Doni's pants on set. He
also alleged that Bio cut a hole in his dressing
room and exposed his genitals to Polinsky. I should also
point out that their former Charles in Charge co star
Nicole Eggert also detailed allegations against Scott Bayo. Yeah that's
just creepy. Yeah, it's bad, and especially I could see

(04:07):
it being especially scary and awful if you were just
an eleven year old kid on a Hollywood set with
an adult at the time. Now he's like completely washed up.
Scott Bayo, but at the time, like a huge actor.
You know, in the eighties, you watched Joony Loves Chachy,
Happy Days, any of those shows, Like he was a
household name. Now he's a nobody, and you know it's

(04:30):
pathetic and washed up. But I can only imagine how
scary that would be if you were eleven and this
big mega star was calling you homophobic slurs and pulling
down your pants. Yeah. So those are just a few examples.
Um Men can be victims and are victims of sexual
abuse too, So here's some background on that. According to

(04:51):
the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, about of reported
rapes involved men are boys, and one in six reported
sexual assaults is against a boy, and one in twenty
five reported sexual assaults is against a man. As with
male sexual violence against women, sexual violence against men is
motivated by the desire to dominate and use sex as
a weapon against the victim. The majority of the perpetrators

(05:14):
of sexual violence against men are white, heterosexual men. As
you probably know, male rape is also really common in
prison and in the military. The latest Pentagon survey found
that six thousand, three hundred men in the military said
they were victims of sexual assault or other unwanted sexual
contact in This is something that I think I've talked
about on the show before, but one of my biggest

(05:35):
pet peeves is when we make a joke out of
men being raped in prison, even against people who I
don't agree with or I don't like, you know, when
they're going to jail, people are like, oh, you know,
don't drop the soap. I don't think that's funny. I
don't think the fact that our prisons are so messed
up that so many people are being sexually assaulted, people

(05:58):
all along the gender spectrum in is in our really
at risk for sexual assault and sexual harassment. I don't
think that's funny. I think that's a real problem, and
I hate that we've made it into a joke. And
I also hate that I see that joke from people
that I respect on the left. When we talk about
like our political foes who we don't agree with or

(06:20):
we really don't like politically, it seems like some of
them might be heading to prison. And I don't think
that's a funny. As much as I don't like these people,
like I'm not going to say that Paul mana for It,
deserves to be raped in jails, and as a survivor
of sexual violence, it kind of breaks my heart a
little each time someone hurls that as a joke or
that we're supposed to be you know, like, whoo if

(06:42):
that actually happened to Paul Manafort in prison, it would
be awful. Like, I don't think anyone, I don't think
anyone deserves that. I don't think it's funny. And I
wish that our our movies didn't use it as jokes,
and I wish that I just wish that was something
that we removed from our lexicon and least we were
dealing with it with the seriousness that it deserved. I agree.
And I know that um John Oliver did a piece

(07:04):
on prison and he had like a there was a
clip but montage they put together of like all of
the jokes about men getting raped in prison and one.
I mean, they were like cartoons. They're like for kids,
that this joke we're telling is in there. I mean,
obviously hopefully the kids aren't gonna get it, but the
fact that it's in there at all, it's not funny.
It's not funny. And yeah, I just wish that we

(07:27):
lived in a culture. I think it's all I'm going
off rails already on this one. But I think it's
related to a larger cultural attitude around sexual violence. I
think that we don't treat it with the seriousness that
it deserves. I mean, we had lighthearted comedy is like
family comedies where rape was a plot device, like the

(07:48):
movie Revenge of the Nerds. The funny plot point is
that he's going to rape that girl, and it's supposed
to be lighthearted, not a crime. And so I think
it illustrates a larger cultural addict you around how we
understand rape. And I think that rape and sexual violence
is so common, is so prevalent, it's such it's such
a thing that we're grappling with that our culture is

(08:10):
so broken that the only way we can make sense
of it is by making fun of it and making
it into an everyday joke, by literally making it quote
unquote not that bad, like, oh, it's funny, he's gonna
rape for l O L. You know. I think that's
the I think that it's a problem that has gotten
so out of hand and it's so entrenched in our
culture that we've sort of thrown up our hands and
said we'll make it part of the culture, and it
will be, you know, not something that we because if

(08:32):
we were dealing with with rape and sexual violence with
the gravitass that it deserves as a serious thing, we'll
be doing all the time. And I think I think
that's where things like rape jokes come from, is that
we it's so entrenched in our culture that the only
way that we know how to deal with it at
this point is by adding it to the acceptable part
of culture. And I think in this case there's also

