It's come to my attention that certain individuals have accused Jordan Owen 42 of sexually assaulting me at a conference on men's issues held in the fall of 2014 in Georgia.
Caveat: I'm subscribed to JO42's channel, but haven't watched any of his content in probably more than a year now because he stopped reliably talking about topics I'm interested in. My interactions with him (most notably his interview of me and my colleagues for his joint project with Davis Aurini, "The Sarkeesian Effect") have been friendly, but we're not friends.
I want people to know that at that event Jordan did make a pass at me that was unexpected but not alarming or upsetting, and he gracefully took my "no" for an answer. My "no" was based entirely on the fact that I was (and still am) in a long term committed relationship with someone. I'd have said no to ANYONE who'd made sexual or romantic advances at that time, including Clive Owen or Marton Csokas, my own personal "celebrity dream lays".
I can only view the third parties who are making these accusations, and who are making them without my authorization, are doing so for purposes other than defending my honor or championing my sexual autonomy. If those were the reasons they were levelling these public accusations, I would suggest they'd have reached out to me to ask if I was upset or offended by my interactions with Jordan before they mounted their white horses, tipped their helmets and dipped their spears on my behalf. That they didn't certainly suggests they suspected I would not have confirmed their narrative.
Jordan reached out to me with some concern to ask if I had felt upset, offended or violated by our interaction, out of a genuine worry that I might have been. I assured him, as I am assuring everyone now, that our one brief non-professional interaction at that conference was trivial and mundane, and didn't result in any negative feelings on either of our parts. He made a gentle pass. I told him I had a boyfriend. That was the end of it. Frankly, given that I was 45 at the time, the entire thing was a pleasant surprise.
That there are people who don't like Jordan who are trying to stir up bad feelings in public on my behalf without my consent is... disturbing. Do these men think a woman like me is made of spun glass, that an unexpected sexual overture is going to shatter me? All I see are men using me as a way to attack another man they don't like. They are turning me into Anita Sarkeesian's cynical characterization of women's position in society--"in the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team, we're the ball."
I'm not interested in being Davis Aurini's or Matt Forney's patriarchy damsel-ball. Anyone wanting to publicly accuse another person of sexually assaulting me had damn well better clear that with me first to ensure they know what the fuck they're talking about.
And finally, false allegations of sexual misconduct are a weapon custom-fitted to a woman's hand and are wielded the vast majority of the time by women with emotional problems. So I'd gently suggest to anyone forwarding these baseless accusations that they stop behaving like mentally unstable teenage girls and try acting like men.
