“Brand Management for Sex Offenders”: Exposing Sebastian Stevensson’s Lies and Manipulation Tactics
By: Katelin Coleman
Tags: Classical Music, Sexual Assault, Metoo, Misogyny

In response to my post exposing Sebastian Stevensson as a sexual predator (which you can read here), Sebastian has taken to social media to share “his version” of events. As is typical for abusers in situations such as these, his account is riddled with easily disprovable lies, emotional pandering and sad attempts at painting himself as a victim. Why did he write such a response? To presuppose that there are in fact “two versions to every story” and not simply an objective truth. Why should we read his response? Because it constitutes an impressive masterclass in “Brand Management for Sex Offenders”, worthy of study.

A friend has graciously provided screenshots of Sebastian Stevensson’s post, which I encourage you to read. They are provided below.

To dismantle Sebastian Stevensson’s lies, I can simply refer to our complete text history, which confirms that the “unconditional apology” that Sebastian claims to have offered categorically never happened, nor did any text message conversation regarding the assault. Further, his timeline of events is way off: it was not “several weeks” after our “movie night” at which I rebuffed Sebastian that the assault took place; it was 5 days later, as evidenced both through my text message history, as well as the consistent date I provided on every report I proceeded to make. I suspect Sebastian might be purposefully obscuring the date of the assault so that it more closely aligns with later, completely unrelated messages he sent to “check in” on me after a particularly severe instance of his verbal abuse at work. Regardless of whether the timeline discrepancy is intentional or not, the facts simply do not support Sebastian Stevensson’s version of events. Why, if he truly believes that he is innocent, does Sebastian feel the need to fabricate such blatant, easily disprovable lies?

Sebastian also claims that he has “never been accused of anything like this, before or since”. If that is true, then why did the union representative tell me — with a witness in the room — that they had received a report of the exact same nature about Sebastian before mine? Was the union representative lying? Were they in on this fantastical, unfair conspiracy against Sebastian Stevensson?

Beyond the outright fabrication of “alternative facts”, Sebastian Stevensson then deigns to imply that a woman in my situation would nuke her career, alienate her friends and colleagues, and elicit the involvement of the police, all over a “misunderstanding” immediately cleared up by an apology. Four out of six of the formal reports I made about Sebastian and his sexual assault on me were lodged while I was still working at the DRSO. Why would I go out of my way to poison my own workplace against me? To pit myself — a new, female, foreign contract player — against Sebastian — a male, long-standing tenured employee, in a male-dominated group, in front of our own colleagues, who would have every reason to choose him over me? Why would I risk angering people with immense, wide-reaching professional power over me — people like Audun Halvorsen and Ole Kristian Dahl — by confronting them over their handling of the situation? I love playing in orchestra, I loved my job at the DRSO, I loved living in Copenhagen. My job in the DRSO was my only source of income and the sole grounds for my residence permit in the EU/EEA. Why would I place all of that in jeopardy, if no assault took place? If we had resolved it?

Sebastian Stevensson would have you believe that I acted against my own interests in every possible way, without any reason except for some vague notion of “revenge”. (Revenge for what, if there was no assault?). This simply makes no sense: people do not take risks like this over “misunderstandings” that have been resolved.

Why, if Sebastian Stevensson genuinely believed that he was not guilty of my accusations, did he never make any attempt to contact me since he received his “punishment” (ie: a warning) in April 2015? He never reached out to apologize. He never tried to explain his side of the events to me. He never tried to find out how I had “misunderstood” him so badly. He never even wrote to contradict me. He knows I even took it to the police. Surely, if he believed in the account of events he is now offering, he would at least have said something like, “Why are you spreading lies about me?” He would have asked me to stop. But he didn’t. He never bothered to reach out to me in any way, on any platform, at any time. I remained Facebook friends with him for months after his warning, so he could easily contact me with such communication if he wanted to. He never did. Why is he suddenly deciding to “clear it up” now, almost 6 years later, when he never saw fit to do so at the time?