(08:56):
a lot of homophobia involves definitely. Yeah. Own Cook, a
psychiatry professor at Yale School of Medicine, has been treating
sexually abuse men for more than twenty years, and she
said many of them still espoused this John Wayne mentality
if something bad happens to you, just wall it off
and don't acknowledge it to yourself or others. I think

(09:18):
that when you look at the examples that we just
talked about and the examples that we're gonna talk about
going forward, it becomes crystal clear why these men don't
feel comfortable to talk about what's happening to them or
what happened to them, why they feel like they need
to just walk it off, be be strong and silent,
because our culture says that strong men, they're not victims

(09:39):
of sexual violence. Our culture says that strong women aren't
aren't victims of sexual violence. Our culture says that if
you are a victim of sexual violence, something is wrong
with you, and in reality, something is wrong with the perpetrator,
not the survivor. And I think that men because of
our culture, I mean, this is one of those examples
where patriarchy hurts us all men and women because of
our culture. Because of hatriarchy, men who are victims of

(10:03):
very serious sex crimes don't even feel like they can
speak up about it. Yeah, which is a terrible, a
terrible situation to be in. New York based psychoanalyst Richard Garter,
a co founder of Male Survivors, says there's increased public
awareness of the childhood sexual abuse of males as a
result of the extensive publicity given to scandals within the

(10:23):
Roman Catholic Church and at Penn State University, where Jerry
Sandusky was an assistant football coach before being convicted in
two thousand twelve of sexual abuse of ten boys. Given
the reluctance of many male survivors to speak publicly about
the abuse. Gardner says it's helpful when prominent men, including actors,
music stars, and pro athletes do make that decision, that

(10:45):
very difficult decision, which is why we're we're talking about
Terry Crews today. Yeah, when you think about the Jerry
Sandusky stuff and the you know, Catholic Church, you hear
so much about the perpetrator, but then you don't really
hear from the ms on a lot of cases, which
again I can understand why people wouldn't be claim rain
to come forward. But when someone who is famous or

(11:07):
powerful or successful or whatever has a platform does come forward,
that can really can really do some good. So let's
take a quick break and we'll get we'll get into
the Terry crew situation after this quick break and we're back.

(11:29):
Thank you, sponsor. So you might know Terry Crews from
a couple of things. Uh. He is delightful on the
show Brooklyn nine nine, which I think just got canceled. No,
it did, but didn't got picked up. Okay, really it's
so good. I'm so behind, but it's so good. Um.
He's also in those old spice commercials. I'm sure you've
seen those, they're pretty good as well. Cruise says that

(11:50):
he was growthed at a party back in February by
Adam Vennett, who was the head of the motion picture
department at William Morris Endeavor and w m E. Is
one of the biggest, if not of the biggest talent
agencies in the world. They're like three major talent agencies
in the world, and it's one of them. So this
is a massively powerful, well connected person in Hollywood circles.

(12:11):
He represents such stars like Adam Sandler, using the word
star a little fine, Eddie Murphy, s Leicester Saloone, William Hemsworth,
and Steve Martin, so big names for the most part, hugely,
hugely well connected. On October, watching all of these women
come forward with abuse allegations with Harvey Weinstein, Cruise tweeted,

(12:32):
this whole thing with Harvey Weinstein is giving me PTSD
Why because this kind of thing happened to me. My
wife and I were at a Hollywood function last year
and a high level Hollywood executive came over to me
and groped my privates. Jumping back, I said, what are
you doing? My wife saw everything and looked at him
like he was crazy. He just grands like a jerk.
I was going to kick his ass right then, but

(12:54):
then I thought twice about how the whole thing would appear.
So basically, you know, he all all of these people
coming forward and thought I need to come forward to
which honestly applause. Like I think it's really speaks to
his character that he was so inspired by these women
coming forward that he thought I need to lend my
voice to this as well. He describes this decision as

(13:16):
kind of an impulse one like it wasn't something that
he ran by his manager or his publicist. He just
decided to tweet. He says, once I hit send, I
literally felt this weight come off with me. I went
back to work, I turned my phone off, and when
I came back to my phone, the world had changed.
He told Time that in a matter of hours it
would become a number one trending topic on Twitter. And
he also had a realization. I didn't check in with

(13:38):
my wife or my publicist or anybody. I just did it.
But in that moment I was free. Yeah, I remember that,
I remember seeing it. I'm not on Twitter very often,
so it must have been like everyone got on your ratar.
It really must have been not everyone was happy about it.

