0:00

Just a heads up. This conversation includes mentions

0:02

of sex crime and suicide.

0:08

There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production of I Heart

0:10

Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm

0:16

Bridget Todd, and this is there Are No Girls on

0:18

the Internet. So

0:22

I wanted to do this episode because I had this great

0:24

conversation with Attorney carry

0:26

Goldberg, who specializes in revenge

0:29

porn and abuse against women and sexualized

0:32

violence that plays out online, and

0:34

we briefly mentioned the situation with Aaron

0:36

Coleman, who is a nineteen year

0:38

old part time dishwasher who recently

0:41

won the Kansas State House of Representatives

0:43

Democratic primary, and he

0:45

won despite the fact that he had an

0:47

admitted history of revenge

0:50

porn against his classmates. And

0:52

I released all the way this story played out very

0:54

much a line with the way that Carrie Goldberg said

0:56

these stories tend to play out, and so I wanted

0:58

to do a quick supplementary episode to break

1:01

down the situation. Coleman

1:05

dropped out of the race after all of these allegations

1:08

really reached a fever pitch online, only

1:10

to re enter the race yesterday.

1:13

Yesterday on the day that I'm recording this,

1:16

which is Wednesday.

1:18

So I saw this story really related to the conversation

1:21

that we had with Carrie Goldberg this week, because she

1:23

really laid out how as a society were

1:25

so quick to minimize this

1:28

kind of behavior. And by this kind of behavior, I mean

1:30

things like revenge porn, I mean things like abuse

1:33

of women and girls, sexualized

1:35

violence. We are so

1:37

quick to say boys will be

1:39

boys. This happened when he was

1:41

so young. Why are you trying to bring up

1:43

old stuff and ruin this kid's life. Doesn't

1:46

he deserve to move on? All of these things

1:48

are really ways that we minimize this very

1:50

serious crime of revenge

1:53

porn. I mentioned in the episode Glenn

1:55

Greenwald, who was a journalist at the Intercept, he

1:57

himself tweeted and called this behavior

1:59

quote bad middle school bullying.

2:02

And this is not just bullying, it's a

2:04

very serious sex crime. Most

2:06

people, even people who are bullies,

2:08

don't do this kind of thing. It's not a normal

2:11

thing. And so I really saw

2:13

the way that this story played out

2:15

in exactly the way that Carry Goldberg says these

2:17

stories often play out, which is why part of the reason

2:20

why I wanted to do this episode. Coleman is actually

2:22

admitted to the behavior that he's accused of, including

2:24

revenge born. It's important to keep in

2:26

mind that this stuff all happened when he was in middle

2:28

school. I've seen various reports of what

2:30

age he was. I've seen twelve, I've seen thirteen,

2:32

I've seen fourteen. Um he first

2:35

ran for public office when he was seventeen years

2:37

old, and he's now nineteen. Aaron

2:40

does not dispute that he did these things. He

2:43

himself wrote, I just want to make clear

2:45

that all of these allegations are both true and

2:47

occurred only digitally. I denounced

2:49

these actions, and they are the actions of a sick and

2:51

troubled fourteen year old boy. And

2:54

even in that statement, I really see the ways

2:56

that he's minimizing his own behavior, reminding

2:59

us that the own he happened digitally. You

3:01

know, Try telling that to the young women

3:03

whose lives he just disrupted,

3:06

you know, by things that only happened digitally.

3:08

Like that's in and of itself kind of a kind

3:10

of a misnomer that things

3:12

that happen online don't impact your real

3:15

world or your real life. We know that's not how

3:17

it works. So even in that statement, I see

3:19

the ways that he's minimizing his behavior.

