High-Profile Sexual Abuse Epidemic

[GGG]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

You absolutely have to separate the art from the artist, in almost all cases.

I enjoy Bowie, Zeppelin, films that Woody Allen, Harvey Weinstein, and Kevin Spacey have been involved in. Not to mention the hundreds of films, albums, songs, pieces of art, and many other things abusers, criminals, etc have been involved in or produced.

I understand why some people can't, I don't think any less of them for it, but I enjoy pieces of art for what they are, not who made them. I don't think you have to forgive anyone for what they did, but good things are good things, regardless of anything else, just as bad things are bad things. I think it's important to be able to talk about them together, but with the understanding that they still exist on separate planes.

Do we have to forgive Phil Spector for murdering someone to enjoy the Beatles "Long and winding road"? Or enjoy the countless artists who were inspired by his wall of sound, for example?

I hope not. I don't. But that'd be a shame.

What if the Art comes after the Abuse?

I get not being able to change an emotional attachment to music that pre-exists the allegations of abuse. It’s a different thing to actively enjoy new art and form an emotional attachment to new art with for knowledge of the abuse.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

What did David Bowie ever do to anyone?

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

What did David Bowie ever do to anyone?

He had sex with underage girls.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

He had sex with underage girls.

The proper term is rape. The girls were 14.

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by troutman

The proper term is rape. The girls were 14.

Thank you. I hate the way the news media and, as a result, many people dance around the terms in order to avoid personal discomfort or to preserve the image of the perpetrator. Children cannot consent to sex so it's not "sex with an underage girl" or whatnot. It's rape and its about time we recognize the horror for what it is.

[afc wimbledon]

actually Bowie is accused by two women, one who said she slept with him when she was 13 and he was 15 in 1964, while not legally kosher in the UK in '64 it was hardly unusual and these days wouldnt be considered sexual abuse at all, the second accusation is by a woman who claims to have slept with Bowie, Jagger and Jimmy Page as a 16 year old groupie in LA in the mid seventies, her story is riddled with holes but she was well known on the scene in those days and on the whole I tend to believe her, she doesnt accuse him or any of the others of using force or in anyway abusing her and describes the interactions as being concentual and if anything initiated by her, there is a further third story being told by a comedian who says he met a girl who told him when she was 16 her friend slept with Bowie but he doesnt know the girls name or anything else, it was just a conversation he had with some girl about Bowie shagging her friend sometime in the 80's.

[dino7c]

take acquisitions seriously but being accused of something doesn't automatically make them guilty. We seemed to have forgotten that part lately.

[afc wimbledon]

I also think context is important, when I started working in group homes in the early eighties male teachers sleeping with older students was in no way uncommon, I worked with younger male staff who were my age, early twenties, who openly talked about sleeping with the older girls as a perk of the job, I never did and never thought it was ok but I never thought of it as 'abuse' when I was pretty much ok with sleeping with 17 an 18 year old girls as a 22 year old outside of work, the only part that weirded me out was the work part, not the age.

If one of my mates had been shagging a 17 year old when we were 24 or 25 I would have ribbed him unmercifully, made his life a living hell taking the piss out of him but back in the early eighties but I wouldn't have thought of that as abuse, nor would anyone have thought a rock star in his mid twenties shagging a teenager over 16 was anything other than a perk of being a rock star

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

actually Bowie is accused by two women, one who said she slept with him when she was 13 and he was 15 in 1964, while not legally kosher in the UK in '64 it was hardly unusual and these days wouldnt be considered sexual abuse at all, the second accusation is by a woman who claims to have slept with Bowie, Jagger and Jimmy Page as a 16 year old groupie in LA in the mid seventies, her story is riddled with holes but she was well known on the scene in those days and on the whole I tend to believe her, she doesnt accuse him or any of the others of using force or in anyway abusing her and describes the interactions as being concentual and if anything initiated by her, there is a further third story being told by a comedian who says he met a girl who told him when she was 16 her friend slept with Bowie but he doesnt know the girls name or anything else, it was just a conversation he had with some girl about Bowie shagging her friend sometime in the 80's.

Umm the #### are you talking about ? Lori mattox was born in 1958 and Bowie was born in 1947. David bowie had sex with her when she was 14 and he was 25.

It's alleged she then was basically "kidnapped" by ledzepplins manager to jimmy pages room. There is a 15 year age gap between the 2 .

Your miss representing the story's completely even if your talking about a different chick this also happened

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

I also think context is important, when I started working in group homes in the early eighties male teachers sleeping with older students was in no way uncommon, I worked with younger male staff who were my age, early twenties, who openly talked about sleeping with the older girls as a perk of the job, I never did and never thought it was ok but I never thought of it as 'abuse' when I was pretty much ok with sleeping with 17 an 18 year old girls as a 22 year old outside of work, the only part that weirded me out was the work part, not the age.

