Skip to main content

Britain... Indig-Nation. Obscene Press Feeding Frenzy Over Celebrity Hanky Panky

The British press are having a field day. They adore a good scandal. The more surprising the participants, the more delight they exhibit as their feeding frenzies outside courtrooms and all over the mainstream news testify. And when the details about gropes, bonks and cuddles get revealed, even more joy spreads through their ranks as their outrage intensifies into an orgy of indignation ostensibly proclaimed on behalf of a shocked British public. Imagine their collective squeals of joy when they discovered that not one but three otherwise highly popular celebrities, all with 'cleaning-living', 'butter-wouldn't-melt-in-their-mouths' personas, were all going to be tried in different courts, on the same day! What sort of collusion must there have been between the Department of Justice responsible for scheduling these trials and the baying packs of wildly excited press representing their profit-motivated newspapers and magazines. Plenty of titillating details about victims and perpetrators alike will increase readership and viewing numbers. How they love it... but of course, remembering at all times, while on-camera, to portray a shocked and disapproving countenance.

Now I am NOT saying that rape and child abuse is in any way acceptable - whether by celebrities who felt they had the power to give 'favours' to star-struck girls, by priests who abused the trust imbued by their godly approval (nice gods), or by any other member of society slaking their distorted and self-indulgent thrills at the expense of someone else, especially a child who can't fight back or understand what is happening. But I am saying we shouldn't run wall-to-wall news coverage about it. It's painful for the victims, and if not convicted, totally unfair on the celebrities whose lives will never be the same again.

And let's hope a modicum of common sense will prevail in the courts' decisions. Where a celebrity might have misread the signals from a girl who appeared to 'let him do it', we men need to ask ourselves the question, what would we have done under the circumstances? Indeed what did we used to do? When Grombler was a far younger and unmarried man, if she looked convincingly older than 16, she was fair game to try to impress with our air of confidence and attempts, usually resultless and unconvincing, at male fortitude (at least we've stopped using clubs and dragging conquests off to our lairs... although I read an account of Aborigines doing just that in the 19th century). Perhaps, emboldened by a couple of drinks, we'd have tried a 'move' or two. Slap or repulse = bad. No reaction = keep going. It's what men do, and have been doing for a million years. Are professional prostitutes who might 'expect' that sort of thing, the only women we're allowed to touch provocatively and without invitation (not by our wives of course - and before you wonder, Grombler never has)? Are we all to be condemned for wandering hands? And by condemned, it would seem if trial by Press is anything to go by, that means not only imprisoned but having our reputations destroyed (or made) forever. If Dave Lee Travis or the others get off, they will always be reviled as people who 'don't respect women' - never mind it all happening 40 years ago and their sex-drives no doubt having shriveled in the meantime. Abusers they were, and abusers they will remain.

So what's in it for the alleged victims? It's unlikely, but some may be lying to gain publicity and maybe money (compensation, 'kiss and tell' commissions etc). Some may be nuts and think it happened, but it didn't (there are cases, no doubt very rare, of daughters putting their fathers in prison based on dreams they fervently believed were real). But some will have been abused - and in varying degrees of damage to their self-respect and mental health. Clearly where mental anguish has genuinely been suffered as a result of an attack, a crime was committed and justice must be forcefully served - celebrity or not. But let's help victims deal with it in private, not splash their experiences across our pages and screens because we love to see celebrities meet their comeuppance. And let's also make sure we get the offences into perspective - for the age in which they occurred, with all its comparatively lax moralities. For example, we can rightfully be indignant about gay prejudice, but it wasn't very long ago that it was illegal in the UK to be openly gay, and gay-bashing was a popular sport in some circles, with a blind eye turned by the police. Indeed laws against gays still exist in some countries - Ugandans (the bastards) are about to pass laws to lock up gay people - for life! Protest here.

My worry is that victims may be thinking - these people are a danger to society and need to be stopped. They may or may not have been a danger to society 40 years ago - but surely they can't be considered a danger today. So what else might be in it for victims? Retribution? 'Start the healing'? I doubt it will. Stopping celebrities today from believing they're immune from the law? Perhaps. But whatever the reason, let's try to spare a thought for the accused - innocent or guilty - for the way our press is licking their lips at their predicament and the amount of money they will make as detail after detail is revealed to their titillated audiences.

And while I'm having a go at the appetite of our journalists for indignation, how come the French don't give a damn about their president bonking an actress? Why should we care. Is it because we inhabit an Indig-Nation?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Phillips screws - yes I'm angry about them too

Don't get me wrong. They're a brilliant invention to assist automation and prevent screwdrivers from slipping off screw heads - damaging furniture, paintwork and fingers in the process. Interestingly they weren't invented by Mr Phillips at all, but by a John P Thompson who sold Mr P the idea after failing to commercialise it. Mr P, on the otherhand, quickly succeeded where Mr T had failed. Incredible isn't it. You don't just need a good idea, you need a great salesman and, more importantly, perfect timing to make a success out of something new. Actually, it would seem, he did two clever things (apart from buying the rights). He gave the invention to GM to trial. No-brainer #1. After it was adopted by the great GM, instead of trying to become their sole supplier of Phillips screws, he sold licenses to every other screw manufacturer in the world. A little of a lot is worth a great deal more than a lot of a little + vulnerability (watch out Apple!). My gromble is abo

Addictions. Porn, Drugs, Alcohol and Sex. Don't prevent it, make it safer.

In 1926 New York, during Prohibition, 1,200 people were poisoned by whiskey containing small quantities of wood alcohol (methanol). Around 400 died, the rest were blinded. The methanol they drank was in the moonshine they had bought illegally. In fact it had been added by law to industrial ethanol in order to make it undrinkable. Prohibition existed to protect everyone from the 'evils of the demon drink'. However, people still wanted to enjoy alcohol. So bootleggers bought cheap industrial alcohol and attempted to distill it to remove the impurities the state had added, but the process wasn't regulated. The state was inadvertently responsible for the suffering - although it was easy for them to blame the bootleggers and to justify escalating the war. This didn't stop the bootleggers. In fact it forced them to become more violent to protect their operations, and even less cautious about their production standards. Volumes of illicit alcohol, and therefore proportionat

The Secrets of Hacker Golf

Social media is awash with professional golfers selling video training courses to help you perfect your swing, gain 50 yards on your drive and cut your handicap. They might help a few desperate souls, but the rest of us hackers already know everything we need to complete a round of golf without worrying the handicap committee or appearing on a competition winner's list. What those pros don't realise is that for us hacking golfers who very occasionally hit shots that if you hadn't seen how they were hit, end up where the pros might have put them, we already know everything we need to know - and more. Unlike pros who know how to time the perfect swing in order to caress a ball 350 yards down the centre of a fairway, we hackers need to assemble a far wider set of skills and know-how to complete 18 holes, about which pros have no comprehension, need, or desire to learn. Here are some of them: Never select your shot until after you've hit it. A variation on this is to alway