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.
That is very forgiving of you. Now stop demanding that others be willing to ignore criminal behavior.
Yasmine: I’m saying that until a court has made a judgement we’re just being prejudiced. Literally.
Nope. We are being judgemental, yes. Based on the available evidence, my knowledge and experience I think they abused people.
I’d be dishonest if I said, “I’ll suspend judgement”. And I don’t have to suspend it, because I am not on the jury.
No one said being male makes one an abuser; but when this many people are all saying similar things; well my experience as an investigator (yes, I did forensic investigation, taught it too, for a living) leads me to believe they abused people.
You are being, “prejudiced” too, when you argue that all who say they were victimised are lying because they want attention (as opposed to you know, some sense of justice). I also see that you aren’t mentioning the boys: not all of those who came forward are female; why do you persist in ignoring that… were the boys in it for the ciggie and the sweets too? Did they also know that all they had to do was say, “sleep with me, or I’ll say you did and your’e fooked!”?.
But publically outing someone is only appropriate if you have the evidence to back your goddamn claims up. Understand?
And at trial we’ll find out, won’t we? But you, you think their ought not be a trial, because the victims waited too long. Some sense of justice you’ve got. If those children were raped, too fuckin’ bad, they didn’t speak up soon enough (which you know, children… not the most powerful people around; powerful men. Men with authority; abusing children who had none (orphans, and hospital patients, remember?)
Which is why we say you don’t give a watery-shit about men who rape children getting away with it.
Yasmine: I’m saying that until a court has made a judgement we’re just being prejudiced. Literally.
Nope. We are being judgemental, yes. Based on the available evidence, my knowledge and experience I think they abused people.
I’d be dishonest if I said, “I’ll suspend judgement”. And I don’t have to suspend it, because I am not on the jury.
No one said being male makes one an abuser; but when this many people are all saying similar things; well my experience as an investigator (yes, I did forensic investigation, taught it too, for a living) leads me to believe they abused people.
You are being, “prejudiced” too, when you argue that all who say they were victimised are lying because they want attention (as opposed to you know, some sense of justice). I also see that you aren’t mentioning the boys: not all of those who came forward are female; why do you persist in ignoring that… were the boys in it for the ciggie and the sweets too? Did they also know that all they had to do was say, “sleep with me, or I’ll say you did and your’e fooked!”?.
But publically outing someone is only appropriate if you have the evidence to back your goddamn claims up. Understand?
And at trial we’ll find out, won’t we? But you, you think their ought not be a trial, because the victims waited too long. Some sense of justice you’ve got. If those children were raped, too fuckin’ bad.
Which is why we say you don’t give a watery-shit about men who rape children getting away with it.
please have the courtesy to take what I say at face value.
I did. You don’t like what I saw in your face.
Damn… I don’t know why it doubled up like that.
I would like too add that Yasmine wants us to take her at face value (by which she means accept that her arguments are both sincere, and compelling; though they aren’t the latter, and I doubt the former), but us… we are just mouthing platitudes; she doesn’t seem to think we mean what we say.
Remember Pecunium, bringing a rapist to justice is “too mean”, since that would make everyone think he’s sex offender!
Not to mention that Yasmine wants us to take her, invisible and anonymous internet
trollcommenter, at face value, but she refuses to extend that belief to other rape victims. Saville’s victims, people with the courage to speak publicly? Lying liars, everyone knows nine-year-old kids have all the power when a man wants to rape them. But her? She must be believed!yeah, and we all know that merely being accused is the end of a career; acquittal won’t save you. That’s why Kobe Bryant is living in poverty, and the Duke boys were hounded out of school.
Getting Convicted (like Mike Tyson, or Marlon King; both of whom resumed their sporting careers after being convicted of rape).
You might think it’s only sports which have huge amounts of money at stake where getting convicted of rape will be overlooked, but Phil Taylor was convicted of rape, he got a fine, and went back to professional darts; no one seemed to care.
Of course there is <a href =http://www.ranker.com/list/famous-athletes-convicted-of-sexual-assault/sportsyeah?format=SLIDESHOW&page=4 Mel Hall
Good thing someone was, “looking for attention”, eh?
Why, one wonders, might someone not want to go public at the time, and only make a statement when someone else made the first move?
This might be why.
Because everyone wants attention, right?
I am having a little rage moment.
When you are nine years old and you are so terrified that you cannot speak or move because someone that everyone trusts and entrusted you to is doing unspeakable things to you
YOU DO NOT TAKE IT TO COURT!
