Pop and Rock Stars... and underage girls

[belboid]

But I was wrong while you were quoting me - I don't even see a Bill before Parliament yet.

Got its first reading a week or so ago. The Today show featured the Archers storyline to illustrate it.

It will be very difficult to get a conviction, I imagine, but not impossible. At the very least it should help to get across what coercive control is, which could help some people recognise it is happening to them.

 

[Rebelda]

Hit "post" too soon. It'll be called "coercive and controlling behaviour" and as far as I can tell it's only a Theresa May proposal...

Official announcement: Government to create new domestic abuse offence - News stories - GOV.UK

Oh i see. Interesting - I'm surprised/not surprised that until now it hasn't been an offence. A behavioural offence that requires documentary evidence it can't hurt i suppose but it seems like a drop in the ocean. "And what were you wearing when he coerced you madam? Had you had anything to drink?" Etc etc.

I think the point laptop is making is that there are laws planned to protect over-16s - anyone in particular - from the emotional abuse perpetrated by "control freak" partners. Recent, but it's a start.

Yep, i follow now. I was thinking more along the lines of, y'know, believing and not blaming the victims of abuse but like you say, it's a start.

 

[bluescreen]

It's in force from 29 December last. A useful summary here.
Controlling and coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship by Peter Doyle QC- 25 Bedford Row

 

[belboid]

Got it wrong! It didn't get its first reading, it came into effect - http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/9/section/76/enacted

 

[1927]

You saying Saville doesn't deserve the bad press?

Not at all. Justvfind it strange that certain pop stars and celebs are given latitude to transgress and others are crucified for similar behaviour.

 

[pogofish]

Did they? Yet they were invited on tv or to photo shoots, and given positive write-ups. To repeat, that couldn't happen today.

From what I remember, that story occupied the period when the period when attitudes to sex/other activities with underagers was very decisively changing - there was no one pivotal moment but over a couple of years, a whole lot of things changed.

It is worth remembering that Mandy Smith herself was already marked as a rather "unusual" young girl in the eyes of the media of the time - One of the 80's "Wild Child" girls (see also Amanda deCadenet and Tamara Beckwith), whose drunken "high life" antics in London clubs and affairs with often much older men (yes, including rock stars) were very much daily fare for the tabloids. In some ways they were probably the British equivalent or paralell of the Baby Groupies.

In the same period, the PIE scandal finally broke in the mainstream press and they were rapidly hounded out of lobbying/corridors of power, then a number of seriously unwise court judgments eg the one where child porn was described by a judge as being no-worse than collecting cigarette cards and the exposure of some serious amounts of child abuse in other cases finally prompted a widespread and serious rethink.

When the news of them broke, attitudes were probably grudgingly behind Wyman - but that didn't last long, probably not even till they married?

 

[trashpony]

Not at all. Justvfind it strange that certain pop stars and celebs are given latitude to transgress and others are crucified for similar behaviour.

I'm sorry but this is really beginning to piss me off (not picking on you especially - it's been everywhere). As far as I can tell, Lori Maddox slept with Bowie willingly. She gave consent. Whether a 13/14/15 year old is capable of giving informed consent is a separate discussion and one that it's worth having.

However, putting him (and pretty much every single male pop star in the 60s and 70s - I challenge you to find one who didn't sleep with an underage girl) into the same bad box as a paedophile who raped sleeping children, or a man who got his cab to turn around to fuck an unconscious woman (Evans) or a man who raped babies (Watkins) is really not at all helpful. It closes discussion and debate down.

 

[redsquirrel]

Hang on, the only evidence at all that Bowie slept with Lori Maddox seems to come from her. And now your calling her a deliberate liar?

Or you know that she might have misremembered.

 

[Favelado]

However, putting him (and pretty much every single male pop star in the 60s and 70s - I challenge you to find one who didn't sleep with an underage girl)

Cliff Richard.

 

[trashpony]

Cliff Richard.

They all ran really really fast in the opposite direction. Along with the boys

 

[existentialist]

Oh i see. Interesting - I'm surprised/not surprised that until now it hasn't been an offence. A behavioural offence that requires documentary evidence it can't hurt i suppose but it seems like a drop in the ocean. "And what were you wearing when he coerced you madam? Had you had anything to drink?" Etc etc.


Yep, i follow now. I was thinking more along the lines of, y'know, believing and not blaming the victims of abuse but like you say, it's a start.