(13:58):
Russell Simmons, who's also allegedly a rapist because I Stick Together,
allegedly emailed Cruise telling him that he should quote give
Vin a pass um, and CRUs called that behavior out
on Twitter, saying, dear uncle Rush, no one gets a
pass We could do a whole episode and should on
Russell Simmons, I personally hate him for a lot of reasons.

(14:21):
But one of the reasons I hate him the most
is because actually it's not even the most. I hate
him for lasts of reasons, and they're all number one
in my heart. You can even see it in the
email that he sent to Carry Crews. I feel like
he uses his marketing and branding as this woke guy
who does yoga and wears beadd necklaces, and he uses

(14:42):
that to be a toxic, abusive, abuser and in the email.
So when Cruz tweeted this, he tweeted us like a
screenshot of the email that Russell Simmons sent him, like,
I mean allegedly, because who knows it could be doctored.
We have to say that for you know, legal reasons whatever.
But the email looks like gets for him. It's clearly
sort of immersed in Russell Simmons is bogus foe, I

(15:06):
meditate therefore I am I am better than people kind
of vibe. And it's very clear to me that he
uses that vibe as a way of being like a
toxic person, you know what I mean. And in the email,
it's like, well, who asked you? Like? Why are you
acting as the mediator between me and somebody that I
say groped me at a party. I can talk about
it if I want to talk about it. Who who

(15:26):
the hell are you? I think that he is sort
of seeing, at least by himself. He sees himself as
this person with this status and society to be, you know, mindful.
So in the email that Terry Crews posted on Twitter,
Russell Simmons rights, did he ever apologize? Give the age
in the past, act that he be reinstated with great love?
All things are possible. Give me a break, Russell Simmons,

(15:48):
go yourself. First of all, if I got this email,
I would be seething with boiling rage. So one asked
that the person that you say sexually abused you, that
groped you in public at a party, has that he
be reinstated. Are you kidding me? Second of all that
ending great love, all things are possible, go yourself and

(16:09):
I hate you? Like how dare he? So that's what
I'm saying, not not to make this on Russell Simmons podcast,
but clearly, I mean, I just I feel like I
have watched for many years this bogus foe. I'm wearing
a linen shirt and I've got prayer bees on. You know,
I meditated, I'm vegan. I feel like he uses this
like I just hate this sandals. That's really when it

(16:30):
comes down to. I have hated him for a long time.
I silently thought he was not a good person. And
I just something about something about anybody who seems to
come off it's hoholier than now. I always think they're
hiding something where they're using this as a way to
have people not call them out. And his own growing
list of abusers who say that he rapes them publicly

(16:51):
say this. I come out on TV and say, yeah,
he raped me, who I one percent believed, by the way,
one that's like very cruel to me, Like, oh, you're
a toxic person. To see someone like Terry Crews like,
it's not easy to be anyone who comes out against
sexual violence, but especially a man, especially a black man,
to see that and to send an email, but it's

(17:11):
steeped in this kind of faux lovey dovey bogus bullshit.
I think is I can't even wrap my head around it.
I think it's such a thing to do. Yeah, that's
really insidious and manipulative. So that's why I hate Russell Simmons. Yeah,
come back from my Yeah, we'll do it well. I mean,
no one would listen to him with me, But I
just I've hated him for a long time, and I've

(17:32):
always known something was up. You know how you just
get spidey senses about people, don't think like something about
something on the buttermilks not clean. I always sort of
knew I got a weird sense from him, and this
just really confirmed it. So back to Cruise will sign note.
So Cruise filed a sexual assault and battery lawsuit against
both Bennett and w My Cruise followed the police report

(17:55):
on November eight, and the l a p D launched
an investigation, but unfortunately, the statue's limitations had asked Bennett
was actually suspended from w m E. In order to
pursue his lawsuit, Crews had to submit to a mental evaluation,
which apparently is not uncommon in legal cases where the
victim is alleging some kind of emotional trauma or distress

(18:16):
mental about hobuation. Okay, w m E side of the
story is pretty victim blamey, and court papers submitted to
the Los Angeles Superior Court and obtained by the Hollywood Reporter.
Representatives for w m ME present the agency side of
the story. They say that though Vinnett called to apologize
to Crews after the incident, Crews did not inform senior
management of the allegations until he tweeted about it in October.

