Neil Gaiman: Batshit, Bullying and BDSM

In an interesting turn of events the famous jewish novelist Neil Gaiman – who I must confess that I used to love as an edgy and angsty teenager – has now had his own #MeToo moment after eight women came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct towards them. However, they aren’t your run of the mill awkward sexual fumbling that you might expect from the obese ultra-Orthodox rabbi but rather the full-blown kinkiness of a desperate and horny sexual deviant.

As we read on ‘Tortoise Media’:

‘Neil Gaiman is one of the world’s most successful authors. And one of the most loved. His works have been adapted for film, TV and the stage. Now two women, a former nanny and a fan, allege he sexually assaulted and abused them while they were in consensual relationships with him. He strenuously denies all the allegations.’ (1)

Further we read that:

‘Over 10,000 words she alleges that Gaiman abused several women in incidents that span multiple decades, and claims that he used his fame to pressure vulnerable young women into non-consensual and violent sex. Gaiman denies the allegations and insists the incidents described were instances of BDSM sex between consenting adults.’ (2)

The BBC’s Paul Glynn also helpfully summarizes the situation as follows:

‘Gaiman, 64, has since denied the allegations, posting on his blog, external on Tuesday: "I'm far from a perfect person, but I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever."

In July 2024, Tortoise Media reported that Gaiman had been accused of sexual assault and released a podcast series which covered allegations made by five women.

On Monday, New York Magazine and its website Vulture reported allegations from eight women - four of whom also participated in Tortoise's podcast - claiming to have had similar experiences with Gaiman.

One of the women, who had been babysitting Gaiman's five-year-old child, alleges that he offered her a bath in his garden before joining her in the tub naked, asking her to sit on his lap, and that he sexually assaulted her.

While the article states that all of the accusers had at some point played along with Gaiman's desires to some extent by calling him "master" and continuing to communicate with him, the women allege that consent and specific BDSM activities which they say took place had not been discussed and agreed upon prior to them happening.

Gaiman's representative's previously told Tortoise that "sexual degradation, bondage, domination, sadism and masochism may not be to everyone's taste, but between consenting adults, BDSM is lawful".’ (3)

The relationship between jews and BDSM is something I wish to explore in an alternative article – but don’t worry its origins are distinctly European as well as pretty ancient – as is the psychology involved is noteworthy given that there have been multiple instances of jews engaging in this relatively extreme form of sexual activity in weird ways – for example Keith Raniere’s sadomasochistic sex cult NXIVM was largely run by three jewesses Nancy Salzman, Claire Bronfman and Sara Bronfman – (4) that I think merits a full article.

However, what is interesting for our purposes is that Gaiman – who is possibly the ultimate dweeb – is engaging in sadomasochistic sex with employees that sounds like it is on the more extreme end of the BDSM world as well as incredibly ritualistic. I will cover this at length in a separate article but one of the interesting things about the BDSM world is the debate over ‘real dominants’ and ‘fake dominants’ aka are you actually a strong male or are you a weak male play acting as a strong male.

What is being described by Gaiman’s accusers is classic ‘fake dominant’ behaviour in that Gaiman is usually highly ritualised scenarios to get his ‘consenting female partners’ to engage with him and call him ‘Master’. In essence in wants to be called ‘Master’ without putting in the hard work to be worthy of being a master so-to-speak.

This is also suggested by the specifics of the charges being made against Gaiman in that he went past their agreed limits – which Gaiman says rather absurdly ‘he doesn’t remember doing’ – and basically forced them to do things that they did not want to which is sexual assault/rape depending how you wish to look at it.

Rachel Cunliffe in ‘The New Statesmen’ does a poor job of trying to understand how the world (and psychology) of BDSM works and instead shows that she thinks it is just ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ when she writes:

‘It raises the question of how consensual a violent power dynamic can truly be when the dominant partner is a multi-millionaire superstar author in his sixties, and the submissive partner is a broke babysitter in her early twenties.’ (5)

I am afraid not Rachel; it isn’t a ‘violent power dynamic’ (only a small part of the BDSM world has anything to do with pain/violence) nor non-consensual just because there is a ‘status differential’ indeed that’s supposed to be the point as well as the attraction for the submissive party!

However the idea of Gaiman intimidating a babysitter and nanny into such a relationship using his perceived ‘superstar author’ status – although not his non-existent dominant personality and self-mastery – is quite plausible yet it is quite clear to me from what information is publicly available that Gaiman appears to have deliberately crossed agreed boundaries of consent – the cornerstone of BDSM – and just decided to ‘do what he wanted’ with the problem here being not that the women were ‘unable to consent’ – which is nonsense – but rather that Gaiman was a ‘fake dominant’ who just wanted women to submit to his every whim and pleasure without doing the hard work to earn it.

The fact that he’s now been #MeTooed and cancelled – his publishers have cancelled contracts – (6) is so ironic and delicious because:

‘He championed the rights of refugees, women and LGBTQ+ people on social media. He was celebrated as a feminist hero among many of his readers for his fiction’s depictions of vulnerable women.’ (7)

It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving jew!

References

(1) https://www.tortoisemedia.com/listen/master-the-allegations-against-neil-gaiman

(2) Ibid.

(3) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn01dynqx7ro

(4) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/nxivms-jewish-connection

(5) https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2025/01/the-allegations-against-neil-gaiman

(6) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2egnred4xxo

(7) https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2025/01/the-allegations-against-neil-gaiman