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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to wonder if Jeffrey Epstein really is a paedophile

167 replies

GenuineQuery · 08/03/2011 13:11

I have name changed for this because it's such an emotive subject, and folk are likely to be flamey (quite rightly too). And I am a wimp.

You'll have all seen in the news reference to Prince Andrew's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, almost universally described as 'the billionaire paedophile'.

When I read the newspaper reports I discovered that he had been convicted of procuring underage girls for sex, some of whom I understand (owing to US consent laws) were 17. Some, of course, were considerably younger: I understand the youngest to have been 14.

AIBU to think that this is not 'paedophilia'? That suggests to me an utterly unnatural, in fact downright evil, sexual preference. Finding post-pubescent girls and young women, who are presenting as adults in the physical essentials, seems to me to be a different matter.

I found myself becoming quite angry. Not because I felt sorry for Epstein (undoubtedly as immoral, sleazy, predatory and abusive a man as you could hope to find, and he well deserves his jail term and worse), but because labelling him a paedophile somehow detracts from quite how appalling, and how absolutely against every fibre of a normal person's nature, paedophilia is.

The article I saw was illustrated by a picture of Epstein with his arm around one of his 'child victims'. She was 17, nearly as tall as him, and very definitely a woman, not a child.

Just to reiterate (in case it gets lost in debate!) I am not saying tht what he did was right. On the contrary I would very much like the opportunity to kick his bollocks off. But I suppose what I think is: a sleazy old man fancying and preying on teenage girls is a revolting controlling abusive prick, but not a paedophile.

There. AIBU? I would genuinely like to know & don't know where else to raise the debate.

OP posts:
nocake · 08/03/2011 13:14

I think the medical diagnosis of paedophilia is someone who has a primary sexual interest in pre-pubescent children. I think you're absolutely right that the use of the word to describe him detracts from the serious of real paedophilia.

miniwedge · 08/03/2011 13:15

How the fuck is procuring a 14 yr old for sex not paedophilia?
it's abuse of a child.

Are you saying that if a child looks adult then they are fair game??

Sick.

Vallhala · 08/03/2011 13:16

I have a 14 year old daughter. if anyone procured my child... yes, child... for sex I wouldn't be debating what to call them.

I would be debating how to kill them.

To do a Humphreys on this monster of a man and label him not quite a paedophile is to do a disservice to all children who have been abused.

Original poster
GenuineQuery · 08/03/2011 13:17

Mini no, I'm not - and I tried really hard to make it clear that I'm not Sad

Nocake didn't know that, though suspected as much.

OP posts:
TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 08/03/2011 13:17

Yes you are technically correct - it doesn't seem that he is attracted to pre-pubescent children.

Original poster
GenuineQuery · 08/03/2011 13:18

Valhalla I see what you mean, I think (about doing disservice to all abused children). what does 'do a Humphreys' mean? (sorry, feel i ought to know.)

OP posts:
LadyBiscuit · 08/03/2011 13:19

What do you want to call a man who targets teenage girls?

SpermyShenanigans · 08/03/2011 13:19

I was wondering too. I was very much a child at fifteen, looking back, but also very different from being a little girl in mind and body.

Teenagers need protection I think, from predatory people and from their unformed ideas about what constitutes a positive relationship amongst other things.

So while the man wasn't interested in actual children and as you say, evil, intent on defiling and destroying complete innocents, he should still be taken to task and / or have his bollocks kicked off.

meditrina · 08/03/2011 13:19

If it was only 17 year olds, then it wouldn't be an under-age issue in UK, but it would still be a sex offence, owing to the prostitution angle.

But you say it wasn't just 17 year olds, it was younger girls. What exactly was he sentenced for - something icw child prostitution, wasn't it?

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 08/03/2011 13:19

miniwedge/Valhalla - We are talking about how to describe the perpetrator, not his offences.

bibbitybobbityhat · 08/03/2011 13:20

I think it is good that he is being described as a paedophile. Most people are repelled and disgusted by paedophiles and its quite right that they should feel the same way about a middle aged man paying for sex with very young (underage) women.

Vallhala · 08/03/2011 13:21

John Humphrys interviewed Chris Bryant and stated that the man was "not quite a paedophile" for similar reasons to your own - i.e. "it's not as if the children were 9 or anything, more, like, 15". (I paraphrase his actual remark but that was the gist of it).

Original poster
GenuineQuery · 08/03/2011 13:22

I'm not sure Lady - nothing printable at any rate, and something criminal and deserving of a custodial sentence.

I suppose what I'm trying to convey is that when I read the papers I was conscious of relief that it had not been small children whom he had abused (because that was what I had expected from the headline). It seemed to me (on a gut instinct that I'm willing to believe is misplaced) that because they hadn't been little children but post-pubescent teens it had not been 'as bad'.