(18:38):
They also point to the fact that Cruz stayed with
the agency until November, which Crews has attributed to his
initial desire to quote let it go and move on,
a desire that changed after the Weinstein accusations went to public.
So basically it sounds like he didn't say anything initially
when it happened, he saw all these women coming forward,

(18:58):
wanted to also come or as a show of solidarity
for these women, and w m is trying to demonize him.
For that. Another really victim blaming thing that w M
is doing the accused cruise of trying to quote equate
himself with the women and men who have been forced,
sometimes repeatedly and over an extended period, to submit to

(19:20):
sex or endure sexual harassment to keep their jobs or
advance their careers, while the perpetrators and others who knew
about it looked the other way. So let's break that down. Basically,
what they're saying is that there's a there's a litmus
test for being sexually abused, and cruises is can you
believe this jerk is trying to pretend like he had
to go through real sexual harassment? Real sexual harassment is

(19:43):
Harvey Weinstein. If you're not Harvey Weinstein, you can't actually
sexually harass anybody. Basically, what they're saying is that what
he went through wasn't that bad and how dare he
compare it to what these women went through? I hate that.
It's I mean, it's bogus, it's bullshit. Yeah, it absolutely is.
Cruse w M. He has his agency after coming forward
with the allegation, but as part of the standard agency contract,

(20:04):
CRUZ is still required to pay w M me a
portion of his profits from any project he made while
signed with them. Quote, what business is this that you
can do something like that to another human being and
I still have to pay you? He said. Everyone feels
like that's okay, but this is not right. There are
no checks and balances, there is no one to watch you.
And given what he did to me, imagine some young

(20:26):
girl and an agent rapes them and they're on a
show or whatever, and they still got to pay this guy.
I mean, yeah, he makes a really interesting economic point,
which is that, you know, Cruise is a big star.
I'm sure he's got plenty of money. But if if
you were an actress who didn't have his fame or
his platform, and you were just starting out and you
I mean, trust me, I'm trying to go through this
process myself. If getting signed to a talent agency, especially

(20:49):
one as big as w Emmy, is a big deal.
So if you aren't just starting out and you just
got signed to a huge talent agency, you probably are thinking, oh,
things are about to happen for me a little bit.
I'm sort of leveling up in my career. But you
might still not have a ton of money. And so
if you had to pay out to that same agent
who raped you, harassed you, groped you, whatever, you probably.

(21:10):
I mean, it really just financially de incentivizes coming forward,
because if you don't have a ton of money because
you're not yet booking big gigs or whatever, you might think, well,
I'm gonna have to pay this person regardless if I
get signed to another agency, which is not guaranteed, I'll
then have to be paying an agent double. That's I mean,
it just completely the economic reasoning there completely. I mean,

(21:33):
it just changes the game. Actually, something else that I
respect about Cruise that he goes on to say that
he thinks that these contracts should have clauses in them
where if you do something like that, the contract is null,
that you don't have to pay if someone does something
awful to you, which of course it should. Yeah. Absolutely.
That kind of reminds me of like when I hear

(21:53):
songs that I know, like Kesha and that dude Oh
my god, girl, don't even get me started. Once I
was at a bar and I was very drunk and
this guy was hitting on me and Kesha started playing
and this guy had been like, I mean, I probably
should hold him a buzz off, but he had been
like hitting on me all night, and I went on
this long tangent. I was like, you just don't understand

(22:16):
how much Kesha has been and people don't talk about
Casha like I was on my side. I thought I
was like recording the show. And then he left and
my friend, who had been like happily being hit on
by his buddy all night, was like, oh, what happened
was your friend and my friend? And he said she
just wouldn't shut off about Kesha. It's like I will
never shut off about you can't stop me. Um. It

(22:39):
does kind of point to your problem in our society
as a whole, because it is kind of a different
world when you're talking about talent agents and stuff. But
it also is expensive, just if you experience kind of
domestic abuse or sexual abuse, getting a lawyer, going to court,
doing all that stuff, and it's it does de incentifize reporting,
and we should re examine that because it should not

(23:00):
be the case. I mean, there have been situations where
people have been forced to pay for their own rape kits.
I mean what is that? Yes, Like, the economic realities
of being the victim of abuse we don't talk about,
and we should, and somebody who is talking about it
is Terry Crews. Basically, the Senate Judiciary Committee was holding
a hearing on the Sexual Assault Survivor's Bill of Rights,

