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.
(BTW, I realize that my language, which I normally try to keep PG-13 on this particular blog, has been getting a bit saltier lately. If it’s bothering anyone just let me know and I’ll stop.)
Oh, and also the “being twenty, looks like twelve” has got to be at least an exaggeration. Sure, I was mistaken for twelve once when I was twenty-five, but that was from a distance. I was asked whether I was over or under sixteen recently (I’m thirty-six now), but that was by a ticket seller who seemed tired and probably had his mind wandering a bit.
Lots of people look younger than they are up close as well, but not THAT much younger.
I am young looking. When I was in my mid-teens I was mistaken for my early teens. I was carded until I was in my middle thirties.
But yeah, 20 gets kids tickets… not likely. Not without effort.
This reminds me of some troll here (or possibly on some other site, I’m not absolutely certain) who told a story of a friend of his who went out to a bar, met a girl, they went home to his place and had sex, and then he found out that she was just seventeen and had used a fake ID to get into the bar (the age of consent where they lived was eighteen). Okay, I can buy that, stuff like that happens. Many teenagers too young to drink get fake ID:s and go into bars, and that probably leads to them meeting someone and have sex nowadays. This troll though was terribly concerned about his friend’s safety, because oh this devious girl could just run to the police anytime and have him thrown into prison for statutory rape!
NO SHE COULDN’T. If the police even bothered to take her accusations seriously there would be a trial first, a trial where her side could present zero evidence of rape, so the risk of him actually going to prison if she did this is absolutely diminuitive, while the risk of her being shamed all over the place for the foreseeable future would be huge.
I meant to write “meeting someone and have sex now and then”, not “nowadays”. Slip on the keyboard.
There’s also the question of why the hypothetical 17 year old would do that. Like most MRA hypotheticals, the answer seems to be “because women are evil”.
If Yasmine is NOT a dude trying to write like a young woman, I will be very surprised.
Judgybitch is just telling the truth – seems to me I remember Brooke Shields as a 10 year old looking a LOT older, so while you can take a photo of a 12 year old and make her look like a child, or a young women who is definitely looking. As a man, I’ve ordered a drink to see if she passed the “carding” of the establishment, only to find out after an evening of fun that she had a fake ID and was actually a lot younger…
So she’s lying, has and ID from a state agency saying she’s above a certain age, and yet I am supposed to be able to discern she is younger than that? This is just BS – it’s as simple as that. So 13 is probably a very reasonable age of consent – nature has decided if they are women if they are having periods – it’s as simple as that. If nature has decided she can give birth – regardless of man’s laws, she is an adult. You can stick you head in the sand – but that doesn’t change the fact that nature has decided she is an adult and that is all that matters in the end.
Cassandra: Salty language? what the the fuck do you mean?
Dvärghundspossen: A statutory rape charge would be possible. No force is required. Consent doesn’t change the crime (that’s why it’s statutory).
But… in most jurisdictions there is a level of affirmative defense.
1: there will be cross examination
2: Where they met will have to be explained
3: If she was in a bar (where the minimum age is 21) then presumptively he engaged in a reasonable level of diligence in that he assumed she was there legally.
This is a classic MRM argument to show that statutory rape is actually a social crime, because it “criminalises normal behavior”, which is also what Yasmine is arguing.
@Pecunium:
Sorry, didn’t make myself quite clear… I mean there’s likely no evidence that ANYTHING happened, if some time has passed, so there’s no evidence of a statutory rape either. If she were to go to the police the guy could just say “no, didn’t sleep with her”, his buddies back him up – and what’s she gonna do then?
That’s the point – these MRA folks think no evidence beyond “she said so” is ever required in rape trials. But as pointed out above in the thread, very few rape accusations go to trial and very few trials end in a conviction.
Right. Nothing but fame and fortune, which is what you’re showered with when you accuse powerful men of rape. Kind of like those men who waited until they were grown up before telling anyone they’d been raped by priests — just damn attention hogs, every last one of them.
[Note: This is pretty much the opposite of what I actually believe.]