Then I started questioning why I'd felt relief. And wondering if there was some sort of sliding scale of appallingness. Which is why I posted here - it is a genuine query.

OP posts:
miniwedge · 08/03/2011 13:23

I'm well aware of what we're talking about, thank you.

If he is not described as a paedophile the same thing will happen that happened to the director who abused an underage girl and then had the support of idiots sayibng that because she looked adult it was different........

you are diminishing the effect of what he has done and will probably continue to do.

14 is a child.

Original poster
GenuineQuery · 08/03/2011 13:23

So - to Val and bibbity - in your view, is being attracted to a 15 year old as unnatural and foul as finding pre-pubescent chidren attractive?

OP posts:
SpermyShenanigans · 08/03/2011 13:24

Interesting point about "pre-pubescent children". I read that and thought, "aren't all children pre-pubescent?"

But that isn't true. Children are still children in their teens.

A lot of it is to do with parenting. I read Mandy Smith's book and felt desperately sorry for her.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 08/03/2011 13:24

bibbitybobbityhat - So what word would you use to describe people who want to have sex with PRE-pubescent children?

I think most people would agree there is a difference.

miniwedge · 08/03/2011 13:25

"I was conscious of relief that it had not been small children whom he had abused (because that was what I had expected from the headline). It seemed to me (on a gut instinct that I'm willing to believe is misplaced) that because they hadn't been little children but post-pubescent teens it had not been 'as bad'."

How is it not as bad?? A child has been abused, her life has been irrevocably changed for the worse.

miniwedge · 08/03/2011 13:27

"So - to Val and bibbity - in your view, is being attracted to a 15 year old as unnatural and foul as finding pre-pubescent chidren attractive?"

He PAID to have sex with a 14 yr old. Do you not get that this is not the same as a teenager becoming sexually aware and experimenting with a partner her own age and with a choice about taking precautions/how far things go/what she is expected to do etc??

I am finding it difficult to not suspect this is a trolling thread to be honest.

mummery · 08/03/2011 13:28

Dangerous territory.

Men who have sex with underage girls are more than likely, to use as their defence, "she looked a lot older, she was sexually aware, she was coming on to me in a sexual manner," etc etc. They are also likely to justify it to themselves by saying that the girl was physically ready for sex, thus it was OK.

However morally (and legally) we as a society need to be unequivocal that there is no grey area in this regard, and it cannot be argued that one 14 year old 'wanted it' while another 14 yr old was forced.

Also, obviously, to protect the emotional development of the child involved. Personally I think speaking in emotional terms the age of consent at 16 is too low for the vast majority (myself included!).

Nancy66 · 08/03/2011 13:29

When people hear that somebody is a paedophile - I think most would assume children under 12 are involved.

This perversion of being attracted to teens is known as 'barely legal' in the porn world - and just like granny fucking, interracial, gay sex etc...it's big business.

It seems the 'barely legal' thing is what turned Epstein on.
Supposedly the girls are of legal age but look younger. The reality, of course, is that they very often ARE underage.

A twisted pervert no matter what name you want to give him.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 08/03/2011 13:30

If he is not described as a Paedophile it makes not difference to whether it happens again or not, nor does it diminish what he did.

The alternative is to consider someone who has sex with 3 year olds the same as someone who has sex with someone who looks like a young adult. There are clearly very different motivations and mental states between the two things - and they need to be treated differently.

Original poster
GenuineQuery · 08/03/2011 13:30

I think, Mini, I'm looking at it from the perspective of the unnaturalness and evil of the act, rather than its effect - and yes, I do think that to find a small child a sex object is worse than finding a young woman sexually attractive. The former makes me shake with rage and disgust, and I can hardly bear to think about it. I am not (obviously) saying that the latter is all right. I feel desperately sorry for his victims and reiterate he deserves all he gets, and worse. But I don't find myself recoiling in unspeakable shock and horror, in the same way that I do when I read of child abuse.

OP posts:
Vallhala · 08/03/2011 13:30

GenuineQuery, IMHO being attracted to a 14 or 15 year old isn't the issue here, it's acting on that attraction which is.

My very beautiful, attractive relation was raped from pre-teen age until she was 15 or 16. It was as bad and wrong at the upper age as it was at the lower age IMHO and, I am pretty damn sure, in her opinion too.

springbokdoc · 08/03/2011 13:30

I kind of see what you mean. I feel the issue is clouded by the 17 yr old as it is over the age of consent in this country. There would be whole swathes of us that would be appalled that our dps were lumped in with paedophiles.

FWIW I think genuine is trying very hard to show that she is not approving of what he did but more should there be another term for this? I kind of agree that there is a difference (not in its appalling nature) between abuse of pre- or post-pubescent children. Perhaps sexual assault?