Clearly "in-trouble", ex-star, G.Glitter has recently been returned to us in the U.K. and I'm sure everyone is quite upset. However I am often concerned as to the validity of people's offence, or even anger, at the return of Mr. G. The cause of their upset is no doubt rooted in his release for serving almost a three-year sentence in Thailand accused of paedophilia. But the reaction of Glitter's supposed U.K. peers concerns me for two reasons:
The girl was probably a hooker. Something a great many people in this country tolerate all the time in this country, but especially when they themselves choose to play away abroad (the "Brit-on-Hols" amoralist, which is fast-becoming an enduring stereotype.) What offends us is more of an aesthetic sentiment, than a moral one. Correct, it is very wrong to abuse, or to sleep with a child that is under the age of sixteen (interestingly, a few days ago Glitter said that he did not know the legal age for sexual intercourse in Thailand is eighteen years of age) for many good, shall I say, "pragmatic" reasons. However, I can't help but feel that what upsets us more, is the fact that we cannot appreciate why or even how a consensual adult might find a person under the age of sixteen sexually attractive, for the majority of U.K. residents this is, simply put: A substantial head-fuck (I don't know the medical-Latin.)
And whilst I realise it would be a fickle and naive thing to claim outright that people who object to paedophilia on the grounds that it is not our cultural way of engaging in sexual relations with another person; that it is essentially a matter of taste, I think it would also be an act of powerful self-deception to say that most people dislike paedophiles, and are consistenly ill-prepared to give them a second chance, because we find them disgusting and repellent. We are angry not because of what they have "done" to another person, the interaction might have been mutually pleasurable, this is a side we never do, or (justifiably) want to, see, and so we cannot allow that it might have had any positive outcomes at all.
What becomes clear is that we are not so much angry with the crime itself but with the age of the particular persons involved, it is the nature of the intercourse that causes us offence. This once again lends itself strongly to the hypocrisy/hysteria/Much Red-top banner waving we can expect in the coming days and weeks.
Glitter himself has called into question the fairness of his trial and in the statement given this morning by his solicitor at Uxbridge Crown Court it was hinted that the trial might have taken place under illegal circumstances, Glitter's right of appeal was never considered by the Thai court, and so it should be considered null and void in the U.K. However, this really is a moot point. Glitter was previously convicted of child pornography offences (in the U.K.) back in 1999, so in the eyes of the law he is already damned and this case seems merely to confirm his predilection for small children. Not only that, the damage to his reputation and ability to live openly is damaged irreparably. The problem is that we as a nation have become so, overly-sensitive to the "p-word" a love that cannot even whisper its name, that we come to near hysteria over suspected or even confirmed paedophiles, even though they might have been forced into early-retirement by chemical castration, in the very British manner that we look for things to complain about, we get all 1984, and start to see the potential for paedophiles everywhere (restrictions on the use of cameras at schools is a good example) which, I feel, also invites cause reasonable for reasonable doubt, and as such we have allegations and slander, without evidence or proof, and yet it still it seems to carry the resounding power to ruin "normal", good-people's lives, who are in reality (i.e. sans-media hype) perfectly innocent.
p.s. It's also very hard to accept, from an aesthetic point of view, that G.G.'s hair looked better in the Glam-days than his current Machiavellian beard, which I think is doing his social persona, no favours at all.
The girl was probably a hooker. Something a great many people in this country tolerate all the time in this country, but especially when they themselves choose to play away abroad (the "Brit-on-Hols" amoralist, which is fast-becoming an enduring stereotype.) What offends us is more of an aesthetic sentiment, than a moral one. Correct, it is very wrong to abuse, or to sleep with a child that is under the age of sixteen (interestingly, a few days ago Glitter said that he did not know the legal age for sexual intercourse in Thailand is eighteen years of age) for many good, shall I say, "pragmatic" reasons. However, I can't help but feel that what upsets us more, is the fact that we cannot appreciate why or even how a consensual adult might find a person under the age of sixteen sexually attractive, for the majority of U.K. residents this is, simply put: A substantial head-fuck (I don't know the medical-Latin.)
And whilst I realise it would be a fickle and naive thing to claim outright that people who object to paedophilia on the grounds that it is not our cultural way of engaging in sexual relations with another person; that it is essentially a matter of taste, I think it would also be an act of powerful self-deception to say that most people dislike paedophiles, and are consistenly ill-prepared to give them a second chance, because we find them disgusting and repellent. We are angry not because of what they have "done" to another person, the interaction might have been mutually pleasurable, this is a side we never do, or (justifiably) want to, see, and so we cannot allow that it might have had any positive outcomes at all.
What becomes clear is that we are not so much angry with the crime itself but with the age of the particular persons involved, it is the nature of the intercourse that causes us offence. This once again lends itself strongly to the hypocrisy/hysteria/Much Red-top banner waving we can expect in the coming days and weeks.
Glitter himself has called into question the fairness of his trial and in the statement given this morning by his solicitor at Uxbridge Crown Court it was hinted that the trial might have taken place under illegal circumstances, Glitter's right of appeal was never considered by the Thai court, and so it should be considered null and void in the U.K. However, this really is a moot point. Glitter was previously convicted of child pornography offences (in the U.K.) back in 1999, so in the eyes of the law he is already damned and this case seems merely to confirm his predilection for small children. Not only that, the damage to his reputation and ability to live openly is damaged irreparably. The problem is that we as a nation have become so, overly-sensitive to the "p-word" a love that cannot even whisper its name, that we come to near hysteria over suspected or even confirmed paedophiles, even though they might have been forced into early-retirement by chemical castration, in the very British manner that we look for things to complain about, we get all 1984, and start to see the potential for paedophiles everywhere (restrictions on the use of cameras at schools is a good example) which, I feel, also invites cause reasonable for reasonable doubt, and as such we have allegations and slander, without evidence or proof, and yet it still it seems to carry the resounding power to ruin "normal", good-people's lives, who are in reality (i.e. sans-media hype) perfectly innocent.
p.s. It's also very hard to accept, from an aesthetic point of view, that G.G.'s hair looked better in the Glam-days than his current Machiavellian beard, which I think is doing his social persona, no favours at all.
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