What Does the Curious Silence About R. Kelly’s Male Victims Mean?
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R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison last week for sexual abuse and trafficking and the empathy for his young female victims is clear vindication and justice for many of them. Yet talk about Kelly’s male victims and the accusations of the few that did testify is even more curious.
The fact that it hasn’t been amplified in the media isn’t that suspect, Kelly’s manhood is at stake and attacking masculinity, especially Black masculinity, is seen as a pernicious insult by many. But the narrative of the abuse around the males is so out of proportion that it borders on comical, both for Kelly and the young Black victims.
They emphasize that it was oral sex (often performed by Kelly on the victim) but the amount of words wasted in denial of anal sex are so overwrought that it suggests much more (thou doth protest too much sir).
And it’s evident in the testimony from his first male accuser onward.
R. Kelly’s sex trafficking trial entered its eighth day on Monday, with a male accuser testifying that the star promised him fame in exchange for sex.
The man, who testified under the pseudonym Louis, said he was a 17-year-old when Mr Kelly asked him what he “was willing to do for music”.
He then described how the singer crawled towards him and performed a sex act, even though “I wasn’t into it.”
Louis said he first encountered Mr Kelly in 2006, when he was a 17-year-old working the night shift at a McDonald’s in Chicago.
He told the court that Mr Kelly slipped him his phone number, and invited him to his house, saying he could perform in his recording studio and receive some tips on the music business.
On one such occasion, the star asked Louis if he had ever “had any fantasies” involving men, then allegedly “crawled down on his knees and proceeded to give me oral sex”.
Afterwards, “he told me to keep between him and me”, adding, “we family now, we brothers”, Louis alleged.
He said Mr Kelly asked him to call him “daddy” – echoing the testimony of several female accusers – and would routinely film their sexual encounters.
He told the court he kept seeing Mr Kelly because he “really wanted to make it” in the music industry, and sometimes took friends to the singer’s parties.
One of them, a 16-year-old boy, also had sexual encounters with Mr Kelly, according to court documents. On one occasion, the singer directed the two to “touch each other” sexually, Louis testified, but they refused.
More evidence of male victims emerged including video. Kelly’s defense lawyers have maintained that he’s not into children at all, and certainly not boys, an account contradicted by many of the women, one who said “Kelly would talk about sexually assaulting little boys during encounters with her.”
Prosecutors then said Kelly directed one female victim to obtain explicit videos of young boys.
“At [Kelly’s] direction, Jane searched the internet for pornography involving younger-looking males and screen-recorded such pornography for his use,” the letter said. “Jane believed the pornography that she found on the internet and downloaded for [Kelly] actually involved individuals who were 18 or older given the websites on which she found the videos, but the request for such videos, and the videos themselves, clearly indicates a sexual interest in children.”
Prosecutors said they discovered videos on Kelly’s laptop that show “two young males initially wearing children’s underwear and kissing before engaging in sexual acts on an against child’s bunk bed.”
Other videos included a “young Asian male tied to a bed with underwear on, while a man caresses his body and genitalia” and a third video was of “a man engaging in sexual acts with a young male who is initially dressed in pajamas.”
Some people have bristled at the accusations of Kelly assaulting boys at all, with other’s even complimenting his virulent manhood vis a vis the girls.
And talking about this is important, especially for young gay Black boys who often feel at odds within the community. LGBT college activist Dev Hursey explains: “It’s important to keep in mind that R Kelly allegedly used blackmail as a tool against several of his victims. Homosexuality is stigmatized, especially during the decades when R Kelly was most successful. It’s important to consider the impact that news of this abuse could have had on his male victims.”
And you can see how this behavior plays out in Kelly’s “nephews.”
The accuser was the second survivor to testify in R. Kelly’s trial and is the fifth Jane Doe out of six whose accusations are included in the charging documents. While prosecutors previously announced that they planned to introduce testimony from a then-17-year-old boy who claims he met Kelly in 2006 and was later propositioned by him before a sexual encounter, Doe’s testimony marks the first time it’s been revealed that there’s allegedly a second male victim.
During her testimony Tuesday, August 24th, Doe said Kelly referred to the boy as “Nephew,” and told her that “he had been grooming ‘Nephew’ since he was young like me.” Doe said she was forced to have sex with Nephew on multiple occasions during her five-year relationship with Kelly. She described one incident where she said Kelly ordered her to have sex with Nephew after she broke one of the singer’s rules. Doe told prosecutors that she did not want to have sex with Nephew, and that “it was punishment.”
Doe said that Kelly was in the hotel room with her and Nephew when the incident took place. She said Kelly was naked, too, and that he filmed Nephew and Doe having oral sex and told them what to do while he filmed them. Doe did not say when or where this incident, or any of the other alleged incidents with Nephew, took place.
After the long-awaited six-week trial last summer, a federal jury concluded that the Grammy winner had used his celebrity status to procure, then mentally and sexually abuse, girls and young women during a 25-year period. The operation — involving a network of managers and aides who helped Kelly meet girls, and keep them obedient and quiet — amounted to a criminal enterprise (thus the racketeering charge). They also found that Kelly violated the anti-sex trafficking law known as the Mann Act.
“This is a significant outcome for all victims of R. Kelly and especially for the survivors who so bravely testified about the horrific and sadistic abuse they endured,” U.S. Atty. Breon Peace said in a post-sentencing news conference outside the courthouse. “R. Kelly is a predator, and as a result of our prosecution can serve a long jail sentence for his crime.
“He continued committing his crimes for almost 30 years and avoided punishment until today. Today the sentence showed that the witnesses retained control of their lives and over their futures. These are voices of mostly Black and brown women and children that were heard and believed … justice was finally achieved. This is a victory for them, for justice and for future survivors of sexual assault.”
