51–60 of 175 posts
not explicitly harmful or abusive but toeing the line of consent and leaving Margot feeling repulsed afterward. This is where the story diverges completely from my reality. Roupenian spends a good portion of the story describing just how disgusting of a person he is. Of course, I know nothing about how Charles was with other women; I can only speak for myself. With me, at least, he was careful, patient, and gentle—it…
not explicitly harmful or abusive but toeing the line of consent and leaving Margot feeling repulsed afterward. This is where the story diverges completely from my reality. Roupenian spends a good portion of the story describing just how disgusting of a person he is. Of course, I know nothing about how Charles was with other women; I can only speak for myself. With me, at least, he was careful, patient, and gentle—it…
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Maybe Roupenian actually, literally faces threats from men who didn't like her story. It... wouldn't be the first time people harassed a writer for a creative work they took to be offensive.
Nothing justifies threats. But in this case, the reasons that this would offend people -- that it makes untrue and unfair accusations about a real-world case-- are true. Or even worse than one would assume, even, in that it's not autobiographical and does the same about identifiable third parties.
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/12/12/16762062/cat-person-e...
Quoting from that article, also:
“Cat Person” does not bear any of the signifiers of a personal essay: It is told in the third person, not the first, and it appears in the New Yorker’s fiction section, with FICTION splashed at the top of the page. Nonetheless, the default response from many seemed to be to treat it as an essay rather than as a short story.
A lot of the criticism I'm seeing in the comments here seem to tacitly be assuming that this essay in Slate is relaying facts about "Cat Person" that were known at, or shortly after, the time of publication. They were not. If anything, the assumption was that the story was somewhat autobiographical -- and from what I can see, it really was somewhat autobiographical. The character of Margot is, again, fictional, but she clearly owes more to her author's experiences than to the essayist's.
Roupenian shouldn't have taken autobiographical bits and bobs from a stranger's life, no. But do keep in mind that she had absolutely no idea that the story was going to go viral this way; it's not like Twitter is regularly aflame with buzzy conversation about the latest short fiction piece in the New Yorker. This was an extraordinary event, and like all too much on Twitter in the last few years, chiefly driven by people who decided the story was something people needed to get outraged by. And, again, their outrage was not over Roupenian's mild appropriation.
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Nothing justifies threats. But in this case, the reasons that this would offend people -- that it makes untrue and unfair accusations about a real-world case-- are true. Or even worse than one would assume, even, in that it's not autobiographical and does the same about identifiable third parties.
Sorry, but Roupenian didn't get threats over this story because people thought it was making "untrue and unfair accusations about a real-world case"; she got threats because she wrote a story that painted a fictional man in a bad light and the GamerGate types came out in full force. It also painted a fictional woman in a bad light It's worth reading reporting about this story from the time it was published, e.g., htt…
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Imagine a story about Charles the software developer, who lives in Chicago, being a horrible, predatory romantic partner. Not trying to imply that you are one of course, but that’s about as much detail she changed from the real life story—just the names. And now it was so successful that there’s going to be made about it starring Cousin Greg from HBO’s Succession. People love to gossip and will eventually put two and…
She didn't change "just the names". As the Slate article observes, she changes half the story . That's what people are mad about: that her work of fiction is mostly fictional.
I made plans to rent an apartment with some girls from my econ class the following year, but they told me they’d changed their minds when they found out about my older boyfriend.
I'm a woman and I blog. I have made a stab at writing fiction, often loosely based on my life. People tend to assume it is 100 percent true.
When I was getting divorced, if I mentioned my future ex was blond, men who were blond would act like I had just announced "You are in like Flynn!" Brunets who were interested in me acted like kicked puppies, as if I had just announced "I am never, ever dating you -- yes, you -- in specific!!!!"
I learned to scrub such details from my comments and signal as little as possible about my past relationships so as to have some hope of breaking whatever negative patterns were a part of my life. I didn't want men self selecting or self rejecting to pattern match to a past relationship when I was trying to sort out what actually worked.
I dislike the general trend of vilifying men who are involved with younger women, often with no nuance at all. Often age difference alone is sufficient to assume the absolute worst.
Although I absolutely support things like #MeToo -- support the idea that women should not be silenced about the bad things that have actually happened to them -- I am disturbed and concerned by the general trend that the world seems to think all heterosexual relationships are inherently abusive or something. We hear a great deal about the bad, the things gone wrong, the dark side and sometimes it seems like there are no good examples out there, no discourse on "This is what a good relationship look like."
