His response is exceptionally weak, and shows he does not truly understand the harm of his actions.
Here's his response, and my thoughts on it. I had to run it through OCR software, so if you notice a correction, please let me know.
So, here's how he starts:
This statement is one-sentence old, and is already off to a poor start. He is not apologizing here, he is explaining. He's writing this statement to his fans, and the online community -- but not to those people his actions truely harmed. He's not writing to his victims.
With this, he is downplaying his actions -- by labeling them as 'flirting', and not what they were -- harassment.
There's an important aspect of flirting that distinguishes it from harassment -- choice. The entire technique of flirting is based off choice. A flirty statement has plausible deniability -- the person being flirted on has the ability to read and respond to the statement either in a romantic/salacious way, or a platonic way -- they have the choice.
'You have beautiful eyes' is a stereotypical flirty statement. It can be read either as a minorly romantic way, or as a bland complement. If the person receiving that complement is interested in flirting, they will read the statement more salaciously -- and will respond in a way to further the salacious conversation. If they are not interested, they will respond to it as a platonic statement, or not respond at all. The person being flirted on has the choice on how to interpret the statement, how to respond, and how to drive the conversation -- either in a platonic way, or a romantic way. It's a two-player game -- and that's the beauty of flirting, that it is a consentual and collaborative exercise between two people.
If the person being flirted on rejects the salacious interpretation, the person doing the flirting has not suffered great harm -- they can fall back on the belief the person either did not understand the attempt at flirting, or otherwise was not interested -- but it does not harm their platonic relationship. The person who received the unwanted flirt can either believe that they mis-read a platonic statement as flirtatious, or that they successfully pushed back and kept the relationship platonic. Both parties have an face-saving exit path from a flirty conversation.
Harassment removes the other person's choice, their agency. They do not have the choice of reading the statement as platonic, or the choice of keeping the relationship and conversation platonic. They have been forced into an uncomfortable situation where the other person unquestionably attempted to make their platonic conversation/relationship into a romantic/sexual one. They have no agency in steering the conversation, that choice was not given to them.
'Send nudes' is not flirting, it is harassment -- there is no possible platonic reading of that message. If you receive that, you cannot walk back the conversation/relationship. The line has been crossed without consent.
Here he is clearly not understanding the true cause of harm in his actions. The base harm was not caused by the power dynamic -- that was just a catalyst. The true harm was with the barnstorming of 'show me your tits' -- the actual harassment he engaged in.
Catcalling a stranger on the street is wrong if you're John Q. Public, or if you're the Pope. The power dynamic here just made the actual harassment worse, it's not the base harm here.
It's clear he does not understand the issue here.
The problem is that he thinks harassment is flirting, not that he doesn't get the hint.
He has not apologized to his victims, and is straight-up minimizing the harm by his harassment. 'Hey, want to go grab dinner sometime?' is an advance, 'Wanna blow me?' is harassment, plain and simple.
As long as his behavior is continuing to think harassment is flirting, and he refuses to acknowledge his harassment and apologize to his victims, he deserves no place in the gaming industry and community.
