More Shocking Allegations Against Jeremy Duns

Selena Kitt has written a devastating critique of Jeremy Duns and his way of operating on her blog.

You can read it in full here.http://selenakitt.com/blog/index.php/2013/10/15/porn-hunt-2013-gossip-boys-researching-porn-real-hard/

It is hard for me to comment in detail on her allegations in specifics.

But the bullying, the arrogance, the trashing of people's work, the disregard of the truth, and the threatening behaviour, are all precisely what I have been writing about on this blog.

I am afraid it is typical of public-school bullies like Duns.

The issue now is to band together to stop him.

A Shocking Allegation Against Duns

A shocking set of allegations have been made about Jeremy Duns. You can read them here.

Obviously I do not know if they are true or not - and unlike Duns I think everyone is entitled to a fair hearing.

But the bullying, sexism and threatening stance is in line with the issues I have raised on this blog.

A Reply To Jeremy Duns's Smears....

This blog is attracting a growing following, for which I am grateful. Lots of people are disturbed by the influence of the right-wing, public school writer Jeremy Duns, and are looking for a forum in which he can be exposed.

Duns is clearly getting worried about the impact on his reputation, and has smeared me on his own blog, as well as threatening legal action. You can read the attack here...

The nub of his complaint is this -

"The allegations include that I am a bully; a misogynist; a ‘rape-denier’; an ‘abuse-denier’; a plagiarist; use sockpuppet identities (!); and have lied about my professional credentials. Every single one of their claims is completely and utterly untrue."

My response is as follows.

First, Duns seems very concerned that I am someone else. He keeps accusing various different people of being me - and so do some of his associates (see this strange blog, for example).

Actually, I have stated my name quite clearly. It is Maria Emily James. What more does Duns want? That I should post my full address and ID details? I have been threatened with physical violence and legal action for setting up this blog.  Does Duns really believe a woman has to post her address online before she is allowed to raise a feminist issue, and so lay herself open to physical attack.Women get raped for being feminists - the fact that Duns does not understand this tells you what kind of man he is.

But anyway, why does it matter? I have set out a number of issues I have with Duns's work, clearly and reasonably. Why not just answer the issues - rather than attack me personally? Surely an argument is either valid or invalid - it does not matter who is making it?

Secondly, why the legal threats? I have looked at Dun's work, and I find his right-wing, sexist views horrifying. I use this blog to disagree with them, and to build a case against them. But he is of course perfectly free to express them. And he is perfectly free to attack me as well. It is called free speech.

In fact, Duns seems to think that any disagreement with his world view is libellous. It isn't. I have laid out my views and the supporting evidence for them.

For example, I believe that Duns's work is sexist. My evidence is his lavish praise for the James Bond books, some of the most sexist ever written ('the sweet tang of rape' is a line from one of his favourites). You can read the blog post here...http://jeremyduns-watch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/jeremy-duns-promoting-sexism.html. Now it is perfectly acceptable for Duns to disagree with me - and to maintain that you can be a feminist, as he claims to be, and also lavish praise on a horrifyingly sexist book. But in what sense my claim libellous? Is there any disagreement with his views that Duns would not threaten with a libel action?

He needs to answer these questions. They are important.

Thirdly, what are the inaccuracies? I accept that Duns does not agree with my views. That's called a debate. But where have I made a factual error? If I have done so, I will correct it. But I haven't. In the example above, I laid out Duns's praise for Casino Royale, and then the lines from the book that are objectionable. I concluded that Duns was/is a misogynist. Again, I understand that he does not accept that conclusion. But are the quotes of his not correct? Are the quotes from Casino Royale inaccurate? No. So why am I not allowed to analyse them without threats of legal action?

The same thing happened with my post on David Hewson. I quoted text from his book of violence against women, and explained why I found it objectionable. Hewson replied by calling me a 'liar'. But the quotes were completely accurate, and anyone can look them up online. So what were the lies?

Duns and his gang use the same tactics all the time. Anyone who questions them is accused of lying. But the truth is that they simply cannot accept that a mere women dares to challenge a group of important right wing men - because women belong in the bedroom or the kitchen.