If one of my mates had been shagging a 17 year old when we were 24 or 25 I would have ribbed him unmercifully, made his life a living hell taking the piss out of him but back in the early eighties but I wouldn't have thought of that as abuse, nor would anyone have thought a rock star in his mid twenties shagging a teenager over 16 was anything other than a perk of being a rock star

Ya this troubles me as your a person who works with kids. This isn't something you should have ever been ok with. Me and my circle of friends didn't ever think this was ok and we actually laid the boots to a guy in our circle of friends who bragged about this . But we were heavily tattooed and peirced dirtbag metal heads so what would we know about right and wrong.

Your "in context" is what fuelled things for decades. The "back then" is a lazy excuse for justification.

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

You absolutely have to separate the art from the artist, in almost all cases.

I enjoy Bowie, Zeppelin, films that Woody Allen, Harvey Weinstein, and Kevin Spacey have been involved in. Not to mention the hundreds of films, albums, songs, pieces of art, and many other things abusers, criminals, etc have been involved in or produced.

I understand why some people can't, I don't think any less of them for it, but I enjoy pieces of art for what they are, not who made them. I don't think you have to forgive anyone for what they did, but good things are good things, regardless of anything else, just as bad things are bad things. I think it's important to be able to talk about them together, but with the understanding that they still exist on separate planes.

Do we have to forgive Phil Spector for murdering someone to enjoy the Beatles "Long and winding road"? Or enjoy the countless artists who were inspired by his wall of sound, for example?

I hope not. I don't. But that'd be a shame.

I don't think you seperate the artist from the art. The whole thing with art is it's a peice of them that they are displaying out to the world . Everything that makes them them they put that into their art. That's the whole bs that artist say any ways . " That's me on the canvas, that's me giving it my all on the mic". Artists have always promoted that that's "them in full" in their media form. Artists have always promoted themselves that the art isn't seperate from themselves. Its them raw on a page,canvas, filling what have you. So why should people seperate them from their art when the for decades have said the art is them and vice versa?

The answer is because now they have been caught they don't want the money to stop and as fans It's an easy excuse to still enjoy their work with a caveat that doesn't make you feel guilty.

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

What did David Bowie ever do to anyone?

Slept with a 14 when he was 25. Lori mattix.Same with jimmy page.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

I don't think you seperate the artist from the art. The whole thing with art is it's a peice of them that they are displaying out to the world . Everything that makes them them they put that into their art. That's the whole bs that artist say any ways . " That's me on the canvas, that's me giving it my all on the mic". Artists have always promoted that that's "them in full" in their media form. Artists have always promoted themselves that the art isn't seperate from themselves. Its them raw on a page,canvas, filling what have you. So why should people seperate them from their art when the for decades have said the art is them and vice versa?

The answer is because now they have been caught they don't want the money to stop and as fans It's an easy excuse to still enjoy their work with a caveat that doesn't make you feel guilty.

None of this really matters. How you view the artist in relation to the art is subjective. As I said, if you can't separate them, I don't blame you for that, nor do I think that's necessarily wrong, but I also think not doing so because the artist makes claims that it's a "piece of them" or whatever is pretty lazy. Sure, it's a piece of them, they created it, but that doesn't mean anything in terms of how you have to view it. Separating the art from the artist is not about removing the artist entirely, it's about viewing the art as it's own thing. They created it, of course they are in it. But art stands on its own. Fantastic, brilliant, kind and loving saints of people can create terrible art, and the exact opposite is true. Jimmy Page, the person, will never be bigger than Led Zeppelin IV. Its value to society as art transcends Page's value to society as a person.

Your answer is pretty mindless, anyway. I doubt very much Bowie, who is dead, cares about the money. And I don't have to make any excuse to throw on and deeply enjoy every minute of Ziggy Stardust without feeling guilty about it.

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

actually Bowie is accused by two women, one who said she slept with him when she was 13 and he was 15 in 1964, while not legally kosher in the UK in '64 it was hardly unusual and these days wouldnt be considered sexual abuse at all, the second accusation is by a woman who claims to have slept with Bowie, Jagger and Jimmy Page as a 16 year old groupie in LA in the mid seventies, her story is riddled with holes but she was well known on the scene in those days and on the whole I tend to believe her, she doesnt accuse him or any of the others of using force or in anyway abusing her and describes the interactions as being concentual and if anything initiated by her

For anyone curious (I was, so I read up on it), this is a much better description of what happened than combustible seemed to want to give credit for.

AFC and combustible are both off by a year (she was 15 at the time), but according to Mattix, she ran with some groupies that were basically with everyone of the time. She claims to have slept with a lot of them, but didn't view it as wrong or unusual, citing it as "of the time" herself.

