70s rock stars and underage groupies

[ShesMadeATwatOfMePam]

Off the back of the David bowie thread, should modern values count for anything when thinking about the actions of rock stars towards underage (ie 13/14yo girls) who got dressed up to hang around stage doors and threw themselves at rock stars, (insinuation being that they knew what they were doing) or should we accept it's a different time and modern approaches to child protection/young girls being exploited shouldn't stop these people being revered because it was 20+ years ago?

I think that we should absolutely judge these men by modern values because any man in his right mind shouldn't be attracted to 12/13 year old girls no matter what they wear and if it was Dave who helped at guides instead of David bowie then people wouldn't be so quick to excuse him because he was a "musical genius".

Yabu: it was a different time
Yanbu: wasnt acceptable then, isn't acceptable now

i dont know about the 70s as i was too young, but chatting to some friends over the years, I think in the 80s it was like every other bloke was a borderline or outright nonce. We were practically feral. Girls that now would be looked into as neglect or abuse cases were just thought of as slags or easy.
It wasnt seen as a big deal to have a much older boyfriend. It was because YOU were so grown up.

I think we should judge them somewhat, but not in the same way as we would someone doing it now because the culture is no small part of peoples behaviour

Girls that now would be looked into as neglect or abuse cases were just thought of as slags or easy

Still happens. Look at Rotherham.

@CSIblonde

Bowie's 'incident' was two 15year old 'lead groupies'(their expression) who'd been following him everywhere for a while & bothwent on to be lead groupies for other US bands for years after. One of them wrote a book about her groupie life & it was always consensual & she regards it withno regret. Priscilla was 14 when she lived with Elvis at Graceland before their marriage when she turned 16.Jimmy Page was known to like 13year olds which was considered wrong. But,15 was generally accepted as ok then,right or wrong. Also in 27 US states,you can still marry at 13 with parental consent,as has been law there for many ,many years.Jerry Lee Lewis who grew up in the rural US married his 13yr old Cousin which is why he cancelled his UK tour back in the late 50's: horrified journalists found out .

Priscilla didn't move to USA until she was 16 and then lived with his father.

"Even seeing ' the Glitter band ' being mentioned makes me feel sick. Vile horrible nasty men."
Back up there! I knew one of the members of the glitter band (when I was about 15 - 18 years old). He was a lovely bloke and certainly no child abuser. What a bloody nasty thing to post.

Elvis is a pretty odd case- they didn't marry/have sex until Priscilla was 22. Elvis seems to have been all about special friendships with beautiful young girls, lost interest in Pricilla once she'd been pregnant.

@picklemewalnuts

Elvis is a pretty odd case- they didn't marry/have sex until Priscilla was 22. Elvis seems to have been all about special friendships with beautiful young girls, lost interest in Pricilla once she'd been pregnant.

Bollocks did they.

They just saw the fuss about Jerry Lee Lewis and his wife and lied to not get into the same level of shit.

@CSIblonde

Bowie's 'incident' was two 15year old 'lead groupies'(their expression) who'd been following him everywhere for a while & bothwent on to be lead groupies for other US bands for years after. One of them wrote a book about her groupie life & it was always consensual & she regards it withno regret. Priscilla was 14 when she lived with Elvis at Graceland before their marriage when she turned 16.Jimmy Page was known to like 13year olds which was considered wrong. But,15 was generally accepted as ok then,right or wrong. Also in 27 US states,you can still marry at 13 with parental consent,as has been law there for many ,many years.Jerry Lee Lewis who grew up in the rural US married his 13yr old Cousin which is why he cancelled his UK tour back in the late 50's: horrified journalists found out .

Lori Mattix, who has told the Bowie story many different ways and there’s proof she was elsewhere on dates given. Sable Starr Said the threesome claims Lori stated happened with Her and Bowie didn’t happen. She changed her story saying she was only with Jimmy Page.

I’m surprised no ones mentioned Sonny and Cher... When Cher and Sonny first met in 1963, she was 16, while he was 27. She told him she was 18.

