Absence of Consent: Part I

Neil Gaiman, Scientology, et al.

On the 13th of January 2025, an article titled “There Is No Safe Word,” written by Lila Shapiro, which detailed several accounts of sexual assault allegations against Neil Gaiman, was published by New York Magazine. The content was harrowing and horrifying. The details of which, coupled with the information about Neil Gaiman’s childhood in Scientology, felt like I was staring down both barrels of a double-barrel shotgun; the two most important causes that are nearest to my heart and the two things which I have consistently spoken out about for years: the damage to children in Scientology and sexual assault.

I have wanted to allow myself time to process the horror, the grief and the brutal reality that we’d been confronted with through the information contained in and resulting from this New York Magazine article. To take the time to consider how to form the words to accurately convey my deep sorrow for a child who began experiencing Scientology at five years old and my abhorrence for the adult who chose to violate and abuse people.

I do not believe that any words that I put together can fully convey the depth of either of these two present issues, but I believe it is important and necessary to draw attention to what I feel should be an urgent call to action on what is currently happening to children around the world.

Speaking Out

Allegations against Neil Gaiman were originally brought to light by a podcast series published from July to August 2024, by Tortoise Media, which began on the foundation of two women detailing their experiences and finished on the story of a fifth woman. Though Neil Gaiman denied committing such acts without consent, more women have since come forward.

Before I continue on, I wish to send out my heartfelt appreciation to each person who has brought these issues out into the sunlight: the survivors who have bravely told the world of their experiences and those who have supported and published their stories.

There Is No Safe Word

The New York Magazine article by Lila Shapiro highlights a pattern of coercion, dominance, power, abuse and rape. It makes clear that around Neil Gaiman there were no commonsense boundaries, and this was particularly obvious in the accounts told by Scarlett Pavlovich, a woman who was a nanny to Gaiman and Amanda Palmer’s young son. Gaiman made little to no effort to shield the child from his sexual advances and activities, despite objections from Pavlovich.

Also included in the extensive article, is mention of Gaiman’s childhood in Scientology. A system built on Hubbard’s words which, by my own experience, has no regard for protective boundaries for children, in fact, it is one which does not recognize that a child is a child. One statement among the many things that Hubbard said of children is, “Children are not a special category of human being.” Denial of the natural vulnerability of children and failure to recognize their special needs for protection is present throughout three decades of Hubbard’s writings and is continued practice by Scientology parents today.

In the article, Pavlovich spoke about the difficulty of accepting the reality of rape beginning from the first incident: “You’re not thinking in a linear or logical fashion,” Pavlovich says, “but the mind is trying to process it in the ways that it can.” Whatever had happened in the bath, she’d been through worse and survived, she thought. And Gaiman and Palmer were offering her the possibility of a shared future.

Dr. Barbara Ziv, forensic psychiatrist and renowned sexual trauma expert, has testified in several high-profile cases to provide information about such things as victim responses to sexual violence, and the impact of sexual violence on victims during and after being assaulted.

In April 2023, during the trial of another celebrity Scientologist who had been accused of multiple rapes, Danny Masterson, Ziv provided blind testimony as an expert witness to address common rape myths. This took place during the second trial of Masterson, which resulted in his conviction.

On the stand, Ziv said that most incidents of sexual assault are not done by a stranger, but actually more commonly (85 percent) are done by someone known to the victim. She explained that when someone is being attacked by someone they know, it can be very confusing for them. It takes them longer to figure out what's going on and, in most cases, women use much more subtle forms of refusal, rather than scream, fight back or physically resist. Victims can also hold common misconceptions about rape so when it happens to them, they can experience great difficulty in labeling it as rape or sexual assault.

Ziv said that it is not uncommon for victims to have contact with a perpetrator following sexual assault, saying that even a relationship can develop, which is very counterintuitive. She emphasized the difficulty of accepting the reality of such an experience by saying, “No one wants to be a victim of rape”.

The Boy at the End of the Lane

In the article, “There is No Safe Word” Lila Shapiro writes:

After they’d been together for a few years, Palmer began asking Gaiman to tell her more about his childhood in Scientology. But he seemed unable to string more than a few sentences together. When she encouraged him to continue, he would curl up on the bed into a fetal position and cry. He refused to see a therapist. Instead, he sat down to write a short story that kept getting longer until it had turned into a novel. Although the child at the center of the story in many ways remains opaque, Palmer felt he had never been so open. He dedicated the book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, “to Amanda, who wanted to know.”

His parent’s participation in Scientology began when Gaiman was just five years old. By age seven, he was held as an example to the world of the good work that Hubbard’s techniques could do for a child when his father, David Gaiman who had quickly risen to a high position in the organization and was responsible for public relations, propped him up as a poster child for Scientology in a British radio interview recorded in 1968.

“The end of the lane” seems to reference the Scientology landmark and Hubbard home of Saint Hill, in East Grinstead, West Sussex near which Gaiman’s family had come to reside.

This part of the story is where I stare gut wrenchingly into the belly of a brutal system which is designed to destroy children. And this is where the two topics of 1) a childhood in Scientology and 2) adult sexual assault have their commonality: the absence of consent.

I have decided to break this down further, into separate parts, which will follow subsequently from this post.

For information or support regarding sexual assault, please reach out to a helpline in your area.

U.S.: RAINN

Australia: 1800RESPECT

Free - Confidential - 24/7