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'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry'

bbc.com

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Re: 'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry'

#121

Post by leesalminen »

ceejayoz wrote: post #118
leesalminen wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not here to argue about a hypothetical utopia where nobody on the planet has to make terrible choices to protect their life. I’m just providing a commentary on the state of the world we do live in. Obviously this hypothetical utopia (or any step in that direction) would be superior to what we have now.

I like to think of "not being raped" as "bare minimum standard to strive for", not "hypothetical utopia".

I was referring to the hypothetical utopia of “making sure people don't go hungry”, which is something that has never happened before in human history. But thanks for assuming negative intent.

Re: 'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry'

#122

Post by rectang »

onychomys wrote: post #69
3np wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes my wonder, just how prevalent is that in the tech industry? I'm pretty sure it falls somewhere between 0 and music industry, non-inclusively.

Probably a lot less of a problem since so many tech dudes are dudes.

Sadly, that means that the few women in the tech industry experience even more concentrated abuse.

Furthermore, there are even fewer people up the tech management food chain than in other industries who appreciate the circumstances of sexual abuse victims.

Re: 'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry'

#123

Post by wiz21c »

leesalminen wrote: post #95
beckman466 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, if Jeff Besos would come to you and say: I invest into your startup $100M if I can fuck you into the ass tree times, very high percentage of HN crowd would immediately say yes. Ew. This comment is atrocious and shows your privilege. It sounds like you haven't listened to many stories of women experiencing systemic abuse, misogyny and humiliation (and who experience most of this abuse in the music industry).…

To me your comment is illustrating your privilege. Prostituting oneself three times to be financially set for life could be a perfectly acceptable trade off for millions of people. The fact that you wouldn’t even consider it shows that you haven’t gone hungry for a while.

ain't sure what you mean by acceptable. All of this discussion comes to one question : do you have a choice or not.

You have a choice to run a start up and make any sacrifice you think necessary. You don't have a choice to eat something when you're hungry.

If you don't have a choice, then you're a victim.

(and yes, not everyone has a choice, not everyone just has to work more to get the choice, many people, at some point, don't have a choice; abusing their situation is criminal)

Re: 'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry'

#124

Post by TacticalCoder »

nabla9 wrote: post #13

It makes perfect sense. Music industry is a economics of superstars. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1803469 Very few stars get huge profits and after that it's long slim tail. Talent or high work ethic is not enough for success, "getting discovered" aka someone likes you and invests the initial money and effort is another factor. If personal effort is not enough and the artist has nothing else, selling your ass for an…

> ... very high percentage of HN crowd would immediately say yes

The most powerful world in the dictionary is "no". As an entirely self-made / self-taught person I know the power of that word.

That you consider it a "pretty darn reasonable transaction" tells about your ethics and morality, not about the ethics and morality of a "very high percentage of HN crowd".

Regarding fame/money, here's Ruyard Kipling's take on it:

"Do not pay too much attention to fame, power, or money. Some day you will meet a person who cares for none of these, and then you will know how poor you are."

I'm raising my kid the way my rebellious parents rose me, telling her "no" is the most powerful word and she should use and abuse it and teaching her there's more to life than fame and money... But feel free to raise yours telling them selling their bodies to obtain fame/money is a "pretty damn reasonable transaction".

Re: 'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry'

#125

Post by galfarragem »

beckman466 wrote: post #89
nabla9 wrote: post #13

It makes perfect sense. Music industry is a economics of superstars. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1803469 Very few stars get huge profits and after that it's long slim tail. Talent or high work ethic is not enough for success, "getting discovered" aka someone likes you and invests the initial money and effort is another factor. If personal effort is not enough and the artist has nothing else, selling your ass for an…

> I mean, if Jeff Besos would come to you and say: I invest into your startup $100M if I can fuck you into the ass tree times, very high percentage of HN crowd would immediately say yes. Ew. This comment is atrocious and shows your privilege. It sounds like you haven't listened to many stories of women experiencing systemic abuse, misogyny and humiliation (and who experience most of this abuse in the music industry).…

> very high percentage of HN crowd would immediately say yes

FWIW, I believe GP was not making any gender distinction..