Because there was never anything to “clear up” between Sebastian Stevensson and I. Sebastian has always known that my version of events is the truth. He knows that he is guilty. He has never expressed any remorse, and he does not do so even now. The only reason he is speaking up now is to try to manipulate his way out of any consequences. And he is using some of the oldest tricks in the sexual abuser’s playbook to do so.

In keeping with typical abuser behaviour, Sebastian Stevensson consistently resorts to emotionally charged language throughout his account: “difficult”, “private”, “forced”, “shocked”, “surprised”, “stressed”, “revenge”. He attempts to garner pity by peppering his account with personal details of his own life which are irrelevant to the story. I suspect that the real reason Sebastian Stevensson never chose to share his side for the news article on Information is because he knew that he would be expected to provide proof of his assertions: proof he didn’t have. He knew full well that his version of the story would not hold up to the same journalistic scrutiny that mine did. So instead, he has taken to the court of Facebook, to appeal to emotion. This tactic is very common among abusers: hypocritically taking to the court of public opinion to bemoan their “conviction in the court of public opinion”. Sebastian consistently emphasizes how “difficult” my assault was for him, implying that he has been the one who has been unfairly treated — despite the fact that he has yet to suffer a single material loss in the entirety of this story.

In his account, Sebastian Stevensson dwells gratuitously on instances of apparent friendliness between him and I after the assault (many of which are embellished or outright incorrect). This is a very common tactic, frequently used by rapists, to attempt to smear the credibility of their victims or paint them as unreliable narrators who have “changed their story” over time. As it is a well-established fact that victims of sexual assault often strive for the appearance of normalcy between themselves and their attackers, even in situations where there is no professional imperative to do so (unlike mine), this laughably predictable tactic deserves no further rebuttal. He never apologized; I never “appreciated him reaching out”; we were never “back on track”. My story has never changed.

For a bit of levity, I would also like to highlight the way that Sebastian Stevensson characterizes our interactions as a “fling”, and tries to imply that he was the one who eventually decided he “did not want to engage as anything [other] than friends”. When reporting Sebastian, every authority who reviewed our text message history has agreed that I communicated clear and unequivocal disinterest in Sebastian before he assaulted me. But even if we believe Sebastian Stevensson’s story, who on earth says “Yeah, so I met this woman, she was really cute, and definitely super into me. I know because I grabbed her breast and her whole body froze and she slapped me in the face. We had a lovely fling!”

This is yet another example of a common manipulation tactic employed by sexual predators: fabricating reciprocal interest between themselves and their victim. Other variations include claiming that the victim was in fact the aggressor while the perpetrator was uninterested, or embellishing previous, consensual sexual involvement with the victim to imply that all sexual contact was consensual. This tactic serves as a convenient “contingency excuse”, when the perpetrator is in doubt that their outright denial might not work. “That didn’t happen — but if it did, it’s only because she wanted it . . . “

Sebastian Stevensson is lying about the events of the early morning hours of November 7th, 2014 — as well as events prior, the tone of our relationship, and our interactions following the assault. There are not “two sides” to whether a text message exists or not. This is not a debate open to infinite subjective speculation. The facts are the facts, and when those facts do not align with what serves an abuser, that abuser will do exactly what Sebastian Stevensson has taken to Facebook to do: appeal to emotion, play the victim, cast aspersions on their accuser, and engage in diversionary tactics.

To the survivors reading this who have been subjected to this kind of manipulative, community gaslighting: I see you. We see you. Sexual violence always follows the downward flow of power; as such, there will always be people surrounding the abuser who are eager to lap up whatever lazy, nonsensical lies they spew out. Some of these will be people you thought were your friends, and that hurts. But popularity does not equate to truth. Do not let the conviction of the morally lazy or the wilfully blind convince you that reality is not what you know it is. We are many who see these manipulation tactics for the obvious nonsense that they are, who know that it is not “your” truth you are speaking: it is the truth. Reach out to us. We are here for you.

Stay Strong.

KRC