British barrister Barbara Hewson caused a bit of a stir last week when she called for the age of consent in Britain to be lowered to 13 so as to end the alleged “persecution of old men” like those arrested in the wake of the recent Jimmy Savile scandal, which revealed a widespread culture of sexual exploitation of underage girls (and some boys) at the BBC in the 1970s.
Now one female Men’s Rights Activist connected to hate site A Voice for Men has done Hewson one better, arguing that the real culprits in these scandals weren’t the predatory adult men but the girls they victimized.
Janet Bloomfield, a fairly regular contributor to terrorist-manifesto-posting AVFM who is better known as JudgyBitch, writes on her blog that:
[B]asically, the girls were groupies. They wanted all the benefits of hanging out with a big star and they understood it came with a price and they paid it, perhaps reluctantly, but with full knowledge that the trips to London and the fags and the sweet weren’t free. …
And now they are claiming the MEN abused THEM? Looks to me like it was the other way around.
Yes, Bloomfield apparently feels that these poor little rich men were robbed of cigarettes and candy and trips to London by predatory teenage girls. She continues:
It’s a story as old as bloody time. Young women with nothing to offer but their youth and sexuality chase after powerful men in exchange for favors. If we are going to arrest every powerful man who has ever availed himself of willing women, we are gonna need to build a whole lot of jails.
Uh, Judgy, in case you missed the point of the whole debate here, we’re not talking about women. We’re talking about girls. In the case of BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall, one of the victims that he has admitted to assaulting was nine years old at the time. Nine. Savile’s youngest alleged victim was an eight-year-old boy, and dozens of his alleged assaults were upon children in hospitals.
In the end, Bloomfield kind of, sort of, admits that the men may have behaved badly in these cases. But she still wants them to face zero legal repercussions.
Powerful men always have and always will delight in young women hunting them. Young women always have and always will hunt for powerful men. Both sides are equally culpable. Both sides are engaging in abuse. Both sides are behaving shamefully. Both side are being idiots.
But only one side is being held criminally responsible? Bullshit. If the girls are not going to be strung up on charges of solicitation and prostitution, and I absolutely do NOT think they should be, then fairness and equality under the law dictates the men get a pass, too.
Again, you may notice, Bloomfield cannot seem to decide whether or not these girls are in fact girls or “young women,” and in the two consecutive paragraphs right above you’ll notice she slides effortlessly between the two. Perhaps her desire to tag these girls “women” is an admission that, at least on some unconscious level, she knows what she’s arguing is beyond the moral pale.
Elsewhere in her post, she puts up pictures of underage girls whom she seems to think would be impossible to distinguish from adults. Here’s one, of a twelve-year-old model. (She also includes a creepily sexualized picture of the same model at age ten.)
Anyone unable to tell that this is a picture of a child, not an adult, shouldn’t be having sex with anyone.
And anyone as morally deficient as JudgyBitch shouldn’t be judging anyone.
Because it’s a lot easier to just pin the title of “slut” on any girl ever instead of hold a man accountable.
RE: those model photos, the kids in those pictures are (like adult models) usually covered in makeup and airbrushed or photoshopped to hell and back. Real 13 year olds don’t look like that.
(It doesn’t help that most of the supposedly adult-looking photos are still easily distinguishable as children at a glance)
What’s extra creepy is that JudgyBitch has children, so you’d think she’d know what kids look like.
(This is if we were to pretend that her argument that the men couldn’t be expected to know they were molesting kids is anything other than total bullshit, which we’re not going to do, right?)
Ugh, Jimmy Savile. The Sixth Doctor and Tegan were right to react with horror when Savile invaded the TARDIS in a weird little Doctor Who skit Savile hosted on his program Jim’ll Fix It (which was all about him granting a wish to a child, which certainly allowed him access to more children).
What really angers me with this Bloomfield piece is how she tries to claim both sides are at fault in their own ways. No, enough of trying to find a balanced viewpoint on these moments; these were rich and influential men who took advantage of children.
Most of JB’s posts read as if they are almost a parody with the twisted and backwards ass logic. I often find myself reading and thinking, “Is this for real?” Blaming children for abusing grown ass men. Yeah, that’s a healthy mentality right there.
Well she is right, men are obviously too stupid, horny, and greedy for little girl’s bodies, since they are programmed by evolution to go for the most fertile and best child bearing girls, so you can’t blame the men of course!
Anyone who disagrees with this is unfairly painting men as lustful animals that go after children, MISANDRY!
Hey, maybe she can be friends with Tom Martin!