Re: 'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry'

#126

Post by mindslight »

beckman466 wrote: post #89
nabla9 wrote: post #13

It makes perfect sense. Music industry is a economics of superstars. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1803469 Very few stars get huge profits and after that it's long slim tail. Talent or high work ethic is not enough for success, "getting discovered" aka someone likes you and invests the initial money and effort is another factor. If personal effort is not enough and the artist has nothing else, selling your ass for an…

> I mean, if Jeff Besos would come to you and say: I invest into your startup $100M if I can fuck you into the ass tree times, very high percentage of HN crowd would immediately say yes. Ew. This comment is atrocious and shows your privilege. It sounds like you haven't listened to many stories of women experiencing systemic abuse, misogyny and humiliation (and who experience most of this abuse in the music industry).…

It's easier and more honest to simply say "ew" to a crassly worded comment, than to drag the discussion into a pity/privilege party by making up some narrative about the poster.

Re: 'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry'

#127

Post by ceejayoz »

leesalminen wrote: post #121
ceejayoz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to think of "not being raped" as "bare minimum standard to strive for", not "hypothetical utopia".

I was referring to the hypothetical utopia of “making sure people don't go hungry”, which is something that has never happened before in human history. But thanks for assuming negative intent.

The world produces enough food to feed everyone. Doubly true if you scope things to the developed world. Triply true if you scope it to the USA only. "No one starves" is just as reasonable a minimum standard to strive for as "no one gets raped".

Yes, there are serious implementation details, but there's a big societal will factor at play too.

Re: 'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry'

#128

Post by wiz21c »

thn-gap wrote: post #44
nabla9 wrote: post #13

It makes perfect sense. Music industry is a economics of superstars. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1803469 Very few stars get huge profits and after that it's long slim tail. Talent or high work ethic is not enough for success, "getting discovered" aka someone likes you and invests the initial money and effort is another factor. If personal effort is not enough and the artist has nothing else, selling your ass for an…

Thousands of employees devote already 1/3 of their life doing a work they despise just so they can avoid starving. Getting literally fucked to save 40 years of bad work doesn't sound too bad.

I'd be happy to vomit all my sexual weirdness upon you. Then you'd have those 40 years to rebuild your psychology from ruins...

Come on, you can't possibly think seriously about what you just wrote.

Re: 'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry'

#129

Post by Communitivity »

I saw comments talking about a hypothetical utopia where no one needs to go hungry and where talent gets notice without having to sell their body or soul.

As with many things, the problem is not technological. We have the technology to create such a utopia (there would still be other problems, but the world would be utopian from those aspects). The problem is sociological. In order to do this we need to both all work together, and think long term (on the order of 50-100 years). The problem is that nations can't even stay together in just an economic union when it's in their best interests economically (Brexit, Paris Accord), and internally those same nations bicker and vote on party lines (Tories vs Labor, Democrats vs Republicans), instead of voting what's best in the long term for the nation.

What's happening in Texas right now is an example. Texas had the money to buy snowplows. They didn't. Texas had the money to winterize wind turbines. They didn't.

We have to get beyond our short term greed and work together in long term action to succeed at addressing these problems. Otherwise there will always be Epsteins, etc. in any industry where people are vying for attention (most of them).

Re: 'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry'

#130

Post by eqvinox »

lostgame wrote: post #79
azeirah wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found that HN is generally not very friendly to LGBTQ+ people. I don't think it is because there's a certain type of phobia here, but most people here are very logical and analytical people which I've seen resulting in "logical arguments for and against the existence of ..." which is just.. Why We exist because we exist, nothing else.

And to speak up about it, as obviously pictured once again here - gets us downvoted into oblivion, only confirming our feelings of being unheard... For real, it's been such an issue here I have had emails with an admin but didn't press the issue further and I think it's due time to send another one. They really did seem to care and to be concerned.

You're assuming you're getting downvoted due to the asexual aspect of your posts. I don't know whether this applies to other cases, but in this case I'm reasonably sure the reason is different: the existence and behavior of asexual people does not change how overall society works (sadly).

In the very situation the BBC story refers to, it doesn't matter whether you're an asexual musician. The producer/executive/... would still expect sex from you. They don't give a shit, follow their ingrained patterns, and that's the problem.

No part of "Everything is about sex. Except sex, which is about power." is in any way diminishing or erasing asexual people. If anything, it exemplifies the additional plight that being asexual brings, even over other LGBTQ+ preferences. Society expects you to be about sex & that's gonna be a very slow change.

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