AIBU that Giles Coren’s back to school tips column that includes “minor sexual abuse” is not funny?

[TulipRevolutionary]

I finally caught up on the weekend papers and Giles Coren wrote a pretty standard (fairly dull) back to school tips listicle column in the Times that was directed at his son who is starting a new secondary school. However, the idea that “minor sexual offenses” committed by teachers within schools are “just a fact of life” is totally wrong. The fact that the teacher who “taught me how to write” also “touched me in unwelcome ways” seems to insinuate that as long as they are a good teacher a bit of light pedophilia isn’t “necessarily anything to be afraid of”. It reminds me of the plot of The History Boys play in which pedophilia is also treated as fairly innocuous/a bit of a joke and something to be tolerated if the teacher is otherwise inspiring and will secure you a place at Oxford. My cousin was abused by a fencing tutor at his Catholic boarding school and although Giles Coren would probably consider it to be “minor” sexual abuse since no penetration ever occurred I think it completely ruined his teenage years and much of his 20s and arguably he is still negatively affected by it.

Giles Coren is an arse. Why he gets any column space anywhere beats me.

Write a complaint to the paper.

What the actual fuck?

That’s not how I read it at all. I think he’s saying “teachers who seem a bit low key suspicious, the kind people joke about, the kind where one or two “minor” things may have been rumoured to have happened - those teachers are probably actually pedophiles. Beware of them. Just because it can seem superficially minor and a running joke, doesn’t mean it’s not true. You may like them, they may be funny and inspiring - but they can still be pedophiles.”

He is highlighting how people dismiss things as “minor” especially if they like the teachers - but they shouldn’t do this. When he says “it’s a fact of life” he isn’t saying it’s ok, and we should accept it - he’s saying we should be alert to it because it’s sadly not uncommon.

I am not sure that’s any better really. Let’s not outsource safeguarding to the pupil rumour mill. It’s a short step from “yeah my friend Milly says he was looking at her boobs” to paediatricians getting their houses graffitied.

Here’s the text:

The teacher you think is a paedophile is a paedophile. It is not necessarily anything to be afraid of, but don't be shy to believe it of them. My favourite teacher, who taught me how to write but also touched me in unwelcome ways and was the subject of insinuating graffiti and chants, was later, to nobody's surprise, convicted of (quite minor) sexual offences against children. Indeed, both my children have already had a favourite teacher arrested, charged, convicted and defenestrated for (again, quite minor) sexual offences. It might not happen at the new place. Lots of schools have no paedophiles at all any more. But some do. It's just a fact of life. So if there is a general consensus among the kids that that teacher is a wrong 'un, he probably is.

I suppose it depends on what he’s trying to say. I definitely read it as “despite us liking them as teachers, turns out they’re wrong ‘uns”.
Maybe he’s saying it’s ok to ignore them because they’re favourite teachers, but I didn’t think the last line backed that up.

I think the part where he says “it’s not necessarily a problem” is extremely problematic. Any sort of sexual abuse or minor touching is a problem and should be immediately reported. Coren is also using himself being the subject of “unwelcome touching” but being a successful journalist as an example of why it wasn’t a problem for him. It definitely was a problem for my cousin.

I think you should read it properly. It doesnt say pedophilia is ok it says trust your instinct. Would you prefer all mention of the subject is removed from opinion/ feature pieces because you cant read properly

Zonder · Today 13:09

Giles Coren is an arse. Why he gets any column space anywhere beats me.

That's pretty much what I was going to post.

So if there is a general consensus among the kids that that teacher is a wrong 'un, he probably is.

It depends on how the kids arrived at that consensus. At my grammar school the lab manager and one teacher were both known as people not to be left on your own with, but this was passed down to the newcomers from one year to the next, and I don't think anyone was sure whether they were serial offenders or just the victims of gossip. Children can be pretty cruel sometimes, but on the other hand this was the 1970s, before anyone had heard of safeguarding.

Giles Coren's whole career is based on saying ridiculous/outrageous things dressed up in posh words. People are meant to get outraged by it because then it's being talked about and more people read his articles.

I’m not thick. I can appreciate nuance and tongue in cheek humour. But I don’t think pedophila or minor sexual offenses that are committed against children are funny. That’s my opinion that I am entitled to share and discuss on an AIBU? thread on Mumsnet. It wasn’t funny when my cousin was a victim of these kind of “minor” sexual offenses and I still don’t still not funny. Maybe you find it completely hilarious though.

He often writes about pedophilia and child sex abuse in "jokey" terms.

He's a talentless Nepobaby who only got work because of who his dad is.

From a quick Google search Giles Coren seems to have a lot of form when it comes to joking about rape and children. Yikes! He told some school girls who criticized this writing on Twitter that he was going to “rape your fathers”.

www.thecomet.net/news/22210898.tv-presenter-slams-hitchin-schoolgirls-twitter-rant/

And threatened to rape his 12 year old neighbour who had taken up drumming.

www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/giles-coren-s-twitter-tirade-at-neighbours-boy-for-playing-drum-kit-6720441.html

It's his use of "quite minor" that makes it sound like he doesn't believe it's really a problem, along with the use of "defenestrated", which again makes it sound like he thinks people were over-reacting to this teacher's behaviour.

And just the fact that he has written such horrible things in the past makes me suspicious of anything he writes. I think he is saying more than 'trust your instincts'. He's saying - your instincts might be right, but hey, it's not the end of the world for some minor harrassment to occur. Anything for hiim to get attention (which of course we're all giving him by discussing it).

To me it reads as if he's saying trust your gut and trust kid's judgment. Child abusers are embedded within education - they're not everywhere, but they are certainly around so trust yourselves, even if they are thought of highly.

Considering this a man who wrote an incredibly inappropriate piece that sexualised his 3 year old daughter maybe we should all trust our instincts about him.

I dread to think what he would consider to be a "quite minor" sexual assault against children tbh.

And also wrote about his holiday to Antigua with just his three year old daughter as being the “sexiest holiday ever”, which is super creepy.

How is he still getting work?!
if his dad hadn’t been in the business there’s no way he’d have that profile/role

Oh jeez the inability to be able to read something and see it for the tongue in cheek humour with which it is written is really quite worrying

Just another reason not to send your children to private school.

I am another one who agrees. The only thing the man has in connections!

On the other hand I quite like his sister.

I have a very dry and dark sense of humour but this just made me nauseous. I don’t see how anybody could see the humour in this. The article about his neighbour’s son was also disgusting. To quote gen z, “he needs his hard drive checking”…

I read it like "believe your kids".

He is simply clarifying that the charge was for minor sexual offences to give the picture that plenty of predators are prolific low level offenders who often go years before being challenged, likely because its joked about by wider classmates, rather than single incident of sodomy in a 1:1 setting.

The sexiest holiday thing is just saying having a child is like your first love. New and pure, exciting. Not that he wants to molest his child ffs.