bellaozzydog
rolling turds in glitter
I’m fairly sure it would get you in some bother in 1889
Caveat: depending on your class status
'It was a different time': excusing/minimising bad behaviour in the past
- Thread starter Orang Utan
- Start date
Caveat: depending on your class status
8ball
Decolonise colons!
I think that caveat still applies a lot of the time.
bellaozzydog
rolling turds in glitter
Cloo
Banana for scale
I definitely remember older blokes letching at young girls just being considered a joke, what cheeky scamps and with the Mandy Smith thing the papers were all 'Lucky old devil, eh?'
There was then, and remains now with some older people, a profound lack of understanding about power relations - 'Well, sure she's young but she gets his money, they both know what they're getting into, and anyway she keeps going back to him, she must want it' or 'I wouldn't mind it if young ladies whistled at me in the streets' or older women saying 'Women have always been able to use sex to get what they want' . Although forcing yourself to sleep with someone you're not attracted to and may even despise to get something he's a gatekeeper to (which he can decide not to grant you once he's fucked you and you won't have any way to object) is not a superpower, it's a humiliation
There was then, and remains now with some older people, a profound lack of understanding about power relations - 'Well, sure she's young but she gets his money, they both know what they're getting into, and anyway she keeps going back to him, she must want it' or 'I wouldn't mind it if young ladies whistled at me in the streets' or older women saying 'Women have always been able to use sex to get what they want' . Although forcing yourself to sleep with someone you're not attracted to and may even despise to get something he's a gatekeeper to (which he can decide not to grant you once he's fucked you and you won't have any way to object) is not a superpower, it's a humiliation
friedaweed
Me and me girl named Jane
One of my PE teachers married a girl that was in my year at school. They're still married. I only found out about 20 years later when I ended up working with her and her name had changed and I made a joke about one of our old teachers and she said "Yes that's who I'm married to".
Thora
Differently Ethical
This is totally downplaying it, I'm surprised anyone would argue differently. Talking about raping his daughter as 'adulteries' and 'relationships'.
izz
Increased Leisure Citizen
Progress innit ? It's progress that makes us look back at, for example, comedy that was considered acceptable but we consider racist as all hell now. As a friend of ours often says, child brothels were relatively common in Victorian London. Should we excuse that ? No of course not, we should remain shocked by the heinous stuff that happened in the past as a jolly good way of not repeating it in the future and be grateful that we've evolved a tad.
I do think though, that separating the art from the artist is a good thing, lets us judge the art solely on its merits. I also think that alongside the works by Eric Gill should be placed plaques detailing his transgressions.
I do think though, that separating the art from the artist is a good thing, lets us judge the art solely on its merits. I also think that alongside the works by Eric Gill should be placed plaques detailing his transgressions.
story
Changing the facts
While it remains impossible for anyone to understand what it’s like to be inside an abusive relationship, this will never be resolved though.
Even people who’ve been inside an abusive relationship find it bewildering.
Plus the incredibly difficult thing about internalised misogyny etc that leads people to accept normalise and excuse what is happening to them even while it is happening.
We’re seeing some of this going on with the Andree Tate situation. He’s very clevery targeted women who are more likely to “accept” this kind of relationship. Women who indicate, by their dress codes and manner, that they buy into the whole alpha male /dolly bird dynamic. Lots of women saying “yeah but I like this, he’s alright” etc. One of his “girlfriends” has been showing her “Tate girl” tattoo.
Ifs not just the profound misunderstanding of the power dynamic, it’s also the normalisation of it that perpetuates it, for the victims as well as the abusers.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Some of this stuff is not that long ago at all, for example R Kelly’s grooming of Aaliyah was virtually done in public, alongside his other crimes that were enabled by his entourage (and some fans to a certain extent - his behaviour at concerts and backstage was seen by many who looked the other way)
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Or perhaps you go the other way and just give the title of the work, a year and the name of the artist, and don't go into it any more than that. So you don't tell the story of how it was made or mention the artist's intentions, artistic project, etc, either.
One of the issues here, imho, is that galleries/museums tend generally not to separate the art from the artist as much as perhaps they should.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
which is exactly what happens, without going into upsetting detail, using extracts from Gill's diary. It details the abusive encounters plus random assignations with Edwardian sex workers in public places.
I think it would be a very harsh reading to suggest this book is downplaying / excusing what happened. Quite the opposite, and it caused a major scandal at the time. The context of the late 80s on the thread and how these issues were discussed (and often belittled / dismissed) are also important.
Gill did make some beautiful sculpture but was a very dark, ugly, narcissistic, absuive soul. It's difficult to see his work- the remarkable reliefs in the Midland Hotel in Morecambe, his fonts, Propsero & Ariel, the reliefs of the Four Winds at St. James' Park station- without thinking of Fiona's book.
Cloo
Banana for scale
I've certainly heard people taking about Epstein's underage girls and saying 'But they kept going back, they made money off him' as if that made it a straightforward transaction. And not that he had specifically targeted young, poor girls. But as you say story - this type of abuse is normalised as though both parties get a benefit so that makes it ok.
pogofish
Testicle Hairstyle
I'd say that in a rather fucked-up way it was couched as some kind of widening of equality/inclusivity.
Certainly with societal pressure on sometimes very young girls to get-in there and get on with it. "Youth"/young adult culture was also much less of a thing and occupied a much smaller band between childhood and full adulthood.
pogofish
Testicle Hairstyle
It was ongoing at the same time but on a rather different level.
story
Changing the facts
For the record, I haven’t said it’s not downplaying it. I’m saying I think it’s more complicated than that.