I think we have come some way down the road of believing and not blaming abuse victims, although I don't deny that there is still a long way to go. But I do not regard laws as leaders of public opinion so much as a reflection of them, and the very fact that May felt it expedient to dangle such a proposed bill under our noses suggests a recognition of the fact that people are beginning to take this kind of thing seriously.

 

[Favelado]

I'm sorry but this is really beginning to piss me off (not picking on you especially - it's been everywhere). As far as I can tell, Lori Maddox slept with Bowie willingly. She gave consent. Whether a 13/14/15 year old is capable of giving informed consent is a separate discussion and one that it's worth having.
However, putting him (and pretty much every single male pop star in the 60s and 70s - I challenge you to find one who didn't sleep with an underage girl) into the same bad box as a paedophile who raped sleeping children, or a man who got his cab to turn around to fuck an unconscious woman (Evans) or a man who raped babies (Watkins) is really not at all helpful. It closes discussion and debate down.

How many underage girls did Bowie sleep with though? There's Lori Maddox, then there's Sable Starr. Did it stop there then?

Bad luck if you get lumped in with the more serious peados if you're just a semi-serious peado. Sorry if that's upsetting to you because Side 2 of Low is good.

 

[existentialist]

How many underage girls did Bowie sleep with though? There's Lori Maddox, then there's Sable Starr. Did it stop there then?

Bad luck if you get lumped in with the more serious peados if you're just a semi-serious peado. Sorry if that's upsetting to you because Side 2 of Low is good.

I don't think that's the point trashpony was making. Being just a little bit less binary about whether someone is a "peado" or not is not about excusing Bowie, but about the fact that lumping the likes of Bowie in with Evans or Watkins is completely unhelpful when it comes to any kind of discussion about motives, reasons, understanding of what they do.

As she says, "It closes discussion and debate down."

 

[trashpony]

How many underage girls did Bowie sleep with though? There's Lori Maddox, then there's Sable Starr. Did it stop there then?

Bad luck if you get lumped in with the more serious peados if you're just a semi-serious peado. Sorry if that's upsetting to you because Side 2 of Low is good.

I don't know.

Do you want a fucking spray can?

 

[laptop]

any kind of discussion about motives, reasons, understanding of what they do.

But that's what you mustn't have. Condemnation, loud and clear, is all that some will allow.

Is the point of closing down discussion that it must be all about the condemners - not those who have suffered nor those who might not suffer in future if there were understanding?

 

[Casually Red]

I always thought Bowie was a tedious twat so easy for me to condemn but, despite the role of Roy Harper's Stormcock as a soundscape throughout my entire adult life, I dropped it pretty damn quick on recognition of noncery. I can generally separate unpleasant characters from artistic output...but sex with underage children, with all the horrible allusions to power abuse, cowardly men seeking some sort of validation, affirmation, adoration...completely poisons past and future output from these craven swine. I could never listen to a single Peel show without the term paedophile racketing around my head and the likes of Craig Charles, however amusing my offspring found Red Dwarf, became verboten because I am unable to dismiss vile attitudes towards powerless minors. As for 'it was different then ' this is utter, utter shite - it was never different - abuse of children, regardless of physical sexual precocity is usually an attitude of despicable, objectifying scum who regard the bodies of minors as a personal playground. This attitude trumps all artistic virtue and stains it irrevocably.

Harper was a regular fixture of Zeppelins entourage for years . Page was fixated with him and the regularly collaborated . Right nest there and no mistake .

 

[Favelado]

I don't know.

Do you want a fucking spray can?

I don't know what that means but I like it. I'm going to use it.

 

[Mation]

This thread has really made me think - so thanks LiamO for starting it.

For me, I think the 'zero tolerance' approach raises my hackles because of my own underage experiences. It's a tricky one, because of course I absolutely think grown men should not ever have sex with children; but 15 year old me had a relationship - and eventually sex - with a grown man (21 fwiw). I have been thinking about it a lot for the last 24 hours and I reckon in my case, even with adult perspective, there was no power imbalance. And my conclusion is that it was down to sheer, blind luck. I could just as easily have been in an abusive relationship. Which is why there does need to be a clear cut age of consent, obviously. We can't be legislating that children under the age of 16 can have sex with adults, and we'll protect the unlucky ones. It doesn't work like that. HOWEVER the shouty approach has got under my skin, and I think it's because - for me - it's like having my own (fortunate) past mansplained to me. 'Absolutely not, you were manipulated/abused, despite how you feel, because I said so'. Not accusing anyone here of that btw, I mean the discussion in broad terms.

