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AIBU?

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Why wasn’t more made of this?

117 replies

Iamnotagoddess · 06/05/2019 09:57

Apologies for DM link Blush

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 Hmm

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

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LucheroTena · 06/05/2019 20:21

A lot of people at the time thought this was wrong and were horrified. I’m nearly her age and I remember my mum and grandparents being disgusted. The tabloids are awful and have always been awful.

tanpestryfirescreen · 06/05/2019 20:25

It wasn't just mandy smith- John Taylor married another so called' wild child" Amanda de Cadenet

tanpestryfirescreen · 06/05/2019 20:26

Emma Ridley married at 15 and Tamara Beckwith was another.

tanpestryfirescreen · 06/05/2019 20:28

And Jonathan Ross's wife was another -they married when she was 18.

youarenotkiddingme · 06/05/2019 20:46

I e been inside a secure unit as part of my employment role and seem some of the children in there for their own safety due to child sexual exploitation.

If you saw them in the street you'd think they were any other typical 12/13/14yo.

In fact in the unit they would probably be seen as 'immature' or less developed because they aren't all make upped orange with catapiller eyebrows and all done up with shellac nails - they are just children in leggings and jumpers and slippers being taught how to be children again. Sad

youarenotkiddingme · 06/05/2019 20:47

Bye I'm not sad they aren't made up to the nines. Just sad they need to be taught that themselves dressed comfortably and being v themselves is good enough.

youarenotkiddingme · 06/05/2019 20:47

Btw! Blush

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 06/05/2019 21:17

In previous decades, there were pop songs brazenly celebrating this.

My Sharona is still regularly played on the radio.

Rod Stewart's Tonight's The Night.

You're Sixteen, You're Beautiful And You're Mine (if the male singer had also been 16 or 17, why would it have been remarkable in the first place that the girl was as well?)

Young Girl by Gary Puckett.

Diana by Paul Anka is the other way around but still somewhat iffy.

It was clear what single theme the Undertones song Teenage Kicks was about. There's no particular suggestion from the lyrics that it wasn't about similarly-aged young adult lovers (Feargal Sharkey was about 19 when it was released). However, John Peel, who was nearly 40 when the song first hit the charts, unswervingly hailed it throughout his life as his favourite song of all time. I'm amazed that he went largely under the radar for so long and, indeed, still has never really been condemned for it. He was a known predator and apparently got a 15yo pregnant.

The word 'teenager' is frequently used as an ambiguous catch-all in this context. I really don't understand why it's universally considered such a useful word anyway when generally discussing that age range as 13 and 19 are obviously such different stages of life and maturity.

I also notice an alarming number of people (male and female) who will casually insist on referring to grown women of all ages as 'girls', which is annoying enough; however, that has led to a disturbing trend for people to thus go a step further to differentiate and specifically indicate that they're referring to women in their very late teens and twenties by describing them as 'young girls'. As well as being monumentally patronising, this only serves to blur the lines and can provide the careless talkers of this proclivity with a widespread cloak of deniability, allowing them to backtrack and rely on social ambiguity.

rookiemere · 06/05/2019 21:39

Can I just stick up a bit for John Taylor here ( as I've done on a previous thread). She was 19 when they met and there was a 12 yr age gap. They both talk with some affection about each other.

Jonathan Ross - who I'm not particularly keen on sticking up for but there we go- apparently met Jane Goldman when she was a legal 16 and they are still married.

Huge difference between big age gaps and having a sexual relationship with a child.

tanpestryfirescreen · 06/05/2019 21:46

Can I just stick up a bit for John Taylor here ( as I've done on a previous thread). She was 19 when they met and there was a 12 yr age gap.

Jonathan Ross - who I'm not particularly keen on sticking up for but there we go- apparently met Jane Goldman when she was a legal 16 and they are still married.

But they were both part of the wild child gang - weren't they?

Graphista · 06/05/2019 23:08

Rookie just because it was legal (barely) doesn't make it right.

Iamnotagoddess · 06/05/2019 23:19

Tbf to Johnathon Ross, Jane Goldman was working full time at Just Seventeen when he met her, so yes she was young but she was mentally pretty mature, and they are still together.

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Aridane · 06/05/2019 23:27

Times were different then

BertrandRussell · 06/05/2019 23:31

I think if one of the princes married a young woman nearly 20 years his junior it would raise eyebrows now.it didn’t then.

rookiemere · 07/05/2019 07:54

graphista it may not be"right" but it was legal. IMHO focusing on the grey areas where no crime has been committed takes the focus off the absolute being discussed- child rape. Once people have reached the age of legal consent then surely they must make their own choices.

CSIblonde · 07/05/2019 08:07

I remember the Terry Wogan interview they did once they'd married. It was very uncomfortable viewing. Much audience sniggering that they 'met' & 'dated' when she was 13 etc.The general consensus by press at the time & the adults I heard discussing it, was that he was a dirty old man & her mother willingly pimped her to him. Her mother was and still is, unrepentant. These days, Social Services would probably be involved.

Iamnotagoddess · 07/05/2019 18:44

Social Services would probably be involved

They should have been then - it’s not that long ago Sad

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