Hollywood actors speak of 'rampant' problem of male abusers targeting men
Speaking out in the wake of an allegation of sexual harassment against Kevin Spacey, male actors say abuse against boys and young men is ‘taboo’ but ‘pervasive’
Sam Levin in San Francisco
Tuesday 31 October 2017 08.02 EDT
Hollywood has a “rampant” and “pervasive” problem of men sexually abusing boys and young men, according to actors and lawyers who are speaking up about misconduct and harassment in the wake of an allegation against actor Kevin Spacey.
“It’s a very taboo subject,” said Alex Winter, an actor and director who said he was sexually abused as a pre-teen child actor.
“I don’t know of any boys in any pocket of the entertainment industry that do not encounter some form of predatory behavior. …
It’s really not a safe environment.”
Spacey has been accused of making an unwanted sexual advance toward Star Trek actor Anthony Rapp, who says he was 14 years-old at the time of the alleged incident in 1986. According to Rapp, Spacey, who was 26 at the time, lay on top of him and tried to “seduce” him.
Spacey, star of Netflix show House of Cards and former artistic director of London’s Old Vic theatre, apologized after BuzzFeed published Rapp’s allegations, saying he did not remember the “encounter”. If he did what Rapp described, it “would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior”, he added.
Spacey also formally came out as gay in the same statement on Sunday night – a move that outraged LGBT activists and actors, who said it was a cruel deflection that caused harm by linking his sexuality to an allegation of child abuse, fueling the homophobic myth that gay men are predators.
To some, the Spacey controversy has been a painful reminder that young gay actors can be particularly vulnerable to mistreatment – and that influential men wield their power to abuse both men and women.
“It’s a pervasive problem in Hollywood,” said Los Angeles attorney Toni Jaramilla, who has represented men in the entertainment industry in sexual harassment cases. She said that men can be coerced into sex or assaulted in professional contexts and are often afraid to speak out: “The common challenge is the fear of not being believed and the fear of having the situation turned around against them, to suggest that they are instigating it, or they are finding opportunities to sleep their way into a role.”
Shttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/31/hollywood-male-abusers-boys-gay-men-kevin-spacey
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