Daily Mail drag John Peel into the Saville muck raking
Journalism at it's lowest point, with a lot of tenuous "facts". Not that many of us on DiS are Daily Mail readers, but I feel something must be done to stop such poor journalism.
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John Peel
Kids Near Water
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I haven't read that article but Peel did actually marry a 15 year old
and say some things which suggested that teenagers were fair game during his time in the states
loads of the 'evidence'
against peel in that piece is drawn from the near-psychotic julie burchill article she wrote on him. whatever facts there are that point to peel acting innappropriately they have to be sourcd elsewhere - not from an article riddled with inconsistencies and downright lies shaped to fit one person's agenda.
I can't help but feel that if the actions and comments (not the speculative stuff, the factually accurate stuff) attributed to John Peel
were instead attributed to, say, Simon Cowell, some of the people rushing to defend him (not necessarily here, but I have seen the "it was the 70s"-defense used elsewhere) would have a different attitude.
sacred cow
I don't think Tony Blackburn or Noel Edmunds or anyone of that vintage
would get the defence Peel is on the same evidence
saying that nothing has been proven either way - Saville or Peel
its more the attitude people have that I'm commenting on
apart from peels teen bride, she was real
John Peel's Teen Bride
Sat, The Star And Shadow, 7:30, £4 on the door
this is my favourite comment
Isn't it more the fact that it is being brought up with such a clear political agenda
and that a fair proportion of it is speculative/untrue that is making being people cynical towards it?
I'm not a particular Peel fan (a bit after my time) but the Mail's implication that the BBC is somewhere that fosters and protects paedophiles is so transparent that it's just inviting you to disregard it.
They have transparent motivations but doesn't mean what they are saying isn't valid, seems like the BBC did turn a blind eye on several occasions and should rightly be criticised
To be fair, there's growing evidence that the BBC pretty much turned a blind eye to people sexual abusing teenagers on its premises.
The fact that it's politically convenient for the Daily Mail to exploit it doesn't change the fact that the BBC has given them all the ammunition here...
and to the contrary....
i can't help but think that Indie Sorts bat rumours of Peel being involved in this sort of thing away just because they admired his work.
If it's someone who isn't credible in indie circles, label him a nonce without trial. If it's someone who's well thought of, bullshit the stories and quickly move on.
^ Utterly this.
If Saville had been into Mega City Four and Shonen Knife rather than Black Lace and Showaddywaddy he may have enjoyed a more spirited defence from some quarters. Child abuse is child abuse, couldn't care less what records he's into.
Third thread about this!
zomg
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2213621/Dave-Lee-Travis_tossed-Off-By-Toddlers.html
speaking of being indie about it all
Kunt and the Gang have a new song out about the ghost of Jimmy Saville
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGuSqSSmyy0
Question.
Were attitudes towards adult men having sex with and so explicitly sexualising teenage girls genuinely more relaxed in the 70's, or did they just have a certain level of protection because they were well known public figures?
bit of both,
surely?
I think certainly there was nowhere near the outcry and awareness about it.
And the idea that, if the girls were willing and up for it, then it didn't really matter if they were a bit young. I don't think it was accepted per se but nobody expected people to go for prison for it.
I think it stretches to straightforward abuse too - certainly my Dad grew up in the late 50s early 60s and I remember him telling me how there was a man who lived down the road who all the kids knew they should steer clear of as he might feel you up but, at the same time, the stress was on kids to stay away from him rather than for the police to do something to put him in jail.
I wondered how long it would be until someone brought Peel into it
Peel always maintained his behaviour in the States was stupid. He openly regretted it and paid the price in a sham marriage for several years. By '74 (as soon as he could, I think), he was married to Sheila with whom he stayed with until the end.
By the sounds of it, Jimmy Saville forcibly abused people for years using his power and machismo. And folks knew about it and kept it quiet.
I like Showaddywaddy and Shonen Knife, but think its worth defending John Peel and investigating Jimmy Savile.
He still did it though.
I'm not saying what he did is as bad as what Saville allegedly did. Because it isn't. But I'd not expect the tabloids or the law to protect a non-celebrity who'd slept with people underage just 'cos they'd 'openly regretted it' and there's no reason to expect Peel should receive that either.