Take a close look, MRAs: this is the garden path you walk down when you become obsessed with your bogus notions of equality and your backward analyses that cast sexualization and victimhood as positions of power. Now that you’re literally defending pedophiles (he said as though they didn’t do that plenty already), how much deeper can you dig, and can you ever reach the surface again?
I really don’t understand the resentment behind “why can’t men anonymously fuck anyone in any dark bar anywhere?”. I don’t—even if the girls were unrecognizable as children (which is clearly not the case), why isn’t it a a fair burden that men should make sure that they are not having intercourse with girls? HOW are they making it a civil rights issue that men should be able to anonymously fuck anyone in any dark bar anywhere.
JudgyBitch is a disgusting human.
Are we giving free advice? Advocating child abuse is a really bad way to win political support, MRAs. Even people who are as shitty as you are and therefore not actually offended by it aren’t going to want to be publicly associated with it.
No. No no no, no no no. NO.
Brain Bleach:
http://media-cache-ec4.pinimg.com/550x/a2/6e/f9/a26ef93f66723f3298319d6204a3df75.jpg
http://media-cache-ec2.pinimg.com/550x/cc/ee/de/cceedeb9954a6d423dd7a492d37b4487.jpg
http://media-cache-ec4.pinimg.com/550x/20/3c/1a/203c1a914e42d18bcf3b2060b699819f.jpg
http://media-cache-ak1.pinimg.com/550x/9b/6c/1d/9b6c1da7d26e9715611807ecc3cd43ca.jpg
If JB has daughters, she’s even more reprehensible. Is she going to think they’re whores and it’s their fault if they’re ever abused?
I’d rather be raised by wolves than have a mother like her.
Oh yes, let’s make the age of consent 13. It’s not as though anyone ever did anything stupid or irresponsible at THAT age. Why, you’re practically on the same mental/emotional/physical level as a 25 yr old, right? Right?
Yeah. I don’t buy it either.
What bothers me about the suggestion about lowering the age of consent is that she’s so obviously basing her ideas about what that age should be on the age at which she thinks a reasonable man might potentially be attracted to a girl, rather than on any idea of what might be best for the girl in question. I’ve seen this before from misogynists and it always creeps me out.
“Oh yes, let’s make the age of consent 13. It’s not as though anyone ever did anything stupid or irresponsible at THAT age. Why, you’re practically on the same mental/emotional/physical level as a 25 yr old, right? Right?”
Well I was dating the same abusive asshole…no wait, I was 19 the second time around, never mind.
Middle school! Fucking middle school kids! I don’t even…*hulk rage*
And here’s another sample to refer to when any MRA squeals that they’re not abuse and pedophilia advocates. NB not just apologists – advocates. It’s gone way past any attempts to minimise or dismiss pedophilia; this is outright promotion of child abuse.
Careful how you refer to it though, we’ve got Joe in the other thread assuming that a joke I made about Meller means that I was attributing Meller’s statements to him. Never underestimate how poor these people’s reading comprehension is. So if you say “an MRA said” they’ll go “I never said that!”.
Or demand we renounce TERFs constantly because all feminists are the same if all MRAs are and we make them renounce shit other MRAs say so why don’t we renounce TERFs…said in response to how are we supposed to distance ourselves from them beyond saying that they aren’t welcome…
Joe is confusing.
I had a guy try to grab me off the street when I was 13. And when I made it obvious that I wasn’t interested, and fully prepared to clock him with my flute case, he decided to jerk off in front of me. But that was totally my fault, for being female. And having breasts. I must have led him on, walking out of my junior high school, being all female. Yep, all my fault. That’s why he confessed as soon as the cops showed up, and pled guilty.
If anyone truly believes that Joe gives an honest fuck about the transphobia of radfems, I’ve got some swampland I’ll sell you cheap.
“So if you say “an MRA said” they’ll go “I never said that!”
And they call us a hivemind! 😛
hellkell, is it in the Everglades? I can think of a use for those alligators.
I was molested by a stranger at 8. Was it my womanly looks that made him do it?*
*I looked like a goddamn 8 year old.
Seriously, I just can’t get over how obvious it is that the needs of the children aren’t being considered at all in this scenario. All the idiot lawyer and the even more idiotic FEMRA are worried about is whether the child who’s being molested looks old enough for there to be plausible deniability that the man who wants to molest her isn’t a pedophile. They literally don’t think that the law should take the best interests of the child into account at all.
No, because what’s more important is that an adult male is being blamed for something, ohnoez.