In my view men like Duns with their smug, right-wing public school views represent all that is wrong with our society. I started  this blog because of his sinister bullying of a writer called Steve Roach, but since then his work has disturbed me even more - and many others as well. Now he has resorted to smears and legal threats....because he can't answer the case against him.

Is Jeremy Duns A Public School Twitter Bully?

There has been a lot in the news recently about internet bullying, following the tragic suicide of Hannah Smith who was sent abusive messages on social networking sites.

There is an impression that internet bullying is restricted to teenagers. But unfortunately it is far more widespread than that. Across all walks of life, decent people are being tormented by small groups of aggressive individuals.

Jeremy Duns is a prime example.

There is a long tradition of bullying at Britain's public schools, as anyone who has read Tom Brown's Schooldays will know. David Cameron is a good example - the Eton-educated PM will constantly pick on people less privileged than himself. The public school, right-wing Duns does the same, exploiting the web to attack people as perhaps he did at his expensive boarding school.

I will give two examples.

Last year, Duns dragged an author called Steve Roach into the limelight. First Duns alleged that Roach did not exist and was simply an false identity used by another writer called Stephen Leather. Duns posted this allegations on Twitter as fact. As I am sure most people will accept, this was upsetting for Steve Roach and.he contacted Duns to set the record straight.

Most normal people would be ashamed of themselves by this point.

But Duns only reluctantly conceded Roach existed. He then insisted that Roach had been 'bullied' by Leather. Again, Roach insisted this was not the case, as he told Duns over a telephone conversation, which Duns recorded without informing Roach.

Duns has constantly made false accusations against Roach.

Roach has publicly made this clear, in a comment on Duns's blog (here). 

'You were publicly Tweeting that I was Stephen Leather – patently untrue but that didn't stop you disseminating this false information into the public domain," writes Roach.

Indeed, Duns eventually accepted that he had done something morally wrong. 'As for accusing you of being Stephen Leather, I apologized to you on the phone and on Twitter for this. I apologize again: it's becoming clear that it's a horrible thing to be accused of,' he wrote on Aug 25th, 2012.

But he carried on accusing Roach of being bullied by Leather, even when Roach told him this was not true.

So we should be clear about this. Duns has bullied Roach in a way that he accepts himself was wrong.

The second case is Nate Thayer.

Thayer is a widely respected American reporter.

Earlier this year, Duns started accusing Thayer of plagiarism over an article he wrote. This is a career threatening accusation to be made against a reporter. You can read about the accusation in NY magazine here. 

The accusations were investigated by the Columbia Journalism Review, and found to be untrue -
'That doesn’t make him a plagiarist, and Duns was wrong to accuse him without giving him time to explain himself', it concluded ( the link is here). Mark Ziegler, the writer who Duns said Thayer had stolen from, said himself he did not think it was true (source here).


So just as Duns insists that Roach has been bullied when he says he hasn't been, he insists that Ziegler has been plagiarised when Ziegler says he has not. 
It has done a lot of damage, I believe, to Thayer's career. According to his blog, he is now reduced to writing corporate newsletters for Chinese companies that do not pay him - link here. 


My argument is that this is classic public school bullying of a type perfected by the English upper-classes.  Duns picks on a victim, and then hurls a series of accusations against the person, with no interest in whether they are true or not. 


Duns is being allowed to get away with terrible bullying on Twitter. Even worse, he is taking the culture of the public school and making it normal on sites such as Twitter. It is time he was stopped.
.

Ian Rankin's Sneering Sexism

A couple of times now I have blogged about David Hewson's books, and the graphic and to me disgusting portrayals of violence against women in them.

Hewson is not brave enough to respond.

Ian Rankin however posted a sneering tweet saying he read the post and laughed. You can read it on his twitter feed here.

Now, it is of course legitimate to disagree with me. Maybe violence against women in books does not encourage violence against women in real life? Maybe violence against women doesn't matter?

But it is surely a serious subject for debate?

Men like Rankin think it is just funny, while Hewson accuses me of lying.