And here's the rub. The shouty, zero tolerance approach being put forward by men (I don't mean anyone here, really I don't, but sometimes discussion in these terms can feel like 'all men') - by the establishment - is getting up my nose, not because I think it's okay for powerful, adult men to have sex with underage girls, but because it feels (to me) like a triumphant absolution. The establishment, famous for not giving a flying fuck about the imbalance of power regarding adult women in consensual fucking relationships, are jumping up and down about this in a way that's pissing me off.

It's all difficult. When I was 15, my boyfriends, my schoolfriends' boyfriends were all mid-20s. My 24 year-old-boyfriend took me on holiday to Amsterdam for my 16th birthday. Everyone knew. Friends, family. I'm still in touch with some. There was no subsequent pattern of young teen girlfriends. It was just what was then.

I'm not excusing anything abusive, but its hard to feel that it was in my case, even while accepting that it might have been - I was certainly very vulnerable in many ways.

 

[killer b]

I agree (mostly) with you. AFAIK this thread has been the first time this conversation has ever been conducted in a (mostly) non-shouty way on here (barring the pantomime provided by 8den).

That was made possible IMO simply because, for the first time, we are discussing it in the context of someone who so many people on here have such a genuine love for.

this thread (the 2013 bump onwards) had some very useful discussion - I expect it's no surprise to you that the subject then was John Peel... http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/julie-burchill-on-john-peel.22786/page-5 (also interesting to contrast some people's change of views too. )

 

[Casually Red]

Yep. A lot of folk take "do what thou wilt" to mean "do what you like", when it's fairly obvious from Crowley's writing, and from accounts by his contemporaries that he meant "do what your will wishes you to do".
I've also seen people taking the "love under will" bit as some sort of endorsement of sexual slavery, when it's simply a call to control the power of the heart through the power of the mind.

Right so if your will tells you it'd be nice to fuck a kid you go ahead and do it then . That's crowleys advice. And page and Bowie oth seem to have took their guru crowleys advice to heart, and fucked some kids because their will dictated it so .

 

[Rebelda]

I'm not excusing anything abusive, but its hard to feel that it was in my case, even while accepting that it might have been - I was certainly very vulnerable in many ways.

Which is precisely why it's an important, interesting and educational discussion to have; and why shouting down anyone who has anything to say/remember/figure out for themselves isn't helpful. Not that the absolute legal terms aren't relevant or important - but here they are part of a wider discussion about people lives, memories and feelings.

 

[Casually Red]

Fair play to him.



Shame he couldn't have done so at the end. Maybe he has and we have yet to hear it.

I'd say his last message to the world was " after I die, please burn my hard drive "

 

[LiamO]

Hang on, the only evidence at all that Bowie slept with Lori Maddox seems to come from her. And now your calling her a deliberate liar? Theres some back to front fucking thinking going on there.

Let's not get shouty. there are several possible explanations for why she may get her precise age wrong.

1. She doesn't have a baldy notion cos she was a young kid stoned out her box at the time.

2. She is simply mis-remembering. This is not at all unusual.

3. She wants to believe she was older as it makes it all a little less sordid. She may well over time have come to believe that she was older.

4. Or the one I suggested which is kind of like the last one - except I, perhaps a little harshly, suggested she had made herself older to muddy the waters and protect her 'friends'... Messrs Bowie & Page.

Either way, human memory is plastic/pliable. Her birth date and the tour/concert dates which Thora posted are not. They are checkable facts. Thora checked them. I assume she would be perfectly happy to direct you to where you can check them for yourself.

Hardly. It's really easy to forget exactly how old you were when something happened, but dates of specific things don't change. I don't think Thora has discredited maddox at all.

I agree that Thora has not 'discredited'' Maddox at all. Nor do I believe that was her intention. She simply took Maddox's recollections and cross-checked them with the concert/tour dates. None of which makes her (e2a Maddox's) narrative any less compelling.

 

[Casually Red]

Yes, it says she met him on the spiders from mars tour, presumably the long beach gig, when she was 14. she met him again 'maybe five months later, and they had sex.' nowhere in that interview does she say they had sex after the long beach gig, thats why I assumed you had another source. That would also have made her 15 when she met Page, as she says. Given the only testimony we have of these events is hers then I'll take her word for it, not yours ta.

