So I'm a dude and I went through a situation kind of like this and the stakes were nowhere near as high as working for Louis CK. I was a volunteer working with a theatre company Edmonton, Canada. Not exactly big time. The guy who harassed me was the guy in charge of this mid-sized but fairly well known company, but since it was a volunteer gig, I wasn't reliant on the work for money. That said, I was working for this company because I thought it would be good for my career.

The guy was very funny and flamboyant and when I started working there I thought he was hilarious, we got along well, and I thought of him as a mentor figure. I appreciated very much that he was also a gay role model for me. He was a person who managed to be successful and well liked in a fairly conservative part of my country without needing to compromise his identity or be closeted. I was very young and kind of shy, so he thought it was funny to tease and shock me. And I thought it was funny too. Many of his jokes were "unprofessional" bawdy humour but the context was harmless and I felt welcomed in his company. He introduced me to other professionals and spoke well of my work.

Things took a turn, though, when the "jokes" started to be less jokey: He'd start pressing me into a corner and grinding against me, nuzzling my neck, groping my ass, etc. And if I expressed discomfort he'd be like "Its just a joke!" "you're so uptight" etc. I was no longer feeling comically teased and shocked and instead feeling really fucking humiliated and confused. I never said no. I could've walked away at any time, but I wasn't really sure what was going on and why things had changed. I definitely wasn't laughing anymore. Then one day he pulled me aside in front of a bunch of his professional friends and asked me when we were going on a date. I laughed, thinking this was another joke, but he hit the roof. Was he too fat, too bald, too old, too ugly for me? What was my problem? I just said I just wanted to work and I wasn't interested in dating anyone at the time (which I wasn't). From that day forward, he did everything he could to make me feel like an asshole. If I laughed at something ANYONE said, he would viciously snap at me telling me to "stay professional if I wanted to be professional." I ended up leaving three weeks later because it was just too much. I was always on edge and scared that anything I did from then on would be attacked like that. I asked a couple close friends about this behaviour and all three of them said "Uh. How did you not know you were getting into this. Its the worst kept secret in town that he does this to every young guy that works for him." This only solidified that I needed to get out.

So does this guy deserve to have his career ended over this? I don't know. I never said a word of it to anyone and I probably never will because I want to have a career and I definitely don't want the stigma of being an accuser attached to my name and making me radioactive for potential job prospects. I left the business and I went to school to get a doctorate and become a professor instead. I think things worked out pretty good for me. But I will say this: The "worst kept secret" in Edmonton theatre is that this person with moderate power over young men's careers is abusing and then disposing of them to cover up his shitty behaviour. And he makes sure to shit talk them after the fact to make them unhireable to anyone else because the worst thing that could happen is for these young men to become successful and have the authority to call him out. I saw it myself in meetings where he called so many young gay men who'd worked for him divas and drama queens. At the time, I took his comments to be honest assessments. Nowadays, I'm not so sure. So the question for me is, are those men any more deserving of having their careers damaged than he is?