A former Bay Area tech CEO was fired earlier this year after allegedly enslaving, torturing, and sexually abusing his assistant. He claims the pair had a consensual relationship that people would “celebrate” if it were fictitious.
Former Tradeshift CEO Christian Lanng denied the allegations levied against him and the billion-dollar company he co-founded that were made by a former employee in court Thursday.
"The shocking and vile claims in the lawsuit are categorically false, and I reject allegations that I subjected someone to any form of abuse during my tenure as CEO or at any other time of my life,” Lanng told The Messenger.
In the complaint, an unidentified woman alleged that Lanng sent her into “a dark abyss of unwanted sexual horror," according to The Mercury News.
You can not have sex with your employee or employer. The power dynamic ensures it can never be totally equal and there will always be some duress. If someone holds the power over your finances including your health insurance, saying No is never that simple.
I never thought of it that way. I always thought of it as “don’t shit where you eat” because I ain’t at work to make friends. I’m here to get shit done.
It’s both, really. After some misadventures in my youth, I have refused to engage romantically with anyone in an organization I’m employed by. “Don’t shit where you eat.” As I have moved up to supervise others, it goes doubly so for people within my chain of command. That would be highly unethical.
Essentially, one is practical advice and the other is a matter of ethics. If you follow the first, the ethics are easy.
You never had to sit through a sexual harassment training where they explain quid pro quo?
Numerous times, and I may have even paid attention once or twice. I generally don’t do anything involving harassment because its wrong and immoral, because having relations with coworkers is not what I consider morally acceptable due to the risks to anyone involved in such an affair and in general, against my own moral judgement.
And I have SEEN harassment in the workplace.
I think it’s healthy to have clear boundaries with coworkers, they are not the same things as friends.
That said I spend 41 hours a week working, no way I’m not going to socialise with my coworkers. If I don’t make any friends after several years of working at a place I feel I have done something wrong.
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They were dating before he hired her, also mentions that hiring her was a mistake
She says they were never dating.
I must have missed that in the article
It wasn’t in this article. It is here.
Honestly best take. There’s a lot to this story I’m sure and I think it needs to be discovered in a court.
I’m hopeful it’s a truly fair court case as everyone has their right to their day in court.
It’s never that simple, sure. Which means it isn’t as simple as saying categorically “you can not”.
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So, it IS that simple? 🤦
No, it isn’t. You just love pretending to have any nuance, when you’re a hard core conservative.
Hiring her was a lapse of judgment. The rest of it sounds like a good time. BDSM relationships involving power exchange can be healthy but there is a huge risk that a messy breakup can go this way.
If my wife and I ever got divorced, I know she’d have the power to rake me over the coals with receipts. So I can give the guy the benefit of doubt, because based on what is alleged and my own personal experience it sounds reasonable that it might’ve been completely consensual at the time.
However as we grow as people, we can recontextualize our experiences and decide that hey this was really unhealthy and he should’ve known it was unhealthy and that she wasn’t capable of consenting, and that could even be right. Some people give enthusiastic consent and it turns out to be some PTSD trauma response. Given the number of people in kink with trauma in their past, the lines can get really blurry.
I’m not saying she wasn’t abused for sure, just that from a kink perspective his side of the story seems as plausible as hers. Regardless, I hope justice, whatever that may be, somehow prevails. But this case is going to hinge on whoever is more credible on the witness stand I think, and less on indisputable truths.
While the dom/sub fantasy is a common one, we need to remember that it has to stay a fantasy.
This was the real world, with a real world power dynamic in the workplace. That made consent dubious. And the number one rule of this sort of relationship is that CONSENT MUST BE CERTAIN.
Anyone with half a fucking clue would would not have this kind of relationship with an employee.
The employment came after the relationship and continued after it. I think that’s a key difference that isn’t conveyed in the headline. Yeah ethically he shouldn’t have hired someone he was in that kind of relationship in, but at the time I’m sure it felt like a reasonable thing to do. Infatuation is like that.
Also saying dom/sub has to stay a fantasy is a different suggestion altogether and one I disagree with although perhaps only by degrees. It depends a lot on how real you allow for a fantasy to be. Ultimately there should be a safe word that allows a sub to withdraw consent at any time and so consent is always certain even if it’s being vehemently denied by both people. In that manufactured ambiguity is where the excitement lies for many people.
The thing most people don’t realise is in a dom/sub relationship it’s actually the sub who has all the power. They can withdraw consent etc. any time they want Having someone you’re in a relationship with directly reporting to you is problematic and most companies would explicitly not permit it.
At the time hiring her seemed a reasonable thing to do. And therein lies the test of a person’s character. And what we’re seeing is the consequence of a failure of his character.
And yes, if you seek excitement in the ambiguity, you can absolutely choose to do that. Some people like risk. Some people like skydiving. No one should be surprised that occasionally the parachute doesn’t open. We can be sad that the situation ended like this, but not surprised.
Yeah, this sounds like someone who’s only BDSM experience was the 50 Shades series, and therefore didn’t understand how it works at all.
