A former Bay Area tech CEO was fired earlier this year after allegedly enslaving, torturing, and sexually abusing his assistant. He claims the pair had a consensual relationship that people would “celebrate” if it were fictitious.
Former Tradeshift CEO Christian Lanng denied the allegations levied against him and the billion-dollar company he co-founded that were made by a former employee in court Thursday.
"The shocking and vile claims in the lawsuit are categorically false, and I reject allegations that I subjected someone to any form of abuse during my tenure as CEO or at any other time of my life,” Lanng told The Messenger.
In the complaint, an unidentified woman alleged that Lanng sent her into “a dark abyss of unwanted sexual horror," according to The Mercury News.
Don’t know either of them, but have to doubt her unwillingness based on the fact that any reasonable person I know would never sign or do that if they weren’t into it.
“we all know she enjoyed it till she didn’t”
Fuck you
Well, that was horrifying to read.
I don’t get it, the same story is repeated time and time again, how hard is it to not be a terrible person?
Unless they were born or raised with empathy, which is an obvious no, nothing bad happens to them if they’re terrible. A ton of enjoyable things happen, even.
At that point, you’re weighing the opportunity to do whatever you feel like at no consequence against doing what other people tell you to do for none of your own benefit (the only measurement that matters). Technically at a moderate cost to the one reigning themselves in. Under the looming threat of nothing if you do not comply.
I know the question was purely rhetorical, but I wish we’d drop this weird notion the more humanitarian of us seem to default to, like people who do this shit just haven’t had the golden rule properly explained to them yet. They know. And they’ve figured out it’s currently a farce.
They must have been afforded some protections to insulate them from consequences. It’s not just a realization that being a monster is easy and beneficial. The golden rule isn’t a farce for those of us who aren’t affluent, it’s a warning.
You can not have sex with your employee or employer. The power dynamic ensures it can never be totally equal and there will always be some duress. If someone holds the power over your finances including your health insurance, saying No is never that simple.
I never thought of it that way. I always thought of it as “don’t shit where you eat” because I ain’t at work to make friends. I’m here to get shit done.
It’s both, really. After some misadventures in my youth, I have refused to engage romantically with anyone in an organization I’m employed by. “Don’t shit where you eat.” As I have moved up to supervise others, it goes doubly so for people within my chain of command. That would be highly unethical.
Essentially, one is practical advice and the other is a matter of ethics. If you follow the first, the ethics are easy.
I think it’s healthy to have clear boundaries with coworkers, they are not the same things as friends.
That said I spend 41 hours a week working, no way I’m not going to socialise with my coworkers. If I don’t make any friends after several years of working at a place I feel I have done something wrong.
Based on the article they were together before working together. Because of that, while there may of course be elements where some position of power was abused after they started working together, it’s quite unlikely that everything here was against her will.
This is likely a case where both people have been shitty to each other in some way.
Baseless assumptions.
Lazy comment and it’s not even remotely accurate.
Sure mate. Are you the lazy comment po-po? You must be busy.
I’ve seen that movie. It was really good. Maggie Gyllenhaal was great in it.
Ah yeah that movie was amazing, what was the name of it? Actor guy Spader really good too.
Hiring her was a lapse of judgment. The rest of it sounds like a good time. BDSM relationships involving power exchange can be healthy but there is a huge risk that a messy breakup can go this way.
If my wife and I ever got divorced, I know she’d have the power to rake me over the coals with receipts. So I can give the guy the benefit of doubt, because based on what is alleged and my own personal experience it sounds reasonable that it might’ve been completely consensual at the time.
However as we grow as people, we can recontextualize our experiences and decide that hey this was really unhealthy and he should’ve known it was unhealthy and that she wasn’t capable of consenting, and that could even be right. Some people give enthusiastic consent and it turns out to be some PTSD trauma response. Given the number of people in kink with trauma in their past, the lines can get really blurry.
I’m not saying she wasn’t abused for sure, just that from a kink perspective his side of the story seems as plausible as hers. Regardless, I hope justice, whatever that may be, somehow prevails. But this case is going to hinge on whoever is more credible on the witness stand I think, and less on indisputable truths.
This is the kind of nuanced response I was struggling to draft in my mind. I hope no one was abused. If she was, I hope she is vindicated.
I think your version is succinct and to the point while mine rambled a bit. I think there is value in both.
that people would “celebrate” if it were fictitious.
Well that’s just delusional
Rich parents, probably.
He’s talking about 50 Shades of Grey. Which is a work of fiction that has been systematically pointed as problematic.
Their point was this dude isn’t in a movie or tv show. A lot of crazy shit happens in movies that you wouldn’t want to happen in real life, this is one of them.