True
I guess I'm just saying he should be defended because connecting Peel to Savile for the sake of news is a complete pseudo-story when Peel's actions were public knowledge anyway. You're right in suggesting one should expect the law to investigate how a 15 year old can marry/have relations with an adult. I'm guessing it was illegal in '65 as it is now. But judging from what happened with Peel soon after it wouldn't have changed the actual outcome of those events. I think he was well aware of his stupidity and was trying to right his wrongs pretty sharpish. Seems to me that any current investigation into these events should be concentrated on exploring how these things were covered up in a public institution for many years. I'm not sure how Peel's actions in America in his 20s is relevant to that investigation.
You don't defend child abusers
no ifs, no buts.
I'm sorry to be black and white about it but it's quite a black and white issue really.
Don't bring Michael Jackson into this.
Actually, do.
Michael Jackson was mixed race by the end of his life
so he doesn't count, as he was neither black nor white.
You may want to rephrase how you phrased that one.
Pretty sure he didn't change race, even if his skin colour changed...
I might want to rephrase how I phrased 'rephrase how you phrased'
phrase.
No need to apologise
But looking at it that simply, we might as well accept Peel was as bad as Savile and probably a member of the BBC paedo gang that The Mail article has unearthed.
That doesn't work, either. I'm defending him because I don't think he deserves that much scorn - i.e. that which is attributable to those who hurt children for their own gratification, let alone habitually and with force like it is suggested Savile did. I don't think Peel was an evil dishonest man like it is becoming clear Savile may have been. If it was all happening now, of course, things would be more black and white, as it were.
You didn't know him personally and therefore it's pretty shakey ground
to start drawing emotive responses to the person's motivation rather than an analytical response to the accusation.
Yes, because the morning of her 16th birthday, a girl's vagina goes 'ping'
at which time it is ready for use.
I don't think a man in his twenties would have to be a terribly bad person to fall in love with a mature 15 year old. Of course, he should probably just wait a few weeks rather than have your grave pissed on for all eternity.
really silly argument, that.
'if there's no difference between 15 and 16, i guess there's no difference between 15 and 14 either!'
also you don't just 'fall in love' with someone before you've figured out what age they are.
I don't think falling in love with someone slightly underage necesarily makes you a 'bad person'
but you certainly shouldn't be let off the hook because of it. Too many men apologising for other men's shitty behaviour in this thread.
Without trying to raise a defence for him or anything.
Was that really an issue at the time? In the states? Aren't there STILL some states where marriage is legal at a stupidly young age? Marrying a 15 year old girl in america in the 60's or 70's was probably legal. Not saying it's right, if we sat here and talked about which laws in the US are right and wrong then we'd be here a long fucking time.
Not defending his actions, just saying is all.
You're right in suggesting one should expect the law to investigate how a 15 year old can marry/have relations with an adult.
Currently, one has to be 18 before getting married in almost all US states, or 16-17 with parental permission and ID (in most states), or (in many states, maybe half) 15 and under if you have a court order saying it's okay. South Carolina is the only state where you can marry a 15 year old with just parental consent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age#North_America
That's the law as it exists today, I have no idea what it was like in the sixties but I imagine it might well have been more lenient still.
Also on Jerry Lee Lewis' wiki page, it mentions that when he married his 13 year old cousin, 'Lewis and his management insisted she was 15'. Which kind of indicates that 15 was socially acceptable.
I mean, people can call it child abuse if they want, but you should be aware of what the law actually was and still is.
the subject line was supposed to be in quotation marks
from the post i'm responding to. otherwise my post doesn't make sense. stupid formatting.
This made you lose faith in Daily Mail as a serious bastion of journalism?
I would've thought many people reached that point years ago.
Quite often they tend to be blinded by their hatred of the BBC, but in this specific article talking about John Peel can be justified in the context of painting a picture of the era, and Peel is one of the few people from back then who is on record saying the stuff he did say, and - factually and legally speaking - was someone who did fuck a 15-year-old girl.
In regards to the sort-of-defense that he may have felt really bad about it later on, it's also a fact, from what I can gather, that the teen wife did have a fucked-up life after they separated and she did kill herself more than a decade later. Obviously nobody will ever really know what went on between them, but at the very least one could say that having John Peel in her life was not in any obvious way a positive thing.