This is typical of the Duns gang of right-wing sexist crime and thriller writers.They insult anyone who question their male-centric view of the world.

When I looked it up, it turns out that Rankin has a long record of abusing women who raise the issue of violence against them. He insulted women crime writers, saying that the most graphic depictions of violence were written by women, and 'they were mostly lesbians as well'. The details are here.

So, to Rankin, any women who complains about violence is a 'lesbian'. The implication is clear. 'Normal' women should presumably enjoy being beaten by men.

Also reviews have drawn attention to the sexism inherent in his books, particularly his main detective. 

I believe that violence against women is an important issue. The constant portrayal of horrific crimes as a form of light entertainment legitimizes them.

Writers like Duns, Hewson and Rankin encourage a culture in which that violence is seen as acceptable.

Jeremy Duns & Promoting Sexism

I have posted here before about the sexism of the right-wing, public school British thriller writer Jeremy Duns.

In particular I drew attention to Dun's support of the Ian Fleming book Casino Royale. In my view, this is one of the most nastily sexist books published - it includes, for example, the line 'the sweet tang of rape'.

On Twitter, Duns has made an attempt to defend himself.

You can read the comments here.

But he is completely wrong - and here is why that is true.

"Dozens of famous books and films in the 20th century were sexist and/or racist. We can enjoy them despite this," he states.

Duns defense is that Casino Royale is typical of its time.

But if he had bothered to read my post he would see that I already dealt with that point.

I argued that in fact Casino Royale was not typical of its time, in the way that Agatha Christie's racism was of hers.

How many writers in the 1950s used a phrase like 'the sweet tang of rape'?

The 1950s was a time when in some ways women were more repressed. But there was not the violent exploitation of their sexuality that we see today.

I asked Duns to produced 5 mainstream books from the 1950s that celebrate rape in the same way. He has not done so. Instead, he just sneers, and makes personal attacks.

In my view Casino Royale is a disgusting book that changed the world for the worse.

So when Duns claims it is one of the greatest books ever written, he is celebrating a work of extreme violence against women - and one that created the pornographic culture of today.

Around the world, women are raped and beaten every day because of a culture that sees violence against women as acceptable. We have to fight that on every front - and this is as important as any.

David Hewson's Sexism & Bullying

A few weeks ago, I used this blog to highlight the sexism of the work of a British crime writer called David Hewson. He is by no means the only example of how the crime genre now routinely uses disgusting and graphic depictions of violence against women to sell books - but in my view he is one of the most prominent.

I believe that Hewson's response was revealing of the mindset of this small group of right-wing writers, of which Jeremy Duns seems to be the leader.

On April 7th, Hewson tweeted: "Just once for the record... you are a cowardly web troll hiding behind anonymity in a pathetic attempt to spread lies. Grow up..." The link is here. 

Let us remember that this is a man who makes his living by writing violent scenes of violence against women.

So how does he respond when a woman questions him on it?

With yet more violence.

Why am I a cowardly web troll? What is cowardly about pointing out something that you believe is wrong? Hewson may not like that I disagree with his work, but what is cowardly about making the point?

I am not hiding anywhere. I use my name for this blog, and it is completely open to comments.

What are the lies?

Notice that Hewson makes no attempt to argue or to set the record straight. My blog post on his work quoted from his published work. Is he not the author of 'The Killing I & II? So what lies are these?

What we see here is a very similar reaction to Jeremy Duns when I questioned his tactic of taping phone calls without permission. I am subjected to a campaign of personal abuse and intimidation.

But I repeat my point. Hewson's work uses extreme violence against women. Every day women are abused and raped and sometimes killed. I suspect there is a connection between that and the way popular culture glorifies violence against women. I can't prove that, but I think it is worth discussing.

I don't think that making the argument is cowardly. And I think Hewson should grow up and answer the questions in a civil and reasonable way.

I see Hewson has a new book out soon. Details here...

It feature a 'kidnapped daughter'. It had to be a daughter didn't it? It would never occur to a man like Hewson to have a kidnapped son....