(23:22):
which could condify certain rights for people of reporting sexual assault.
As Crews noted in his testimony, the bill would give
survivors more access to police reports, rape kit results, and
sexual assault counselors. It would also ensure that survivors have
access to government subsidized rape kits, and that rape kits,
along with other forensic evidence, would be kept for the
duration of the Statute of limitations, because right now it's
so jankie and so messed up that people are paying

(23:44):
for their own rape kits. Sometimes they're thrown out while
you're still going through this case. You know, we do
not have a system in this country where people who
are survivors of sexual violence are able to expect what
I think are very basic protections. You, very very basic,
very very basic. Yes, um and cruises testimony is part

(24:05):
confession about his own experiences with toxic masculinity and his
own sexual harassment, and this has had an impact on
Cruiz's work and his testimony, and Crews shared that he
had chosen to leave the Expendables franchise to take a stand.
In his words, in the wake of his lawsuit against
Minnett quote, the producer of that film called my manager
and asked him to drop my case in order for

(24:27):
me to be in the fourth installment of the movie,
and if I didn't, there would be trouble. And he
noted that he chose to leave the production largely because
producer A. Vy Lerner has been protecting Bennett. The actor
went on to share other ways his account has already
been minimized and reiterated that sexual abuse is neither laughable
nor in coming. Yeah, I would if you have not,

(24:48):
I would really listen to the full testimony that he
gives because it's so moving. But here's a clip. This
past year, we have seen powerful men in Hollywood and
elsewhere finally held accountable for sexual harassment and assault. We
also saw the backlash survivors based after coming forward. I

(25:11):
wanted these survivors to know that I believe them, I
supported them, and that this happened to me too. This
encouraged me to come forward with my own experience and
reflect on the cult of toxic masculinity that exists in
our society. Yeah, I think that his words are so

(25:34):
so powerful, and I think that I'm just I'm just
so grateful that he is taking a stand, and I
think what he's doing is so important and it's not easy.
He's taken a lot of hits, probably financial hits for
doing this, but I'm so grateful that he's using his
platform is privileged to to speak up. Yeah, and we
have a little bit more to talk about with Terry Crews,

(25:57):
but we're gonna pause for one more quick break for
word from our sponsor and Rebecca, Thank you sponsor. There
are so many reasons why I think it's so important
that Terry Crews is coming forwards. I wanted to just

(26:17):
talk through some of the bigger ones. But really, this
could be its own podcast of toxic masculinity and male
understanding of you know, sexual assault and being the victims
of crimes like this could be its own thing. But
I wanted to talk to some of the examples of
why I think it's so important. So one the elephant
in the room is that Terry Crews is this big,

(26:38):
muscular guy. I honestly think that having someone who is
so viscerally a big, strong dude talk about being the
victim of a sex crime is just massively powerful. Hannon
Geer just points us out over at the Atlantic quote,
it is difficult to overstate the visceral impact and rarity
of seeing a black man want a statuesque and posing

(27:00):
as CRUs step forward to identify himself as a survivor
of sexual assault and reject external demands if you bury
his shame. Cruise has spoken at length about the tenacity
of shame, the way it embeds itself deeply into the
survivor's psyches with each dismissal of their accounts. He has
acknowledged at his race and size render his story unbelievable
to some that those same factors kept him from responding

(27:22):
to this alleged assailant with violence for fear of being
stereotyped as a thug or facing violence at the hands
of police. And I think that quote really unpacks it that,
first of all, that someone so big and strong and
muscular and beefy, that people, a lot of people might
not even think that he can be the victim of
sexual abuse right because he's a big, strong guy. And

(27:44):
that really plays into that John Wayne theory that the
psychiatrist was talking about that we talked about in the
top of the episode. You know that this idea that
if you are perceived as someone big and strong and powerful,
nothing could happen to you. So something does happen to you,
because we know it can look about than anybody, you
better be quiet about it, yeah, because then it's like

(28:05):
a threat to your masculinity, how people perceive you exactly.
And then, because Cruz is a black man, the added
trauma of that initial feeling of wanting to respond with violence,
or even if he responded to by screaming, knowing that
because of your race, that could be deadly for him.

(28:26):
For me, this is so powerful because I've often said
I feel like in this culture, if somebody cat calls
you or grabs your ass, it's a cool thing to
do to be like, oh, then I punched him, or
then I sucked him. You know. I remember I remember
somebody tweeting something along the lines of like, I don't
think I could ever be the victim of sexual violence
or rape because I think I give off the attitude
that if you do something wrong to me, I'll slug you.