It's classic Mail flamebait
they know getting Peel entwined somehow into this is gonna get the clicks. It's John Peel Day in 2 weeks.
well
"a newspaper goes to town on a celebrity in a sex scandal to sell papers/get clicks" shocker.
and the John Peel story is an open goal for Daily Mail, why wouldn't they take the chance to go through it once again, usually they would have to be far more flexible with known facts, or dig deeper to give BBC a kicking.
The tragic story of 15 year old Claire Macalpine and her abuse by Savile
Is clearly not strong enough for the Mail & their readers. It seems even they think 15 is some borderline grey area. I presume that's why they chose to publish a picture of her aged 6 just in case.
Didn't peel admit to girls as young as 13 though? He may not have been as predatory as saville but that's still bad and deserving of criticism
I don't think you can really draw distinctions
between degrees of sexual predator.
Really?
So if a 26 year old legally marries a 15 year with the consent of her parents (all of whom incidentally lie about her real age) he is exactly as bad as Fritzl, Hindley & Brady
I do hope you're not studying law
Or journalism for that matter
I'm not studying either
but you've conveniently dropped the names of three public bogeymen to make it seem more acceptable 'in comparison'. Pretty awful, really.
Obviously legal marriage is a very different scenario, and that isn't what's being dicussed here, by anyone. Whoever you are, and however old your victims, doing stuff to those under the age of consent is wrong.
You said ::You can't draw distinctions between degrees of sexual predator::
Which is clearly bollocks
I'm not defending anyone's actions, I'm just pointing out with a clear and simple example that you are talking bollocks
You're doing a really bad job here
in a fairly unpleasant thread. Please stop it.
Don't know why you're comparing Peel/Saville to Fritzl etc.
Their alleged crimes were different. Apples and oranges, my friend.
You have sex with fruit?!
Pervert.
He said ::You can't draw distinctions between degrees of sexual predator::
Which is clearly bollocks
I'm not defending anyone's actions, I'm just pointing out with a clear and simple example that he is talking bollocks
You're right.
However if it turns out he slept with 13 year old girls as he is ALLEGED to have admitted to then what he's done is probably comparable to what Saville is ALLEGED to have done.
But the crimes of Fritzl/Hindley weren't *just* sexual predators.
One imprisoned a girl in a basement for 15+ years, and the other was a murderer. No one has suggested either of these crimes against Saville/Peel.
You've used a silly example to make you're point which has undermined your argument. It's fine, BITT, you don't always need to win the internet. Sometimes you can just admit you got it a bit wrong. Unless you're just trolling, of course...
It's really quite appalling of you to come into a thread like this
On a subject such as this in order to troll
Stop it
Hmm, taking the moral high ground?
Now I know you're trolling. I would have thought you had at least a modicum of respect instead of coming in here using silly, wildly exagerated examples to get a rise out of people. It worked (slightly) - I hope you're pleased.
Seriously man
You need help
I think if a 26 year old admits to sleeping with 13 year old girls he
shouldn't be given an easy ride just because he likes the Fall. Now whether he actually did this is up for debate but if he did then it's grim and just because he didn't bury girls in a Yorkshire moor or lock them in a dungeon doesn't mean there's not a been a crime committed.
He said ::You can't draw distinctions between degrees of sexual predator::
Which is clearly bollocks
I'm not defending anyone's actions, I'm just pointing out with a clear and simple example that he is talking bollocks
See above brah
My response was to his absolutist statement
In all crimes there are varying levels of severity
It is simply absurd to suggest otherwise
if that is true
what kind of parents would lie about their child's age to let her marry a man 11 years older?
i've also read that both her parents had died within months of each other shortly before she met peel. if this version is true, can't imagine why peel would take advantage of a clearly vulnerable child unless he had sinister intentions.
I think you can, saville forced himself on people peel took advantage but it seemed consensual even though in a legal sense it couldn't be, the former clearly is worse though both are very bad, I'm not defending peel and I do think the NBC deserve criticism if this was a known about and they carried on employing him
NBC =b b c stupid spell check
true
There's some pretty grim arguments in this thread.
SACRED COW PEEL
I think I've underestimated just how much of a sacred cow Peel is.
Slightly bemused by how many people of my age and younger revere him.
He did a large amount of music, that is why.
Can't say that finding out about the 15 yr old hasn't tainted his sainthood for me though.
arguing about which sexual predator is 'worse' is the most stupid thing ever
children were (allegedly) raped, coerced into performing sexual acts on adult men, taken advantage of sexually and molested. NONE OF WHICH SHOULD EVER HAPPEN TO CHILDREN NO MATTER WHO DID IT.
