i'm not even speaking of merit or genius or "separate the art from the artist" because i think it's a debate so excruciating and useless i would rather chop my arm off. there is just this one specific way that - yes, i do hate to admit it - young, female fans approach male artists. it's like... the artist is always made bigger than his art. like a pseudo-husband or a surrogate father and i hate say this shit but i fail to see any other explanation i dont think you can even use projection/identification as an excuse. most of these women will probably spend the rest of their lives creating and loving different male idols/gods and even if every single one of them was revealed to be a rapist they would be incapable of seeing the one single common thread and just do it all over again. so we're stuck here. forever.