3:22

So what ended up happening is that he got

3:24

an intimate photo of a classmate. It's

3:26

not clear how he got them. This girl says that she did

3:28

not send them to him. They were not in a romantic

3:30

relationship. He blackmailed

3:32

her into sending him more photos,

3:35

saying that if she refused, he was going to send

3:37

that photo to all of her friends and family, And

3:39

when she didn't send them another photo, he

3:42

did exactly that, and it really sounds

3:44

like it really disrupted her life. This

3:46

is only a sample of the kind of abusive behavior

3:48

that he's been responsible for. Another girl

3:51

he arressed for months until she attempted

3:53

suicide. Aaron told

3:55

her family, I have moved on. They

3:57

called the past the past for a reason, because

3:59

that's where you are supposed to leave things. At

4:02

this point, you shouldn't move on for me,

4:04

You should move on for yourself. And

4:07

that just really doesn't sound like the words of someone

4:09

who has grown, who has

4:11

grappled with the severity and the seriousness

4:14

of their crimes and what they have done. That

4:16

sounds like someone who is not capable

4:19

of doing that. Yet, telling the family

4:21

member of someone that you bullied

4:24

into a suicide attempt that they should move on

4:26

for themselves is really, I

4:29

think quite telling. It sort of plays

4:31

into a common misconception

4:33

when it comes to abuse that the

4:36

past is the past. You can just the

4:38

perpetrator should be allowed to move on by just saying

4:40

they have moved on. They don't have to actually make genuine,

4:43

meaningful amends to their to the people they've

4:45

heard. Aaron

4:51

Coleman has been like a

4:53

master class in how not to

4:56

issue a public apology. I feel

4:58

that every time he has talked about this s nation

5:00

public, I want to pull

5:02

him aside and say, maybe you can have someone

5:05

who actually can talk

5:07

with a little bit more empathy about the situation

5:10

help you with your statement before you it just hits

5:12

in. In one of his first statements

5:14

after he dropped out of the race on Twitter, he said,

5:16

in all seriousness, feminism hasn't

5:18

got a chance so long as Donnatism remains

5:21

on the march, the progressive circular firing

5:23

squad has done more to uphold the status quo

5:26

that conservatives ever could have dreamed of. In

5:28

case you don't know what donnatism is, I didn't know what it

5:30

was either, So don't feel bad. Donatism is this

5:32

idea that you have to be faultless in order to get

5:34

ahead. And so even that statement

5:37

I think is really bullshit because

5:40

why blame feminists for you having to

5:42

resign for your own behavior? You

5:44

know, So that statement was not

5:46

great. His statement about

5:49

moving on was also not

5:52

great. When Glenn Greenwald asked him,

5:54

you know what he had done to make amends, his

5:56

first thing was that he said that he had had a really

5:58

hard life and that he thought that society

6:01

should be doing more to help his victims, not just him.

6:03

When you do something wrong

6:06

that is this heinous

6:08

and this serious, you really

6:10

have to really know how

6:12

to practice actual

6:15

empathy and actual like

6:18

making an actual apology, and it's not

6:20

just saying, well you feminists

6:23

win, okay, Like that's not an apology.

6:25

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of people

6:27

defended Coleman. Some even made

6:30

it seem like Coleman was the victim because

6:32

his critics were unfairly bringing up something

6:34

from his past. Here's how journalists

6:36

Sager and Jetty talked about Coleman on

6:38

his new show after Coleman resigned from the

6:41

race reached past the headline,

6:43

like you said, a nineteen year old with a minimum wage

6:45

job want to serve as an elective

6:47

representative is like, fine, if you guys are going to treat

6:49

me this way, why should I even participate?

6:52

I mean, the national norms around

6:54

calling somebody out for behavior that they engage in

6:57

when they were literally twelve years old just

6:59

seems ridic he list to me, and yet

7:01

I haven't seen any real reckoning around the said

7:03

and again that speaks to the exact same thing

7:06

that Carrie Goldberg talked about in that interview, which

7:08

is that as a society, we

7:11

are very quick to just say,

7:13

you know, he's made as Amend's. Boys

7:16

will be boys. It's not that big of a deal. He

7:18

should be able to get on with his life. And a

7:21

lot of people defended him by saying that it's

7:23

unfair that he should be accountable for things

7:25

that he did in middle school since now he's grown

7:28

up and gotten older and all of that. And

7:30

ordinarily I would say that someone who commits

7:33

a crime when they're very young, like they shouldn't go

7:35

to jail or be tried as an adult

7:37

for things they did when they were young. But we're

7:39

not talking about whether or not Coleman

7:41

should go to jail. We're talking about whether he is

7:43

fit for public office. And he's

7:45

the one who chose to run for public office at

7:48

seventeen and at nineteen, perhaps

7:50

that he had put a little bit more of time and

7:52

distance between the

7:54

time that he was a young man who was doing

7:56

these crimes and the time when he

7:58

was running for office, it would be easier

8:01

to believe that he actually has grown.

8:03

But it's only been you know, four or five

8:05

years, right, Like, already people

8:07

who are nineteen have to

8:10

show that they are mature enough to be able

8:12

to hold public office. You're it's already a pretty high

8:15

bar. If just four or five

8:17

years ago you were, you know, harassing

8:20

and abusing your classmates,

8:22

it really does add another notch against you.

