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.
Why is it that when people argue for lowering the age of consent, they seem to only have girls in mind?
It’s really, really skeevy, to say the very least…
(Also, hi, this is my first comment.)
Sakurabelle: They want to lower it for boys too; boys who get screwed at 13 (by women) are “lucky”.
Argenti will be along with your welcome package presently.
Have a seat on the (wooden) barstool, and enjoy a glass of the bitter tears of men.
Errr, wow. OK. Yasmine is an MRA. No doubt there. What other personas do you have in your repertoire? The sperm-jacking hussy? Or how about the hypothetical chick MRAs always refer to when they talk about the girl who cried rape an almost ruined a wonderful man’s life.
In b4 Argenti, with sakurabelle’s welcome package:
https://artistryforfeminismandkittens.wordpress.com/the-official-man-boobz-complimentary-welcome-package/
Welcome, sakurabelle! 🙂
Yep, whatever the gender of the kids involved, the people pushing for lowering the age of consent are at best self-delusional (see the Swedish sex blogger Dvarghundspossen described) and at worst proponents of child rape, whether they are rapists or wannabe rapists themselves.
I see cloudiah beat me to it with the welcome package! Pecunium, it’s hosted over at Artistry for Feminism. And Kittens now, link’s in the sidebar. No need to wait for me, you can hand them out 🙂
Welcome Sakurabella (love the nym!)
@Sakurabelle
I have nothing to add to what’s already been said, but welcome! 😀
I miss my cats, birds and son. They are visiting with grandparents while we still settle in to the new home. I keep having this dream that i lose track of brucie, the biggest baby snuggle kitty. All are going to love it here. So many things for the kid to do, mountains beach hiking. Lots of windows with sills wide enough for kitty butt sitting. I want my family back together. Couple more weeks.
Sounds like you’ve moved to a lovely place, trtina! ::turns green with envy:: 🙂
So, Avicenna, over at Freethought Blogs, posted a big response to JB’s post. (here)
He mostly manages to respond well, although it’s a wall of text so I just skimmed it.
And she shows up to respond.
Oh, joy.
…carefully eliding the nine-year-old there, great work.
Judgybitch has a real need to see women punished, no matter how old they are, or what was done to them. It’s sickening.
Oh, ffs! I’m not in favour of rape. What the hell? I’m just pointing out that girls under the age of consent are not necessarily poor little abuse victims with no agency or power. Sorry if that doesn’t fit with your world view, but I’m aware that girls can be intelligent enough to run ring around a man who is thinking with his dick. I’m not saying that this is necessarily one of those cases, I’m saying that until a court has made a judgement we’re just being prejudiced. Literally. And that’s not fair on the men, because being male doesn’t necessarily make you an abuser (even if you sleep with underage girls, though it’s a pretty bad idea to!)
Look. I’ve been raped. It wasn’t by an older man, and I didn’t take it to court because I thought it was too mean to put someone on the sex offenders register when he’d not yet even got his first job. And I’m not going to tell these girls they weren’t abused, they might have been. But publically outing someone is only appropriate if you have the evidence to back your goddamn claims up. Understand?
I’m not speaking for any lobby groups, I’m just sitting in bed on my own, expressing the thoughts that my own life experience has granted me. Your experiences may be different, and I don’t really care if you think I’m a bad person, but please have the courtesy to take what I say at face value.
Yasmine: fuck off.
You’re not promoting rape, you’re discouraging rape prosecution! There’s absolutely no causal connection there!
I notice that rape is the only major crime where the “but you’re ruining their future!” line comes out. If you murder someone, the response to “what about their future?” is (and should be) “You should have thought of that before you straight-up murdered someone!”
Nope.
WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE POOR RAPISTS?
(I say “major crime” because of course lots of people think your future shouldn’t be ruined for smoking pot, doing graffiti, or blowing up a water bottle.)
Can you find anyone here disagrees? Enough with the straw men.
Let me guess – you also think that the Steubenville rapists didn’t deserve to be convicted and put on the sex offender registry?
It’s no surprise blaming these girls comes from this vicious snob. She’s also one of those who pushes the evil lie that if you have sex for free you “lower the value of all women”, etc., etc. but if you have sex for money then you’re the greatest thing there is. Her blanket statements about women who aren’t prostitutes but who she considers “sluts” are disgusting and show she’s never bothered to seek out info about these women as far as their relationships go, etc. I alone could disprove her blanket statements in this area. Her sneering contempt for the overweight is no surprise either. Smug, sneering contempt for certain groups of people are “in”, unfortunately. She has fits over blanket statements, etc., about prostitutes, but those “sluts” they sure deserve stereotyping, etc. I imagine that my posting here now means I’m a MAN-HATER that revels in hating men, hating sex with men, etc., etc. I mean, according to this smug snob, the people who run this place and post here are horrible, right? LOL.
