I have previously written about #MeToo overcorrecting in certain areas of sexual harassment, e.g. labelling positive behaviour in the workplace environment as illegal or anti-social.
I am a feminist and want to see sexual violence end. Like others, I got disillusioned with #MeToo when it started being used to carry out trial by media, accuse illegal activity and end the careers of men over what seemed to be flaws of character that did not amount to breaking the law.
Peaking in 2019, we saw a barrage of stories of men being ‘cancelled’ over sexual impropriety, but for the last year or so, these have stopped. The world overdosed on that discourse after Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, and the rest.
Yesterday, New York magazine published an expose on the educated man’s favourite biohacker, Andrew Huberman. Apart from the accusation that Huberman was having sex with 5-6 different women without using protection (while most of them believed they were exclusive and therefore not in danger of STIs, and one of them receiving IVF treatment at the time to try to conceive with him), there is no accusation of anything illegal, or amounting to sexual misconduct.
I have not read extensively on the backlash to the piece, apart from this piece by Freddie DeBoer whose writing I follow religiously. Once I realised the reaction to the original piece was negative, especially in the intellectually heterodox spaces I often loiter in, I wanted to put down my unadulterated thoughts, lest I feel the peer pressure to filter my reaction later.
Freddie says the takedown of Huberman suggests without spelling it out that he is guilty of sexual misconduct (beyond, you know, pathologically lying and cheating on 5 women over the course of many years and having unprotected sex with all of them) and that his professional success should be tarnished, sponsors should withdraw from his podcast, Stanford university should reconsider its relationship with him and his lab (which includes just one staff member and barely any used equipment, according to the piece). I can see how one can interpret this implicit aim when you put it in the context of all the other #MeToo hit pieces that came before it. This is not how I read it, nor do I agree that it functions like previous #MeToo pieces.
For me, it creates what I always hoped would come out of #MeToo: a public square of shame where bad behaviour does not amount to your career ending or your reputation being assassinated (I do not think the piece achieves that, indeed it includes positive character statements of Huberman from other ex-girlfriends and well-known figures in the same pop-science/podcast space).
Unlike previous hit pieces on other men with more serious accusations against them, the author, Kerry Howley, does not once suggest that there should be financial consequences on Huberman. I read the piece as a profile of one of the most popular new influencers who came out of the health freakout we all went through during the pandemic, which frankly had already started before that (fasting, paleo, gut health etc.). In that, the piece was brilliant at setting the context of Huberman’s success and linking what we could gather about him through his public persona to what was happening behind the scenes- in a delicious way, too. From my reading, nobody is writing to Stanford University or Athletic Greens, asking them to withdraw support from their star professor/most profitable advertisement.
Is this the result of the bitter, betrayed lovers of a man who saw sudden, meteoric success and behaved in many situations as many other (bad) men would have? Yes, and?
Does the evidence presented in the piece mean Huberman is now evil and his podcast verboten listening for any self-respecting non-womanhater? No, so?
Is this public shaming? Yes, which is, in my opinion, the correct reaction to men behaving in a socially unpalatable and yet perfectly legal way in the sexual arena. He keeps his career, but he loses the moral high ground which he cultivated meticulously through his personal story, authoritative voice, and impressive work ethic. Why should he, or anyone, have the moral high ground anyway? Huberman is many things, a good partner he is not. He was also probably becoming too big for his boots; intellectual monopoly is not good for the soul or the public. People have started taking everything he puts out as gospel, and there is no reason why that should be the case, given his scientific credentials in a limited subject area versus his advice on everything and anything related to physical and mental health.
I have sympathy for the queasiness that comes with everyone who is in the public eye becoming fodder for personal exposes evocative of the tabloid Golden era. Wouldn’t it be nice if people could have a public career without some investigative reporter going through their laundry basket? Maybe, especially if there are kids involved who don’t deserve to be stigmatised by daddy being a prick. But you see, I am not a cheater, and I doubt I will ever become one. Especially one that portrays the sheer sexual gluttony of Huberman. As a woman who does not cheat and does not want to be cheated on, I find his behaviour threatening and hurtful. So, I join in my embittered sisters across the pond and say SHAME! SHAME! SHAME ON YOU Dr HUBERMAN!!!! I am not calling your boss, no Sir, I am calling YOUR MOTHER!!!!11!!
So, feel free to continue listening to the Huberman Lab podcast; I will do too. But should I ever be tempted to join Raya (depressing prospect, but beggars can’t be choosers) and a burly blueberry-eating Ophthalmology Professor pops up, I’ll make sure I swipe left on that dickbag.
Ladies, keep safe. Gentlemen, play nice. Or else.
Very doubtful he'll lose any of his current fans because of this. I'm also guessing there's not much overlap between Huberman fans and NY Mag devotees. If anything, this will just make him more famous (I'd never even heard of him until people started talking about this piece).
I've seen some people ask what the point of this piece was. Is it an attempt to revive #MeToo (but for cheating)? Is it just salacious gossip? It seems more to be the latest expression of anger by elite metropolitan women over the relentlessly hypercompetitive environment for the dwindling number of men they deem eligible, which further just empowers those men to act in ways that make those women deeply unhappy. This is just West Elm Caleb all over again.
There's no real solution to all this. Cheating isn't admirable, but it's also not a crime. We also often hear, both with bitterness and triumph, that women cheat just as much as men. So all there's left to do is vent from time to time.
Slut shaming is okay if the target is a man.