How is Huw Edwards different to Philip Schofield

[user6482952]

Heard this question raised on LBC this morning and was wondering the same thing.

How are the two any different? Both older men engaged with younger men, both cheating on their wives, and both claiming mental health issues post revelation.

I hope that both Huw Edwards and Philip Schofield get help with their mental health problems. I feel for their families and hope they all have good support.

However, I don't want to see either of these men on our screens again, being beamed into our home. When I look at them now, I think primarily of what they have done and I doubt that will fade. The rest of my family, including young adult DC, feel the same. HE and PS have irretrievably broken their brands with their sleazy behaviour and damaged the brands of their employers. I would feel exactly the same if the young people concerned were girls and young women.

My thoughts are for the young people on the receiving end of the attentions of HE and PS - well-connected, high profile, successful, married men and parents - men old enough to be their grandfathers. The young people are all vulnerable to abuse by such men by reason of their youth and relative inexperience, career aspirations and addiction issues in one case. I suspect that the young person allegedly paid a total of £35k from the age of 17 by HE, for pornographic images or whatever else, might see things differently in the future. I hope the young people and their families are getting good support, and I don't mean from tabloid newspapers and the expensive lawyers of HE and PS.

I would take a broom to any much older men trying to hit on my DC as children and young adults. We have talked about it, based on my own experiences as a girl and young woman of predatory older men, and they have set limits for themselves at this stage of 2-3 years difference. Only once they reach their mid to late 20s do I think significant age gaps start to become more acceptable. At least ITV eventually did the right thing in getting rid of PS. I hope the BBC eventually do the same with HE. There had allegedly been rumours about him for over 15 years. It sends a message to other men like them and to young people too.

Yes I am aware it’s 2023. But by this time HE is entrenched in a marriage and have children and may not want to come out because doing so would hurt them deeply. You are free to attribute more malevolent motivations to HE but neither of us know for sure what is going on inside his head.

And we don’t know if his wife was aware or not. He may have come out to her, who knows. Either way it’s not an easy situation to find yourself in. Heteros have it much easier in comparison.

Also, there is no way HE would have had a prestigious career in the first place if he had come out as gay in the 80s because he would not have been allowed to present the news on local Welsh tv as a gay man back then. And his career started in Wales on local tv.

Whether it's illegal or not, it's just plain weird, imo, for a 61 year old person (of any gender) to find people as young as 18, sexually attractive. I am 53, and to me, anyone aged 18 looks like a child (even though technically they are not).

He was targeting people younger than his own children. I find that really bizarre. I have a son who is 26 and a daughter who is 24. I can look at people that age and think "wow, what a pretty girl" or "Oh, look how handsome he is", but in my head, I'm also thinking "He will be a stunner when he's 45".

To target a drug addict, who is essentially almost a child, is disgraceful.

I'm amazed at how many celebrities do so well in life, only to monumentally bugger it up. They have it all, but they still go on a self destruct mission.

So if he (or anyone else) had affairs with young women so as not to hurt his family by being honest, that would be OK too?

Yip !

The Welsh rugby union referee Nigel Owens, now aged 51, is a good example of a gay, Welsh man who has always been open and honest about his sexuality. It was not easy for him when he was young, but there was no deceit.

Huw Edwards alone is responsible for the suffering of his loyal wife and children, no excuses.

He's not stupid.

His behaviour was ALWAYS going to come to light. He decision was about his behaviour.

People end relationships. It's a choice not to.

Infantilising grown men who don't want to make difficult choices is insulting.

In the end it is ALWAYS the women who are left picking up the pieces rather than the man being adult enough to end things in a mature way.

There is ALWAYS an excuse for these men, whilst the women have to look after the kids first, then mental health of their manchild before eventually getting around to looking after themselves. If they ever do realise they are better than this shit show...

I don’t disagree with you MmaRra

I think the young need protecting from sexual predators and from themselves.

The brain doesn’t stop growing in a young adult until roughly 25 years of age so let’s at least protect them by law until their frontal cortexes are fully formed.

[And this is a totally different issue but I certainly think we need to tighten our laws governing access by children and teenagers to pornography. It’s far too lax currently. As is the sort of violence and misogyny they are able to view on line. ]

However, society would probably say that to ban adults from buying explicit photos, films or services from anyone under the age of 25 would be too harsh a law.

I would probably support it but others would see it as an outrageous breach of personal freedom.

The question is, where do we draw the line?

That’s where I am too. If we think illegality is too low a bar we need to change the law. By the age of 11 over a quarter of children have seen porn. What kind of society are we in where that’s even possible?