No shed have been 13 then, and he immediately tried to diddle her . She wouldn't go with him. So she was 14 when he eventually managed to drug and diddle her . Most likely after some grooming .

 

[comrade spurski]

Most people on this thread seem to accept that the law is not there to deal say a 14 or 15 year old having a sexual relationship with a 16 or 17 yr old...and are talking about adults in there mid 20s upwards having sex with under aged children/young people.

So with that in mind I think it is important for adults to be absolute (personally I prefer the word clear) about it is never acceptable for an adult to have sex with an under aged child/young person. Some of the things I read on here in the earlier genuinely disturbed or concerned me.

This doesn't mean that I think have the right to say that any/every/some one who have had these experiences as an under aged child /young person are damaged or scarred etc. That is nothing to do with me.

Children and young people under the age of 16 develop sexual crushes on older adults, probably always have and probably always will. There is obviously nothing wrong with this but...and this is the important bit for me...the only acceptable thing for an adult to do in that situation is to kindly decline.

For me being clear on this is not me being a man telling women how to view their experiences nor is it me "mansplaining" and nor is me shout or screaming others into submission. To be honest, while men are statistically more likely to be the adult and girls more likely to be the under aged child/young person, it is not unheard of that women are the adults or boys are under aged (I know this is complicated by the higher age of consent for gay sex back in the day due to homophobic laws so to avoid this I am referring to an equal age of consent of 16). In the cases of adult women and under aged boys it has been (and often still is) seen as a joke...lucky boy etc.

Many of us have negative experiences that have shaped us in positive ways and vice versa but in my honest opinion if an adult did something wrong to or with me when I was a child and I have used the experience to be a good and kind adult it does not mean that the adult in questioned should not be held to account.

Sorry for rambling.

 

[Casually Red]

They all ran really really fast in the opposite direction. Along with the boys

Deleted scene from Lord of the Flies ?

 

[LiamO]

this thread (the 2013 bump onwards) had some very useful discussion - I expect it's no surprise to you that the subject then was John Peel... http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/julie-burchill-on-john-peel.22786/page-5 (also interesting to contrast some people's change of views too. )

Interesting thread, from long before my time on here. I will read it properly sometime this week (back to work tomorrow).

And no, it's no surprise that a reasonable discussion was possible cos it was JP under discussion and JB doing the attacking.

It will be enlightening to chart various poster's progress/regression when time allows.

Actually just had a quick squint.

At least Casually Red got his explanation for his personal journey on this matter in in plenty of time. Pity 8den didn't listen to his advice

No 8den let's not leave aside a lot of things. The things we won't leave aside is she was 13 when Bowie..whose music I truly admire...drugged and fucked that 13 year old child .
Nor will we leave aside you thinking that's ticketyboo behaviour for any grown adult . Nor will we leave aside you deliberately lying about her age in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable .

I'd really advise you to drop this one . In the past I've made a cunt of myself sticking up for Elvis and John Peel . I was in denial because I really admired both of them over their contribution to music. Later I had a word with myself and realised despite that they were still exploiting kids for their own twisted gratification . And that was pretty despicable behaviour for grown men . Noncery actually .

And I'm not going to meet them in heaven someday and they'll go " thanks for that mate " . So why bother making a cunt out of yourself over this ? a creepy sounding one every time you try and justify the unjustifiable .

It's very very wrong to drug and fuck 13 year old kids . As a grown man you should instinctively know this . I did but I buried that instinct while defending 2 famous geezers far too dead to give a toss. And I really, truly and honestly regret that now.

 

[Casually Red]

They all ran really really fast in the opposite direction. Along with the boys

Nice suit . Saville Row ?

 

[Casually Red]

How many underage girls did Bowie sleep with though? There's Lori Maddox, then there's Sable Starr. Did it stop there then?

Bad luck if you get lumped in with the more serious peados if you're just a semi-serious peado. Sorry if that's upsetting to you because Side 2 of Low is good.

According to that Hammer of the Gods book, underage girls were regularly camped out outside rock stars hotel suites for days on end. All a nonce had to do was open the door and let one in. There's no way of knowing .

 

[8ball]

Between marriages, I did have a (brief) relationship with a woman who was just about young enough to have been my daughter. That causes the occasional curling of the toes, on reflection. Though she was 25 at the time, so I'm not making any terrible admissions here...

It's a million miles from what we're talking about tbf.
Age can be logarithmic in that respect.

25 vs 14 may as well be 100 years in my view.

Not that I have a thing for centenarians.