horror

The madness continues - the Star gnawing away at Jian's misdeeds, and now the CBC's misdeeds, with potentially much more far-reaching consequences. Why did CBC brass not step in instantly when they heard hints of Jian's weird sex life? Would you have? I'm sure they had no idea how far it went.

It reminds me of the time I forbade my rebellious 16-year old daughter to go out in the evening; she turned and said, "Fuck you!" and walked out the door. I had no idea what to do. Nothing in my own past had prepared me for something like that - I never spoke back to my parents, never rebelled. When she came back - and I now know, she was expecting to be punished, grounded, yelled at - I did nothing, absolutely nothing. I thought if I ignored it, it would never happen again and go away. Instead, she later told me, "That was the moment you lost me." One of the biggest mistakes of my single parenting life, I now know. 20/20 hindsight - not much use now.

I think the CBC was the same. How to deal with the embarrassing issue of the nasty sex life of its greatest star? Just ignore it and hope it goes away, especially as no one officially complained. A terrible mistake, we now know, with 20/20 hindsight.

In the meantime, the redoubtable Dan Savage has published a fascinating piece. He's an expert on kinky sex and has interviewed a woman who dated Jian and enjoyed her bondage sessions with him. It was consensual, if creepy, in this instance. Another world, my friends, people who enjoy hurting and being hurt. A woman has published a piece in the Guardian about how she dated him for months and he DIDN'T hit her once. Why didn't he hit me? she asks plaintively. He must have been grooming me to hit me later, she says.

Spare us. I just plugged my ears, couldn't bear to listen - a news report on ISIS kidnapping and torturing children. Just plugged my ears - the Republicans taking over the US government. Now that's horror.