Marc Bolan…can’t separate the art from the artist

[PointyFinger03]

I have a thread in chat but didn’t name the ‘artist’ but thought people should be aware.

I’ve loved TRex for decades and had crush on Marc Bolan and thought he was so sexy. Watching 1971 on Apple TV and tried so hard to think it was of the times but no, he was a young adolescent predator.

@Georgeskitchen I’m a bit younger than you, but at a similar age I would have kicked the door down to get into John Taylor’s room, and I wouldn’t be complaining 40 years later had I succeeded either.

I don’t think you can compare a 16 year old in the 1970s with the a 16 year old in 2022
In the 1970s for most people there weren’t A levels and going to university, it was a case of leave school. On the Friday and start work the following Monday.
16year olds weren’t considered as children they were actually young women who went to work
A friends older sister by the time of her 18th birthday she had a house, a husband, 2 children and was pregnant with her 3rd

I was living with Dh at 17 and he was mid 20s
Friend from school married her long time bf at 16. He was 30. A few people I know married at 18 to people who were 14 years older.
It was a very different era to now where at 16 you are considered very much a child who should be in school and not a working married woman with children

Idk how old you are op. But it certainly wasn’t very frowned upon to date men when I was young. My mother and father did nothing when I started seeing a man well into his 20s when I was 15 and again a man in his 30s when I was 19. The latter was welcomed into the home for a chat before taking me out to dinner. My dd is 14. I’d be horrified if she started seeing a grown man. I wish my parents had been horrified too. Dd is of a different generation and safeguarding has changed exponentially since the. 1980s.

It was a very different time, that isn't defending it but equally isn't using the views of today to judge.

What my friends and I willingly and I dare say forcefully did between the ages of 13-16 would now warrant social services involvement. Even what my cousins were doing in the mid nineties would be a safeguarding issue now.

That's not to take away from children that were abused, that is very different but I do not feel that I was taken advantage of, nor do I regret the sexual freedoms I had as a young teen. Yes in the lens of today there was a serious power imbalance and it quite rightly wouldn't be tolerated but 'the past is a different country, they do things differently there.'

I guess we just accept that a lot of our great artists (I love them too) were misogynistic
Ephebophiliacs; and we have to teach our young that this isn’t acceptable

@MrsRobinsonsHandprints
Well put. My mother, however, did not expect me to have sex.

I’m not being sarcastic. I think, in the next generation or two, it will be absolutely put down

I did really try to think it’s of its time. Maybe it was

Let’s teach our future generations to be more consensual

I was never allowed to go to pop concerts
But I do know girls who did and it was very much about getting back stage as it was listening to the music (or just screaming at the top of their voices)

If someone got back stage then they were considered a legend whether anything happened or not.

Friend at school practiced on the boys with, motorbikes and cars. She graduated onto the music scene. Went on tour abroad with one band you all know very well for three months. Moved onto a music man in London who you all know very well, he was a record guy. Then hit the jackpot with a tour manager who ran all the international music people's accommodation, transport, security, staffing. All this at age 21. She's kept all her scrap books and doesn't regret much.

Was it Born to Boogie? After pestering my Big DSis she took me to see it when I was 7, in 1971. He was definitely my first crush.

IntentionalError Yep ditto JT and Gary Numan!! There were a lot of 15 year olds at that stage door and we weren't there to get makeup tips 😂

It's not ok by our standards and if it happened now it would be a problem. It is less likely now as young teens don't have the freedom to go to gigs and stay out all night. It is fine to think it's all rather horrifying and judge them. But you do need to consider that history doesn't really agree with our views. Sense and Sensibility had Marianne married off at 16 to Colnel Brandon at 35. In 1970's the average age of first time motherhood was early to mid 20's.

All of the rock stars, actors etc back then had horrifying views of women's place and consent. Glad I live now really!

You are all right about different times. I was just shocked at him being caught on camera, was disturbing. I’d feel the same about my other heros

Like we all know, but actually seeing it makes Marc Bolan off my playlist

and confused to those I’ve not seen on video

It was consensual for me. What I was part of wasn't abuse, I chased it, I orchestrated it. What Kenny said is true, we felt like legends. Certainly at the time we felt that we were in control, we were lavished in experiences, money and gifts. My friends and I were picked up from school on a Friday and didn't go home until Sunday evening and it felt like a big adventure and I wouldn't change those years for the world.

But if it was happening now I'd be the first on the phone to SS, and as above what I experienced (and my friends, we are still in touch and spoke about the difference in our teenage years only recently) was consensual. But clearly this wasn't the case for everyone and I do not want my posts to be seen as minimising their experiences, sadly many people were abused but that isn't what happened to me.

I've always found this thought very incomplete - art and artist is spoken about but nothing more.

If your home turned out to be built by a wife beater, could you still live there ?

If your phone was designed by a rapist, could you still use it ?

If your food was grown using water stolen from nearby settlements, could you still eat it ?

The less closely you examine your jewelry and the precious metals history the better I suspect.

What about something more fundamental - all electronics are based on the transistor - would you give up all electronics (this includes a vast range of items such as your microwave, washing machine and most of your kids toys) which if the inventors were a paedo-ring ?

Fact is no one looks carefully into these things - only art for some reason.

Would you dismiss all Polanski's films because he sexually abused a 13 year old?

I wouldn't. I absolutely hate and condemn what he did, but he still made some outstanding movies.

He wasn't driving the car in the crash that killed him. He was a passenger.

I know. It still smashed into a tree with him in it ( his g.f was driving )

At 14 or even a bit younger I’d have snogged Marc Bolan’s face off.
Leaving a concert (very well known band) I was approached by a roadie who offered to take me backstage. I had to catch a bus home but he told me to turn up the following night and I’d meet the band. I was under on illusion what that meant. I’d have been happy but my mother wouldn’t let me into town 2 nights running. I’m not sure if I’m glad or sad tbh. Probably was for the best.

You only have to look at Eric Gill to see how true this is.

We do live in different times I think. I was on a 60s music forum and some guy opined that Paul McCartney must have been dodgy because he wrote about a girl who ' was just seventeen' . Loads of people rushed to agree that this was gross.

Despite the fact Paul had just turned 20 when he wrote it. Yet the new Puritans see nothing wrong with Drag Queen Story Time of course.

It was never acceptable to be having sex with su CJ young girls like Bowie and Jimmy Page did

maybe 15/16

excuses are made for some artists but not others 🙄 Especially Bowie