Mermaids charity paedophile & porn photos scandal in the press

Grayson Perry is a self aware boundary pusher, who as far as I know has never put himself in the position where he could be on residential trips with vulnerable teens and children or chatting to them unsupervised on Instagram.

whats ok at an art opening is not necessarily ok at a primary school.

what’s ok at a nightclub (drag) is not ok at a library reading time aimed at preschoolers.

i don’t care if Darren Mew made arty porny pictures. What I do care about is that any tween or teen who read his name on a mermaids page/social media account could’ve googled up Twitter and seen his dick.

art porn/rubber porn/any porn OR working a childrens charity.

you can’t have both, certainly not using the same name.

WTF didn’t he at least use a ‘stage name’ for the porny pic?

I think my brain has been struggling with this on two fronts. I genuinely do want to break down societal boundaries that serve no useful purpose. I don't give a shit if my doctor has a daith piercing and a neck tattoo as long as they are qualified and do a good job. I would hate to be judging people on superficial appearance alone.

I also haven't been clear enough in my own thinking on what exactly inappropriate boundary transgression looks like. This has been made so much harder by normalisation of things like drag queens in libraries.

It is getting clearer for me now, it is not the pink hair and the extreme makeup, it is the sexualisation that is the issue. And if an individual is sexualised in any public forum, then this should automatically barr them from working with children.

This is why we need the safeguarding experts back.

@GrabbyGabby

Personally I think any men who gains sexual pleasure from wearing women's and children's clothing shouldn't be in schools wearing that clothing. Because the sexual pleasure is about boundary pushing which means the children (in this example) are unwitting participants in that sexual pleasure.

Grayson Perry gets sexual pleasure from dressing as Clare. So no, I don't think he should go into schools dressed like that. How do we know this?
Because he has written about it and talked about it.

James Makings, who worked for the NSPCC, got a massive sexual thrill from wearing a rubber suit under his clothes and wanking in the toilets at the NSPCC. How do we know this?
Because he took photographs of himself and uploaded them to the internet, telling everyone who looked at them where he worked.

Men like this know that other men are aroused at the idea of them transgressing children's boundaries. So they do it because even if they themselves are not aroused at the idea of children and sex, they know other men will be.

Is that clear enough?

I was thinking about that kilt picture of Mew and assessing in my head how much of a red flag it was. After all, we are gender critical right, we think that it shouldn't matter what sex you are as to whether you wear 'women's clothes or mens clothes' etc, so a gender non-conforming man shouldn't be a problem.

But then I was thinking about what I would think if, semi aside, it was a woman wearing those clothes and in that pose? Would I think it was sexualised or just a woman going about her day? Would I think a woman posting pictures of herself like that was unsuitable to work for a charity for vulnerable kids - yes, of course I would. Im

I think they do know and they don't care.

The main problem with all of this is that the people working at Mermaids clearly don't understand safeguarding. Even if Darren Mew is perfectly safe around children himself, it is abundantly clear that he has no idea about boundaries or safeguarding children. If he did, then there wouldn't be pictures of his dick and butthole freely available on Twitter with a simple search of his name. His lack of safeguarding knowledge and caring about boundaries is what makes him unsuitable for a children's charity. He has no idea how to keep children safe.

It's exactly the same as the Drag Queens Aida H Dee, and Flo Job. Both had sexually explicit material on the same social media that they used to advertise themselves as 'story tellers'. This tells us that they know nothing about online boundaries and therefore are unsuitable to work with kids.

When Munroe got dropped from the NSPCC after it came out that they had been inviting minors to privately message them, it wasn't because they thought that Munroe themselves was a danger to kids directly. It's that Munroe displayed such a basic lack of knowledge about safeguarding that you couldn't justify keeping them on in a children's charity.

Same for Rubberman. Again, not necessarily a danger to kids himself, but what kind of person doesn't understand that you can't work for the nations largest children's charity and take photos of yourself in rubber fetish gear in your work toilets and then post them publicly online!

Jacob Breslow may actually be a different matter and is perhaps still the most horrifying of all the revelations so far given what he wrote on his blog.

I have just realised, writing all that out, how much evidence is mounting up here, its unbelievable really! Its also shocking/not shocking that every single person referenced here is male.

Page 3 girls (or the modern day equivalent of Onlyfans models) don't go on Children In Need to help out with the fund-raising.

It is inappropriate for this guy to be working at a children's charity.

One of the most basic rules of the internet is that a photo once posted may come back and haunt you.

Not sure precisely what a digital engagement officer does but he should know that

Sorry x-posted but I think my answer still stands!

The thing is, there are different kinds of boundaries to push. Some of it is fine, some not.

It's not the gender-non-conformity that's a concern - it's the sexualised nature of the images. If it was a woman who had posted a picture of herself like the kilt picture, while also being responsible for social media for a charity that works with vulnerable children, it would still be inappropriate.

I mean bloody hell I wouldn't post a picture like that and expect it to not raise eyebrows with my employer, and I don't work with vulnerable people.