“Oh, ffs! I’m not in favour of rape. What the hell? I’m just pointing out that girls under the age of consent are not necessarily poor little abuse victims with no agency or power. ”
Well a rape victim is a victim, is that so hard to understand? If a girl enjoyed her sex with an older man, then why would she come out later crying rape after he died?
“Sorry if that doesn’t fit with your world view, but I’m aware that girls can be intelligent enough to run ring around a man who is thinking with his dick.”
Er, how? How would a girl do that? Others have pointed out that it would be very impractical, since only 3% of rapists actually go to jail, and the trials have to have some evidence. That’s not really smart, if a young girl does that. If a girl thinks she can, than she’s probably not ready for sex, especially with older men.
“I’m not saying that this is necessarily one of those cases, I’m saying that until a court has made a judgement we’re just being prejudiced. Literally. And that’s not fair on the men, because being male doesn’t necessarily make you an abuser (even if you sleep with underage girls, though it’s a pretty bad idea to!)”
When did anyone say that being male = abuser?
“Look. I’ve been raped. It wasn’t by an older man, and I didn’t take it to court because I thought it was too mean to put someone on the sex offenders register when he’d not yet even got his first job. And I’m not going to tell these girls they weren’t abused, they might have been. But publically outing someone is only appropriate if you have the evidence to back your goddamn claims up. Understand?”
Well first, cool story brah…
Wow… Because someone losing their chances at their first job as a legal consequence of doing something horrible is so much more important than a person’s right to NOT BE RAPED.
If you rape someone, you deserve to have your life ruined. That’s not some radfem hyperbole or anything. That’s just basic rights. Understand?
Also: HOW ELSE ARE THESE GIRLS SUPPOSED TO HAVE EVIDENCE? One of them was 9 years old. That’s not how justice works. If someone claims to have been raped and takes them to court, the court DECIDES if the claims are “backed up”.
“I’m not speaking for any lobby groups, I’m just sitting in bed on my own, expressing the thoughts that my own life experience has granted me. Your experiences may be different, and I don’t really care if you think I’m a bad person, but please have the courtesy to take what I say at face value.”
Troll harder darling.
Reblogged this on respectsexwork.
Okay.
I’ve just had a conversation with one of my friends, who said, and I will paraphrase for length:
“I was bullied a lot when I was younger, so when I entered my new class before graduating, the fact that everyone was treating me like a human being was shocked. I took me years to realize that they weren’t setting me up for a fall, they actually thought I was… well, not someone to be pushed out windows or beaten up in the yard”.
Let’s take your statement at face value.
You’ve been raped.
I am sorry to hear that. I am sorry that happened to you. That sucks.
You didn’t take it to court because you imagined it would be an impolite thing to do.
I am sorry to hear that. I am sorry that happened to you. I imagine seeing your own worth as being that low must suck.
You won’t tell someone they haven’t been abused, but you will tell them that unless they can prove it completely, they should be quiet about it (That’s what you’re saying).
I am sorry to hear that. I am sorry that happened to others. I imagine seeing the world like that must sucks.
You are just sitting here, expressing your own thoughts, and your experiences.
I am sorry to hear that. I imagine having those experiences must have sucked. I imagine it’s quite terrible.
Other than that, please see my answer attached here:
The song sums up my opinion quite well.
@Yasmine Assuming you are genuine & also not British (hope no one else is offended by that), you may not be aware of just how powerful Savile & his ilk were, especially in the seventies & eighties. There’s even an investigation into the West Yorkshire police force about their relationship with him (he would regularly have them for tea). He picked on vulnerable children & young girls that he knew no one would believe. I think some did try to speak out at the time. Not to mention it’s only relatively recent that sex abuse & rape have been openly discussed & acknowledged as actually taking place.
Yasmine, if you are being genuine, then you must have some shitty self esteem. I mean you got raped, and let him get away with it because… you might ruin his chances of at a job? Maybe he should have thought about that before raping you?
Also you’re just proving us right. Maybe those women didn’t come out about their abuse because they were like you. You can’t talk about how they should have had evidence and that they should have come out earlier, when you (supposedly) did the exact same thing, except you haven’t realized how you actually should have come out.
Ah, yes, we always forget about the important “people are not allowed to have opinions until a court case has been settled” clause.
Honestly, even if manipulative young girls were a scourge upon the land, prowling the United Kingdom looking for poor easily-swayed middle age men to exploit for no apparent reason, I would still think strict and unsympathetic-to-the-adults laws about child abuse and rape would be a good idea, because on the occasions where an adult rapes a child it is really important that the system be on the side of the child, and it is really easy for adults to just not have any kind of sexual relationship with children even if they think it’s consensual.
The fact that “young girls manipulate adult men” is an accurate description of these cases approximately never just makes it even more obvious that arguing for the accused is an apologist racket.