Why wasn’t more made of this?

[Iamnotagoddess]

Apologies for DM link

I read Mandy Smiths book when it came out in 1994 and remember at the time she was made out to be a “silly girl” or a bit of a “slag” in the media when she was nothing of the sort.

There were comedy sketches of Bill Wyman wheeling her down the aisle in a pram

Looking back though it’s not actually that funny.

Mandy Smith was a victim of child abuse - why is it all brushed under the carpet esp with the #MeToo movement?

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6995477/How-Rolling-Stone-Bill-Wyman-glosses-relationship-13-year-old-Mandy-Smith-new-biopic.html

Whoever said it was a time generation thing is spot on I think.

Many things that use to happen weren't seen as abuse etc. Doesn't mean they weren't (compared to today's societal values) but the values weren't the same 40/50 years ago as they are now.

Our children are a lucky generation in that they have much more safeguarding of their wellbeing available.

It's a massive grey area to investigate and prosecute now - events that happened historically where the 'victim' didn't consider themselves a victim as they didn't consider a crime to have been committed.

Obviously things like the JS case are clear cut. He abused vulnerable people and it wasn't a consenting relationship.

However things like powerful men tapping their PAs bottom in a 'good girl' type way weren't - 40/50 years ago seen as sexual harassment. Some women saw that kind of response as validation they were good at their jobs.
I thank the Lord everyday we've moved on from those piss poor attitudes and in today's society you'd be able to claim sexual harassment.
However I also don't believe that 40 years on you should be able to prosecute for something that is now considered harassment - but wasn't at the time.

The Mandy situation is the same. In today's society and today's standards we are lucky that safeguarding teams and people's understanding of grooming would step in and intervene. She would be protected.
But she doesn't see herself as a victim because it wasn't out of the norm at the time.

Totally agree it should NEVER had happened and so thankful it wouldn't be allowed to happen in 2019.

I can remember revulsion, my parents who are contemporys of wyman being disgusted, when we discussed this at school my teacher expressed shock that her mother allowed it.
We all knew it was wrong. But without a victim coming forward police don't care. Nothing about being a rock star.

erm i think they do u dont have to come forward if its child abuse

Don't believe things are so different now - not in terms of people actually intervening to protect the child.

Jerry Lee Lewis rightly got into a lot of trouble and his career suffered after he married his 13yo third cousin. Apparently, it wasn't that uncommon where he lived and he didn't realise that other countries and cultures might think it strange (although he did later claim that she was 15 - not that that's much better - so he must have soon come to realise).

Self evidently it is different now. Not the reprehensible nature of the act, or individual responded to it, but the social milieu in which it happens.

That is entirely different and it is almost pointless trying to understand it with today's consciousness. Even those if us who lived through those years can't explain why.... It just was. As today just is.

I still can't get over a certain very large family who appear regularly on TV - and the fact that her age when they first got together (he's several years older) is one big reason why they have actually had enough time (in her fertile window) to have so many babies.

I’m not surprised. Look at all the mumsnetters leaping to the defence of Michael Jackson.

Ooh! MJ was different. Utterly reprehensible.

But the baby groupies etc were different in that they were out, looking for famous men to sleep with.

It isn't the same phenomenon and you wouldn't change social mores about baby groupies if you focussed on MJ. You have to draw a distinction to be able to teach the root cause and eradicate it.

And yes, obviously, the root cause is men, but, to prevent it happening, you need to understand what incited young women to act as they did, and that is different from MJs victims.

"baby groupies"???? Vomit inducing euphemism.

These were very young girls who nobody had protected or viewed as vulnerable. They were incapable of consent due to their age.

The children around MJ were there for much the same reasons, because he was famous and powerful.

It doesn't make any of them responsible for what was done to them, or complicit in their own abuse.

I think with Mandy Smith it was lack of a father figure coupled with lack of supervision.

We were at a community quiz evening a few years ago and the tie-breaker was asking the age of the world's youngest ever mother.

If people haven't heard about this case, the answer is a shocking 5 years old.

The little girl was born in Peru in the 1930s and the intrigue then and now seems to focus largely on the fact that she was physically able to become a mother at 5yo - extreme precocious puberty was clearly the cause.

A lot of people seemed to miss/ignore/gloss over the fact that, although physically capable, a disgusting man was 100% responsible for the fact that she actually was made pregnant. It makes me wonder how many other young girls were/are similar victims but, as they don't have the same condition as her, there isn't the same undeniable proof of their having been raped.

It would be nice to think that we live in more enlightened times now, but apparently, a little girl's rape, abuse, life being put seriously at risk and her lifelong mental health taking a huge hammering is still just a frivolous subject for a light-hearted 'well, fancy that!'-type question at a fun community quiz. Utterly vile and disgraceful.