Oh and not just rock stars... Juliette Lewis, was 17 when she and a then-27-year-old Brad Pitt got together.

I went out with a guy who was 20 when I was 16. He seriously thought I was older, not sure why we never discussed age, but he nearly fell off his chair when he discovered I was 17 on my birthday. He was very embarrassed. I don't think my ex was looking for a Lolita (ok not quite but close enough)

I looked old and was bilingual which was novel at the time. I would go in lots of dates with men 5-15 years older than me when I was 13/14 but when I revealed my real age (to get out of sex) they were all horrified. I don’t think the attitudes of decent blokes were much different. Once they knew my age they saw me as vulnerable, I couldn’t keep the illusion of sophistication going past about date 4.
By 16 though most people saw you as adult as far as I remover, I had left home, had my own bed sit, worked, studied and dated men 20+ because the boys were all dicks. Even with men quite a bit older they were good relationships but I think today they would be judged.

It wasn't acceptable then. Do we really think our grandparents would have said to our mothers off you go you are 14/15 it’s fine for you to sleep with pop/rock stars

What was and still in to some degree this notion that men just can’t help themselves and their wasn’t the protection

These girls were not considered relationship material (apart from Jimmy Page) they were paraded around as live sex dolls that were shared around

Lives that are extravagant and push boundaries you will often find becomes perverse in some way because normality gets boring - that isn’t an excuse

I’m old. I spent a lot of time around bands as a teen (best mate was dating a venue manager- she was 16 and he was in his 30s). I was chatted up by lots of musicians. Went to lots of parties and went backstage etc.Never had sex with any of them but knew plenty of girls who did.All of whom should have known better but that’s how it was. Talking late 70s into 80s. I loved being part of that. I was quite a savvy girl so never felt at risk. I accept it wasn’t the same for all of us.

I had a boyfriend who was 28 when I was 17. No one thought anything of it. If it were my daughter now though I would not be happy.

I can’t really buy into the idea that teenagers were just more mature back in the day and that these men couldn’t help themselves when girls threw themselves at them. If teenagers were just more mature then surely we would also have heard about the female musicians of the time sleeping with teenage boys, yet that doesn’t seem to have happened. And I can imagine plenty of teenage boys would have been just as happy to throw themselves at these female musicians as teenage girls were to the male musicians. So I can’t accept that it was just a different time, that teenagers were more mature then or that the musicians were doing nothing wrong. If female musicians were capable of restraining themselves around teenage boys then I don’t see why the male musicians weren’t capable of the same restraint.

My dad was in his 20s in the 70s. He always says he hates ot when people say "it was a different time". His take is "it wasn't all right amongst decent men then and it isn't alright amongst decent men now
He's right.

@PoxyPixie

I can’t really buy into the idea that teenagers were just more mature back in the day and that these men couldn’t help themselves when girls threw themselves at them. If teenagers were just more mature then surely we would also have heard about the female musicians of the time sleeping with teenage boys, yet that doesn’t seem to have happened. And I can imagine plenty of teenage boys would have been just as happy to throw themselves at these female musicians as teenage girls were to the male musicians. So I can’t accept that it was just a different time, that teenagers were more mature then or that the musicians were doing nothing wrong. If female musicians were capable of restraining themselves around teenage boys then I don’t see why the male musicians weren’t capable of the same restraint.

Doesn’t matter whether you buy into it or not, fact is they were. I left home when I was 17 in 1970. Lots and lots of us did. Lots of us were married before we were 20 too.

Girls mature faster than boys, always have, always will. There were precious few female rock musicians around so it’s impossible to make the comparison even if it was valid. It definitely happens now - Caroline Flack and Harry Styles?

@VinylDetective - you've written some good posts. Don't you just love how people who weren't even around in an era are somehow experts, whereas those who lived through it haven't a clue?