See also the thread about the mother who attended the school board dressed in the same skimpy outfit as the drag queen who performed at a school. The "queerness" is irrelevant.

No @Clymene , i am not blind (although i may need to bleach my eyes).

I just need to understand better when non conforming tips over into inappropriate. I think it really matters that we can explain where at least some of the boundaries are in a way others will understand.

Thinking of Grayson Perry, he at times dresses like a doll and at times like a cross dressing man and at times as a man. He has never triggered my spidey senses in the way the very first pics of Mew did. But if non conformity that involves the trappings of childhood is a red flag, then Grayson Perry should have the red flag bunting, no working with kids for him. One the one hand, I am not sure the general populace would agree with that assessment of a national treasure in the making, on the other hand, Jimmy Saville.

If i am being very honest the first pics of Mew,( before the kilt and the plethora of penii) sent my spidey senses off the scale, i am now thinking it wasn't the gender non conformity that triggered me, rather his very sexualised presentation, even in just head shots (the head on shoulders head, not the other head, just to be clear).

I just want to avoid becoming the horrible bigot i am so often accused of being, so need to spend some time exploring this.

Sorry @Birdsweepsin , I had to unlurk at that! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

GrabbyGabby I guess the point of safeguarding is that it shouldn't matter whether you're a blue-hair green-eyebrow sort or a glasses-and-cardigan sort. The organisation should have a process to check that you understand what is and isn't appropriate behaviour around children and young people, and how you fit into the complex safety net that should surround kids, especially vulnerable ones.

That's not hard. I've asked, and been asked, that question in job interviews. And then it's an ongoing process while you are in post to see how you handle possible referrals, engage with processes and systems, undertake training. And that's where the flags might start to appear (assuming you got through the first interview).

So it doesn't matter what you look like when you turn up to the job interview AS LONG AS the organisation in question understands safeguarding and has strong systems and a laser focus on how their staff engage with those systems.

That's where Mermaids falls down so spectacularly.

You really can't see the difference between a man exposing his arsehole on the internet and him wearing make up?

I don't think anyone here is going to be able to help you

@Birdsweepsin I don't even want to consider the Google search terms that came up with that!

Wearing a miniskirt draped over your cock isn't a protected characteristic!

Bigot

Indeed, Datun!! Suspending our instinctive understanding of what is safe and appropriate for children or what is safe and dignified for women and girls, because we’re worried we’re not being inclusive or nice enough, is exactly how we got here in the first place.

I'm not sure when it became questionable to say something is inappropriate. A man wearing a short miniskirt draped over his penis is inappropriate. And you can say no to wanting him to work for a children's charity. You can say no to him about anything.

Wearing a miniskirt draped over your cock isn't a protected characteristic!

My thinking is that if a bloke shows pictures on the internet he cannot complain when people start talking about it.

All those "furries". Yeah do what you want, whatever.

But of course, the outfits appeal to young children.

Whilst the guy is probably fine to do this imagery (as long as it is legal) on the internet for adult publications etc, that is not the sort of person who should be employed by a children's charity. Seems like at Mermaids anything goes.

Just goes to show that they don't do any sort of checks on their staff, and with that attitude how can they be responsible for vulnerable children?

Thanks @Cuppasoupmonster , that is a good yard stick.

It feels like there should be a giant decision tree here.

I would hate to see all boundary pushing creating safeguarding red flags. I want less rigid societal expectations of how men and women present. I would welcome more men in makeup and heels and more women feeling they don't need makeup or heels. I suppose the trick is that everyone is held to the same standard. No stilettos in the workplace for men or women, no gratuitous nipple display, discrete makeup etc. Giant prosthetic tits, not so much.

Or when it is being shown to children, or associated with childrens charities.

I've just been on Mew's linked in again. One thing it says is "I've been seeing so many TikToks recently around 'acting your wage' and setting boundaries in the workplace. It makes me really happy to see; we are so often told that the only way to progress is by "going that extra mile" and "acting in the promotional role" you want before getting it. Employees are not charities, they are being paid to do a job. If you, as an employer, see potential in that staff member to take on more then pay them to do so.

Employers in this day need to realise to get the most out of their staff they need to put their money where their mouths are. If you don't want your staff to "quiet quit" then respect them, value them, and honour the work they are doing."

I do have a lot of sympathy with his viewpoint, but as someone who runs a business the last sort of person who I would wish to employ is someone who campaigns against LGB and women's rights, campaigns against child safeguarding, and publicises the fact that he will do as little as possible for the money you pay him. In fact lazy people with zero morals are pretty much a case study in how to make yourself unemployable.

That he dresses as though he wishes to be perceived as a paedophile makes it even worse. I mean, literally, if Saville were around today (and he might be) he would look exactly like Darren Mew.

There’s no defining moment or definition of when ‘kinky’ or ‘alternative’ becomes ‘inappropriate’. But generally, when expression of sexuality is crossed with something deemed to be associated with children - nappies, dummies, school outfits - you know that point has been reached.