In Mandy Smith’s case her mother endorsed and encouraged the relationship, there was definitely a feeling of “Well, if her mum thinks it’s OK ...”

I am 44 and DSD1 is 14.

He was 47 and she was 13 - thinking about it makes me feel ill actually.

But the baby groupies etc were different in that they were out, looking for famous men to sleep with.

Baby groupies???? That's just a way to minimise deliberate child abuse, surely.

You can manipulate children into doing almost anything and it's not difficult to gain their trust and gaslight them. That's what makes this kind of behaviour even more disgusting.

There's no such thing as their 'consenting' or being apparently willing. They are categorically not in a position to be able to do this, even if they believe that they are. A 3yo child would happily consent to eating 10kgs of sweets every day, if they had the chance. Come to that, so would a lot of 13yo children. They would neither understand nor (at that stage) pay any mind to their future health.

This is precisely why adults are there to protect children of all ages - and what makes it even more reprehensible when certain adults betray that trust in order to abuse and exploit children for their own sick, selfish pleasures.

Time's weren't that different. It was sickening then, too.

But the Press said it was alright. Men said it was alright.

Same reason why Jimmy Page got away with abusing Lori Maddox (who, in an interview, said 'I was still a -' and hastily stopped herself from saying 'virgin', correcting it to 'a baby'.

Because they were men that other men wanted to be like.

My old optician was chatting about attitudes during my eyetest a few years back, well before Yewtree (he was a great guy, was a musician as well as a student in the late 60s/70s - we had some great conversations between 'better like this? Or like this?') and he also said that there was a HUGE fuss about naked children on album covers, but the power of particular bands/management/record labels meant that it was normalised, along with the underage groupie image.

Suppose if they could normalise the use of images, it would create an atmosphere where abusing children was seen as an aspirational thing, part of the Rock & Roll Lifestyle.

I think some may need to read whole boosts instead of snipping out small sections.

I used the terminology of the time. Described what this young girls were doing. But this happens every time this comes up. Merely describing what was done is somehow seen as condoning it.

I'll leave you to it. I've been on this track before and it gets extremely irritating not to have any more depth of understanding. Especially when that is precisely what is needed to eradicate it from society.

Continuing use of language such as "baby groupies" "child pornography" "child prostitutes" is part of the problem though.

You didn't say that they were called that at the time, and that it was wrong. You referred to them as "baby groupies out looking for men to have sex with".

I understand fine, I just disagree that you thinking my objections to disgusting terminology means I'm stupid or haven't done any research.

Personally I think it is you who needs to consider your own attitude and language before talking about anyone else needing to do their research.

I'm a few years younger than Mandy Smith and I remember at the time there were a number of young/underage girls whose names were always prefixed by the term 'wild child' in the press. Mandy, Amanda de Cadanet, Emma Ridley. All hanging out in nightclubs and having relationships with older men. I definitely do not remember any shock or revulsion or worries about their wellbeing in the reporting. They were presented to us as 'good time girls' who just happened to be young.

I believe a lot of people still minimise it now.
Lots of excuses made for males as to why they behave in the shitty way they do.
Oh it's just lad talk, all men do it, boys will be boys.
Plenty still blame the female for the males behaviour just look at rape cases.
I mentioned on here about the number of men old enough to be my dds father who regularly made inappropriare comments to her at work. She is young. The number of posters on here who made quite frankly fucking bitchy, nasty comments saying who does my dd think she is now men can't even leer at young women going about there business was vile.
Women too.
Don't kid yourselves that everyone has the welfare of the innocent party at heart, they clearly do not. Lots of women make excuses for the sick perverts they live with.

I remember it at the time. She used to go to nightclubs with her mum.

She didn't look 13 apparently. So that's ok then.

I hope he gets arrested and charged. It's disgusting.

I’m afraid I have to agree- there were girls who set out to have sex with the stars of the time. I’m sure there still are. But as always, the onus is on the adult to refuse The “she was asking for it” defence was as appalling then as it is now.

He’s never going to be arrested and charged. The fact that he subsequently married her kind of mitigates against that. And what good would it do? Except drag the poor bloody woman through more stress in a trial.

I know they were out looking to have sex with stars, I didn't debate that because it's a fact.

My issue was around the fact that the language used then and now was appalling, and that the adults around them should have protected them.

"I read Mandy Smith's autobiography and I agree that it was just wrong. I met The Rolling Stones through work last year and had a good chat with Charlie Watts but as soon as Bill Wyman approached I made my excuses and left." Bill Wyman's not been with the Stones since 1992.