8:25

And again, I think that's something that Carrie Goldberg

8:27

speaks to in that interview, is our willingness

8:29

to just uncritically accept an

8:32

abuser at their word that they have moved

8:34

on, that they have changed, that they you know,

8:37

that they have that they're a different person. And

8:39

I think that that's a real mistake. I think that as a

8:41

society we need to if

8:44

if someone who has committed this kind of heinous

8:46

act tries to tell us that they've

8:48

moved on, they've grown. We need to see some sort

8:50

of meaningful demonstration of

8:53

that and not just uncritically accept

8:55

that that is the case. And I have to say I

8:57

saw a lot of folks on the left, a lot of

8:59

folks in the meeting a journalists who really

9:01

shouldn't know better, just accepting and

9:03

pushing this narrative that he's grown, he's

9:05

moved on, he's made amends, without really

9:07

taking a minute to ask what has he done

9:10

to show that he's made amends? What has he done to

9:12

to to illustrate this kind of growth, What

9:14

is he has he made? How do his how do his victims

9:17

feel? Right Like, we didn't really see that

9:19

conversation playing out. What we saw

9:21

was people just uncritically accepting

9:23

that he has changed and moved on. So

9:25

one of the supporters that we bring up in that episode

9:27

with Carry Goldberg is Glenn Greenwald,

9:30

who was really pushing this narrative

9:32

that you know, this was just

9:35

quote bad middle school bullying

9:37

and that he's you know, it's in the past and

9:39

he's moved on and made amends. I found

9:41

this one quote from Greenwald to be particularly

9:43

insulting, talking about the fact that

9:45

Coleman is you know, uh, it

9:47

comes from a working class background. Greenwald

9:50

writes, if we say we want

9:52

more candidates from working class and poverished

9:54

families running for political office, as we should

9:57

do, we make allowances for the fact that deprived

9:59

child hoods often produce averegent behavior

10:01

as a child that are not common among

10:04

those from more privileged backgrounds. And

10:06

that, to me is just anybody who

10:08

comes from a working class background should be so insulted,

10:11

because there are plenty of people who

10:13

come from working class backgrounds who

10:15

don't do this kind of thing. Revenge

10:18

porn is not not a hallmark

10:20

of a working class background. People

10:23

who grow up in working class families, that's

10:25

not a hallmark of you know, that's not like

10:27

part of their culture, right like, and pretending

10:29

that it is is so disingenuous

10:32

and honestly insulting. Like I think that trying

10:34

to imply that people from working

10:36

class backgrounds all do this kind of thing

10:39

is just is just beyond the pale, because

10:41

it's not true. Right, Plenty of people grow

10:43

up with hardship, plenty of people have really hard

10:45

lives. Most people don't

10:48

seek out these complex revenge

10:51

porn schemes

10:53

that involve blackmail. That's not common

10:55

behavior. And the more the more that we say

10:58

that behavior is common, and the more that we say that behavior

11:00

is acceptable, the less we will

11:02

be able to talk about it as the heinous,

11:05

serious crime that it really is. Greenwald

11:11

said that we needed to have the quote full picture of

11:13

who Coleman is before judging his fitness

11:15

for public office. He did a pretty fawning

11:17

thirty minute video interview with Coleman on his

11:20

website, The Intercept. Here's a little clip.

11:22

The fact that has such a passionate platform

11:25

shows I've I've changed. I was in

11:27

middle school. I would grab my past actions

11:29

and I hope to continually leaned from them

11:32

as I grow into the person I hope to be. I

11:34

know I've made mistakes, but there's a reason

11:36

I'm I'm I'm the only Democrat on the ballot.

11:39

So in that Glenn Greenwald interview, one of the

11:41

questions that Greenwald asked him is what

11:43

are what's the evidence that you've moved

11:45

on that you've grown, And he

11:48

answers that if he had not moved

11:50

on, wouldn't there be more allegations?

11:53

The allegations stopped at middle school.

11:55

I didn't have he says that he didn't continue to have allegations

11:57

against him in high school when he was

12:00

you know, the allegations stop when he was fourteen. He didn't

12:02

have allegations when he was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,

12:04

eighteen, nineteen. But we

12:07

know that is not how these things

12:10

work. In that Carrie Goldberg interview, it

12:12

is so clear to me that this

12:14

kind of heinous sex crime, this

12:17

kind of abuse doesn't just happen in a vacuum.

12:19

It is very unusual for it to be a one time

12:21

thing. It is more often than not a

12:24

pattern of abusive behavior against

12:26

women, and that's exactly how

12:28

this played out. Coleman

12:32

says that his abusive behavior stopped

12:34

when he was, you know, fourteen, when he got

12:36

older. Now he's a changed man at nineteen. One

12:39

of his ex girlfriends did an interview with The Intercept

12:42

this week, saying that Coleman

12:44

physically attacked her, including slapping

12:46

her and choking her, just this

12:48

past December. So that completely

12:51

tracks with what we know about abusers that

12:53

it's not typically just a one time

12:56

thing or a quote mistake. It

12:58

typically is a pattern of abusive

13:00

behavior. And the fact that we

13:02

that we know this this is how abuse works.

