'Inside Attention Whore Amy Schumer' Writer's Rants on Rape Spark Firestorm

[Bill Clinton Epstein Rapist]

A former "Inside Amy Schumer" contributor generated a social-
media firestorm by calling out some women for making allegations
of sexual assault about a fellow comedian but not reporting them
to police.

"Guys I have just heard some disturbing news, this guy Jiff
Dilfyberg is a rapist!" writer-comedian Kurt Metzger wrote on
Facebook over the weekend after learning that the New York-based
Upright Citizens Brigade banned comedian Aaron Glaser — the
target of the anonymous accusers. "I know because women said it
and that's all I need! Never you mind who they are. They are
women! ALL women are as reliable as my bible! A book that, much
like a women, is incapable of lying!"

Metzger then sarcastically argued that the alleged rape victims
are afraid to report the assaults to authorities because they
are "too brave" and that would be "tooooo rapey."

Now Metzger is being accused of victim-blaming the women in a
series of social-media posts.

His comments were reportedly inspired by the Upright Citizens
Brigade's decision to ban Glaser, who had been accused by
several anonymous female fellow performers of sexual assault.
Glaser, who has not been charged with a crime, has confirmed
that he was banned and denied the allegations in Facebook posts
that have since been removed.

NBC News reached out to UCB for comment on the alleged ban and
its fallout but did not receive a response.

When a barrage of online posts went after Metzger for being what
they called an apologist for alleged rapists, he continued to
lash out and antagonize his critics (who he has referred to as
"crazy" and "the stupidest people alive").

Metzger collaborator and noted feminist, Amy Schumer, was drawn
into the fray.

After several social media users demanded she weigh in and
claimed she blocked them for chiding her, Schumer tweeted
Wednesday: "I am so saddened and disappointed in Kurt Metzger.
He is my friend and a great writer and I couldn't be more
against his recent actions."

Almost two hours later, Schumer said: "Kurt does not work for
me. He is not a writer on my show. Please stop asking me about
it. His words are not mine." Then in a twist that only
exacerbated the controversy, Metzger said in a Facebook post
that Schumer only distanced herself from him specifically
because he "told her" to.

For her part, Schumer clarified that Metzger "isn't a writer for
my show because we aren't making the show anymore. There are no
writers for it." On Thursday, Schumer walked back her remark,
saying "Inside Amy Schumer" isn't canceled and still has a
"wonderful home" at Comedy Central.

Schumer reiterated in a Charlie Rose interview set to air Friday
that Metzger didn't represent her or her views, but she called
him a friend and said she loved him and found him to be a
valuable part of the writer's room even if they rarely agreed.

"One of the reasons he's such a great writer and such a great
contributor to our television show is because his views are so
different from that of mine and most of the other writers in the
room," Schumer told Rose. "Especially Jesse Klein, who's the
head writer of the show," she said. "We butt heads. We get in
fights because he infuriates us."

Meanwhile, in a slightly more contrite social-media post,
Metzger explained: "It was never my intent to antagonize victims
or their supporters ... I stand by the points I made, but I
sincerely apologize for using inflammatory language to make
them."

Despite his admittedly harsh rhetoric, Metzger's rants have
raised some complex conversations about rape culture (and
whether it even exists) and the world of comedy, which has been
under a microscope in recent years for its purported climate of
misogyny.

In the comedy community, where being irreverent and politically
incorrect is often celebrated, there is real concern about
whether the fallout from the Metzger comments, as insensitive as
they may be, represents a slippery slope of potentially
inappropriate behavior or jokes being self-policed.

"It seems like a lot of male comedians do agree with Kurt, but
not the crass way that he said it," stand-up comedian Camille
Theobald told NBC News. "They are scared that one day that could
be them. What if that one time they made an advance on another
comedian ... is she going to get mad and tell everyone that it
was more than it was. But there is no reason a female comedian
would do something like that unless it was really serious."

Theobald, herself a survivor of a sexual assault, has said she
has had to "put her foot down countless times" with male
colleagues who tried to cross the line with her. But in her six
years in the business she has begun to see a gradual change in
the wake of the Bill Cosby scandal.

"People became more aware of how famous comedians get away with
a lot and nobody says anything," she said.

Stand-up comic Sarah Hartshorne thinks it's "a very confusing
time" for many male comedians, who are used to dominating the
field, having a lot of control and doing virtually whatever they
want with impunity.

"People get precious about comedy and they want to feel that
it's special," she told NBC News. "We spend all our time time
trying to make serious things funny and there is nothing more
serious than sexual assault."

But she says that dichotomy can provide a space for some really
funny and thought provoking conversations as well as an
opportunity to raise awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual
assault.

"The idea of a sexual gray area is terrifying to people but it's
something we need to talk about," she said. "And it's especially
scary to men." From her perspective, while Metzger has the First
Amendment right to say what he did, the women of UCB, or in any
professional venue, shouldn't be forced to share a space with
someone who threatens them or be chastised for how or if they
formally reported their alleged abuse.

But do men have a legitimate gripe about being presumed guilty
until proven innocent when it comes to allegations of sexual
assault? Or have decades of patriarchy and a justice system that
has historically failed female accusers kept our society
conditioned to be suspicious of alleged victims' motives and
stories?

"We're so far from that, from men being the victims," said
Hartshorne. "Every women in America could falsely accuse a man
and there would still be more unsolved, unacknowledged, unseen
cases of sexual assault than false accusations."

"When you change a long established way of looking at an issue
like sexual violence it brings up a lot of emotions in people,"
Terri Poore, the policy director of the National Alliance to End
Sexual Violence, said. "I think we have just scratched the
surface. Sexual assault is rarely straightforward. It's this
really complex issue."

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ex-amy-schumer-writer-s-
rants-rape-spark-firestorm-n633516