(28:47):
And I thought, well, no, I mean, it's all well
and good to think that that if somebody grabbed your
ass or groped you or cat called you, that you
have the perfect response, or that you punched him in
the face. But that's not how it work works. And
I think that really does create this narrative that it
quote unquote doesn't happen to strong people like For for

(29:07):
so long, I thought that because I am a survivor
of sexual violence, that it meant I wasn't a strong person,
that I wasn't a strong woman. And it's being the
victim of sexual violence impacted you. If you needed therapy,
if it was hard for you to get over it,
that that meant you weren't really a strong woman. And
how I mean. Emily May, who is the founder of

(29:28):
an organization called Halla Back, which is an anti cat
calling organization, in an interview, she talks about how she
thought that, and of course cat calling is different than
like sexual abuse, but when she would be bothered by
cat calling, that she would be cat called all the
time and it would get to her. Initially she thought,
I'm not a strong woman, because a strong woman would
not be bothered by this, and they would be able

(29:48):
to discol about their day and it wouldn't get them down,
and so she had internalized that she was not strong
because this unacceptable behavior was happening to her. And I
think that the way that we talk about who can
and cannot become the victim of sexual violence, it's really
really problematic. Yeah, I agree to. And Cruz has been
talking about kind of this whole toxic masculinity and manhood

(30:12):
thing for a while. His two book, manhood Had to
Be a Better Man or Just Lived with One is
an attack on toxic masculinity. It was then that Cruz
declared himself a feminist on Larry King Now. It was
also the era in which he began speaking publicly about
his porn addiction, his stint in rehab to treat it,
and his changing relationship to the ideas of manliness. He

(30:33):
has also spoken up about how his time as an
NFL player has warped his attitudes on what it means
to be a man. So seeing a man publicly wrestle
with these with these topics, um is, is a really
beneficial thing for us to see. I think, um And
it's good for men to see an example of another

(30:55):
man dealing with these things, definitely, especially a man that
is successful, confident, powerful. You know, it's we have so
many prominent examples of men not dealing with their and
it's sort of seen as cool. You know, has a
problem and refuses to get help with it, want to
want to releegade, And I think what's real, what is

(31:17):
really cool is reshaping the culture where it says no
talking about your pain, talking about things that have happened
to you, talking about uncomfortable systems that you yourself have
been complicit in. Like we should rebrand that as cool.
You know, Johnny Depp being a abuser and refusing to
get any kind of help for it and still like

(31:38):
making millions of dollars in movies, that's not cool. What's
cool is someone talking about what's going on in their
lives and doing it frankly and helping to lead others,
especially men. And UM crews had something to say about
that leading other men for a time, and we wanted
to play play a clip for you here. As a man,

(31:59):
I was taught my entire life that I must control
the world. So I use power, influence and control to
dominate every situation from the football field to the film set,
even in my own home with my wife and children.

(32:21):
Then in while at a party with my wife, I
was sexually assaulted by a successful Hollywood agent. The assault
lasted only minutes, but what he was effectively telling me
while he held my genitals in his hand was that

(32:43):
he held the power, that he was in control. This
is how toxic masculinity permeates culture. As I shared my story,
I was told over over that this was not abuse,

(33:03):
that this was just a joke, that this was just horseplay.
But I can say that one man's horseplay, there's another
man's humiliation. Unfortunately, not everybody out there is championing Cruise
as much as we are. Cruise has been very vocal
about the fact that many people have told him to

(33:25):
laugh it off, or shake it off, or ignore what
happened to him at this party, and you know that
I just found that to be so upsetting. Fifty Cent
posted a really bizarre Instagram post making fun of Cruise
before calling it a joke and deleting it. It was
a bizarre meme that featured Cruise shirtless with the words
I got raped my wife just watched super imposed onto

(33:48):
the image, as well as another picture of Cruise with
a rose in his mouth with the words gym time
inexplicably in the corner of the post. So I saw
these and I thought, what it didn't make any sense,
but I understood them as insulting to cruise. The photos
also included a strange, tone deaf caption in which fifty
Cents suggested that he would have responded to a similar

