A Master of Fiction

CW: Frank discussion of sexual assault

I believe women. There is an endless well of fucked up shit that every AFAB person can claim. Show me a woman who hasn’t been abused sexually, emotionally, and/or physically and I will draw a picture of the cartoon that you have imagined. The system is abusive, even if social sphere is not (which is extremely unlikely as a part of that system). There are more than a few men I have known who would be sincerely shocked to hear that I think of them as sexual predators. The one who bought me stuff at the Halloween store and took me out to lunch a few times, that I laid on my stomach and waited for it to be over because I felt I had owed him that for his kindness. The one who bought me drinks at the club and then put his hand up my skirt after insisting I sit on his lap to drink them. The one who I had said no and please stop until he threatened me with a knife. They don’t think of themselves as sexual predators. I was playing hard to get — we were in a game. So yes, I believe women every time they say they were assaulted.

I am desperately trying to understand how Neil Gaiman, who I have followed and idolized for 35 years, is a sexual predator. When I was a child, unloved and strange in a world that I didn’t fit, his characters were my friends. As I began writing, his work was an anchor to me. I have known for 25 years that I want to write because of his books and what they brought to me. But now his eyes are no different from the grasping, groping, hungry gaze that I’ve had to endure since I was a small child. It is the gaze that weirded me out at being alone in a room with a man. It is a feeling that AFAB people know all too well: this man may hurt me, assault me, kill me. And now, I have to look at my decades old copies of The Sandman or a more recent purchase, A Study in Emerald. I have to shrink at Snow, Glass, and Apples, something that I was proud to share in my European Fairy Tales class in college. I gained relatively minor attention and a few threats online when I stood up for Amber Heard during her very public break from Johnny Depp and never questioned her motives or reality. However, I have to wrestle with myself not to give in to discrediting Neil Gaiman’s victims. I want to see the cracks because I don’t want to be wrong about someone that I idolized, someone I thought was worthy of my adoration.

My partner (AMAB) is a good, decent person. He protects the rights of trans people, won’t work for a company that makes weapons (no matter how much it pays), gives money to homeless, volunteers with a suicide prevention program, and has supported my dream to write. He is a good person who cheated on me and destroyed the beauty we had built for 12 years at that point. He is a good person who once felt like he was owed sex by women. He had taken them on dates, or driven very far to meet them, with the context that they might engage in sexual interactions and he “wanted what was promised.” My partner is a feminist and a cheater. He sometimes asks me if I consent to a hug or kiss. Others, he blocks my only means of escape, knowing full well that I have been the victim of domestic violence more than once. Men* are sick, not because they are actively insane, but passively so. The world has given them this power, and all they’ve done is use it. My partner feels bad for having expected sex of women, for cheating, for committing emotional violence. He would be the first to tell you he feels bad for this. I’ve told him that he needs to live in the truth that he has done awful things. I’ve said that his apologies don’t change the fact, but he really wants them to. He is someone that women I know would be happy to date because he fits the criteria: he doesn’t hit me, he has a job, he has a car. Despite the fact these elements should be the bare minimum for men getting into relationships, it actually is the gold standard, especially for women that don’t fit standard beauty molds. In fact, I’ve been told that, as a not traditionally beautiful woman, I should appreciate any attention from any man, even those who would do me harm. Doubly so for those who are financially stable.

I had always planned to say that my greatest influence as a writer was Neil Gaiman. When I was in my twenties, I sent Neil Gaiman a fan email saying that he was a big inspiration and sending a very rough draft of a surrealist story I wrote, inspired heavily by his work. The email I received in return was: “Mr. Gaiman is a very busy person who does not have time to read unsolicited manuscripts.” It was a very form email by some assistant or another. I fell into the trap that I rarely do, I believed that I had something in common with a celebrity. Because the work had meant so much to me, I wanted to share with him what it had done. To learn now, in my forties, that he would oftentimes sexually exploit young, female fans who idolized him (as I had) makes me wonder what did I really see in his work? When I was studying English Literature, I learned of feminist writers like Carmen Maria Machado, Angela Carter, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Aphra Behn, Virginia Woolf, Maggie Nelson, and Anne Finch. When writing my first and second round grad school applications, Neil Gaiman was listed as one of many influences (he was left out of my recent applications). He became less of a defining influence, and more of an inspiration.

I’ve always enjoyed writing about angels, demons, and ancient gods — probably from reading The Sandman since I was far too young to be reading it. Before I knew what darkness lurked in every character and portrayal he produced, I was mystified by his tales of lost gods and presences larger and older than human understanding. I thought the fact that he wrote them was truly remarkable. However, my degree now helps me realize that it is not really that unique. Gaiman borrows from Bradbury, who borrows from Shakespeare, who borrows from Marlowe, who borrows from Sophocles and Aeschlyus. It the way all of English literature flows. Are his ideas original? Insofar that he takes something old and molds it into something new, as most educated in literary history do. It is what is seen as “great literature” because it is a “reimagining” of something known — a sequel to a sequel to a sequel of the favorite books of white men who lived long ago. That being said, I adopted Gaiman’s interpretations of world mythology to fit my style. What’s worse, however, is how completely I immersed myself in it. I adopted the look of Death and Morpheus — dark, gothic, intense. I can’t even separate myself from these influences because they helped form me in this image. Was it even a personal choice to define myself in such ways? I feel like yes, but I have to wonder now if it was right to fashion myself in an image of a woman who is deeply fetishized in his works: Death. Now knowing the ways in which he would utilize his power over his readership to grotesque ends, I have to wonder if these characters weren’t his subconscious issuing grooming standards for his one-day victims? As I’ve recently heard, he is used to getting his way. That way is so much easier when you’ve convinced others that your way is actually their own desire.

I thought I was playing the game. Sure, it was one I frequently lost, but they said it was a game of cat and mouse. I was the mouse, and I could be relentlessly pursued by any cat in the vicinity. The game was not only to avoid the cats, but to keep them interested enough to be pursued, otherwise I lost. I was perpetually destabilized. The indoctrination into the game is what forces me to seek out justifications for his actions. The lie women tell other women is that those who aren’t happy with the game aren’t playing it right. More than cat and mouse, it’s like getting plummeted into a viper pit. You can struggle and get killed sooner, or hold still and live a little longer. If you try to abandon the game all together, you’re shoved into the pit either way by your fellow players. I was never a mouse, because a mouse has agency, ingenuity, and an open playing field. The justifications for deplorable actions are issued by men, women, and others alike. The justification of “I didn’t realize it wasn’t consensual” was written by the same people who built the game, and are the sole beneficiaries of it. Honestly, I can’t even know what in my life was or wasn’t consensual about my sexual history with men because haven’t told me the parameters of the consent they purposefully obscure. The only who do show me the parameters of consent that I am starting to understand are brave women who stopped playing their game. Unfortunately, if I am to believe these parameters, I may never stop crying — for myself, for every woman I’ve ever met, for my daughter. I may never have had consent to give in the first place.

Notes

*: I used the term “men” here to relate to people AMAB, including any gender non-conforming individual who was raised and socialized male, since they had been part of the same system that benefitted and trapped them during those days, months, and years of that association. I do not use this term to refer to transgender men.