I can see that it looks like downplaying it, but I think it’s another aspect of reading it from the perspective of now or back then (which is the problem we’re discussing). And it’s the intro, I think that‘s also relevant but whether I’m right or wrong on that depends on how it’s presented in the main text.
Maybe my perspective is skewed because of my own experiemces, as outlined above. Maybe by the fact that I rember the outrage that accompanied publication of the book. I had no idea who Gill was at the time, this was my introduction to him and therefore in my head he is “abusive rapist, who also made art”.
Maybe there was some reason why the writer had to explain or soften the way they were going to bring this information to the fore. Was Gill a sacred cow at the time? I don’t know. Was it massively problematic to the point of obstructing publication to say these things? Don’t know.
I hope this doesn’t read like some kind of acceptance of any of this heinous shit.
Plumdaff
joy in people
I have heard older relatives discussing a family member who was sexually abused by her step dad as " deliberately flirtatious". As if that behaviour wasn't introduced, encouraged, and reinforced by her fucking nonce abuser.
There's so much internalised misogyny and tolerance of fuck up power dynamics in our society it's unbelievable, and this stuff was uncontested common sense only twenty or so years ago.
There's so much internalised misogyny and tolerance of fuck up power dynamics in our society it's unbelievable, and this stuff was uncontested common sense only twenty or so years ago.
pogofish
Testicle Hairstyle
IME the Police just weren't that interested - So long as there was no great trouble outside, or active complaints to force their hand, pubs and clubs frequented by underagers were largely left alone as long as they kept the lid on it. There was also an element of - "we want to know where it happens so we can keep our eyes on it" going on.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
I once got booted from another site somewhere because I said as you go further back in time the odds of a bloke doing or supporting something considered dodgy today increases to an almost certainty.
A couple of much older gentlemen apparently took offence to that but I stand by it. Unless your shit is whiter than white and you’ve been a fucking saint as a teen in the 50s and 60s then it’s a miracle and we should probably go ahead and bag you for rarity value.
A couple of much older gentlemen apparently took offence to that but I stand by it. Unless your shit is whiter than white and you’ve been a fucking saint as a teen in the 50s and 60s then it’s a miracle and we should probably go ahead and bag you for rarity value.
story
Changing the facts
The Pill was finally permitted for unmarried women in the UK in 1967 (1972 in the USA).
Bill Wyman married Mandy Smith in 1983. She was 13, so born in 1970. The Pill had been available for single women 16 years by the time she was married.
Whatever social changes were caused by the Pill had happened very recently, but for us, at that time, it was background normal. No one used jonnies (HIV hadn’t really hit heteroworld yet) you just assumed someone was on the Pill.
Point being that while sexual mores for us teens was based on the Pill and no fear of pregnancy, we were still operating within the larger structures of what went before and the context of the seismic effects caused by the Pill.
I guess in some ways we were working blind in the 70s and early 80s
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littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Can you give some examples of the kinds of thing you mean? That doesn't sound right to me at all.
ElizabethofYork
Old Crone
Absolutely. I remember my parents in the 70s and 80s saying things like "poor men being tricked by those young girls - how are they supposed to know how old they are when they dress up like that?"
Seems unbelievable now, but that was a common attitude.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Just from my own childhood growing up with dodgy as hell language, sexist tv shows, racist tv shows. Homophobia on the playground.
It gets worse as you go back as some very every day shit got a pass, namely LADS LADS culture and ignoring some arsehole behaviour - especially if your in the services.
You can know better now but this stuff was all over at one point in ways you can’t imagine things getting a pass these days.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I guess my counterargument to that would be to ask how much things have really changed. On other threads on here, you have people saying more or less the opposite - that the existence of the likes of Joe Rogan or that bloke in Romania whose name escapes me shows how young boys today are internalising misogyny like never before.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Tate and his like are a symptom of a reactionary impulse against progress. Things are better but as a response to that capital has bred things in the darkness that take advantage of generational differences to hit those unable to defend themselves and market to them.
(Tl:dr Tate and co are complicated)
bimble
floofy
This sounds about right to me. Just on the subject of consent, I think times really have changed for the better.
There's this old saying, I can't remember where it came from but it stuck in my head when i heard it, that went "if a lady says no she means maybe and if she says maybe she means yes". That's as dated now as the lyrics to baby its cold outside. .
It's good if we can acknowledge a bit of progress when we see it and i do think that's something which has improved, due to the efforts of lots of women, over a generation or two.
pogofish
Testicle Hairstyle
The widespread prescribing of the Pill to underage girls didn't become a major thing until into the 1970s - For a few years after 1967, it was still not uncommon for GPs to refuse to prescribe to unmarried women (or send them to an FP clinic) and some still refused to prescribe it at all. All the sexual health advice I remember from that period concentrated on barrier methods for unmarried people. By the late 1970s until Gillick, it had become very common though.
Mandy Smith was one of the major turning points though - In the year or so leading-up to Wyman she was constantly plastered over the Red Tops as one of the leading "Temptresses" of the Wild Child thing. Usually in an absolute messed-up state and with a succession of much older men.
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8ball
Decolonise colons!
You don’t think they’ll have other pre-occupations while they scavenge for rats in the trenches and tunnels they dug in which to hide from The Machines?
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Starry Wisdom
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