Huw Edwards might not be gay he might be bi sexual and has a taste for young people, let's not get tangled up with him being a repressed welshman

I assume you're female. It may be weird for middle-aged women to find 18-year-olds attractive (although Germaine Greer certainly didn't think so), but that's obviously not the case with middle-aged men (since, for example, the great majority of porn aimed at men features models/actors in the 18-25 age group).

There is of course a big difference between middle-aged men merely finding 18-year-olds attractive, and actively seeking sex with them. I'm a middle-aged gay man and would find it not just grotesque but highly undignified and degrading to go chasing after men of such age.

On the other hand, I don't seek sex with other middle-aged men either, because I just don't find wrinkled oldies sexually attractive and being one myself, I don't expect them to find me attractive either. As I've said earlier, I think there comes a time in our lives when we have to leave sexual relationships to the younger folk, and accept that we've been there, done that and grown out of it.

'If we as a society want him to receive more punishment than the equivalent of a public flogging in the tabloids and on sm, the loss of a forty year career and a decimated reputation, then we need to lobby our MPs and get the law changed and Only Fans and other sites like it made illegal and the purchase of sexually explicit photos illegal too.'

Public shaming is not 'public flogging', let's not be dramatic.

This is nothing to do with whatever platforms he allegedly used, this is about a 61 year old man allegedly contacting much, much younger adults. The legality of AF etc is absolutely irrelevant. His alleged behaviour is the point. Before the internet pervs will have found a way to target folk.

Lanneederniere and Redtoothbrush I’m not defending his lies and betrayal. Or his sleazy behaviour. All
of this press intrusion is utterly shit for his wife and family.

People have all sorts of complicated relationships with their spouses and we have no idea if his wife was aware or not. They may love one another and have a committed relationship anyway. Someone’s sexuality is not the only aspect about them that matters. We just don’t know!

The legality of AF etc is absolutely irrelevant.

It really isn’t. If you think the law isn’t sufficiently robust then the law needs to be changed, rather judge - and yes lynch mob - people whose behaviour you disapprove of who are within the law.

What a sad way to look at life. Middle age is most definitely not 'wrinkled oldies'. There does seem to be a theme with high profile gay men having much younger partners, I wonder why they don't see how inappropriate it is. Same with heterosexual people DiCaprio in his 50s having girlfriends half his age is equally pathetic.

Well to each their own but there are millions of middle aged adults who find other middle aged adults attractive. It’s hardly unusual and it seems slightly odd to say you have to give up on sex in middle age because who on earth would fancy a “wrinkly”. The reason most of these men go for such young people (male or female) is usually to do with power. You can get a 30 year old who looks young and attractive but HE or PS don’t go there because a 30 yo is not as easily manipulated and suggestible as a teenager. It’s horrible, grooming behaviour and it’s very wrong to dismiss it as just normal among men.

To be fair I don’t think DiCaprio is heterosexual…

Oh stop wanging on about 'the law'. if what he has done is true it's predatory, pervy behaviour. We do not just have to say 'or it legal so not to worry'. Jesus.

Read what I said.

I dont think he should be penalised by the criminal law but he holds a position funded by tax payers and trades on a wholesome respectable image. In reality, he is nothing like his image would suggest. There is a public interests in reporting that, especially as there are allegations of abuses of power at work. Same as I think it was right that Ryan Giggs was exposed and Wayne Rooney. So whether OF is legal or not is irrelevant because most of his accusers weren’t even contacted through OF.

There are surely any number of things that aren't illegal but can and should get you sacked?

Hmm, you agree with me that middle-aged men engaging in such behaviour is "pathetic" but also say that's "a sad way to look at life".

Old people still pretending they're highly hormonal sexy young things is indeed sad, whether they're preying on youngsters or chasing other self-deluding oldies.

I think that every person in Britain knowing your name and your sleazy scandalous behaviour is probably worse than a public flogging actually in this Internet connected society. His life as he knew it is over. He doesn’t have a future in respectable society.

And in addition to his alleged inappropriate behaviour in the office, of course this is to connected with what we find appropriate as a society or not. And whether we allow platforms like OF to exist? It’s about where we drawer the line between something sleazy and inappropriate and where that turns in to something illegal.

And how do those laws impact on our free, liberal society?

Sorry. Draw the line.

I didn't dismiss such behaviour as "just normal among men", I specifically said there's a big difference between older men finding young adults attractive and actually seeking sex with them.

You're the one insisting middle-aged men "shouldn't give up sex".