There are definitely holes in her story where the timeline makes it somewhat unbelievable though. There's evidence of her with Jimmy Page, so there's little to question there, but there's no evidence of her ever having been with or even around Bowie and Jagger. She also says Bowie took her virginity, but when you match up her story back to the dates of the things she references, she would have met and been with Jimmy Page before Bowie (placing Bowie in the middle of her relationship with Page), and her run-in with Jagger happened in reference to a recording session that never occurred. So, it's sort of a "grain of salt" story, and questioning isn't really blaming the victim, since 40+ years later she did not think of herself as a victim then in any way.

She's a groupie that had some wild stories. Because some of them are true, all of them become believable, but all of them being believable doesn't necessarily make all of them true. And if they were, let's side with the "victim" in how we view them.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

Ya this troubles me as your a person who works with kids. This isn't something you should have ever been ok with. Me and my circle of friends didn't ever think this was ok and we actually laid the boots to a guy in our circle of friends who bragged about this . But we were heavily tattooed and peirced dirtbag metal heads so what would we know about right and wrong.

Your "in context" is what fuelled things for decades. The "back then" is a lazy excuse for justification.

Its not a justification, it's context, it doesnt make the actions right, it is something I take into account.
It is why I still read Kipling or Mark Twain but wouldnt read a book written now that thought the casual use of racist language was fine, nor would I read Mein Kampf even though it also comes from an era and society where anti semitism was fine, Hitler's life is also part of the context you judge his writing by.

[81MC]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

Ya this troubles me as your a person who works with kids. This isn't something you should have ever been ok with. Me and my circle of friends didn't ever think this was ok and we actually laid the boots to a guy in our circle of friends who bragged about this . But we were heavily tattooed and peirced dirtbag metal heads so what would we know about right and wrong.

Your "in context" is what fuelled things for decades. The "back then" is a lazy excuse for justification.

I’m with you.

Except age of consent is 16 in the UK, has been for some time. So by beating up anyone for having sex with a 17 year old, the only person committing a crime is you.

Do I agree with it? Not at all. But then again, what gives you the right to tell a young woman what she can and can’t do, and with whom?

[Cecil Terwilliger]

nm

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by 81MC

I’m with you.

Except age of consent is 16 in the UK, has been for some time. So by beating up anyone for having sex with a 17 year old, the only person committing a crime is you.

Do I agree with it? Not at all. But then again, what gives you the right to tell a young woman what she can and can’t do, and with whom?

Age of consent laws aren't in place to tell children what they can and can't do, they are in place to tell adults what the can and can't do to children.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by 81MC

Except age of consent is 16 in the UK, has been for some time. So by beating up anyone for having sex with a 17 year old, the only person committing a crime is you.

And Canada only 'recently' raised the age of consent to 16 in 2008 with some Romeo and Juliet laws in there. Most of us grew up when it was 14 across the board.

[troutman]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_o...tes#California

The age of consent, at the time applying only when the girl is the younger party, was 10 when California introduced its penal code in 1850. In 1889 the age of consent was raised to 14. In 1897 the age of consent became 16. The age of consent in California has been 18 since 1913. Some media sources reported that the age of consent in California in the 1970s was 14 or 16 but in fact it was and has been 18.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by 81MC

I’m with you.

Except age of consent is 16 in the UK, has been for some time. So by beating up anyone for having sex with a 17 year old, the only person committing a crime is you.

Do I agree with it? Not at all. But then again, what gives you the right to tell a young woman what she can and can’t do, and with whom?

I think maybe all of you are missing my point, I in no way think any teacher or youth worker sleeping with any client is ok, I dont think college prof's should be sleeping with their adult students, that is my 59 year old morality with a lifetime of experience of dealing with vulnerable clients has taught me in 2021, at 21 in 1981 when I first started working in a group home I had no clue about any of this, I was supervising kids, girls and boys of 14 to 19 who (generally the older ones) I would often see in the same clubs and bars I was going to, I actually had to change my hang outs to avoid this, I had no notion of vulnerabilty or a moral dimension in my first few years, I recognized that there was a standard of 'professionalism' I wished to maintain to keep my job.

In those days girls regularly got married at 16 and had kids, almost all kids left high school and started work at 16, in fact almost all of the kids I was supervising in the group home went to work every morning, several girls at my high school dropped out to get married and start a family, any girl over 16 was seen as an adult both legally and morally then.

I therefore draw a distinction in the way I judge the action of a 25 year old in the mid seventies who slept with a teenager they could reasonably assume was over 16 and so therefore seen as an adult in the context of that society, the equivalent to these days would be Leonardo DiCaprio, he is in his forties and dates mostly 20 year olds, I think that's skeezy as hell but I dont think he's a pervert just a pathetic human being