(34:10):
situation with gun violence rather than the trepidation that Crews recounted.
He posted, I emog's l o l what the fun
is going on here? Man, Terry? I frozen fear laughing emoji.
They would have had to take me to jail get
the strap and so yeah, what are he's saying in
that comment is if this had happened to me, I
would have shot this guy and I'd be in jail

(34:30):
right now. L O l oh. And um, guess who
happened to us see this post and had something to
say about it? Can you guess? I think I might? Avgas? Is?
This is another Russell Simmons sidebar. It is another Russell
Simmons sidebar because Russell Simmons he saw this post and
added a laughing face emoji. Now, as awful as that is,

(34:54):
part of me also thinks how stupid are you? Russell? Simmons,
you have lots of women who are publicly accusing you
of rape. Right now, you see a meme on Instagram
about someone who is also publicly accusing someone of sexual harassment,
and you engage with the post in public. Are you?
Are you stupid? Perhaps? I mean he needs better pr people,

(35:18):
But but when I saw that, I thought, you know,
how stupid? Are you? Just such a bad look? I mean,
everyone knows that sexual abusers stick together, they protect each other.
We have what seems to be documented evidence of Russell
Simmons doing just that. And so when another prominent black
professional male makes fun of Terry Crews for being the

(35:39):
victim of sexual harassment, you laugh at it publicly. It
just it boggles the mind. It does indeed boggle the mind.
Bridget In response to this Instagram post, Cruise tweeted, why
did I just let it happen? I didn't? Why didn't
you beat him up? Sigh? And again, it just really
shows why men wouldn't want to come forward, why they

(36:00):
wouldn't want to report, why they would feel they need
to stay silent, because people like fifty cent who are
going to use their platform, they're huge platform to make
fun of somebody, and even if it was a joke,
it's not funny. No, it's not funny. And also just yeah,
I really don't understand the impulse there. I don't know

(36:21):
why you if someone came forward with a sexual assault
thing unrelated to you, you would feel the need to
get involved at all, but especially in a negative way
like making fun of the person who came forward. I
think that that was very foolish indeed, agreed, agreed, and
also foolish of Russell Simmons to leave that emoji again.

(36:43):
You always have the option to say nothing. Could all
probably use a little bit more of it, uh geor
just put it really well at The Atlantic, she writes,
and the others who mocked Crews communicated their allegiance to
an idealized masculinity that they imagine to be impervious to assault.
Jackson and the many others who mocked Cruz communicated their

(37:06):
allegiance to an idealized masculinity that they imagined to be
impervious to assault. Jackson has since insisted that his post
was a joke, but even so, it's purported humor would
only stem from the surprise of a strong man's victimhood Cruise,
imparting his experience of assault placed him squarely outside the
moving goalpost, rendering him weak and emasculated in the eyes
of people, most often men who refused to untether masculinity

(37:30):
from blaze of herculean strength or aggression. For his part,
Cruise responded first with love for fifty cents music, then
saying he proved that quote size doesn't matter when it
comes to sexual assault. So basically, what Hannah is saying
there is that you know, it doesn't matter if you're
a big, strong guy. It doesn't matter if you're you know, huge, tough, muscular, whatever.

(37:52):
This can happen to anybody, and people like fifty cents
and I'm gonna throw him in there. Russell Simmons are
creating a culture that's otherwise. It's creating a culture that
says only this type of person can be a victim,
and we know that's not true. Yes, um, anyone, anyone
can be a victim. And I think it's important to
remember with stories like this that me too includes so

(38:15):
many more than just sis women. It isn't just about them, um,
anyone can be a victim of sex crime, and it's
important that we hear those stories and lift up those
voices here here. So that's that's what we have to
say on Terry Crews. Obviously we're gonna have to come
back for Russell Simmons spin off called I Hate You

(38:37):
Russell Simmons, Go for yourself. I just even even just
speaking about him bothers me, I can tell well. In
the meantime, before that that spin off comes out, we
have some listener mail. The first one I'm gonna start with.