I think someone has misread what I said. I never threatened anybody into bed. That wouldn’t work. Also, I didn’t sleep around with just any older guy, I had a couple of boyfriends while I was underage and yes, sex was involved. It doesn’t take treats to get a guy into bed, what I was meaning was, if they ever tried to make me do something I didn’t want to, I was perfectly prepared to threaten them with legal action. My point is, if an underage girl CHOOSES to have sex with an over age man, she has the power to ruin his reputation and possibly jail him on a whim. I’m not saying abuse doesn’t happen, I’m saying that lots of girls know this, and use it to protect themselves when getting into bed with people. I’ve had friends who refused to date guys their own age because then they wouldn’t have as much legal leverage as with older men.
As for how old I look, it’s mainly ’cause I’m short, barely 5 foot. If I don’t wear makeup and don’t talk too much, people assume I’m a child. I’m not trolling or exaggerating, I’m trying to make a point, which you seem determined not to get. It is this:
1 – Underage sex does not necessarily equal abuse. 2 – Making accusations when there is no evidence to back them up is simply spiteful. If these girls were abused (and I’m perfectly prepared to believe they might have been), they should have either made their accusations sooner, or not at all. Call trauma all you like, these girls have been adults for years, and they could have brought their cases to light sooner, when justice could actually have been meted out. As it is, we’ll probably not be able to convict any of the men, but their lives have been ruined. And don’t say they deserve it, not if they haven’t been proven guilty. Presumption of innocence applies to old men just as much as to anybody else, accusations should no be enough to condemn anybody.
EXACTLY! So, she gets a fake ID and goes to a bar – completely explicable action, fun and exciting. She sleeps with a guy – maybe she was horny and thought he was attractive. She goes to the police and scream rape – WHY?
Not saying there can’t possibly be a motivation for doing this, but you need some back story. The weird thing about MRA:s is that they think this is the kind of thing women do just for the heck of it.
I was about to say that reading the transcripts from any actual rape trial would make it clear how hard it is to get a conviction, but then I remembered that we were talking about people who have entire closets full of tinfoil headgear.
YAY! Your friends are assholes too!
Yasmine, you know that this blog has a back button, right? People can read what you wrote earlier. Also, it’s kind of hard to ruin the lives of people who’re already dead.
But everyone agreed with this. Everyone said people are ready for sex at different ages, but most very young people aren’t, that’s why there should be some kind of consent age. Not because it’s AUTOMATICALLY abuse when one partner is under a certain age.
Uh… no. Sure, the sooner it comes up the better, but late CAN often be better than never. For instance, might offer some protection to possible future victims if things come to light, might change a hush-hush cover-up culture in a company or institution if victims speak up even if it’s been ages.
Oh, pity the poor men who be almost inconvenienced.
Men are from Mars and women are from Venus! Men have proper manly hobbies like football and fishing, whereas when women get bored they go to the police and file false rape accusations.
^who would be
Other people have already said this on this thread, and said it way better. At the very least, you are woefully out of your depth here.
No evidence = only DNA evidence, apparently. Or evidence that Yasmine believes, because what Yasmine believes is the foundation of our justice system?
Liar. You would refuse to believe them if there was a signed confession and videotapes.
I’m awfully glad all the grownups coming forward to say they were raped by priests as children don’t think like you. Or some of those priests would still be raping other children.
Ah, I see, Justice has expired. Fuck off Yasmine.
Won’t anybody think of the poor rapists?
Presumption of innocence refers to the justice system. Private citizens are actually free to believe people innocent or guilty. You stupid pustule.
I’ve probably already been ninja’d, but damn if I’m going to do all that typing and then not post it.
…okay, I wanted to be nice and actually engage with what she wrote and all, but that just screams bullshit so loud I’m thinking we could start a fertilizer business here.
Yeah, Yasmine is a liar, and most likely a sockpuppet for some MRA. Next she’s going to talk about the time she spermjacked a dude, just like the rest of her friends did.
@Howard, yeah, that was REALLY unbelievable. Like, I’ve been a teenage girl. I’ve had teenage sex. I’ve been friends with loads of teenage girls having sex. I’ve never met (that isn’t to say they don’t exist at all, but they must be pretty fucking rare) anyone who chooses sex partners based on whom she could bully with police threats.