Totally agree that none of this should happen to children no matter what
But I don't think that mutually excludes the idea that different circumstances, actions, consent/coercion/rape, physical psychological and emotional consequences for the victim and so on DO equal crimes of a different nature or level of severity
I'm not saying it's excusable in any case but to swallow tbo's above statement at face value is to fall into the Mail's moral panic
This is a fucking stupid thread
While clearly both are in the wrong if they have committed their alleged crimes, there's no denying that different crimes carry different weights of moral wrongdoing. Hence we apply different charges to them.
Have very little idea of the specifics of what John Peel or Saville did, but I hope they are exposed accordingly and the victims are able to get some kind of closure from the recognition of their abuse.
But if you look at it from the victims point of view, being forced perhaps through violence or threat of violence to do things they dont want to do is more damaging than an underage person choosing to pursue something with an older man, in both cases the man is wrong and committing a crime but surely the first is a worse crime. I guess it gets complicated as grooming can make the victim think its consensual. Don't get me wrong I think if peel did things with 13 year olds as he is supposed to have admitted he should have been prosecuted and thrown off the radio
I'm getting up a petition
so that we can burn all those St Trinian's films.
Almost Famous will have to go as well
As it's about underage groupies, how old did Penny Lane admit to being in the end? 15?
Let's bin any repeats of The Krankies for good measure.
When I was fourteen my best mate was a girl (I'm so fay/indie)...
... who was having an affair with the woodshop technician at our school. This happened right until we left school. She was a very mature girl for her age (she was also a black belt in Judo which was why I hung out with her - she was hard and I was a fay indie fan with long girly hair: a brother needs protection).
Anyway, she thought this was great. She knew exactly what she was doing and was a fairly clever, very strong-willed person. To her this was another rebellion, another blow against the system the same as us wagging school and drinking/smoking (other things we were underage for) on the back of the bus, etc. She thought it hilarious that she could go round to his house and eat with his wife who knew nothing about this. When the wife finally did find out she chased my friend down the garden with a set of electric hedge-trimmers: oh how we loled.
Several teachers knew about it but nothing was really done - she'd have denied it anyway. There was never full penetrative sex till after she was 16 - they'd just go down on each other. Now all of this was fine, and eventually they split up and got on with their lives. All fine that is until years later (roughly ten) when she discovered she wasn't the only one - once he had broken up with her he started a similar pattern with another pupil. THEN it became an issue. THEN she took him and a number of teachers to court and it was all over the local media.
Now I'm not saying the guy was doing right - he most definitely was not. He should never have been working with children. But still, it never sat quite right with me her taking him to court. Because I was there at the time, I know what she was like and she was no innocent groomed wallflower. So I'm not sure what I'm saying here - I certainly don't sympathise with Saville, but Peel is a true hero of mine and a marriage that is legal is something very different to a grope.
SACRED COW PEEL
TRUE HERO
fucking hell
where to start
You tell me...
... it's a gross story on a number of levels, but I put it here to invite debate and perhaps offer a viewpoint that a number of others on here don't have. So I'd say I gave you the start, now gimme your thoughts...
Few points.
1) The isn't whether people can say yes at the age of 14 but whether they're emotionally ready for the consequences and the possibility of being exploited. The fact that she felt the need to take him to court years later backs up the fact she probably wasn't.
2) 'Just going down on each other' would still get him on the sex offenders register.
3) I can see how the knowledge he didn't just get involved with one 14 year old girl but a string of them does make his actions worse. Whilst neither are 'right', there is a world of difference between someone who falls for a girl who happens to be under the age of consent and acts on it and someone who systematically targets underage grils as a preference.
4) Harsh though it sounds on the teachers, they clearly failed in their duty of care if they knew and didn't act on it.
5) I imagine she felt quite different about an older man taking interest in her as a 14 year old and looking back as a woman in her twenties - again pretty much exactly why people under the age of 16 are considered not to be emotionally ready for the consequences of sex. She might not have been an innocent wallflower but, from your description, she doesn't like she was mature enough to handle a relationship either.
Nah, the thing that ignited her desire to take him to court was finding out there were others...