13:04

People who study this, people like Carrie Goldberg, who

13:07

know how this works and see it day in and day out, have

13:09

been very clear that this is how this works. And

13:12

yet so many people who supported him,

13:14

people like Glenn Greenwald, just accept

13:16

that this was a one time, quote mistake.

13:23

Revenge porn is not a youthful

13:25

indiscretion, and it's not it's not something

13:28

normal that people do. It is a very serious

13:31

and heinous crime. And if we don't talk about it

13:33

as the serious, heinous, life ruining

13:35

crime that it is, roorid is going

13:37

to say it was a one time

13:39

mistake. But that's how these things work. So

13:42

some of the supporters are saying that people are

13:44

trying to cancel him. People are saying

13:46

that he, you know, shouldn't be in public

13:49

life. I don't feel like that's what people are saying

13:51

at all. I feel like people are

13:53

saying that if you're the kind

13:55

of person who admits to this kind of heinous crime,

13:58

that it is completely reasonable

14:01

to scrutinize your

14:03

fitness for public office. You are

14:05

not entitled to have a job

14:07

in the House of Representatives representing your state.

14:10

That is not something that is your birthright

14:12

and to act as if that is ruining his life.

14:15

It's just not true. Nobody owes you

14:17

a job. He is more than welcome

14:20

to, you know, continue his life.

14:23

It doesn't mean that he has to be holding public

14:25

office, holding a position of trust

14:27

in the community. So that's

14:29

the situation. My take on all of this is

14:31

that revenge porn and misogynistic abuse

14:34

is not normal middle school bad

14:36

behavior, nor is it a class

14:38

issue, and it is entirely reasonable

14:40

that Coleman should base scrutiny for

14:42

this kind of behavior if he's trying to get

14:44

a position that involves public trust.

14:47

People who are talking about this are not trying

14:49

to ruin his life. It's not something

14:51

that was so far in the past that it's that it's

14:54

not fair to even bring up. It's completely

14:56

reasonable to bring up, and that would all be

14:58

true even if this be aavier did stop

15:00

when he was fourteen, but we know that's

15:03

not how abusers typically work, and

15:05

his ex girlfriend says that he was abusive to

15:07

her just you know, this past

15:10

December. It's overall, it's a really bad

15:12

situation because his opponent is anti

15:14

choice, it is not a really good candidate. But

15:17

women really shouldn't have to choose between an abuser

15:19

and someone who wants to control our bodies. And

15:21

the way that Coleman has continuously

15:23

reminded people that he's pro choice,

15:26

pro choice, that he's not going to try to put more anti

15:28

choice laws in the books the way that his opponent surely

15:30

would. It just doesn't feel right to me. It almost

15:33

feels like this this sort of gotcha

15:36

for women voters to be like, well, do you

15:38

want me the person who abuses

15:40

women or this guy who's going to control your body?

15:42

And that's not a fair choice for women voters.

15:44

And the way that he talks about being pro choice,

15:47

it makes it seem like abortion rights are a gift

15:49

that he's giving women voters. Jill flip

15:51

I had really put it well on Twitter. She writes, it's

15:54

almost like these guys see basic human

15:56

rights for women as a gift to be bestowed

15:58

and met with great gratitude, and not

16:01

well basic rights. And

16:04

truly this should not be our

16:06

choice, right. We should not have to choose between

16:08

two different kinds of creeps, you

16:11

know, in the election. This is

16:13

America. We should have unlimited numbers of creeps

16:15

to choose from. Just kidding, So

16:17

that's my take, But honestly, it's a complicated

16:20

situation and I really want to know what

16:22

do you all think? You know, what are your thoughts on this story?

16:25

It's a story that you followed. What are your

16:27

thoughts? You can hit us up at hello at

16:29

tangodi dot com and we would love to hear what you

16:31

think. Got

16:34

a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want

16:36

to say hi. You can reach us at hello at tangodi

16:39

dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's

16:41

episode at tangodi dot com. There Are

16:43

No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridgetad.

16:45

It's a production of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative

16:48

Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Terry

16:50

Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michaelmato

16:53

is our contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget

16:56

Toad. If you want to help us grow,

16:58

rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For

17:01

more podcasts from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart

17:03

Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

17:12

H