This is entirely based on a quote of him saying they were dating. Did she coberate that? Did anyone else? Is there a known history of their relationship or just this guy saying it exists?
She denied it.
This is the kind of nuanced response I was struggling to draft in my mind. I hope no one was abused. If she was, I hope she is vindicated.
I think your version is succinct and to the point while mine rambled a bit. I think there is value in both.
Based on the article they were together before working together. Because of that, while there may of course be elements where some position of power was abused after they started working together, it’s quite unlikely that everything here was against her will.
This is likely a case where both people have been shitty to each other in some way.
The ex-CEO said that he was dating the woman who sued him before hiring her at Tradeshift in 2014, which he called a “grave error of judgment." He also noted that the “plaintiff went on to work for Tradeshift for approximately five more years after our relationship ended.”
This raises so many red flags to me.
I can’t comment on the alleged activities, and we don’t know her financial or emotional situation in 2014 when she was hired, but it sounds waaaay more complicated than “boss treats random new chick as sex slave”.
I hope she’s in a better place now (mentally and emotionally).
Baseless assumptions.
Based on being together before she was hired. That is literally the opposite of baseless.
He could very likely be very wrong in his assumptions - and they are assumptions - but definitely based on information provided.
… but definitely based on information provided.
Then look around for more info.
He acknowledged the inappropriateness of hiring someone he was romantically involved with, calling it a “grave error of judgment,” but refuted any claims of abuse or harassment. Source
Bryan Freedman, the plaintiff’s lawyer, denied Doe and Lanng ever dated. Source
Filed with the lawsuit was the alleged nine-page slave contract that appears to have Lanng’s signature. Source
The woman accused Lanng of trafficking her across countries including the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Japan, trips during which she was allegedly “sexually assaulted, including being bound against her will and beaten to the point of bleeding.” Source
Huh? What is your point? We both agree that they are assumptions, and I wasn’t commenting on the accuracy of them. They could be wildly inaccurate.
Only that they weren’t “baseless”. They were based in something. That’s it. End of discussion.
Everything you’ve posted are just different bases for different assumptions - it doesn’t negate the basis, just changes the accuracy of them.
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The phrase “baseless assumptions” does not mean that no base was provided. It means that the purported base is inadequate to support a causal likelihood that the assumptions are true.
Besides which, your argument is one of semantics, which you’re welcome to.
False and a lie.
Lazy comment and it’s not even remotely accurate.
Sure mate. Are you the lazy comment po-po? You must be busy.
And you must be stupid. 🤷
Man… being into kink is dangerous if you have money and there’s a scorched earth breakup. I have heard people in kink circles say that having a contract signed by both parties offers some protection, but here it is being used against him in court. Eeek.
It’s fine as long as you don’t do it with employees. If you find a woman with no social or financial dependence on you, you will be golden. It’s actually not that difficult since most of the adult woman population isn’t directly employed by you and a portion of them like being subs and doing kinky shit.
Apparently they were dating before she was hired. I can see how easily lines could be blurred when in love. The saying don’t shit where you eat is appropriate with regards to work and relationships, but often people can’t help themselves.
Sometimes people can’t help themselves? You are describing the defense of every single crime in history.
He is a fucking Millionaire in charge of a company and you are talking about him like he failed the marshmallow test.
I mean, nepotism is rife across the world, clutch your pearls all you like but it’s common enough to date colleagues or employ those with familial ties despite the warnings against. Do note that I didn’t defend his choices, comparing them to shitting where you eat.
yeah, hiring her as his assistant isn’t ideal as the risk to the company, but in terms of nepotism, it doesn’t sound as bad to me as the CEOs that will make someone a director over an entire department just because they’re banging (have seen this irl)
She said they weren’t dating before she was hired.
that people would “celebrate” if it were fictitious.
Well that’s just delusional. How exactly did he make it this far while having trouble separating TV from reality?
He’s talking about 50 Shades of Grey. Which is a work of fiction that has been systematically pointed as problematic.
Their point was this dude isn’t in a movie or tv show. A lot of crazy shit happens in movies that you wouldn’t want to happen in real life, this is one of them.
Why are CEOs always shit? Someone must’ve done a study into the type of people who want to be CEO, majority probably being psychopaths.
I’ve seen a few studies on this, I’d have to dig up some sources but socio/psychopaths do tend to seek power… So CEO rates of socio/psychopathy are significantly higher.
Same with politicians.
Regardless of what they sell or their stated ethos, once a corporation becomes publicly traded its only purpose becomes maximizing profits for its shareholders. The prevailing attitude in that section of the business world is that, if you can save a million and one dollars by dumping toxic waste on a children’s playground, and the fine from the EPA is going to be one million dollars even, then it is your holy and sacred duty to poison those children for the sake of delivering that one dollar to the shareholders. In fact, failing to prioritize shareholder profits is the only thing corporations ever get in real trouble for.
People who thrive in this type of environment, let alone rise to the top, tend not to be good or moral people who are bothered by things like a conscience or a sense of compassion. To run a publicly traded corporation you need a person who can cause enormous amounts of suffering and blight in the world, and then go home and sleep comfortably and unbothered, soothed by the belief that everything is permissable as long as they made a line on a graph go up slightly.
