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    Global BeetErin Gloria Ryan
    10/02/14 11:31am

    "At least he didn't rape her"? A 22 year old admits to sex with a 16 child and somehow it isn't rape? I must be missing something.

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      Erin Gloria RyanGlobal Beet
      10/02/14 11:33am

      In Pennsylvania, that's not rape. Age of consent is 16 no matter the age difference.

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      Global BeetErin Gloria Ryan
      10/02/14 11:37am

      Well I'll be damned. I legit thought the age of consent was 18 across the entire country. You taught me something new today and I'm disturbed by it.

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    9546xErin Gloria Ryan
    10/02/14 11:29am

    From a Bookslut interview in 2007:

    Tao:"...He called me on the phone and I pitched him an essay on statutory rape to promote my next novel. (Editor note: Tao Lin acknowledges neither the phone conversation nor the pitch ever happened.) My next novel is called Statutory Rape. The main characters are Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning."

    http://www.bookslut.com/features/2007_...

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      BoredHag9546x
      10/02/14 11:45am

      My abusive ex who writes fiction was also reviewed/interviewed by them. Sad!

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      UrbanAchiever9546x
      10/02/14 11:56am

      A non-related WTF quote from that interview:

      "I'm most proud of my novel, Eeeee Eee Eeee, because it's under 30,000 words. I like small novels. I like Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys. I like The Easter Parade by Richard Yates. Those are small novels. My novel is smaller than either of those. I like The Human War by Noah Cicero. That is a small novel. Large novels are out of control. I like The Quick and The Dead by Joy Williams. That is not a small novel. It is a medium novel. Some medium novels I like."

      Huh?

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    The GaysianErin Gloria Ryan
    10/02/14 11:28am

    This is so fucked up. Him being 22 and her being 16 already is scary enough. But he has a history of creepy behavior? And there were "problems..." God I'm trying so hard to keep calm. I actually wish there was a way to punch someone through the computer screen. Ugh.

    I seriously want to give her a hug. I'm getting flashbacks about my ex, just from reading about these behaviors. I'm so sorry.

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      nopenotathingThe Gaysian
      10/02/14 12:27pm

      Not to disagree with your overall sentiment or anything, but you're wanting to give him a hug, not her – E.R. is a (trans) man.

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      The Gaysiannopenotathing
      10/02/14 12:46pm

      Oh, oh my god I'm sorry, I didn't know.

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    BoredHagErin Gloria Ryan
    10/02/14 11:42am

    As the survivor of a relationship with a lit dude (yes, published with 2 books if that matters) who victimizes younger women (including me, and in similar ways to what Kennedy reports, although I wasn't that young. My weight was a big sticking point—if I weighed much over 100 lbs he would comment on how I needed to start running), and who never reported him for it , I feel intense personal happiness that these other lit dudes are getting theirs. I feel like a total failure for allowing my misogynist, racist ex continue to teach at a university (including in the Women's Studies department, since he minored in it) and enjoy mild success as an author while he undoubtedly still targets women half his age or younger simply bc I know I'll just be seen as the bitter ex.

    I hope all these alt lit dudes have ruined careers in addition to facing legal ramifications for their actions. And I hope my ex is eventually one of those lit dudes who gets what he deserves.

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      panUNDEADdroid7BoredHag
      10/02/14 11:55am

      I'm very sorry that you went through that. It scares me how many of these very similar stories about men in the lit/poetry world have been coming out in the last couple years. Gregory Sherl comes to mind.

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      BoredHagpanUNDEADdroid7
      10/02/14 12:00pm

      I'm of the mind that people who write have great imaginations and as a result some are really good liars and are good at creating a fiction about themselves that is convincing to others. I don't want to get into it, but I'm pretty sure my ex could qualify as a sociopath or something. And yeah it's staggering how many cis straight male writers are like that.

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    IWASDARTHVADER's death star canteenErin Gloria Ryan
    10/02/14 11:32am

    Whatever happened to Cat Marnell? Is she ok? I remember an old Jez piece about how Marnell was treated differently from her male counterparts that would get up to no less crazy shit. That was probably the first time I realized that even women's stories of addiction are subject to sexist bullshit.

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      CHIEF QUEEFIWASDARTHVADER's death star canteen
      10/03/14 11:17am

      Yeah, I was looking forward to Cat Marnell's book deal but she apparently fell off. She's an irritating trainwreck in so many ways but I always found her genuinely talented and charismatic as a writer. And yes, a lot of the critique of her was totally sexist, like the endless comparisons to Elizabeth Wurtzel when they really have nothing in common as writers beyond being rich white drug addicts with vaginas. But alas, the last I saw of her was in a Riff Raff video looking strung out as fuck :-(

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      IWASDARTHVADER's death star canteenCHIEF QUEEF
      10/03/14 11:42am

      God that's tragic. If we can celebrate Hunter S Thompson, we can celebrate Cat Marnell (I also liked her writing quite a bit). Sigh. Women always seem to get the shit end of the stick, don't they? This makes me think of the way that Edie Sedgwick is largely forgotten by history, despite the fact that Andy Warhol got famous off of her work and talent and also contributed significantly to her addiction issues, washing his hands of her when she was no longer useful to him.