Rape is a crime. Having sex with someone under the age of consent is rape. Even in a situation where a person under the age of consent is the initiator, the adult is supposed to say no. Period. There is no excuse to be made.
As for JB’s blatherings, it’s not robbing anyone of their agency to require them to wait a few years at least before they can have sex with an adult, no moreso than it’s robbing them of their agency to require people be a certain age to vote, or drive, or any number of other things we place age requirements on.
Okay, assuming you’re telling the truth, it’s your life, you do what you want about this…
But HOW THE HECK IS IT MEAN TO PUT A SEX OFFENDER ON THE SEX OFFENDERS REGISTER?
Also, please explain how a girl could use her saying a man raped her as blackmail when THERE IS A 3 PERCENT CHANCE RAPISTS SEE PRISON TIME
i would not blackmail anyone w/ a 3 percent chance of it not biting me on the ass.
“As for JB’s blatherings, it’s not robbing anyone of their agency to require them to wait a few years at least before they can have sex with an adult”
Gah, that grossed me out. My father waited until the girl’s sixteenth birthday to have sex with her, so it wouldn’t be illegal (just immoral – he was in his thirties). Hard to call what he’d been doing until then anything but grooming.
To make it clear, I’m not implying that the victims in this case were the initiators, in response to Yasmine’s comments, I’m saying that even IF that had been the case, they would still be victims of child sexual abuse.
Yasmine, people can take you at face value and still think you’re wrong. Identifying yourself as a victim doesn’t mean that people are obliged to act as if other victims must make the same choices you did.
I’m sorry that you didn’t feel that your bodily integrity was important enough for someone to face consequences as a result of violating it. I really am – I can’t even imagine valuing myself so little, and I hate to think what might have happened to make you feel that way about yourself. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to let you silence other victims.
Yeah, I really wasn’t sure what the best way to phrase that was (hence, the “at least”). I guess my main point was that having age limits on sex is not robbing anyone of their agency. I hadn’t taken grooming situations into account when I wrote that, though.
No worries, I got what you meant – responding to JB’s toxicnonsense – it just reminded me of family history. Blech.
Admittedly, I’m not a big fan of sex offender registries; aside from logistical issues and the public-urination issue, Yasmine is demonstrating how they can have a negative effect on convictions as a whole.
It’s also silly to wank about the age of consent robbing children of agency given that our entire legal and medical system assumes that the agency of children is limited. There are all kinds of things that people aren’t allowed to do until a certain age – why should sex be an exception? Especially given that sex can result in pregnancy, which even with the best medical care in the world remains a potentially lethal condition.
I have some serious reservations about registries, across the board; and Yasmine is giving even more for my dislike of them for sex-offenders.
That I dislike them of course, will be ignored by the MRAs, and their fellow travellers.
Count me as another who’s not a fan of registries.
Hi, feminist here, also with concerns about sex offender registries, at least the way they are currently used in the US. But I am in favor of jailing offenders after a fair trial, though I think the way we run jails/prisons here is a travesty of justice and wish we focused more on treatment and rehabilitation rather than merely punishment.
Hell, I was reading a story the other day about how one of the strategies they’re using in prisons these days is to medicate the hell out of prisoners with pain meds (rather than treating the conditions causing pain) and anti-depressants, and then releasing them addicted to those medications, forcing them to go cold turkey. It’s amazing the recidivism rate isn’t higher.
For my next career, I want to focus on prison reform.
Yasmin – what sort of evidence are you talking about? There isn’t always physical evidence (if that’s what you mean), there are usually no witnesses… so should no-one ever come forward unless they have DNA evidence, or video evidence, or… ? I mean, what?
@cloudiah
Holy shit, I am disgusted. how did anyone think that was a good idea?
So, speaking of “evidence” that is acceptable to MRAs and MRA fellow travelers (like Yasmine), the misters on Reddit have been crowing about the fact that many of the sexual assault/abuse claims in the military have been found to be unfounded.
I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that those doing the investigating appear to overlap with those doing the offending.
Nah, probably no connection there.
/sarcasm
Video evidence AND witnesses AND a signed confession from the perp that was recorded on video while zie was writing it. If you don’t have all of these things and you report a rape you’re just persecuting the rapist because you’re prejudiced against…rapists, I guess?
But a signed videoed confession would obviously be coerced! How can one believe such a thing? /sarcasm
cloudiah: re sex offenses in the military, the MRM is ignoring a Pentagon report which says the majority of victims are male.
Mind you, the vast majority of the people committing the assaults are male…