It’s easy to process allegations against textbook scumbags like Harvey Weinstein. When it is beloved authors and ‘allies’, less so

Draw near, allies, for these are dark days for “kink-shaming”. At best, this is one of the whiniest, most pathetic and least helpful phrases to have entered the parlance of modern times – and at worst, it’s just another guy’s excuse for sexual abuse. It’s confusing. You try to be modern and post-conventional, and you end up enabling the most old-fashioned and conventional nastinesses of all.

Still, thank heavens for the parade of embattled famous men fighting kink-shaming’s corner. I have just one thing to say to all the lady authors, lady pop stars and lady actors out there. And that is: if you haven’t had an eye-wateringly expensive lawyer draft a statement about how consensual your sex with a tormented junior was, then are you really properly creative at all?

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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