Cheek burn is the bane of my life!

wake_up_bomb wrote:
It's just become a joke term, like conspiracy theorist (best to sneer when you use that one). Politicians throw these labels about and get backed up by a compliant media. Kind of sad really.

andyh wrote: yep

what annoys me most about articles such as the one in the op and the comments that can be read about the article is that they attempt to 'exonerate' the paedophile - in essence what it is saying is that it is the fault of 'liberals' that children are abused - when the fault lies entirely in the abuser.

It doesnt matter how 'sexualised' children are - they are still children - just as it doesnt matter how many partners someone has or how drunk or what they are wearing - if they say no it means no. Abuse has been a part of human history throughout the ages the only difference to my mind is that it has been 'liberal' minds who have tended to speak out against the abuse and consider it as such. Whilst those with a less 'liberal' outlook have fought tooth and nail to retain their 'right' to abuse.

Guevarista wrote:


That made me proper laugh

Great thread Andyh

Good OP

Yep the scum will try and turn this back left and fucking wherever

We all know who has the power to squash stories of abuse.

thoreau wrote: You are, of course, completely correct, but I do believe that material in some newspapers and I think particularly some images that we see in advertising encourage us to view younger and younger girls (again, it's always girls, you never see a 15 year-old boy being 'sexualised') in a sexual way. I think it is legitimate to point this out, I just don't think it's legitimate for the Daily Mail to do it!

However, I think, overall, this is a far more complex issue that the moralising Daily Mail is ever likely to acknowledge. The age of consent differs across Europe:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe

And while in practical terms there obviously needs to be some legal guidance on this matter, I find it hard to believe that a girl who is 15 years and 364 days old is completely sexless in every way that you can possibly name, then one day later she has a fully adult sexuality. I don't think the legal system can ever satisfactorily deal with what is a highly nuanced subject.

For me personally, if I look at the images I see in fashion, which you can see in any high street shop, I think that the almost without exception waifish images that you see are far more damaging to the general psyche of the nation than the 'sexualisation of children'. I don't think the 'sexualisation of children' is really happening, there may be some sexualisation of mid-to-late teenage girls, but you'd surely have to draw a distinction between someone who has consensual sex with a 15 year-old - which would be legal in Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Monaco, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey, etc - particularly if the two people are close in age, and genuine paedophilia; ie. having non-consensual sex with someone who is not sexually developed.

If people aren't willing to acknowledge that girls in particular in their mid-teens, while not adults, have a developing sexuality and desires and are not children in the same way that an eight year-old is, which the article isn't willing to acknowledge, then I don't see how you can have a sensible discussion on the subject.

If you were to ask the question: "do fifteen year-old boys get horny?", you'd have to be a fucking idiot to think that they don't! But yet, theoretically, they can be treated as a child by the law, and are supposed to be completely unable to make decisions about whether or not they're in a suitable emotional state to have sex. That doesn't really tally with my recollection of what 15 year-old lads were like when I was at school!

How about we let teenagers alone?

And how about we let real relationships develope amongst them and their youthful peers.

And mature adults be attracted to mature adults AS mature adults.

And let kids be kids as they should be.

You made a good point WUB, we don't really see teenage boys being sexualised, and we should really question why girls and boys are treated so differently in the media.

Having actually been a teenage girl in the distant past, I can say that having older men leering, making comments and trying it on with you is totally grim. I used to hate it and had no interest at all in the sad old pervs.

Perhaps we should think about them as teenagers and not as adults in that regard.

I say again: between themsleves and nothing to do with us yet.

And moreover, let young adults alone.

Life is hard enough without more baggage.

I sort of agree with you there Mikey. They aren't children, but they aren't adults either. However, I do think that they need guidance, especially these days with the whole messed up porn culture. Young people need to be educated about what consensual sex is, and what it isn't.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote: I think it's legitimate for there to be some difference, but we seem to assume that 15 year-old lads would try to hump anything that moves, whereas 15 year-old girls are somehow being brainwashed and violated if they have sexual feelings. It has nothing to do with reality.
I can entirely understand this. Well, actually I can't, as you never get older women making leery remarks at you when you're a teenage boy! But I think if we're going to have a sensible discussion about the subject it has to be acknowledged that teenage girls have some sexuality both in terms of desires and appeal. Mrs. Concerned and Mrs. Moralistic from Tunbridge Wells might not like to hear about it, but it doesn't stop it from being the case.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
Well, at that age I was a horny little bugger, but I also thought that anyone over the age of 21 was officially no longer cool. I prefered people in a similar age range to me. I don't know what other SZ women think, but I found that as a teenage girl I attracted a lot of unwanted attention from some very unsavoury men who really were old enough to have know better.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that people should respect other peoples boundaries and not make them feel uncomfortable, or assault them in any way. Age, sex, whatever, it doesn' matter. This should just be accepted as a matter of course, but for some reason, some people feel entitled to invade people's boundaries. It's never acceptable.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote: I think it very much depends on the individual. The older you get, though, the less age gap seems significant. When it's 25-15, it seems massive, by 29-19 it's probably not a big deal, and by the time you're 49 and 39, no-one would blink an eyelid. My dad is about ten years older than my mum, and I think they must have started going out when my mum was a teenager. My dad's not a paedophile! Everything seems to be given sinister undertones nowadays, whereas sometimes we need to just take a step back and look at it a bit more calmly.

I never said your dad was a pedophile.

It's not cut and dried WUB. What I'm talking about are things like the fact that a married bloke kissed me - with tongues - in front of his wife at my friend's parents Yule party. I was only 16 and it was utterly mortifying. Never mind the fact that two men mistook me for a prostitute at Barking Tube Station. In fact, that happened a few times in Milton Keynes. I didn't look like a prostitute, they were just dirty old men and I happened to be on my own! You can appreciate a teenage girl without acting so inappropriately!

Age gaps mean a lot less as you get older, and two people having a healthy relationship like your parents is totally different to dodgy characters who get a rise from perving over teenage girls and making them feel uncomfortable. In fact, doing that is actually a form of sexual violence.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote: No apology necessary!

What you're saying, I largely agree with. There are predatory males, of course, and some of them do prey on younger girls. But I think we'll surely be in a stronger position to deal with this if we stop pretending that adolescents in their mid-teens are children with no sexuality, and equip them to deal with such situations. The first situation sounds utterly bizarre, but I have no doubt you would have dealt with the second situation capably.

I think we should absolutely equip all young people to deal with these situations. My experiences aren't unique, any female under the age of 20 seems to be a target. The younger men are just as bad!

Boys can be subjected to perving too. In fact, people of any sex and any age can be victims. I remember as a kid, my dad came back from doing a gig and was really upset because some bloke grabbed his cock when he went to use the urinal.

I think it's all about teaching people to respect each other's boundaries. What I'm trying to say is that we have adults who think it's ok to violate other adults, so it's not really surprising that we also have pedophiles preying upon children. Your body belongs to you, and nobody else has the right to touch it without your permission. I think we need to drum this into people from an early age.

thoreau wrote:
Zing!!!

Now try getting a daily mail reader like gremlin to spot that.
Their brains are literally wired NOT to see it.

Teaching media literacy to children and teens would also help imo.