(38:57):
It's a little bit difficult for me. I one is
that I hate reading letters that just see my compliments.
It's like, oh, we picked the letter that's just very complimentary.
I swear that's not what this is. Um. But I
was really impressed for this letter because I really identified
with it. It's something that I admired it. I'll put
it that way. Because this person wrote a letter sort
of about their past opinion. And I'm someone who you know,

(39:22):
has lots of opinions and I share them freely. But
when I get them wrong, it would be very difficult
for me to come back and be like, you know,
I rethought that I wasn't. I wasn't so on the
money with that one, or it would be difficult for
me to talk about my growth, you know in an
email to someone, so I was very impressed by this
letter personally. She writes, Hey, Bridget, I want to apologize

(39:42):
to you for not being very open when you and
Emily came on air. I hope I never said anything
to hurt you, but I think I did say that
I was unhappy with the show once in a Facebook
Taylor Swift thread. I've been thinking about it since others
told me I was wrong, and you know what, they
were right, and for that, I'm so very sorry. I
just finished listening to your episode on gas lighting. My
ex husband is a narcissist and really with me. I

(40:03):
didn't realize how unwoke I was until I started to
call my quote deconstruction in January, when I started outpatient
therapy and talk therapy. I see my therapist twice a week,
and now she's helped me realize that what I believe
before was wrong and it checked the facts. Thank you
for recommending Codependent Anonymous. My therapist has been encouraging me
to find the support group, and I had no idea
that existed. Most importantly, thank you for teaching me whatever

(40:24):
what a real fighter looks like you've been through a
lot this year, and I'm so proud of you. Thank
you for making me a more open minded person. You're
both doing great work. Please keep it up because you
really are changing the world one listener at a time.
So I have a lot to say about this, I'll
keep it brief, but um, thank you. You know I
when I got this email, I wrestled with it for
quite a bit. Um, I know that I'm feeling feeling

(40:47):
feelings about an email when I put it on boomerang,
so it goes to the top of my inbox, I'm like,
oh God, there it is again. But yeah, what I
what I connected with I think about this was that
I would never have the courage to send this in
an email ever. You know what I'm I would never
I would think, my ol. I still think about things
I wrote. I wrote on people's you know, reviews years later,

(41:09):
and I think, oh, I wish I like, I was
having a bad day and so I took it out
on somebody online or something. You know, I would never
think to revisit it. And so I just I was
really impressed by this email, and I didn't just read
it because it's very complimentary to us, but it's very,
um touching, and it is brave because facing facing things

(41:32):
about yourself that you're trying to work to change. I mean,
that's tough. And to reach out to someone and just
apologize and admit that in that moment you were wrong,
it is really rave and we appreciate it. Like listeners,
hearing from you, even small little things like keep up
the great work. You can't imagine how helpful it is.

(41:55):
It really is, definitely, And I have had a weird,
a weird couple months. Like someone once sent me an
email that was like, literally, girl, are you okay? You're
tweeting some dark? Is everything fine? Um? And I was like, oh,
I gotta I really should take a step back, since
THENCE would have gotten all social media a little bit.
But um, also I want to say to this email writer,
she has something to really apologize for. You know, I

(42:16):
appreciate criticisms as well, and so you know, obviously no
apology necessary, but it just was. It just really touched me.
You know, it's touching to hear from people. And I
think every day it's so easy to believe your critics
and then shoot off your complimentars. And I do that
quite a bit, and so you know you could be

(42:36):
having the worst day. Ever, then somebody writes in and says, hey,
thank you for this episode. It really helped me and
it does help, so I I thank you to this
person who wrote in, Yes, thank you. Um to to
another topic important to arts pockets is he wrote, I
also am very frustrated with the lack of sufficient pockets

(42:57):
in my clothes. For one pair of jeans, I really
like how they fit, but they had fake front pockets.
With the help of my mom, I was able to
rip the seams of where the fake pockets attached the
pants and put in my own quite large pockets. These
are now my favorite pants. Every time I wear them,
I am reminded that I was able to say f
you to the fashion designers and make the pants actually
fit my needs. I have been meaning to extend the

(43:19):
size of the pockets and my other pants, like cutting
the bottom of the pocket open and adding more fabric,
because I am always sad when it comes time to
watch my favorite jeans. I realized many folks don't have
a sewing machine, but if you ask around, you can
probably find someone willing to help. You don't need a
ton of fabric. So if you don't already have scrap fabric,
just go to a craft store and find the end
of the bolt clearance bin and get the cheapest one.

(43:40):
The pattern doesn't matter because it is inside your pants.
Please go make your pockets big. Your life will be
so much better. I love this Johnny apple Seed of
women's pants pockets. I do too, new crafting project for me. Yes,
thank you to both of them for writing in you
two can write to you is. Our email is mom

(44:01):
Stuff at usta dot com, and you can also find
us on social media or on Instagram at Stuff I've
Ever Told You and on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.
Thanks as always to our producer Kathleen Quillian, and thanks
to you for listening.