... and that's what I never liked. If it was just her she would not have called it abuse - it was something 'special' between them. The emphasis, her perception of their relationship changed when she discovered it was predilection that he had for teenage girls. THEN she was being abused. And that is what pissed me off. The guy himself was clearly always a sick individual so I never had any sympathy for him, but I thought her actions lacked the wrong motivations.
if the guy had a pattern of this
it sounds like she was always being taken advantage of, whether she was aware of it or not
On the contrary I'd say that's exactly what made it abuse.
Making an underage girl feel special and convincing her you're interested in her for her unique maturity rather than how young she is and lying to her in order to get sexual gratification is pretty much as straightforward a definition of grooming as you're ever likely to get.
Equally, realising he was lying to her and had a predilection for teenage girls would have been the moment when she realised she had been taken advantage of, exploited and abused. I'd say her actions and motivations are natural and understandable in the circumstances.
I'd agree it was abuse, but my point remains...
... it just feels like jealousy to me. And their relationship was a special thing to both of them, they were together for years - it was not just some dirty older bastard kiddy-fiddling however simple it'd be to paint things as that.
She still, routinely, dates men with wives and they're usually older than her. Maybe this started with the guy at school but I don't think so - I think there's something deeper, but this is neither here nor there. To be honest, I think the whole recounting of my story is a reaction to Body-in_the_Thames abominable troll about all child abuse being black and white.
The reality is so much further from the truth it's ridiculous. The fact remains that in large sections of the very civilised world sex and marriage is perfectly legal and considered normal and socially acceptable at 14 and 15. To try and apply our legal definitions as universal moral truths is just dumb.
I...
..oh forget about it
Sadly I feel that you may need to re-evaluate what this relationship appears to have been.
Nah it was wrong as fuck, and clearly an abuse of sorts...
... this I don't deny. I also freely admit that I'm not 100% about how I think of it - these are just my recollections of how it was at the time and why I feel iffy about them. I know that by the time she was seeing him I was of the age that if I wanted to do something it was pretty much impossible to stop me - I was determined and and didn't really give much of a fuck. My mates were like that too. That's probably why we hung out together.
Anyway, I think it more wrong along the lines of an abuse of position on his part (that of his duty to care) and a general warpedness on her part. I suppose I think there's a degree of culpability on both parts - clearly far more his side than hers, not withstanding, but that it wasn't in this instance a simple case of someone taking advantage of someone else who is innocent and naive.
I'm not exactly sure what I am trying to illustrate, other than that there was a knowing and willful attempt to have a long-term underage affair on her part. All I can repeat is that she was not someone who was, and still is not, an obvious target. Loud and outgoing, boisterous, and even back then she was 6'1; these day's she's a police officer and has been most of her adult life.
She's also very much still a friend of mine so this is not some jaded recollection; we went to Primavera in 2010 and had ace times!
On a serious note though I am not trying to be an apologist for any abusers out there - please do not read that as my subtext. I just think it's an interesting perspective to look at this issue from - to point out that each case has it's own context.
It's something that colours my viewpoint on the issue of age of consent, and so in terms of recent discussions it would potentially prejudice my opinions on the consensual blowjobs and marriage of John Peel; to a lesser extent it'd influence the case for the teacher who ran away with the student to France. I don't think these were good decisions made by either parties, and the teacher especially is a massive cock for failing in his duty of care as a teacher and equally for writing such drivelly singer-songwriter guff.
But I don't think either cases can seriously be looked at side-by-side with the Jimmy Saville non-consensual molestation charges.
You're getting caught up in the consent issue here
but if John Peel did receive oral sex from a 13-year-old, then it was non-consensual, because a 13-year-old can't give consent. Not legally, not rationally.
In reply to point 2), the reasoning was that it wouldn't get him busted on a statuatory rape charge.
I'm not so certain on that.
It certainly legally constitutes sexual activity with a minor.
Oral, anal or digits would still count...
and as a teacher 16 does not apply, it would be 18 given his position in loco parentis
He wasn't a teacher, he was a technician...
... and the school only taught up to GCSE level, so there were no pupils over 16.
Technically he'd be classed as being in loco parentis still.
The thing to me is that, whilst what Peel did is clearly not as bad as the worst things Saville is accused of
but I would argue the worst things that Peel is accused of and appears to have admitted to (taking blowjobs off 13 year olds and a string of girls who may or may not have been underage in addition to the marriage to the 15 year old) are worse than the schoolteacher who ran off with a 15 year old girl he fell in love with the other week. And I didn't see that many people rushing in to defend the schoolteacher.
