How do we think about consuming art or products of people accused of sexual abuse?

Carrying on as before tells those who came forward what their accounts were worth

Question: How do we think about consuming art or products of people accused of sexual abuse?
Position‹2 of 2: Consuming art or products of people accused of sexual abuse is not ok
Argument‹2 of 2: Carrying on as before tells those who came forward what their accounts were worth

The argument

A second argument for this position concerns what consumption communicates rather than what it funds. Proponents hold that the response of an audience is part of how seriously an allegation is treated, and that this is understood by everyone involved. Coming forward about abuse is costly and uncertain, and one of the things that makes it so is the prospect that nothing will change afterwards. Where the accused person's work continues to be consumed exactly as before, the message received, on this account, is that an account of being harmed was weighed against a preference for the work and found lighter. Proponents argue that this matters beyond the particular case. Whether people in comparable situations come forward at all depends partly on what they expect to happen, and that expectation is formed by watching what happened last time. An audience that carries on unchanged therefore contributes to a general discouragement, independent of whatever formal processes exist. On this view the consumer is not being asked to act as a judge but to avoid supplying a reassurance that nothing need follow. They add that the alternative is not costless but is the lesser cost. Declining to consume forgoes something a person values, and proponents do not deny that this is a real loss or that works can be remarkable. The claim is one of comparison: the loss of a film, a record or a product is of a different order from the harm of a culture in which disclosures are absorbed without consequence. Where those are the two options, proponents argue, the choice is not difficult, and treating it as finely balanced is itself a way of declining to make it.

Premises

[P1]Whether people come forward about abuse depends partly on what they expect will follow, and that expectation is formed by observing earlier cases. [P2] An audience that consumes the work unchanged supplies the observation that nothing need follow. [P3] The cost of forgoing a work is of a different order from the cost of a culture in which disclosures are absorbed without consequence. [C] Consuming the work is therefore not acceptable, because the alternative loss is much the smaller one.

Counter-arguments

Critics reply that the argument asks consumption to carry a communicative weight it does not have, since audiences are not legible to one another and a private decision sends no message to anyone. A second objection is that the comparison of costs is made too quickly: the losses of withdrawal include the work of collaborators, the record of a field and the ability of accused people later cleared to recover anything, none of which is captured by describing the loss as forgoing a film. Others argue that the position makes the audience the venue for a response that properly belongs to employers, courts and professional bodies, and that routing consequences through consumer behaviour produces outcomes that are arbitrary rather than proportionate.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Decisions to come forward turn mainly on the conduct of employers, police and courts, and audience behaviour is a remote influence among far more immediate ones. [Rejecting P2] A private decision not to watch something is invisible, so it supplies no observation to anyone and cannot carry the signal the premise requires. [Rejecting C] The comparison omits most of the costs on the other side, including the livelihoods of collaborators and the position of accused people later cleared, which makes the conclusion follow only from an incomplete accounting.