We're in the midst of a watershed cultural moment, when many prominent sexual harassers are being rooted out and exposed, made to contend with their own patterns of abuse. And with that, of course, comes the backlash, with some prominent men worrying that the new wave of stories will make it harder for them to keep doing the shitty things they've been doing. Some of these men are even dumb enough to say this in public. One of them is Kirk Pengilly, longtime guitarist for the much-loved Australian band INXS.
Yesterday, the Sydney Morning Herald spoke with Pengilly as he was attending a Movember charity event in Melbourne. Asked about the recent accusations against people like Harvey Weinstein and Australian celebrity gardener Don Burke, Pengilly said, "I really loved the '60s and '70s when life was so simple and you could slap a woman on the butt and it was taken as a compliment, not as sexual harassment."
Kirk Pengilly was 12 years old in 1970.
