Tatchell again

Holy shit.

That poor poor boy. I've got a 14 year old and no fucking way are they ready to be having sex with adults. No way. I wouldn't bat too much of an eyelid if they were safely experimenting with a same aged kid but adults? Nope.

Also... the adults that want to have sex with 14 year old son are the last adults I'd ever want anywhere near my teenager tbh. Creepy fucks with an inability to be aroused by or form relationships with other adults so they want young teenagers. Ugh.

From the intro:

I do not advocate teenagers having sex before the age of 16. But if they do have sex before their 16th birthday, they should not be arrested

But then the example given:

Lee is 14. He’s been having sex with boys since the age of eight, and with men since he was 12.
has been going out recently with a guy in his mid-twenties

'Lee' would not be criminalised. Lee would be treated as a rape victim for obvious reasons.

Tatchell wants the age of consent lowered to 14, but what is really concerning is his reference (in other articles too) to 'healthy' sexual relations as young as 8yo.

But if they do have sex before their 16th birthday, they should not be arrested, given a criminal record and put on the sex offenders register.

The CPS aren’t prosecuting people simply for having underage sex.

“If the sexual act or activity was in fact genuinely consensual and the youth and the child under 13 concerned are fairly close in age and development, a prosecution is unlikely to be appropriate.”

www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-11-youths

Tatchell’s back tracking doesn’t make sense.

"I do not advocate teenagers having sex before the age of 16.
But if they do have sex before their 16th birthday, they should not be arrested, given a criminal record and put on the sex offenders register.

Perhaps the ideal solution would be that the age of consent remains at 16 but that sexual behaviour involving young people under 16 should not be criminalised, providing there is informed consent, no one is harmed and there is no more than two or three years difference in their ages. "
Isnt that a very accurate description of the current law? In which case he has his wishes and can stop talking about abuse of boys.

Ffs. When a kid starts having sex with 8, anal with 11, prostitutes themselves before hitting 14, surely the major issue is not decriminalizing having sex with this kid. Unbelievable. The 90‘s were different, but they were not that different.

Tatchell continually contradicts himself. In one breath he’s saying he only wants the age of consent lowered so that 14-16 year olds can have sex with each other without being criminalised, yet that is clearly not what he’s advocating here. He’s using the experinces of a sexually abused 14 year old boy to try and normalise sex between 14 year olds and ‘men in their 20s and 30s’.

This child was growing up in care with a clearly disfunctional background, yet Tatchell doesn’t want to address the issues of why this boy ‘prefers relationships with older guys’. The whole thing makes me feel sick, especially his description of ‘Lee’ :

Wearing a white T-shirt and combat trousers, his sophisticated gay image makes him look older than 14. He comes across as bright, articulate, sure of himself, and mature beyond his years. It’s hard to imagine anyone getting away with taking advantage of him.

I remember reading this article at the time (maybe in the Pink Paper?) and Tatchell trying to defend his views.