I’ve seen that movie. It was really good. Maggie Gyllenhaal was great in it.
Ah yeah that movie was amazing, what was the name of it? Actor guy Spader really good too.
Secretary. Deserved an award for the sexiest non-pornographic film of the year.
Just another day at Twitter…X…
/s
I don’t get it, the same story is repeated time and time again, how hard is it to not be a terrible person?
Unless they were born or raised with empathy, which is an obvious no, nothing bad happens to them if they’re terrible. A ton of enjoyable things happen, even.
At that point, you’re weighing the opportunity to do whatever you feel like at no consequence against doing what other people tell you to do for none of your own benefit (the only measurement that matters). Technically at a moderate cost to the one reigning themselves in. Under the looming threat of nothing if you do not comply.
I know the question was purely rhetorical and born out of the same frustration that I have. But I wish we’d drop this weird notion the more humanitarian of us seem to default to, like people who do this shit just haven’t had the golden rule properly explained to them yet. They know. And they’ve figured out it’s currently a farce.
They must have been afforded some protections to insulate them from consequences. It’s not just a realization that being a monster is easy and beneficial. The golden rule isn’t a farce for those of us who aren’t affluent, it’s a warning.
There’s nothing terrible here. More just “stupid.”
Supporting the disparity in wealth is supporting abuse of women.
What do all rich men do with their money? Use it to abuse women.
Reminds me of a quote from Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow:
“Don’t forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of that Pie while they’re still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled “black” by the professionals, spring up everywhere. Scrip, Sterling, Reichsmarks continue to move, severe as classical ballet, inside their antiseptic marble chambers. But out here, down here among the people, the truer currencies come into being. So, Jews are negotiable. Every bit as negotiable as cigarettes, cunt, or Hershey bars.”
What the fuck.
Well, that was horrifying to read.
Don’t know either of them, but have to doubt her unwillingness based on the fact that any reasonable person I know would never sign or do that if they weren’t into it.
Fear and power do a lot, and there is a whole legal section about how contracts signed under duress against the person’s interests are not legally binding.
Like you, this is the first I’ve heard of this so I don’t have any opinions at this time.
Some people get off on being abused by those with more power than them.
I think they call it a ‘kink.’ I don’t think we should shame them for it.
Also something about this guy being a millionaire probably made him very attractive.
Let’s see how much money she can get out of him before we pass any judgement, though.
Straight to slut shaming, cool. Great contribution. You’re trying to appear “neutral” but your true colors fly bright and clear through your words.
What are you talking about?
Your first sentence in your previous comment:
Some people get off on being abused by those with more power than them.
It reads as if your initial response to this happening was to say “she wanted it”, which is pretty terrible.
And what about my second and third sentences? Did you just ignore those?
You’re the only one who’s shaming them.
Your second sentence clearly kink shamed, even if you wrote that you didn’t.
Your third sentence is just more of the same crap.
You are just either a troll or an idiot, and I have better things to do than to argue with either.
“we all know she enjoyed it till she didn’t”
Fuck you
This is a vile take, and you should reexamine your empathy
Calm down. What evidence is there? It’s a he said she said. We don’t know who is lying.
Unfortunately manipulation, coercion, grooming, etc do exist.
“This person can’t have been abused because they signed a contract”
More specifically, “this person enjoys being abused as can clearly be seen by the fact that they engage in contractual BDSM, a well-known device that kinksters use to negotiate BDSM power exchange.”
The only unethical thing here was hiring the person he was dating - this article is exactly why you don’t do that.
Everything described her aside from their unethical relationship is a sign of a loving kink relationship - like being collared is generally considered a big relationship step in BDSM. This looks like stupidity biting him in the ass more than it looks like abuse.
So any time a contract is signed it’s never coerced or forced in any way? Looks like you figured out abuse. Just make them sign a contract and you’re scott free.
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that everything described in the article is indicative of these two engaging consensually in the BDSM lifestyle. His mistake was getting his girlfriend a job as his secretary as that adds an ethical component they were not fulfilling.
To people outside of a BDSM relationship, these things can be shocking. I am extremely aware of that. However, anyone in the BDSM lifestyle can instantly recognize what happened here and what mistakes were made.
If you’d like more info on contracts, collaring, and the BDSM lifestyle, here is a good resource:
https://kinkyevents.co.uk/bdsm-contracts-a-beginners-guide/
https://www.serenityinchains.com/what-is-a-bdsm-collar-aka-bondage-collar-and-what-does-it-mean/
The fallout here is similar to a friend of mine being investigated by police after his wife had some serious bruising her coworkers noticed. Not all violence is unwelcome. They cleared it up in one conversation, because they were smart enough to not mix work and play, with all the ethical quandaries that involves.
Tell me you’re a sex pest without saying it
Typical privileged attitude.
You seem to magically know he’s lying and she’s not… how, exactly?
You’re disbelieving a victim for no reason. Fuck you, rapist apologizer.
Fuck you. My reason is there’s no evidence.
rapist apologizer.
Agreed.
