Chana Joffe-Walt
This is probably evident by now, but just to say, we will talk about sex in this show, not just its existence, but some of the specifics. And there are some moments of abuse, so take this as a heads up. OK.
The women who worked for Don at AlterNet, beginning with Act 1, "Deanna."
The list started when Deanna was eight years old. The first time it was Face from the A-Team. Deanna got a postcard of him that year when her family went to Universal Studios. She put a puffy red heart sticker on it, took it with her during the day--
Deanna
--slept with it at night, and I actually-- and I'm eight. And I felt like I was going to die if I never met him. I actually thought I would die. I was like, I will cease to exist if I don't get to meet this person.
Chana Joffe-Walt
The next one made her cry. He was 12, so was she. Deanna called her Aunt Rose from the basement, distressed. She'd written him letters, dedicated a song to him on the radio, and nothing, no response. Aunt Rose was quick to deliver advice.
Deanna
This is the way boys are. They don't understand you. They are dumb. They do not get you. You're strong and smart and independent, and that just is never going to make sense to men.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Aunt Rose explained it would be Deanna's job to make sense of things to men. If she was going to have relationships with them, it would never be easy, and it would be on her to figure it out. Boys were too dumb to do it for themselves.
Jay's dad was a minister. Jay liked Monty Python, and had a car, and very few opinions.
Deanna
He was incredibly sweet, and he was very much whatever you want to do. Well, what do you want to do? You know, not super-motivated on his own. I was like, come along with me.
Chana Joffe-Walt
When Deanna went away to college, Jay said, I'll come, too. When she broke up with him, his mom called her mom to ask if there was any way they could get back together.
Chris worked at the dollar store in the mall. Chris wanted more from his life. Deanna was 19, and got him a job on the other side of the mall at a Sam Goody she used to work at. She wanted more for him, too. He was funny, and moody, and he was the first person Deanna had sex with.
Mark wanted a job in film or TV, but nobody wanted to give him film or TV jobs. It was his idea to move to New York, and once they were there, Deanna got a job first as a bookkeeper. Mark got no job. She called his friends, his friends' friends, and found Mark an IT job, which he hated, so she found him another job at a magazine, and he worked there for the next 10 years. Deanna moved out three weeks before 9/11.
There was the German, the Israeli with the burger joint, men seemed to want wives, and Deanna didn't want to be a wife. Men also seemed to want her, but had no thoughts about what else that might look like. They don't get you, her mom would say on the phone. You have to show them how to be with you.
The Iraq War was starting, and so was the presidential race. Deanna volunteered for the Howard Dean campaign. He had a rally in New York before her 28th birthday. And while she was at the rally--
Deanna
This guy comes up to me, and he's got a reporter's pad, and he said, hey, after he's done talking, you know, can I talk to you? And I said, sure. And he said, you're a volunteer? An I said, yeah. And we talked for a really long time, and I actually got into an argument with him about Dennis Kucinich.
Chana Joffe-Walt
He was pro. She understood, but come on, that guy could never win.
Deanna
And then he said, well, you know, can I have your email address? I'll send you the article when it's done. And I was like, sure, you know, what are you writing for, or whatever. And he was like, oh, I'm the Executive Editor of AlterNet.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Don Hazen. AlterNet was not a major publication, but Deanna knew it. She read it all the time. The next day, Don sent her his article, very pro-Dean, and a personal note to her.
Deanna
See how much you influenced me already. And I was like, well, that's cool. I just convinced this, like, editor guy. That's awesome. I was like, that's really cool. Like, what made you change your mind? It started up this email conversation.
Chana Joffe-Walt
He asked about her. Was she hoping to get into politics? What was her job? Did she like it? What else did she want to do?
Deanna
It seemed really kind, and a little bit flirtatious, but I was fine with that. Like, I liked having this super-interesting, compelling man interested in me.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Don lived in California, but had an apartment in New York for work. Deanna couldn't quite guess his age. She thought maybe mid-40s. He was 56. He'd be coming out to New York again. Did she want to get dinner?
Deanna
I kind of figured it was a date, and I did feel flirtatious with him. I did feel like, ooh, this is fun.
Chana Joffe-Walt
It was fun. He walked her home. They talked about the party she was planning for her 28th birthday, where she should have it. They made out outside her apartment, and the next day, Don asked her out again, dinner, and this time, back to his apartment. They were making out, got naked, and when she felt him push inside her, Deanna was startled. It was abrupt, and he wasn't wearing a condom.
In Deanna's experience, someone always went and got the condom. That had never happened before. She felt slow, like she was floating in a silent conversation with herself.
Deanna
Uh-- should I say something? Uh-- I think it's OK. I mean, I don't really want to stop things.