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    WonderWomanErin Gloria Ryan
    10/02/14 12:06pm

    I think it's worth noting that she appears to be in the midst of a long bipolar episode and is stressing over this article. She has been posting very erratic tweets over the last few weeks (up to like one minute ago). She is asking that people not call it rape but statutory rape, however, if age 16 is the age of consent, then it is not rape at all. I feel like this guy is a scumbag, but I'm not sure this article is doing her any good. She needs to focus on getting better, and I think she may have posted those tweets while having an episode, which means that she's probably upset they went viral. I hope she gets the help she needs, but I also feel like since this attention is now on her during this episode, her experience may be disregarded.

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      nopenotathingWonderWoman
      10/02/14 2:21pm

      According to Lin's (just about semi-fictionalized) book and according to Kennedy they had sex in both PA and NY when she was 16. The NY age of consent is 17, and their age gap is too large to qualify for age-gap exceptions.

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      jakeroy910nopenotathing
      10/03/14 4:18am

      So it is morally acceptable if its done in PA but once you take the train over to NY then it becomes morally unacceptable?

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    Rooo sez BISH PLZErin Gloria Ryan
    10/02/14 11:46am

    "The life of a teenage girl is just collateral damage in the messy pursuit of brilliance."

    And that's the line.

    That's the rationale so often for why so many of them are enabled in and get away with behavior like this.

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      The QueenRooo sez BISH PLZ
      10/02/14 11:58am

      Yeah, that line makes me want to shatter someone's teeth on a curb.

      Note to asshole Thought Catalog and Elite Daily writers: You are not the next Ernest Hemingway.

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      AubinTheGreatestRooo sez BISH PLZ
      10/02/14 12:08pm

      I absolutely agree. Take away the "brilliance" bullshit defence, and what do you have? He's a creeper through and through, an awful human being, and a scumbag.

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    hellkellErin Gloria Ryan
    10/02/14 11:34am

    And to top it all off, these heinous little shits can't write.

    Where the fuck do these morally deficient snowflakes come from?

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      Erin Gloria Ryanhellkell
      10/02/14 11:40am

      His father invented Lasik.

      That is a true fact.

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      hellkellErin Gloria Ryan
      10/02/14 12:01pm

      That explains some of it. A little affluenza, anyone?

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    Emma GolddiggerErin Gloria Ryan
    10/02/14 12:50pm

    Y'all, I found a review of Tao Lin's aptly-titled book Eeeee Eee Eeee. I would like to share some excerpts from the review with you.

    The word existential seems appropriate for the tone of much of the story, but much of the story also seems to defy any sort of –ism classification. Sometimes the novel is like a Woody Allen movie, if Woody Allen had watched more cartoons and stayed in his early 20s longer and been from Florida. At some point dolphins beat Elijah Wood to death. Elijah Wood is happy about the dolphins because he thinks he's in a movie. The novel-writing bear's girlfriend bitches at him for being passive-aggressive about wanting a blowjob.

    The characters here grapple with obsession, with feeling lonely, with being surrounded by the world. They talk to each other on instant messenger and scream "shit" out of the car window after intending to scream "fuck." The dolphins are afraid of hamsters. The employees of a Domino's Pizza stand together in the dark without knowing why.

    Oh. My. God.

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      MadPiglet loves West HamEmma Golddigger
      10/02/14 4:21pm

      So... he basically found the journal I kept during my early drug years and decided to publish it? Cool.

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    College GranddadErin Gloria Ryan
    10/02/14 11:39am

    Tao Lin, alt-lit mainstay, author of seven novels and contributor to Thought Catalog

    I don't even need to see the charges. Any guy that writes for that "site" is probably a sexual harasser at best. #Misandry

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      The QueenCollege Granddad
      10/02/14 11:59am

      Between them and Elite Daily, some of the stuff on there is just disgusting.

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      CaptOtterCollege Granddad
      10/02/14 12:17pm

      My understanding is that they have way lax editorial standards with regards to the substantive content of what they publish. In other words, I don't know how fair it is to say that if someone has been published in Thought Catalog, that they are ipso facto human garbage. Publishing stuff regardless of the viewpoint taken means that any given piece might be great or horrific.

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