Of course none of this is to say Peel was a bad person - it's obviously about wrong actions rather than bad people and one can do something wrong without being a terrible human being, which actually I think is something which can get a bit lost in debates about men who sleep with underage girls in general.
What's important to me though is that it doesn't sit right to start judging people accused of potential sex offences by a standard of how much you like them in other aspects of their lives. Whether or not Peel is a musical hero has bugger-all do with the morality or acceptability of whatever he got up to in his private life.
just go on the social board
there were indie belms falling over themselves to defend him cos he was wearing a Ghost of a Thousand t-shirt. SACRED COW AYRE.
funny you should say that
I live in Brighton, and all those bands know everyone here. We all had a reet laff when we saw the TGOAT tshirt on a child abductor on the front of the Mirror last Monday morning... but this led me to a worrying notion.
Looking into the case of Jeremy Forrest, even though he was a 30 year old teacher who abused his position of trust by trying to elope with a 15 year old girl, just looking at the tshirts he was wearing in many photos (from Ghost Of A Thousand to Alexisonfire) led me to believe that this poor sod probably had the emotional age of a 17 year old (he wrote soppy My Chemical Romance-influenced love poetry to this girl ffs), and so probably did not have the maturity advantage over this girl as the media would have you believe.
don't be silly
I'm glad by the way that htis debate is widening
http://www.newstatesman.com/media/broadcast/2012/10/culture-permitted-saviles-abuses-goes-far-beyond-bbc
This is excellent
I will be sharing widely
and it certainly isn't just a thing of the past
That's a good article, thanks for the link.
My problem, specific to this thread, is that as soon as John Peel's name is mentioned in this type of discussion you get people weighing in saying that he's not as bad as Saville, or the Daily Mail just want to have a go at the BBC, as if that's the pertinent issue here.
I think that its a natural reaction
a lot of people liked the guy (or his image anyway) and looked up to him, and have trouble getting their head around the idea that he has a slightly grimy history. I know that I do. However, its also the case that each case is different, and should be treated differently, and that using the Saville case to then bring up Peel related stories, which have apparently been kicking around for a long time, and which do seem to be less serious in type (again, as far as i can tell) then it feels like a witch hunt rather than a serious investigation.
If the Peel allegations were bought up at a different point then I think people would have reacted differently. People will also eventually process and accept them for what they are in due course...regardless of his stature.
'in due course'..
this stuff about Peel didn't just come out yesterday.
Not defending anyone, but I don't think the cultural construct of the paedophile was so much a thing until the early 90s
Think maybe the Bulger killings - though obviously not involving paedophilia - ushered in a big national shift in attitudes towards the young.
Bill Wyman was well known to have had it off with a 13-year-old girl, and there was at the very least acceptance on behalf of tabloids, even fondness when they eventually tied the knot. That was the early 80s. If the equivalent happened now he'd have his house burned down and be thrown in jail...
Not going to over-analyse it, but there clearly HAS been a cultural shift and it's probably that some of those people would do diffrently if they've been born a couple of decades later.
It is a weird moral quandry, though... I do find the Wyman question fascinating, in that people continue to buy the music of the Stones in the way they wouldn't, say, Gary Glitter, and nobody's ever attempted to prosecute him that I know of... is that hypocritical of us..? Or is the lack of will to prosectute him just tacit admission that it was another time..?
Regarding the music buying part of your post
I think the Stones sales aren't really affected because if people do associate the name of the Rolling Stones with any individuals, then it's Mick and Keith. Had Bill Wyman been a solo artist I'd imagine there would have been a far more pronounced effect on sales.
In that case, why aren't Led Zeppelin sales affected
by Jimmy Page's relationship with a 13 year old groupie? Or indeed David Bowie (with the same girl)? Why isn't putting on a Jerry Lee Lewis record embarrassing in the way that playing Gary Glitter is?
One can argue 'it's all child abuse, and all child abuse is wrong and terrible' if they want, and maybe that's true, but there's obviously a different attitude to these people than towards a Jonathan King or Gary Glitter or Roman Polanski.
I don't think Roman Polanski ever gets treated as being in the same bracket as King or Glitter...