Chana Joffe-Walt
He's older, she thought. Guys like that aren't getting around. Be nice to him. You're on birth control.
Deanna
You're not getting axe murdered right now. You're having a good time. You're fine. All right, let's just do this.
Chana Joffe-Walt
It was new and adventurous, and that's who Deanna wanted to be. Plus, she felt powerful in that moment.
Deanna
This is something that I am bestowing upon him, this youthful gift, this youthful body or something. Like, I did feel that way, and kind of like I was doing him a favor. And he seemed very, like, grateful, and I had not had that experience before.
Chana Joffe-Walt
With 25-year-old boys.
Deanna
No, as it turns out, different-- real different. So, yeah, I definitely felt like this was a rare thing for him.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Uh huh.
She thought about the condom thing again on the way home. Deanna's story about Don, that he was a good guy, a grown-up, self-actualized man who was taken by her was also a story about herself. She was powerful, interesting, could change his mind on important issues. The fact that he never even thought to ask about protection--
Deanna
It just didn't make sense. And so my default was to trust that it was going to be OK. It did not make sense to me, and I made sense of it, and that carried through the entire relationship.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Don started giving her work. He wanted her to help manage a big project for AlterNet. Deanna said yes. Don thought she was a poor fit for her corporate job. She agreed. When he was in town, they'd get dinner, spend the night or a weekend, which she loved, and then he'd leave, which she also loved.
Don does not need things from her as her other boyfriends had. It was the opposite. He set things up for her. He had an apartment for her to crash in, he had contacts she should meet, he bought her first Mac laptop, he helped her quit smoking, dinner was on him, and he did it all without demanding she be a wife.
It was seven months later that Deanna learned Don had a wife, a partner, actually, a distinction without a difference as far as Deanna was concerned, since Don explained that this was the woman he'd been with for years, Vivian, who you heard from earlier. They owned a house together, and she didn't know about Deanna. She says it was one of their first fights.
Deanna
I can't believe you lied to me. And he was like, I didn't lie to you. I never lied to you. And I was like, lying by omission is still lying. And he was like, you knew. And I'll never forget this word, he said, you've been colluding with me all along. And I was like, I don't think so.
Chana Joffe-Walt
But she went back to old emails to references Don would make to his domestic situation. Maybe she hadn't wanted to know. She stopped sleeping with him. She kept working for him. By now, they were working on a book together. That meant seeing him, and when she saw him, she'd inevitably sleep with him again. She liked him-- their conversations, their connection.
Deanna
He wasn't thrown by me in a way that felt like other men had been. He wasn't-- he just wasn't afraid of me.
Chana Joffe-Walt
He saw her as she wanted to be seen. She stayed in the secret affair, ignored his daily phone calls home to Vivian. Deanna wanted more time with Don, more contact, as he did with her. He could be annoying about it. She started a folder called his, where are you emails. He didn't like lack of contact, or the wrong kind of contact.
Deanna
He would say, why did you email me about personal stuff, and there's no work info in here? Like, I need to know what's happening. I need to know where things are. I need to know what we're working on. And I'm like, OK, so I'd send him the work email. Why isn't there anything emotional here? Don't you love me? I guess you don't care about me. Like, he would send these, like, super-victimy emails.
That was also the point where he started talking to me more about the staff, and his frustrations at work, and his, I don't want to do all this anymore, but everyone that works for me is so incompetent that I have to be in there all the time doing all these things for them.
Chana Joffe-Walt
By now, Deanna had met a lot of Don's staff. He'd started flying her out to California as a consultant for AlterNet. So she'd see him in his office.
Deanna
He was just a very demanding boss, just yelling at people, like, why can't you get this right, and what's wrong with you?
Chana Joffe-Walt
Deanna tried to make sense of this behavior. He was angry and insecure. This was not the easy-going, confident man she'd signed up for. She wanted to be supportive, the way he'd been supportive of her, but this felt all new to her.
Deanna
If we had been to an event together, he would watch how much I was drinking, and would accuse me later of drinking too much and being too tired to want to have sex with him, and starting a fight about that. What do you mean? Why not? Why are you tired? Like, I had a really long day. And he was like, well, you knew you were seeing me tonight. Like, why did you have a long day, like, why did you do so much? And I'm like, well, one, I was working for you. And two-- you know, and I would defend myself. And then he would get really assertive, and red-faced, eyes bulging, you know, veins popping, and he was scary as shit when he was angry.
Chana Joffe-Walt
Deanna started giving in to sex. Not I don't feel like it, but I love you sex. This was sex to end a fight. Having sex could shut down the behavior that was not making sense, the parts that did not fit into Deanna's story of a powerful woman who was having adventures with a man who was not challenged by her power.