avidan

I was 28 when I met Dy­lan, who was 20. We start­ed dat­ing two months be­fore his 21st. I was con­cerned about pow­er im­bal­ance, that I was be­ing a creep. We cel­e­brat­ed three YEARS in the last week and I still some­times go “oh god is this bad.”

And I do N O T un­der­stand the same en­er­gy not be­ing ap­plied to Dan Avi­dan right now.

Okay, here’s the run­down for those who don’t know: Avi­dan is a YouTube per­son­al­i­ty and com­e­dy rock mu­si­cian. He is old­er than the av­er­age YouTube per­son­al­i­ty, at 42.

It’s been ru­mored that he used to sleep with fans be­fore meet­ing his cur­rent part­ner who may be his fi­ancée. It’s been ru­mored that those fans are young.

So this week, al­leged proof drops that a 17 year old fan reached out to him, he replied, they had a loose friend­ship un­til she was le­gal, then some­where be­tween 18 and 22 they start­ed hav­ing a sex­tu­al re­la­tion­ship.

She goes to one of his con­certs, they fuck, he ghosts her com­plete­ly.

Es­ti­mat­ing my own time­line from what I can de­duce from screen­shots, this is 2013 to 2017. He is 34 to 38.

So let’s count the lay­ers.

Us­ing some­one for sex and lead­ing them on that there is a friend­ship where there is not one is IM­MORAL.

38 years old hav­ing one night stands with 22 year olds? You’ve got a pow­er im­bal­ance.

It’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly evil but you have to be aware and hon­or it. Which you didn’t do, be­cause your were al­ready in­tend­ing to use them for sex and not com­mu­ni­cate your ex­pec­ta­tions hon­est­ly.

En­gag­ing with a fan at all, es­pe­cial­ly ro­man­ti­cal­ly or sex­u­al­ly, is im­moral. You’ve got a pow­er im­bal­ance.

I’m not say­ing that if you’re fa­mous you can’t fuck or date any­one who has ever heard of you. But some­one who is iden­ti­fy­ing as a fan and en­gag­ing in the fan cul­ture? Fuck no.

A 34 year old re­ply­ing to a teenage fan … murky. Yeah, I’m say­ing it, it’s murky fuckin be­hav­ior on its own. Like this girl was just like “Dan you’re great I loved the show” and he replied to that. Do you un­der­stand the rate at which some­one like Dan is get­ting those mes­sages? One at which he can’t re­ply to every­one, and try­ing to is im­pos­si­ble. They’ve dis­cussed mul­ti­ple times on the show that they try to read all com­ments and mes­sages, but can’t re­ply to them all. To re­ply to any­one is a choice. What is he us­ing to de­cide?

Be­ing in your mid to late thir­ties and keep­ing the door open with teenagers you would like to fuck when they are adults IS IM­MORAL, CRUSTY, VILE BE­HAV­IOR.

And now we come to the one every­one is fuck­ing stuck on: Was it groom­ing?

Now, my main an­swer is: Who gives a fuck? This is al­ready mas­sive­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate and preda­to­ry six ways to Sun­day. You want to dis­man­tle the groom­ing al­le­ga­tion be­cause it’s the sim­pli­fy­ing term, and when you’re an id­iot, that makes you feel like there’s no case.

But my al­ter­nate, more di­rect an­swer is: How can it NOT be groom­ing? Groom­ing is about get­ting some­one vul­ner­a­ble to trust you so you can ex­ploit them. When you are six­teen years old­er and a celebri­ty to the per­son you are try­ing to pump and dump, YOUR AGE AND JOB HAS GROOMED THEM FOR YOU. ITS WHY YOU KEEP BOUND­ARIES IN PARASO­CIAL RE­LA­TION­SHIPS.

But no. What I have to hear from fans, large­ly nerd boys who are just en­vi­ous that any­one got laid at all, is “two con­sent­ing adults can do what­ev­er they want and she sounds jeal­ous of his part­ner” and oth­er huge, juicy, wet fart sounds.

 

—mel­ony ppenosyne

Flom­mist Mel­ony Ppenosyne is a writer and weird artist type. In the last year alone, she’s trav­eled to Vir­ginia as a com­pet­ing poet, co-writ­ten a play on men­tal ill­ness that is present­ly be­ing pro­duced, and craft­ed a pub­lished es­say check­ing the priv­i­lege and scope of art gal­leries. Copy­right © 2021 Mel­ony Ppenosyne.

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