Being able to identify bad actors and protect oneself is a good thing. Being unable to identify something positive or pursue it because everyone around you assumes the worst and feels entitled to butt in is not a good thing.
I wish we could take steps towards something more positive. That sometimes seems impossible in the current climate.
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Lots of fiction writers use real people as the bases for characters; that doesn't make them "creepy internet stalkers". Cat Person was a work of fiction. There wasn't much ambiguity about that.
Do you think you would still feel this was unambiguously fiction if you were in Charles or Alexis’ shoes?
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You dated a girl. She was in her twenties. You were in your twenties. You are both legally adults. Adults make their own decisions.
Morality just doesn't work off legality, nor is the "adulthood" ever truly clear in reality. In this very specific case, passing no judgement on the OP here, there's a somewhat notable difference often between 20+27 and 22+29 even because of life stages. Do both people have full time jobs, their own place? Is one still in school? Can one not drink at bars in the US? These cultural markers often have far more importan…
However, 7 years is not a significant age gap (even when the younger partner is only 18), that this should even be considered as a concern, even preliminarily. If one speaks of life stages and resources such as jobs and independent housing, that varies as much by socio-economic status as it does by the age range in question. Do we hoist the responsibility for self-reflecting on potential past relationship abuse, a serious charge, on anyone who is of moderately higher wealth and life experience than their partner, even when they are the same age?
It is a dangerous trend in our society of taking tenuous theories about power disparities and using those to put the burden of proof on men that they are not taking advantage of younger women. And, pardon the hyperbole, it won't end with 7 years, and likely not even 5.
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"Fiction" is literally in the word "autofiction". The term means "fictional autobiography". You may have confused it with "roman à clef", which nobody says Cat Person is. We do have a term for "fiction inspired in part by real stories"; it's "fiction".
Just to clarify - if someone wrote a fictional autobiography whose subject was obviously you, would that not bother you? I would certainly be bothered if a close friend or family member did that to me in a manner that could ever lead strangers back to me. Nor would I ever publish such a piece about one of my acquaintances without their permission. I find the notion that such behavior could be socially acceptable quit…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Morality just doesn't work off legality, nor is the "adulthood" ever truly clear in reality. In this very specific case, passing no judgement on the OP here, there's a somewhat notable difference often between 20+27 and 22+29 even because of life stages. Do both people have full time jobs, their own place? Is one still in school? Can one not drink at bars in the US? These cultural markers often have far more importan…
> It strikes me as a genuine and reflective post from someone who cares, and I would hate to see others use "you are both legally adults" to avoid doing similar reflection. However, 7 years is not a significant age gap (even when the younger partner is only 18), that this should even be considered as a concern, even preliminarily. If one speaks of life stages and resources such as jobs and independent housing, that v…
I'm going to strongly disagree with that, and not sure how you decided that was objectively true. An 18 year old who's finishing off their senior year of high school and going to college the next year dating a 25 year old adult 3 years out of college is a red flag. As a 25 year old myself, I would probably not even date someone that's still an undergrad.
I would very much question any friend my age dating someone under the age of 21. On paper, that would only be 5 years, but I would have far less concerns over 23+33 both working full time despite the age gap being double. Again, context and life stage matters.
> that varies as much by socio-economic status as it does by the age range in question
You're 100% right, people of different socioeconomic statuses can mature at different rates and get to different life stages at different ages. That doesn't magically up the total life experience from a time perspective, though it does make a great point again for nuance, not hard and fast rules on specific ages.
> Do we hoist the responsibility for self-reflecting on potential past relationship abuse, a serious charge, on anyone who is of moderately higher wealth and life experience than their partner, even when they are the same age?
I don't think this gap gets to a point of being a problem often, if ever, but there's no harm in reflecting. I don't see why we wouldn't all want to reflect on the health of our relationships of all sorts. You speak of abuse in a binary, but it's a spectrum where some of that wouldn't even classify as abuse but as maybe mildly taking advantage of someone. There's no harm in trying to ensure fairness in your own relationships, as it is actually one of the few places in the world that is fully in your control when it comes to fairness.
> It is a dangerous trend in our society of taking tenuous theories about power disparities and using those to put the burden of proof on men that they are not taking advantage of younger women. And, pardon the hyperbole, it won't end with 7 years, and likely not even 5.
There's no gender bias here, the same goes with all genders. You see this type of power issue in same sex relationships too, to say nothing of non-binary people. This is not a burden of proof though, there are no accusations floating around. The only claim here that this asks on society is that if you potentially are in a power imbalanced relationship, just take care and examine the details. I don't see the danger here you speak of.