I seem to remember an interview with Helen Mirren
a few years ago in which she got in trouble for saying that occasionally girls get themselves into situations with men where they end up having sex because it is the easiest way out of the difficulty. She did not class that as 'rape' but part of the learning curve of being a young woman.
She said pretty much the same thing this year re: the assange rape claims- is this her "thing" now?
Jon Snow tells it how it is
http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/
Peel's misdemeanors
have been common knowledge since the 1970s, when he chose to address them himself.
Currently, the age of consent in France, Iceland & Denmark is 15. In Germany it's 14. In Italy & Spain it's 13 (albeit with certain restrictions).
Just sayin'...
That's the thing though, and what I don't get about people who justify it by saying Peel's marriage was legal.
Clearly having sex with a 13, 14 or 15 year old girl is still the same act no matter what country you're in or what the law is. It doesn't become any morally acceptable or unacceptable, just happens to be under a different legal jurisdiction.
Yes, some countries take a different view on it (Germany's is actually a bit more complex than simply being 14 incidentally), and you can agree with them or not but it seems to strange if anyone would judge the precise same action differently on a moral level simply because the laws of the country happen to be a bit different.
Surely the legal age is considered the acceptable moral boundry of that time and place.
and you (third person generic) can't say that 15 is always morally wrong. In the UK in 2012 it is consider so yes but 200 years ago you were practically left on the shelf as an unmarried girl of 16 - does that mean everyone back then was a massive peado? Some fundamentalis muslims consider a girl or has started menstruating old enough to get married, are they all peados?
(Ok I know I'm getting of the point now) I guess what I mean is cultural values change over time and there isn't a set age of when it is ok.
And that all your great granddads were massive peados.
Shit, re-reading that second sentance doesn't look good.
(not a semi-peado)
well, the point is not one about sex or teenage sexuality etc so the age of consent is a bit of a red herring
the point is about power and abuse
simply by looking at ages we can't say anything for definite about the nature of relationships between two people but we can certainly infer abusive or coercive power relationships between teacher and pupil and between professional working man and schoolgirl and absolutely between lifelong serial abuser and 60+ famous tv personality and child
for instance if a 13 year old gave a blow job to a 14 year old most people on hearing that wouldn't really raise a fuss because they would presume an equal power relationship - which incidentally may be FAR from the case
whereas if they heard of a 25 year old getting a blow job from a 13 year old they would presume a predatory relationship - which clearly seems more likely
as the case of the 14 year old & teacher upthread shows it may well be that the young female believes she is in control and giving consent and all the rest but later realisations can and often do change the whole experience and have grave consequences emotionally, psychologically & physically
I think each case needs to be simply taken on its individual merits - on the nature of the relationship and I think it is clear in that sense that Savile (if the allegations prove correct) was a lifelong serial abuser of children perhaps even to the point of arranging his entire TV career as some kind of trap to lure his victims into and his charity work as a get out of jail free card
This is serious abuse - this is a repeat offender enabled by an institution
and as such I think it is materially vastly different from Peel's case
having said that there's no doubt that Peel's position as an English DJ in the States put him in coercive relationships with minors while he was in his 20s
Precisely.
Historical and geographical changes of law and custom don't necessarily change the power dynamic, simply reflect what that society feels the power dynamic should be.
Historically women were essentially the property of men and the reason why nobody batted an eye lid at girls getting married at 13 or 14 was basically 'cos their rights and ability consent weren't seen as all that problem.
And yes, Savile (and it seems likely now the allegations are correct) was a lifelong abuser. Although that doesn't necessariyl mean the TV career was intended the lure victims or even that he didn't have a moral wish to give money to charity but certainly what he did was in an utterly different category to Peel.
thanks to
BITT for being one of the few people on this thread to not use it as a self-serving My Morals Are Bigger Than Your Morals baseball bat with which to beat other schmindies.
umm, bit embarrassing to be singled out for praise in a thread like this
but ta I guess
people have their own moral compasses and it's certainly a difficult subject to discuss in an atmosphere of moral panic and tabloid outrage
A lot of 13,14,15 year olds /are/ sexually active - whether they should be or who, if anyone, should judge them or instead guide them through this vulnerable period is a debate I think society ought to be having - especially in the face of the sexualisation and objectification in media and advertising of (particularly) young girls, and how they are expected to conform to certain 'idealised' standards of behaviour and appearance and general (consumer) lifestyle.
I hope that debate opens up but I guess it's not one to have in this thread