LIFE
evision agent stopped returning his
calls and some friends began to dis-
tance themselves. He found himself at
the centre of a Kafka esque nightmare.
Initially, Elliott decided it was
pointless to fight back. For one thing,
he’s a lifelong liberal and is general-
ly sympathetic to the #MeToo move-
ment — or he was at the time. If he
spoke out and said he’d been falsely
accused it might cast doubt on all the
other #MeToo allegations, including
those against Harvey Weinstein. In
addition, he hoped that if he didn’t
respond it would soon be forgotten
— ‘least said, soonest mended’. Then,
when it became clear that his career
had been seriously damaged, he
became depressed and started abus-
ing various substances. His thoughts
turned to suicide, which is a common
reaction to a public shaming. Last year
the Hollywood producer Jill Messick
committed suicide after she was
accused of being one of Weinstein’s
‘enablers’ — an allegation she denied.
But after a few months Elliott got
sober and decided he could no longer
ignore the rape charge. If he didn’t con-
front it, it would dog him for the rest of
his life — and, according to him, he’s
innocent. He wrote an essay for New
York magazine, setting out the case
for his defence, but after initially being
accepted it was rejected. He passed
it on to the Guardian and it was the
same story: an enthusiastic reception
followed by a change of heart. Even-
tually, a version of that essay found a
home in Quillette, an Australian online
magazine where I’m an associate edi-
tor. After it was published, two women
came forward to accuse Elliott of hav-
ing behaved badly towards them, but
the charges didn’t amount to anythingO
n 11 October 2017 an anon-
ymous Google spreadsheet
began doing the rounds of
American newspapers and magazines
— a document that would have far-
reaching consequences for Stephen
Elliott, a Los Angeles-based writer
and editor. Called ‘Shitty Media
Men’, the spreadsheet had been cre-
ated by Moira Donegan, a former
assistant editor at the New Republic,
and named various men rumoured to
be guilty of sexual misconduct. Don-
egan closed it down a few days later,
but by that time it had been widely
circulated and many names had been
added, alongside a summary of their
alleged crimes. The entry for Elliott
read: ‘Rape accusations, sexual har-
assment, coercion, unsolicited invi-
tations to his apartment, a dude who
snuck into Binders???’ (Binders is a
Facebook group for women writers.)
The spreadsheet contained a dis-
claimer: ‘This document is only a col-
lection of allegations and rumours.
Take everything with a grain of salt.’
Needless to say, that was largely
ignored. Numerous articles appeared
celebrating the list as a much- needed
‘reckoning’, with not many people
pausing to consider whether the men
on the list were guilty. Elliott had a col-
lection of essays to promote, but inter-
views were pulled, readings cancelled
and his book tour fizzled out. His tel-
more serious than ‘unsolicited invi-
tations to his apartment’ and, as he
pointed out in his essay, it isn’t a rule
that you have to wait for a woman
to ‘solicit’ an invitation before you
can ask her back to your apartment.
No one has ever made an attempt
to substantiate the rape allegation.
Last week the story exploded
when Elliott filed a $1.5 million law
suit in New York against Moira Don-
egan and some of the other women
who contributed to the ‘Shitty Media
Men’ list. The reaction was predicta-
ble, particularly as the news followed
on the heels of Brett Kavanaugh’s
confirmation as a Supreme Court
Justice. One of Elliott’s former col-
leagues described the suit as ‘an out-
rageous act of violence against Moira
first and foremost, as well as everyone
who contributed to the list or found
any measure of solidarity or hope or
comfort or usefulness in it’.
It’s hard not to sympathise with
Elliott if you give him the benefit of the
doubt. When a woman accuses a man
of rape, the default position should not
be to believe her, particularly if there’s
no corroborating evidence. That’s tan-
tamount to a presumption of guilt, a
fundamentally illiberal principle. In
this case, we don’t know if the accuser
is a woman and you would hope even
#MeToo activists would stop short of
insisting we should believe anony-
mous allegations. Above all, no one
accused of a serious crime who pro-
tests their innocence should lose their
livelihoods without due process being
followed. I’m glad Elliott will have his
day in court.Toby Young is associate editor of
The Spectator.No sacred cows
Why are faceless accusations
allowed to end men’s careers?
Toby Young
MICHAEL HEATH
When a
woman
accuses a
man of rape,
the default
position
should not be
to believe her