Weinstein lawyer: Sex to boost film career is 'not rape'
Harvey Weinstein's lawyer defends the Hollywood casting couch
Ben Brafman (Weinstein's lawyer) said in an interview that a woman having sex with a Hollywood producer to advance her career is "not rape"
He told The Times: "If a woman decides that she needs to have sex with a Hollywood producer to advance her career and actually does it and finds the whole thing offensive, that's not rape."
"You made a conscious decision that you're willing to do something that is personally offensive in order to advance your career."
source
Also, I personally don't believe that consent can be purchased or traded but I know people have varying opinions on that.
Edited at 2018-03-03 08:09 pm (UTC)
Just for the sake of his lawyer's argument: if sex for career advancement is not rape, and he did not advance the woman's career, is that breech of contract? Bad faith dealing? He's not getting out of this unscathed!!
also that's of course leaving out that many of his victims made no such "decision" for their careers and actively denied him.
Also, fuck the execs at CAA for enabling all of this. It's documented fact a number of talent agents knew Weinstein harassed clients but they kept arranging private meetings anyway and just told people obliquely to 'be careful.' Now they're out there scrambling for money to Time's Up as a PR fix and you have folks gassing them up (cough - Jon Favreau from Pod Save America - cough) without providing background context admitting CAA's own role in this. It's a good thing, but it's the fucking least they could do, and I'm not convinced they've done much about the internal company culture to protect their clients from similar cases that don't have the massive public spotlight on them like you have in Weinstein's situation.
Edited at 2018-03-03 09:16 pm (UTC)
i hope he ends up with the exact same punishment as that pedophile gymnastics doctor.
Ugh I hope he spends the rest of his sorry life in prison.