Whichever one of you wrote about Britpop, it really doesn't surprise me. I'm a huge fan of a moderately famous northern Britpop band and I know for a fact they've had sex with fans, their guitarist bragged about it in an interview and apparently he and the singer invited underage girls back to their hotel at a gig. Metal is bad for it too - Marilyn Manson and Tool both shagged underage groupies and of course, Ian Watkins was the extreme end. When the story first broke, a friend of mine who worked for the NSPCC said people originally thought it was 13 year olds, as Watkins had a reputation. It turned out to be far, far worse.

Even if it was more accepted back then, it's still skeevy. Also, this thread makes me realise what a late bloomer I was. I didn't have sex until I was 17 (this was in the early 00s). I had this huge complex about not having a sex life and thinking I had to have sex with loads of men for people to like and respect me, so I was actively seeking sex in clubs - I lost my virginity in a club toilet - and as a result, I got sexually assaulted (YMMV if it was rape or not, the guy used his hand). I can count the number of men I've slept with on two hands. I didn't do any drugs harder than weed until I started uni. I was in my early twenties when I left home. I was in my mid-twenties when I had my first serious relationship - I'd had casual sex with my best friend in high school and a couple of uni boyfriends/girlfriends, but nothing lasted that long. I'm autistic and I have a lot of trouble with social cues, flirting etc. If I fancy someone, I make it very obvious and it puts people off. My brother was the opposite - he's 2 years younger than me and he was drinking and fucking girls and doing drugs while he was still in school, and I was jealous of him for that.

Fascinating thread. WRT the point about teenagers being more mature back then, I buy it (I'm in my 30s). You can see even now how utterly infantilized people in their late teens/early 20s/even 30s are. That clearly wasn't the case in the past where most people moved out by 18-20. I lived with my parents until I was 25. It does infantilize you.

@QuarantineDream

Fascinating thread. WRT the point about teenagers being more mature back then, I buy it (I'm in my 30s). You can see even now how utterly infantilized people in their late teens/early 20s/even 30s are. That clearly wasn't the case in the past where most people moved out by 18-20. I lived with my parents until I was 25. It does infantilize you.

For all the handwringing, I think the "later developing" of teenagers might be the lack of a war and it's pressures on society ?

The kids of the 70s were born to the kids of the 40s and 50s who grew up practically overnight, as you tend to when bombs fall and you need to look after your siblings (as my DM had to).

Definitely different times then but it doesn't make it better. I was a teenager in the 80s and remember dressing up provocatively, seeking out male attention but then feeling uncomfortable when I got it. Still very much a child IMO and thankfully had protective parents.

I do think kids were allowed a lot more freedom in those days. As pp said, many people left school at 15 and started work.

Slightly off on a tangent but watched an awful Ch4 documentary about a Japanese teenager who was basically being groomed for stardom and her fanbase was mainly older males. What I'm saying is that sexualization of young girls is still happening now and it wasn't ok then, now is it now.

It is interesting. I have read a lot about groupie culture because I was on the fringes of it tbh. Whilst there is a seedy side and it is absolutely sexist and exploitative, I know some women who were part of that scene and they would say that they had an absolute blast. Going on tour with bands etc. Not all were mistreated.

Some of the more famous US based groupies did t see themselves as that. They called themselves ‘starfuckers’ and absolutely did not see themselves as exploited.

At its root, the whole thing is sexist of course.

GTO - or Girls Together Outrageously was another. I think Frank Zappa* had something to do with them.

*Ask your grandparents ....

@SerendipityJane

GTO - or Girls Together Outrageously was another. I think Frank Zappa* had something to do with them.

*Ask your grandparents ....

Two of them were nannies to Zappa’s daughter, Moon Unit. They were older and formed a band that released one album.

Thank you for reminding me. I’m off to listen to Weasels Ripped My Flesh for the first time in decades!

@SerendipityJane My mum was born in the '50s and she always talks about missing out on a lot of her childhood because she had to help take care of her little brother and sister, especially after my grandad ran off with another woman. My gran worked as well.

@VinylDetective Not a huge Zappa fan but Let's Make the Water Turn Black is a tune.